This is almost the Last Blog Entry -- Melungeons were mixed-Catawban, NOT mixed-Portuguese!

 

I can't format this blog entry right.  Curses! Also as you can probably tell, it isn't going to be my last blog entry, Anyhow, I changed the title to "This is ALMOST my last blog entry . . . . It's all relative.

I've said a million times (or more) the Melungeons DID NOT descend from a group of Portuguese Adventurers! NO! NO! NO! I can't believe ANYONE believes this. As I have always said there might have been an original "Melungeon" who also had some original Portuguese ancestry. BUT -- the English, Scots-Irish and African-American contribution to our blood pool with the Saponi/Catawban or Tuscaroran element is so much greater, it dwarfs any possible Portuguese contribution down to essentially ZERO.

The fact that I have said that so often and people STILL don't realize this is what I am saying really bothers me. People trying to tell me my ancestors were Portuguese is ninety-five  percent of the reason I wrote half of my blog entries! I don't know how else to say this! In fact it is pointless to keep harping on this topic. 

Also I am in my late sixties, and I don't want to spend my remaining years on this topic, or on these topics.

The same is true with the topic or reality of just who the Melungeons really are. I have spent YEARS studying this topic. I am just tired of arguing simple concepts with anyone, or being called a "Wannabe" or something else when I was raised around known Native Americans who accepted me as being of non-federally-recognized Native American-mixed heritage, while someone born and raised in some other states is challenging my heritage. Dad took me to pow-wow's as a child and I still remember him telling people "I have  little American Indian blood, not much, though". I have never claimed otherwise. I was born in Okmulgee, Oklahoma, a town filled with Natives. :) I also have taken DNA tests and have a result saying I am tri-racial (Including both Native and African American), but mostly Caucasian. Well, I am tired of trying to prove the same thing year after year.

I used to contact the late-Jerri Chasteen (former Cherokee Nation Registrar). She came to accept me. I was hopeful that would be the end of it. But then she passed away and a new generation came up, and they now questioned my heritage. I am just tired of having to do this, to every person I meet. That's another reason I am just old & tired, and ready to quit blogging.

So this is, and I mean it this time -- my last blog entry. I have proven my case time and again, and am done trying. :) Best wishes yall -- and adios. I'm gone.

I.             The Government Acknowledges the Catawba, but Are Ignorant of the Bands Associated With Them

The government acknowledged the Catawban people early on. Then they became aware of Catawban people who lived “off the reservation” that had been forgotten and assimilated. They were perplexed. What were they to do with US? Will Allen Dromgoole gave them a reason to reject us. There was an early small effort to discredit her, but it was too little, too late. The damage was done, and couldn't be rectified. This writing is an effort to record these efforts. But it also is too little too late. EVERYONE is saying we are a bunch of fakes -- and I really hate so much that we are not believed. 

1840 Treaty

By 1840 what was to become known as “The Five Civilized Tribes” had already been removed to Oklahoma, then known as “Indian Territory”. Almost all the Indians of the southeastern states had been removed – all except the Catawba and Associated Bands, as well as a few of the Cherokees, and part of the Seminoles, and a few others. While the Catawba proper were all in South Carolina, other bands that had always been associated with them were in both of the Carolinas and nearby Virginia. These had been totally assimilated into White Culture. They had married Whites, and Blacks, and still lived in small villages and farms in the east. They had mostly forgotten their original languages, and many did not live in South Carolina

The state of South Carolina wanted to be rid of all her Indians, just like neighboring states. The other Indians had been removed by the federal government, but the federal government did nothing to remove the Catawba, not to mention the bands associated with them. But only the Catawba had a land base. The three smaller bands had no land base. The descendants of the Saponi lived on the Virginia/North Carolina border, the Cheraw between the Catawba and the Atlantic Coast, on the border between North and South Carolina, and the Pedee on the same North & South Carolina border, between the Cheraw and the Atlantic Coast -- these still lived on, but all three had lost any resemblance to a tribe or nation, and had been assimilated into European culture and ways.

The state of South Carolina decided if the federal government wanted to leave their Indian population alone, they would find another way to rid themselves of their Indians. Remember this is South Carolina before the Civil war, and the Southeastern states were all in favor of “States Rights”. They felt they, as a state, had a right to sign a treaty with the Indians. That treaty has become known as “The Treaty of Nation’s Ford”. I have a copy of it here --

http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2018/10/catawba-saponi-melungeon-ch-13-sun.html

It was a simple treaty with only three articles. First, the Indians agreed to sell their lands in South Carolina to the State of South Carolina. Second, the Catawba would remove to lands in Haywood County, North Carolina, which the state of South Carolina would purchase for them.  Third, the Catawba would be payed $2,000 annually for a period of ten years. These payments would begin once the Indians had been removed to North Carolina.

There were problems with this. First, South Carolina never told North Carolina about their deal to remove her Indigenous peoples there. North Carolina didn't want them. Second, they never bought the land in Haywood County for them to live on. Third, the land they were supposed to move on was actually the same lands of the North Carolina Cherokee. The Cherokee and Catawba were sometimes on friendly terms, but they had also been at war numerous times as well, and they really didn’t trust each other.

So since the government of South Carolina never bought the land for them to move onto, the people had no where to go once they left their homes. Since they weren’t moved into new homes, the state of South Carolina was under no obligation to pay the Catawba $2,000 per year for ten years.

The descendants of the Saponi, Cheraw, and Pedee people were watching all this very closely. All three, had at one time or another, lived with the Catawba. But remember, none of us had a land base, and we had been without a tribal land base since before the Revolutionary War. We were wondering; "Can we, too, get a land base out of the deal the Catawba signed up for?" We had always considered ourselves to be ONE nation.

Indian Appropriation Act of 1848

I have tried to find this online but with no luck. It was mentioned by a few writers, but I know nothing more about what it contained.

All I know is some Catawban peoples, including some members of the Associated Tribes, travelled to Oklahoma, then known as Indian Territory, in an effort to finally have a land base. Some of these people were adopted by the Choctaw. The vast majority were left stranded, and had to make due, as best they could.

Brown writes in “The Catawba Indians”, p. 323 “On July 29, 1848 the 73rd Congress appropriated $5,000 to defray the expense of the move [to Indian Territory].”

Per Brown, Chief James Kegg wrote a letter to President James Polk at that time and said there were 42 Catawba families who wanted to use that appropriation to move west. He said (p 324) “We humbly beg his Excellency the President . . .to remove us west of the Miss[issippi] under the act of the late Congress” [per the Indian Appropriation Act of 1848 that I just mentioned].  Still on page 324, Brown writes, “Whether the President ever saw the letter is problematical.”

 October, 1872 –

    Mention is made of some 84 Catawba Indians living in Georgia, who were  thought to be Cherokee, who wanted to go to Indian territory. A congressional document dated Feb. 23,1897 mentions them. It can be found here --  I transcribed the entire document.

  http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2018/10/catawba-saponi-melungeon-ch-14.html  

Imbedded in this document is the following; 

    No action appears to have been taken by the government or any of the Indians on the question of their removal to the Choctaw or any other Indian Country until 1872 when Hon. J. C. Harper, of the House of Representatives from Georgia, brought to the attention of this office the question of the removal of certain Indians in North Carolina and Georgia. Presuming they were Cherokee, this office requested him on the 13th of June, 1872, to furnish a list of the names and ages of said Indians. In reporting the names, Mr. Joseph McDowell, of Fairmount, Georgia, under date of October 1872 (Misc. M., 229), stated that the Indians referred to, and asking relief of the government, were Catawba Indians, and 84 in number, viz:

Those italicized desired permission of the president to settle in the Indian Territory, all of whom Mr. McDowell states were good and loyal people, and that if any Indian deserved assistance from the government these Indians did: that their grandfathers on both sides the government in the War for Independence, and that their names were on the muster rolls in the War Department.

    William Guy, of Granville County, Georgia, and Simon Jeffers, of Belleville Virginia, Catawba Indians, served five years in the Army and were honorably discharged, and these 84 persons were their descendants.

    This is of great importance since these Indians NEVER lived on the Catawba Reservation, but has lived where other mixed-Saponi live to this day (2020) on the Virginia/North Carolina border. They descended from Revolutionary War Veterans, and they were requesting to be removed to Indian Territory, the present state of Oklahoma, and they wanted to be treated as Native Americans, and be given lands here in Oklahoma as a Native American tribe.

    Apparently James Kegg made a second statement of importance some years later.

    On the 21st of November, 1887, James Kegg, of Whittier North Carolina, in addressing the Secretary of the Interior (No. 31383), made the following statement, viz.:

Many years ago, his people, the Catawba Indians, leased the land they owned in South Carolina and became a wondering tribe, without homes for their wives and children. They made application he states, to the Cherokees of North Carolina, for homes upon their land and made over to them all their leased lands in South Carolina in consideration of their adoption into their tribe; that about 500 were so adopted and have been identified as such; that some 300 of them were removed west under the Cherokee Treaty of New Echota, made December 29th, 1835, leaving a few living among the Cherokees as Cherokee citizens and a small portion remaining in South Carolina “upon a section of land which they owned and was not leased out for a term of years, upon which they now reside.” Those Catawbas remaining in South Carolina, Mr. Kegg states, had no interest whatever in the lands which were leased out by those who became Cherokees by adoption, and he wished to ascertain whether or not the United States gave its consent to the Catawbas to lease out their lands to the State of South Carolina or to her citizens, and if so, upon what terms and the length of term said leases ran.

Now I want to see and understand the 1835 Treaty of New Echota of December 29th, 1835. I looked at it, and saw no references to the Catawba in it. But there was one small mention of "mixed-blood Catawbas". I believe it was referring to Cherokees who had taken Catawba husbands and/or wives. I'll look into that and respond if it proves of interest.

Four Short Newspaper Articles referring to the Catawba, one from "The Vinita Chieftain", and the other three from "The Fort Smith Elevator". I have three of those four small articles below. The fourth is listed a few paragraphs further down. Vinita is a small town in the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma.

The Vinita Chieftain, March 1^st, 1888

“The Western Catawba Indian Association, with headquarters in Fort Smith, proposes to petition congress to set aside for the use of all persons of Indian blood, not members of any tribe, a portion of the Indian Territory.”

Fort Smith is on the Cherokee Nation/Choctaw Nation/Arkansas border.

August 16, 1889, The Fort Smith Elevator, Western Catawba Indian Association

    The Catawba Indian Association met at Rocky Ridge on the 10th. The meeting was called to order by the President. After the reading of the minutes and the calling of the roll of the officers, transacting other business that came before the order, a call for new members was made and 90 was added to the new list, after which the meeting adjourned to meet at Ault’s’ Mill, three miles south of Fort Smith, the second day of the fair, the 16th day of October, where the delegates and all persons interested will please attend without further notice, as matters of interest will be considered.

J. Bain, President

G. W. Williamson, Secretary

“October 25th, 1889 p. 3 col. 5, From Fort Smith Historical Society publication.

The librarian at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith wrote me the following;

Hello Mr. Hawkins,

Attached is a copy of the article you requested. The article mentioned another meeting held on October 16th and I found it in the October 25th edition but the film was so dark I could not get a good print to scan. The text of the article follows. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

“Attention Catawba’s!”

The Western Catawba’s Indian Association met at Ault’s Mill October 16, 1889, at which meeting a number of new members were added to the Association, thus making it nearly 4,000 strong. They appointed an executive committee which is empowered to transact all business and place the matter before congress. The Association adjourned to convene again at a called meeting of the president.”

 James Bain, President., Geo. E. Williams, Scary,

Western Catawba Indian Association 

            The government hadn’t made up its mind up, by this time, as to how to deal with the Western Catawba Indian Association or how to treat us. This indecision was about to come to an end. A woman named Will Allen Dromgoole had written an article about some people she was just learning about. Her writing made it easier to turn down the cries of the western Catawba settlers in Indian Territory. I found it online, but I forgot to properly site the source and give that source proper credit. I will find it again and will properly cite and credit the source.

III.    The Government Changes Its Opinion About the Bands Associated with the Catawba

1891 – Will Allen Dromgoole

Her story proved to be the doom of those Catawban peoples who were trying to organize in Indian Territory. It made the government distrust the motives of the mixed-blood families who moved here to Oklahoma. Early in 1897, the government rejected the Catawban bid to become federally recognized in what was to become my home state of Oklahoma. The people gave up the effort as a result. Today, in the year 2020,  this effort  is just a half forgotten memory. In 1888 and 1889 we see articles in Vinita, IT and Ft. Smith, Ark, where some of our ancestors were trying to organize, creating a “Western Catawba Indian Association” with the hopes of turning it into a tribal entity which we hadn’t had in a very long time. It failed.

Ms. Dromgoole's writings are also a principle reason “the Melungeon” peoples of southwestern Virginia and northeastern Tennessee also never became state recognized in the states that have state recognition. For these reasons this must become known.

In an attempt to discover just who the Melungeons were, she went up to some Tennessee politicians. Here is what she wrote; 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 n-word,” was the reply. “Representative T____ can tell you all about them, they live in his county."  

She found him, and asked him; “Please tell me what is a Malungeon?” “A Malungeon,: said he, “isn’t a n-word, and he isn’t an Indian, and he isn’t a white man. God only knows what he is . . .”   She then continues in her own words, I merely mention all this to show how the Malungeons to-day are regarded, and to 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 believed by the people round about to be a kind of half-breed Indian. 

So she based her opinion on what a Melungeon was on what a few politicians in Eastern Tennessee told her, rather than what the Melungeons themselves said. Here is another paragraph of her writing that is of interest.

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 three separate races represented in their children; showing thereby the gross immorality that is practiced 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.

In the above paragraph it is assumed as a fact that a marriage between a Black man and a White woman was immoral. Also it mentioned he had been arrested several times and that he claimed he was Portuguese, and his Portuguese blood had darkened is skin. AND it says “he was released” because of his plea of Portuguese rather than African ancestry! If you were this man or one like him, wouldn’t YOU claim Portuguese ancestry, too? THIS is the origin of Portuguese ancestry, not ACTUAL Portuguese ancestry. But claims of Portuguese ancestry would circulate, and there are thousands of descendants of Melungeon families to this day who claim some Portuguese ancestry when in fact, it is African. Also notice when Will Allen Drumgoole saw the Melungeons first hand, she replied “In appearance, they bear a striking resemblance to the Cherokees.”  Could this be the confusing origin of believing themselves of Cherokee ancestry rather than Catawban? I suspect it was.

Still in the 1890s descendants of these same people who’d migrated into the Indian Territory were trying to form the Western Catawba Indian Association in an effort to recieve lands in Oklahoma and Federal Recognition as a Native American tribe.'

She also wrote the following of the Melungeons;

Breakfast consisted of corn bread, wild honey, and bitter coffee. . . . 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 . . .  and boasts largely of his Cherokee grandfather and his government pension.

And;

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

Having been born in Eastern Oklahoma, and I have seen some Indian Cemeteries there. I have a Muscogeean friend who lives in Northeastern Oklahoma, and asked him to read this story. I wanted his opinion of this custom of burial ceremonies and practices of these Melungeon families. This is his reply; "That does remind me of native cemetery tradition indeed..."

IV.             The Last Hope 

There is one last short article mentioning the Western Catawba.

The Fort Smith Elevator” (newspaper), date probably early Jan 1895.

All Catawba Indians by blood or otherwise are requested to meet at the County Court House in Fort Smith Arkansas on Thursday, Jan 24th, 1895 at 10 o’clock a. m. for the purpose of perfecting the census roll of the Western Catawba Indian Association and the transaction of other matters that may come before the meeting. All Catawba Indians are expected to be present or by proxy as business of importance will come before the meeting.

This is the last article I found in the Fort Smith Elevator speaking of the "Western Catawba Indian Association". I must assume these Western Catawba sent a letter to the Senate asking to be recognized.  In 1897 the government sent their reply.

Department of the Interior, Washington, Feb. 1, 1897. The Catawba Tribe of Indians, 54th Congress, 2nd session, Doc. 144, February 23rd, 1897

On Feb. 23,1897 the federal government released its reply to the Western Catawba’s request for federal recognition and lands in Oklahoma. This document came out only after Ms. Dromgoole said we were mixed-Portuguese. Did her writings have any effect of the government's decision to reject us? The document starts out by saying;

February 23rd, 1897 – ordered to be printed as Senate Document for use of committee on Indian Affairs. Mr. Pettigrew presented the following memorial on behalf of the individuals formerly comprising and belonging to the Catawba Tribe of Indians.

Notice it says these individuals FORMERLY comprised and belonged to the Catawba Tribe of Indians. This is recognition by the United States government of Catawban ancestry – NOT Portuguese.

The heart and conclusion of the document states the following;

I have to say that it is the policy of the government to abolish the tribal relationship of the Indians as fast as possible, and to settle each Indian upon a separate tract of land that he can call his own, to the end that he may become self-supporting and independent of government bounty. It would not be in keeping with this policy, I think, to gather up people who happen to have more or less Indian blood in their veins and are living among the Whites, separate and apart from Indian communities, and incorporate them into a tribe and place them upon an Indian Reservation.

I strongly suspect Will Allen Dromgoole's comments were a factor in this rejection. Why would they allow a lost colony of Portuguese Adventurers ANY Indian land? This wasn't true, of course. But they clamed that it was.

1901 – Cole family claims Catawban ancestry

There was a newspaper article in Nashville, Th that spoke of a Cole Family out of Magoffin County, Kentucky that was Catawban. Here are a few excerpts from it.

A correspondent writing from Salyersville, Ky says: It is not generally known there are Indians scattered all over the mountains of Kentucky, but in nearly every county in the eastern section may be found families named Cole, Perkens, Sizemore. Mullins or Sizemore, many in some way related to “Old Billie” Cole, a Catawba Chief, who came here from North Carolina and settled in Floyd County nearly a century ago.

That would mean these Catawban families settled in Eastern Kentucky about 1800. This whole article can be found imbedded in this blog entry. 

http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2020/10/some-eastern-bands-of-catawban-peoples.html

1903 – Jarvis Lewis article claiming Melungeons were of Native American ancestry.

Mr. Jarvis Lewis was a man who had lived around the Melungeons all his life. His parents had lived near them, as well. His whole writing can be found in the same previously mentioned blog entry --

http://vancehawkins.blogspot.com/2020/10/some-eastern-bands-of-catawban-peoples.html 

Here is a little of what he says about them. As transcribed by William Grohse, historian of Hancock County, Tennessee; from the Hancock County Times; Sneedville, Tennessee, 17 April 1903

Much has been said and written about the inhabitants of Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater in Hancock County, Tenn. [some of this "fake news" was Ms. Dromgoole's writings.] They have been derisively dubbed with the name “Melungeons” by the local white people who have lived here with them. It is not a traditional name or tribe of Indians. Some have said these people were here when the white people first explored this country. Others say they are a lost tribe of the Indians having no date of their existence here, traditionally or otherwise. All of this however, is erroneous and cannot be sustained. These people, not any of them were here at the time the first white hunting party came from Virginia and North Carolina in the year 1761. . .

The white emigrants with the friendly Indians erected a fort on the bank of the river and called it Fort Blackmore and here yet many of these friendly “Indians” live in the mountains of Stony Creek [writers note: my ancestors lived ON Stony Creek at this time, too.], but they have married among the whites until the race has almost become extinct. A few of the half-bloods may be found – none darker – but they still retain the name of Collins and Gibson [author's note: I am a Gibson], &c. From here they came to Newman’s ridge and Blackwater and many of them are here yet; but the amalgamations of the whites and Indians has about washed the red tawny from their appearance, the white faces predominating, so now you scarcely find one of the original Indians; a few half-bloods and quarter-bloods-balance white or past the third generation.

The old pure blood were finer featured, straight and erect in form, more so than the whites and when mixed with whites made beautiful women and the men very fair looking men. These Indians came to Newman’s Ridge and Blackwater. Some of them went into the War of 1812-1814 whose names are here given; James Collins, John Bolin and Mike Bolin and some others not remembered; those were quite full blooded. These were like the white people; there were good and bad among them, but the great majority were upright, good citizens and accumulated good property and many of them are among our best property owners and as good as Hancock county, Tenn. affords. Their word is their bond and most of them that ever came to Hancock county, Tennessee, then Hawkins County and Claiborne, are well remembered by some of the present generation here and now and they have left records to show these facts.

They all came here simultaneously with the whites from the State of Virginia, between the years 1795 and 1812 and about this there is no mistake, except in the dates these Indians came here from Stoney Creek. [Stony Creek is in southwestern Virginia. Stony Creek was near the location of Fort Blackmore, and it was founded at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, so they were at this location by the mid/early-1770s.].

This is of interest for many reasons. One. He wrote this as a counter to what Will Allen Dromgoole had written about them being descended from a band of Portuguese Adventurers. He says they arrived with the first white men and built Fort Blackmore with them. Documents say one of the two Blackmore brothers was assignee of my direct ancestor. This is from a different line, not the Gibson line. I have three known lines from that region. That it calls him "assignee" means he got the land from my ancestor. Fort Blackmore was built in the early 1770s. He then says some came from 1795-1812. Remember the record of the Cole family that said they arrived nearly a century previously? That article was written in 1901, so a hundred years previously would have been about 1801. This is the same time frame as the Melungeons. They originally KNEW they were Catawban, as was the case with the Cole family. They are called "the friendly Indians" by Jarvis Lewis. During the Revolutionary War, the Catawba’s were friendly to the Whites and the Cherokee were mostly hostile to the settlers. But Will Allen Dromgoole used the term "Cherokee", not "Indian" to describe them. Later generations have remembered that. Since her writings became famous, and the Cole's, Guy's, and Jefferies' writing saying that they were Catawban was soon forgotten. The former was recalled, and the latter was tossed aside.

Dr. Richard Carlson and Forest Hazel both wrote of Saponi families that came to Indian Territory only to be rejected. Dr. Carlson wrote his PhD thesis on the topic from Michigan State University. Forrest Hazel wrote of the Guy and Jeffries families I mentioned above, who were veterans of the Revolutionary War. These also claimed Catawban ancestry, and wanted to come to Oklahoma, so they could have a national land base. There were over 200 descendants of the Sizemore family alone who were rejected from the Cherokee Guion-Miller Rolls, yet their male y-chromosome DNA test came back Native American. They weren't rejected because they were not Native, but rather because they were not Cherokee. The Guy and Jeffries families are the 84 'Indians' descended from Revolutionary War veterans, that I mentioned earlier. Mr. Hazel refers to them as Saponi Indians in his research. The government article I mentioned above says they are Catawba. The Saponi ARE Catawban! In colonial Virginia they were referred to as Yesah. The colonial South Carolinians referred to us as "Esaw". After teh Yamassee War abt 1710-1715 both these terms fell out of favor, as war and several small pox epidemics left just a few survivors. But the band called "Catawba" was still intact, and this term came to be used to describe all the people. After They are ALL the same people. The Saponi ARE Catawban. So are the Cheraw and Pedee.  Dr. Carlson said the following in his PhD dissertation; “. . .In 1896, J. W. Perkins and John Baldwin again petitioned the Federal Government as well as the Cherokee Nation for permission to move as a body to Indian Territory, but the attempt failed.” Perkins is one of the surnames listed in the 1948 Smithsonian document as belonging to the Melungeons, falsely called "Portuguese" by Ms. Dromgoole. Melungeon families are NOT primarily Portuguese.  I also have added Ms. Dromgoole's complete 1891 article to the end of blog entry below.

Vance Hawkins: Surviving Indian Groups of the Eastern United States; 1948

Conclusion

I hope I have dispelled the misleading accounts of the Melungeons being primarily “Portuguese”. Sure there might have been a single Portuguese amongst the mix. But the European component was far more often of English, Scots-Irish, or of French Huguenot descent. There was also an African and  a Catawban component as well. The word "malungeon" is of French origin and means "we mix" when you conjugate the French verb, to mix, which is malunger (sp?). Many thousands of French Huguenots settled in the region.

In the government’s denial of Federal Recognition of the Western Catawba Indian Association in Oklahoma, they stated their reasons very clearly;

I have to say that it is the policy of the government to abolish the tribal relationship of the Indians as fast as possible, and to settle each Indian upon a separate tract of land that he can call his own, to the end that he may become self-supporting and independent of government bounty. It would not be in keeping with this policy, I think, to gather up people who happen to have more or less Indian blood in their veins and are living among the Whites, separate and apart from Indian communities, and incorporate them into a tribe and place them upon an Indian Reservation.

We were TOO mixed, TOO assimilated, to still be considered Native American. We were considered to be TOO advanced for us to be considered Natives. They HAD to see us as savages, as blood thirsty and war like – and that was not who we were. We looked too much like them.

I have enjoyed writing and studying history and genealogy. Genealogical research makes no since if you don't learn about history as well. You need to marry names & dates & locations with historical events. We walked the earth. We have a collective memory of having Native American heritage -- we faked nothing. I have already written and shown our proof. If you want to see it, it is all written in previous blog entries.

I appreciate others who want to learn of history. I hope my research is beneficial.  I hope others will research their own families. I have always strove to be factual --this is important to me. I have travelled blind allies, but I have backed out of those blind allies, and started fresh, as well.

Family photos (and a couple of maps) are at the bottom of this blog entry. 

Vance Hawkins: What Happened to the Catawba and Associated Bands in “Indian Territory”?

There is no outward proof that much of Oklahoma was once part of a great, shallow inland sea. But there IS a gypsum mine a few miles west of town. Gypsum is formed in shallow seas. I can therefore infer we were part of an inland sea through using both inductive and deductive reasoning. If you can think this through logically; then you can also come to the conclusion that we were CATAWBAN, and NOT Portuguese. This is probably as close to finding the truth as I will ever get. Read all the blog entries -- it's already there.

I really think I am swimming upstream, and my swimming muscles are growing weaker. Unfortunately, I'm no salmon. I don't expect anyone will remember that we were here.

I am done with researching. I wish yall the best.  I am old & tired. Adios. :) 

vh

ps -- I promised to leave a link to the online source of Dromgoole's writing that I quoted above. Here it is 

“The Malungeons” by Will Allen Dromgoole (1891 article) – Melungeon Heritage Association

I also saved it to a previous blog entry and left the link to is you will find a few paragraphs above. 

ADDENDUM

One researcher never lets me get a word in edgewise. She has said Are you aware a SHIPLOAD of Portuguese sailors came with de Soto, borrowing women from each town -- they didn't skip Catawbas. The CHEROKEE CATAWBA Trading Path from VA crossed over the Flat River through Orange Co., to Yadkin/Saponi. The Catawba, like other Carolina tribes were mixed with Spanish, Portuguese, African and even Genoans in the 1500s. There are dozens of court cases on the Portuguese Melungeons from Carolinas to Texas. Tax men, sheriffs, neighbors and even Bushyhead of the Cherokee testify they were PORTUGUESE.

This is proof of NOTHING at all! What if De Soto brought Portuguese along with him? What if they stole and raped Native women? What if some were Eastern Siouan? Does this have anything at all to do with the "Melungeons"? NO! A good genealogist KNOWS you MUST map i.] surnames,ii.] Dates and iii.] Locations! To say a Portuguese person lived in the 16nth century within 200 miles of a family living in the 19th century is NOT proof that 19th century family descended from that 16nth century person. You need to prove the Portuguese a.) came with De Soto; and b.) kidnapped and raped local women. Then you must try to track each succeeding generation up to the present. So if Portuguese came with De Soto, give their names. Do any Portuguese surnames match the surnames of the 19th century Melungeon families? Englishmen also probably did this in the 17th century. And we have English surnames as we would expect.  Does that make these Englishmen also "Melungeons"? Why aren't these people at all concerned about this? I am mixed English and Scots-Irish. I could say my ancestors were Swedes because I heard some Vikings were Swedish and the Vikings also invaded England, Scotland, and Ireland in the 8th and 9th centuries. There are documents stating the African and Native peoples mixed into the 19th century! So what? Even Dromgoole stated this. She doesn't state any first hand knowledge of Portuguese immigrants arriving in America taking Native wives -- NONE. Those court cases are very interesting. Even Dromgoole says Black/mixed Melungeons claimed their skin was "Blackened" by Portuguese ancestry, and for this reason they claimed Portuguese ancestry. They were just scared of being thought of as "Black" in a very racist land in the early 19th century. There is ONE Portuguese surname -- Chavis. NO OTHER. If these Portuguese men had fathered half-Portuguese native sons, why are there not a dozen or more Portuguese surnames? She has NO PROOF, only speculation. If the Portuguese were a major component of the Melungeon makeup -- there'd be many more Portuguese surnames, and that's just not the case.

There is the case with the DNA markers. The Iberian Peninsula has been invaded numerous times. The Carthaginians, who were Phoenicians. Then the Romans came. The entire Mediterranean region was Roman. Next came the Western Goth's, who were Germanic possibly mixed with Slavic peoples. And lastly the Moroccans, aka Moors. Islamic people ranged from Turkey to India in the north and east, to the Somalians and Nigerians in the in the south and West. Since the Anglo-Saxons were Germanic, and the Slaves were African, well don't you see the same mixtures in both populations. Even the Turkic peoples came from Central Asia, and some Native American markers also go back to Central Asia. So African/Anglo/Native markers could be mistaken for Iberian. They have NOT proven their case that we were Portuguese. They HAVE however. muddied the waters, and that's just sad.