My Native American
Ancestry – by David Arthur
The “Story Tellers”
My Native
American Ancestry, which is approximately 0.4%, most likely is from a 6th
Great-Grandmother dating to the mid to late 1600s or early 1700s in South
Central Virginia. This ancestor would have been from one of the Siouan-speaking
tribes. The documentation copied below is in a large part about the Occaneechi people. My Ancestry is not likely from them, but
is likely from some of the associated Siouan-speaking tribes, most probably the
Nottoways, Meherrins, or Saponi. These associated tribes are discussed in some of
the documentation below.
In the
Lunenburg County VA area as well as much of the surrounding area there existed
a culture of peoples derived from the intermarriage of early European
immigrants with Native Americans. In the decades after the settlement of
Jamestown, there were numerous young single European males who came to North
America, while almost no single European females immigrated in the early years.
This resulted in the marriage, many times, common law marriages, or some such
arrangement, between these European males and Native American females. The
resulting children, half native American and half European, resulted in a
culture of peoples which were separate from the "aristocracy
immigrants" who received gifts of land from the English King. The half
natives were numerous and married almost exclusively with other part natives
for several generations. Due to their paternity being the males from Europe,
these people all had European surnames. In Southeastern Lunenburg, these
surnames included, Edmonds, Turner, Daniel, and Thompson. These people were the
surviving segment of the Native American culture, as many of the Native
Americans sub-combed to European diseases for which they had no immunity. The
children of the inter-marriages did have immunities from their paternal
heritage. They, for the most part, adapted to live as European culture
dictated, but continued many of the Native American culture traditions, ie. herbal medicine and a penchant
for hunting and fishing. As a child, I remember my maternal grandfather, who’s
Grandmother, Elizabeth Edmonds, was said to be a member of the part native
subculture, continuing the tradition of storytelling.
https://edavidarthur.tripod.com/FamilyHistoryStoryTelling.htm Stories from my Grandfather.
Documentation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occaneechi
The Occaneechi (also Occoneechee and Akenatzy) are Native Americans who lived in the 17th
century primarily on the large, 4-mile long Occoneechee
Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke rivers, near current-day
Clarksville, Virginia. They were Siouan-speaking, and thus related to the Saponi, Tutelo, Eno and other Southeastern Siouan-language peoples living
in the Piedmont region of present-day North Carolina and Virginia.
Name
The meaning and
origin of the name Occaneechi is unknown. They have
also historically been called the Achonechy, Aconechos, Akenatzy, Akenatzy's, Hockinechy, Occaneches, Occaanechy, Occhonechee, Occonacheans, Occoneechee, Ockanechees, Ockanigee, Okenechee, Acconeechy, Occaneeches, Ochineeches, and Ockinagee.
History
17th century
The Occaneechi were first written about in 1650, by English
explorer Edward Bland. He wrote that lived on the Trading Path that connected
Virginia with the interior of North America. Their position on the Trading Path
gave the Occaneechi the power to act as trading
"middlemen" between Virginia and various tribes to the west. In 1673,
Abraham Wood, a Virginian fur trader, sent James Needham and Gabriel Arthur
into the southern Appalachian Mountains in an attempt to make direct contact
with the Cherokee, thus bypassing the Occaneechi. The
party did make contact with the Cherokee. It was not until the last decades of
the 17th century, when South Carolina colonists established a strong
relationship with the Cherokee and other interior tribes, that the Occaneechi role as trading middleman was undermined.In May 1676, the Occaneechi
allied with Nathaniel Bacon and his British troops in a war with the Susquehannock; however, the British immediately turned on
their allies and attacked three forts within the Occaneechi
village. The British killed the Occaneechi's leader Posseclay, approximately one hundred men, as well as many
women and children. A Susquehannock war party
attacked Occoneechee Island in the summer of 1678.
18th century
In 1701 John
Lawson visited the Occaneechi village, located on the
Eno River near present day Hillsborough, North
Carolina. His written report plus modern archaeological research at the site
give insight into a society undergoing rapid change. They also were working to
continue traditional crafts and a way of life.
Historian
Robert Beverley, Jr., in his History and Present State of Virginia (1705),
wrote that the Occaneechi language was widely used as
a lingua franca, "understood by the chief men of many nations, as Latin is
in many parts of Europe" — even though, he says, the Occaneechi
"have been but a small nation, ever since those parts were known to the
English." Beverley said that the "priests and conjurers" of the
other Virginia Indian tribes "perform their adorations and
conjurations" in this general language, much "as the Catholics of all
nations do their Mass in the Latin." Linguistic scholars believe that the Occaneechi spoke a dialect of the Siouan language Tutelo.Virigina governor Alexander Spotswood mentioned the Occaneechi as being one of nine Native nations within
Virginia in 1712. Along with the "Stuckanok, Tottero, and Saponi," the Occaneechi signed a "Treaty of Peace" with the
colony of Virginia in 1713. They moved to Fort Christanna
in southeast Virginia. Occaneechi Town was almost
entirely abandoned by 1713.
Fort Christanna was operated by the Virginia Company from 1714
to 1717. Its closure was apparently due to a lack of profits as an Indian
trading center. Although several distinct groups of Siouan Indians lived at
Fort Christanna, the English Virginians tended to
refer to them simply as "Saponi" or
"Fort Christanna Indians." After the
closing of Fort Christanna in 1717, colonial records
contain few references to the Occaneechi. Those
references that do exist indicate a continued trade between Virginia colonists
and the Saponi and Occaneechi.By
1720, after ongoing losses from warfare, the remnant bands of the Occaneechi, Saponi, and Stukanox, "who not finding themselves Separately
Numerous, enough for their Defence, have agreed to
unite in one Body, and all of them now go under the Name of the Sapponeys, as William Byrd II wrote.
In 1727, a
settler living near the Iroquoian Meherrin, in a region where some violence had
broken out, wrote to the governor of Virginia about the events. He said the
Meherrin denied attacking the Nottoway (another Iroquoian tribe). "They
lay the whole blame upon the Occaneechy King and the Saponi Indians." This suggests that English settlers
recognized a distinction between the Occaneechi and Saponi.
In 1730
Virginia's House of Burgesses records noted an "Interpreter to the Saponi and Occaneechi
Indians." This implied the existence of monoglot
Occaneechi people.
In 1730, many Saponi moved to live among the Catawba in South Carolina,
but most returned to Virginia in 1733, along with some Cheraw Indians. After
1733 the Saponi appear to have fragmented into small
groups and dispersed. Some apparently remained in the vicinity of Fort Christanna, which was noted in Virginia records by its Saponi name, Junkatapurse. After
1742 the settlement is no longer mentioned, but only a road called Junkatapurse. In the 1740s, the Saponi
migrated south to live with the Catawba. Governor Gooch of Virginia reported
that the "Saponies and other petty nations
associated with them ... are retired out of Virginia to the Cattawbas"
during the years 1743-1747. Most of the remaining Saponi
members were recorded as migrating north in 1740 for protection with the
Iroquois. They mostly disappeared from the historical record in the Southeast.
After the American Revolution, in which four of the Iroquois Six Nations had
sided with the losing British, the majority of the Iroquois (and Saponi) went to Canada for resettlement. Descendants live
mostly at the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation reserve in Ontario.
Traditional English-American histories typically describe the Saponi group of Indians as having left Virginia and North
Carolina in the 18th century, either to join the Catawba or the Iroquois.
Starting in the
middle of the 18th century, however, historic records note Saponi
living in North Carolina. Some Saponi moved from
Virginia to various places in North Carolina. There is some evidence that
isolated Indians never left these areas of North Carolina and became
consolidated with Saponi from Virginia.
In 1756,
Moravian settlers living near present-day Winston-Salem reported an Indian
palisaded "fort" settlement near the Haw River. The Moravians called
the Indians "Cherokees", but it is more likely they were Sissipahau ("Saxapahaw")
or another group related to the Occaneechi. This,
along with various oral traditions, indicates Indians' living in a more or less
traditional manner in North Carolina's Piedmont after such settlements
supposedly vanished.
In 1763, Lt.
Governor Francis Fauquier of Virginia wrote a letter that included a
description of the Indians of Virginia: "There are some of the Nottoways, Meherrins, Tuscaroras, and Saponys, who tho' they live in peace in the midst of us, lead in great
measure the lives of wild Indians." He contrasted these Indians with the
Eastern Shore and Pamunkey Indians, whom he described
as more assimilated to English ways. Thus, there are still indications of Saponi in Virginia during this period.
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A Brief History of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi
Nation
The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi
Nation—OBSN for short—is a small Indian community located primarily in the old
settlement of Little Texas, Pleasant Grove Township, Alamance
County, North Carolina. Until the middle part of the 20th century, the
community was largely occupied in agricultural pursuits, sometimes supplemented
by day wage labor jobs or jobs in nearby factories. In recent decades the
numbers of people engaged full or part time in agriculture has declined
significantly, and most working adults in the community now work in offices, or
as skilled workers and craftsmen, or in the few remaining factories in the
area.
The OBSN
community is a lineal descendant of the Saponi and
related Indians who occupied the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia in
pre-contact times, and specifically of those Saponi
and related Indians who formally became tributary to Virginia under the
Treaties of Middle Plantation in 1677 and 1680, and, who under the subsequent
treaty of 1713 with the Colony of Virginia agreed to join together as a single
community. This confederation formed a settlement at Fort Christianna
along the Virginia/North Carolina border in what is now Brunswick County,
Virginia.
The
confederation included the Saponi proper, the Occaneechi, the Eno, the Tutelo, and elements of other related communities such as
the Cheraw. All of these communities were remnants of much larger Siouan
communities that had lived in North Carolina and Virginia in prehistoric times.
The Saponi confederation was closely allied with the Catawba confederation,
and occupied several forts and settlements located in what are now Greensville
County and Brunswick Counties, Virginia from about 1680 until the mid-18th
century, when the last Virginia fort, Christianna,
fell into disuse. They also continued to occupy fortified villages and other
settlements in North Carolina into the mid-1700s during this period. While
maintaining distinctions among themselves (sometimes exaggerated by non-Indian
contemporaries and by later historians), the various elements within the Saponi confederation had a common origin and were closely
related, linguistically and culturally. Their final treaty with Virginia
included an agreement among the four signatory groups to formally incorporate
as one tribe under the name “Sapony.”
In January,
1715, Virginia’s Governor Spotswood wrote a letter to the Bishop of London
describing how he had “engaged the Saponie, Oconeechee, Stuckanox [Eno] and Tottero Indians (being a
people speaking much the same language, and therefore confederated together, tho’ preserving their different Rules) immediately to
remove to y’t place, which I have named Christ-Anna.”
In June of that year, Spotswood wrote to the Commissioners of Trade in London
that he had “…been for a good part of last Spring, employ’d
in finishing the fortifications of Christanna, and in
settling there a Body of our Tributary Indians to ye number of 300 men, women
and children, who go under the general name of Saponies…”
Acculturated members of the confederation and their descendants gradually
formed a settled community that, over time, became geographically and
culturally distinct from the traditional community. Formal marriages and
common-law relationships between Indians of the community and their European
neighbors contributed to divisions between the settled community and more
conservative community members. Documentary evidence of the existence of the
acculturated community begins to appear in local records as early as the 1720s.
As these records involve adults, it is likely the acculturated community dates
back into the 17th century. A great majority of the tribe’s members can trace
their ancestry back to the individual Indians identified in such records.
The
acculturated community occupied a small tri-border area in what are now
Greensville County, Virginia, Brunswick County, Virginia, and Northampton
County, North Carolina. Their settlement was also midway between two forts
built for the Indians by Virginia, and about 10 miles south of a third fort,
near modern-day Purdy, Virginia, that was apparently built by the Indians
themselves, probably for defense against Iroquois raiders from the north. More
precisely, the community’s land was located south of modern Emporia, Virginia
(Greensville County), west into Brunswick County, and extending across the
State line into the northwestern corner of Northampton County, North Carolina
and to the Roanoke River. Researchers for the OBSN have documented the
development of this community from the late 17th through the early 19th
centuries, by which time emigration to the Midwest and other parts of the South
had reduced it to a handful of families.
For years lay
people and researchers have discovered thousands of artifacts from "Occoneechee Town," "Saponi
Town" and "Tutelo Town" on islands in
the Roanoke River near Clarksville, Virginia. Prior to the flooding of the
islands in 1952, this was one of the richest archeology sites on the East
Coast. Since 1983 the Research Laboratories of Anthropology at the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have been uncovering another "Occaneechi Town", a late 17th and early 18th century Occaneechi village on the Eno
River near present-day Hillsborough, North Carolina.
Recent history
In 1995, a
community centered around Pleasant Grove, North
Carolina claimed descent from the Fort Christanna
confederation of Occannechi, Saponi,
and Tutelo began hosting an annual powwow and
organized under the name Occaneechi Band of Saponi. They are recognized by the state of North Carolina
and primarily reside in Alamance County.
The
contemporary Occaneechi and Haliwa-Saponi
tribes are mostly descendants of multiracial people who settled on the frontier
of Virginia and North Carolina as early as the mid-to late 18th century. They
migrated and acquired land as did European or English neighbors from the
Tidewater areas. 20th century researchers such as Paul Heinegg
and Dr. Virginia Easley De Marce have conducted
extensive research in colonial records: including court records, deeds of land,
wills, etc. to trace back members of families in this area who were listed in
the 1790 census. They have found 80 percent of those listed as free people of
color, a category that then included Indians, could in fact be traced back to
African Americans free in Virginia during the colonial period. Most of the free
people of color were descended from relationships between white women and
African men, often both indentured servants, during the 17th and 18th century
when racial boundaries between groups were not as hardened as they later became.
Some of the African men were slaves freed as early as the 17th century, as was
John Jeffries, a "Negro man" belonging to Captain Robert Randall and
freed in 1698 in Surry County, Virginia. Paul Heinegg
believes he was the great-grandfather of Jacob Jeffries who settled in Orange
County, North Carolina by 1790, but there is no documentary evidence for this.
In frontier areas, such peoples of mixed race sometimes identified themselves
(or others did) as Indian, or Portuguese, or Spanish, to explain darker skin
color or physical features not typical of northern Europeans. In some areas
they may also have intermarried with a few American Indians. People in the
mixed-race groups associated with different social groups over the decades:
some marrying into the white community, some marrying other multiracial people
and identifying as Indian, and others marrying into the black community.
Download this
page as a PDF file
https://edavidarthur.tripod.com/NativeAmericans.pdf
