Saponi
Encyclopedia
Saponi is one of the eastern Siouan-language tribes, related to the Tutelo
Tutelo
The Tutelo were Native people living above the Fall Line in present-day Virginia and West Virginia, speaking a Siouan dialect of the Tutelo language thought to be similar to that of their neighbors, the Monacan and Manahoac nations...

, Occaneechi
Occaneechi
The Occaneechi are Native Americans who lived primarily on a large, long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke Rivers, near current day Clarksville, Virginia in the 17th century...

, Monacan, Manahoac
Manahoac
The Manahoac, also recorded as Mahock, were a small group of Siouan-language American Indians in northern Virginia at the time of European contact. They numbered approximately 1,000 and lived primarily along the Rappahannock River west of modern Fredericksburg and the fall line, and east of the...

 and other eastern Siouan peoples. Its ancestral homeland was in North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 and Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

. The tribe was long believed extinct, as its members migrated north to merge with other tribes. It disappeared from the historical record as a tribe by the end of the 18th century.

Three contemporary American Indian
American Indian
American Indian may refer to:*Native Americans in the United States*Indigenous people of the Americas, the inhabitants of North and South America prior to the arrival of Christopher Columbus*Indian American, an American with ancestors from India...

 groups, each recognized by the state of North Carolina, claim descent from the historical Saponi. The people known as the Indians of Person County were recognized by North Carolina in 1911 as an American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 tribe. In 2003 they formally changed their name to Sappony.

The Haliwa-Saponi
Haliwa-Saponi
The Haliwa-Saponi are located in eastern North Carolina, United States, one of eight Native American tribes recognized by the state. The Haliwa-Saponi hold membership on the North Carolina Commission of Indian Affairs. The name Haliwa is derived from the two counties: Halifax and Warren, which...

, a group based chiefly in Halifax
Halifax County, North Carolina
-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:-Demographics:[[Image:HalifaxCountyCotton.wmg.jpg|left|thumb|A cotton field blooms in Halifax County....

 and Warren counties, is another Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

 band formally recognized by North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 (1965). They changed their name to include a reference to the historic Saponi.

The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation are descendants of the historic Saponi and other Siouan-speaking Indians who occupied the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia. The community is located primarily in Pleasant Grove Township, Alamance County, North Carolina...

 are also recognized by the state of North Carolina.

History

The anthropologist John R. Swanton
John R. Swanton
John Reed Swanton was an American anthropologist and linguist who worked with Native American peoples throughout the United States. Swanton achieved recognition in the fields of ethnology and ethnohistory...

 agrees with James Mooney
James Mooney
James Mooney was an American ethnographer who lived for several years among the Cherokee. He did major studies of Southeastern Indians, as well as those on the Great Plains...

, Hale
Hale
-Surname:Possible Meanings:From the Old English halh — nook, hollow or recess.Old Saxon; Haelaeh - hero. Later connotations: strong, courageous, healthy, robust, etc....

, Bushnell and other scholars that the Saponi were probably the same as the Monasuccapanough, a people mentioned as tributary
Tributary
A tributary or affluent is a stream or river that flows into a main stem river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean...

 to the Monacans by John Smith in 1608. Their main village as described then is believed to have been in the vicinity of present-day Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...

.

The first known contact between a Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an explorer and the Saponi was in 1670, when John Lederer
John Lederer
John Lederer was a 17th-century German physician and an explorer of the Appalachian Mountains. He and the members of his party became the first Europeans to crest the Blue Ridge Mountains and the first to see the Shenandoah Valley and the Allegheny Mountains beyond...

 found their village on the Staunton River at Otter Creek, southwest of Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg, Virginia
Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The population was 75,568 as of 2010. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the "City of Seven Hills" or "The Hill City." Lynchburg was the only major city in...

. In 1671 Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam led an expedition that passed through the same village, as well as a second in Long Island in present-day Campbell County
Campbell County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 51,078 people, 20,639 households, and 14,694 families residing in the county. The population density was 101 people per square mile . There were 22,088 housing units at an average density of 44 per square mile...

, Virginia. Here settlers during Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion
Bacon's Rebellion was an uprising in 1676 in the Virginia Colony in North America, led by a 29-year-old planter, Nathaniel Bacon.About a thousand Virginians rose because they resented Virginia Governor William Berkeley's friendly policies towards the Native Americans...

 in 1676 attacked the Saponi, as well as the closely related Occaneechi
Occaneechi
The Occaneechi are Native Americans who lived primarily on a large, long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke Rivers, near current day Clarksville, Virginia in the 17th century...

, without justification. The colonists were retaliating for raids conducted by the unrelated Doeg tribe
Doeg (tribe)
The Doeg were a Native American tribe who lived in northern Virginia. They spoke an Algonquian language and may have been a branch of the Nanticoke tribe, historically based on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The Nanticoke considered the Algonquian Lenape as "grandfathers"...

.

Nearly decimated, the Saponi relocated to three islands at the confluence
Confluence
Confluence, in geography, describes the meeting of two or more bodies of water.Confluence may also refer to:* Confluence , a property of term rewriting systems...

 of the Dan
Dan River
The Dan River flows in the U.S. states of North Carolina and Virginia. It originates in Patrick County, Virginia, and crosses the state border into Stokes County, North Carolina. It then flows into Rockingham County. From there it goes back into Virginia. It reenters North Carolina near the...

 and Staunton rivers in Clarksville
Clarksville, Virginia
Clarksville is a town founded in Mecklenburg County and overlapping across Halifax County in the U.S. state of Virginia, near the southern border of the state. The population was 1,139 at the 2010 census...

 with their allies, the Occaneechi, Tutelo, and Nahyssans.

By 1701, the Saponi and allied tribes, often collectively referred to as "Saponi" or "Tutelo," had begun moving to the location of present-day Salisbury, North Carolina
Salisbury, North Carolina
Salisbury is a city in Rowan County in North Carolina, a state of the United States of America. The population was 33,663 in the 2010 Census . It is the county seat of Rowan County...

 to distance themselves from the colonial frontier. By 1711 they were just east of the Roanoke River
Roanoke River
The Roanoke River is a river in southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States, 410 mi long. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mountains southeast across the Piedmont...

 and west of modern Windsor, North Carolina
Windsor, North Carolina
Windsor is a town in Bertie County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,283 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Bertie County...

. In 1714, Governor Spotswood resettled them around Fort Christanna
Fort Christanna
Fort Christanna was one of the projects of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood, who was governor of the Virginia Colony 1710-1722. The fort was designed to offer protection and schooling to the tributary Siouan and Iroquoian tribes, living to the southwest of the colonized area of Virginia...

 in Virginia. The tribes agreed to this for protection from hostile tribes. Although in 1718 the House of Burgesses
House of Burgesses
The House of Burgesses was the first assembly of elected representatives of English colonists in North America. The House was established by the Virginia Company, who created the body as part of an effort to encourage English craftsmen to settle in North America...

 voted to abandon the fort and school, the Siouan tribes continued to stay in that area for some time. They gradually moved away in small groups over the years 1730–1750.

One record from 1728 indicated that Colonel William Byrd II
William Byrd II
Colonel William Byrd II was a planter, slave-owner and author from Charles City County, Virginia. He is considered the founder of Richmond, Virginia.-Biography:...

 made a survey of the border between Virginia and North Carolina
North Carolina
North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

, guided by Ned Bearskin, a Saponi hunter. Byrd noted several abandoned fields of corn, indicating serious disturbance among the local tribes. In 1740, the majority of the Saponi and Tutelo moved to Shamokin, Pennsylvania
Shamokin, Pennsylvania
Shamokin is a city in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, at the western edge of the Anthracite Coal Region. At the 2000 census the population was 8,009 residents...

. They surrendered to the Iroquois
Iroquois
The Iroquois , also known as the Haudenosaunee or the "People of the Longhouse", are an association of several tribes of indigenous people of North America...

 and joined the latter in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

. They were formally adopted by the Cayuga Nation in 1753.

But, smaller bands were noted in Pennsylvania as late as 1778. Some were still in North Carolina much later. Since most of the Iroquois sided with the British in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...

, after the victory by the United States, the Saponi and Tutelo who had joined the Iroquois were forced with them into exile in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

. After that point, recorded history was silent about the tribe.

Language

According to William Byrd II
William Byrd II
Colonel William Byrd II was a planter, slave-owner and author from Charles City County, Virginia. He is considered the founder of Richmond, Virginia.-Biography:...

, the Saponi spoke the same language as the Siouan Occaneechi
Occaneechi
The Occaneechi are Native Americans who lived primarily on a large, long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke Rivers, near current day Clarksville, Virginia in the 17th century...

 and the Steganaki (also known as Stuckenock). It was probably the same as that spoken by the Meipontsky, a minor tribe noted in the record in 1722. By the time linguistic data was recorded, these related eastern Siouan tribes had settled together at Fort Christanna
Fort Christanna
Fort Christanna was one of the projects of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood, who was governor of the Virginia Colony 1710-1722. The fort was designed to offer protection and schooling to the tributary Siouan and Iroquoian tribes, living to the southwest of the colonized area of Virginia...

 in Brunswick County, Virginia
Brunswick County, Virginia
As of the census of 2000, there were 18,419 people, 6,277 households, and 4,312 families residing in the county. The population density was 32 people per square mile . There were 7,541 housing units at an average density of 13 per square mile...

, where the colonists sometimes referred to them as the Christanna Indians. The Tutelo language
Tutelo language
The Tutelo language is a member of the Virginian branch of Siouan languages that was originally spoken in what is now Virginia and West Virginia, as well as in the later travels of the speakers through North Carolina, Pennsylvania, New York, and finally, Ontario...

 was fairly well recorded by Horatio Hale
Horatio Hale
Horatio Emmons Hale was an American-Canadian ethnologist, philologist and businessman who studied language as a key for classifying ancient peoples and being able to trace their migrations...

. In the 21st century, it is being used by the Occaneechi
Occaneechi
The Occaneechi are Native Americans who lived primarily on a large, long Occoneechee Island and east of the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke Rivers, near current day Clarksville, Virginia in the 17th century...

 as the basis for the revival of the Tutelo-Occaneechi language, also called Yésah.

The Saponi dialect is known from only two sources. One is a word list of 46 terms and phrases recorded by John Fontaine at Fort Christanna in 1716. It contains a number of items revealing it to be virtually the same language as recorded by Hale. The other source are a few translated creek names noted by William Byrd II in his History of the Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina in 1728. Byrd's scant list also proved to include several names from unrelated Indian tribes.

20th-century state recognition

Both the Indians of Person County/Sappony and the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe of North Carolina were at one time classified by some anthropologists as among groups known as tri-racial isolates. Members were observed to have (or claimed) European, African and Native American ancestry, to varying degree. Some such groups settled and created communities in frontier and border areas of the southern states.

These two communities each stressed cultural identification with historic American Indians. They acculturated new members in that tradition in the 19th century, a process known as ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis is the process by which a group of human beings comes to be understood or to understand themselves as ethnically distinct from the wider social landscape from which their grouping emerges...

. Their applications for recognition as American Indian tribes were approved by the state of North Carolina in 1911 and 1965, respectively.

Individual members of both tribal bands have claimed documentation that shows their descent from the historical Saponi people. Such individual ancestry is a different issue than whether the tribes as groups can satisfy criteria for federal recognition. Briefly, the latter criteria are based on demonstrated community continuity of culture and organization from recorded tribes.

Some late 20th-century history and genealogical researchers have found that a high percentage of people identified as "free blacks" or "free people of color" (when there was no designation for Indian) in federal censuses from 1790–1810 in North Carolina were descended from families of people classified as free African Americans in colonial Virginia. This was documented through extensive research in colonial records of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay
Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States. It lies off the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by Maryland and Virginia. The Chesapeake Bay's drainage basin covers in the District of Columbia and parts of six states: New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and West...

 Colony, including court records, land deeds, wills and manumission
Manumission
Manumission is the act of a slave owner freeing his or her slaves. In the United States before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished most slavery, this often happened upon the death of the owner, under conditions in his will.-Motivations:The...

s. Some free African Americans were descended from enslaved Africans freed as early as the mid-17th century. By the early decades of the 19th century, free families had many descendants.

At the time, the federal censuses had no classification for American Indian, and did not ask people with which culture they identified. Native Americans and some people of mixed-race Native American and European, or Native American and African descent, tended to be classified as mulatto or free people of color without regard to how they identified themselves. In some of the early Spanish and Portuguese colonies, mulatto meant mixed-race African and Native American, but under the English tradition, it came to mean persons of European and African ancestry. By contrast, in Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...

, for instance, the Catholic Church kept records that showed how its Indian parishioners identified themselves, regardless of their ethnic ancestry.

Most of the free African Americans in colonial Virginia were descended from unions of White women, indentured or free; and African or African-European/American men, indentured, free or slave. In many cases these free families migrated to frontier areas of Virginia and North Carolina before the end of the 18th century. Later some moved on to settle in frontier areas of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio. Migrating to the frontier gave them the chance to purchase affordable land and avoid the social strictures of the coastal plantation areas. They were generally well accepted by neighbors. In some areas, the lighter-skinned descendants formed close communities in which they called themselves or were known as Indian, Portuguese or one of a variety of terms, such as Melungeon. In some cases, descendants married more into one or another of their ancestral communities, becoming increasingly white, black or Indian.

Given intermarriage, people of mixed race could have African American, Native American and European ancestry. The colonial and early United States governments generally failed to recognize how people identified culturally. Critics have contested the conclusions of researchers about the identity of the numerous free blacks or free people of color recorded at the turn of the 19th century.

Several other groups and organizations whose members claim Saponi ancestry include the Mahenips Band of the Saponi Nation in the remote Ozark Hills, with headquarters in West Plains, Missouri
West Plains, Missouri
West Plains is a city in Howell County, Missouri, United States. The population was 10,866 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Howell County. The West Plains Micropolitan Statistical Area consists of Howell County.-Geography:...

; the Saponi Descendants Association based in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

; Manahoac Saponi Mattamuskeet Nation based in Georgia; and the Saponi Nation of Ohio.

In addition, communities such as the Carmel Indians
Carmel Indians
The Carmel Indians are a group of Melungeons who have lived in Highland County in the southwestern part of the U.S. state of Ohio. They are descendants and relatives of the Melungeons of Kentucky, also a group of mixed-race ancestry. Anthropologists described both groups as among the "little...

 of Carmel, Ohio; and a group in Magoffin County, Kentucky
Magoffin County, Kentucky
Magoffin County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky which was formed from parts of Floyd, Johnson, and Morgan Counties and officially created on 22 February 1860. As of 2000, the population was 13,332. Its county seat is Salyersville...

 claim to be Native-American descendants of the Saponi. They also identify as Melungeon
Melungeon
Melungeon is a term traditionally applied to one of a number of "tri-racial isolate" groups of the Southeastern United States, mainly in the Cumberland Gap area of central Appalachia, which includes portions of East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and East Kentucky. Tri-racial describes populations...

, a historic mixed-race group.

Issues about identity became more confusing in the 20th century, as both North Carolina and Virginia adopted one-drop rules related to their racial segregation laws, which classified all people as either white or black (essentially, all other). They classified as black any person with any black ancestry, regardless of how small. Walter Ashby Plecker, the Registrar of Virginia's Bureau of Vital Statistics, became notable for issuing orders to change birth records of individuals whose families he had decided were trying to pass as Indian to avoid being classified as black. Due to his application of the Racial Integrity Act, records of many Native American-identified people were changed without their consent, and often without their knowledge.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK