Native Americans

What Does “Cherokee” Mean? (Part 1)

The connection between the early Scots-Irish and the Cherokee Nation are well documented. Yes, we often to go records generated about Cherokee families, to learn about the Scots-Irish part of the family. However, once you have begun research, what exactly is meant by “Cherokee” can become somewhat muddled. This blog doesn’t seek to answer that question, but it does seek to let you know there’s a wide variety of records generated for both “recognized” and “unrecognized” Cherokee tribes. Maybe more appropriately, legally “acknowledged” and “unacknowledged” tribes

There are three federally recognized tribes: the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (Tahlequah, OK): www.cherokee.org the Eastern Band Cherokee Indians (Cherokee, NC): www.nc-cherokee.com and the United Keetoowah Band of Oklahoma (Tahlequah, OK): www.ukb-nsn.govThere are also smaller tribes of mixed-bloods who have obtained state but not federal recognition. In addition, numerous tribes have submitted genealogies in support of either state or federal claims for recognition but the applications of these tribes have been rejected or still pending. For this reason, it is important to understand which tribes are state or federally recognized based upon their genealogies and which are not.

Applying for state and federal recognition is a long and complicated legal process that takes years, and sometimes decades. When an organization is not legally seen as a tribe or has a pending petition, it generally means that the compiled history and submitted genealogies of the tribe do not meet either a state or a federal standard. It does not mean the tribe is not Cherokee, nor does it mean that their genealogies are invalid. Whether a tribe is approved or unapproved it still has some Scots-Irish connections. However, some organizations are indeed fraudulent and you need to be aware of this possibility as it affects genealogical research.

In Part 2 of this topic, I will discuss different Cherokee tribes and opinions regarding them.

Who are the Melungeons?

23 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

Whenever I research in the mid-south region of Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia, I always look for Melungeon ancestry, based upon surnames and race prior to 1870. Melungeons were “free color” not slaves.

The word Melungeon is believed to mean mixture. They intermarried usually with poor whites and among their community. Today, their descendants number in the milliions and are scattered across North America. Common family surnames:

Bolen/Bowling, Bunch, Cole, Collins, Delp, Denham, Fields, Freeman, Gann, Gibson/Gipson, Goins, Goodman, Graham, Hale, Ivey, Lawson, Lucas, Maloney, Miner/Minear, Mize, Moseley, Mullins/Melons, Nichols, Noel, Piniore, Sexton, Sweat/Sweet/Swett, Williams. It’s not difficult to pick out the Irish ones.

Reports from DNA studies on Melungeon families fill the Internet. Studies reveal a mixed-blood heritage now referred to as “Tri-Racial Isolates.” They came out of Colonial Virginia. The product of white indentured servants (thus the Irish surnames), blacks and Native Americans. Current books on Melungeon will have a chapter on the DNA findings.

From a genealogical perspective, two path breaking articles by Virginia Easley DeMarce and published in the National Genealogical Society Quarterly are: “Verry Slitly Mixt”: Tri-Racial Isolate Families of the Upper South – A Genealogical Study,” 80 (March 1992): 5-35 www.genpage.com/DeMarce.pdf and “Looking at Legends – Lumbee and Melungeon: Applied Genealogy and the Origins of Tri-Racial Isolates,” 81 (March 1993): 24-45 http://historical-melungeons.blogspot.com/2008/04/looking-at-legends-lumbee-and-melungeon.htmlThe colonial roots for many of these families have also been explored in Paul Heinegg’s monumental two volume work, Free African Americans of North Carolina, Virginia and South Carolina: From the Colonial Period to About 1820 (2005): www.freeafricanamericans.com/Virginia_NC.htm and his Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware from the Colonial Period to 1810 (2000): www.freeafricanamericans.com/maryland.htm

The Melungeons are yet another chapter in our racially mixed colonial history involving the Irish. They like other Tri-Racial Isolates have survived historically because they didn’t fit in either the white and black communities.

Scots-Irish and Choctaw Connection

5 Jul By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Choctaw intermarried the Scots-Irish. It may be within a Choctaw record that Ulster origins are found. The largest tribes are the Choctaw Nation: www.choctawnation.com and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians: www.choctaw.org

Tribal lands were the lower two-thirds of Mississippi and western Alabama. They were the first tribe to be selected by the US Government for removal. Their rights were defined in the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek (1830), which also allowed many to stay.

Several books can be used for background, including Angie Debo, The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic (1961); Arthur H. DeRosier, The Removal of the Choctaw Indians (1970); Clara Sue Kidwell and Charles Roberts, The Choctaws: A Critical Bibliography. (1980); Greg O’Brien’s Choctaws in a Revolutionary Age, 1750-1830 (2005) and his Pre-Removal Choctaw History (2008). For genealogy, Samuel J. Wells’ thesis “Choctaw Mixed-Bloods and the Advent of Removal” (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Southern Mississippi, August 1987) is a must.

Records are at the National Archives: www.archives.gov ; Oklahoma Historical Society: www.okhistory.org; and the Mississippi Department of Archives & History: http://mdah.state.ms.us Large collections from these archives are on microfilm at the Family History Library: www.familysearch.org

Three rolls (censuses) form the foundation of research: the Armstrong Roll (1830) made prior to removal; Choctaw Emigrants to the West (1831, 1832) made after removal; and the Cooper Roll (1855) for those who stayed.

Land cannot be separated from the Choctaw. The breaking up of the nation is detailed in Mary Elizabeth Young’s classic Redskins, Ruffleshirts and Rednecks: Indian Allotments in Alabama and Mississippi, 1830-1860 (1961). The American State Papers, Public Lands (Vol.7, 1834-1835) provide a list of those in the tribe and whites owning farms in the Choctaw Nation in 1830. Another source for land issues are the Choctaw Nation Records (1830-1890).

Today the Choctaw are the third largest tribe in the nation.

Irish, African, Slave, Muslim, Christian and Hoodoo Practitioner

29 Jun By Dwight Leave a Comment

The intermixing of Europeans with African slaves produced new religious ideas. This happened openly in the 1600s as Irish indentured servants intermixed with Africans. It also happened through the master-slaver relationship. What it gave birth to was little known piece of American religious history.

Many of the kidnapped Africans were Muslim, and a hybrid form of the faith continued on the plantations, combining Islam, Protestant Christianity, and Hoodoo. Hybrid Islam survived on the isolated Georgia islands into the 1870s. In regard to Hoodoo, it means to “conjure.” It is a folk practice, mixing the Germanic-Swiss hexmeister from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, with indigenous African, Islam, Native American and European folk magic.

If you study the “Slave Narratives” recorded in 1936-38; the former slaves describe the mixed practices. These are on www.ancestry.com under the database: “U.S., Interviews with Former Slaves, 1936-1938,” and elsewhere on the Internet. Georgia Presbyterian minister Rev. Charles Colcock, wrote a guide for missionaries going on the plantation. His The Religious Instruction of Negros in the United States (1842): http://docsouth.unc.edu/church/jones/jones.html provides amazing details as to what he observed. He noted the slaves took the stories of the Quran and transferred them over to the Bible seeing both religions as the same religious idea (see page 125), and this was 1842! It’s an otherworldly and bizarre read by our standards!

Concerning Christianity, Catholic slaves often would mix their faith with Louisiana Voodoo. In the Protestant South, the Baptist and Methodist denominations would dominate African American life. There they mixed Hoodoo into their faith. Voodoo and Hoodoo are very different.

Just be careful not limit what it means to be Irish to white and Christian. Irish identity may have become submerged into the African American experience, but the Irish contributed to the mixture of ideas and faith (Catholic, Protestant and folk religion).

The Scots-Irish and Chickasaw Connection

8 Jun By Dwight Leave a Comment

Because the Scots-Irish had early contact with the Chickasaw, many in the tribe can trace their ancestry back to Ulster. At removal, their nation consisted of northern Mississippi and northwestern Alabama. Some Chickasaw remained, and others would later returned from Indian Territory. Today large numbers of Mississippi residents in Chickasaw, Clay, Itawamba, LaFayette, Monroe, Pontotoc, Tishomingo and Union counties have mixed-blood ancestry.

Chickasaw records are available on microfilm at the National Archives, Family History Library or at the Oklahoma Historical Society. Much has been extracted online. Important references include Anne Kelley Hoyt’s Bibliography of the Chickasaw (1987); Arrell M. Gibson’s The Chickasaws (1971) and Phillip Carroll Morgan’s Chickasaw Renaissance (2009). The Chickasaw Tribal Library: www.chickasaw.net/history_culture/index_216.htm has a genealogist on staff to help with research. The Itawamba Historical Society: www.itawambahistory.org in Mississippi has a genealogical library with Chickasaw material.

Early records include: 1818 Census, 1837 Muster Roll (before removal), 1839 Upshaw Roll (after removal), and the 1847 Census. Other records include the “Chickasaw Nation Records,” compiled by the tribe in Oklahoma and the “Chickasaw Agency Records.”

Under the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek (1832), the Chickasaw ceded their lands to the U.S. Government. They agreed to abandon their lands when tribal leaders found a suitable home west of the Mississippi River. In the meantime, the lands were divided into temporary parcels for each family who were expected to live on it until their removal. Background information is found in Mary Elizabeth Young’s Redskins, Ruffleshirts and Rednecks: Indian Allotments in Alabama and Mississippi, 1830-1860 (1989).

When considering mixed-blood Chickasaw research, it’s important to remember that your ancestors may not have removed or removed and returned. At that point, they probably “passed for white” and blended the best they could, with only whispers of their native ancestry passed down in the family.

The Scots-Irish and Catawba Connection

23 May By Dwight Leave a Comment

The Catawba are a small tribe centered in Rock Hill, York County, South Carolina: www.catawbaindian.net From about 1760 whites encroached on Catawba lands, and intermarriage occurred, largely with Scots-Irish. Their descendants have spread nationwide. The fact the Catawba were allowed to stay is somewhat unique in southern history. The Catawba Reservation is recognized by both South Carolina and the Federal Government.

The Catawba granted leases to incoming whites for 99 years. These are an important genealogical source. This lease arrangement was unique. Louise Pettus’ work Leasing Away a Nation: The Legacy of Catawba Indian Land Leases (2005) details families who leased land as found in the surviving lease books 1785-1840. When white settlement was complete, the lease system lost its original meaning, and the land was ceded to South Carolina.

In 1884, the tribe began converting to Mormonism. The congregation is located in Rock Hill. Records (1885-1943) are on microfilm at the Family History Library (FHL). The membership registers are extracted in Pat Smith (White Buffalo Woman) and Dwight A. Radford’s article “The Scots-Irish as Catawba,” in The Irish At Home and Abroad 6, #3 (1999): 112-119.

Catawba records can be found in the South Carolina Department of Archives & History: http://scdah.sc.gov with many on microfilm at the FHL: www.familysearch.org The York County part of the South Carolina GenWeb: www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~scyork/ has useful information. Published material includes Thomas J. Blumer’s Bibliography of the Catawba (1987); Ian M. Watson’s Catawba Indian Genealogy: A Report to the National Endowment for the Humanities (1986); Robert H. MacKintosh’s Sources for Researching Catawba Indian Ancestry and History at the South Carolina Department of Archives (1993), and Ian Watson’s Catawba Indian Genealogy(1995):

www.ianwatson.org/catawba_indian_genealogy_2004.pdf

There has been so much interest in Catawba Indian genealogy that there is no shortage of resources available.

The Scots-Irish and Native American Connection

16 Apr By Dwight Leave a Comment

If you have early roots in the American southeast, you already know there is a strong Scots-Irish connection with the various tribes. I’m speaking mainly of the Catawba, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Muscogee (Creek). This includes both black and white families prior to 1840.

Intermixture also occurred with the Scots, Welsh, Germans and English. Regardless, what you need to be aware of is if you have strange terms such as “Shanty Irish” or “Black Dutch” passed down in your family, this is usually the first clue to a mixed-blood heritage.

Actually, I hear “Black Dutch” all the time and people are very confused about that. Basically, terms such as this were given as explanations for mixed-blood heritage in an era where the color of skin affected civil rights such as land ownership, bearing arms, marriage, and slavery itself. Depending on who one marries, the children of a “Black Dutch” could “pass for white” solving these sticky issues. In this case “Black Dutch” was usually code for Cherokee or Chickasaw.

I would like to share three of my favorite books. The first is for background, Theda Perdue, Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South (Athens, Georgia: The University of Georgia Press, 2003). The next two are genealogical: Rachal Mills Lennon, Tracing Ancestors Amopng the Five Civilized Tribes: Southeastern Indians Prior to Removal (Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Co., 2002); and Tony Mack McClure, Cherokee Proud: A Guide for Tracing and Honoring Your Cherokee Ancestors, 2^nd ed.(Somerville, Tennessee: Chunannee Books, 2009).

The Irish and the African American Connection

7 Apr By Dwight Leave a Comment

Probably all African Americans descended from slaves have a line from Ireland. Some would naturally come through an Irish slave owner on the plantation. However, it’s much more complicated than that.

There has been “free color” in America since the 1600s. It was the intermarriage and intermingling of African slave men and white indentured servants that forced laws to be enacted. Many of these women were Irish.

In Colonial America, there were questions with no legal answers. Who was a slave? How long can one retain someone in slavery? Can a Christian be a slave? What about Muslims and Jews? Can a European Christian be a slave? Is slavery color based? Were the children of an African man and a white indentured servant a slave? The answers to these questions affected the entire colonial economy in the 1600s. Over the decades into the early 1700s, these questions were answered one by one, starting in Virginia.

For those mixed-race families who were considered “free color” from the 1600s, they blended into the white, black or Indian communities. Some remained in-between as “tri-racial isolates.” Be aware that race cannot necessarily defined by skin color. Many tri-racial isolates have researched their Native American side, reorganized into a tribe, and successfully applied for state and federal acknowledgment.

American history is much more fascinating, and at times bizarre, than we were ever taught in school. All of us, regardless of skin tone can claim our Irish heritage.

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