If you deny your family descends from Turkish sailors is it racism - or if you deny they were among the 'two dozen Negro slaves' who stepped off the boat at Jamestown in 1619 are you in denial? If you deny they are 'Jews from Scotland' are you prejudiced? Shouldn't anyone looking for their ancestors challenge authors, researchers, etc., if they believe they are in error and shouldn't they be allowed to challenge these statements without being accused of trying to hide their African ancestry, when in fact there is no proof their ancestry is African? Isn't it the same as challenging the idea they were Turkish or Jews from Scotland?
Another family identified as Free African American -- with no proof!
COLLINS FAMILY
Paul Heinegg writes;
"The Collins and Bunch families were taxable "Molatas" in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1755 [T&C, box 1]. They were also associated with the Gibson family. Lucrecy Collins witnessed the 1775 Orange County, North Carolina will of George Gibson [WB A:195]. They probably came to Orange County from Louisa County, Virginia. George Gibson, Thomas Gibson, William Hall, Thomas Collins, Samuel Collins, William Collins, William Donathan, Benjamin Branham, and Samuel Bunch were living in Louisa County on 28 May 1745 when they were presented by the court for failing to list a tithable (probably their wives) [Orders 1742-8, 152, 157, 172].Paul Heineigg says the 'mixed race Collins' family were mixed, I suppose, because they were taxed as 'Molatas" in Orange County, North Carolina and were associated with the Bunch and Gibson families. He cites the 1745 case of the Collins, Gibson, etc, and writes; "they were presented by the court for failing to list a tithable (probably their wives) "There's that 'probably' word again. He continues to connect up this 'mixed race' Free African American family with the 'qualifiers', 5 perhaps, 9 probably, 10 may have been, and 7 (?) question marks [this is award winning genealogy mind you]
"In 1723, the House of Burgesses passed two acts expanding the definition of a tithable. As a result, those subject to the tax included all free negroes, mulattos, and Indians (except tributary Indians) above age sixteen and their wives (Hening, 4:133.) In addition to their tithable lists, all masters were required to list the names of every person between the ages of ten and sixteen “for whom any benefit of tending Tobacco is allowed by this Act.”So was the tithe Samuel Collins failed to list a free negro, mulatto, or Indian, or someone who was benefiting of 'tending Tobacco? Were they even their wives? We know the Gibsons were slave owners, and we know Samuel Bunch was a Quaker and the Quakers refused to tithe. I think they were probably Indian wives, or possibly even Spaniards or Portuguese -- as they also would have been called mulattoes.
John Collins (a white man) was living on Lower Chippoakes Creek/Lawnes Creek Parish as early as 1678 through the 1690s when he is a neighbor of Phill Shelly, William Goodman, John Barnes, William Tooke, etc. In 1682 John Collins married to the widow Mary Tooke, the Quaker records show;
"John Collings & Mary Tooke of ye county of Surry propounded their marriage before a meeting of Men & women Friends at the house of William Bressie of ye County of IsleaWeight on ye forth day of ye Eleventh month Last and at a meeting at Tho. Jordans in Chuckatuck in ye county of Nanzemund they did pubblish their marriage againe on ye eighth day of the twelfe month following and were married in the house of John Barnes his father-in-law on ye fourteenth day of ye twelfe month, 1682.This John Collins was a Quaker, left a son John who was probably born about 1683 and not yet 21 when his father died in 1693. In his will he leaves to his son John and his sister in laws, Rebecca Goodman, Elizabeth Ezell and Jean Newby/Nuby indicating they were his only family. Many of these Quaker families of Surry County later removed to Hanover/Louisa County where they attended the Cedar Creek and Camp Creek MM, same ones Samuel Bunch was a member of. (Some of the Gibson family were also Quakers)
The truth is no one knows who the Samuel Collins was in Louisa County record of 1745 but he could very well have been the son of John born about 1683 and a descendant of John Collins the Quaker who married Mary Tooke of Surry County, Virginia. Both the Collins and Tookes were not 'Free African Americans' but they may have intermarried with the Indian Gibson family or the neighbor 'George the Spaniard' of Surry County, Virginia as Samuel is listed as 'mulatto' - indisputably another word for Indian, Spanish, Portuguese, etc., or 'non white.'
Samuel Collins was living in Orange County, North Carolina in the 1750s along with Major Gibson and Moses Riddle families. By 1760s Samuel Collins, Major Gibson and Moses Riddle had removed to Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Moses Riddle was probably married to Mary Gibson, daughter of Thomas Gibson and sister to Major Gibson, it is likely Samuel Collins was related to this family, perhaps an uncle through the marriage of the Collins and Gibson families in Hanover/Louisa County before 1740s.
The tax lists of Pittsylvania County show Samuel Collins living a few doors from the Clements family [who also came from Chippoakes Creek in Surry County] and particularly one Vardiman Clements, Major Gibson living on Potters Creek by the Indian Fields and Moses Riddle listed as an Indian.
Major Gibson is next found in Burke County, North Carolina along with Armon Gibson who shows up in Wilkes County, North Carolina and went to Franklin County, Tennessee, and William Gibson who went to Scott County, Virginia and Pike County, Kentucky. While there is no evidence Samuel Collins or Moses Riddle went to Burke County, North Carolina these Gibson families are found on Newmans Ridge and Vardy Collins appears in a court record in Burke County in 1810;
Is this Vardy Collins, son of Samuel Collins? There are no Collins found in Burke County but when this record is found perhaps it will prove a relationship to Major Gibson. Vardy Collins DNA proves to be European, not African American, there is more proof Samuel Collins was an Indian than there is he was a Free African American, nor is there any proof he descended from John Collins' neighbor, "George the Spaniard' living in Surry County, Virginia.
Problem is no one knows, there are no documents who Vardy's father was or who Samuel's father was or their wives, yet they write with authority they were 'Free African Americans, descended from 'Sub Saharan men and white women.'
Showing there is no proof the Gibsons, Denham, Collins, and others, were 'Free African American' should not have the opposition calling this 'racism' or 'denial.' There is no more proof these families descend from African American men and white women then there is that they descended from the Turks, Jews from Scotland, Portuguese, Indians, Spaniards etc.
America is a melting pot and it didn't happen a hundred or even two hundred years ago, the Indians were mixing with the Portuguese, Spanish, and African Americans in South Carolina as early as the 1500s when the first explorers were recorded, if not before.
There was more mixing of the races beginning in the 1730s when Christian Priber was building his "Paradise" in the Cherokee Capital where it is recorded he recruited disaffected English, Germans, runaway slaves, both Indian and African, etc., and possibly even a few 'Arabs' as James Adair called them.
There is no doubt there was mixing but to lump all these families together and declare them descendants of 'Sub Saharan men and white women' with no documentation whatsoever, nothing more than a few families with an E haplogroup and identified as a mulatto is irresponsible and does a great injustice to these ancestors and their descendants.
