How the Saponi Became the Melungeons

This is the best Story About the Origin of the Melungeon Story I have Ever Seen.

This is the best origin of the Melungeon Story I have Ever Seen. I once commented with Dr. Richard Carlson online in “Messsenger” asking for permission to comment on his work online and he replied, “I appreciate your asking permission. I've followed you blogs to limited extent, and I'm pleased to find that you 'get' what I was trying to convey. Yes, you can use, quote, whatever you need.”

Carlson Part I; Trouble with Neighboring Tribes

Excerpts and comments from/about “Who’s Your People” by Dr. Richard Carlson

Dr. Richard Allen Carlson wrote a PhD dissertation about a branch of the Saponi. Like me, he had Indian blood that he couldn’t explain. So in a sense, he and I are on similar quests. He speaks of his family’s Guion Miller Application being rejected back at the beginning of the 20th century. I can’t say the same. However my family lived in “Indian Territory” (present day Oklahoma) at the time. I can say there is a family story that either started to sign up for Dawes or Guion-Miller (I don’t know which), got angry about something walked away. Carlson ties the Melungeons to the Saponi Indians.

He concludes by the early 1800s, these citizen Indian families left their homes off the New River in the Mountains of the Virginia-North Carolina border region and ultimately formed the Greasy Rock, Stone Mountain, and Salyersville Indian Communities.” Carlson refers to Ohio and parts of Oklahoma and the Kentucky Mountains.

Carlson speaks of “refugee Indian families”. He speaks of three Indian populations, i.] Greasy Rock, ii.] Stone Mountain, and iii.] Salyersville, then says “Just prior to the period when the prominent anthropologists, like James Mooney and Frank Speck, were speculating on the identity and fate of ‘Eastern Indian Survivals’, other outside observers were characterizing these three interrelated Indian populations as “Melungeon” and this trend continues to this day No confirmed etymology of this regionally specific label has been developed, but most contend the word stems from the French mélange, meaning “mixed”. . . .

Primarily a result of a few particularly influential publications that emerged from 1889 to 1891, the imposed Melungeon label is used in attempts to explain ‘Melungeon origins’. These explanations are based on various conjectural histories supported by popular myths and legends regarding, in part, shipwrecked Phoenician sailors, the lost Colony of Roanoke, Turkish mercenaries, the Welsh chief Modoc, Pardo’s lost sailors, and/or the Lost Tribes of Israel, all of whom were said to have ‘took up’ with Indian women to contemporary ‘Melungeon’ populations. These theories segregate ‘Melungeon’ identity from Indian identity, and instead hold the Stone Mountain, Greasy Rock, and Salyersville Indian population to be representative of many mislabeled ‘marginal groups’, or ‘racial isolates’, ‘racial survivor’ or ‘racial enclaves’ scattered throughout the American Southeast. Implicit in these labels are sociological assumptions regarding the ‘culture of poverty’ and 'miscegenation’.

We CAN Know Who We Are

Most popular and professional writers still accept the premise, generated in the 1800s, that Melungeon History and heritage – biological and social – is forever lost to contemporary researchers. Such outsiders have thus downplayed the people’s own assertions of being Indians in favor of emphacizing the possibilities of White, Black, Portuguese, Phoenecian, Jewish, Moorish, Turkish, and/or Lost Colony ancestry among them (even though all mention that these potential old world ancestors must have taken up with the Indians to bring forth the present population). . . . A poignant example is apparent in a 1947 Saturday Evening Post article focusing on the Greasy Rock population. Showing a photo of elder Asa Gibson, the author wrote “were his ancestors Welsh warriors, Phoenecians, or Survivors of Roanoke? . . . [Asa] say’s he’s 75 years old and an Indian [39].”

With the consent of the ex-Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, a small band of Christian Saponi Indians had been residing on Spotswoods private land holdings at Fox’s Neck on the Rapidan River. They had lived there on the western fringes of Old Virginia at least since 1738. But not long after Spotswood’s death in the Summer of 1740, this band of Christian Indians had become having troubles with the local settlers. In the Spring of 1742, 26 of the Saponi men residing at the Fox’s Neck village were in court defending themselves from the vague accusations of “doing mischief”. Now, less that one year later, Saponi men again found themselves arrested and brought before the court of Orange County held near Somerville Ford “for stealing hogs and burning the woods”. Names are preserved in court records show Saponi men named John Collins, Alex Machartion, John Bowling, Maniassa, Craft Tom, Blind Tom, Foolish Jack, Isaac and harry as being among those arrested and brought in to face the charges. Having had their guns seized, the men were taken before the court for trial “by precept under the hands and seals of William Russell and Ed Spencer, gentleman under the charges of not only stealing hogs and burning the woods, but also “terrifying one Lawrence Strothers”, who claimed he had been shot and chased by the Saponi. The Saponi men were ordered held until bonded, after which they were ordered to leave the county. . . .[67]

Following the identity of the Saponi from documents recorded before this 1743 incident, it becomes clear that this band was previously a part of the composite Indian community that, some twenty-five years earlier, had flourished at Fort CHristanna Reservation down on the Meherrin River. . . . The Christian Band of the Saponi were also living legacy of the Saponi signers of the infamous Treaty of Middle Plantation of 1677.

(p 52) In 1732 William Byrd III recalled the configuration of these Siouan tribes consolidating at the Fort Christanna Reservation. He described how “. . . each of these was formerly a distinct Nation, or rather several clans or canton’s of the same Nation, speaking the same language, and using the same Customs.”

Starting p. 59, Carlson says; Governor Spotswood had long proposed to educate Indians in their own towns . . . The governor argued elsewhere that, by educating the Indians in their own villages, Virginia could go far to “banage [sic] savage customs in a generation or two” among the tribes where they could be made more “. . . useful as neighbors” . . . As Spotswood perceived it, the Colony’s military and economic interests directly related to his long-standing conviction of wanting to “Christianize and civilize the Tributarys” [115, 116, 117].The Indians living in the colony of Virginia wre called in those days “tributary” Indians.

Carlson mentions in 1716, a trip made to Fort Christanna, a place where the Saponi were settled been by Spotswood. The governor visited the fort with a clergyman named Rev. John Fontaine. Fontaine mentioned the fort was located on the Meherren River, and about 200 Sapony Indians resided near the fort. Fontaine says he was surprised that some of them could speak good English.

Carlson then says (p 64); Fontaine spent a considerable amount of time conversing with the instructor of the Saponi Indian school, Rev. Charles Griffin. Frustrated at the repeated denials from the Virginia Council to fund a missionary school teacher for the Saponi, Spotswood still personally employed the English Clergyman. Fountaine found Griffin enthusiastically carrying out his mission “to teach the Indian children and bring them to Christianity”. Besides running the Fort’s church, Reverend Griffin’s work among the Saponi involved teaching their children to read the Bible and repeat “common prayers”. He was also teaching broader skills in speaking, reading, and writing English, and Fontaine noted he “hath had good success amongst them.” One evening Fontaine attended a common prayer reading and noted that the eight Indian boys participating “answered very well to their prayers and understand what is read.” [133]

. . . In 1716 Spotswood was reporting to the Bishop of London on the continued success of the school in operation for the Saponi, but desperately requested more funding. And the governor frequently made trips to the Saponi Reservation and the law officially “directing the Indian Company to take over the fort later in December” was passed.

Carlson speaks of several attacks from the Five Nations Indians and others, upon the Saponi and mentions the killing of some Catawba’a, whom it says are allies of the Saponi. He says (p 69) despite the peace made in 1718, the Iroquois attacked again in 1722. This was even though the Saponi didn’t take part in the Tuscarora Wars a few years earlier, as did many of their other Catawban allies.

More about Rev. John Fontaine

Rev. John Fontaine wrote a memoir entitled “Journal of John Fontaine: An Irish Huguenot Son in Spain and Virginia, 1710-1719”. At http://www.virginiaplaces.org/settleland/fontaine.html there is a section on the Huguenots. Several paragraphs are dedicated to this Rev. John Fontaine. Quoting from it, we have;

John Fontaine's father and grandfather were Huguenots who suffered official persecution by the Catholics in France. In 1693 John was born in England, to which his father had fled as a refugee. His father then migrated to Ireland, and succeeded in getting John a commission in an Irish regiment in 1710. John Fontaine served briefly in Spain, then investigated Virginia in 1715-19 before returning to England.

http://virginiahuguenot.blogspot.com/

Learn more about Virginia’s Huguenot peoples at the link above.

So we have a Saponi Indian surnamed Griffin in 1743 living on Governor Spotswood’s lands, and a teacher at the Saponi School near Fort Christanna surnamed Griffin. We have a French Huguenot Reverend visiting the Saponi at Fort Christanna, and the word “Melungeon” comes from the French “mélange” meaning “to mix”. There is also a “Collins” Saponi in 1743 and we know there were Collins Melungeons in the 1790s. We have evidence connecting the Melungeons to the Saponi. I am looking foreward to more evidence that will emerge in the next 500-plus pages.

Troubles with Neighboring Tribes

Pages 70 to 95 of Carlson’s Dissertation discuss from about1718-1728. The author talks about the Indians at Fort Christanna, saying that although they went under the name of Saponi, they were a Occoneechi, Stengenocks, Meipotskis, and Tutelo. The author includes the Outaponis as well.

There is a story of an Indian named “Sawney” who had recently returned to Virginia from Canada. He had been captured by the “French Indians”. Somehow he escaped about 1724 and returned to Virginia. Once in Virginia, he was arrested and was accused of threatening the inhabitants with incursions from his former allies, the “French Indians” from Canada. He denied bringing messages to the Saponis. I mention this because I know dad had an uncle named “Uncle Swaney”, so the story of this “Sawney” caught my attention. The similarity of these names is probably just a coincidence, though.

Well, the Northern Indians did continue their attacks in Virginia. Carlson says; “More Virginia settlers were killed by Iroquois in the winter of 1725-1726 . . . the sachems of the Five Nations replied . . . it was some of their warriors operating without authority in conjunction with some French Indians and Tuscaroras who committed the killings.”[151] The sachems of the Iroquois defended their warriors, saying the killing of the Virginians was a mistake, and that they were really after “enemy Indians”. It was recorded that about this time, seven Saponi were killed or captured by some Tuscarora warriors.

In 1727 the Saponi came to the Virginia Assembly in Williamsburg and asked for satisfaction. The Saponi said in the Virginians took no action on the Tuscarora, they would take the matter into their own hands. Well, Virginia did nothing, so the Saponi went to the Catawba, who did take action.

There was an attack on the Meherrin Indians, who complained to the same Virginia Assembly the Saponis had complained to the pevious year. They blaimed the Occoneechi’s and Saponis. And the Nottaways complained the Meherrins had attacked them. The Saponis with the Catawba attacked the Tuscarora, of King Blount’s Town. North Carolina officials meanwhile, blamed the Catawba and the primary instigator of these feuds, also holding the Saponi and Occoneechi responsible.

Governor Spotswood had retired and was replaced by Governor Gooch, and he was not as friendly towards the Saponi as his predecessor. The Virginians had done nothing to help the Saponi when they asked for help after seven of their men were killed, while the Catawba did come to their aid. To add to this mistrust, three Saponi men were accused of killing two Nottaway’s. Three Saponi chiefs were held in jail until those guilty of the killings were brought forward. The killing of the son of the Tutelo chief also added fuel to the fire. A report came in (page 76) that John Sauna (Sawnie) and a fellow named Ben Harrison (apparently an Indian named after the White trader), went south to bring up one hundred Catawba warriors to protest the incarceration of the three Saponi men . . . the Saponi said that if Captain Tom was hung, they would take their wives and children over the Roanoke, and then return to drive the Whites and Negroes to the James River, and go to war. [181]

The Tutelo king, grieving over the death of his son, threatened the life of the governor, saying then he’d go off to some foreign Indians. The old Tutelo king was ordered to be arrested, but Carlson says he found no evidence that this ever happened.

This takes us to the end of 1728, and the end of Carlson’s first chapter. From 1714 to 1728 the Saponis, Tutelos, Occoneechis, and others came together. War with the Iroquois, and pressure from the colonists forced this option upon them. However pressures from the colonists to make them conform to colonial laws also alienated them. They did obtain satisfaction from the Catawba, their allies.

According to Carlson, Byrd stated (p 93) that the executions by the colonists of three Saponi caused the Saponi to remove to the Catawba’s.

There are some interesting comments about the Indians way of life. First is the mention of corn. Carlson is paraphrasing Byrd. When talking of the colonists he calls “borderers, meaning the people that lived on the Virginia/North Carolina border (P. 82), Byrd also decries the “borderers” means of economy and subsistence; especially in North Carolina where he contemptuously noted they raised Indian corn instead of tobacco and fruit orchards which he blamed on laziness. Indian corn, he noted; “. . . is of so great increase that a little pains will subsist a very large family with bread . . .”

Concerning sex between races, Carlson again turns to Byrd, saying; Byrd and a few other ex-traders of the survey team would make a side trip into Virginia in hopes of finding some “entertainment” in the Nottaway Indian Town. The entertainment the surveyers sought out among the Nottaway turns out to have been sexual in nature. After mentioning two “pretty English women, the narrative continues; . . . we could find it in our hearts to change these fair beauties for the copper coloured ones of Nottaway Town.” Continuing to quote Byrd, Carlson writes of Byrd; He wrote in that evenings journal entry that the Nottaway “offered us no bed fellows, according to the good Indian fashion, which we had reason to take unkindly.”

Continuing on this theme, Carlson writes (P. 85), still quoting Byrd, “. . .one way of converting these poor infidels, and reclaiming them from barbarity and that is, charitably intermarry with them according with the modern policy of the most Christian King in Canada and Louisiana.” He continues saying that had the English done as the French, the country would be swarming with more people than it has insects, and . . . even their copper coloured complexion would admit of bleaching, if not in the first, at the farthest in the second generation . . . it is strange, therefore, that any good Christian should have refused a wholesome, straight bed-fellow, when he might have so fair a portion with her, as the merit of saving her soul.[210]

Byrd had a Saponi guide, Ned Bearskin. It was said this was his hunting name. Ned it was said, was a great hunter and kept them fed. It was said that Ned spoke English very well. Mention was made of seeing the smoke of Northern Indians, enemies of the Eastern Siouan Indians, as they were “firing the woods”, as was the Indian custom.

This takes us to the next section of Carlson’s Dissertation; The Saponi Diaspora, 1728-1743.

Carlson, Part II, The Saponi Diaspora

(P. 91) Speaking of March 1729, Carlson writes; “. . .most of the Saponi were still at Christanna in June, although some families had already left to join the Catawba and/or other Tutelo now living far from the Christanna reservation.” One of the main reasons that the Saponi left Christanna was the hanging of a Saponi elder. A drunken Saponi leader had earlier killed an Englishman. (P. 93). Carlson states “. . . the Sapony’s took this so much to heart, that soon after quitted their settlement and moved in a body to the Cataubas.[233]

“By late in the summer of 1729, the Saponi and confederated bands and families that remained with them finally departed the Christanna Reservation. This abandonment of the Reservation would begin a diaspora of the people that once resided there. Comments later made by John Mitchell in 1755 stated that, in 1729, both the Saponi and the Tutelo “had removed further South upon the heads of the Pee Dee”at the Northern end of what was known as Catawba Territory. Byrd also noed that the Saponi removed to Catawba Territory that year. He explained that this people is now made up of the remnant of several other nations, of which the most considerable are the Saponey’s, Occoneechi’s, and the Steukenhocks,, who not finding themselves separately numerous enough for their defence, have agreed to unite into one body, and all of them now go under the name of the Sappony. . . A French map published late in 1729 reveals that one faction labeled labeled the “Sapon Nahisan”had removed far west from the extent of settlement far up on the headwaters of the Roanoke River. [233, 234]

Speaking of the Tutelo, (P. 94) Carlson says they wondered up and down the Appalachians until by 1740 they joined their old enemies, the Iroquois. In 1730 (P. 95) the Catawba and Saponi living with them, asked to make a treaty with Virginia. Nothing came of it. In 1732, Byrd, speaking of the Catawba, said “their population of more than 400 fighting men was spread through six towns on the Santee River in Carolina along a 20 mile stretch.” [240, 241]

Since the Saponi had abandoned their homes at Fort Christanna, the state of Virginia assumes they have abandoned it. By the winter of 1730, the Virginia Council decided to sell off the reservation. Carlson finds only one reference to the Saponi found in the Carolinas on Catawba lands. He speaks of the Tuscarora harassing a small band of Settlement Indians.

By 1732 (P. 96) the Saponi living with the Catawba decided to leave them. The Saponi Indians asked the state of Virginia if they could return, and also asked if the Sara (Saura/Cheraw) [247] could come with them. The Virginians agreed to this, and promised them an equal amount of land that they had lost at Christanna, so long as it was not settled, either on the Roanoke or Appamatox Rivers. They built a fort near their old haunts, near Fort Christanna. Carlson goes on to say there was immediately tension as before, between the Saponi and the Nottaway. The Tuscarora, the Nottaway, and the Five Nations (Iroquois) continually attacked the Saponi. Eventually the Virginians, sided with the Saponi, and eventually local militias in Virginia helped subside the tensions between rival groups. Even King Blunt of the Tuscarora, attempting to mediate an end to the war, asked the Saponi to join him. There is no record of a response from the Saponi. It appears the Saponi abandoned their fort in Brunswick County, and are not found again in historic documents (by Carlson) until 1735. Two bands of the Saponi and Tutelo are found in the Mountains of North Carolina. Carlson says (Pp. 99-100); “One era map also shows that a band of the Occoneechi had split off from the main body of the Saponi, and by 1733 were living off the trading path where it crossed the Eno or the Flatt River in North Carolina. Bricknells 1737 publication reported that in the year 1735 and/or 36, the band of Saponi closely associated with the Catawba was located on the Clarendon River (in the west branch of the Cape Fear River) in North Carolina. This Sapona Village was some five to six days ‘over the mountains’ far removed from colonial settlements. Bricknell also mentions that the ‘Totera’ then had a village somewhere nearby this Saponi town, although deeper into the mountains. Of the people of these two villages, Bricknell wrote that they usually do not ‘make visits amongst us except to be their traders who bring us their skins and furs.’

Carlson continues on the documentary trail of the Saponi. The next reference Carlson discovers is in 1737, where there is areference to ‘Saponi cabins” that appear to still be inhabited, in Amelia County, Virginia. This Saponi community was located on a branch of Winningham Creek, a tributary of the Appomattox River. This was near a former trading post run by Colonel John Bolling. Carlson states that although there is no longer a trading post in the area, the Bolling family was still in the area. He states that both Bolling and the Saponi were friends of Colonel Mumford. Recall that earlier the Saponi were offered lands near this area, but there is no record, according to Carlson, of them receiving the lands.

It is here (p. 101) that Carlson starts referring to the “Christian Band” of the Saponi. Carlson’s next reference– “By 1738, a Christian Band of the Saponi had established a new village a little further north on the personal lands of the now ex-Governor of Virginia, Alexander Spotswood, who had retired upon his plantation in neighboring Spotsylvania County. Apparently the band had gained permission from him to reside on Fox’s Neck of the Rapidan River in Orange County, not far from old Fort Germanna.[266] This Christian Band of the Saponi would be able to maintain residence here for some time in the company of their old benefactor.

"From 1738 on, the Orange County Court records mention various petitions from Alexander Maurchtoon, John Sauna, John Collins, John Bowling, and others, all of whom are described there is specifically as “Christian Saponey Indians.”[267]

Carlson notes one change. Whereas the Saponi had been considered “Tributary Indians” before they left Fort Christanna, this distinction no longer applied afterwards. He says pp. 101-102, with respect to these Christian Saponi;” [267] . . . these Saponi were no longer treated as members of a Tributary Nation but more fully as “Citizen Indians” by the Virginians. There were to be consequences to this. After the death of their old advocate, ex-Governor Alexander Spotswood in 1740, complaints against Christian Saponi began being forwarded to county authorities by local settlers.

“In 1740 a local farmer named William Bohannon complained that ’26 of the Indians who inhabit Fox’s Neck were firing the woods’. He also accused them of killing some of his free ranging pigs.” He said he had “lost more pigs than usual since the coming of the Indians.” He says the Indians were being called into court, and were being accused of “doing mischief”. The following year Bohannon came again to Orange County officials complaining that he thought the Indians had shot at him.

Then Carlson adds, “The bands troubles would climax in the winter of 1743 when a number of Saponi men had their guns seized and found themselves arrested. The Saponi men named John Collins, Alex Machartion, John Bowling, Craft Tom, Blind Tom, Foolish Jack, Charles Griffen, Little Jack, Isaac and Harvey were taken before the Orange County court for trial ‘by precept under the hands and seals of William Russell and Ed Spencer, gentleman’, under the charges of stealing hogs, burning the woods, and terrifying one Lawrence Strothers. Strothers had even claimed that he was shot at and chased by the Saponi in the backwoods. The Saponi men were ordered held in jail until bonded, after which they were ordered to leave the county. Interestingly, several White men sympathetic to the Saponi predicament, ‘went security on their bail bonds,’ after which they were released and openly declared their intentions to depart the county within a week, at which time their guns would be returned.”[268, 269, 270]

Carlson continues, “Late in the summer of 1743, Governor Gooch of Virginia reported that the Saponies and other petty nations associated with them had left Virginia and were again residing in the Carolinas with the Catawba.” [274] Carlson reports that while some Saponi would forever remain with the Catawba, this Christian Band of Saponi would separate from them. He speaks of three Saponi bands that he describes as the Tutelo-Saponi, the Catawba Saponi, and this Christian Band of the Saponi. He will eventually link this Christian band with those later termed “Melungeons”.

The “Christian Band” of the Saponi, according to Carlson, had its start at Fort Christanna. Most of the Saponi were not responsive to the efforts on the behalf of Governor Spotswood’s school for the Saponi. A part of that education was an attempt to turn the heathen into Christians. But it appears that the school master, Charles Griffin, had an effect on a few of the Indians, and they must have converted to Christianity. Carlson asks us to recall an incident he described in 1728. He had, p. 102, mentioned a record where “certain Saponi’s” informed the Virginians that the Tutelo chief and other Saponi were considering taking the colonists to war with the aid of the Catawba. They wanted vengeance over the hangings of three Saponi by the colonists. Were these informants the Christian Saponi? We will never know.

Carlson speaks of the two other bands, one that went to live with the Catawba, and a third, later called the Tutelo, who went north to live with Six Nations. This third band went to live in the vicinity of ex-Governor Spotwood, at a place called Fox Neck. Carlson says “The Orange County records also confirm that no interpreter was ever required in dealing with the Christian band when they found themselves in court. It also shows that the old policy observed by Reverand Fontaine at Fort Christanna less than three decades earlier, was no longer in force amongst the Christian Saponi.” Fontaine had maintained that the Saponi required interpreters, and their elders always spoke in their own language even if they could speak English, in their dealings with colonial officials. Carlson continues, “the Christian Band of the Saponi had established an identity distinct and separate from the Catawba Saponi or the Tutelo-Saponi refugees to the Iroquois country from at least 1738 onward.” Carlson states that from the late 1730s until the Revolutionary War, that only those families associated with the Orange County Saponi are referred to in the records as “Christian Saponi”.

Orange County records from 1738-1743 refer to several Saponi living in the area. They include Alex Machartion, John Collins, John Bowling, Charles Griffen, and other “Christian Indians.” The following names are also mentioned – Manincassa, Foolish Jack, Little Jack, Isaac, Harry, Captain Tom and Blind Tom. Charles Griffen appears to have taken his name from Rev. Griffin, a former school teacher at the Fort Christanna school. Captain Joseph Collins negotiated the release of Sauna from the “French Indians” in 1722. Carlson speculated the Machartion surname might have evolved into McCarty and McCarta surnames associated with the Collinses n the next century. Carlson speculates p 107, “evidence available from written records made subsequent to 1743, it is quite possible to surmise that John Collins is the son of “Captain Tom”, for an elder named Tom Collins is shown living with John and the rest of the Christian Saponi in the years immediately following their expulsion from Orange County. If this is so, one might further speculate that Blind Tom is Tom’s father.”

Carlson suspects the Bowling surname came amongst the Christian Band of the Saponi in the 1730s while living in Amelia County. The well known Powhattan mixed-blood family had for generations operated a trading house at the Falls of the Appomattox.

Per Carlton, “Exactly when and how the treaty obligations stemming form the 1677 and subsequent agreements with the Saponi were abolished, ignored or forgotten by Virginia authorities is not known. After 1733 no mention of the colony recognizing any treaty obligations to the Saponi appears in Virginia records. Regardless, by at least 1738, the Christian Saponi were being treated as Individual Citizen Indians a opposed to the political entity of ‘Tributary Indians’.

Carlton says . . . in 1743 the Christian Saponi went south to live near Catawba lands, however by in 174 5they were back in Virginia, in Louisa County, near to their former lands in Orange County (p 111), in the mountains south of Rapidan Station. The Christian Saponi would reside in the area for some time and would be noted as “Nassayn” (Saponi for ‘the People’) on 1749-1750 era maps.[285] Names listed living in this area are Sam and William Collins, along men named George and Thomas Gibson, Sam Bunch, Ben Branham, and a few others were charged with by Louisa County court of ‘concealing tithables’. . . . [286]

On page 112, “The likely source for the charge . . . was Virginia law that stipulated that, in addition to all adult males,all Indian, Negro and Mulatto women over 16 years of age were also tithable, unlike white women of the same age. . .The Christian Saponi may have felt they should be free from taxation a rightful heirs of the Tributary Nation. But as far as the Virginia government was concerned, ‘tributary status no longer applied. This being the case, they would now have to be subject to the Virginia Act of May 1723. The act stipulated that ‘all free Negroes, mulattos, Indians, (except tributary Indians to this government) male and female, above 16 years, and all wives of such Negroes, mulattos, or Indians (except Indians tributary to this government) shall be accounted tithable. . . . Social and economic barriers based on race labels would become a greater concern for these Christian Indians now that they had lost their political status as tributary Indians. [287]

We have followed the documentation of the Saponi Indians from 1729-1743. The presense amongst them of a "Charley Griffen" ties them back to old Fort Christanna, and the teacher Reverend Charles Griffin. Once they left Christanna, they lived for a time with the Catawba, and for a time with former Governor Spotswood. They wondered in search of new homes, with tribal unity disappearing, as a few remote families are gradually being absorbed into the frontier lifestyles of their white neighbors. In 1743 families again started to return to the Catawba. They simply didn't know where to go or what to do. The next section covers the timeframe when these Christian Saponi Indians became known more commonly a "Melungeons."

Still NOT Purtuguese!

Carlson also speaks documents mentioning “the Melungeon Indians”. He says (p. 192); “From 1813 to 1830 the large citizen Indian population around Greasy Rock and Stone Mountain was typified by extensive intermarriage between the primary families . . . This composite Indian population thus began to be referred to as “Melungeon Indians”. He speaks of a ‘Griffen Collins’ who enlisted for service in the War of 1812, but was discharged , Carlson says ‘probably due to his advanced age’. [524] Remember the Rev. Charles Griffin who was a school teacher at Fort Christanna? Remember the Saponi Indian named “Charles Griffen” a generation later residing near a Saponi Indian named ‘Thomas Collins’? Now, more than a half a century after that, we have an elderly ‘Melungeon’ named Griffen Collins! This is a straight line from Fort Christanna, a former Saponi Reservation in Virginia, to the Melungeons found in Hancock County, Tennessee and Scott County, Virginia. He also mentions other surnames, Bunch, Collins, Bolen, and Sizemore.

Joanne Gets the Final Word

Joanne and I have argued endlessly on line. But she has also helped me a great deal, and I have great respect for her. She might not believe that . . . but I do. :) Time to bury the tomahawk.

Anyway, one time she told me the following; I have always pondered why the (1) clerk at the church, if he was Nevil Wayland, would write the words, 'harboring them Melungins' -- His mother who is almost positively Kezziah GIBSON and her mother Mary GIBSON (2), both likely from Melungeon Gibson families were members of this church...

This just never made sense to me -- but then after reviewing the minutes it dawned on me. Wayland probably didn't write it, William Brickey did.

Interestingly shortly after Brickey wrote 'harboring them Melungins' -- Nevil Wayland and his Melungeon Gibson mother left the area and moved to Arkansas. And who was William Brickey? A second generation French Huguenot. So the first use of the word was written by none other than a FRENCHMAN.

I am closing with a photo Jonathan Wayland, of the son of Nevil Wayland Jr – he is the man Joanne was referring to above;

and a map showing the Nassayn living with the Catawba about 1750. Look at the very top of the map. Remember the speech where Catawba chiefs mentioned the Saponi's help during the French and Indian War, 1756-1763, only a few years after this map refers to us.

and another 1756 map showing both Nassaw (Saponi) and Charrow Towns. Just three years afterwards (1759) Spall Pox rampaged through this place killing more than half of the population. Also notice no mention of the Chickasaw in the area. Apparently, they had all returned home.