William Eaton was buying up land in Granville County by 1749, one of those plats was for 270 acres on Nut Bush, John Smith, likely son of Frances Gibson Smith Chavis [administered her estate] also had land on Nut Bush. In 1754 it was reported a group of 30-40 Saponi were living on the lands of William Eaton in Granville County, North Carolina. [William Saunders in the “Colonial Records of North Carolina” ]
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"MONDAY, MAY 23, 1757: A petition from Andrew Hampton was read in the North Carolina House at Newbern, the petition praying for an allowance for the provisions furnished 160 Indians was placed under consideration. Earlier the North Carolina Assembly in 1753, had appointed Commissioners in Granville and three other frontier communities to furnish provisions for the Indians allied with the Province against the French and the Cherokee Indians. The allied Indians were probably Tuscarora and Saponi. In 1753-58, some thirty Saponi lived north of present Henderson, North Carolina on land of Colonel William Eaton, who acted as their interpreter. The first Court of Granville in 1746 was held in Colonel Eaton's house, he served as Public Registrar for the County and was Commander of the Regiment of eight Companies of the Militia."
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The following served under Col. Eaton, in Capt.Andrew Hampton's company:
James Bolling
William Bolling
Benjamin Bolling
John Bolling
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This is from the 1754 Muster Roll of Col William Eaton - Granville County, NC Edward Harris, negro Married daughter of William Chavis/Chavers
William Chavers, negro 2nd Husband of Frances Gibson dau of Gibby Gibson - Charles City County - Indian
William Chavers Jun., Mul.
Gilberth Chavers, Mulatto Son of William and Frances Chavis
Believe these three are sons of Frances Gibson & 1st husband George Smith.
John Smith [of Nut Bush]
Stephen Smith
Thomas Smith.
Thomas, Michael and Edward Gowen were on the 1743-44 Merchant list in Hanover Co Va.
Thomas Gowen, mulatto
Mickael Gowen, mulatto
Edward Gowen, mulatto
Robert Davis, mulatto
William Burnel, mulatto
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ROBERT K. THOMAS
Robert K. Thomas added another dimension to the Carnegie Project. Thomas was born to parents of Cherokee descent in eastern Kentucky and raised by his maternal grandparents in northeastern Oklahoma. Though at times he referred to himself as "marginal," he immersed himself in traditional knowledge as a child and maintained an abiding connection to tribal communities throughout his adult life. After serving in World War II, Thomas attended the University of Arizona, where he completed a bachelor's degree in geography and a master's in anthropology. Consistent with his identification with traditional Cherokees, Thomas devoted his thesis to the spiritual and political movement to resist allotment spearheaded by Redbird Smith. In 1953 he enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of Chicago to study with Sol Tax.(n13)
In my research I find a small group of Saponi Indians in Granville County, North Carolina (now Vance County) who lived in that region between 1743 and sometime in the 1760’s. The Saponi originally lived several miles further north on the Roanoke River in Virginia (*See Below) when they were contacted by early Europeans in the late 1600’s. Later, because of pressure from whites, they moved west to the Yadkin Valley, near modern Winston-Salem, North Carolina. About 1710 they were migrating east and appear to have gotten caught “in between” the whites and the hostile Tuscarora Indians. The Saponi “sat out” the war in the neutral Tuscarora country near Windsor, North Carolina. Around 1714, Governor Spotswood, the governor of Virginia, settled them along with two kindred tribes, the Tutelo and the Occaneechi, at Fort Christiana, Virginia close to modern Lawrenceville, Virginia. The Saponi absorbed the Occaneechi at about this time. In 1722 the Tutelo moved north to join the Six Nations Confederacy. However, the Saponi remained in the area until around 1728 or1730 when, due, to hostilities with the neutral Tuscarora and Meherrin, they retired to the Catawba country in South Carolina.
One band of Saponi came back to their original country, some 30 people, and settled on the plantation of Colonel William Eaton in Granville County, North Carolina. They lived there from 1743 to sometime in the 1760’s, at which time they disappear from history; that is, there are no more records of them as a tribe of Indians. This area of Granville County, North Carolina (now Vance County) was the coastal frontier in the period between the 1740’s and 1750’s.
In the early 1760’s Indians, as families, began to move out of the Granville County area. Many went south into the region of Cumberland County, North Carolina around Fayetteville (Goins) and then into present day Robeson County. These were simply the first Indian settlers in Robeson County. (See Drowning Creek Settlers -Pre 1760)They were later joined by the Hatteras from the coast and Cheraw from South Carolina. Robeson County became a refuge for “loose” Indians and Indian families from all over that region congregated there over the years.) Theses Granville County families who went south into Robeson County were the Chavis’, Locklears, Gibsons, Collins’, Goings’, etc. These are families that we are sure came from the area of Granville County, North Carolina. Some of these families may have been composed of a black or white man with an Indian wife, although there is fairly good evidence that Collins is a Saponi family name. The Gibsons moved on further south from Robeson County so that name is no longer found in Robeson County among the Indians there who are officially now called the Lumbees.
However, this migration did not stop Georgia and Florida but continued west and in census records in the 1830’s in western Louisiana you begin to see names of Indian families from South Carolina. As far as I can tell, most of these families moved on further west into east Texas. The Bass’, Dials, Wares, Willis’, etc., particularly, tarried awhile in western Louisiana and then moved on to east Texas. However, while they were in Louisiana they intermarried quite heavily with a group of Indians who were the remnants of small tribes from the Mobile, Alabama area - Chatot, Bayagoula, and others; that is to say, individuals from these South Carolina families married native Indians to form what is known by whites in that area as the “Redbones” of western Louisiana. This is quite a prolific group. I do not know how this group of people refers to themselves. I simply know that local nickname for them. I have heard that some of them identify as Choctaws and some as Spanish, but I cannot verify this. I do know that Indians coming in from South Carolina married into this local group and then moved on west leaving members of their families there in western Louisiana. Some of these same South Carolina Indians - Hicks, Strickland, Bunch, etc. – moved northwest into east Tennessee in the 1830’s and 1840’s. There they joined another stream of Indian pioneer of this same Granville County, North Carolina stock moving south from Newman’s Ridge on the Tennessee - Virginia border.
A large body of Indians from Granville County very early started moving straight west. In the 1760’s we pick up Collins, Gibson, and Bunch in Orange County, North Carolina which was just immediately to the west of Granville County. These families are listed in the records as Mulattoes. In the Carolinas in the 1700’s and 1800’s Mulatto meant a person with one white parent and one non-white parent, either Indian or black. Thus, by 1760 Indians of this stock were beginning to push west. If one goes west from Orange County there is a little community of people in Rockingham County, North Carolina made up primarily of two family names, Goings and Harris. Harris is found widely among Indian groups in the Carolinas. So it is probable that this was a group of Indians which dropped off here in the main migration west. By 1810 these families were beginning to come together in the present day northern Hancock County, Tennessee and southern Lee County, Virginia on a mountain known as Newman’s Ridge, near Sneedville, Tennessee and Blackwater Virginia. This became the core community of these Granville families in the west by 1810. In this community one finds that Collins, Gibson, Mullins, and Goings are predominate and most numerous family names; other family names are Minor, Odell, Delph, etc. However, on the way west this stream of migration left behind the Goings and Harris families in Rockingham County, North Carolina and the Goings’ in Patrick County, Virginia.
The full paper is posted on my website - it is a must read as it tells the story of the Melungeons, their kin, their migtrations and their surnames.
CHEROKEE COMMUNITIES OF THE SOUTH
ROBERT K. THOMAS
ROBERT K. THOMAS
* Hamilton McMillan whose research was instrumental in North Carolina recognizing the Indians in Robeson County as Croatans reported he witnessed George Lowery's speech telling of his ancestors coming from Roanoke Island in 1864. In McMillan's Sir Walter Raleigh's lost colony he quotes George Lowery -
