The authors/submitters alone is responsible for
what is expressed
DID YOU KNOW
FROM THE WEBSITE WWW.MEXICA-MOVEMENT.ORG
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"Latino" denies us our true Nican Tlaca (Indigenous) identity and heritage. It keeps us slaves to European interests and Spaniard culture. Collectively, we have no Latin genealogy, Latin blood group, Latin history, or a common Latin culture of food or mythology. The "Latino" labeling of our people is a colonialist-racist act of Genocide---an attempt to "kill off" our people's true identity, history, independence, and our rights to our land and its wealth. Notice how this is not about "Latino Americans" in the U.S. This is about all of the "Spanish speaker" European Spaniards and their colonies of Nican Tlaca and Africans in the "Americas". What they are in fact doing is separating us from our Anahuac Heritage (Mexican and "Central American" Nican Tlaca identity and history) and enslaving us to their needs. THE CONCEPT OF HISPANIC is even more racist than "Latino" because it completely denies us our true Nican Tlaca heritage by not even referring to our colonized condition of being in "Latin America". We now become direct possessions of Spaniards. This is an attempt (successful so far) to actively reactivate the Spanish colonial empire through their colonials on our land. The media is their main tool in this parasitic renewed colonialist machine of the European Spaniards.
A side note: A
Mixed-blood is not a Criollo or a European.
Spaniards, Europeans, And Their Squatter
Descendants On Our Land Who Force Their Eurocentric, Racist, &
Anti-Indigenous "Hispanic" & "Latino" Labels On Our People!
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1) THEFT OF OUR
LAND was the initial crime of the
Europeans. We did not ever give up the ownership of our land, nor
did we ever invite Europeans onto our lands.
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THE LYNCHING OF SO CALLED NEGROES. (BLACK PEOPLE)
1885. . . . .184 1895. . . . .171 1886. . . . .138 1896. . . . .131 1887. . . . .122 1897. . . . .166 1888. . . . .142 1898. . . . .127 1889. . . . .176 1899. . . . .107 1890. . . . .127 1900. . . . .115 1891. . . . .192 1901. . . . .135 1892. . . . .235 1902. . . . .96 1893. . . . .200 1903(to Sept. 14, eight and a half months). . . . .76 1894. . . . .190 Total lynchings. Whites. Negroes. In the South. In the North. 1900. . . . . . . 115 8 107 107 8 1901. . . . . . . 135 26 107 121 14 1902. . . . . . . . 96 9 86 87 9 1903(to Sept. 14). . . . .76 13 63 66 10 Causes Assigned. 1900 1901.* 1902.† 1903. Murder 39 39 37 32 Rape 18 19 19 8 Attempted rape 13 9 11 5 Race prejudice 10 9 2 3 Assaulting whites 6 - 3 3 Threats to kill 5 - 1 - Burglary 4 1 - - Attempt to murder 4 9 4 6 Informing 2 - - - Robbery 2 “Theft” 12 1 - Complicity in murder 2 6 3 5 Rape and murder - - - 1 Suspicion of murder 2 3 1 3 Suspicion of robbery 1 - - - No offence 1 - - - Arson 2 4 - - Suspicion of arson 1 - - - Aiding escape of murderer 1 - 1 - Insulting a white woman - 1 - - Cattle and horse stealing - 7 1 - Quarrel over profit-sharing - 5 - - Suspicion of rape - 1 - - Suspicion of rape and murder - 1 - - Unknown offences 2 6 - 4 Mistaken identity - 1 1 3 NOTE.—The lynchings in the various States and Territories in 1900 were as follows: Alabama 8 New York 0 Arkansas 6 Nevada 0 California 0 North Carolina 3 Colorado 3 North Dakota 0 Connecticut 0 Ohio 0 Delaware 0 Oregon 0 Florida 9 Pennsylvania 0 Georgia 16 Rhode Island 0 Idaho 0 South Carolina 2 Illinois 0 South Dakota 0 Indiana 3 Tennessee 7 Iowa 0 Texas 4 Kansas 2 Vermont 0 Kentucky 1 Virginia 6 Louisiana 20 West Virginia 2 Maine 0 Wisconsin 0 Maryland 1 Washington 0 Massachusetts 0 ! Wyoming 0 Michigan 0 Arizona 0 Minnesota 0 District of Columbia 0 Mississippi 20 New Mexico 0 Missouri 2 Utah 0 Montana 0 Indian Territory 0 Nebraska 0 Oklahoma 0 New Jersey 0 Alaska 0 New Hampshire 0 * In 1901 one Indian and one Chinaman lynched. † In 1902 one Indian lynched. From these tables certain facts may be deduced. The first is that, in the year of which an analysis is given (1900), over nine-tenths of the lynchings occurred in the South, where only about one-third of the population of the country were, but where nine- tenths of the negroes were; secondly, that, of these lynchings, about nine-tenths were of negroes and one-third were in the three States where the negroes are most numerous; thirdly, that, while the lynchings appear to be diminishing at the South, the ratio, at least, is increasing at the North. It further appears that, though lynching began as a punishment for assault on white women, it has extended until less than one-fourth of the instances are for this crime, while over three-fourths of them are for murder, attempts at murder, or some less heinous offence. This may be accounted for, in part, by the fact that the murders in the South partake somewhat of the nature of race-conflicts. Over 2,700 lynchings in eighteen years are enough to stagger the mind. Either we are relapsing into barbarism, or there is some terrific cause for our reversion to the methods of mediaevalism, and our laws are inefficient to meet it. The only gleam of light is that, of late years, the number appears to have diminished. To get at the remedy, we must first get at the cause. Time was when the crime of assault was unknown throughout the South. During the whole period of slavery, it did not exist, nor did it exist to any considerable extent for some years after Emancipation. During the War, the men were away in the army, and the negroes were the loyal guardians of the women and children. On isolated plantations and in lonely ! neighbor hoods, women were as secure as in the streets of Boston or New York. Then came the period and process of Reconstruction, with its teachings. Among these was the teaching that the negro was the equal of the white, that the white was his enemy, and that he must assert his equality. The growth of the idea was a gradual one in the negro’s mind. This was followed by a number of cases where members of the negro militia ravished white women; in some instances in the presence of their families.*[A] The result of the hostility between the Southern whites and Government at that time was to throw the former upon their own acts for their defence or revenge, with a consequent training in lawless punishment of acts which should have been punished by law. And here lynching had its evil origin. It was suggested some time ago, in a thoughtful paper read by Professor Wilcox, that a condition something like this had its rise in France during the religious wars. The first instance of rape, outside of these attacks by armed negroes, and of consequent lynching, that attracted the attention of the country was a case which occurred in Mississippi, where the teaching of equality and of violence found one of its most fruitful fields. A negro dragged a woman down into the woods, and tying her, kept her bound there a prisoner for several days, when he butchered her. He was caught and was lynched. With the resumption of local power by the whites came the temporary and partial ending of the crimes of assault and of lynching. As the old relation, which had survived even the strain of Reconstruction, dwindled with the passing of the old generation from the stage, and the “New Issue” with the new teaching took its place, the crime broke out again with renewed violence. The idea of equality began to percolate more extensively among the negroes. In evidence of it is the fact that since the assaults began again they have been chiefly directed against the plainer order of people, instances of ! attacks on women of the upper class, though not unknown, being of rare occurrence.*[B] Conditions in the South render the commission of this crime peculiarly easy. The white population is sparse, the forests are extensive, the officers of the law distant and difficult to reach; but, above all, the negro population has appeared inclined to condone the fact of mere assault. Twenty-five years ago, women went unaccompanied and unafraid throughout the South, as they still go throughout the North. To-day, no white woman, or girl, or female child, goes alone out of sight of the house except on necessity; and no man leaves his wife alone in his house, if he can help it. Cases have occurred of assault and murder in broad day, within sight and sound of the victim’s home. Indeed, an instance occurred not a great while ago in the District of Columbia, within a hundred yards of a fashionable drive, when, about three o’clock of a bright June day, a young girl was attacked within sight and sound of her house, and when she screamed her throat was cut. So near to her home was the spot that her mother and an officer, hearing her cries, reached her before life was extinct. For a time, the ordinary course of the law was, in the main, relied on to meet the trouble; but it was found that, notwithstanding the inevitable infliction of the death penalty, several evils resulted therefrom. The chief one was that the ravishing of women, instead of diminishing, steadily increased. The criminal, under the ministrations of his preachers, usually professed to have “gotten religion,” and from the shadow of the gallows called on his friends to follow him to glory. So that the punishment lost to these emotional people much of its deterrent force, especially where the real sympathy of the race was mainly with the criminal rather than with his victim. Another evil was the dreadful necessity of calling on the innocent victim, who, if she survived, as she rarely did, was already bowed to the earth by shame, to relate in public! the sto ry of the assault--an ordeal which was worse than death. Yet another was the delay in the execution of the law. With these, however, was one other which, perhaps, did more than all the rest together to wrest the trial and punishment from the Courts and carry them out by mob-violence. This was the unnamable brutality with which the causing crime was, in nearly every case, attended. The death of the victim of the ravisher was generally the least of the attendant horrors. In Texas, in Mississippi, in Georgia, in Kentucky, in Colorado, as later in Delaware, the facts in the case were so unspeakable that they have never been put in print. They could not be put in print. It is these unnamable horrors which have outraged the minds of those who live in regions where they have occurred, and where they may at any time occur again, and, upsetting reason, have swept from their bearings cool men and changed them into madmen, drunk with the lust of revenge. Not unnaturally, such barbarity as burning at the stake has shocked the sense of the rest of the country, and, indeed, of the world. But it is well for the rest of the country, and for the world, to know that it has also shocked the sense of the South, and, in their calmer moments, even the sense of those men who, in their frenzy, have been guilty of it. Only, a deeper shock than even this is at the bottom of their ferocious rage—the shock which comes from the ravishing and butchery of their women and children. It is not necessary to be an apologist for barbarity because one states with bluntness the cause. The stern underlying principle of the people who commit these barbarities is one that has its root deep in the basic passions of humanity; the determination to put an end to the ravishing of their women by an inferior race, no matter what the consequence. For a time, a speedy execution by hanging was the only mode of retribution resorted to by the lynchers; then, when this failed of its purpose, a more savage method was essayed, born of a! savage fury at the failure of the first, and a stern resolve to strike a deeper terror into those whom the other method had failed to awe. The following may serve as an illustration. Ten or twelve years ago, the writer lectured one afternoon in the early spring in a town in the cotton-belt of Texas--one of the prettiest towns in the Southwest. The lecture was delivered in the Court-house. The writer was introduced by a gentleman who had been a member of the Confederate Cabinet and a Senator of the United States, and the audience was composed of refined and cultured people, representing, perhaps, every State from Maine to Texas. Two days later, the papers contained the account of the burning at the stake in this town of a negro. He had picked up a little girl of five or six years of age on the street where she was playing in front of her home, and carried her off, telling her that her mother had sent him for her; and when she cried, he had soothed her with candy which, with deliberate prevision, he had bought for the purpose. When she was found, she was unrecognizable. With her little body broken and mangled, he had cut her throat and thrown her into a ditch. A strong effort was made to save him for the law, but without avail: the people had reverted to the primal law of vengeance. Farmers came from fifty miles to see that vengeance was exacted. They had resolved to strike terror into the breasts of all, so that such a crime could never occur again. This was, perhaps, the second or third instance of burning in the country. Of late, lynching at the stake has spread beyond the region where it has such reason for existence as may be given by the conditions that prevail in the South. Three frightful instances by burning have occurred recently in Northern States, in communities where some of these conditions were partly wanting. The horror of the main fact of lynching was increased, in two of the cases, by a concerted attack on a large element of the negro population which was wholly i! nnocent. Even the unoffending negroes were driven from their homes, a consequence which has never followed in the South, where it might seem there was more occasion for it. It thus appears that the original crime, and also the consequent one in its most brutal form, are not confined to the South, and, possibly, are only more frequent there because of the greater number of negroes in that section. The deep racial instincts are not limited by geographical bounds. These last-mentioned lynchings were so ferocious, and so unwarranted by any such necessity, real or fancied, as may be thought to exist at the South by reason of the frequency of assault and the absence of a strong police force, that they not unnaturally called forth almost universal condemnation. The President felt it proper to write an open letter, commending the action of the Governor of Indiana on the proper and efficient exercise of his authority to uphold the law and restore order in his State. But who has ever thought it necessary to commend the Governors of the Southern States under similar circumstances? The militia of some of the Southern States are almost veterans, so frequently have they been called on to protect wretches whose crimes stank in the nostrils of all decent men. The Governor of Virginia boasted, a few years ago, that no lynching should take place during his incumbency, and he nearly made good his boast; though, to do so, he had to call out at one time or another almost the entire force of the State. Editorials in some of the Eastern papers note with astonishment recent instances where law-officers in the South have protected their prisoners or eluded a mob. The writers of these editorials know so little of the South that one is scarcely surprised at their ignorance. But men are hanged by law for this crime of assault every few months in some State in the South. A few years ago, Sheriff Smith, of Birmingham, protected a murderer at the cost of many lives; a little later, Mayor Prout, of Roanoke, defended a n! egro rav isher and murderer, and, though the mob finally succeeded in their aim, six men were killed by the guards before the jail was carried. These are only two of the many instances in which brave and faithful officers have, at the risk of their lives, defended their charges against that most terrible of all assailants—a determined mob.* *The following table is from the Chicago Tribune. The number of legal executions in 1900 was 118, as compared with 131 in 1899, 109 in 1898, 128 in 1897, 122 in 1896, 132 in 1895, 132 in 1894, 126 in 1893, and 107 in 1892. The executions in the several States and Territories were in 1900 as follows: Alabama 4 New York 3 Arkansas 0 Nevada 0 California 5 North Carolina 9 Colorado 0 North Dakota 1 Connecticut 1 Ohio 1 Delaware 0 Oregon 1 Florida 1 Pennsylvania 15 Georgia 14 Rhode Island 0 Idaho 2 South Carolina 3 Illinois 0 South Dakota 0 Indiana 0 Tennessee 4 Iowa 0 Texas 18 Kansas 0 Vermont 0 Kentucky 0 Virginia 7 Louisiana 6 West Virginia 0 Maine 0 Wisconsin 0 Maryland 3 Wyoming 0 Massachusetts 0 Washington 2 Michigan 0 Arizona 4 Minnesota 0 District of Columbia 3 Mississippi 1 New Mexico 0 Missouri 3 Utah 0 Montana 3 Indian Territory 0 Nebraska 0 Oklahoma 0 New Jersey 4 Alaska 0 New Hampshire 0 There were 80 hanged in the South and 39 in the North, of whom 60 were whites, 58 were blacks, and one a Chinaman. The crimes for which they were executed were: murder, 113; rape, 5; arson, 1. Thus, of the 119 hangings, about two-thirds (80) were in the South and one-third (39) in the North; about one-half (60) of the entire number were of whites, and one-half (58) were of blacks. So, the South appears to have done its part in the matter of punishing by law as well as by violence. For a time, the assaults by negroes were confined to young women who were caught alone in solitary and secluded places. The company even of a child was sufficient to protect ! them. Th en the ravishers grew bolder, and attacks followed on women when they were in company. And then, not content with this, the ravishers began to attack women in their own homes. Sundry instances of this have occurred within the last few years. As an illustration, may be cited the notorious case of Samuel Hose, who, after making a bet with a negro preacher that he could have access to a white woman, went into a farmer’s house while the family, father, mother, and child, were at supper; brained the man with his axe; threw the child into a corner with a violence which knocked it senseless, and ravished the wife and mother with unnamable horrors, butchered her and bore away with him the indisputable proof of having won his wager. He was caught and was burnt. Another instance, only less appalling, occurred two years ago in Lynchburg, Virginia, where the colored janitor of a white female school, who had been brought up and promoted by the Superintendent of Schools, and was regarded as a shining example of what education might accomplish with his race, entered the house of a respectable man one morning, after the husband, who was a foreman in a factory, had gone to his work; and ravished the wife, and then putting his knee on her breast, coolly cut her throat as he might have done a calf’s. There was no attempt at lynching; but the Governor, resolved to preserve the good name of the commonwealth, felt it necessary to order out two regiments of soldiers, in which course he was sustained by the entire sentiment of the State. These cases were neither worse nor better than many of those which have occurred in the South in the last twenty years, and in that period hundreds of women and a number of children have been ravished and slain. Now, how is this crime of assault to be stopped? For stopped it must be, and stopped it will be, whatever the cost. One proposition is that separation of the races, complete separation, is the only remedy. The theory appears Utopian. Colonization has been! the dre am of certain philanthropists for a hundred years. And, meantime, the negroes have increased from less than a million to nine millions. They will never be deported; not because we have not the money, for an amount equal to that spent in pensions during three years would pay the expenses of such deportation, and an amount equal to that paid in six years would set them up in a new country. But the negroes have rights; many of them are estimable citizens; and even the body of them, when well regulated, are valuable laborers. It might, therefore, as well be assumed that this plan will never be carried out, unless the occasion becomes so imperative that all other rights give way to the supreme right of necessity. It is plain, then, that we must deal with the matter in a more practicable manner, accepting conditions as they are, and applying to them legal methods which will be effective. Lynching does not end ravishing, and that is the prime necessity. Most right- thinking men are agreed as to this. Indeed, lynching, through lacking the supreme principle of law, the deliberateness from which is supposed to come the certainty of identification, fails utterly to meet the necessity of the case even as a deterrent. Not only have assaults occurred again and again in the same neighborhood where lynching has followed such crime; but, a few years ago, it was publicly stated that a negro who had just witnessed a lynching for this crime actually committed an assault on his way home. However this may be, lynching as a remedy is a ghastly failure; and its brutalizing effect on the community is incalculable. The charge that is often made, that the innocent are sometimes lynched, has little foundation. The rage of a mob is not directed against the innocent, but against the guilty; and its fury would not be satisfied with any other sacrifices than the death of the real criminal. Nor does the criminal merit any consideration, however terrible the punishment. The real injury is to the perpetrators of the crime ! of destr oying the law, and to the community in which the law is slain.[C] It is pretty generally conceded that the “law’s delay” is partly responsible for the “wild justice” of mob vengeance, and this has undoubtedly been the cause of many mobs. But it is far from certain if any change in the methods of administration of law will effect the stopping of lynching; while to remedy this evil we may bring about a greater peril. Trial by jury is the bed-rock of our liberties, and the inherent principle of such trial is its deliberateness. It has been said that the whole purpose of the Constitution of Great Britain is that twelve men may sit in the jury-box. The methods of the law may well be reformed; but any movement should be jealously scanned which touches the chief barrier of all liberty. The first step, then, would appear to be the establishment of a system securing a reasonably prompt trial and speedy execution by law, rather than a wholesome revolution of the existing system. Many expedients have been suggested; some of the most drastic by Northern men. One of them proposed, not long since, that to meet the mob--spirit, a trial somewhat in the nature of a drum-head court-martial might be established by law, by which the accused may be tried and, if found guilty, executed immediately. Others have proposed as a remedy emasculation by law; while a Justice of the Supreme Court has recently given the weight of his personal opinion in favor of prompt trial and the abolishment of appeals in such cases. Even the terrible suggestion has been made that burning at the stake might be legalized! These suggestions testify how grave the matter is considered to be by those who make them. But none of these, unless it be the one relating to emasculation, is more than an expedient. The trouble lies deeper. The crime of lynching is not likely to cease until the crime of ravishing and murdering women and children is less frequent than it has been of late. And this crime, which is will-nigh wholly con! fined to the negro race, will not greatly diminish until the negroes themselves take it in hand and stamp it out. From recent developments, it may be properly inferred that the absence of this crime during the period of Slavery was due more to the feeling among the negroes themselves than to any repressive measures on the part of the whites. The negro had the same animal instincts in Slavery that he exhibits now; the punishment that follows the crime now is as certain, as terrible, and as swift as it could have been then. So, to what is due the alarming increase of this terrible brutality? To the writer it appears plain that it is due to two things: first, to racial antagonism and to the talk of social inequality, from which it first sprang, that inflames the ignorant negro, who has grown up unregulated and undisciplined; and, secondly, to the absence of a strong restraining public opinion among the negroes of any class, which alone can extirpate the crime. In the first place, the negro does not generally believe in the virtue of women. It is beyond his experience. He does not generally believe in the existence of actual assault. It is beyond his comprehension. In the next place, his passion, always his controlling force, is now, since the new teaching, for the white woman.*[D] That there are many negroes who are law-abiding and whose influence is for good, no one who knows the worthy members of the race, those who represent the better element, will deny. But while there are, of course, notable exceptions, they are not often of the “New Issue,” nor even generally among the prominent leaders: those who publish papers and control conventions. As the crime of rape had its baleful origin in the teaching of equality and the placing of power in the ignorant negroes’ hands, so its perpetration and increase have undoubtedly been due in large part to the same teaching. The intelligent negro may understand what social equality truly means; but to the ignorant and brutal young negro, it ! signifie s but one thing: the opportunity to enjoy, equally with white men, the privilege of cohabiting with white women. This the whites of the South understand; and if it were understood abroad, it would serve to explain some things which have not been understood hitherto. It will explain, in part, the universal and furious hostility of the South to even the least suggestion of social equality. A close following of the instances of rape and lynching, and the public discussion consequent thereon, has led the writer to the painful realization that even the leaders of the negro race--at least, those who are prominent enough to hold conventions and write papers on the subject--have rarely, by act or word, shown a true appreciation of the enormity of the crime of ravishing and murdering women. Their discussion and denunciation have been almost invariably and exclusively devoted to the crime of lynching. Underlying most of their protests is the suggestion, that the victim of the mob is innocent and a martyr. Now and then, there is a mild generalization on the evil of lawbreaking and the violation of women; but, for one stern word of protest against violating women and cutting their throats, the records of negro meetings will show many against the attack of the mob on the criminal. And, as to any serious and determined effort to take hold of and stamp out the crime that is blackening the entire negro race to- day, and arousing against them the fatal and possibly the undying enmity of the stronger race, there is, with the exception of the utterances of a few score individuals like Booker Washington, who always speaks for the right, Hannibal Thomas and Bishop Turner, hardly a trace of such a thing. A crusade has been preached against lynching, even as far as England; but none has been thought of against the ravishing and tearing to pieces of white women and children. Happily, there is an element of sound-minded, law-abiding negroes, representative of the old negro, who without parade stand for good order! , and do what they can to repress lawlessness among their people. But for this class and the kindly relations which are preserved between them and the whites, the situation in the South would long since have become unbearable. These, however, are not generally among the leaders, and, unfortunately, their influence is not sufficiently extended to counteract the evil influences which are at work with such fatal results. One who reads the utterances of negro orators and preachers on the subject of lynching, and who knows the negro race, cannot doubt that, at bottom, their sympathy is generally with the “victim” of the mob, and not with his victim. Until the negroes shall create among themselves a sound public opinion which, instead of fostering, shall reprobate and sternly repress the crime of assaulting women and children, the crime will never be extirpated, and until this crime is stopped the crime of lynching will never be extirpated. Lynching will never be done away with while the sympathy of the whites is with the lynchers, and no more will ravishing be done away with while the sympathy of the negroes is with the ravisher. When the negroes shall stop applying all their energies to harboring and defending negroes, no matter what their crime so it be against the whites, and shall distinguish between the law-abiding negro and the law-breaker, a long step will have been taken. Should the negroes sturdily and faithfully set themselves to prevent the crime of rape by members of that race, it could be stamped out. Should the whites set themselves against lynching, lynching would be stopped. The remedy then is plain. Let the negroes take charge of the crime of ravishing and firmly put it away from them, and let the whites take charge of the crime of lynching and put it away from them. It is time that the races should address themselves to the task; for it is with nations as with individual men; whatsoever they sow that shall they also reap. It is the writer’s belief that the arrest and ! the prom pt handing over to the law of negroes by negroes, for assault on white women, would do more to break up ravishing, and to restore amicable relations between the two races, than all the resolutions of all the Conventions and all the harangues of all the politicians. It has been tried in various States to put an end to lynching by making the county in which the lynching occurs liable in damages for the crime. It is a good theory; and, if it has not worked well, it is because of the difficulty of executing the provision. Could some plan be devised to array each race against the crime to which it is prone, both rape and lynching might be diminished, if not wholly prevented. The practical application of such a principle is difficult, but, perhaps, it is not impossible. It is possible that in every community negroes might be appointed officers of the law, to look exclusively after lawbreakers of their own race. The English in the East manage such matters well, under equally complicated and delicate conditions. For example, in the Island of Malta, where the population are of different classes among whom a certain jealousy exists, there are several classes of police: the naval police, the military police, and the civil or municipal police. To each of these is assigned more especially the charge of one of the three classes of whom the population of the Island is composed. Again, in Hong Kong, where the situation is even more delicate, there are several classes of police: the English, the Chinese, and the Indian police. Only the first are empowered to make general arrests; the others have powers relating exclusively to the good order of the races to which they belong, though they may in all cases be called in to assist the English police. Somewhat in the same way, the negroes might be given within their province powers sufficiently full to enable them to keep order among their people, and they might on the other hand be held to a certain accountability for such good order. It might even be ! required that every person should be listed and steadily kept track of, as is one in Germany at present. The recent vagrant laws of Georgia, where there are more negroes than in the entire North, are an attempt in this direction. In the same way, the white officials charged with the good order of the county or town might be given enlarged powers of summoning posses, and might be held to a high accountability. For example, ipso facto forfeiture of the official bond and removal from office, with perpetual disability to hold any office again, might be provided as a penalty for permitting any persons to be taken out of their hands. Few ravishings by negroes would occur if the more influential members of the race were held accountable for the good order of their race in every community; and few lynchings would occur, at least after the prisoners were in the hands of the officers of the law, if those officers, by the mere fact of relinquishing their prisoners should be disqualified from ever holding office again. These suggestions may be as Utopian as others which have been made; but if they cannot be carried out, it is because the ravishings by negroes and the murders by mobs have their roots so deep in racial instincts that nothing can eradicate them, and in such case the ultimate issue will be a resort to the final test of might, which in the last analysis underlies everything. |
WHERE THE NATIVE AMERICANS GOT THE NAME INDIANS
It was stated by Russell Means that he was given
documents
from scholars in Turin, Italy (the true home of the Shroud of Turin) that
the Native people of this continent were called "Indians", not because of so
called confusion between this land and India, but because the early
explorers to this continent saw the spiritual nature of the Original Man
living here and wrote back to Italy and Spain and said "these people are
Indios (In-Dios)" meaning, In God or with God.
Please share this little known fact with the Universal Zulu Nation. Respect
due, Bro. Ernie Panicciolio
That Phoebe Fraunces a Black women saved George Washington's life on the eve
of the Revolutionary War. The British had a agent Irishman name Thomas Hickey,
who was George Washingtons bodyguard who had an intimate friendship with Fraunces and gave her
a dish of poisoned peas to served Washington when he came for dinner. She became suspicious of the Irishmans
actions and warned Washington, who threw away the peas into the yard, where some chickens ate the peas and fell dead
. For Hickey assassination attempt on Washington's life, he was hanged before a crowed of 20,000 in
New York City. Both Miss Fraunces and her father, Black Sam were officially recognized by the Continental
Congress for their service to the fledging country and given a sum of money. When George became Americas
President, he appointed Fraunces White House steward.
That President Ulysses Grant was probably the first and only American President to be arrested, and that it was a Black
District of Columbia policeman by the name of Officer William West who performed the deed in
the 19th century. Officer West book the President for violating the district speeding law and for professionalism as an officer of the law,
the President later on promoted Officer West to a mounted policeman. President Grant not want to be in the public eye as someone who is above the law.
| MUSLIMS IN EARLY AMERICA | |||||||
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This
paper will cover early Muslim settlers from 1500-1850
not covered under the Unit on Muslims in slavery. This
will include such individuals as Naserudine (an Egyptian in the 1550's), Salem the Algerian (Muslim present at the signing of the Constitution) Melungeons, the Ben Ishmael Tribe, the Delaware Moors, and the Dismal Swamp Maroons of North Carolina will also be covered. An Egyptian named Nassereddine settled near the Hudson river in the Catskills region of upstate New York in the later part of the 16th century. He claimed royal linage and was called Prince Nassereddine by friends and associates. He met his fate when he made a bet with a Dutchman. Gambling was, of course, against Islam, but the nature of the bet was one he felt he had to undertake. The Dutchman wagered him a thousand pieces of crown gold that he couldn’t win the heart of a beautiful Native American princess named Lotwana. Nassereddine succeeded in befriending Lotwana’s father, the Mohawk chief Shordaken. However, he failed to make headway with the princess. Subsequently, she became engaged to a brave of her tribe of her own choice. Nassereddine was smitten with love for the princess and vowed revenge. He poisoned Lotwana on her wedding night by giving he a gift with a poison snake hidden inside. After the princess was bitten, the warriors of the Mohawk tribe captured Nassereddine and burned him at the stake. Salim the Algerian Salim the Algerian, who was a Muslim from a royal family of Algiers that studied in Constantinople. After returning from a visit to Constantinople, he was captured by a Spanish Man of War and later sold into slavery to the French in New Orleans. Eventually he became free after running from slavery, lived among American Indian tribes, and settled in Virginia. Salem was found in rags, almost naked, and was taught English. Eventually, it was ascertained that he knew Greek and he was given a Greek New Testament. Several future members of the U.S. Congress befriended him and he converted to Christianity. A new convert to Christianity he decided to go back home to spread the Gospel. After a disastrous journey to his homeland (where he was shunned as an apostate), he returned to America, met Thomas Jefferson, attended the 1st Continental Congress, and died an insane man having given up his family and religion for America. While Salim was at the Congress, Congressman Page introduced him to the painter Mr. Peale. He would later paint Salim’s portrait. Near the end of Salem's life, he regained his long lost sanity. He had been insane since his trip to his homeland after his conversion to Christianity. According to some legends, he renounced Christianity, other say died a Christian at the Page estate, and still others say he died in an insane asylum. [Graham's Magazine, 1857, pp. 433 437.] Arab Muslims during the Revolutionary War During the American Revolution the French helped the revolutionaries by sending aid in ships from Algeria. The islands of Cape Hatteras were the site of many ship wrecks. The Wahhab brothers were shipwrecked on the coast of North Carolina in the 1770's. They settled, married, and started a farm. Ocracoke Island off the North Carolina coast has its Wahab Village. Wahab family tradition states that the founder of Wahab Village was a Muslim from North Africa and settled there due to the land’s natural beauty. Whether they or their ancestors stayed in the Islamic faith is something that I can not answer at this time. Earlier in this century their descendents owned one of the largest private hotel chains in North Carolina. On the North Carolina barrier island of Ocracoke there are two hotels built by Robert Stanley Wahab. The two hotels still exist under private ownership but not in the hands of the Wahab family. Blackbeard’s Lodge which was originally called Wahab Village Inn built in 1936 and The Island Inn with its Old Crow’s Nest Officer’s Club built in 1940. From Social Security records I believe he lived from Feb. 3, 1888 to Nov. 1967. Stanley Wahab was also associate manager of the Dare County Airport authority from 1947-1949. The main cemetery on the island is named the Wahab-Howard cemetery after the two most famous families on the island. Around this same time, a ship of 70 odd Moorish slaves landed in Maryland. No more is known on these Moors. Another similar reference can be traced to 1753 when Abel Conder and Mahamut petitioned the authorities in South Carolina to be freed from indentured servitude. They came from Sali on the Barbary Coast. They fought the Portuguese at Maguson, lost, and were sold into slavery. Captain Henry Daubrig offered to buy their freedom if they would be his servants in South Carolina for five years and they readily agreed. In South Carolina they were sold to Daniel LaRouche and treated as slaves. Instead of being freed after five years LaRouche held them for more than fifteen years. It is believed the petition was accepted and they were freed. Records of other Moors also exist in public records in South Carolina, Rhode Island, Delaware, Florida, and Georgia. Sumter Turks Another groups like the Wahhab brothers was the family of Yusuf Ben Ali (Anglicized as Joseph Benenhali). He fought along side General Thomas Sumter during the Revolutionary War. In 1790 the House of Representatives of South Carolina passed the Sundry Moors Acts. These acts recognized Yusuf Ben Ali and about a dozen other North African Muslims in South Carolina as subjects of Morocco and not subject to laws regarding slaves and freedmen. Keep in mind Morocco was one of the first nations to recognize the new American Republic in 1783. Later General Sumter championed Yusuf Ben Ali’s rights to serve on all White juries. The descendants of the Sundry Moors joined the various Protestant denominations in the areas they settled. The Benenhali family intermarried with the Oxendine family and was listed as Turk (or non-White) in census records. These two families made many contributions to the social and historic development of Sumter, South Carolina and surrounding areas. There are over three hundred members of these families in South Carolina today. It is highly unlikely that any are Muslim today. Even though we can trace hundreds of Muslims in the United States prior to the War Between the States, Islam never gained a strong foothold until the arrival of immigrant Muslims from India and the Middle East after the 1870’s. Omani Traders in the United States The Omani Embassy published a pamphlet about the exploits of the first Arab traders to the United States in 1840. They did not settle here, however. [Eilts, Herman Fredrick The Visit of Ahmad bin Na'aman to the U.S. in the Year 1840, Embassy of Oman 1962.] The ship arrived on April 30 and left on August 7, 1840. Merchant ships from Salem, Massachusetts had already setup extensive trade with various European nations and the seafaring Omani’s wanted in on the commercial activities. The voyage started from Muscat and Zanzibar. The captain Ahmad bin Na’aman was an Arab born in Basra interested in setting-up an import-export business with the United States. Being seen as a representative on the King of Zanzibar, he was given red carpet treatment and received many resolutions from politicians welcoming him. He tours the East Coast by train and visited Castle Garden, Brooklyn, and Washington, D.C. He was a guest at a formal dinner at NYC’s city hall thrown by Commodore Vanderbilt. There he met NY governor William Seward and Vice-President Richard Johnson. Edward Mooney painted his portrait. The Delaware Moors The Delaware Moors are a group of mixed race individuals related to the Delaware Indians. The Delaware State Legislature refused to recognize the Moors as either Indians or as Moors. They were classified as "Negro" on state records and the Delaware Indians were proclaimed extinct. The Nanricoke Indians fought back as did their close relatives the Moors. Eventually both won some degree of recognition. The scholar C.A. Weslager writes of his time among these "Forgotten Moors" in his works The Nanricoke Indians (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1983) and Delaware's Forgotten Folk (Philadelphia, 1943). The Moors were a result of a mixture of Moorish, Irish, and Nanricoke blood. A similar group called the Ben Ishmael Tribe is described below in this lesson. According to Weslager, several theories arose as to the origin of the Delaware Moors. On p. 27 of his 1943 work we read, "First is the Colonization legend. In essence, it says that a group of dark skinned Spanish Moors, sometime before the Revolutionary War, sailed to America to found a colony. They are supposed to have settled along the Atlantic Coast. From this ancestral stock, through intermarriage with Indians, came a race of people called Moors who lived apart in settlements of their own on the southeastern coast of the Delmarva Peninsula." A further modification of this theory is found on p. 30 where we read, "Sometime before the Revolutionary War a beautiful red haired lady lived on a large plantation in the vicinity of Lewes and owned many black slaves. A strange plague swept the countryside and killed many of her slaves. She went to the slave market at Lewes to purchase a new lot of blacks who had lately arrived on a slave ship. There she was impressed by a coterie of seven handsome men and seven beautiful women who stood apart from the other slaves and spoke a different language. Their skins were dark, but their hair was straight and their features were as regular as those of white persons. She recognized that they were Moors not Negroes and bought the seven couples and took them home. The children who were born to these Moorish slaves later intermarried with Indian descendants then living on the Indian River. The progeny of these mixed marriages became the people known today as Moors and Nanticokes." [C.A. Weslager, 1943, pp. 27, 30]. Escape from Noble County The Ben Ishmael Tribe Around 1785 a number of freed and runaway slaves, along with poor, white indentured servants fled Noble County (now Bourbon County) Kentucky and settled near the future site of Indianapolis. They intermingled with Pawnee Indians and set up a nomadic tribal existence. Their leaders were Ben and Jennie Ishmael. This fine artisan, musical pair taught polygamy, nomadic existence, and racial mixing. By 1810 they had three temporary villages: Mahomet, Illinois and Morocco and Mecca, Indiana. In 1827 James Fenimore Cooper wrote his book the Prairie about them. The leaders went West and became legendary occultated leaders (similar to Master Fard and many Shia’ leaders). By 1880 they had so many run ins with the law over Polygamy, vagrancy, and similar “crimes” that a Minister O.C. Mc Culloch wrote The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in Social Degradation in favor of castrating the men and separating children from their Mothers. In 1907 Indiana passed a draconian eugenics law and the tribe fled Indianapolis for Chicago, Detroit and other cities and would have vanished from history if not for Hugo P. Leaming's “The Ben Ishmael Tribe” in The Ethnic Frontier (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977). According to Leaming, Noble Drew Ali gathered many of his early followers from this group and this is one possible unexplored area for his teachings. I have little doubt that the monthly magazine The Ishmaelite was a publication somehow related to the Ben Ishmael tribe members in Cincinnati, Ohio. Newberry Library in Chicago has monthly volumes for 1897 1898. There are poems for Cuba, Africa, and Egypt in many volumes. Also some of the contributor have Arabic sounding names that were common among members of the Tribe of Ishmael, such as: Farr, Rabb, and Latta. In Vol. 1, No. 2 (Jan., 1897) there is a poem “Cuba” by Meredith Nicholson which has the lines: “Let vulture Spain hide in her nest the fair pearl of the Southern seas...,” “But while we prate of love of man, may not the Spaniard match the Turk?” and “I know not whether black or white they be who strive to make her free...”. There is also a poem by Albert Weston in this issue called “Out of Egypt.” On the cover of each issue are the words: “His hand shall be against every man and every man’s hand against him and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren” and also the promise, from Mount Nebo Press (the publisher), “Written by men and women who are not employed to boom anyone's Book Bindery Shop, who hate snobbery in life or literature, and who, expecting little shall be disappointed…” In Vol. 2, No. 6 (Nov. 1897) the Editor writes a brief note to the readers. He writes, “with this number The Ishmaelite completes its second volume and celebrates its first birthday. Twelve months ago the young Ishmael was sent into the desert the desert of local encouragement- to struggle for his life... He has not been all that he wished to be, he has not taken on all the flesh he hoped for, yet to have lived is much. Right here does he pitch his tent…”. On the back cover of the Sept. 1897 issue is the poem “Fate’s Arrears” by Emma Carleton. “Great Omar says that today is life/ Oh, blessed bard, you are far astray;/ Each day we die, in an endless strife/ Paying the bills of Yesterday.” In Volume 3, No. 1, 1897, we find the poem “To a Friend” by F.K. Farr from Lebanon, Tennessee. “With a copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam/ Tho’ dark mistrust hath part in Omar's strain,/ Tho’ youth is stealing from us, not again/ To open for us two his manuscript,/ Not this nor that, old friend, shall yield us pain./ For this alchemic rhyme makes blossom new/ That rose by Ivan's garden side that blew;/ And certain memories our hearts keep well/ Shall yield our lives' delight, till life be through.” Finally on the back cover of the Nov. 1898 (Vol. 4, No. 6) we read, “Ishmael was no prophet, neither was he a prophet's son. Yet the 57th verse of the 14th chapter of the Gospel According to St. Matthew was as applicable to Ishmael as it is today to his humble and unworthy descendant The Ishmaelite. ‘Tis the same old story of honor coming from afar. Oh, ye unenthusiastic Indianapolitans! Know ye not that the stamp of approval has been set upon our brow by Boston, by New York, and by Ottumwa, Iowa? Can it be that you are not yet convinced that it is the proper thing, not only to approve, but to subscribe? What will you? Must we follow in the footsteps of Mr. Beecham or Mr. Bok and print the seductive testimonial? No, no! Arose yourselves, ye conservative citizens, and show them that dwell beyond the borders of the Wabash that you know a good thing when you have been told about it.” Tennessee Melungeons Historic records show that from 1492 to 1600 over 500,000 Muslims and Jews were exiled from Spain. Many of these settled in their ancestral homelands of North Africa. The so-called Barbary Pirates sprang from this group and were able to attack Baltimore, Ireland and hold it for 68 days in the 17th century. The poem “The Sack of Baltimore” was written about this event. Some of these pirates were captured and sold as slaves by the British, Spanish, and Portuguese. These exiled Berbers and Moors frequently referred to themselves as “Portuguese” wherever they settled. Columbus hired a Moorish guide from this group on his first expedition. These “Portuguese” were able to make it to America before Columbus as were African traders from Mauritania, Mali, and elsewhere in West Africa due to ocean currents flowing from Africa to the Americas but not in reverse! Columbus saw a forty-foot ship with such people in the Caribbean and recorded the event in his diaries. The earliest Spanish settlement was Santa Elena in South Carolina. Established in 1566, it flourished until overran by the British in 1587. The inhabitants escaped to the mountains of present-day Tennessee and North Carolina. There they intermarried with Cherokees and other indigenous peoples. In the same year Sir Francis Drake made a daring raid off the coast of Brazil and liberated 400 Portuguese and Spanish prisoners. Among them were 300 Moors. He planned to release them in Cuba as a stronghold against the Spanish, but a storm forced him to continue on to North Carolina. He left them unarmed at Roanoke Island. From there they gradually made their way inland and united with the remnants of the former colony of Santa Elena. Later English settlers encountered bands of southeastern Indians that wore beards, dressed in European fashion, lived in cabins, and prayed dropping to their knees several times a day. These grey-eyed Indians spoke English and are called Lumbees and Melungeons depending if they are in Tennessee or in eastern North Carolina. French travelers also encountered them and called them “Christianized Moors,” “Portuguese,” and the mysterious term “Melungeon.” In the 1700’s they were used in silver mines and farming. Jonathan Swift married one and called them “Mecca Indians” in his journals. Over the coming decades, they fled deeper into the hills of North Carolina and Tennessee to avoid the encroaching British settlements. They even avoided calling themselves Melungeon and attempted, when possible, to pass as “White.” This caused them to be isolated and to lose their heritage and customs. In the 1990’s an attempt to reclaim their lost heritage was started by Melungeon scholar Brent Kennedy (author of The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People). He found their blood types linked them to North Africa and Turkey and that the term “Melungeon” PROBABLY CAME FROM Turkish. In Turkish “Melun can” means lost soul. The descendants of the Santa Elena colony and Sir Francis Drake’s Moors and Turks can be found in a wide area across the Southeastern United States. Names such as Chavis, Goin, Hall, Jackson, Lopes, Nash, Sexton, and Williams predominate. The Melungeons were victims of ethnic cleaning in Europe and their mostly Christian descendants are the living legacy of the first wave of Muslim immigration to the New World. Dismal Swamp Maroons The Great Dismal Swamp is over one thousand square miles today. In the time of the Maroons it was over two thousand square miles. Its beginning is on a hill from which seven rivers spring. Since the overall area is rather flat, a swamp developed. Several islands are above water level and villages developed on several. Lake Drummond, Paradise Old Fields, and Scratch Hill (mixed swamp and pine barrens) are prominent geologic features. Until the drainage of a large portion of the swamp in the twentieth century, there was an area of giant reeds known as the Green sea. The water of the swamp is black in color, highly acidic, and rumored to have health benefits. Sailors would fill kegs with it for sea voyages since it would stay fresh far longer than regular fresh water. The population of the area probably was never greater than two or three thousand individuals. Virginia Beach and the seer Edgar Cayce (called the sleeping prophet by followers) are the main things the area is known for today. Life in the swamp was hard. Everything had to be made in the swamp and there was little area suitable for farming. Beds were made of fur and fallen trees and furniture was all hand-hewn. Houses were cleaner than the rural norm and man-made paths led to settlements deeper in the swamp. These did not connect with roads leading out of the swamp and had to be traveled with local guides, thus Maroons worried little from outsiders ambushing them. The developed body armor from turkey feathers stuffed into vests and carried on silver-smithing in the swamp. Single manufacture was an enterprise of the border areas, but no record of where the shingle’s Dismal Swamp wood source has come to light. The economic base of the Maroons was communal and they shared housing, food, and household supplies. They worked in gangs for the good of the community and all but the ill and pregnant shared in the work. Settlements were scattered, not clustered, and if one was discovered others likely would not be found easily. In the Dismal Swamp region on the Virginia/North Carolina border, many slaves and indentured servants escaped to seek freedom. The area was also at the edge of a trading region. These Maroons fought many guerrilla wars to keep their freedom. The most famous was the Maroon war of 1801-1802. They attacked Norfolk, Virginia to free slaves held at the local jail and attacked the Pasquotank Militia. The leader of the Dismal Swamp Maroons at this time was named Peter the Second. He was named after Peter Legba – the Voodon messenger of the Spirits. The Maroons fought in the war of 1812 and gained a leader from a free Black community named Captain Mingo. In the swamp a community named Black Mingo Pocosin developed through his leadership. Some Tuscarora Indians lived in the village and contributed to the heritage that developed. 1823 to 1824 saw the greatest guerilla warfare in the area since the Revolutionary war. The Maroon leader at that time was Bob Ferebee. Auntie Ferebee was a spiritual leader for the Maroons.One branch of the Ferebees became Maroon leaders and the other became prominent as one of the first families of the white upper South. Indian Town was originally called Culong after a vanquished North Carolina Indian Tribe and was the center for the White Ferebee clan. The Nat Turner Revolt likely had Dismal Swamp aid since it occurred twenty-five miles from the area. However, Nat Turner proclaimed no aid from outside his area and historians have found no clear linkage. However, Turner and others in the Revolt did plan to retreat to the Dismal Swamp if defeated. 1831 to 1851 saw the development of the Dismal swamp as a spiritual center. Leaders such as Father Gamby Gholar directed practitioners of Afician mysticism (a religion of the use of sorcery and spiritual powers for benign purposes). He held office for over thirty years. Father Alick, a Black Methodist minister, succeeded him. Father Alick was able to be a leader inside and outside the Dismal swamp, a bee keeper, and served as the area mailman. Father Alick also owned a mule that he claimed was Nat Turner’s mule. The mule had the uncanny ability to climb trees so some claimed it could fly! The next great leader was Osman. David Hunter Strother was able to draw a charcoal sketch of him in 1856. Harriet Beecher Stowe (author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin) used him as the model for her Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. He died of a painful snakebite before the War Between the States. The Maroons sided with the North in the War. Records of people in the Dismal Swamp are mostly twentieth century. A family Bible from the area dates to 1635 and has record of a Nansemond Indian linage for settlers from the Northern part of the Dismal Swamp. Wolf and bear trapping and canoe building techniques came from Native American influences as did carrying rabbit’s feet for good luck. However, dream reading, numerology and other religious practices have West Africa or European roots. A Congo Village was found when a portion of the swamp was drained. It was one of the largest and earliest settlements. Built on stilts, it survives as a model of other undiscovered Maroon villages. Besides the stilts, other Maroon villages probably looked similar to it. The leader of the village was King Jonah. He held court and was born on a litter and carried in a procession like in Bantu villages in West Africa. The Maroons were religious as a whole, but the swamp itself was held as spiritual and their spirituality may derive from that. A group called the seven-fingered glister developed the hereditary spiritual leadership mentioned above. The seven rivers that the swamp grew from gave impetus to a seven-headed hydra-like leadership. If one head was captured, another could grow in its place. Each member was elected for fourteen year terms. Areas of the swamp held special signifigance, such as Paradise Old Field being a center for Serpent King worship. The symbol of the seven-finger glister was the snake. Besides the seven-headed glister, the area had ministers and witches as spiritual leaders. Grace Sherwood, a victim of a 1706 witch trial, hailed from the swamp. In popular folklore the area was haunted and a center of black magic and supernatural activity. In truth, Maroon freedom was the main fear that the swamp held for area Whites. West Virginia Guineas The modern day Guineas and Males of West Virginia are remnants of many diverse elements: British subjects that fled the area of the American revolution, their Palentine wives, soldiers of the Revolution and Indian helpers promised western land for salaries, and local Indian tribal members. The term “Guineas” may refer to a shortening of the Indian word “Alleghany.” The Delaware Indians were settlers in the Ohio River valley and named the river “the fairest river” or “welhiklanna” and the English butchered the word. Prior to 1800 the names Male, Norris, Dorton, Harris, Canaday, Newman, and Croston were the most common. The alternate name of Males likely comes from the first, but some say it is from the infusion of Mali blood into the area bloodlines. By 1810 the degree of non-White mixture was so great that census records listed the Males and Guineas as Mulattos or mixed-race. The Guineas and Males as a group are less well known than the Melungeons, but there is evidence of some Islamic West African linage and influence. |
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AMERICAN INDIAN
MELUNGEON
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NOTICE:
You have permission to print this book for personal use only, and you are welcome to link to this site. You do not have the right to sell, make copies to distribute, or otherwise commercially use this book to promote, or make any money from it. Everything else falls under copyright protection. © 2002
DONATION REQUEST:
This book was started as a way to raise funds to support Melungeon projects. It is being made available free of charge. I will let you be the judge, but I think you will find these many articles both informative and useful. You can show your appreciation by sending a donation in any amount to:
V.C.H.S.
P.O. BOX 554
SNEEDVILLE, TN 37869
Their Website:
http://hometown.
Donations 2
Preface 3
Examining Melungeon History 5
A Search 9
Remnant Indians 12
Final Thoughts 19
Main Sources *
Racial Realities *
About Mediterranean People *
Closing Remarks 24
Visit to the Melungeons 26
The Powhatan Remnants 30
The First European Settlements *
The Spanish and the Powhatan 32
Virginia Tide Water Indians 33
The Founder of the Powhatan Empire *
Jamestown *
Sold into Slavery *
Chief Powhatan - Wahunsonacook 1550s-1618 38
The Powhatan Reservation 39
Our Melungeon Forefathers 39
Melungeon Memories 43
Blackfoot *
Barbados and Melungeons…………………………………………………………………………………..52
Melungeon Mystery…………………………………………………………………………………………58
A New Path………………………………………………………………………………………………….63
This book is specifically aimed at trying to identify the American Indian tribes that may be involved in Melungeon families. From historic times Melungeon people have claimed to be, at least in part, American Indians. Seldom was there anything definite about the tribe or tribes involved. Many claimed to be Cherokee, or simply said they were Indian, without a definite tribe.
What I hope this book will do is give an overview of the possible tribes Melungeons descend from, show some of the ethnic mixing that happened, and relate family stories and traditions about Indian heritage.
Each writer—including myself—is responsible for his or her own work, the accuracy, speculations, etc.… I have tried to get as broad a view, and include as many likely tribes as possible to present in this book. Some writers do not agree with each other—I have welcomed that disagreement, I have not silenced any reasonable point of view. Diversity is what Melungeons are all about, and personally, my guess is that no one point of view will apply to all Melungeon descendants, everyone has their own story. My hope is that this information will be used as a catalyst to cause further searches into the American Indian element in Melungeon lines.
My own involvement in this process began very early as I have had a lifelong interest in American Indians. I have American Indian heritage on my father’s side of the family, and likely Melungeon on my mother’s side of the family. It was only a few years ago that I first heard the word Melungeon. That stirred my interest and caught my attention. When I learned something of the history of Melungeons my interest only deepened, as I grew increasingly confident that my maternal grandmother’s family was very likely Melungeons.
My interest in Appalachia is not just an academic one. I was partially raised in Appalachia, spending many of my summers there while growing up, and making many visits there long afterward. My Grandmother Mary (Branam) Hutchinson’s house was where I added to my knowledge of Appalachia. Nestled right between two mountains of the Cumberland Plateau in northeast Tennessee I received a good taste of southern Appalachia. Going from the Industrial Midwest to those mountains of the south was a bit like going into some time machine and stepping into an earlier era. Gone was indoor plumbing, hot running water, drinking water from the tap. In its place were deadly snakes to watch out for, heating with a coal stove, and lye soap. But also there was the best drinking water I have ever tasted, as well as the cleanest air, and a pace of life so slow as to be standing still. Mountains on a July summer night lit up with fireflies appearing for the entire world like some great Christmas tree. There were stories, folklore, and words more commonly used in Shakespeare’s time than today. Consider a favorite word of my grandmother’s for a "no good", or drunk: SOT. This word was used in exactly the same way by Shakespeare in five of his plays: Comedy of Errors, King Lear, Merry Wives of Windsor, Tempest, and Twelfth Night. Sot was a word I have only heard used by my grandmother, though still found in some English dictionaries, I suspect use of the word was much more common in past centuries. Another favorite word she used was BLAGGARD, or BLACKGUARD, meaning: the worst kind of person. This word is found in many of the Classic works of literature, notably by Mark Twain in Niagara, he uses the word there exactly as my grandmother did—Blaggard. Finally two other words of note were KYARNEY, which was a word for laziness, and may be an Irish word; I have been told that Irish families that immigrated to New York also used this word. The other word of note is RIGMAROLE, pronounced RIGAMAROW by my grandmother. I have never heard anyone other than my grandmother use this word, though Rigmarole is still found in English dictionaries. I found the word used by Edgar Allan Poe in three of his works, I suspect this word was much more popular in the early 19th century.
I would also mention the bit of folklore that I learned from my grandmother, such as A Snake Does Not Really Die Until Sundown. This was believed even if you had chopped the thing into twenty pieces. If A Bird Flies Into Your House Someone In Your Family Is Going To Die. It was believed, though I can’t say I ever saw any results to that one either. Drinking Milk While Eating Fish Will Make You Sick. Sort of makes me sick to think of it. Don’t Let A Frog Pee On You Or You Will Get Warts. No interest in finding out about that one. Steal And Bury Your Neighbor’s Dishrag To Rid Yourself Of Warts. I wonder if that one works? And Finally: If A Dying Snake Eats Snakeberries (they look like miniature strawberries) It Will Live. I can only imagine there were hundreds of ideas like these in the last century in Appalachia. It is probably a miracle that so many have survived for so long, and I suspect that other folklore exists in isolated pockets of Appalachia.
I have tried to give the reader an idea of what influences stirred me to get involved in the Melungeon Movement. Appalachia is a big part of who Melungeons are. I have no expertise except for a lifelong interest in American Indians, my own experiences in Appalachia, and traditions handed down to me by my family members. I am the moderator for the Melungeon and Metis Christians at Yahoogroups. I brought forth the idea for The Melungeon Statement, an attempt to define Melungeons by bringing together Melungeon descendants with various ideas about what, and who Melungeons were/are. I am an author of two books, and I have had articles published in the Appalachian Quarterly magazine, and on web sites and E-zines. But this section is not about me; it is about attempting to discover the source of American Indian input in Melungeon lines. And I have gathered some very good people together to aid in that mission. I hope you will find the following information useful and that it will stir you on the quest of finding your own Melungeon Ancestors.
Karlton Douglas July 2002
EXAMINING MELUNGEON HISTORY AND GENEALOGY
By: JACK GOIN
Having the advantage of living in and near the homeland of the Melungeons has helped me considerably in my search for the true history of the Melungeons and their kinfolks. I first became interested in the Melungeons when told that some authors and historians listed two of my Great Grandparents as Melungeon. My Grandfather Goins denied these allegations and personally told me "My grandma Minor was about 3/4 Indian and Grandpa Goins was about ½". This heritage has not been established as a fact, but Grandpa believed it. His Grandma Susan Minor’s mother was Aggy Sizemore and most of these families filed Cherokee Indian Application beginning in 1905.
Having backtracked the Melungeons from the Clinch River to the New River, to the Flat River and the Pamunkey has helped me to personally dismiss many fables about the Melungeons. One major discovery was that they migrated with the other pioneer settlers and they owned land in all these places. They lived next door to white settlers and had adjoining farms. They went to the same churches and schools, intermarried with all their neighbors, fought in the same wars, including Lord Dunmore’s War 1774 Militia of Fincastle County, Virginia. These men were to fight in the battle of Point Pleasant against the Shawnee Indians. John Collins served 35 days; Micager Bunch served 29 days (1774. Soldiers of Fincastle County, Virginia by Kegley).
Also, I have found no record where they were driven from their land, or driven to the mountains, etc., etc. This rumor may have started from the outdoor drama "Walk Toward the Sunset." I also discovered that most of the story Calloway Collins told the reporter Will Allen Dromgoole in the 1890 interview on Newman Ridge was true. "The Collins and Gibsons were living as Indians in Virginia before they migrated to North Carolina." The Indian tribe was not named and has not been factually proven, but the important part, moving from Virginia to North Carolina has been proven by deeds from all these areas, beginning on the Pamunkey River in Louisa County, Virginia. Orange County, Virginia Order Book 3 record "Alexander Machartoon, John Bowling, Maninca
