We Are Who We Are

My Family

We Are Who We Are

(unapologetically)

Our ancestors have been here in the Cape Fear region before the existence of European records of our land.

Our families, the Blanks, Freemans, Spauldings, Mitchells, Webbs, Lacewells, Grahams, Moores, Jacobs have been here before any outsiders stepped foot on our land. 

Some of our families belonged to the Siouan Culture (some claim eastern Blackfoot)...not to be confused as the same as the plains Blackfoot/Blackfeet people, Sissipaha/Saxapahaw/

isi asepihiye.

I am not certain but it is my belief that when people indicate a Blackfoot ancestry that it is Eastern Blackfoot instead of Plains Blackfoot. Eastern Black Foot may have gotten it's start through derogatory means but has became part of identity today much like the word Miccosukee (Pigs) Iroquois or Sioux (snakes), both were meant to be derogatory but have become a part of the norm and is now used for identity 

The Sissipaha were a Siouan group, mainly in northern North Carolina. They were a relatively small group, in close proximity to the plantations of the South.

Over time, unable to maintain an adequate population due slave raids and warfare, the Sissipaha scattered to more numerous tribes or coinhabited in "interracial" communities with runaway Black maroons on the frontier or in the Great Dismal Swamp area. By 1716, the Sissipaha ceased to exist as an independent tribe (ishi/ or /si/ means "foot" and/paha/ means "black/.) 

The colonists called them the Saxapahaw. The Haw River in North Carolina is named after them.

In a book, Chronicles of the Cape Fear, they mentioned one of the local native names for the Cape Fear River was, Sapona.

This is probably due to tributary rivers of the Cape Fear like the Haw river. There was definitely an Occaneechee-Saponi trail south to the Cape Fear as my 3rd great grandmother is from Granville County and she started a church in Hallsboro NC and since the popularity of DNA test I've connected with many from the regions occupied by the Saponi along the Virginia/ North Carolina border from the Piedmont to the coast and I match some enrolled in the various NC state tribes. 

This isn't unique to me. Many in our state match people of the various tribes because of mixing through refuge and consolidation by the Euro-colonist.

Today some of us acknowledge and accept our Blackfoot(Saponi), Waccamaw (Woccon), Mingo, Tuscarora, African, Middle Eastern, Asian and European connection and mixed heritage in the Cape Fear region while some of our family members choose to side with one over the other. Also knowing the history of NC, our family historians know and can show and prove that these admixtures are not unique to the Cape Fear region. Certain admixtures are present in all of the tribes, not just us and it doesn't negate your or my indigenous ancestral lineage or heritage. 

I've even heard another Tuscarora community member with the last name Jacobs refer to us as tainted blood because of African blood being present while these same people cheez with the biggest proud smile on their faces of having European blood.

The Gullah people in our area are proud of their dominant African heritage however like them we are proud of our dominant indigenous heritage and as historian Ernestine Keaton, we with dominant indigenous heritage and identify as Indigenous are called "Free Issue" people compared to those who have more of the Gullah heritage. 

Some of the enslaved Africans and enslaved Indigenous people escaped to the Great Pocasin (Green Swamp) where they followed a maroon called the "Swamp General or General of the Swamp" who we think was one of our indigenous ancestors because he knows the layout of the terrain which aided in successful raids until someone who looked like him became an informant which lead to his capture and execution.

As for the Jacobs name, my 5th great grandfather is Shadrack Jacobs who descends from Peter who descends from Primus then Daniel then Gabriel back to Robert. Daniel is the father of Tuscarora Chief Abraham and Thomas who are I directly descend from in my Jacobs line.

Following the wars called the French and Indian Wars, quite a number of Tuscaroras moved to the lower Cape Fear region and the southeastern part of North Carolina through lands obtained from  King George and these Chiefs and other kinsmen we're able to maintain their blood kinship ties with other Tuscaroras in Bertie, Bladen County called the "mother county" because Robeson and Columbus County came out of Bladen County, Cumberland, Duplin, Craven, Sampson, New Hanover and Brunswick County which was created out of Bladen & New Hanover Counties of North Carolina for hundreds of years.  

King George's Land Grant to Abraham Jacobs and Thomas Jacobs was present in 1764 in Duplin County along with Thomas Pugh and his wife Mary Scott according to Fix Cain of Skaroreh Katunuaka's historical facts who's one of the tribes tribal historians, he claims that tribal historians have noted that the Jacobs surname is highly recognized as Tuscarora in New York and it's obvious that Abraham Jacobs and Thomas Jacobs were part of the Tuscaroras who remained. 

My 5th great grandfathers Chief Jacobs and Chief Mitchell follow the same trail and relocation to the lower Cape Fear. Chief Mitchell established what's known as Mitchellfield Cemetery today. His land was adjacent to my other 5th great grandfather Abraham Freeman Sr. who children occupied what's known as Seabreaz (Freeman Beach/Carolina Beach) westward into Bladen/Columbus Counties). Freeman township is visible from hwy 74. 

Evidence of our existence and resistance is all around us if people would just open their eye ( 👁️ ) to see and ears to hear (eye or 3rd eye and ears signify your mind.

Fact of the matter is my family have no recent African ancestry and can only point to ancient admixtures when travelers or explorers from different lands landed on these shores and left DNA behind when introduced into the indigenous populations here.

We know our family history better than anyone else from the outside looking in. If your historical knowledge is primarily based on European records then no wonder for the confusion with acknowledging indigenous people who have more than one phenotype, hair texture or complexion and our existence shouldn't be a threat to who you are or any other indigenous people. We are of one blood and one mind, if you honor yours and my ancestors then you will learn to accept this even though you were brought up in a climate of division because our ancestors are the same, we fought the same war past and in the same struggle present.

Question, HOW CAN WE TUSCARORA EXPECT OTHERS TO ACCEPT US IN NC WHEN WE DON'T ACCEPT EACH OTHER? 

A lost History: understanding where the Eastern Blackfoot identity orginated Writting and artwork done by Guy Smith

     After first contact, the tribes on the eastern coast of what would become the United States of America felt the impact of the encroachment of the European Settlers on their lands. 

The tribal bodies that were found in the then Virginia colony were by this point under a constant state of stress. This stress caused the tribes, in many cases, to become restructured to adapt to the requirements of colonial life.

The groups seem to have adopted many peoples from other nationalities that could be found in ports throughout early America like the #Irish, #Scottish, #English, #Moorish, #NorthAfrican, free peoples of #SubSaharan #African #ancestry, as well as a host of other non Siouan tribes that also found themselves faced with a ever changing backdrop of western society as the British dove into their identities as colonialists.

     By the end of the 1600s the Eastern Siouans, or as they were known to each other, the Nassayn people, later they would come to identify as the Blackfoot Indians found in pockets of the South and the Midwest, were regrouped with other refugee indians from other non Siouan Bands at Fort Christianna in 1713, these indigenous factions over the next forty years, and their generations that followed, created kinship ties that would bond them together indefinitely.

Fort Christanna was a walled-off, self sustaining Indian village with its own crops to feed the peoples within the bounds of its walls, it was roughly six-square miles in size, by what is now Lawrenceville, Virginia, and was originally propped up by Virginia’s Governor, Alexander Spotswood.

Spotswood had the Virginia General Assembly charter the Virginia Indian Company to have the trade rights to the trading post at Fort Christanna, and in turn the Virginia Indian Company was responsible for funding its upkeep.

The Virginia Indian Company, in conjunction with the College of William & Mary, financed a school at the fort to teach Native children, as well as a church for the purpose of converting the tribes to Christianity. 

However by, “1717, the General Assembly, run by businessmen who fancied themselves a spot in the ‘Indian trade’ business,” disbanded the Virginia Indian Company, “claiming it gave the governor too much control.

Thus, the funding for Fort Christanna was cut off.”  After this agreement between the Virginia General Assembly, the Virginia Indian Company, and the College of William & Mary was disbanded the Native Americans still utilized Fort Christanna. This was until the fort, “fell into disrepair in the 1750s”.

     By the 1750s the peoples were separated into smaller tribal groups, thus for the purpose of this I will use their tribal affiliations once leaving the fort as they migrated, as they used their Kinship Networks to act as the Governance arms of their prospective tribal bodies.

However when talking about these refugee groups as a whole, because they united cohesively as peoples at #FortChristanna, I will reference them as the Nassayn peoples, or the Nassayn from Fort Christanna. 

Moving on, after leaving the fort the breakdown of leadership was dictated by each faction, but for the most part each family group had a chieftain to represent them, think of this position as akin to the Mayor of a city, while the tribal body as a whole had a “king Chief”, which would be equivalent to the state Governor, that would talk on behalf of the whole group when the Bands would meet together.

As I explained when looking at the settlement of the Tennessee communities, the Nassayn people, after Fort Christanna, were organized by tribal leadership under common surnames that acted as more of an identification to tribal heritage alignments rather than for hereditary purposes, with the exception of assimilation in where names were often changed, or in the case of free slaves where surnames of their past owners were bestowed upon them, the names did not serve the function of identifying ones blood relationships as surnames are commonly used in western societies.

For example, the Bass surname was from the #Nansemond, while the Sweat family name was from #Pamunkey stock, and both these tribal groups were from the #Powhatan Confederacy, the Gibson and Chavis families were from the #Saponi people proper, being that they were apart of the original Saponi tribe, and thus these families also have ties with the #Tuscarora tribe as well, while the Harris families came from the #Catawba tribe.

These reorganized Nassayn groups after leaving the fort were identifiable through their families surnames, and after the 1700s they primarily lived as small Bands, the groups for the most part were made up of English speaking individuals, they were Christian in religion, they privately owned lands, they often worked as farmers, laborers, and soldiers, fighting in almost every American Conflict since the country's inception.

Before the United States of America many of them earned their land titles through warring in support of the Crown, while later their offspring would gain more lands from fighting in service of the United States in wars like the Revolution and the War of 1812.

Through out the 1700s and 1800s these families would frequently move between their communities in the #Ozarks, the #Ohio River Valley, across #Appalachia, into the #Piedmonts, and in other places across the south, with these indigenous peoples keeping their links continuing well into the 1900s identifying under many names from #Blackfoot to #Cherokee to Black Irish or Black Dutch, etc, etc, etc.

The Iroquois (our folks in particular) were the Blackfoot the Iroquois. We were better known by some as Mingo. This is where you get the Indian settlement name in east Arcadia,  San Domingo,  from. San D' Mingo....this didn't come from the Spanish or because of Spanish relationships between them and natives. Mingo was corrupted into San Domingo with folks trying to trace the settlement name to the Spanish. Where it came from is the Algonquian word,  Mingwe.

The Europeans took that word and corrupted it into Mingo but the meaning stayed the same.

The older folks said San Domingo was an Indian word that meant,  Dangerous. Well that's exactly what Mingo means, Dangerous and Treacherous.

As Mingos, Blackfoot Mingos, the Iroquois Confederacy wanted us to abide by there rules and we said, no.

So because the French was building relationships with the Iroquois Confederacy, the French thought that relationship with the Confederacy included us since we were also Iroquoian but the French found out that we didn't care to have a relationship with them or the Confederacy.

They found out when we started killing them so they started calling us dangerous and a treacherous people, or simply, Mingo. We eventually started mixing and migrating with the Shawnee throughout Virginia,  Carolinas, Ohio and West Virginia.

 Our history was extremely active. Lots of wars,  moving around,  migrations and creating new bloodlines through mixing with others.

So down in the Cape Fear region, we hear historians speak about the Cape Fear/Waccamaw fighting against the Tuscarora. This is true but falsely implies all fought with Barnwell. 

Those of our family members who migrated from the Granville area,  those who identified as Eastern Blackfoot, and those are the ones who recognized some kinship to the Catawba,  those are the ones who mostly fought with Barnwell because they had long time historical feud with the Tuskies over land near the NC, VA line. 

The ones already in the Cape Fear joined the Tuscarora Confederacy.

Language gets confusing because we spoke 3 languages, Iroquois,  Algonquian and Siouan and within these three we also spoke a few different dialects and out of these I think we spoke a trade jargon for doing business with Europeans.

Now we can see how John Lawson  can be right and wrong at the same time, creating all types of errors and confusion today by people going off of his writings to try and understand Indian people especiallytheir languages duringcolonial times....

The original Waccamaw is from the Georgetown SC region connected to the Demery Settlement.

We have historical documentation connecting them as relatives to us in the Cape Fear region.

Lawson and other Colonial writers really made lots of mistakes in their recordings because they didn't know our languages however today they're writing is taken as ultimate truth.

WE DISAGREE

Later in the early 1700's we see that our ancestors practiced a Iroquoian culture and we've connected many of our people in this area to Indian Woods,  Tuscarora reservation.

Many other families in our area who were not connected to our Siouan ancestors of the 1500's are found living in this area in the 1700's again showing a migration from Indian Woods to Lake Waccamaw.

These other families are Brewington,  Pierce,  Cherry, Boone, Walker, Register, George, Blount, Hays, Bowen and Smith, Taylor, Collins, Rogers & Farrow. Some of the first set of family names are even recorded at Indian woods as well. 

We are recorded as a historical (Pre-colonial Nation/Tribe/Confederacy) in colonial records. 

Today some of us acknowledge and accept our Blackfoot(Saponi), Woccon, Waccamaw, Mingo & Tuscarora connection and mixed heritage in the Cape Fear region while some of our family members choose to side with one over the other.

Lumbee tribal members share some of the same ancestors as Waccamaw and Tuscarora. So does the Cohari, Meherrin, Occaneechi and Haliwa Saponi.

Many of the tribes have become Eurocentric in their thinking by choosing the way of the commercial NDN, favouring money, benefits, status and favour with White America over scattered and battered family members longing to reconnect with their heritage.

We acknowledge that we practiced a Siouan Culture because our neighbors to the North (were predominantly Algonquian) and south (our region) were predominantly Siouan like the Catawba and Waccamaw of South Carolina however the Iroquois culture was more dominant, absorbing smaller Algonquian and Siouan tribes in the neighboring region.

We also acknowledge that the Tuscarora culture is also alive and strong here as well and when I talk to some of our elders and ask them about hunting and farming practices, they tell me of the ways taught to them by their parents and grandparents which are the same ways the Iroquois practiced for example, the 3 Sisters.

We can't look over the fact that we were the first group of natives to greet the first Europeans. 

We were the first to make European contact by way of Chief Watcoosa which also made us the ones to experience European slavery, thievery and deceit before other Tribal Nations.

First contact means we took the brunt of all the hell that followed and made its way up the east coast then finally out west via the westward expansion.

We experienced the brutality of the Spanish, English, French, Irish and British.

Some Africans were also imported into our homeland area while many of us were exported to the islands of the West indies, Europe and believe it or not, Africa. Natives was enslaved and shipped around the world.

In the islands they would breed us and reship young bucks back to the mainland. The enslaved only knows they're on a ship crossing a lot of water then arrives in America. And your left with the colonizers story of your origin.

As a result of our early contact, today our family members who are descendants of our Cape Fear region ancestors wear many faces from light to dark in visage showing our diversity and at the same time showing our pain because our diversity came at a huge cost.

It's cost was bloodshed, genocide,  enslavement, loss of identity  & loss of culture.

Because of this, you don't know that we are related. You dont know that my ancestors are burried in Mitchellfield, Freeman, Cutler, MT. Hebron and Gum Swamp cemeteries.

 You don't know that East Arcadia, Buckhead, St. James, Hallsboro, Bolton, Delco, Reiglewood & Lake Waccamaw families are family but chose to go different routes during an era when race and ethnicity was either a way used to break you or make you.

Because of this you didn't know you are indigenous Native American or Indian. If a black or white married into an Indian family then they become what the family is.

How we lost our identities here was because of families leaving Indian communities for mill work and what they thought was better schooling.

Those who left were usually branded as black, Colored or Negro. Then a law was passed making natives into negroes. 

All these things were put in place to ensure you would not be able to claim Indian and that you owned no significant amount of land.

It was a method used by people of European descent to continue to expand their power and maintain their power.

Also because of the moving around and marrying outside of our communities, many of us don't look the same even though we share heritage and same ancestors. Our look is diverse but that's all it I, just a look.... phenotype. Your blood is still native.

 If you're born looking white but have the same grandparents, aunts and uncles as me then we are cousins. If you look like an African American,  the same things applies.

Because of this many outsiders try and define us by our looks.  Sadly many of our own family members define each other the same way.

This is a true sign that you've been:

Assimilated - Broken - Conquered (ABC)

This behaviour has been very destructive in our Columbus, Bladen, Brunswick and Robeson county communities and throughout our state as well as throughout the east coast.

Because the racism from the past is alive and well in the present (today) and with its promoters (racist) and descendants wanting everyone to forget about it (stop talking about it and leave the past in the past) while it's still currently influencing the nation's mood (nation is more divided than ever) politics and policies, it will surely be alive & well in the FUTURE.

This is why our unity is so important. If you can't unite for yourself then do it for (y)our children.

Our (past ancestors) are a reflection  through the many faces of (their descendants), us.

We look like everyone whose ever came here because they mixed in somewhere down the line into our indigenous family.

"my ancestors wear many faces (various looks) but have one heart, one mind, one love"...we are one family.

THE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIAN DISCOVERY IS PRESENT IN TODAY'S PRACTICE & ACCEPTANCE....your behaviour and treatment towards eachother proves how alive & functional this still is.

You have the right to believe as you will but you have to acknowledge how we came to believe as we do.

Your acceptance of their culture and denial of ours continues to give this doctrine life. You have made it immortal by denying your ancestors.

TO DENY ME IS TO DENY THEM

This is not to demonize any belief but to give account of how dysfunctional it caused us to be from its inception.

No one can tell our history but us who the history belongs to and is written about. 

We appreciate everyone who has attempted,  tried and made great accomplishments when telling our story but the whole story has gotta come from the descendants of the ancestors being written and talked about.

Because Europeans distorted and rewrote our history we will definitely have to correct many of the fallacies about us meaning it's ultimately up to us to tell our complete history. 

All of the good works that you (people of European descent) have done can't be denied...you helped give us historical context via time lines, neighboring nations, geography, Eurocentric perspective and you kept great records on your own illegal crimes, etc... 

because back then you never thought a few hundred years into the future that we lowly savage Indians would understand not only your entire language but also your way of thinking as well as you...... sometimes we understand to well too the point of becoming you.

But in your records, what was missing was the subtle little things which are the links (oral traditions) in the chain and without a complete chain it's hard, almost impossible to move forward effectively.... knowledge gets lost in grammatical translation; language.

You and I (natives & people of colonial European descent) together are able to right so so so many wrongs that your people by way of "the Doctrine of Discovery" have perpetrated on my people who were not even considered people.

See, according to the Doctrine of Discovery and Manifest Destiny which was founded on the Doctrine of Christianity, you killing me and taking my land wasn't a crime. 

It's only a crime when you murder a person which you said I am not and only a crime of theft (stealing land), when the person on the land is considered a person which again, according to the D.O.D., we were not so the land was free to take.

As a matter of fact, no person had ever discovered the land until you did because according to your laws, your religion and your Doctrine of Discovery, you were the only person(s) to step foot on the land.

The other millions of RED FEET who were already here were connected to non-human bodies, us, you know,  the ones who are not people so we couldn't claim anything worth listening to.

The difference between us is we even consider the winged, 4legged, aquatic beings people who should be respected because we cannot survive without them.  

“Onkwehonwe-neha” means that all life – earth, water, plants, vegetables, trees, animals, rocks, winds, sun, moon, stars, and spirit world are all part of the circle. We are all part of life that the Creator made, she continues.

The plants need our carbon dioxide which it converts into something we need called oxygen. We coexist.

Have you ever tried living without it? How did that workout for you? 

Unfortunately racism has left its nasty stench on many of the tribes in the southeast.

Oftentimes many tribes discuss race before anything else in Native American politics. 

The colonists have taught many of the tribes well. Many tribes tried to become Europeanised to escape persecution. The more white you can become the better off you would be, at least this is what you thought.

Many who sided with them and try to be just like them in some way still got screwed by them.

Marrying a white person was called, "Marrying Up".

It's hard to fault a people for doing that when they see that as their only way of survival, protecting the children and women and the elders and the tribe from extinction however in 2017 there's no excuse for that type of mentality today. 

Your Eurocentric way of thinking has caused such a divide in the Native American Home and Community structure that we've become dysfunctional to the point of family not accepting family and putting politics over blood. 

So we tell you straight forward without anything to hide that our ancestors today wear many faces and we are proud to embrace our diversity....

....Sometimes you have to put yourself in your ancestors moccasins and say what would I have done if it were me during that time and you will probably come close or dead on point to what you're ancestors did.

Paper trails connect our Waccamaw ancestors to this area in the 16/1700s.

Its naive to think all of the Cape Fear who fled to the swamps disappeared. 

What more than likely happened is our ancestors married into the ones who fled from the coast living in the swamps and mixed and became one. 

 ......We can trace our ancestors to the same areas that the Cape Fear which means they intermixed and intermarried and became one bloodline which gives us claim as the Cape Fear Indians because this is our region...Tuscarora of the Cape Fear. 

This is where our core families are from and always been.

The Cape Fear Region according to the Wilmington Business Development extends from Wilmington to Columbus County, (New Hanover, Brunswick & Columbus Counties..also to include Bladen County).

Our family owned the area known as Carolina Beach and many of our family members are still there today and recognized as the first owners there, the area known as Seabreez..

We are the only ones who can claim to be indigenous to the Cape Fear region extending 50 to 60 miles from the coast.

The Indians of the Cape Fear, one of our main objectives is to accept all of our family, whether they are paternal or maternal, light or dark, republican or democrat, independent or if you don't participate in politics at all. FAMILY FIRST, ALL ELSE SECOND.

We are a family oriented people and we feel all family members have the right to be accepted members.

To see exactly how you are related to the core families you would need your genealogy, paper trail, DNA test is helpful but not mandatory as well as census and other documentations unless you were raised knowing your history. 

DNA can help expand your knowledge and connect you with other relatives even if you were raised knowing who you are. 

Yes we've been pretty quiey up to now. We are openly proclaiming who we are and welcoming family to come and like our page, share information and connect with family and help others reconnect.

Some are relearning and reconnecting to their culture, language, songs, ceremony, dances, drumming, etiquette and respect.

Without this we are whatever people define us to be. Without this we give validity to the many false names & racist history that was imposed on us and we continue to give life to Walter Pleckers Racial Integrity Act and the colonial genocide perpetrated on us from years ago. Don't perpetuate our on genocide by promoting hate of our own people.

I personally refuse to do that. I'm pro culture & pro family.

This post is not meant to offend, challenge, belittle or convert anyone.

This post is not directed at anyone, it's directed at everyone.

All your feedback is welcome.

Sincerely,

Stá·kwiʔáh Čuʔwahrú·wa? 

Chief Eagle Elk