Blackfoot ID

[Debi]

I know many of you have probably seen this site before....... but for those who haven't ......I found it very interesting.


http://www.mitsawokett.com/Blackfoot.htm

[Tom]

hey now there is what we need to be doing getting the real information out there rather than the crud that has been transplanted from $%^& , GREAT work and even better NEWS.

[Tom]

I had hoped there were those on the list who may know something about our Blackfoot or the old Blackfoot Town and help verify the connection.

Iam not sure if Iam taking this out of context or not, but I belive that Tech, traced one of Lynellas people from Blackfoot Town to the Blackfoot cemetary in IA, so would that not help clarify this statement?

[Linda]

It doesn't look like there's anybody out there who's constructively investigating this but us, but it's probably more appropriate to say that everybody who's interested in constructive research migrates here. We're not alone, we have each other.

[techteach]

Blackfoot Cemetery is in Indiana, not Iowa, specifically Pike County.

There is a member here, who posted about a month or two ago who has a line that goes from Blackfoot Town to Blackfoot Cemetery whose family has the Blackfoot ID. I followed another surname on this trail, has members buried in Blackfoot Cemetery, and has the ID, according to one family member on genforum, although that member thought it was western Blackfoot. I hesitate to post the surname, as no member, to my knowledge has found their way here.

The line I traced for Lynella was the Chaney/Read line that were near my Sinkeys. They intermarry with Ricketts who intermarry with my line. I think L found them in the cemetery.

Let's see, that makes 3 families. I don't count my own, because the Blackfoot ID is associated with a different surname in my family. There are Masons who follow that migration and are in the cemetery, but I don't know if they are related to the Masons in DE. A Mason intermarries with one of my Sinkeys too. The Sinkeys marry into the Blackfoot ID in my family when they get to IA.

Techteach

[rockhound]

I posted it here just in case the link stops working in the future...doesn't hurt to be cautious.

That being said, I thought Bill said that there were no Saponi's this far east at this particular time...

Bill, is that correct?

Blackfoot Indians, Blackfoot Town/Dagsboro, DE

From Brenda (bsam@sssnet.com), who writes regarding "BLACKFOOT & Mitsawokett", 1 Aug & 31 Dec 2003 --


I have Linda's permission to share a thread from the Saponi group discussing the possible relationship of the old Blackfoot Town/Dagsboro to the Blackfoot we are interested in. As Ned wrote an informative article on the area, I had hoped there were those on the list who may know something about our Blackfoot or the old Blackfoot Town and help verify the connection.

...Blackfoot Town (Dagsboro) was very near Millsboro. Although I believe it was Maryland at that time, it is now Sussex County, Delaware. The history of the Indian River Indians here supplied may interest you.

...Although the name was changed to Dagsboro in 1785, the Maryland Archives, Volume 0192, Page 0119 still uses that name when calling for a road to be constructed from Somerset to Blackfoot.

------

From Linda Carter (MINGO-L@linux08.UNM.EDU) 1 Aug 2003
"BLACKFOOT & Mitsawokett A 17th Century Native American Community in Central Delaware"

I thought I'd seen Indian River mentioned before. I'll quote from a post on the www.saponitown.com message board. The gentleman writing this is an academic, a historian I believe, who lives in Chicago and carries the Blackfoot identification in his family. He goes by the pen name of Bess Veney. This is the only piece of solid historical documentation pairing the Saponi/Tutelo with the Blackfoot monicker I've yet to hear of.

http://www.saponitown.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=593&perpage=15&highlight=dagsbury&pagenumber=2

Bass Veney writes:

Saponi/ Tutelos were indeed located near Dagsboro/ Blackfoot Town prior to 1747. The writings of J. Thomas Scharf, the noted Historian of Delaware,(1) places the Saponi/Tutelo amongst other tribes inhabiting the southern part of Delaware (most likely Sussex county) in the 1700s. Here is what Scarf says in 1880:

"The ...Scackamaxons, Tutelos, Nanticokes and many others occupied the lower country toward the coast, upon the Delaware and its affuents."(2) We don't know exactly how this group of Saponi/Tutelo ended up in this area, but the solution of that problem can be taken up at another time. The main point is that the Tutelo according to Scharf were in lower Delaware at an early date.

Another citation places Saponi/Tutelo in the vicinity of the South Delaware in 1742. Tutelos (recorded as Totra) residing at Conoy town, Lancaster county, PA, along with Seneca, Shawnee, and Nanticoke, were a part of a famous plot for an Indian uprising in lower Delaware, at the portage of the Indian River area and the Pokomoke river on the MD/DE border. The name of the place was Winnasoccum Apparently, groups of Indians at Conoy town, including the Tutelo, did travel to the MD/DE border. Here they met some of the local Nanticokes and "Indian River Indians" to put the plan into action. Details on this plot are recorded in the Maryland Colonial records. Here is what is said about these events in testimony on June 30, 1742:

"Letter No. 78:
Maryland ss | Dochester Co. | The Examination of Jacob Pattasahook, one of Nanticoke Indians taken before me one of his Lordships Justices of the peace for the County aforesaid saith about a month ago this Examinant was at Coney Town on Susquehana River and was told by the Indians of said Town that the Senaca and Totra Indians in Conjunction and by the advice of the french had agreed to Cut of the English Inhabitants in Pensylvania Maryland and other adjacent parts of this Continent and the Indians in Somersett and Dorsett County and to that End the Senaca Indians were soon to go to Philadelphia to Dispose of some part of the Lands for Arms and Ammunition and haveing so done the Senaca, Totra, and other Indians were in roasten Ear and Apple time to fall upon the Back Inhabitants and at the Same time the french who was to come by Sea, were to Land on the Sea bond side of Somersett County in order to meet the said Indians, and further this Examinat Saith not, his June the 30th 1742 Jacob [c Pattasahook Certified by Henry Trippe marke"

This reference can be found at this address online:http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us/m.../000001/000042/ html/am42--654.html

After the plot was foiled most likely some of the Tutelo stayed on in the area. So by solid historical accounts, around 1742, Saponi/ Tutelo Indians were near the region of what later became known as Blackfoot Town. The multi tribal population of this area decreased over time but a remnant survives to today. It is established as the Indian River Hundred Nanticoke organization and has an office and museum in the town of Millsboro, which is a few miles form Dagsboro

In the 1930s and 1940s, several government ethnologists visited the Indian River Nanticoke population living near Blackfoot Town. C.A. Weslager, the noted researcher on the Lenni- Lenape and Nanticoke Indians interviewed a Joshua Hitchens on Oct. 25, 1941. When asked about his genealogy, Hitchens said his father's family "were members of the Blackfoot Tribe."(3) Weslager did not endorse this statement of tribal affiliation nor did he try to openly attack it. Instead, he tried to claim that the Blackfoot tribe identification, in question, resulted from Blackfoot Town being a place name. Of course it is ludicrous to claim that the Blackfoot tribe spoken of by Hitchens has nothing to do with Indians, given that Blackfoot Town sat on Indian River. Indian River has been known by this name since 1640 in court records of Worcester County, Maryland, and later in Sussex County, Delaware. "Indian River Indians" who in fact were an amalgamation of the Nantcoke, Assateague, Saponi/Tutelo and others, appear in county documents and Maryland colonial records as early as 1700. Pulling this all together, what makes sense is to recognize that

1. The Saponi/Tutelo Indians who lived about Indian River were responsible for name "Blackfoot Indians" mentioned by Hitchens.

2. Because they lived there, the "Blackfoot Indians" gave their name to an Indian town located along Pepper creek, a tributary of Indian River, which later became known as Blackfoot Town. Blackfoot Town is the result of contact with the Blackfoot Indians not vice verse.

Linda's overall point is correct on Blackfoot Town in Delaware. However, the exact location is off by many miles. Blackfoot Town/Dagsboro is located about 100 miles directly east and slightly south from the point she mentioned in western Maryland. Blackfoot Town sits on the headwaters of "Indian River". This river and the area around it is located in what was formerly Somerset and Worcester counties, MD, but with changes in the state boundaries about 1763, it is located in what is today Sussex County, Delaware. One needs to get a map of Delaware and focus on the southeast coast along the Atlantic Ocean. Indian River dominates the geography of Sussex county. Its headwaters are inland about 20 miles in the swampy marshes near the MD border, and it flows from west to east and empties into the Atlantic Ocean. Dagsboro sets on a creek flowing into Indian River. It is a very remote area, even today, and the largest town near Dagsboro/Blackfoot Town is Georgetown.

Linda, despite the error in location, your main point on timing is absolutely correct. The Blackfoot Indians living at Blackfoot Town/Dagsboro, DE, in 1747 predate, come before, the fictional diffusion of the so-called Western Blackfoot "ID" into the Southeast during the 1880s. Also, this group of Saponi Blackfoot Indians (1747) predate the first appearance of Sihasapa Lakota Blackfoot in European and American records, which did not occur until about 1851. Prior to that, the precursors of the Sihasapa are known to us only by the names of leading families which at that time are living within other groups, i.e., with the Yanctonies.

The Blackfoot represented by the Saponi and the Sissipahaw appear in records way before the western Blackfoot, the Sisksika and the Sihassapa Lakota. Your observation that the Eastern Blackfoot is older than those in the west is supported by facts. All this points to the reality that the Eastern Blackfoot identity developed on a local basis in the Southeast and was not imported. True there were some cases of actual migrations of Sihassapa individuals and families into the Southeast during the 19th century. But they can be fairly recognized through genealogy research and are extremely small in number. Their presence cannot account for the wide spread existence of the Blackfoot ID in the Southeast.

References:

1. J. Thomas Scharf History of Delaware 1609-1888, L.J. Richards & Co. (1888) vol. 2, 1888, p.20
2. Ibid Scharf:20
3. Weslager,, C. A., The Nanticoke Indians— Past and Present, University of Delaware Press, Newark, p.198.