American Indian admixture in White Americans

[Maria_W]

Thank you!

Thank you very much for the posting I will check out the website. That took alot of time and effort. I watched a program on Brazil a few weeks back on Discovery Atlas. I really enjoyed it.
Take care Maria

[Maria_W]

Part 3.

Here is another installment of the Potowomecke history.

1606-An attack on the Potowomeck Tribe by the Bocootawanaukes, a cannibal tribe. About 100 Potowomecks were killed This was later related to the English by the Potowomecks.

1607-First Permanent English settlement at Jamestown. It is important to note that this settlement would not have survived with out the help of the Potowomeck Tribe who became the ally of the English.

1608-Capatain John Smith and his men sailed up the Potomac River (river is named after Potowomeck tribe)and made many stops, including a landing at the village of Potowomeck, which stood on a neck of land on the south side of the river, between Potomac Creek and Aquia Creek. He noted that they were about 160 bowman and and overall tribal population of about 800 Potowomecks. He made friends with the King(The English used the term King, The Potowomeck did not use monarcy terms) of the Potowomecks who let him borow some indian guides to take him too the great antimony mines owned by the Potowomecks. Indians came from long distances to trade with the Potowomecks for the Antimony from which they made paint to use on their bodies and on carved wooden images of their gods.
Maria

[Bracari]

Yes Maria

The Europeans established alliances with the Indians. Without major alliances the Europeans wouldn't get a beach head in the New World. The Americans conquered America !

[GregKiroKH2]

The 400 year anniversary of Jamestown is coming soon, 13 May 2007 [see 14 May]. I never thought of how history was written or of these documents point of view. In March 2006, the bits and bride guide told us that Queen Elizabeth II had penciled in the Jamestown 2007 celebration in her event book. She had visited the 350th anniversary with his Royal Highness Prince Philip in 1957, and during our tour, we saw some of the wonderful photographs of the 1957 event. The press release was not until 15 November 2007. This made me think of the complication of invitations when I read the recent article concerning Prince William's Christmas invitation to his life long girlfriend. Invitations are important. History's foundation forms from people inviting other people to participate together to do wonderful things. After looking at the Jamestown timeline, I thought of how the Romans wrote about the Celtics and the Picts. Each year my own personal knowledge of history increases. Yet, I cannot help to think of how historians improved current text as communications between cultures improve. To accurately look into our surnames or tribal affiliations, we depend upon the historical records. Yet, we all need to take the time to reflection upon the point of view and purpose of the documentation. This is only one reason why we must search for various sources to help tell a story.

Queen Elizabeth II and his Royal Highness Prince Philip participated in the 350th anniversary of Jamestown, her first visit to the U.S. as monarch. Her participation in America’s 400th Anniversary will focus international attention on Jamestown’s legacies – the introduction of democratic government, free enterprise and a culturally diverse society – and the three cultures that converged at Jamestown – Europeans, Virginia Indians and Africans.
http://www.virtualjamestown.org/timeline2.html
http://www.jamestown2007.org/
http://www.jamestown2007.org/pdfdocs/Final%20QE2A4A.pdf

[Maria_W]

Explain posting, please.

Barcari.
Could you please explain "Without major alliances the Europeans wouldn't get a beach head in the New World. The Americans conquered America."
Maria

[Bracari]

The Indians showed how to survive in the New World and how to make good use of the land. They taught new tricks to the newcomers and they revealed lots of new vegetables, new food, new technologies in the land and its nature, new know-how, new ways of life and they gave People to the new societies. The Indian Woman was extremely important in the success of any European Colony in the Americas. The Indians were the backbone of the armies in the beggining of the Colonies and the Indian Labour was very important in many places in many times. The Indians are components of the American Genealogies and they are an integral part of the genetical heritage of the Americas. Nowadays even the Swedish Queen has Indian remote genes coming from the Americas.
Wherever the Indians offered full resistance to the Europeans the colonization was a failure. Only where the Europeans could get some Indian assistance and help the colonial enterprise could thrive.
That's it

RCO

[derinos]

Similarities in Indian and Colonist politics?

The first English-speaking colony (to survive) in America was to Tidewater Virgina in 1607. What follows may be of interest to those posting Original or Colonial Genealogy related to that.
From the writings of the first settlers, still available, one is impressed that apart from the technology gap, the politico-social concepts of the two races differed very little. Just as in Mexico and Peru, prophecy and superstition favored initial success by the few invaders.
And now, fortunately a new idealism has favored a rebound of esteem for Original peoples and culture.

THE GREAT TOWN, KECOUGHTAN.


NOTE: This account is partly extracted from writings of the time. Indian names are given phonetically as set down in 17th century English spelling (which was not consistent). Some place-names are in modern form for clarity.

KECOUGHTAN THE GOOD.
While the Virginia Company was in 1605 raising money to ready a small fleet under Captain Christopher Newport in England, the Kecoughtan (Kikotan, Kiquotan, Kekotan ) tribe were a large and
important tribe and "possessed of great riches of land, agriculture, customs and location". The lands from which they named themselves aroused the admiration and praise of the explorers. Strachey later writes of the place called "Ke-Cough-Tan or Great Town in the Algonkin tongue".)

"It is an ample and fair country indeed, an admirable portion of land, comparatively high, wholesome, and fruitful: the seat sometimes of a thousand Indians and three hundred Indian houses, and those Indians it may well appear, better husbands than in any part else that we have observed, which is the reason that so much ground is there cleared and opened, enough with little labour already prepared , to receive corn, or make vineyards of two or three thousand acres: and where beside, we find many fruit-trees, a kind of gooseberry, cherries and other plums, the maricock, apple, and many pretty copsies or boskes (as it were ) of mulberry trees, and is (indeed) a delicate and necessary seat for a city or chief fortification, being so near (within three miles by water) the mouth of our bay, and is well appointed a fit seat for one of our chief commanders."

In April 1607 Newport's small flotilla of three ships anchored off a low shore, well-treed, with many houses surrounded by cultivated fields of young corn. The shore party were met with a surprising and welcome reception. Yesterday, Ke-Sippee-Uk (Chesapeake) bowmen at Cape Henry had yesterday attacked the colonists' landing party on sight, but these Kecoughtans welcomed Newport and his shore party , (whom they called "Tassantases" ) with comforts, food and information, including an account of the region and its rivers, so that the invaders named the place Point Comfort. They little suspected the reasons for this compliant behavior, in contrast to the antipathy of the Kesippeeuks the day before.
Later that year Captain John Smith again visited Kecoughtan in search of food ; this time attacking with muskets when the Indians
declined to trade precious maize for trinkets, killing three warriors and capturing their Okay (Okey, Oke, O-key-us). This was an effigy hung with copper ornaments, having a sacred significance to this tribe. The Ke-Cough-Tans, cowed by the guns (the dreaded "pocosaks"), and to retrieve their Okay, made the best of it. They filled his shallop with corn and as Smith naively put it, "parted friends".
He returned for the third time in late December 1607. He had been misled by warm pre-Christmas weather to search for supplies up the Bay in a pinnace with forty-six men. At the mouth of the James, bad weather held them up. Chilled and hungry, they put in to Kecoughtan; again Point Comfort lived up to this new name. The Werowance (or local chief) Pochins, one of Powhatan's many sons, now bearing the title of Kecoughtay, entertained them over Christmas.
Smith wrote:-

" we were never so merrie, nor fed on such plentie of good
oysters, fish, wild foule, and good bread, nor never had better
fires in England than in the drie, warm, smokie houses of
Kecoughtan"


THE KING AND THE CAPTAIN
Captain Smith continued up the Bay in 1609 to Weromocomoco, where in several days of what modern diplomats call "frank discussion" he had his third meeting, now a historic gloves-off confrontation, with Powhatan. The Indian dynast had earlier made friendly overtures, adopted Smith into his family, and offered him the lands of Capahosic. He now wanted guns, swords and cannon, which Smith had no authority (or wish) to trade. The English adventurer wanted preserved food and grain to tide the settlers over
after a very poor winter.
Behind protestations and salutations of peace and amity, neither would yield. Both now began to understand that they were competing for possession of the very land they stood on, and that genocide might be in the price. Neither man was a stranger to that burden on the soul; Smith
in Hungary against the Turks; and Powhatan?

"Captain Smith, "he said, "you may understand that, having seen the death of all my people thrice, and not anyone living of those three generations but myself, I know the difference between peace and war better than any in my country. "
He said he believed that Smith had come, "not for trade, but to invade my people and possess my country"
Such insight was not hard to explain. Wahensunacough (Chief Powhatan) had thrice been the sole clan survivor of wars and vendettas. Son of an Indian refugee from the Spanish south (possibly the Seminoles of Florida) and a local woman, he had clawed his way upward, by means not talked about, to the chiefdom of the Powhatan. He was reconstituting his family for the fourth time after revengeful carnage.

WAS POWHATAN AN AMERICAN MACBETH ?
Smith would learn only later that Powhatan was even then standing on the scene of a recent act of genocide, the destruction of the Piankatanks; the latest in his long career of blood-feuds and conquests. His restraint in not wiping out the colonists there and then was not due to weakness in numbers and arms; the Powhatans outnumbered the colonists by thousands and were well used to success in war. On Smith's return from this very meeting, the colony consisted of only thirty-eight starving, backbiting desperates, so confused that they would later arrest Smith and condemn him to death.
No, Powhatan seemed to nurse a strange numbing revulsion against the act, a mystic dread of retribution. Could there have been a renunciation of force by this survivor of the many bloody conflicts that had made him despot of an earthly paradise? Yet, a paradise full of the ghosts of the dispossessed; but was that a deterrent to such as he?
One of the latest annexations of the Powhatan feudal confederacy had been, not long before the arrival of the British adventurers, the lands of Kecoughtan. Historian Strachey writes :-
"Upon the death of an old Werowance of this place, some fifteen or sixteen years since, being too powerful neighbors to side the great Powhatan, it is said Powhatan, taking the advantage, subtly stepped in and conquered the people, killing the chief and most of them, and the reserved he transported over the river, craftily changing their seat and quartering them amongst his own people. . . "
Even while Smith had been cheerfully celebrating Christmas at Kecoughtan, the unknowing guest of the (newly-installed), strangely compliant conquerors, Powhatan's forces were completing the destruction near Werowocomoco of his neighbors and subjects the Piankatanks. Their women and children had been led off to slavery and the dead warriors scalped. When Smith met later with Powhatan that fateful New Year of 1609:
". . the locks of hair, with their skins, they hanged on a line
between two trees; and of these Powhatan made ostentation. . showing them to such of the English as came unto him at his appointment. . thinking to have terrified them with this spectacle"
And most remarkable of all, even while the Newport fleet was struggling across the Atlantic, Powhatan had waged bloody genocide against the Ke-sippee-uks. This difficult act of war had been performed for a very special reason. The other destroyed tribes had been contiguous with his empire, and expansion logically and conveniently led that way, but these lay across deep water, in the Cape Henry and Norfolk area, accessible only by a planned and substantial amphibious attack. The Kesippeeuks had habitually conducted peaceful visits and trade with the previously neutral home of the Ke-cough-tans. The Ke-sippee-uk bowmen who shot at the cross-raising English at Cape Henry in the spring of 1607 were by then only the defensive remnants left by Powhatan's campaign of the previous autumn. Why had he made war so far afield?

THE PROPHECY OF KE-SIPPEE-UK.

The explanation lies in a Prophecy retained by the priests or kwiokosoks. This prophecy was not then known to Captain Smith or the colonists, but was related later to Strachey, the clearest historian in this place where previouis accounts had been rather fanciful, preoccupied with stimulating enthusiasm in the mother country for this migration and investment.

"It is not long since", writes Strachey, "that his priests told him how that from the east through the Bay, a nation should arise which should dissolve and give end to his empire, for which. . . he destroyed and put to the sword all such who might lie under any doubtful construction of the said prophecy, . . . and so remain all the Chessiopeians (Ke-sippe-uks). . . for this cause extinct."

The prophecy explains Powhatan's restless campaigns to destroy and replace his eastern neighbors, even those across the broad water of Hampton Roads. But now, his war-lord concepts are shaken.


CONTINUED.......

[derinos]

Indian -Colonial politics-similarities (2)

CONTINUED 2.
He has spent much of his life in expansion and conquest and he attempted by the same means to neutralise the Prophecy by the means he knows best. Now he is approached by these "Tassantasses", strangers from the east, entering by the Bay, whose distant origin, strange pale appearance and great thunderous powers seem to fulfil the prophecy, and confound his past actions.
He begins to feel the prophecy to be inevitable. This formidable warrior lets many opportunities to destroy the weak colony, to slip
through his fingers, culminating in the remarkable public trial by ordeal of Smith, a ceremony where his beloved daughter Pocahontas ransoms Smith's life with her own.
Meanwhile, the dwindling "Tassantasses", unaware of the prophecy, find their position inexplicably strengthening despite incompetence, disunity, and growing starvation in their own ranks.

RETRIBUTION AT KECOUGHTAN

The new tribe of Kecoughtan were tempted one day to capture a lone Englishman, one Humfrey Blunt, whom they led into the woods and killed ceremonially, possibly in an attempt to work some magic against the Tassantasses. (His name is commemorated by Blunt Point on the James River. See also "War song of the Powhatans").
This offence was later related as an excuse for the taking of a choice peninsula described as lying between Old Point Comfort and Hampton Creek, "eighteen houses pleasantly situated on three acres of ground upon a plain, with a little Isle fit for a Castle at the mouth thereof, the town adjoining to the main (land) by a neck of land of sixty yards". (Editor: This appears to have greatly diminished from the three hundred houses described earlier, or else is misnamed for what is now Fort Monroe.)
Sir Thomas Gates, a newly-arrived and bellicose veteran of war against the Spanish, "the ninth of July. . early in the morning set upon a town of theirs . . called Ke-cough-tan, and had soon taken it, without loss or hurt of any of his men. . the young king, Powhatan's son, not being there, left his poor baggage and treasure to the spoil of our soldiers, which was only a few baskets of old wheat, and some others of peas and beans, and some few women's girdles . . of the grass-silk and much neatness finely-wrought; of which I have sent divers into England. "

After some half-hearted attempts by Powhatan to befriend and diplomatically divide their loyalties, the colonists, on instructions from bureaucrats in England, cajoled him into a "coronation" ceremony. According to European usage, he was thus anointed a client King, subject to King James I of England. He fully understood the symbolism of this, and began to avoid contact with the settlers. His warriors, on their own initiative, here and there made attacks, rarely successful, usually repulsed by the pocosacks,(guns) swords and pikes of armored, arrowproof Tassantasses.
By 1619, in spite of the many setbacks suffered by the colonists, Powhatan's empire was indeed dissolved; it passed to three successors. One of them, his blood-brother Ope-chan-can-ough, feeling now freed of the prophecy, almost succeeded in eliminating the colony in the 1622 Jamestown massacre. But by then England, mobilised by the long war with Spain, and now engaged in a major colonisation in Northern Ireland, began to send more aid, and the colony narrowly survived.
Smith had been returned for ever to England, scarred and disabled by the accidental flash-burn of a bag of his own gunpowder, where he occupied himself with writing and popularising the Virginia Colony. He met Pocahontas, who had believed him dead, for the last time in an emotionally charged encounter in London. A few months later she reluctantly took ship for Virginia, but in a few days fell ill and died ashore, to be buried at Greenwich on the London river.

The fair peninsula of Kecoughtan was to pass from hand to hand many times more; from the Virginia Company to King James, and from the Crown to the "Union of States", under which The Chesapeake Womens' College, a first in America, was built.
The Civil War saw The Womens' College temporarily commandeered by the Union Army as a military hospital. After the war, General Butler of Fort Monroe purchased the abandoned property from the College. He later resold it to the National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, a Federal agency of which he was by then the first Board President. (Conflict of interest rules were hidden in the carpet-bags in those days!).
"The Hampton Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers" was later transferred to the Veterans' Administration at its founding in 1930, to become The Domiciliary Unit and have a Medical Center develop alongside. The Hampton Home later was demolished and overbuilt with the present DVA comprehensive general hospital, which is still locally known as "Kikotan".


INDIAN TERMS.

Ke-cough-tan: Place of the great town.
Ke: Great, large.
Cough: Town
Sippee: Waters
Pee-uk: Mother-of pearl shell(used inland as currency or wampum)
Ke-sip-peeuk: Great Water of Wealth (Chesapeake)
Wer-o-wance: A chief or mayor.
Wocomoco: Place of council. Wero-wocomoco = Central council.

O-ke or Okay: = "The Great One" The totem figure or warrior idol or tribal deity, sometimes a famous dead chief, warrior or priest. (This may be, as an oath of honor, the origin of the slang term for agreement, "OK" , now understood in all the world's languages.)

INDIAN POLITICS:
"Powhatan": The territorial name of the lower falls of the James River, and hence the tribe who lived there. Hence the public title of the man Wah-hen-sun-a-cough, son of a refugee from the southern Spanish-American area (was he a Florida Seminole?) who became chief over this expanding tribe and ruled as a king. The public name of a chief was that of his territory. Thus Powhatan's son was named Pochins as a person, but titled "Kecoughtey" for his appointed territory of Kecoughtan, a naming custom still in use by European nobility.

Powhatan's Government and economics:

According to the colonists, Powhatan ruled with a degree of
terror, as did his subchiefs or werowances, who held the power of death and deprivation in their "shires". (As did contemporary European rulers and nobles)
Taxes were said to be heavy, at eight-tenths of all crops, remitted direct to Powhatan. (The natives who told the colonists may have exaggerated this to gain sympathy, but it is not as severe as it seems
for all were free to hunt, gather, and fish! !)
This basic storable wealth was returned to the local chiefs for reward redistribution, as an instrument of power, a form of "trickle-down economics". Britain had been economically governed in the same way, the Feudal System, until only three hundred years before. Even today, in England, consuming of swans and certain game are the prerogative of the Queen.

Copyright, Derinos.

[GregKiroKH2]

The story of the Great Chief Powhatan domain of 30 tribes is clouded by modern opinion, and it goes beyond the man himself. The nation survived through time. "Of all the tribes, the Pamunkeys were probably the strongest, ruled by Powhatan's powerful half-brother, Opechancanough [1618]." "There are seven recognized tribes [in '88] totaling 9,500 Powhatan Indians. The Pamunkey and Mattaponi reservations (1,000 acres) cover much of the same territory as the original lands. These were the first two Indian reservations established in the United States." Maybe, opinion is a sign of language

Finally, though, 105 men and boys plus 39 sailors left London, England on December 20, 1606. After a difficult journey across the Atlantic Ocean, the group arrived at the Virginia Capes on April 26, 1607. After planting a cross on the 29th, Christopher Newport and a small group explored the area, seeking a defensive location for the establishment of their new settlement.

As different European countries established colonies in the New World, they were forced to interact with each other in new ways. Each country was primarily concerned with its own national and imperial development. As a result, commercial and religious rivalries developed between the competing colonial powers. These interactions between colonial powers in the 600 year period prior to the settlement of Jamestown affected the development of the permanent European colonies that were ultimately established in America. http://www.nps.gov/colo/Jthanout/Prelude.html

The Mattaponi Indian Tribe is State recognized and continues to maintain its own Sovereign government. The Governing Body today is made up of the Chief, Assistant Chief, and seven Councilmen. (http://www.baylink.org/Mattaponi/Default.html). Since the Assembly's designation of the Reservation in 1658, the Mattaponi Tribe has maintained its heritage and many of its customs despite strong pressures pushing toward assimilation with the mainstream culture. The Mattaponi Indian Reservation was created from land long held by the Tribe by an act of the Virginia General Assembly in 1658. Being one of the oldest reservations in the country, the Tribe traces its history back to the Great Chief Powhatan, father of Pocahontas, who ruled most of Tidewater Virginia when Europeans arrived in 1607. The story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith begins here. The Mattoponi Museum utilizes a less formal approach. Many of its artifacts, some dating to 5000 BC, are labeled with handwritten index cards. One of its most famous exhibits is a necklace that once belonged to Pocahontas. (http://www.virginiawind.com/virginia_travel/indian.asp).

[tomcat]

NYTimes article on Native peoples' resistance to Genographic Project. Is there something Congress can do?


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/us...rtner=homepage

[kaybee930]

This was mentioned at the FTDNA Conference by the Genographic Project representative. The Native Americans are concerned because they have been ripped off by the US government in the past and don't trust any promises made. I wonder if a written promise from Congress would make a difference, given the government's history of disregarding treaties signed.

It would be wonderful to have their DNA in the studies. Hopefully a solution will be found.

[fmoakes]

[QUOTE:tomcat
NYTimes article on Native peoples' resistance to Genographic Project. Is there something Congress can do?[/QUOTE]

This was mentioned at the FTDNA Conference by the Genographic Project representative. The Native Americans are concerned because they have been ripped off by the US government in the past and don't trust any promises made. I wonder if a written promise from Congress would make a difference, given the government's history of disregarding treaties signed.

It would be wonderful to have their DNA in the studies. Hopefully a solution will be found.

I would submit, based on past history, a solution involving Congress, in nearly any issue is probably the wrong solution.
Floyd Oakes

[kaybee930]

I would tend to agree with that. I am not sure what the solution is, but I don't know what Congress could do that would help, nor should the gov. necessarily get involved. It wouldn't make me feel better.

Some private solution is probably the best answer to be able to move forward. I do think that some assurances from the feds might be needed however, as to retention of any financial benefits, etc. regardless of findings. It is a touchy situation.

I do also understand their concerns about conflict with long held religious beliefs. They will have to decide for themselves how to move forward, if they choose to.

[tomcat]

I would tend to agree with that. I am not sure what the solution is, but I don't know what Congress could do that would help, nor should the gov. necessarily get involved. It wouldn't make me feel better.

Some private solution is probably the best answer to be able to move forward. I do think that some assurances from the feds might be needed however, as to retention of any financial benefits, etc. regardless of findings. It is a touchy situation.

I do also understand their concerns about conflict with long held religious beliefs. They will have to decide for themselves how to move forward, if they choose to.

My question regarding Federal action was not a suggestion for coercion, but the resistance is political. The issues of 'Siberian origins' and 'biocolonialism' are merely emblematic. The first has been a staple of public education for decades, is an idea largely accepted by the public and so, has long been available as a predicate for public policy regarding Native Americans. And the second has no special relevance to Native peoples as everyone that takes pharmaceuticals or avails themselves of medical treatment is a 'subject' of the health industry.

I don't know who controls curriculum at reservation public schools but religious instruction there, as elsewhere in this country, is a private matter.

[derinos]

Powhatan survivor tribes in Virginia.

T
The nation survived through time. "Of all the tribes, the Pamunkeys were probably the strongest, ruled by Powhatan's powerful half-brother, Opechancanough [1618]." "There are seven recognized tribes [in '88] totaling 9,500 Powhatan Indians. The Pamunkey and Mattaponi reservations (1,000 acres) cover much of the same territory as the original lands. These were the first two Indian reservations established in the United States." Maybe, opinion is a sign of language

Insightful, Greg!
I had the honor of attending a ceremony of the Pamunkeys a few years ago when the Governor of Virginia presented a Bushel of Corn as symbolic reparation for misappropriations by Capt John Smith in 1608 et seq.

I have spoken over the years to several Pamunkey and Mattaponi members. They still have a coherent oral tradition of the Powhatan period, and senses that the people were just People, that the tribal names were territorial rather than genetically closed, and that inter tribal movement of individuals occurred frequently apart from Powhatan's conquests. Which indicates it will be difficult for anyone with Original genealogy in Virginia to identify with a particular tribe.

The Eastern Originals mostly spoke Algonkian with minor regional variations. (In fact certain ceremonial Algonkian words , like calumet and omaha for peacepipe and shield, are widely distributed all over North America despite some great dissimilarity of regional root languages like Sioux and Athabaskan, which are otherwise unrelatable.
The men and women I talked with were initially very reluctant to part with language instruction to me. But later on they were more liberal as they recognised sincerity to their identity.