Did the Portuguese Melangeons Kill off the Hopes of the Western Catawba?
Did the Portuguese Melaneons kill off the the Hopes Western Catawba?
It’s and interesting and a sad story. About the same time the Western Catawba Indian Association was trying to create home for us in Indian Territory/Oklahoma – there were White folks back east who had no idea who we were, and to them we were a bunch of Portuguese who came from the mists of their imaginations at some unknown time, with no records of their immigration to America, to southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee, where they remained totally secluded and away from the local Caucasian and African population, occasionally marrying one of their children to an English, Scots-Irish, German, French Huguenot, or African.
Melungeons, A Multiethnic Population
An exceptional research article can be found here -- https://jogg.info/pages/72/files/Estes.htm .
I hope to quote from it, from time to time. The authors say of the Melungeons, "With the advent of the internet and popular press, the story of these people has become larger than life, with their ancestors being attributed to a myriad of exotic sources: Sir Walter Raleigh's Lost Colony, Ottoman Turks, The Lost Tribes of Israel, Jews, Gypsies, descendants of Prince Madoc of Wales, Indians, escaped slaves, Portuguese, Sir Francis Drake's rescued Caribbean Indians and Moorish slaves, Juan Pardo's expedition, De Soto's expedition, abandoned pirates and Black Dutch, among others. Melungeon families themselves claimed to be Indian, white and Portuguese."
Furthermore, as having Melungeon heritage became desirable and exotic, the range of where these people were reportedly found has expanded to include nearly every state south of New England and east of the Mississippi, and in the words of Dr. Virginia DeMarce (Dr. Virginia Easley DeMarce is the past president of the National Genealogy Society, former college professor, now retired from the US Bureau of Indian Affairs.) Melungeon history has been erroneously expanded to provide "an exotic ancestry...that sweeps in virtually every olive, ruddy and brown-tinged ethnicity known or alleged to have appeared anywhere in the pre-Civil War Southeastern United States.” (DeMarce (1996) - Review Essay by Dr. Virginia Easley DeMarce of The Melungeons: A Resurrection of a Proud People, An Untold Story of Ethnic Cleaning in America by Brent N. Kennedy with Robyn Vaughan Kennedy, Mercer University Press, 1994, review published in the National Genealogy Society Quarterly, Vol. 84, No. 2, June 1996, p 137 republished online at http://historical-melungeons.blogspot.com/2011/01/1996-demarce-review-essay-melungeons.html ).
So there is a lot of nonsense that has been written about “the Melungeons”. But before stating the above the authors state, As the stigma of a mixed racial heritage dimmed in the late 20th century . . .
I’d like to state the problems arose long before the end of the 20th century -- back, back, back – to 1889, a century and a decade earlier.
People who claimed to be of Catawban ancestry in Oklahoma and Arkansas were hoping to be recognized as an Indian Tribe and given lands in the late 1880s. At the same time, people back east were wondering who these mixed-race families who were these people in northeast Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, and parts of Eastern Kentucky. They finally settled on calling us a bunch of Portuguese Adventurers. When the government finally read our petition for recognition, they had also heard stories of us being Portuguese, NOT Native Americans. While we called ourselves Indian, White people were calling us Portuguese. Our request to be who we said we were was denied, and we were told that we were Portuguese.
This wonderful research paper shows a timeline. I’d like to use their timeline and compare it with the timeline of the Western Catawba Indian Association.
The Two Timelines
Melungeons, A Multiethnic Population
1810-History of Baxter County Arkansas[10]
1813 -- First reference to Melungeons in written records indicating they were from Hawkins County, Tn.
Stony Creek Church Minutes (1801-1814), Russell Co., Va. First local reference to Melungeons - reference to "harboring them Melungins."
My Personal Family
My own Wayland family immigrated from Scott County, Virginia to Lawrence County, Arkansas about 1815. I know above she says Stony Creek Primitive Baptist Church is in Russell County. But that county was divided, and by 1813 it was in Scott County. In fact in the minutes of that church my own ancestors surnames appear over and over. For years I thought my ancestor’s brother, named Nevil Wayland Jr, wrote the words “harboring them melungins” in those minutes. He had been church clerk. But by 13 Sep 1813 – that was no longer the case -- https://vhawkins1952.wixsite.com/catawbaresearch/post/melungeons-minutes-of-stoney-creek-primitive-baptist-church-part-2
Those church minutes state -- William Brickey was Clerk and Deacon of the Church, most of the time up to his death. William Brickey was a descendent of a French Huguenot family.
You can follow this tree back to a “Jean Bricquet” born in Brittany, France of Huguenots who were force to immigrate due to religious persecution.
The word “melangeons” means “we mix” in the French language. When you conjugate the French verb “mélanger” meaning “to mix”, its first person, plural (we mix) in the present tense is “nous mélangeons”. The pronoun “nous” can be understood as being meant without being spoken, so that “mélangeons” on its own can be understood as meaning “we mix”.
Back to My Family
In 1832 Jarrrett and James Wayland were on the roster of the first troops to be sent to Ft. Gibson in Indian territory. Their unit was known as “Bean’s Rangers”. Oklahoma Genealogical Society (rootsweb.com) Both were first cousins of one another, and they were also first cousins of my direct ancestor, Sarah Ann Wayland.
In 1846 my direct ancestor, Joseph Richey, joined the Army at Batesville Arkansas, and was sent to first Ft. Smith, Arkansas, then Ft. Gibson, IT. In 1848 he married Sarah Ann Wayland.
In 1851 my direct ancestor, Jeffrey Hoten Richey, was born.
1848 in Catawba History
In Catawba history, in 1848 this is the year the Federal government said they would help finance the Catawba who wanted to emigrate to Indian Territory/Oklahoma. (A Guide to the Indian Tribes of Oklahoma, by Murial Hazel Wright, Univ. of Oklahoma Press on p.55 of my copy),
1848 -- Melungeons, A Multiethnic Population
Littell's Living Age -- "Society of Portuguese adventurers...who came from the long-shore parts of Virginia...intermixed with the Indians and subsequently their descendants...with the Negroes and the whites"
1848 in My Family History
This (1848) is also the year my Brown’s and Gist’s moved to Arkansas. David Brown married Harriet Gist/Guess in 1841 They are one set of my great-great-grandparents.
In 1854, my direct ancestor, Josephine Brown, was born.
In 1872, Jeffrey Hoten Richey married Josephine Brown. According to my great uncle in “Indian Pioneer papers”, a dust bowl era record of Oklahoma/Indian territory Pioneer families their telling stories of what it was like growing up in Indian Territory. My great uncle was recorded s saying;
Date: August 23, 1937
Name: Oscar T. Richey
Post Office: Lone Wolf, Kiowa County, Oklahoma
My parents were natives of Arkansas and grew up near Fort Smith which is just across the line from Indian Territory . . . After they were married in the year 1872, they moved into Indian Territory and settled in either the present Sequoyah or Leflore Counties. I do not know on which side of the Arkansas River they lived, but I remember very clearly hearing my mother say that the territory was like a wilderness . . .
For Competing Contradictory Stories
March 1, 1888, The Indian Chieftain, Vinita, Indian Territory (Oklahoma),
image 2 of 4. It says; “The Western Catawba Indian Association, with headquarters in Fort Smith, proposes to petition congress to set aside for the use of all persons of Indian blood, not members of any tribe, a portion of the Indian Territory.”
Vance’s note: This tells us that the same time Eastern intellectuals were trying to determine whether we were Portuguese or Cherokees, our own people in Oklahoma were claiming Catawban ancestry.
Melungeons, A Multiethnic Population
I don’t know what Burnett said other than these four words mentioned below. I do know people with mixed-African or Native American ancestry back east would try to hide that ancestry, and would tell folks they were Portuguese in order to do that. Other than that, I don’t know what to say about Burnett’s observations.
1889 --Dr. Swan Burnett[13] -- "Proudly call themselves Portuguese."
Burnett (1889) Vol. 11, p 347-349 (Vance’s note: I have never seen this article)
1889 -- Atlanta Constitution letter from Laurence Johnson[14] -- "Claim to be Portuguese - original site on the Pedee River in NC and SC...crew consisting mostly of Moors with sprinkling of Arabs and negroes turned ashore free...found wives among Indians, negroes and cast off white women...free people of color of Pedee region."
Johnson (1889): For the full text of Johnson's reply letter, see http://jgoins.com/sallee_rover.htm
, the original article has never been located. (Vance’s note: I have never seen this link either – I’ll try to look it up this afternoon.)
So back east Caucasian writers were claiming our ancestors were Portuguese, Moors and Arabs who just happened to “wash ashore” near the mouth of the Pedee River. A generation or so previous to this, there was a tribe of Indians called the Pedee Indians who were a band of the Catawba. They say cast off white women, along with both Native and Black American women, took up with this mix or Arabic, Portuguese and Moorish men, and this motley crew created for themselves new homes. Former Chief of the Catawba had previously written a letter to Governor Glen of South Carolina to tell the Pedee Indians they had a home with the Catawba if they wanted it.
The Western Catawba
August 16, 1889, The Fort Smith Elevator, Catawba Indian Association
The Catawba Indian Association met at Rocky Ridge on the 10th. The meeting was called to order by the President. After the reading of the minutes and the calling of the roll of the officers, transacting other business that came before the order, a call for new members was made and 90 was added to the new list, after which the meeting adjourned to meet at Ault’s’ Mill, three miles south of Fort Smith, the second day of the fair, the 16th day of October, where the delegates and all persons interested will please attend without further notice, as matters of interest will be considered.
J. Bain, President
G. W. Williamson, Secretary (287)
October 1889, Fort Smith, Elevator, Catawba Indian Association
I had written the library at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith for copies of articles written by the Fort Sill Elevator I found online, and she told me she found one article I had misses. It is below;
“Attention Catawba’s!”
The Western Catawba’s Indian Association met at Ault’s Mill October 16, 1889, at which meeting a number of new members were added to the Association, thus making it nearly 4,000 strong. They appointed an executive committee which is empowered to transact all business and place the matter before congress. The Association adjourned to convene again at a called meeting of the president.”
So in 1889 they were thinking of over 4,000 persons. The final roll ha 257 names on it. They probably noticed they had no chance of being federally recognized trying to allow all persons of known Native American ancestry, and they went through a phase of eliminating names they thought were questionable. I suspect some of those on the rejected list of the Cherokee might have first talked to roll takers about asking for Catawba citizenship. I don’t think a list of those four thousand persons exists today – a shame. Today we have access to DNA technology, as well as easier access to documents and census records.
Melungeons, A Multiethnic Population
1890 census paperwork -- "Melungeons in Hawkins County claim to be Cherokees of mixed blood (white, Indian and negro)...Collins and Gibson reported as Indian, Mullins white, Denham Portuguese, Goins negro...enumerated as of the races which they most resembled."
Governmental census site (2011) http://www2.census.gov/prod2/decennial/documents/1890a_v10-28.pdf
1903, 1914
Lewis Jarvis, Hancock County Tn., attorney and historian (I have saved this in a blog entry. https://vhawkins1952.wixsite.com/catawbaresearch/post/melungeons-2-melungeons-as-told-by-lewis-jarvis ).
"Called Melungeon by the local white people...not here when first hunting parties came...had land grants where they formerly lived...were the friendly Indians who came with the whites as they moved west" to the New River and Fort Blackmore...married among the whites. Names Collins, Gibson, Bolin, Bunch, Goodman, Moore, Williams, Sullivan and "others not remembered" as Indian. (Goins (2009) p 84-85: Quoting Home Mission Monthly, Women’s Board, Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., "A Visit to the Melungeons" by C.H. Humble)
[Vance's note:]
I am reminded of the man DNA tests and genealogical documents say is my ancestor named Nathaniel Gist. The Dorsey’s say my Gist’s went to Washington County, Virginia in the early 1770s. What can we discover about this?
We the Commissioners, etc...do certify that John Dickerson, heir-at-law to Humphrey Dickerson, who was assignee of Joseph Blackmore, who was assignee of Nathaniel Gist is entitled to 310 acres of land lying in Washington county on the north side of Clynch River in Cassell's Woods, to include his improvement. Surveyed the 28th day of May, 1774.
When discussing the Melungeons, recall Jarvis words, where he said the whites “with the friendly Indians” built Fort Blackmore. OUR Nathaniel Gist – not the famous Nathaniel Gist, but his first cousin -- KNEW Joseph Blackmore. Again, interesting. This land was next door to the fort.]
At the above link we have “The above writer is referring to the children of Joseph Blackmore, for Captain John Blackmore, builder of Blackmore’s Fort, had in the year 1779, left for the area for settlement on the Cumberland in Tennessee. Joseph Blackmore was a brother of Captain John, and owned the adjoining farm to the old Fort tract to the south and down Clinch River.”
Joseph and John Blackmore were brothers, and John Built Fort Blackmore, famous in the history of the Melungeons as having been built by the whites with the “friendly Indians” who seem to have been relatives of the Catawba, NOT the Cherokee. The fort was built to protect the people from the Cherokee. The Catawba WERE the friendly Indians during the Revolutionary War. Blumer even mentions the Catawba fleeing to southwestern Virginia as there were Catawba speakers living in the area. [note to self – LOOK IT UP]
Western Catawba
January 1895; The Fort Smith Elevator”
(newspaper), date probably early Jan 1895.
All Catawba Indians by blood or otherwise are requested to meet at the County Court House in Fort Smith Arkansas on Thursday, Jan 24th, 1895 at 10 o’clock a. m. for the purpose of perfecting the census roll of the Western Catawba Indian Association and the transaction of other matters that may come before the meeting. All Catawba Indians are expected to be present or by proxy as business of importance will come before the meeting.
James Bain, Preset., Geo. E. Williams, Scary,
Many people say this was a scam operation, and they say Bain and Williamson are NOT known Catawban surnames. This is NOT true. Checkout the following –
1860 census, Bolivar County, Mississippi [note:Bolivar County borders the Mississippi River, across the river from both Desha County, Arkansas, and the mouth of the Arkansas River.]
?S. or E.? Bane 30, m, Mississippi
Elizabeth Bane, 20, f, Arkansas,
James W. Bane, 5, m, Arkansas
George Wallace Bane, 3 , m, Arkansas
Victoria Ann Bane, f, Illinois
David Greer, m, Tennessee,
Mary Greer, f, Mississippi
Randolph Bunch, 6, m, Arkansas
James Campbell, 13, m, Mississippi
Notice a six year old surnames “Bunch” in the household.
1920 Sebastian Co,. Ark Census
James Bain, head, m, w, 71, Ms, Ms, Ms
Orral Bain, wife, f, w, 28, Ark, Ms, Ark
A five-year old boy named James Bane/Bain in 1860 is now a 71 year old man in 1920. Sebastian County, Arkansas is the county that included Fort Smith, Arkansas, where the Catawba Indian Association was headquartered in the 1890s. There is another “James Minor Bain/Bane” on other Arkansas census records, but it is clearly another person. Both the surnames of Minor and Bunch are associated with mixed race Saponi and Catawban families.
I have had less luck tracing the Williamson surname. I have found him in Greenwood, Sebastian County, Arkansas and it was recorded some of the Western Catawba lived in Greenwood. There were some Williamson’s living on or very near the Catawba Reservation in South Carolina.
Again I am reminded of what my great uncle said about our family in Indian Pioneer Papers;
Date: August 23, 1937
Name: Oscar T. Richey
Post Office: Lone Wolf, Kiowa County, Oklahoma
My parents were natives of Arkansas and grew up near Fort Smith which is just across the line from Indian Territory . . . After they were married in the year 1872, they moved into Indian Territory and settled in either the present Sequoyah or Leflore Counties. I do not know on which side of the Arkansas River they lived, but I remember very clearly hearing my mother say that the territory was like a wilderness and that they had to go back to Fort Smith for everything they had to buy and that when they needed protection all the officers of the law had to come from Fort Smith.
1896 – The Western Catawba ask the Govrenment for Land in Oklahoma
This is a topic I write about all the time. Here are summary of our failed effort – https://vhawkins1952.wixsite.com/catawbaresearch/post/unresolved-issues-concerning-the-western-catawba
and
and here
The Western Catawba wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Interior on 7 Dec 1896 asking the government for help. I have transcribed the governments reply here –
The End of the Trail
1897 -- The Catawba Tribe of Indians, 54th Congress, 2nd session, Doc. 144; 23Feb1897
Here are a few of the finer points of this report. I transcribed the entire document here –
February 23rd, 1897 – ordered to be printed as Senate Document for use of committee on Indian Affairs. Mr. Pettigrew presented the following memorial on behalf of the individuals formerly comprising and belonging to the Catawba Tribe of Indians, and accompanying papers. Department of the Interrior, Wasington, Feb. 1, 1897. . . .
. . . MEMORIAL
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress Assembled;
Your petitioners come representing that they are the representatives of the individuals and their descendants who were formerly the members of the Catawba Tribe of Indians that owned and occupied lands in the states of North Carolina and South Carolina; that in pursuance of the policy of the United States to remove all the Indian Tribes to new homes to be provided for them west of the Misissippi River, Congress passed an act July 29,1848, appropriating $5,000 for the removal of the Catawba Indians, with their own consent, to the west of the Mississippi River, and for settling and subsisting them one year in new homes first to be obtained for them (9 stat. L., 264); that nothing was accomplished under this act; that the provisions and appropriations thereof were reenacted in the act of July 31, 1854 (10 stat. L., 316); that some efforts were made to secure for the Catawbas new homes among the Choctawand Chickasaw Indians in the Indian Territory, and under the encourgement of hopeful results, and of the laws of Congress on the subject, many of the Catawba Indians left their lands and homes in the Carolinas and journied at their own expense to the country west of the Mississippi River, hoping and expecting to be there furnished with and loated there and subsisted for one year upon new homes; that the Department of the Interior has so far failed to accomplish anyhting towards securing for the Catawbas such new homes or in doing anything in their behalf as was contemplated and expected under the provisions of the law referred to; that the Catawbas reached the states and territories bordering on the then Indian Territory, where they expected to be settled in new homes, but have been left stranded in that territory and in the neighboring states, where they have had to seek a livelyhood s best they could, without any land upon which they could build homes for themselves and families; that they are in great need, and are very anxious to be given lands, homes, or allotments of any of the lands that now are or may hereafter become available for that purpose in the Indian Territory or n Oklahoma Territory; that they desire to be informed sa to the status of the tribal lands of the Catawba Indians formerly occupied by the Catawba Tribe of Indians in the Carolinas, and to secure anything that may be due them as accruing them rfom said lands; and also to receive any other or further relief, help, or benefits they may be found, upon careful investigation of the facts in their case, be entitled to receive in right, justice or equity, from the United States or otherwise in the matter of new homes in the West or as to their lands in the East; and they pray that all these as the facts may warrant, demand and require.
And your petitioners will ever pray.
Fort Smith, Arkansas, December, 7, 1896
James Bain, President of Catawba Indian Association
Geo. E. Williamson, Secretaty of Catawba Indian Association . . .
And the final nail in the coffin (from the same document) --
. . . In reply, I have to say that it is the policy of the government to abolish the tribal relationship of the Indians as fast as possible, and to settle each Indian upon a separate tract of land that he can call his own, to the end that he may become self-supporting and independent of government bounty. It would not be in keeping with this policy, I think, to gather up people who happen to have more or less Indian blood in their veins and are living among the Whites, separate and apart from Indian communities, and incorporate them into a tribe and place them upon an Indian Reservation.
So Why Were We Rejected?
The government reason for rejecting us was officially that we were mixed bloods living amongst the Whites. I personally think they considered us TOO mixed race. Could Ms. Dromgooles and others writing about us, have played a part? I think it did! Talk of us being descended from “Portuguese Adventurers” killed the last of us. But what I think and what I know are two different things. All I know is that while some of us were doing our best to be Native Americans, others were doing their best to prove we were descended from Portuguese. My father and grandparents generation were OBVIOUSLY Native American-mixed. But that native blood is not as visible in the skin tones of today’s newest and youngest generations. All I ask is that we be respected as descendants of an extinct race., and not to be considered or called “Wannabes”. That’s all.
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