Hancocks Melungeons Part II
If you have read the previous blog on Benjamin Collins you have seen that Miss Will Allen Dromgoole reported they were Cherokee Indians. This family carries the E haplogroup. Indians with Sub Saharan DNA. Roberta Estes was aware of the Cherokee DNA R1b haplogroup and 'Pre-Contact' before 2012 when she wrote a paper on it. (1) If there were Cherokee with R1b DNA PRE CONTACT then the slaves with DeAyllon in 1527 PRE-CONTACT likely left their Sub Saharan DNA also. She was also well aware of the 100 slaves who came with DeAyllon on the Pee Dee River in 1527 as well as the Portuguese who came with DeSoto in 1540 and mixed with the Native women, as told in the DeSoto Journals. (2)
I couldn't find any of this in the paper in 2012 that declared them Sub Saharan men and European women.
Let's look at what they say in the paper about Benjamin Collins;
- In his 1903 article, Jarvis identifies the Melungeons as Vardy Collins, Shepard Gibson, Benjamin Collins, Solomon Collins, Paul Bunch and the Goodman Chiefs p6 (3)
- William P. "Bill" Grohse, a Hancock County Historian, was the first to research these families. He published a newsletter in 1980s called “Echoes from Vardy.” In a letter to Ruth Johnson, copy provided to Jack Goins, dated 7/26/1987, he states that "true Melungeons are descendants of Vardy Collins, Solomon Collins, Benjamin Collins, Levi Collins, Jordon Gibson, Shepard Gibson, William Goodman, Edmund Goodman, Jesse Goodman, William Nichols, Zachariah Minor, (4) John Minor, and their families, also include James and John Mullins." p23
- Benjamin Collins Group - E1b1a7a Benjamin Collins is first found in Wilkes County, NC in 1787 (5) along with the other Collins males. He is then found in the same counties as the other Melungeon families culminating with Hawkins County where in the 1830 census he is listed as a free person of color. There are 5 individuals in this group, plus a match to a Goins and a Cook from Hancock County. Benjamin Collins E1b1a7a Group Ethnicity Haplogroup E1b1a7a is of sub-Saharan African origin. The records of Benjamin as a "person of color" indicate he was not entirely of European origin. Haplogroup E1b1a7a supports those records. p49
- Dromgoole reportedly stayed with Calloway Collins who stated that his grand-father was a
Cherokee Chief. His Collins grandfather was Benjamin Collins who lived on Newman's Ridge
and did not remove in 1835. There are no known Cherokee who lived on Newman's Ridge. The
Cherokee Nation was significantly further south prior to removal in 1835. (6)
Successfully Using Y-Line, Mitochondrial and Autosomal DNA Results - Roberta Estes 2009
This sometimes becomes confusing, because the single most common male haplogroup among current Cherokee tribal members who have tested is R1b. How can this be, you ask? Clearly, one of three possibilities exists:
- The Cherokee (or those tribes who were assimilated into the Cherokee) adopted a European male into the tribe or a European male fathered a child that was subsequently raised as Cherokee.
- The R1b ancestor was not adopted into the tribe, maintained their European/American identity but married a Cherokee individual. This might be the case where one of the 8 great-grandparents in our example was white, and the other 7 were not.
- There is some level of R1b admixture in the Native Population that preceded contact with Europeans that we have not yet identified.
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~molcgdrg/pubs/nah.htm
https://the-melungeons.blogspot.com/2019/01/the-portuguese-people.html
DeSoto Journals- Gentleman of Elvas published 1587
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/34997/pg34997-images.html
(3) Lewis Jarvis Hancock County Times 1903
“Vardy Collins, Shepherd Gibson, Benjamin Collins, Solomon Collins, Paul Bunch and the Goodmans, chiefs and the rest of them settled here about the year 1804, possibly about the year 1795, but al these men above named, who are called Melungeons, obtained land grants and muniments of title to the land they settled on and they were the friendly Indians who came with the whites as they moved west. They came from the Cumberland County and New River, Va., stopping at various points west of the Blue Ridge. Some of them stopped on Stony Creek, Scott County, and Virginia, where Stoney Creek runs into Clinch River.
"Lewis Jarvis was a respected local attorney in Hancock County. He knew and lived among the Melungeon families on Newman's Ridge. His mother was a Collins. Without his historical notes, much of the Melungeon history would have been lost. 2012 paper p6"
(4) Ancestry.com (2011): The 1880 census lists many of these families as Portuguese. For example the Hancock
County census, District 4, page 278, ED 90, page 8, page 278, ED 90, page 10 show Goins and Minor families’
racial designation overwritten from Portuguese to “W”, indicating white 2012 Paper p23
(5) Benjamin Collins is part of the Collins men found in Caswell County in 1777-78. This part of Caswell was cut from Orange County, NC., dividing the lands of Thomas and George Gibson on the Flatt River with Thomas in Caswell and George's land remaining in Orange County. Thomas Collins was on the Flatt River with Gibsons in 1752. Paul, Martin, Charles and Millington Collins are on the first tax of Caswell. Solomon Collins entered service in 1778 from Caswell County, visited his kin in South Carolina, returned to find his family had 'moved west' and is next found in Georgia.
Millington and Benjamin Collins are found together on tax list of Grayson and Giles County [Big Reed Creek] until around 1802 when Millington sold his land. This land is part of the Person County cut from Caswell that is today home of the Person County Indians.
(6) Dromgoole reportedly stayed with Calloway Collins who stated that his grand-father was a
Cherokee Chief. His Collins grandfather was Benjamin Collins who lived on Newman's Ridge
and did not remove in 1835. There are no known Cherokee who lived on Newman's Ridge. The
Cherokee Nation was significantly further south prior to removal in 1835. 2012 paper p95
This map is included for 'proof' Cherokee weren't North of that line.
Perhaps the authors never heard of the Treaty of Holston 1785.
Cherokee weren't in that part of Tennessee and Cherokee weren't in Kentucky but they had a Treaty and Boundry Line drawn up in 1785 that went through Sneedville
You can follow the Cherokee Catawba Trading Route as it goes through the Flatt River through Granville County before it became Orange County up through the Saponi lands/Monks Creek to Prince George County. Most of the Indian Traders of Prince George County can be found later in Bertie County, North Carolina.
But these families, couldn't have been Cherokee right?
