Northern Catawban Bands; Tutelo, Monacan & Saponi Families

The Melungeons were Monacan & Saponi Families

Someone just a few days ago asked me what I knew about Indian mounds in the Carolinas. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized they were asking about mounds found on Yesah/Esaw lands. At first I told them I thought they were Muscogeean perhaps, but added I had no idea. However they got back to me and she told me she thought they were made by the Cheraw, whom the Spaniards referred to as “Xualla” or Joara”. This got me to thinking about mounds that Thomas Jefferson discovered in his lands in Virginia. I knew about them because I had studied my own family. I recall reading my Wood/s ancestors had migrated from east to west of Jefferson’s home at Montecello about the same time. I thought it’s just a long shot that me might have native blood in my Wood’s family, so I never looked into that possibility seriously. So I had thought about this before, but I had not looked into it deeply. Maybe it’s time I do.

My Wood/s Family

Here is a record I was sent from Nancy Stern, who is also a descendant of Joseph Wood. I am transcribing it as it was sent to me.

Joseph Woods, 1745-1835 and his lineal descendants

Contributed by Mrs. David Woods . . . [her address] . . . from a book printed in 1909

Joseph Woods was born near Charlottesville, Virginia, Albemerle County, Virginia, August 22nd, 1745. He was married January 20, 1768 to Mary Hamilton of said county. She was born in 1747 and died August 26th, 1828. About 1790 Joseph Woods, together with his wife and 10 children, migrated to Tennessee and settled on the Holston River about ten miles from Knoxville, where Samuel Hamilton Woods, the 11th and last child was born in 1791. In 1807 he removed with all his family, except his son Joseph, to Knox County, Indiana, and settled on the Du Chien River . . .

Joseph Wood served in the Revolutionary War as a Private in Captain Benjamin Briggs Company, 7th Virginia Regiment, muster roll dated Fort Pitt, November 18th, 1781 “for the year 1780 and Jan 1781 to October 1781; “term of enlistment, war;” “on command at Wheeling.” His name was last borne for muster roll for June 1783, dated at Fort Pitt, July 2, 1783, with the remark, “on furlough”.

She also asked;

Louisa County Search by my cousin, Nancy Stein.

BUNCH, EPPERSON, HARRIS, JONES, KEATON, OWEN, REID, WOOD, WOODS posted by Nancy Stein on Wednesday, April 26, 2006; Before Louisa gave the most western land to Albemarle County the following names appear in the patent records: Christopher HARRIS , Nathan WOOD/S, Wm KEATON,, James REID, Mosias JONES, Henry BUNCH, David EPPERSON, Patrick WOOD/WOODS, Wm OWEN. This area was Fredericksville Parish, Seek contact with others searching these names.

Efforts were made to discover the parents of Joseph Wood/s, but to proof of his parents was ever discovered (to the best of my knowledge). I also discovered a “Thomas Collins” who lived nearby. Bunch and Collins are known Saponi surnames, and Harris is a known Catawba surname. But they are also well-known English surnames, so I have proven nothing conclusive.

1677 Treaty, 1680 Addendum

Here is a copy of the 1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/articles-of-peace-1677/

Another site of interest is http://virginiaplaces.org/settleland/treaties.html#:~:text=1677%20Treaty%20of%20Middle%20Plantation%28and%201680%20addendum%29%20-,been%20attacked%20by%20rebels%20led%20by%20Nathaniel%20Bacon

Where it adds;

1677 Treaty of Middle Plantation (and 1680 addendum)

- negotiated in 1677 after conclusion of Bacon's Rebellion, in which tribes at peace with Virginia government had been attacked by rebels led by Nathaniel Bacon

- terms were defined by three royal commissioners (Lieutenant Governor Herbert Jefferies, Sir John Berry, and Francis Morison) who controlled colonial government after they forced Gov. William Berkeley to return to England

- Cockacoeske ("Queen of Pamunkey") signed for not only Pamunkey, but also for Chickahominy and Rappahannock tribes (English colonists wanted to centralize authority and simplify their control, but other tribes refused to accept subordinate status)

- signed separately by Cockacoeske's son (Captain John West), the queen of the Wyanoke, king of the Nottoway, and king of the Nansemond

- English refused to allow king of the Appomatucks to sign in 1677, because they thought he was responsible for unrequited death of colonists

- additional tribes that signed in 1680 included leaders of the Appomatucks (finally), Iroquoian-speaking Meherrin, Siouan-speaking Monacan and Saponi, plus Nanzatico (Nantaughtacund), Portabaco, and an additional Nansemond king4

- established a reservation in King William County (because the now-separate Mattaponi and Pamunkey reservations were established a century before the United States was created, the legal basis for those reservations is based on Virginia state law rather than Federal law.)

https://nativeamericanroots.wordpress.com/tag/monacan/

The Nansemond were one of several tribes that were signatories of the Treaty of Middle Plantation of 1677 – a treaty between Charles II of England and the Virginia tribes. The treaty was signed at the conclusion of Bacon’s Rebellion and formally designated the Nansemond and other Virginia Indian signatories as “tributary tribes”. The Nansemond, Pamunkey, Nottoway, and Weyanoke were the original signatories in 1677 and in 1680 the Appomattox, Nanzatico, Monacan, Saponi and Meherrin tribes signed onto the treaty.

Notice the Monacan’s and Saponi signed the treaty in 1680. Some websites I have noticed say our ancestors signed this treaty in 1677. But we were only there in the addendum of 1680. At that point we became Tributaries of the 1677 treaty. We became tributaries BEFORE Fort Christanna even existed, so the abandonment of Fort Christanna shouldn’t have changed our status as Tributaries to this treaty. This treaty was beteen the state of Virginia and the Saponi, Monacan, and several other tribes.

Five Monacan Towns

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Monacan_Indian_Nation

I don’t know how accurate the previous website is. It reports five Monacan towns.

Mowhemencho, the Monacan nation's easternmost outpost, was between Bernard's Creek and Jones Creek in the eastern tip of present-day Powhatan County. Massinacak (Mahock) was at the mouth of Mohawk Creek, a mile south of present-day Goochland. The Monacan capital was Rassawek, located at the point within the two branches, Point of Fork, of the upper James and Rivanna rivers. Tributary to them were the Monahassanugh (later known as the Nahyssan, i.e. Tutelo), whose town was near what later developed as Wingina, and the Monasukapanough (later known as the Saponi), living near present-day Charlottesville.[citation needed] All these groups were closely related with the Siouan Manahoac to the north.[citation needed]

I have heard others say the Nahyssan were the Saponi. Later, at Fort Christanna, it appears the Saponi were the main Northern band, The 1680 treaty was signed by two Saponi and one Monacan chief. Also notice it says the Saponi band was the one near Charlottesville. This is the Monacan village Thomas Jefferson said was near the mound he excavated. We know these tribes are really bands of the same people as the Catawba and Cheraw and others. I know the root Yssa is in the interior of the word NahYSSAn, and all the people taken together were known as Yesah, which was on occasion spelled “Yssa”. It is recorded (look it up) by the Tutelo who went to live with six nations they were referred to collectively as the Yesah people.

Tutelo Language

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tutelo_language

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Not to be confused with the Saponi language of Indonesia.

Tutelo, also known as Tutelo–Saponi, is a member of the Virginian branch of Siouan languages that were originally spoken in what is now Virginia and West Virginia. Some speakers of Tutelo migrated north to escape warfare, traveling through North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and finally, settling in Ontario after the American Revolutionary War with the Cayuga (Iroqouian speakers) at what is now known as Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation.

The last fluent speaker in Tutelo country, Nikonha, died in 1871 at age 106. The year before, he had managed to impart about 100 words of vocabulary to the ethnologist Horatio Hale, who had visited him at the Six Nations Reserve.[2][3]

In 1753 the Tutelo had joined the Iroquois confederacy under the sponsorship of the Cayuga. Descendants living at Grand River spoke Tutelo well into the twentieth century, when it was recorded by Hale and other scholars including J. N. B. Hewitt, James Owen Dorsey, Leo J. Frachtenberg, Edward Sapir, Frank Speck, and Marianne Mithun. The last active speakers, a mother and daughter, died in a house fire shortly before Mithun's visit in 1982. The last native speaker, Albert Green, died some time after that.[4]

2.Horatio Hale, "Tutelo Tribe and Language", Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 21, no. 114 (1883)

3.Hale, Horatio (2001). The Tutelo Language. American Language Reprints. 23. Merchantville: Evolution Publishing. ISBN 1889758213.

4. Giulia Oliverio, "Tutelo Grammar and Dictionary", 1996 (PhD. thesis) pp. 6–19.

Fort Christanna

Although this historic marker (below) doesn’t mention the Monacan, they were also at Fort Christanna.

Fort Christanna

Jefferson’s Excavation of a Monacan Mound

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/jeffersons-excavation-indian-burial-mound

This link really spoke to me. Here are a few excerpts from it. Go to the link for further details.

In 1780, the secretary of the French legation in Philadelphia, François Marbois, submitted to various members of the Continental Congress a list of questions concerning the thirteen American states.1 Joseph Jones, a member of the Virginia delegation, believed Thomas Jefferson the most capable person to answer these queries for the state of Virginia and put Marbois's questionnaire in his hands. The answers composed by Jefferson to twenty-three queries make up his Notes on the State of Virginia, which has been called the "most important scientific and political book written by an American before 1785." Among the queries submitted by Marbois was one asking for a description of the Indians in the state (Query XI). Jefferson long had an interest in the Indian population of his native Virginia and his response to Query XI constitutes an impressive description of Indian tribes, their number, history, and geographical location, as well as their languages. As part of this response, Jefferson described in detail his exploration of an Indian burial mound in the "neighbourhood" of Monticello. He stated that it was "situated on the low grounds of the Rivanna, about two miles above its principal fork, and opposite to some hills, on which had been an Indian town."

This section tells us how Jefferson’s report came to be. It was just by accident, really, so we are fortunate to have it. I have never seen the original – now I’d like to see it. 😊 But mention is made of an Indian village that once stood at the location of the mound. It would be nice to hear more about it. Now back to excerpts from the website.

He records Jefferson’s excavation of the mounds, and records, “He observed several strata of bones with those nearest the surface the least decayed and "conjectured that in this barrow might have been a thousand skeletons."

. . . Jefferson added that "about thirty years ago" he observed a party of Indians visiting the barrow [Vance’s note: in this report, the author records that Jefferson called the mounds “barrows”.]. They "went through the woods directly to it, without any instructions or enquiry, and having staid about it some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey."9 Jefferson submitted a draft of the Notes to Marbois in 1781, and it has been suggested that Jefferson's sighting of the Indians at the barrow "about thirty years ago" would have been, therefore, when he was about eight years old . . . given Jefferson was born in 1743 . . .

Knowing what we know today, vast numbers of Native Americans died in several catastrophies we now know were epidemics of small pox. These survivors of this holocaust knew exactly where this graveyard was located, implying this was a recently used graveyard. The sadness of the people tells us the dead were their relatives. Continuing with the narrative;

. . . scholars agree that the "Indian Town" mentioned by Jefferson was the Monacan village of Monasukapanough, which probably occupied both banks of the South Fork at this point.21 Research at this site is ongoing.

If some of these were small pox deaths, does Jefferson’s excavation correspond to any known small pox epidemic? It is known the Catawba had one last small pox epidemic about 1780. Was this a result of Jefferson opening up the graveyard and exposing the people to the disease once again? It was said the entire Catawba Nation moved to Virginia during the Revolution, for far of what the British would do to them as they treated the Revolutionary soldiers with great brutality in the Carolinas.

In the next few years, many of the Catawba and associated bands became Christians. There were but a few survivors. But the Saponi and Monacan in southern Virginia remained. They mixed with local Whites and Negros, and some of them started to forget their Saponi, Monacan, and Catawban roots. Local Whited NEVER recalled their Native roots, and started calling them “Cherokee’s”. A French Huguenot term dating to the mass migration of French protestants to the Carolinas and Virginia called these mixed race folks, “Melungeon”, meaning “we mix”, and for some reason, the Saponi and Monacan people started being called “Melangeons”. These mixed race folks had adopted a way of burial that was popular with other eastern woodland tribes of the southeast. They abandoned the idea of burial mounds, and gave their people Christian burials described below.

Dromgoole’s report on a Melungeon Cemetery

I found the following online -- “The Malungeons” by Will Allen Dromgoole (1891 article)

October 14, 2016Resources for Research; “The Malungeons”; The Arena; March 1891.

Dromgoole wrote some devastating lies about the Melungeons. They are probably part of the reason why the Western Catawba were never federally recognized as a tribe. But she also told interesting facts about us. Here are a few interesting things that she reported –

I tracked them to Newman’s Ridge in Hancock County, where within four miles of one of the prettiest county towns in Tennessee, may be found all that remains of that outcast race whose descent is a riddle the historian has never solved. In appearance they bear a striking resemblance to the Cherokees.

Here Dromgoole, after claiming we descended from Portuguese and others who NEVER immigrated to Virginia or the Carolinas, bear a striking resemblance to the Cherokees.

Further in this same writing, she gives an accurate description of a later day Southeastern Native American cemetery. The earlier cemetery was pre-Christian cemetery was described in some of its aspects in Jefferson’s mound. After Christianity, this described the Native view or burial. Note the similarity of a Melungeon burial to a Native American burial of a Creek Nation citizen.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4387/Will-Sampson

This is the final resting place of an artist and actor, Will Sampson. He was a Creek Nation citizen, you might recall from “One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest and other films.

Photo of Will Sampson

The same link says of him, “Actor. Born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, he was a Native American of the Creek Nation most noted for his role as ‘Chief' opposite actor Jack Nicholson in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" (1975). At 6'5" tall, he also appeared in "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976), "Orca" (1977), "The White Buffalo" (1977), "Standing Tall" (1978), "Fish Hawk" (1979), "Poltergeist

II" (1986) and "Firewalker" (1986). He was also an accomplished artist and founder of the American Indian Registry for the Performing Arts.”

I’d like to mention that I too, was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. 😊 I hate using a photo of Will for this blog entry, and if any family members object to it, I will take it down. I am just looking for a photo of an Indian cemetery to show the similarity of an 1890 description of a Melungeon cemetery and a modern photo of a Native American cemetery today. Public figures are saying we descend from Gypsies or Portuguese. They are diluting out REAL ancestry more than is necessary. Yes, today, we are of mixed race, but our original settlements were Saponi and Monacan. We mixed with Caucasians and Negros mostly. If there was a Portuguese or Gypsy mixture, and there might have been – it was MINOR, and not a major contributing factor in our genealogy.

Now notice what Ms. Will Allen says of Melungeon cemeteries in the above-mentioned article.

Near the schoolhouse is a Malungeon grave-yard. The Malungeons are very careful for their dead. They build a kind of floorless house above each separate grave, many of the homes of the dead being far better than the dwellings of the living. The grave-yard presents the appearance of a diminutive town, or settlement, and is kept with great nicety and care. They mourn their dead for years, and every friend and acquaintance is expected to join in the funeral arrangements. They follow the body to the grave, sometimes families, afoot, in single file. Their burial ceremonies are exceedingly interesting and peculiar.