Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States; 1948

 

Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States . Pp. 407-438; Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institution, 1948. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office; William H. Gilbert

https://archive.org/stream/annualreportofbo1948smit/annualreportofbo1948smit_djvu.txt

The following was found at the website above.  This is a 1948 document describing the Indian peoples still found East of the Mississippi. This includes those people called "Melungeons". Since my famiy in included in this group, and since so much false information has been made public, I want it to be known publicly. Henceforth, I am sharing it, and hope this information will become known.

Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States

By William Harlen Gilbert, Jr., Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

Introduction

The following paper was prepared for the purpose of indicating the extent to which Indian blood still remains noticeable in our eastern States population in spite of the depletions arising from over 300 years of wars, invasions by disease and by white men from Europe and black men from Africa.

Any attempt to estimate the total amount of this Indian and mixed population must be based on an arbitrary classification of mixed-bloods as Indian who may frequently be more white or Negro in appearance. Anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 persons may be included in the groups described in the following pages.

The census returns of "blood purity" are of course not to be taken as in any way biologically accurate. These figures are much better used as indications of the character of local opinion. Throughout the following discussion the term "blood" is to be understood as relating to opinion and not to actual biological fact.

It will be noted that not all the Indian mixed groups have kept their original tribal names because in a considerable number of cases the only distinguishing terms are nicknames given them by white people. Where the native Indian speech is retained, some notice of the fact is given. In the same way the survival of other Indian customs and traits is noticed as additional evidence that Indian blood may survive.

The material in the following discussion is presented by States in geographic order, beginning with the northernmost part of the Atlantic seaboard and ranging down to Florida, thence across the Gulf coast to Texas, and finally concluding with some comments on certain midwestern States. In each State an effort is made to note the evidence for Indian survivals especially through cases of separate social groups found claiming an Indian descent. It will be noticed that the census figures are often below the unofficial estimates of these population remnants. All too often the census ignores their existence. The 1930 census figures have been used in this discussion since they give the tribal break-down, whereas the 1940 census does not.

1. Maine

According to the census, the Indian population of Maine totaled 1,012 in 1930. Of these, 76 were in Aroostook County on the northern borders (Malecite Tribe), 444 were in Washington County on the eastern border (Passamaquoddy Tribe), and 354 were in Penobscot County in the central part of the State (Penobscot Tribe), of the total, full-bloods were 46.3 percent, mixed-bloods 42.4 percent, and not recorded 11.3 percent.

Penobscot. — The Penobscot Tribe retains ownership of a number of islands in the Penobscot River from the falls at Old Town north to Mattawamkeag.

Figure 1. — Map showing location of groups in the eastern States of Indianand part Indian descent, 1946.

These islands total around 4,481 acres and the land is under family allotment. The State has encouraged agriculture by payments in past years, but the Indians are reluctant to engage in it. The principal settlements are at Old Town on Indian Island, some 12 miles north of Bangor, and on Old Lennon and Lincoln Islands. In 1915 tlie Penobscot totaled 22 families, and in 1939 there were 580 persons in the tribe. Considerable intermixture has taken place with the other two Indian tribes of Maine, the Passamaquoddy and Malecite. The Penobscot have a tribal government of their own, which is subject to the State of Maine, but have no Federal relationship. There are two political parties among these people, the Old Party and the New Party, each of which has an alternate term of 2 years in power with its own governor, lieutenant governor, representative to the State legislature, constable, council members, and minor officials.

Passamaquoddy. — This tribe, residing mainly on the south side of Passamaquoddy Bay and on nearby Lewis Island, now numbers around 500 members. Their principal settlement is at Point Pleasant and there is another near Princeton (in Princeton Township) to the north of the first. They also have their own tribal government and representative in the State legislature. Both the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy are mostly Roman Catholics, and the two Indian schools at Point Pleasant and Old Town have teachers supplied by the church, while the financial support is supplied by the State. Health conditions are good in both tribes, and where necessary the State provides payment for physician's care. Basketmaking, gardening, and poultry raising are prominent industries. The ALgonkian Indian speech is retained by these two major tribes.

2. New Hampshire

No important surviving social groups of Indians are recorded for New Hampshire. There are a few Pennacook Indians near Manchester, however,

3. Vermont

No surviving social groups of Indians are recorded for Vermont, although the census records a few scattered individuals.

4. Massachusetts

In 1930 the census recorded 874 Indians in Massachusetts, 356 in Barnstable County (Cape Cod), 178 in Bristol County (along the eastern border of Rhode Island), and 83 in Worcester County (in the east-central part of the State). The Cape Cod Indians are centered at Mashpee, Yarmouth, and Waquoit, while those in Bristol are near Fall River. At Gay Head, the westernmost part of Martha's Vineyard Island (Dukes County), there is a considerable group of pottery-making Indians (178 in 1930), mainly Wampanoags. In Plymouth County there are Indians at Assawompset Pond, while in Norfolk County there is a group located at Canton.

Only 2.5 percent of Massachusetts Indians are reported as fullbloods and the rest are mixed with white blood and to a great extent with Negro blood, and with the Portuguese "Bravas." These Indians are Baptists, attend public schools, and only 2.3 percent of those 10 years old or over were returned as illiterate in the 1930 census.

Two groups that stand out among the Massachusetts Indians are the Mashpee and the Nipmuc. The Mashpee live by fishing, making and selling of baskets, oystering, and cranberry picking. Like the Indians of Gay Head they are an organized "tribe" with an elected chief.

The Hassanamisco Band of Nipmuc are still to be found scattered in various towns of central Massachusetts (Grafton, Worcester, Boston, Gardner, and Mendon), and there are a few at Mystic, Conn., and Blackstone, R. I. The present-day family names of this group are Barber, Belden, Brown, Cisco or Sisco, Curliss, Gidger or Gigger, Gimbey, Hamilton, Hector, Heminway, Lewis, Moore, Peters, Scott, Tony, and Williams. The Nipmuc still cling tenaciously to their Indian identity and are set apart from Whites of the underprivileged class and also from mulattoes and Negroes. Apart from their traditions there is nothing in their manner of life which would set them apart. They are employed in skilled crafts and industries and in government offices.

5. Rhode Island

The census for 1930 records 318 Indians in Rhode Island, 170 in Washington County (along the southern coast near Kingston), and 138 in Providence County (in the northern parts of the State). Of the total, 19.5 percent were recorded as pure-bloods, 13.2 percent as mixed-bloods, while 67.3 percent were not recorded. There is said to be considerable mixture with both white and Negro blood, the lighter-skinned holding aloof from the darker group. These people attend the public schools, and about 2 percent of those 10 years old and over are recorded as illiterate. As in the case of the Massachusetts Indians, most of the Indian traditions and customs are lost, including the native speech. The Narragansett Association was incorporated under charter from the State in 1935 to include all tribesmen and now claims around 260 members. The dark mixed-bloods are said to have their own organization.

6. Connecticut

In 1930 the total number of Indians recorded for Connecticut by the census was 162. These were mostly scattered in a few settlements along the sea coast and inland in New London County. The largest concentration is in the Groton area near the town of New London, where the Mohegan and Pequot tribesmen still survive. There are about 75 members of the Pequot Tribe located on two State reservations at Ledyard Town and Stonington Town in New London County. These groups own their own lands. A distinct tribe are the Mohegans who are located on the west bank of the Thames River 4 miles east of Norwich at the village of Mohegan and at Mohegan Hill. The Schaghticoke are a small handful of families located in Fairfield County on. the western border of the State where the Housatonic bends westward almost to the New York border. There is a small group of Indians at Niantic, west of the town of New London, and a similar small group on landof the Paugusetts near Bridgeport. All these various groups are under the State of Connecticut Park and Forest Commission. Some survivals of Indian arts are to be found such as basketry, woodcarving, beadwork, and nature lore, especially among the Mohegan and Pequot.

The census reports 9.3 percent of Connecticut Indians as full-bloods, 30.2 percent as mixed, and 60.5 percent as not recorded. As in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, there has been mixture with both white and Negro blood, and Indian traditions and speech have been almost entirely lost. About 2 percent of those 10 years of age and over were reported as illiterate in 1930. When the Mohegan

Association was formed by a State charter in 1920 to include all tribesmen, a total of 122 members were claimed.

7. New York

A total of 6,973 Indians was recorded for New York State in 1930. The majority of these were Iroquois tribesmen concentrated up-State on reservations in northern, central, and western New York. There were also a few other tribes of Indians located at certain points in eastern Long Island. In Orange and Rockland Counties, on the borders of New Jersey, are the Jackson Whites, a mountain people with a strongly marked Indian back- ground. The latter are not included as Indians in the census reports, how- ever. In 1930 some 11.6 percent of New York Indians 10 years old or over were illiterate.

Iroquois. — The Iroquois Indians of New York are mainly located on six reservations, namely, Cattaraugus, Allegany, Tuscarora, Tonawanda, Onondaga, and St. Regis. On these reservations they have retained to a remarkable degree their native speech, their native religion, and many aboriginal customs and traditions. There has been considerable admixture of white blood with these Indians. The census of 1930 reported 4,365 members of this group, 36.1 percent fullblood, 62.8 percent mixed-blood, and 1.1 percent not recorded.

The Cattaraugus Indian Reservation includes some 21,760 acres in Erie, Chautauqua, and Cattaraugus Counties, from the mouth of Cattaraugus Creek on Lake Erie to a point 10 or 12 miles from the mouth. Here live 2,000 Indians, mainly Senecas with a few Cayugas and Onondagas. They are steel workers, mechanics, farmers, trappers, and fishermen, and they lease some of their land to white market gardeners and to operators of gas wells. The Federal Government pays these Indians an annual treaty stipend. Flowers, sassafras, baskets, beads, and handiwork items are sold in the nearby cities. The Longhouse people of Newton keep up the annual cycle of thanksgiving festivals, being followers of Handsome Lake, the Seneca prophet (1750?-1815). Methodists and Baptists have long maintained missions here.

Along the Pennsylvania border in Cattaraugus County is located the Allegany Indian Reservation. This domain extends along both sides of the Allegheny River from the point where it enters Pennsylvania, in a long thin arc for 30 miles, and comprises 26,880 acres. This reservation borders the northern edge of Allegany State Park and adjoins the Cornplanter Reservation in Pennsylvania. A number of white communities are found within the bounds of this reservation, including the city of Salamanca, and whites hold the land on long-term leases. There are about 900 Senecas, of whom at least half speak Seneca, and a scattering of Cayuga’s living on small farms. The State appoints an attorney to guard the legal interests of these Indians under the Federal New York Indian Agency with superintendents in Buffalo. The Longhouse religion predominates, but Presbyterian and Baptist missions have been maintained here. Near the Allegany Reservation are some 640 acres of land owned by the Senecas in Allegany County at Oil Springs (near Cuba, N. Y.), which are leased to whites.

The Tuscarora Indian Reservation is located in Niagara County about 4 or 5 miles to the northeast of Niagara Falls, N. Y. This area comprises about 6,249 acres and has some 430 Tuscaroras living on it as farmers. There is a community house, a Baptist church, a school, and the State furnishes visiting supervisors. These Indians are all Christians but still retain their old-time language, council, and many old tribal laws. They are under the New York Indian Agency at Buffalo.

The Tonawanda Indian Reservation comprises 7,549 acres in Erie and Genesee Counties along Tonawanda Creek, 20 miles northeast of Buffalo, N. Y. On this reservation live about 600 Senecas of the Tonawanda Band of whom a third at least are Longhouse followers. Life chiefs govern through council. There are Baptist and Methodist missions among these people and the State Department of Public Welfare maintains a community house. Over half speak or understand Seneca. These Indians find employment in the gypsum plants of nearby Akron, N. Y., and also work on the roads and on nearby farms, and in Buffalo factories. A New York State attorney at Batavia represents them, and they come under New York Federal Agency.

In Onondaga County a few miles south of the center of Syracuse, N. Y., is located the Onondaga Indian Reservation, a tract of 6,100 acres, valley and highland. Here live 700 Onondaga Indians along with some 200 Oneidas, Cayugas, and other Indians. Onondaga is still spoken. Less than 100 of the Onondagas are said to be full-bloods. Rental is paid by white men for use of sand, stone quarries, and pipe lines. There are three churches, a public school, two council houses, and an office of the State department of health. One council house is used by the Longhouse group, who adhere to the Code of Handsome Lake and constitute about 30 percent of the total, the other by the Christian Indians. A council of life chiefs governs the tribe. Episcopalians and Methodists have maintained mission work here. Many of the Onondagas find employment in Syracuse factories and homes. About 30 miles eastward there are a few Oneidas settled on some 30 acres outside of Oneida, N. Y., St. Regis Indian Reservation is located on the Canadian border in Franklin and Lawrence Counties where the New York line reaches the St. Lawrence River. It comprises 16,640 acres, and is 9 miles long by 3 miles wide. Part of the St. Regis Reservation is on the Canadian side. There are 2,800 Indians here, mostly Mohawks. Of the entire group 100 are full-bloods, whereas the rest are mixed with white blood. These Indians are governed by three elected chiefs (a minority adhere to the life chief system) and as wards of the State pay no taxes and receive free medical care and schooling. Some are makers of baskets and moccasins, but the majority are dairy farmers, steel workers, and lumbermen. Both Methodist Episcopal and Roman Catholic mission workers have labored among these people, and none of them are pagans. They are under New York Federal Indian Agency at Buffalo. The Mohawk language is still spoken.

At Lake George, in the northeast of the State, there is a small band of Abenaki Indians.

Long Island Indians. — In eastern Long Island there are five remnants of Algonquian Indian groups, namely, the Shinnecock, the Poosepatuck, Montauk, Setauket, and Matinecock. The Indians in Suffolk County totaled about 266 according to the 1940 census. The Shinnecock are located on Shinnecock Bay near Southampton, N. Y. They occupy about 50 acres on a neck of land running out into the Bay and number about 150 persons, have a Presbyterian church, lease for cultivation about one-tenth of the land, do fishing, hunting, and clamming, and have lost most of their Indian culture, being much mixed with whites and Negroes. Their land is tax free, and they are governed by three trustees elected annually. The Shinnecock do beadwork and make a kind of brush for scouring pans. Their family names are Arch, Beaman,Bunn, Cuffee, Davis, Harvey, Kellis, Scudder, and Thompson.

The Poosepatuck occupy 50 acres near the mouth of the Mastic River about 15 miles west of the Shinnecock and are in the southern part of the town of Brookhaven. They have three trustees elected annually to manage their affairs, and have their own church and State-supported school. They have held this land since 1693 and now number about 10 families.

The Montauk have two settlements located on Montauk Point about 40 miles east of the Shinnecocks. Like the latter and the Poosepatuck they are largely mixed with white and Negro blood and have lost most of the Indian culture.

The Matinecock are a few Indians located near Cold Spring by Long Island Sound in Nassau County. The Setauket are a remnant located between Stony Brook and Wading River in Suffolk County.

Other New York mixed-bloods. — Along the banks of the Hudson River in New York State the country is well developed and modern in every re- spect. But on the upper edges of the hills whose slopes can be seen from the river live a border people, independent, primitive, and often of Indian mixed blood. They make a living of sorts by scanty cultivation, by fishing, by hunting, and by basketmaking. North of Albany in Rensselaer County these people are known as Van Guilders. In Columbia County live the "Bushwhackers," whose chief family names are Hotaling, Simmons, and Proper. These are also known as "Pondshiners." To the west of the Hudson, from Newburghsouthward, are other Bushwhackers. Those east of the Hudson are Indian and white, those to the west partly Negro. 

Estabrook and Davenport in 1912 described a group of Indian mixed bloods, under the pseudonym of "Nams," who were living in up-State New York. They characterized this group as alcoholics, ambitionless, and defective in both physical and mental inheritance. According to tradition they were descended from the issue of a Dutchman and an Indian "princess" some time before 1760 in western Massachusetts. These people, half vagabonds, half fishermen and hunters, left Massachusetts in 1800 and settled in New York State. The famous "Jukes," a group first described by Dugdale in the nineteenth century, were also an up-State New York group of mixed Indian and other descent.

In the Schoharie Valley, not far to the west of Albany, there are a number of isolated or submerged groups who seem to be of Indian mixed-blood de- scent. Such are the Slaughters of Slaughter Hill, a clan supposedly descended from a governor of Colonial times, the Honies of the southern partof Schoharie County, the Clappers of Clapper Hollow, and the "Arabs" of Summit. The Slaughters spend the summertime in berry picking, hunting, and fishing.

Jackson Whites. — These people are located in an area roughly extending from Goshen to Nyack along the New Jersey borders in Orange and Rock- land Counties. In some parts they show a predominance of Indian physical characteristics and in others of white or a mixture of white and Negro. The Indian blood is said to be derived from the Tuscarora and Munsee tribes, but the traditions and customs of the Indian are now difficult to find. A Negro Presbyterian church at Hillburn, N. Y., has carried on mision work among the Jackson Whites. The total number of these people in both New York and New Jersey is estimated at 5,000. Some of the principal family names among them are Cassalony, Cisco, De Groat, De Vries, Mann, and Van Dunk. Living on the margins of society, as they have been forced to do, the Jackson Whites have been a somewhat neglected class of people.

Some of the Jackson Whites have migrated to the industrial areas and the cities. Likewise some of the St. Regis Mohawks of up-State New York have taken up occupations such as ironwork and structural steel erection and have migrated to Brooklyn to form a colony there.

In Brooklyn there is an area called "the Gowanus District" which includes parts of Nevins Street, Atlantic Avenue, Pacific Street, and Schermerhorn Street. In this area there is at present a settlement of over 500 Indians, representatives of about 17 different tribes. Primary in importanc among this group are the Mohawks already referred to, steel workers and welders from up-State New York.

8. New Jersey

In 1930 the census reported 213 Indians in New Jersey, mainly located in Essex County (Newark). However, there were several groups of mixed-bloods not listed as Indians, such as the Jackson Whites of the northern counties, the Pineys of the central pine barrens, and the Moors and Gould- town people of Cumberland County in the southern part of the State.

Near Eaton Town in Monmouth County, N. J., a band of Indians settled before the Revolutionary War. They were supposedly descended from Tuscarora or Cherokee migrants from North Carolina. At a somewhat later date they located at Asbury Park upon a site called Sand Hill. They came to

be known as the Sand Hill Indians of Monmouth County and their home was called "The Reservation" or "Richardson Heights" after the name of one of their prominent members. Within the last 30 years the members of this group have largely scattered to other locations. Indian traditions and arts have survived among this group until the present time. Beadwork and basketry have been made in recent years.

Jackson Whites. — As already noted, the Jackson Whites totaling 5,000 or more, are scattered over parts of New York and New Jersey. As such they form an interstate population. They are a mixed-blood group, descendants of white, Indian, and in some areas Negro ancestors. They live by cultivation of the hillsides with a patch of corn or potatoes here and there, by hunting, and by keeping a few pigs, chickens, and now and then a cow. They are mainly located in the Ramapo Valley and the adjoining hills in Passaic, Bergen, and Morris Counties along the northern border. Wherever possible they are encouraged to enter local public schools. Split basketry and carved wooden utensils are manufactured as domestic industries.

Pinevs. — The Pineys in Burlington and adjacent counties are partly pure-blooded whites in some sections and mixed-bloods in others. At New Lisbon, about 25 miles directly east of Philadelphia, the colored or mixed-blood Pineys are most prominent, and these are said to contain a considerable contingent of Indian blood. Not far to the south of New Lisbon was the site of the last Indian reservation in New Jersey. The number of the Pineys has been estimated at 5,000.

Like the Jackson Whites, the Pineys are a neglected group who make a living by cranberry picking, weaving baskets, manufacturing ax handles, trapping, bootlegging, and doing odd jobs for nearby farmers. A few raise chickens and vegetables for home consumption. Like the Jackson Whites and certain Indian groups in southern New England, the asserted presence of Hessian blood may be a factor in stigmatizing these people.

Moors. — Around Bridgeton in Cumberland County, southern New Jersey, is a colony of the so-called Moors who seem to have come from central Delaware across Delaware Bay. These people appear to have Indian, Negro, and white antecedents and will be mentioned in more detail in the section on Delaware. Like the Jackson Whites, they constitute a part-Indian unorganized divisionof the population who are differentiated from their white and Negro neighbors. Also similarly to the Jackson Whites, they constitute an interstate population.

Near Bridgeton is a settlement called Gouldtown which is inhabited by a mixed people like the Moors but who seem to be of separate origin from them. The Gouldtown people have been regarded as light mulattoes by their neighbors.

9. Pennsylvania

The Seneca Indians of the Cornplanter Reservation in Warren County present an interstate Indian population just as the Jackson Whites do farther east. The Cornplanter area is close to the Allegany Reservation just over the line in New York State. There are about 30 Senecas and a few Onondagas living on the 800 acres of the Cornplanter Reservation. According to the 1930 census, of Pennsylvania's 523 Indians, 40 percent were pure-bloods, 29 percent mixed, and 31 percent not recorded. Practically all these Indians are Christians, and there is a Presbyterian church and a school. Seneca is spoken by the old people.

The census records a few Indians in certain other counties of Pennsylvania, in Alleghany (Pittsburgh), in Bucks (North Philadelphia), and in Philadelphia. The Indians of Philadelphia have their own association.

''The Pool Tribe." — In and about Towanda, Pa., and in various parts of Bradford County there is a submerged group which is referred to locally as "The Pool Tribe." There are over 500 members of this inbred group whose chief family names are Van der Pool, Johnson, Vincent, Heeman, and Wheeler. They are farm laborers, and a large section have the reputation of being subnormal and addicted to petty crime. Traditionally they are descended from Sir William Johnson who in 1744 left over 1 00 half-breed children by women of the Oneida, Mohawk, and other tribes.

Cherokees. — There is a small group of Indians, apparently of Cherokee descent, residing in the mountains near Harrisburg. Traditionally they are descended from a group of Cherokees who went northward with the Tuscarora in 1710 and stopped in the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania. They then took up homesteads in the Blue Mountains from Doublin Gap to directly north of Chambersburg. Since the papers and land titles of this group were burned recently during a quarrel between factions, the neighboring whites have been said to be "moving in" on the lands of these Indians.

10. Delaware  -- There are two groups in Delaware who are probably of part-Indian origin, the Moors of Kent County in the central part of the State and the Nanticokes of Sussex County in the

southern part of the State. The census does not return either of these groups as Indians, and no official data are gathered regarding them.

Moors. — This group, which here numbers about 500 persons according to private investigators, is located mainly around Cheswold, about 5 or 6 miles north of Dover, the State capital. As we have already noted, there is another colony of these people in southern New Jersey at Bridgeton.

They show a variety of physical traits and vary as to complexion from rather blond to very dark. It is thought that they may represent a cross of some dark race (not necessarily Negro) with Indians and whites. In common with the Nanticokes farther south, they are farmers, fishermen, carpenters, truck drivers, poultry raisers, storekeepers, gas station attendants, and common laborers. Unlike the Nanticokes, however, they have not organized themselves in a corporation for mutual betterment. They have their own churches, a Methodist and an Adventist group being represented, and seem to segregate in particular elementary schools. There is no provision for high schools for them locally, and they would have to attend Negro schools for this level of education.

Moors are characterized by certain family names, the principal ones being Carney, Carver, Coker, Dean, Durham, Hansley, Hughes, Morgan, Mosley, Munsee, Reed, Ridgeway, Sammons, and Seeney. Some of these names are shared by the Nanticokes.

Nanticokes. — The Nanticokes are located primarily around Mfllsboro on Indian River, but their settlements are somewhat scattered in the nearby area. They present more of the physical characteristics of the Indian than do the Moors and seem to have divided themselves socially into two groups, a darker group called the Harmony Group and a lighter group who cling to the name "Nanticoke" Indian. Altogether both groups are said to total about 700 people. First incorporated under State laws in 1881, they were reorganized and reincorporated in 1921 as the Nanticoke Indian Association. They are Methodists in the main and have their own churches.

The chief Nanticoke family names are Bumberry, Burke, Burton, Clark, Cormeans, Coursey, Davis, Drain, Hansor, Harmon, Hill, Jackson, John- son, Kimmey, Layton, Miller, Morris, Moseley, Newton, Norwood, Reed, Ridgeway, Rogers, Sockum, Street, Thomas, Thompson, Walker, and Wright. They have separate schools from whites, and to some of these schools Negroes are admitted. They are required to attend Negro high schools, if any. Many have obtained a higher education in spite of segregation. Most of the Indian customs are lost.

11. Maryland                                          

The census does not recognize any Indians in Maryland, just as in the cases of Delaware and New Jersey, yet there is a fairly large-size group called the Wesorts in southern Maryland, in Charles and Prince Georges Counties, who claim a part-Indian descent. In addition there are certain small groups of "Nanticokes" on the eastern shore in Dorchester County and vicinity, and a few very small groups in the Blue Ridge area on the borders of Frederick and Washington Counties.

Wesorts. — The Wesorts are scattered in rural areas about Bel Alton and Port Tobacco in Charles County, and at Brandywine, Upper Marlboro, and Oxon Hill in Prince Georges County. They are tenant farmers and truck farmers on the borders of Washington. Many have settled in Washington,

Pittsburgh, and other cities as artisans, salvagers, and small tradesmen. Their total numbers are estimated as upward of 5,000.

These people show physical traits reminiscent of whites, Indians, and Negroes. Some of them carry traditions and a few customs which may be of Indian origin. Locally they are considered in the same status as mulatoes and their children are required to attend Negro schools. They are Roman Catholics and generally tend to sit with or near the colored sections in churches. Although thrown into constant contact with Negroes they have mainly married only within their own group. They are characterized by these family names: Butler, Harley, Linkin, Mason, Newman, Proctor, Queen, Savoy, Swan, and Thompson. In spite of the fact that they have never organized themselves as a distinct minority, they have been recognized in parish and county records as separate from the Negro. They have a high birth rate.

12. West Virginia

As in previous cases mentioned, the census does not recognize any Indian groups in West Virginia. However, there is a fair-size group of people centering in northern Barbour and southern Taylor Counties in the northeastern part of the State who may lay claim to at least part-Indian ancestry. These are the "Guineas" whose numbers may range up to 6,000 or 7,000. Small groups of these people are to be found in six or seven other counties in northern West Virginia, in parts of  western Maryland, in cities of eastern and northern Ohio (such as Zanesville) and in Detroit.

The Guineas present the usual variety found in mixed-bloods, but the white and Indian seem to be most prominent. They have their own Methodist churches and attend segregated schools which are locally classed as "colored." As a class they stay apart from both whites and Negroes and are characterized by the following family names: Adams, Collins, Croston, Dalton, Kennedy, Mayle, Newman, Norris, and Prichard. Their racial classification has furnished considerable difficulty to the local authorities.

13. Virginia

The census of 1930 records only 771 Indians in Virginia, mostly in the Tidewater area, such as full-bloods, 53 percent as mixed-bloods; 27.7 percent are recorded as illiterate.

There are two schools of thought in Virginia regarding the mixture of blood in the Tidewater Indian tribes. One school holds that all, or practically all, the members of these tribes are mixed in some degree with the Negro. This opinion requires that birth certificates, marriage licenses, and military draft papers of the Indians take note of their classification as Negro and obliges public officers to treat them accordingly. This school of thought has been in the dominant position in the State administration.

The other school, apparently in the minority, holds that most of the Tidewater Indian groups have little or no Negro mixture in their blood and that they should be recognized as Indians or as Indian-white half-breeds. Evidently no accurate opinion can be rendered on the subject until a scientific investigation is made by physical anthropologists. 

Chickahominy. — This tribe is divided into two sections: (1) the Upper Chickahominy who reside principally in Charles City County at White Oak Swamp on the Chickahominy River near Roxbury, Va., and number about 357; (2) the Lower Chickahominy who live on the lower Chickahominy River on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad between Newport News and Richmond, in the neighborhood of Boulevard, Va. The latter group is about 55 miles from Newport News and 40 miles from Richmond. They number about 100 persons, and are situated in James City County. Both of these groups have intermarried with the Pamunkey Indians, their near neighbors to the north. The main Chickahominy family names are Adkins, Bradby, Colman, Holmes, Jeffeerson, Jones, Miles, Stuart, Swett, Thompson, and Wynne. 

The people of this tribe live by fishing and hunting in the river swamps and by cultivating patches on the nearby higher land. They were reorganized in 1908 as a tribe with a chief and other officials but have had no specially recognized reservation of long standing as have the Pamunkey and the Mattapony.

Pamunkey. — This group resides on a State reservation of about 800 acres in King William County at a bend of the Pamunkey River. They are hardly more than 20 miles due east of Richmond, the State capital. There are about 150 Pamunkey on the reservation with about 150 more scattered elsewhere. They derive a living by fishing, bird catching, and by cultivating their fields of corn and beans with the help of hired Negro labor. This reservation has been in existence since 1677. The Pamunkey neither vote nor pay taxes but are governed by an elected chief and council subject to supervision by trustees appointed by the State. The main family names current among these people are Bradby, Collins, Cook, Dennis, Hawkes, Holmes, Langston, Miles, Page, Sampson, and Swett. They are mostly Baptists. The Indian blood of the Pamunkey is variously estimated at from one-fifth to three-fourths.

Mattapony. — The next tribe to the north of the Pamunkey is the Mattapony. Like the Chickahominy the Mattapony are divided into two groups, both in King William County:

(1) the Lower Mattapony group is located on a State reservation of 50 acres situated on a bend of the Mattapony River not over 10 miles north of the Pamunkey; (2) the Upper Mattapony or Adamstown Indians, live about 20 miles west of the first group and about 38 miles northeast of Richmond (near Central Garage).

The Lower Mattapony number about 150 persons, the Upper group about 170. Both five by lumbering and farming. The chief family names in the Lower group are Allmond, Collins, Costello, Langston, Major, Reid, and Tuppin; in the Upper group Adams, and Holmes. The Lower

group has been organized as a reservation since 1658, whereas the Upper Mattapony have only been organized since 1923.

Rappahannock. — To the north of the Mattapony are the Rappahannock who are rather widely scattered in the area to the south of the Rappahannock River in Caroline, Essex, and Upper King and Queen Counties. They are centered especially around  Indian Neck, Va., and are estimated to number from 400 to 500 persons. This group was incorporated under State law as The Rappahannock Indian Association in 1919. They are unlike the previous groups mentioned in the great amount of dispersion which they have undergone as small bands. The area inhabited extends

roughly about 15 miles south and west, about 25 miles north and south, and in this section the whites constitute not more than a third of the population.

The Rappahannock are fishers, farmers, hunters, and some are expert basket makers. They are undoubtedly a mixed group with a varying percentage of Indian blood. A band in Upper Essex County has Nelson as the most common family name.

Miscellaneous Tidewater Indians. — In addition to the important groups just mentioned there are a number of other Indian remnants in the Tidewater of Virginia. The Potomac Indians, for example, are a small band of 150 to 200 persons situated in Stafford County about 8 miles due north of

Fredericksburg, Va., on a small branch of the Potomac River. They engage in farming and fishing, and their members appear on back roads of Prince William and Fairfax Counties right up to Alexandria, across from Washington, D. C.

There are also Indian groups in Northumberland County at the mouth of the Potomac River estimated to number around 300 persons. These are thought to be the remnant of the Wicomico Tribe of Colonial times.

Across the Chesapeake Bay on Virginia's eastern shore there are still to be found remnants of the Accohannock Tribe among the colored populations of Accomac and Northampton Counties. The number of these mixed folk is unknown, but they are said to be located at Accomac County Courthouse (Drummondtown) and near Fisher's Inlet in southern Northampton County. In the latter place they bear the family name of Miles.

Along the shores of the York River are also to be found small Indian remnants. A band in York County, on the south shore of the river to the northwest of Hampton, have the family name of Wise. On the opposite or north shore of the York River are certain small groups centering in Allmondsville and Gloucester Point in Gloucester County. The Gloucester County groups are said to number about 100 persons. At Allmondsville the family names are Allmond, Norris, and Langston, while those at Gloucester Point are Sampsons. The Gloucester County groups are thought to be remnants of the Werowocomoco Tribe of Colonial times. In the eastern part of Gloucester County is an area called Guinea Neck once inhabited by people called Guineamen who may have had an Indian connection.

Crossing over the James River to the southern shore one finds remnants of the Nansemond Tribe in Norfolk and Nansemond Counties. Their chief center is at Deep Creek in Norfolk County not far to the southwest of Norfolk, Va. Located on the northern and eastern edges of the Great Dismal Swamp they number about 200 souls dispersed rather widely. They are widely mixed and have a large number of family names. The principal names originally were Bass and Weaver. They are truck farmers, and ship produce to Norfolk commission houses. The Nansemond have been reorganized as a tribe since 1923. Allied to these may be the Skeeter- town Indians on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Nansemond County.

The Nansemond, along with the Chickahominy, Pamunkey, Mattapony, Rappahannock, and the Nanticoke of Delaware have for some years been organized as the revived Powhatan Confederacy of Indians.

West of the Nansemond in Southampton County between Sebrell and Courtland, there are asserted to be still remaining remnants of the Nottoway Tribe.

Piedmont and Blue Ridge Indian mixed-bloods. — Beginning with Rappahannock County in the north and continuing southward along the Blue Ridge through Rockbridge and Amherst Counties and striking directly southward to Halifax County on the North Carolina border we find small colonies of mixed people who claim Indian descent and are most generally called Issues.

Amherst County Issues. — This group of about 500 or 600 mixed-bloods is located in the central part of Amherst County about 4 or 5 miles west of the county seat. The principal settlements are on Bear Mountain and Tobacco Row Mountain in the Blue Ridge. At the extreme western end of the county is another mixed group of similar origin derived from Indian, white, and, in some localities, Negro blood. An Episcopal mission for the Issues is located 3 miles west of Sweet Briar College and comprises a school and other facilities.

The typical Issue is a very rich brunette with straight black hair and Caucasian features. The chief family names are Adcox, Branham, Johns, Redcross, and Willis. In the bottoms the Issues raise tobacco, while on the slopes corn and oats are cultivated. They are mostly renters and truck farmers. The white neighbors of these people are said to regard them as mulattoes. The term "Issue" is applied to mixed-bloods of the same type in many of the counties of Virginia.

Rockbridge County Brown People. — To the northwest of Amherst County in Rockbridge County is a small group located on Irish Creek, not more than 12 miles east of Lexington, Va., and called Brown People. Their number is estimated as over 300 and they show a mixture of white, Indian, and occasionally Negro blood. Like the Issues of Amherst County they are a group apart from both whites and Negroes.

Melungeons or Ramps. — In the counties located in the extreme western corner of Virginia are to be found scattered groups of mixed-bloods called Melungeons or Ramps. These people roam the mountain regions of Virginia, southern West Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and originally claimed Portuguese descent. The Virginia Melungeons are found on the mountain ridges such as Copper Ridge, Clinch Ridge, and Powell Valley in Lee and Scott Counties, in the vicinity of Coeburn and Norton in Wise County, near Damascus in Washington County, and in the western Dismal area of Giles County. No estimate of their numbers is available but they probably amount to several thousands. They show dark skins with straight or curly black hair and high cheek bones. Formerly they lived by raising a little corn, hunting, fishing, digging roots, gathering herbs, and doing odd jobs for their neighbors. In recent years they have taken to mining and cultivation in the better areas of bottom lands. The chief family names of Melungeons in this area are Bolen, Collins, Gibson or Gipson, Freeman, Goins, and Sexton.

Summary on Virginia Indians. — The remnants of Indian blood in Virginia can be divided into the Tidewater group and the Piedmont-Blue Ridge group. Both have lost the Indian languages and traditions almost entirely, but the former still maintains tribal organization and in some in- stances territorial reservations. The upland group shows no tribal organization but tends to retain traditions of Indian origin.

14. North Carolina

This State probably has the greatest number of pure-blood Indians of any of the Atlantic-coast States between New York and Florida. The total number of Indians reported for North Carolina in 1930 was 16,579. Of these 37.9 percent were reported as fullbloods, 54.8 percent as mixed, and 7.3 percent were not recorded. The chief concentrations of Indian population were in the extreme western counties where the Cherokees are centered and in the southern border county of Robeson where the Croatans are centered. The policy of the State has been rather liberal in the matter of recognition and special provision for its Indian population. About 29.6 percent of these Indians 10 years of age or older were illiterate in 1930.

Cherokees. — The 1 930 census reported 1,963 Cherokees in North Carolina. Unofficial estimates give a total of 3,700 Cherokees in this area. The census reported 38.7 percent purebloods in 1930, and 61.3 percent mixed. There is apparently very little Negro

blood in this group. Most of the Cherokees arc in Swain County where they have five "towns," Big Cove, Yellow Hill, Bird town, Wolftown, and Painttown. Other groups are found in Graham and Cherokee Counties nearby and in Jackson County. The term "Qualla Reservation"

denotes the five towns above mentioned plus certain other properties and covers about 55,784 acres. At Cherokee (Yellow Hill) the Federal Indian Office maintains an agency, a school, and certain medical facilities. Most of the Cherokees are small cultivators who raise a little corn in bottom lands and hillside patches. A few own a little livestock.

The Eastern Cherokee Band was incorporated under State law in 1889. The tribal government includes a chief elected every 4 years, and councilmen elected from each of the five towns and from the Graham County group. The Cherokee vote in some elections and pay State taxes. They still employ the native tongue and possess many of the magical practices, dances, games, and myths of their forefathers. Like their white neighbors they are Baptists and Methodists. In dress, diet, and houses they differ but little from the mountain whites.

Siouans or Croatans. — This group is estimated tonumber upwards of 16,000 persons and is thought to be increasing with greater rapidity than either whites or Negroes. Physical measurements indicate the presence of Indian, white, and Negro types. There is said to be a tendency for the lighter individuals and families to hold aloof from the darker ones just as in the case of the Nanticokes and the Narragansetts. They are found in greatest concentration in Robeson County but occur in considerable numbers in the nearby counties of Bladen, Columbus, Cumberland, Harnett, Sampson, and Scotland. Across the border in South Carolina they occur in Marlboro, Dillon, Marion, and Horry Counties.

The family names of these people are Allen, Bennett, Berry, Bridger, Brooks, Brown, Butler, Chapman, Chavis, Coleman, Cooper, Cumbo, Dare, Graham, Harris, Harvie, Howe, Johnson, Jones, Lasie, Little, Locklear, Lowrie, Lucas, Martin, Oxendine, Paine, Patterson, Powell, Sampson, Scott, Smith, Stevens, Taylor, Vicars, White, Willes, Wilkinson, Wood, and Wright. Their culture bears little of the Indian, but they claim partial descent from the "Lost Colony" of Raleigh at Roanoke.

Originally dwellers in the swamp- lands of the Lumbee River, they have become successful tenant farmers cultivating cotton, tobacco, and corn. The State has recognized their special status and they are endowed with a separate school system from both whites and Negroes. They have their own churches. Intermarriage with either Negroes or whites is forbidden by law and custom.

There are two factions today: one, calling itself the "Lumbee Indians," is located west and south of the Lumbee River; the other, calling itself  "Cherokee," is located east and north of the Lumbee River. The first group is poverty-stricken and lives under primitive conditions, while the second

is more advanced, more numerous, and is economically as well off as its white neighbors.

Miscellaneous Indians oj North Carolina. — In northeastern Person County on the Virginia border is located a group called Cubans who number about 400 persons. They also occur just across the State line in Halifax County, Va., around Christie and Virgilina. The chief family names are

Coleman, Eps, Martin, Shepherd, Stewart, and Tally. The State of North Carolina maintains an Indian school for these people near High Plains. Near the school the Cubans maintain their own Baptist church. They also maintain their own social lodge. Marriage with either whites or Negroes is unusual on the part of these people.

These Person County Indians may be descendants of a small band of Saponi Indians who, according to early census reports, inhabited Granville County, N. C. (from which Person County was later set off).

In northeastern North Carolina in Dare and Hyde Counties and in Roanoke Island are to be found a few Indian remnants of the Machapunga Tribe mixed with white and Negro blood. Their family names are Pugh, Daniels, Berry, and Westcott. Just outside the town of Hertford, N. C, in Perquimans County there is a group of mixedbloods who are called the Laster Tribe from their most common surname. They have a tradition of descent from a Moorish or Indian mixed-blood sea captain who long before the Civil War married a white woman and settled in this location. They maintain that they were never slaves and have held themselves somewhat aloof from the neighboring Negroes. At the present time they number several hundreds and many have gone westward to Indiana, Nebraska, and other States. In their original settlement they have their own school, church, and stores.

Somewhat to the west of Person County in Rockingham County the census of 1930 reports a considerable body of Indians. The identity of this group is not known. Likewise in Nash County, eastward of Raleigh, a small Indian group is recorded in the census of 1930. In Macon County near the Cherokee country some Croatans are said to have settled,

15. South Carolina

The 1930 census reports 969 Indians in South Carolina, primarily in Marlboro, Dillon, and York Counties along the northern borders, and in Sumter and Orangeburg Counties of the central part of the State. About 23 percent were reported as mixed-bloods, 26 percent as full-bloods, and the rest were not recorded. About 38 percent of the Indians were reported as illiterate. The census apparently reported only a small part of the population claiming Indian descent, and locally the mixed groups are often regarded as light mulattoes. There are some seven or eight groups distinguished by different names in the various counties of the Coastal Plain and Piedmont areasof the State. These are shown in the following table.

Four major geographical groups may be distinguished, namely, (1) Catawba, on northern border, (2) Croatans, also on northern border, (3) Red Legs and allied groups about the capital, and (4) Brass Ankles in coastal areas. Altogether these groups may total over 10,000 persons. In general they are similar to each other in manner of living and social status. They have lost almost everything that would distinguish them as Indians except the physical inheritance. The latter is of course greatly modified by mixture with white and Negro blood, yet these people are recognized locally as being distinct from both whites and Negroes, They have their own mixed-blood schools (locally classified as white), churches, and lodges.

The chief family names among these mixed bloods are Boone, Braveboy, Bunch, Chavis, Creek, Driggers. Coins, Harmon, Russell, Scott, Swett, and Williams. Formerly isolated by geographical factors they have, in recent years, been increasingly brought into contact with the world about them. They are hunters, fishers, and tenant farmers.

Catawbas. — The remnants of this tribe are located at a small settlement on the banks of the Catawba River in York County, about 9 miles southeast of Rockhill, the county seat. The settlement is about 1 square mile in area, or 630 acres. The 1930 census returned 159 Indians in York County. Their blood seems to be mostly a mixture of white and Indian. Although they are directly under the laws of South Carolina they maintain a semblance of tribal government, electing a chief every 4 years. Conditions have long been unsatisfactory with respect to economic and social

matters. The State has annually appropriated a sum of money to support the local school, but there are no local social agencies to assist the Catawbas. These Indians cut and haul wood and are employed as day laborers. The women often make clay pottery and pipes. Federal assistance has been given to these Indians in recent years.

16. Georgia

In most of the counties along the northern border of this State are to be found many hundreds of people of part-Cherokee descent, but these do not constitute a distinct social class. However, it is reliably reported that a small group of about 100 or more Cherokees and Creeks are at present located in a settlement near Shellbluff Laxiding in Burke County, about 10 miles south of Augusta and almost on the Savannah River. The family names are Clark, Woods, Shafer, and Deal. Their settlement is sometimes known as "Shaffertown" or "Shafferville" after the most common surname to be found there. A recent account carried by northern newspapers portrayed these Indians as living under rather primitive conditions, hunting, fishing, and cultivating in the manner of their early forefathers. In earlier days Yuchi, Shawnee, Apalachee, and Chickasaw Indians clustered in the vicinity of Augusta where the Savannah River crossed the fall line.

17. Florida

The census recorded 587 Indians in Florida in 1930, of which 53.3 percent were reported as pure-bloods, 0.4 per- cent as mixed, and 46.3 percent as not recorded. About 85 percent were reported as illiterate. The chief group is the Seminoles, whom we find scattered in half a dozen or more counties — Collier, Dade, Broward, St. Lucie, Glades, Hendry, Monroe, Okeechobee, and Osceola. This is the Everglades region from Lake Okeechobee southward, which constituted in the past century an ideal refuge for Indian hunters, living in a state of perpetual hostility to the white man.

The Seminoles speak their own language or languages and retain many of their aboriginal customs intact. They are largely self-governing and do not mix with other races. Legally they are entitled to send a representative to the Florida State Legislature. The Federal Indian Office maintains an agency at Dania, just north of Miami, with a school for the Seminole.

Satisfactory knowledge about the Seminole is difficult to obtain owing to the wide dispersal of these Indians and the difficulty of access to the swamp country. Most of them have retreated to the inner recesses of the Big Cypress Swamp in the extreme south. When they emerge from the swamps they are treated as whites in most public places and facilities. In recent years, writers have become interested in the many survivals of Indian customs to be found among these people.

Aside from the Seminoles there are certain other small mixed groups of possibly Indian descent in Florida. Around Pensacola are to be found the Creole mixed people of Escambia County and in the same area are certain groups of Creeks from across the border in Alabama. Some 100 miles to the east near Blountstown in Calhoun County there is said to be a colony of Melungeons from Tennessee.

18. Alabama

According to the 1930 census there were 465 Indians in Alabama. Of these 1.7 were reported as full-blood, 74.4 percent as mixed-blood, and 23.9 percent were not recorded. About 36 percent of these 10 years of age or over were reported as illiterate. Persons of Indian blood are concentrated in certain counties, notably Mobile, Monroe, and Washington in the southwestern part of the State, where they are known as Creoles and Cajans; in Escambia and Covington Counties on the Florida border where they are known as Creeks; in Jackson County at the northeast corner of the State where they are Cherokees; and in Autauga County, just west of Montgomery, the State capital.

Creeks. — There are over 200 Indians of this tribe in Escambia County. An Episcopal mission has been maintained for these people at the town of Atmore, and there is also an Indian school. The title to the land on which these Indians live is in dispute. It was apparently sold some years ago to lumber companies for nonpayment of taxes, but the Indians have continued to live on it. Recent suits have been instituted in State courts to recover title for the Indians. The social status of these people is intermediate between that of Negroes and whites, and they are recognized locally as a distinct race.

Creoles. — The Creoles of Alabama are a mixed people who are possibly part Indian in blood. They are centered in Baldwin County and Mobile in small colonies numbering several hundred people. They are a separate social class intermediate in racial status between the whites and Negroes. They have their own schools and in Mobile their own fire department. Their family names are mainly French and they are all Roman Catholic in religion. Their occupations are farming, oyster shucking, and similar work. Some are found in the Pensacola area of Florida and others along the Mississippi coast. Educationally they have made considerable progress. Their chief family names are Allen, Andry, Belasco, Ballariel, Battiste, Bernoudy, Cassino, Cato, Chastang, Collins, Gomez, Hiner, Juzang, Lafargue, Laland, Laurendine, Laurent, Mazangue, Mifflin, Nicholas, Perez, Ponquinette, Pope, Reid, Taylor, and Trenier. 

Cajans. — These people are centered in the area of heavy woods and hills about Citronelle in upper Mobile and lower Washington Counties, and num- ber 3,000 or more. They are reputed to be part Indian and part white, while a certain number are also said to show Negro blood. Some show rather blond complexions while others are swarthy and black-haired. They live in small isolated communities which are very difficult of access. They subsist by lumbering and turpentine extraction, and are as a class rather poor. The chief family names are Byrd, Carter, Chestang, Johnson, Jones, Rivers, Smith, Sullivan, Terry, and Weaver. Baptist and Methodist groups have missions among these people

19. Mississippi

The 1930 census reported a total of 1,458 Indians in Mississippi, and of these, 11.2 percent were reported as pure-bloods, 75.1 percent as mixed, and 13.7 percent were not recorded. The figure for illiteracy of those 10 years old and over was 63.4 percent in 1930.

Choctaws. — The Mississippi Indians are almost all Choctaws and they are scattered through half a dozen counties in the central parts of the State. The greatest concentration is in Neshoba County around Philadelphia, but a large number are also found in Newton, Jasper, and Jones Counties to the south, in Leake and Scott Counties to the west, and in Kemper County to the east. The Federal Indian Office maintains an agency at Philadelphia, Miss., which includes a hospital and day school.

The native speech is employed among these people. Mission work has been carried on among them by the Methodist Episcopal and Roman Catholic groups. Cultivation of the soil and hunting, along with simple craftsmanship, help these Indians to make a living. They have been in bad straits economically and are looked down on by their white neighbors. It is said that these are the only Indians of the south who have been compelled as a class to use the Negro accommodations in railway travel.

20. Louisiana

The 1930 census reported 1,536 Indians in Louisiana, of which 1 1 .2 percent were reported as full-bloods, 75.1 percent as mixed, and 13.7 percent as not recorded. Some 64.5 percent were recorded as illiterate. The principal groups are the Choctaw, Houma, and Chitimacha of the coastal areas, the Tunica of the lower Red River, the Red Bones of the southwest, and the Coushatta, a little to the southwest of the Tunica.

Houma. — These Indians, of very mixed blood, number upward of 1,000 and are increasing rapidly. They are located on Bayou Grand Caillou, south of the town of Houma, in Terrebonne and La Fourche Parishes. They are Roman Catholic, French speaking, dwell in palmetto huts and on houseboats; the men derive a living by fishing and trapping, and the women and children work in shrimp canning factories nearby. The family names are Billiot, Verdin, Diane or Dean, Parfait, Gregoire, and Verret.

Chitimacha. — This group numbers some 240 members situated at various points in St. Mary's Parish, just west of Terrebonne. Some are settled around Charenton and although classed as Negroes refuse to attend colored schools. They number upward of 100 and are Roman Catholic in religion. They raise corn, sugarcane, and sweet potatoes. They speak both English and French. Marriage with Negroes is forbidden and some claim to be full-blood Indians. Two bands, numbering 150 persons in all, live at Verdonville, some 10 miles from Franklin, and are of mixed blood.

Tunica. — It is unofficially estimated that from 50 to 100 of this tribe, greatly mixed in blood, still live in Avoyelles, La Salle, Catahoula, and Rapides Parishes near the mouth of the Red River and the Yazoo. Near Marksville, La., there are 40 or 50 of these Indians living on a tract of 170 acres. Their property is not a reservation and they are not under any Federal supervision. They are not taxed, however. A few still speak the native language.

Coushatta or Koasati. — These people number about 250 and live in Allen Parish near Kinder, La. They own 1,050 acres of land. They claim to have no Negro blood and attend white public schools. There is a Congregational Mission among them. This group has resided in the locality since about 1800, when it migrated from Alabama.

Miscellaneous Louisiana Indians. — The Choctaw of Bayou Lacomb on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain (St. Tammany Parish) formerly numbered some 50 persons. Small groups of Indian blood are also said to exist in Orleans (New Orleans) and Jefferson Parishes. The "Cane River Mulattoes" located on Cane River in Natchitoches Parish in the northwestern part of Louisiana may be of part-Indian descent as may be also the so-called mulattoes of Washington in St. Landry Parish, to the south of the Tunica country. Finally there are the mixed Indians of Calcasieu Parish on the Texas border, sometimes referred to as "Sabines," who were prominent in the border troubles of early days. Any of the mixed-blood Indians of this part of Louisiana may be referred to as "Red Bones," but this use of the term is not to be confused with the mixed people of the same name in South Carolina. The Red Bones probably number over 3,000 persons scattered about through the cut-over pine country of Calcasieu, Vernon, Allen, Rapides, and Beauregard Parishes. They have lived in this country for well over a hundred years, and a century ago they were classed as persons of color. Their family names are English (Ashworth, Perkins, etc.), and they are mostly Baptists. The occupations followed are small-scale farming, forest industries, or work in towns. Although they are now officially "white" and not segregated in schools, the whitesproper do not intermarry with them. Members of this group are said to resent intensely the name "Red Bone."

In general, the Indians of Louisiana, like those of Alabama, have lost most of their Indian culture and Indian speech. In contrast with the Choc- taws of Mississippi they are much more adapted to the white man's way of life.

21. Texas

The 1930 census reported 1,000 Indians in Texas. Of these 29.2 percent were reported as pure-blood, 26.2 percent as mbced-blood, and 44.6 percent were not recorded. About 18 percent of those 1 years of age and over were illiterate.

In some of the counties around Houston there were small groups of Indians, according to the census (Fort Bend and Harris Counties). A number are also recorded for Bexar County (San Antonio) and one or two other points.

Alabama and Coushatta Indians. — This group of over 300 Indians resides in Polk County some 80 miles northward of Houston, Tex. They are concentrated on an area of 14,321 acres near Livingston on Big Sandy Creek. They have lived here since 1854 when a grant was made by the State of Texas. They are farmers but still maintain many of the Indian customs, ornaments, and dances. The native speech is also retained. The State maintains an agent here, and there is a federally supervised school. There are two Presbyterian churches, a hospital, and a cemetery. These Indians elect a tribal chief and maintain the old clan system.

22. Arkansas

Some 408 Indians were recorded for this State in 1930 by the census. Of these 5.6 percent were reported as full-blood, 54.9 percent as mixed, and 39.5 percent were not recorded. The Indians in Arkansas are chiefly in counties along the border of Oklahoma (Benton, Sebastian, and Washington), in the State capital (Pulaski County), and in Garland County (Hot Springs).

23. Missouri

The census of 1930 reported 578 Indians in Missouri in 1 930. Of these, 6.7 percent were reported as fullblood, 35.5 as mixed, and 57.8 as not recorded. Most of these were in the counties bordering or nearest to Oklahoma (Newton, Jasper), and the counties of Jackson (Kansas City), and St, Louis (city of St, Louis).

24. Tennessee

The Indians of Tennessee numbered 161 in 1930, Of these, 0.6 percent were full-blood, 26.1 percent mixed-blood, and 73.3 percent not recorded. These were probably either mixed-blood people such as the Melungeons, or the purer-blooded Cherokees. The Cherokees are very few and are probably located exclusively in the eastern mountain counties. The census figure is thought to be an understatement.

Melungeons. — This interesting minority comprises several thousand persons who were originally centered in Hawkins County (now Hancock County) on Newman's Ridge in the extreme northeast of the State. They have also been reported from various other counties in the Appalachian Great Valley area, especially Rhea and Hamilton Counties, and also in the Nashville area. The chief family names in Tennessee are Collins, Fields, Freeman, Gann, Gibson, Goins, Gorvens, Graham, Lawson, Maloney, Mullins or Melons, Noel, Piniore, Sexton, and Wright.

Originally ridge cultivators, they have had to resort to additional means of living in recent times, including basketmaking, cooperage, chairmaking, and charcoal burning. Their manner of life is emphatically out-of-doors in character. Their physical type shows the usual range of mixed- blood between lighter and darker types. Indian, white, and especially Portuguese blood are said to be prominent.

Socially they have been recognized as white in the courts and now attend white schools. Illiteracy is widespread however. They have no separate organizations except churches, and they are gradually merging with the remainder of the population.

25. Kentucky

Some 234 Indians were recorded for Kentucky in 1910. Later census figures do not enumerate as many. Most of the Indians enumerated were in Magoffin and Floyd Counties in the eastern part of the State.

In southern Kentucky on the Tennessee border (in Cumberland and Monroe Counties) is the Coe Clan, a mixed group of part-Indian descent. These people live on Pea Ridge along the Cumberland River in an area bounded partly by that river on the south and west, by Kettle Creek on the east, and Gudio Creek on the north.

26. Ohio

There were 435 Indians in Ohio in 1930, 6 percent pure-blood, 20.9 per- cent mixed, and 73.1 percent not recorded, according to the census. These returns show their presence mainly in the cities of the State, as in Cleveland (Cuyahoga County), Columbus (Franklin County), Cincinnati (Hamilton County), Toledo (Lucas County), and Akron (Summit County). There were also a few Indians in rural Hardin County who may represent a survival from early times (a few refugees), in the Scioto marshes, and the settlement at Carmel.

There are a number of mixed-blood groups of part-Indian descent in Ohio who are not recorded in the census. The most notable of those is the Darke County mixed-blood group located near Tampico on the Indiana border about 40 miles northeast of Dayton, Ohio. This settlement dates back to the early nineteenth century, and members of the group still hold themselves apart from both Negroes and whites. At present they are said to number about 60 families, and they have their own schools and churches (Methodist).

Near the village of Carmel, Ohio, about 65 miles east of Cincinnati, there is a small group of mixed-blood Indians. They dated back to 1858, when a white man moved here from Virginia with a dozen Negro retainers about the time of the Civil War. The latter mixed with other people who had arrived not long before from Magoffin County in eastern Kentucky and who were reputedly of Indian descent. The present-day Carmel Indians live in shacks on the farmers' lands, where they provide occasional labor and subsist by hunting, sale of ginseng and yellow root, and by their scant stock of chickens and pigs. A few own small plots but the rest have been said to be on relief recently. Many migrated from the area during World War II, but about 50 still remain in the neighborhood. The family names are Nichols, Gibson, and Perkins.

27. Indiana

Although the census of 1930 enumerates only 285 Indians in Indiana in 1930 the number of Miami Indians in the State have been variously estimated in recent years as from 500 to 1,000. These Indians chiefly center in Miami County, 50 or 60 miles directly north of Indianapolis, but they also occur in some numbers in Wabash County east of Miami, and in Marion County (Indianapolis). Several congressional hearings have been held in recent years on the matter of land claims by these Indiana Indians. The 1930 census returns 7 percent as pure-blood, 28.8 percent as mixed-blood, and 64.2 percent as not recorded.

28. Illinois

The 1930 census reported 469 Indians in Illinois. These were chiefly in Cook County (Chicago), Alexander County (Cairo), and in Peoria County (Peoria) . No data are available on the condition of these Indians. The proportions of mixed and pure-bloods reported in 1930 are about the same as those for Indiana.

There are also reported to be a number of Creek Indians from the south along the route of the Illinois Central Railroad. In southern Illinois, not far from Centralia, a mixed-blood group of such Indians is said to exist.

Condition in General

The names by which the groups of surviving Indians in the eastern United States are known are of several origins. In the first place we have the survival of older tribal names such as Seneca, Cherokee, Nanticoke, and so on. In several instances it seems that the old tribal name was practically forgotten until anthropological investigators reinstilled an interest in the original name. About one-half of the surviving eastern groups of Indians are still known by historic tribal designations. The remainder of the groups are known by names derived from places, color terms, nationality or race terms, family names, ancestors, or from traditional origins or manner of living.

Places figure prominently in several instances. In South Carolina we hear of the Summerville Indians, in Louisiana of the Sabines (from the Sabine River), and in West Virginia of the G. and B. Indians (after the Grafton and Belington Railroad). The Guineas of West Virginia are supposed to derive their name from the district called Guinea on the Tygart River. Reservation or place names, with the word "Indian" attached, may serve as handy designations as in "Carmel Indians" (Indians of Carmel, Ohio) or "Cornplanter Indians" (Indians of Cornplanter Reservation, Pa.). 

The use of color terms is rather infrequent except where mulatto blood is suspected. In Virginia we hear of the "Brown People" in Rockbridge County; in Chesterfield County, S. C, of the Marlboro Blues; and in several places of Red Bones and Yellow People. The term "Brass Ankle" is thought by some to refer to a toasted brown color (Spanish abrasado).

Nationality or race terms are more frequent than color terms, and we hear of "Greeks," "Turks," and "Cubans," in the Carolinas, of "Moors" in Delaware and New Jersey, and "Arabs" in New York. More confusing still is the use of the term "Cajan" to refer to a mixed-blood group in Alabama. Brewton Berry has proposed that the term "Mestizo" be adopted from Spanish-American terminology in referring to all mixed-blood groups with an Indian element.

Family names characteristic of small groups of mixed-blood descent may be used to designate the groups themselves. Thus we have the Laster Tribe, the Coe Clan, the Pools, the Slaughters, the Van Guilders, the Goins, and the Maleys. The last term mentioned is used for the Guineas of West Virginia owing to the frequency of that surname. Of a similar sort are the names from ancestors such as the Cornplanter Seneca.

The traditional origin or the current manner of life is prominent in such names as Croatans, Issues, Jackson Whites, Wesorts, Bushwhacker?, Pondshiners, Pineys, Melungeons, and Clay-eaters. In some instances writers have used pseudonyms for groups such as the Win Tribe (Issues of Amherst County, Va.), the Nams, Jukes, and others.

Mixed-blood groups which have lost most of the Indian cultural heritage yet continue a caste-like habit of inbreeding, are characterized by certain fixed sets of family names. Most of the groups average anywhere from 10 to 14 characteristic family names. Curiously enough a number of these families are found in more than one group and this would point to a possibility of some degree of intermarriage between them at various times in the past. The Croatans, for example, share names with the Cubans, Issues, Melungeons, Brass Ankles, Cajans, and Nanticokes. Not only do such nearby groups as the Nanticokes and Moors share names but we find such sharing by groups rather remote from each other, as for example, the Cajans and Moors, Brass Ankles and Nanticokes, or Melungeons and Brass Ankles. On the other hand, the Jackson Whites and the New England mixed groups show little if any evidence of sharing family names with the other groups.

The size of most of the eastern groups of Indian mixed peoples is not accurately known. Since membership in these groups may be somewhat elastic, estimates are bound to be rather arbitrary. In general it may be said that the number of specific groups range from a hundred individuals up to several thousands. In fact this compares very well with the western tribes of Indians as may be seen from the fact that in 1930 the average Indian tribe ranged between 1,000 and 2,500 in size. Out of 90 western tribes 43 were less than 700 in number, 40 were between 700 and 7,000, and 7 were from 7,000 to 45,000. The Croatans may be compared with the Navajos, in terms of numbers and relative size to the rest of their neighbors. Both are the largest groups of their respective areas.

In contrast with the western Indians the eastern groups do not have any major settlements of their own. Almost all the concentrations of eastern Indians are in close connection with white or Negro centers of population. In many instances the Indian populations are widely scattered in remote and inaccessible areas in both East and West. In tracing the location of the eastern Indians it is often necessary to relate their populations to minor civil divisions of the county such as townships and election districts. The eastern Indians arc well on the way to becoming a caste rather than localized territorial groups, and hence their distribution follows that of the population in general. Migratory habits are confined to the necessity of seeking economic subsistence in cities or manufacturing areas.

The more isolated and primitive mode of life is pursued by certain groups who do hunting, fishing, lumbering, turpentine extraction, and collecting of herbs and roots. Basketry and beadwork still survive among these groups. Others more advanced are cultivators, truck and dairy farmers. Still other groups have gone farther along the road to adjustment to modern civilization. This group is composed of migrants to cities or industrial areas who labor as miners, domestic servants, oyster shuckers, cigar makers, cotton samplers, artisans, petty tradesmen, junkmen, repairmen, cannery workers, iron and steel workers, and the like.

The history of the eastern Indians subsequent to the Colonial Period is to a great extent unknown. It was not until the latter part of the nineteenth century that an interest in the mixed-blood Indian groups began to reawaken; especially with the first census of the United States Indian population in 1890. The group known as the Croatans, for example, were known as far back as the Civil War period, but it was only when the investigations of Hamilton Macmillan about 1885 led to the formulation of the "Lost Colony" theory that the groups became generally known. About the same tiine (1889 and 1891) Swan M. Burnett and Miss Dromgoole called attention to the hitherto unnoticed Melungeons in eastern Tennessee, and Babcock described the Nanticoke Indians of Indian River, Delaware (1889).

In 1889, also, James Mooney, anthropologist of the Smithsonian Institution, sent out a set of questions on Indian survivals to local physicians in certain counties of Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, and North Carolina. One of the questions read as follows: "Please give the names and addresses of any individuals of pure or mixed Indian blood in your vicinity, and state to what tribes they belong. If any considerable number live in one settlement please give the names of one or two who may be able to afford information." The replies to this circular letter may still be seen in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. From these documents it is apparent that a great number of local groups of Indian extraction were in existence at that time in the four States mentioned. Although no publication resulted from this study it is quite evident that both Mooney and William H. Holmes, the latter then Chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology, continued an interest in the eastern Indian survivals because we have the report that in 1912 Mooney,' in addition to his work with the eastern Cherokees, made a trip to southern Maryland to investigate the Wesorts.

It was shortly after the first Indian census that George P. Fisher, in 1895, published the first account of the Moors of Delaware, close neighbors of the Nanticoke who had been first noticed a few years previously.

The date of the second major census of Indians in 1910 was marked by the discovery of still more mixed-blood groups of Indian descent in the East. These groups were: (1) the Jackson Whites (described by Frank Speck in 1911); (2) the Issues of Amherst County, Va. (described by Rev. A. P. Gray in 1908); and (3) the Wesorts (existence first noted under that name by Mooney in 1912, as has been indicated above). In 1912 Paul Converse published his excellent report on the Melungeons, adding numerous data to the material first collected by Dromgoole.

The third major census of Indians in 1930 was the occasion for the "discovery" of two more Indian mixed groups, (1) the Brass Ankles of South Carolina and their relatives of the same State (later studied in detail by Brewton Berry in 1944), and (2) the Cajans and Creoles of Alabama, described in the same year by Horace Bond and Carl Carmer (1931). If a major study of Indians is made a part of the coming census of 1950 it may be expected that still more groups of this sort will appear in the literature.

Some of the mixed-blood Indian groups have attracted the attention of fiction writers. In Shelby and Stoney's "Po' Buckra" (1930), the central figure is a Brass Ankle who attempts to adapt himself to the life of a southern (white) planter but in the end finally returns to the hunting and fishing life, the carefree existence of his forefathers. In their romantic novel, "The King of Scuffletoun" (1940), Lucas and Groome tell a melodramatic story woven about the life and adventures of the famous Croatan outlaw of Civil War times, James Lowrie. Albert Payson Terhune, in a boy's book entitled "Treasure" (1926), describes the Jackson Whites with considerable vividness.

A somewhat different approach to mixed-blood Indians is taken by James Aswell and E. E. Miller in their series of fantastic tales about Tennessee Melungeons, which form a section of the volume entitled "God Bless the Devil" (1940). In this work the local dialect is used with remarkable effect to tell about the Melungeons the impossible and exaggerated occurrences so frequently recounted at country courthouses by local storytellers. In a somewhat similar vein but of far more serious intent is Mildred Haun's "The Hawk's Done Gone" (1940), a series of local dialect biographies of the whites and Melunggeons of a section in eastern Tennessee. Roy Flannagan, in his novel, "Amber Satyr" (1932), describes the recent struggle for Indian status on the part of members of the mixed-blood groups in coastal Virginia, while Lyle Saxon's "Children of Strangers" (1937) portrays a similar situation in Louisiana.

Aside from the literary notices of these mixed Indian groups there are evidences of a considerably longer historical background than one might at first expect. In most of the Atlantic coast groups (Brass Ankles, Croatans, Wesorts, Moors, and Nanticokes) for example, it is evident from the early censuses that as far back as 1790 the ancestors of these groups were living in the same locations as we find them today and were classified as mixed-bloods then also. The family names of the groups in 1790 were practically the same as they are today. How much earlier than 1790 these families were in the same locality has not been ascertained.

For the groups farther away from the east ;oast, Melungeons, Guineas, Cajans, and Jackson Whites, the family names appear in the census records at various times from 1830 through 1870. The census records can therefore be used to demonstrate a rather early appearance of the mixed-blood Indian communities in the eastern States in most cases long before any literary notice of these groups.

The names or nicknames, however, by which these groups are known today may be of comparatively recent origin. The term "Croatan" came into use about 1885 owing to the promulgation of the theory that this group was descended from Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colonists on Roanoke Island. The name "Wesort" first appeared in local parish records about 1896.

At the present time the Indian mixed groups of the eastern States are in a process of transition. Up until about 20 years ago, for example, the Brass Ankles of South Carolina lived in the isolation of river swamps and pine barrens, in small clearly marked-off racial "islands." Since then improvement in the means of communication and programs of the W. P. A. and F. S. A. during the thirties have broken down this isolation. The members of mixed-blood communities are now tending to disperse and many of these groups have decreased in size, a few almost becoming extinct. This process results in two sections, (1) a group of stay-at-homes, frequently the conservative, more Indian-like and older people; and (2) the migrants, often younger persons, who settle in cities or industrial areas. The members of the first section continue to exist as a caste apart with their own racial schools, and often their own churches, clubs, and stores. They continue to confuse the selective service on racial classification although many go as white, and they continue to have a rather high birth rate. This latter feature casts doubt on the prediction that these groups will soon disappear. The migrants, on the other hand, who go to northern and western cities are absorbed partly by the white and partly by the colored communities.

The fertility of these Indian mixed groups is a matter worthy of some emphasis. In this respect the Indian mixed-bloods of the United States resemble the Caboclos (mainly Indian-white crosses) of Brazil who show a relatively greater reproduction rate than other elements of the population. According to a study by Roland M. Harper, the Croatan birth rate in 1933 was 35.4 per thousand as compared with 22.3 for the whites and 24.5 for the Negroes. Similar rapid rates of increase are to be found, to all appearances, among the Houma, Wesorts, Guineas, and other such groups. This increase, if continued, means that the Indian mixed-blood groups will play an important part in the future population make-up of their respective States and may also influence future State politics. 

Certain hereditary physical peculiarities are exhibited occasionally by the inbred eastern Indian mixed-bloods. The occurrence of albinos has been noticed among the Wesorts and the Jackson Whites. A similar occurrence of albinism was noted by Hrdli^ka for the inbred Hopi and Zuni of the Southwest. Among the Wesorts, cases of microdontism or short teeth run in certain families, while among the Nanticoke Weslager reports a thickened condition of the upper eyelid which results in droopy eyes (ptosis) in some families. Hereditary deformities in the joints are reported as occurring among the West Virginia Guineas. Hereditary diseases of the nervous system such as congenital deafness and blindness, and speech defects are reported among the Wesorts.

Some writers have associated dysgenic qualities generally with certain of the mixed-blood Indian groups of the eastern States. Whether these alleged traits are due to inbreeding or not is difficult to establish. Many of these mixed-bloods have lived under social conditions that are not calculated to bring out their more admirable traits. The South Carolina mixed-bloods are spoken of as hypersensitive, shy, furtive, self-conscious, hypercritical, and obviously suffering from an inferiority complex.

Where it is strongly established, the attitude of negativism on the part of Indian mixed-bloods is shared by the neighboring whites with the result that the whole subject of race relations is taboo. Any attempt by outsiders to investigate the situation often meets with silence or even violent response. Brewton Berry notes that mixed-bloods in South Carolina are virtually never the subject of conversation in white society and are not mentioned in newspapers and histories. These outcastes have no written history, no family genealogies reposing in State historical archives, no part in the social register, and so on. In this respect they resemble preliterate societies and offer a fertile field for anthropological research.

The Indians of the eastern States represent today the results of the solution of the Indian problem by the individual States with a minimum of Federal interference. With the partial exception of the various Iroquoian groups in New York, and in recent years the eastern Cherokee, eastern Seminole, eastern Choctaw, and perhaps one or two others, the eastern Indians have not in general had any direct assistance or guidance from Federal sources. In a few instances State reservations, as in Maine, Connecticut, and Virginia, have furnished a small amount of security to small Indian remnants. But in the main the results are all too obvious. These unassisted Indian groups have in general sunk to a rather low level of society indeed and have come to form, so to speak, a sort of vaguely marked caste separate from both whites and Negroes. All in all they appear to have lost in becoming "civilized" far more than they have gained. And, most portentiously of all, does this not point out the possible future fate of the present day Indians of the western States as well?

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I am adding the complete 1891 article by Will Allen Dromgoole. Since this is a short blog entry, and I have learne from previous experiences sources from the internet can disappear. :)

“The Malungeons” by Will Allen Dromgoole (1891 article)

Resources for Research

The Arena, March 1891

Were you ever when a child half playfully told “The Malungeons will get you?” If not, you were never a Tennessee child, as some of our fathers were; they tell all who may be told of that strange, almost forgotten race, concerning whom history is strangely silent. Only upon the records of the state of Tennessee does the name appear. The records show that by act of the Constitutional Convention of 1834, when the “Race Question” played such a conspicuous part in the deliberations of that body, the Malungeons, as a “free person of color,” was denied the right of suffrage. Right there he dropped from the public mind and interest. Of no value as a slave, with no voice as a citizen, what use could the public make of the Malungeon? When John Sevier attempted to organize the State of Franklin, there was living in the mountains of Eastern Tenessee a colony of dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people, supposed to be of Moorish descent, who affiliated with neither whites nor blacks, and who called themselves Malungeons, and claimed to be of Poruguese descent. They lived to themselves exclusively, and were looked on as neither negroes nor Indians. All the negroes ever brought to America came as slaves; the Malungeons were never slaves, and until 1834 enjoyed all the rights of citizenship. Even in the Convention which disfranchised them, they were referred to as “free persons of color” or “Malungeons.” Their condition from the organization of the State of Tennessee to the close of the civil war is most accurately described by John A. McKinley, of Hawkins County, who was chairman of the committee to which was referred all matters affecting these “free persons of color.” Said he, speaking of free persons of color, “It means Malungeons if it means anything. Although ‘fleecy locks and black complexion’ do not forfeit Nature’s claims, still it is true that those locks and that complexion mark every one of the African race, so long as he remains among the white race, as a person doomed to live in the suburbs of society. “Unenviable as is the condition of the slave, unlovely as slavery is in all its aspects, bitter as is the draught the slave is doomed to drink, nevertheless, his condition is better than that of the ‘free man of color’ in the midst of a community of white men with whom he has no interest, no fellow-feeling and no equality.” So the Constitutional convention left these the most pitiable of all outcasts; denied their oath in court, and deprived of the testimony of their own color, left utterly helpless in all legal contests, they naturally, when the State set the brand of the outcast upon them, took to the hills, the isolated peaks of the uninhabited mountains, the corners of the earth, as it were, where, huddled together, they became as law unto themselves, a race indeed separate and distinct from the several races inhabiting the State of Tennessee. So much, or so little, we glean from the records. From history we get nothing; not so much as the name, – Malungeons. In the farther valleys they were soon forgotten: only now and then and old slave-mammy would frighten her rebellious charge into subjection with the threat, – “The Malungeons will get you in you ain’t pretty.” But to the people of the foot hills and nearer valleys, they became a living terror; sweeping down upon them, stealing their cattle, their provisions, their very clothing, and household furniture. They became shiftless, idle, thieving, and defiant of all law, distillers of brandy, almost to a man. The barren height upon which they located, offered hope of no other crop so much as fruit, and they were forced, it would appear, to utilize their one opportunity. After the breaking out of the war, some few enlisted in the army, but the greater number remained with their stills, to pillage and plunder among the helpless women and children. Their mountains became a terror to travelers; and not until within the last half decade has it been regarded as safe to cross Malungeon territory. Such they were; or so do they come to us through tradition and the State’s records. As to what they are any who feel disposed may go and see. Opinion is divided concerning them, and they have their own ideas as to their descent. A great many declare them mulattoes, and base their belief upon the ground that at the close of the civil war negroes and Malungeons stood upon precisely the same social lfooting. “free men of color” all, and that the fast vanishing handful opened thier doors to the darker brother, also groaning under the brand of social ostracism. This might, at first glance, seem probable, indeed, reasonable. Yet if we will consider a moment, we shall see that a race of mulattoes cannot exist as these Malungeons have existed. The race goes fromt mulattoes to quadroons, from quadroons to octoroons, and there it stops. The octoroon women bear no children, but in every cabin of the Malungeons may be found mothers and grandmothers, and very often great-grandmothers. “Who are they, then?” you ask. I can only give you their own theory – If I may call it such – and to do this I must tell you how I found them, and something of my stay among them. First. I saw in an old newspaper some slight mention of them. With this tiny clue I followed their trail for three years. The paper merely stated that “somnewhere in the mountains of Tennessee there existed a remanant of people called Malungeons, having a distinct color, characteristics,and dialect. It seemed a very hopeless search, so utterly were the Malungeons forgotten, and I was laughed at no little for my “new crank.” I was even called “a Malungeon” more than once, and was about to abandon my “crank” when a member of the Tennessee State Senate, of which I happened at that time to be engrossing clerk, spoke of a brother senator as being “tricky as a Malungeon.” I pounced on him the moment his speech was completed. “Seantor,” I said, “what is a Malungeon?” “A dirty Indian sneak,” said he. “Go over yonder and ask Senator _____; they live in his district.” I went at once. “Senator, what is a Malungeon?” I asked again. “A Portuguese nigger,” was the reply. “Representative T____ can tell you all about them, they live in his county.” From “district” to “county” was quick travelling. And into the House of Representatives I went, fast upon the lost trail of the forgotten Malungeons. “Mr. ____,” said I, “please tell me what is a Malungeon?” “A Malungeon,: said he, “isn’t a nigger, and he isn’t an Indian, and he isn’t a white man. God only knows what he is. I should call him a Democrat, only he always votes the Reublican ticket.” I merely mention all this to show how the Malungeons to-day are regarded, and to show show 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, and they are beleived by the people round about to be a kind of half-breed Indian. Thier complexion is a reddish brown, totally unlike the mulatto. The men are very tall and straight, with small, sharp eyes, high cheek bones, and straight black hair, worn rather long. The women are small, below the average height, coal black hair and eyes, high cheek bones, and the same red-brown complexion. The hands of the Malungeon women are quite shapely and pretty. Also their feet, despite the fact that they trravel the sharp mountain trails barefoot, are short and shapely. Their features are wholly unlike those of the negro, except in cases where the two races have cohabited, as is sometimes the fact. These instances can be readily detected, as can those of cohabitation withthe mountaineer; for the pure Malungeons present a characteristic and individual appearance. On the Ridge proper, one finds only pure Malungeons; it is in the unsavory limits of Black Water Swamp and on Big Sycamore Creek,lying at the foot of the Ridge betweenit and Powell’s Mountain, that the mixed races dwell. In Western and Middle Tennessee the Malungeons are forgotten long ago. And iundeed, so nearly complete has been the extinction of the race that in but few counties of Eastern Tennessee is it known. In Hancock you may hear them, and see them, almost the instant you cross into the county line. There they are distinguished as “Ridgemanites,” or pure “Malungeons.” Those among them whom the white or negro blood has entered are called the “Black-Waters.” The Ridge is admirable adapted to the purpose of wild-cat distilling, being crossed by but one road and crowned with jungles of chinquapin, cedar, and wahoo. Of very recent years the dogs of the law have proved too sharp-eyed and bold even for the lawless Malungeons, so that such of the furnace fires as have not been extinguished are built underground. They are a great nuisance to the people of the county seat, where, on any public day, and especially on election days, they may be seen squatted about the streets, great strapping men, or little brown women baking themselves in the sun like mud figures set to dry. The people of the town do not allow them to enter their dwellings, and even refuse to employ them as servants, owing to their filthy habit of chewing tobacco and spitting upon the floors, together with their ignorance or defiance of the difference between meum and tuum. They are exceedingly shiftless, and in most cases filthy.They care for nothing except their pipe, their liquor, and a tramp “ter towin.” They will walk to Sneedville and back sometimes twice in twelve hours, up a steep trail though an almost unbroken wilderness, and never seem to suffer the least fatigue. They are not at all like the Tennessee mountaineer either in appearance or characteristics. The mountaineer, however poor,is clean, – cleanliness itself. He is honest (I speak of him as a class) he is generous, trustful, until once betrayed; truthful, brave, and possessing many of the noblest and keenest sensibilities. The Malungeons are filthy, their home is filthy. The are rogues, natural, “born rogues,” close, suspicious, inhospitable, untruthful, cowardly, and to use their own word, “sneaky.” They are exceedingly inquisitive too, and will traila visitor to the Ridge for miles, through seemingly impenetrable jungles, to discover, if may be, the object of his visit. They expect remuneration for the slightest service. The mountaineer’s door stands open, or at most the string of the latch dangles upon the “outside.” He takes you for what you seem until you shall prove yourself otherwise. In many things they resemble the negro. They are exceedingly immoral, yet are great shouters and advocates of religion. They call themselves Baptists, although their mode of baptism is that of the Dunkard. There are no churches on the Ridge, but the one I visited in Black Water Swamp was beyond question and inauguration of the colored element. At this church I saw white women with negro babies at their breasts – Malungeon women with white or with black husbands, and some, indeed, having the trhree separate races represented in their children; showing thereby the gross immorality that is practised among them. I saw an old negro whose wife was a white woman, and who had been several times arrested, and released on his plea of “Portygee” blood, which he declared had colored his skin, not African. The dialect of the Malungeons is a cross between that of the mountaineer and the negro – a corruption, perhaps, of both. The letter R occupies but a smallplace in their speech, and they have a peculiar habit of omitting the last letter, sometimes the last syllable of their words. For instance “good night” – is “goo’ night.” “Give” is “gi’,” etc. They do not drawl like the mountaineers but, on the contrary, speak rapidly and talk a great deal. The laugh of the Malungeon women is the most exquisitely musicle jingle, a perfect ripple of sweet sound. Their dialect is exceedingly difficult to write, owing to their habit of curtailing their words. The pure Malungeons, that is the old men and women, have no toleration for the negro, and nothing insults them so much as the suggestion of negro blood. Many pathetic stories are told of their battle against the black race, which they regard as the cause of their downfall, the annihilation, indeed, of the Malungeons, for when the races began to mix and to intermarry, and the expression, “A Malungeon nigger” came into use, the last barrier vanished, and all were regarded as somewhat upon a social level. They are very like the Indians in many respect, _ their fleetness of foot,cupidity, cruelty (as practised duringthe days of their illicit distilling), their love for the forest, their custom of living without doors, one might almost say, – for truly the little hovels could not be called homes, – and their taste for liquor and tobacco. They believe in witchcraft, “yarbs,” and more than one “charmer” may be found among them. They will “rub away” a wart or mole for ten cents, and one old squaw assured me she had some “blood beads” the “wair bounter heal all manner o’ blood ailimints.” They are limited somewhat as to names: their principal families being the Mullins, Gorvens, Collins, and Gibbins. They resort to a very peculiar method of distinguishing themselves. Jack Collins’ wife for instance will be Mary Jack. His son will be Ben Jack. His daughters’ names will be similar: Nancy Jack or Jane Jack, as the case may be, but always having the father’s Christian name attached. Their homes are miserable hovels, set here and there in the very heart of the wilderness. Very few of their cabins have windows, and some have only an opening cut through the wall for a door. In winter an old quild tis hung before it to shut out the cold. They do not welcome strangers among them, so that I went to the Ridge somewhat doubtful as to my reception. I went, however, determined to be one of them, so I wore a suit as nearly like their own as I could get it. I had some trouble securing boards, but did succeed at last in doing so by paying the enormous sum of fifteen cents. I was put to sleep in a little closet opening off the family room. My room had no windows, and but the one door. The latch was carefully removed before I went in, so that I had no means of egress, except through the family room, and no means by which to shut myself in. My bed was of straw, not the sweet-smelling straw we read of. The Malungeons go a long way for their straw, and they evidently make it go a long way when they do get it. I was called to breakfast the next morning while the gray mists still held the mountain in its arms. I asked for water tobathe my face and was sent to “ther branch,” a beautiful little mountain stream crossing the trail some few hundred yeards from the cabin. Breakfast consisted of corn bread, wild honey, and bitter coffee. It was prepared and eaten in the garret, or roof room, above the family room. A few chickens, the only fowl I saw on the Ridge, also occupied the roof room. Coffee is quite common among the Malungeons; they drink it without sweetening, and drink it cold at all hours of the day or nights. They have no windows and no candles, consequently, they retire with the going of the daylight. Many of their cabins have no floors other than that which Nature gave, but one that I remember had a floor made of trees slit in half, the bark still on, placed with the flat side to the ground. The people of the house slept on leaves with an old gray blanket for covering. Yet the master of the house, who claims to be an Indian, and who, without doubt, possesses Indian blood, draws a pension of twenty-nine dollars per month. He can neither read nor write, is a lazy fellow, fond of apple brandy and bitter coffee, has a rollicking good time with an old fiddle which he plays with his thumb, and boasts largely of his Cherokee grandfather and his government pension. In one part of his cabin (there are two rooms and a connecting shed) the very stumps of the trees still remain. I had my artist sketch him sitting upon the stump of a monster oak which stood in the very center of the shed or hallway. This family did their cooking at a rude fireplace built near the spring, as a matter of convenience. Another family occupied one room, or apartment, of a stable. The stock fed in another (the stock belonged, let me say, to someone else) and the “cracks” between the logs of the separating partition were of such depth a small child could have rolled from the bed in one apartment into the trough in the other. How they exist among such squalor is a mystery. Their dress consists, among the women, of a short loose calico skirt and a blouse that boasts of neither hook nor button. Some of these blouses were fastened with brass pins conspicuously bright. Others were tied together by means of strings tacked on either side. They wear neither shoes nor stockings in the summer, and many of them go barefoot all winter. The men wear jeans, and may be seen almost any day tramping barefoot across the mountain. They are exceedingly illiterate, none of them being able to read. I found one school among them, taught by an old Malungeon, whose literary accomplishments amounted to a meagre knowledge of the alphabet and the spelling of words. Yet, he was very earnest,, and called lustily to the “chillering” to “spry up,” and to “learn the book.” This school was located in the loveliest spot my eyes ever rested upon. An eminence overlooking the beautiful valley of the Clinch and the purple peaks beyond/illows and billows of mountains, so blue, so exquisitely wrapped in their delicate mist-veil, one almost doubts if they be hills or heaven.While through the slumbrous vale the silvery Clinch, the fairest of Tennessee’s fair streams, creeps slowly, like a drowsy dream river, among the purple distances. The eminence itself is entirely barren save for one tall old cedar, and the schoolmaster’s little log building. It presents a very weird, wild, yet majestic scene, to the traveller as he climbs up from the valley. 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 oof 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 acquaintence is expected to join in the funeral arrangements. They follow the body to the grave, sometimes formiles, afoot, in single file. Their burial ceremonies are exceedingly interesting and peculiar. They are an unfogiving people, although, unlike the sensitive mountaineer, they are slow to detect an insult, and expect to be spit upon. But injury to life or property they never forgive. Several odd and pathetic instances of Malungeon hate came under my observation while among them, but they would cover too much space in telling. Within the last two years the railroad has struck within some thirty miles of them, and its effects are becoming very apparent. Now and then a band of surveyors, or a lone mineralogist will cross Powell’s mountain, and pass through Mulbery Gap just beyond Newman’s Ridge. So near, yet never nearer. The hills around are all said to be crammed with coal or irton, burt Newman’s Ridge can offer nothing to the capitalist. It would seem that the Malungeons had chosen the one spot, of all that magnificent creation, not to be desired. Yet, they have heard of the railroad, the great bearer of commerce, and expect it, in a half-regretful, half-pathetic way. They have four questions, always, for the stranger: – “Whatcher name?” “Wher’d yer come fum?” “How old er yer?” “Did yer hear en’thin’ er ther railwa’ comin’ up ther Ridge?” As if it might step into their midst any day. The Malungeons believe themselves to be of Cherokee and Portuguese extraction. They cannot account for the Portuguese blood, but are very bold in declaring themselves a remnant of those tribes, or that tribe, still inhabiting the mountains of North Carolina, which refused to follow the tribes to the Reservation set aside for them. There is a theory that the Portuguese pirates, known to have visited these waters, came ashore and located in the mountains of North Carolina. The Portuguese “streak,” however, is scouted by those who claim for the Malungeons a drop of African blood, as, quite early in the settlement of Tennessee, runaway negroes settled among the Cherokees, or else were captured and adopted by them. However, with all the light possible to be thrown upon them, the Malungeons are, and will remain, a mystery. A more pathetic case than theirs cannot be imagined. They are going, the little space of hills ‘twixt earth and heaven alloted them, will soon be free of the dusky tribe, whose very name is a puzzle. The most that can be said of one of them is, “He is a Malungeon,” a synonym for all that is doubtful and mysterious – and unclean.