Repost of My Bass Family Tree from 2013

Saturday, August 17, 2013

My Bass Family Tree, (edited for 2018)

My grandfather (my father's father): George Elmore Rogers, Sr., (1877-1960) born in Galveston, Texas, died in Houston, Texas.

George Elmore Rogers Sr.

His mother: Elizabeth Bettie Bass Rogers (1860-1924) (my great-grandmother) born in Old Waverly, San Jacinto County, Texas, died in Galveston,Texas

Not the Bass plantation house but a typical one in the south US

  

Her father: Colonel Richard Bass (1819-1880) born in Perry County, Alabama, died in Waverly, Walker County, Texas.

Not my great great grandfather, but a Confederate pioneer

His father: John Bass (1784-1820) born in Wayne County, NC, died in Perry County, Alabama.

Not John Bass, but a portrait from 1800s

His father: Edward Bass (c.1761-1802) (birth date and place not yet substantiated, could be Craven or Wayne County, NC; He died in Wayne County, NC.

Not Edward Bass, but an outfit worn around 1770

Sarah Bass 1764-1849 (the death date isn't the same as Edward's wife, but the birthdate is right)

His father: Richard Bass (1732-1793) born in Craven County, North Carolina. He died in Wayne County, North Carolina.   He also was in the Revolutionary War, but I'll talk about that when I honor his birthday.
NOTE on Richard Bass and Waynesborough... Wayne County NC was the place Richard Bass died in 1793.  His uncle Dr. Andrew Bass, b.1735, d. 1791, apparently was one of the early founders of Waynesborough

Not my relative...George Romney's Young Man with a Flute wears a gold figured waistcoat under his coat, Dallas Museum.

His father: Andrew Bass (1698-1770) born in Norfolk Independent City, Nansemond County, Virginia.

His father: Richard Taylor Basye (1658-1722) born in Norfolk Independent City, Nansemond County, Virginia

His father: John Basse (1616-1699) born in London, Middlesex County, England,  and WIFE: Elizabeth Basse, (a.k.a. Kesiah Tucker, Native American), (1618-1676) born in Kecaughton, Nansemond County, Virginia 

I'm 11 generations removed from a full blooded Nansemond Native American ancestor.  That doesn't give me a very big percentage.  And I'm not forgetting that most of my ancestors were Western Europeans mainly from England.  When I learned about great grandmother, Bettie Bass' grandmother however many times removed, Elizabeth Tucker Basse, I was thrilled.

Please see my other posts this week about the Nanosecond Indian Tribe.

Tribe plans for a historic park like Jamestown in Suffolk

Repost of my "When I was 69" about the Nansemond Tribe

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Chapter three Native American roots

Thelma Dennis, Pocahontas Cook, Walter Bradby(?)
Pamunkey Tribe
Richmond, Virginia, c.1920
Virginia Historical Society, Foster Collection # 27610

 

Nansemond Pow Wow dancer

 

Nansemonds and Suffolk city council work on terms for Mattanock Town project

By Jeff Sheler
The Virginian-Pilot
© February 1, 2013

 

SUFFOLK VA:The city and the Nansemond Indian Tribal Association have signed an agreement that clears the way for the transfer of city park land to the tribe for an Indian cultural center and tourist attraction.
The signing was announced by the city late Thursday. The agreement broke a deadlock that threatened the tribe's plans to build Mattanock Town, a replica Indian village on 71 acres in city-owned Lone Star Lakes Park.
The city's announcement said keys to the property were handed to tribal leaders following the signing.

Going back in earlier articles shows the efforts that have taken place since the town agreed to the idea proposed by the Nanoseconds.

Suffolk returns 100 acres of Indian ancestral homeland
By Jeff Sheler
The Virginian-Pilot©
 November 26, 2010

Growing up on the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Chesapeake, Barry Bass remembers, he was always aware of his Indian heritage.
His grandfather, Earl "Running Deer" Bass, was chief of the Nansemond tribe. His ancestors were part of the empire ruled by Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas. They traded and fought with the Jamestown settlers and farmed and hunted along the banks of the river that now bears their name before the English ran them off in the mid-1600s.
Earlier this week, Bass, now the Nansemond chief, returned to his ancestral homeland - mostly to remember, but also to celebrate the historic return of the land to the Nansemond people by the city of Suffolk.
After a nine-year struggle, the city agreed last week to give the Nansemonds roughly 100 acres of prime riverfront land in Lone Star Lakes Park.
The tribe plans to use it for Mattanock Town, an $8 million replica of a 17th century village, cultural center and burial ground.
"When I'm here, I can sense that my ancestors are still here," said Bass, sitting under a colorful autumn oak and gazing out upon the rippling river. "It took a while, but now I feel like we're home."
Over the next five years, Bass and his tribe will raise funds and oversee the design and construction of what the city hopes will be a popular tourist attraction, drawing up to 50,000 paying visitors a year.
Plans call for a museum, tribal center, gift shop, hiking trails and other tourist-friendly facilities. The project is to be privately funded.
A key historic feature, Bass said, will be a dispersed Indian village - a series of wooden longhouses scattered around the property and separated by garden plots, just as a Nansemond village would have appeared in the 17th century.
"We want this to be a working village, not like something you see in a museum," he said. "When people come here in different seasons, we want them to see the changes, the different crops, and so on."
Bass said the project already has received some donations and pledges of support. Once the paperwork is completed and the tribe officially takes ownership, he said, they will seek grants, corporate sponsors and individual donors.
Supporters hope Mattanock Town will complement Jamestown as a tourist destination for history buffs, school groups and others interested in experiencing a re-creation of traditional Indian culture.
The tribe has been working closely for years with historians, archaeologists and anthropologists to see that the village accurately resembles 17th century Indian life in the Tidewater region.
"They are re-creating the Algonquian culture, of which the Nansemonds were a part," said Helen Clark Rountree, a retired Old Dominion University professor and expert on the Algonquians. "They had ways of life and language very similar to other Indians living up and down the James River."
The original Mattanock Town, Rountree said, was one of four Nansemond villages in the Lone Star Lakes vicinity that were mentioned in the writings of Capt. John Smith. "We can't be sure of the exact site, but the modern village is very close to the original site."
Bass traces his own roots to the 1638 marriage of Englishman John Bass to the daughter of a Nansemond chief who became a Christian convert. Virtually all modern Nansemonds are descendants of that marriage, Rountree says.
Like most Nansemonds, Bass' family scattered centuries ago and its members gradually were assimilated into the English culture.
For Bass and the rest of his tribe, one reason for undertaking the project is to preserve and transmit the Nansemond culture among their own. Of some 350 members of the Nansemond Indian Tribal Association, Bass said, the largest concentration is in southern Virginia. But many are scattered around the country.
To join the tribe, one must establish a genealogical connection to a known Nansemond. While some members, like Bass, have known of their roots for generations, some, he said, have dis covered their heritage recently and know little about Indian ways.
"We wanted this land back because it means so much to us," said Bass, who works for a Virginia Beach construction company. "But we want to give back to the city, too, and to share our history and culture with the public and with our own people. If that means being a tourist attraction, then that's what it will be."
Jeff Sheler, (757) 222-5563, jeff.sheler@pilotonline.com

The Nansemond Indian Tribe held a reception Sunday to thank supporters of its quest to receive part of its ancestral land back to build a tourist attraction called Mattanock Town. From left, Chief Barry Bass, Assistant Chief Earl Bass and Mattanock Town project facilitator Dot Dalton present friendship feathers to former City Councilman Joe Barlow and current Councilman Robert Barclay.

Published  Monday, January 10, 2011

The Nansemond Indian Tribe welcomed dozens of supporters to its ancestral land for a “thank-you” reception on Sunday.

The invited guests crammed into Lone Star Lakes Lodge for food and fellowship with members of the tribe and other supporters. The tribal association recently won its 10-year quest to get the city to transfer part of its ancestral land back to the tribe.

“I had so many people that I had to thank,” said Chief Barry Bass. “They’ve stuck with me about 10 years.”

...

Outside the lodge, small wooden stakes with orange flags stand at intervals around the property, indicating that surveying work already has begun. Assistant Chief Earl Bass said he anticipates a deed-signing ceremony within the next few months.

“We’ll have the deed-signing, and that will kick it up a notch,” he said.

...

Various other supporters included former mayor Andy Damiani, anthropologist and author Helen Rountree, tribe members, Chuckatuck residents and local business owners.

“Thank you from the bottom of my heart,” Barry Bass told the gathered supporters Sunday. “This is a thanks for you and all y’all have done for us.”

http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2011/01/10/nansemonds-thank-supporters/

(photo missing)
Barry Bass, chief of the Nansemond tribe, celebrated a 2010 council vote to return ancestral grounds at Lone Star Lakes in Suffolk. But plans for a museum and village have not broken ground. (Steve Earley | Virginian-Pilot file phot0.

Tribe's dispute with Suffolk leaves land locked 

• By Jeff Sheler
  The Virginian-Pilot
  © January 15, 2013
  SUFFOLK
  Two years ago, with considerable hoopla, the city agreed to deed 70 acres of prime riverfront property to the Nansemond tribe for Mattanock Town...
  For the tribe, it meant reclaiming part of its ancestral homeland and a chance to showcase life in an Indian village in the early 1600s.
  Today, the property has yet to be conveyed, and the $8 million project is in limbo because of a dispute over conditions the city has placed on the land.
  The city says it wants to ensure the property is used for the stated purpose, yet the tribe says it needs an unencumbered title to get financing. City officials say a development agreement must be executed before the property is transferred, but negotiations are stalled.
  "The ball is in their court," Deputy City Manager Patrick Roberts said.
  He noted that when the City Council, after considering the matter for years, approved the transfer in November 2010, among the conditions were that the project would not include a casino, that the property would never be sold or transferred and that construction would begin within five years, or the land would revert to the city.
  "That's what they agreed to in 2010," Roberts said. "It's not something we're suddenly trying to impose on them now."
  Gregory Stillman, a lawyer representing the Nansemond Indian Tribal Association, said the tribe has never had a problem with the casino ban and has no plans to sell the property or use it for anything other than the replica village.
  The sticking point, he said, is the city's insistence on a conditional right to retake the property in five years.
  "They've got to convey a fee-simple title to the property, or we don't own it," Stillman said. "And if we don't own it, nobody is going to give us a grant or loan us money on it."
  Not all real estate lawyers agree with that assessment.
  "There's no question it would place a restriction on the marketability of the land," said Bruce Mills, a real estate lawyer in Virginia Beach. "But as long as they do something within that five years... they should be able to borrow money on it."
  Dot Dalton, president of the Mattanock project's board of directors, says another problem with the proposed agreement is a requirement that the tribe make yearly financial reports to the city even after the project is completed.
  "It's like they are giving us a long-term lease instead of a title," Dalton said. "It's just not acceptable."
  ...........
  "Some of the original boundaries went out into the river," Roberts said. "We're not interested in transferring river beds." Consequently, he said, a survey completed by the city in June 2011 shows the property ending at the shoreline.
  Dalton said that was unacceptable.
  "I own waterfront property, and my property line extends out into the creek," she said. "This would prevent us from building docks or having access to the river. We never agreed to that."
  .......
  "It's very important, and we need to do it right," Brown said. "It will be good for the city, and we want to see it go forward."
  Despite the delays, Dalton said, the tribe has continued working with engineers and architects on the project's design.
  Plans call for a museum, tribal center, gift shop, hiking trails and other tourist-friendly facilities. They also include an Indian burial ground.
  A key feature, according to the tribe, would be a dispersed Indian village, a series of wooden longhouses scattered around the property and separated by garden plots, just as a Nansemond village would have appeared in the 17th century.
  Dalton said the project's board has met with several potential financiers who have shown an interest in the project.
  "Even in this economy, there is all kinds of grant money out there," she said. "We're raring and ready to go. Now all we need is the land."
  Jeff Sheler, 757-222-5563, jeff.sheler@pilotonline.com
  http://hamptonroads.com/2013/01/tribes-dispute-suffolk-leaves-land-locked  

Mattanock agreement signed

Published 7:19pm Thursday, January 31, 2013

Suffolk officials reported Thursday evening that a development agreement has been signed with the Nansemond Indian Tribal Association, paving the way for the planned Mattanock Town development.........

Fed up with the delay, City Council voted Jan. 16 to give the tribe an ultimatum: Sign the agreement by June 30 or risk losing Mattanock Town forever.

City Chief of Staff Debbie George said Thursday evening the signing occurred after a meeting between Chief Barry Bass, Assistant Chief Earl Bass, Mayor Linda T. Johnson and City Manager Selena Cuffee-Glenn. .......

George added that the agreement was “materially unchanged,” because any changes would have had to be approved through City Council again.

“This project has been a long time coming,” Johnson was quoted as saying in a press release. “We know that with trust and our ability to work together, Mattanock Town will be an overwhelming success.”

Chief Barry Bass was also quoted in the press release.

“We are pleased that we were able to reach an agreement with the city,” he said. “We look forward to making Mattanock Town a reality. We appreciate the faith that Mayor Johnson and City Council have in the project. We are also thankful for the continued support of the citizens of Suffolk. We will make this a project that not only preserves our heritage but also is something the citizens of Suffolk will be proud to have in their city.”

http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2013/01/31/mattanock-town-agreement-signed/

Well, now all the information I've read today is gathered here in one place.  This is good.  These people have worked very hard so far.  They still have a long way to go with plans and construction ahead of them.  

Continuing to repost from 5 years ago...celebrating the Nansemond Tribe

From Powhatan to Chief Bass

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

From Powhatan to Chief Bass

More on the Bass family...at least those who have been recognized as Nansemond Native Americans.

My connection is through Elizabeth "Bettie" Bass, my grandfather's mother.  
Here's a picture of one of the recent Chiefs of the Nansemond Nation.

And another picture of Chief Earl Bass (1910-1996) ...

A bit more details of the background...Thanks to the author of this most entertaining article.

Our Stories by Paul Clancy 

My Columns in The Virginian-Pilot

August 22, 2010 

One of these days I’m going to Suffolk’s historic area. Easy, you say? Well, not the way I’m traveling.

Like those who visited the town in centuries past, I’ll go by water. And that’s not so simple. It must be 15 miles along the wide, then narrow and twisty, Nansemond River. The charts show a high-voltage power line just past Dumpling Island with a 40-foot clearance. And then, just short of town, the 35-foot Rte. 58 bridge. OK for most power boats, but I’m going to have to anchor near the island and putt-putt the rest of the way to town.

But it’s worth it. This place is afloat in history.
I’ll take note, for starters, that Dumpling Island is where the Nansemond Indians had their sacred place – before it was ruined by those heavy handed colonials. John Smith tried to set up an outpost there but sent an oaf named John Martin to run it. Martin attacked the Indians, looted and burned their houses and temples, despoiled their dead and seized their corn. The Nansemonds retaliated and drove the white men back to Jamestown, but later, after bloody but failed uprisings, the tribe was driven from its ancestral lands.

During the long slog up the river, I’ll no doubt curse the day in 1742 that the colonial legislature created the town about as far upriver as you can go. Why not a little settlement at Reid’s Ferry where the first church of the Upper Parish of Nansemond had been built? Or the land where the politically connected Richard Bennett held a couple thousand acres? Originally, when the Jamestown folk decreed that there should be ports, Nansemond Town was created at the point where Bennett’s Creek joins the river. It didn’t last.

What did last was the place where John Constant, possibly from Hampshire, England, built a wharf and warehouse around 1720. From there, he exported tobacco, grains and salt on ships bound for Europe. It would have taken, I’m guessing, at least a couple of tide cycles for the ships to both gain and quit Constant’s Wharf.

Suffolk historian Kermit Hobbs says he thinks the location worked because it was close to the farmers who brought their produce to market, and close to the Great Dismal Swamp where timber was turned into shingles.

The little settlement prospered and in 1742 became a town, but the name was changed from Constant’s Wharf to Suffolk in honor of Gov. William Gooch’s home county in England.

It seems that someone opened the floodgates to history when Suffolk was created, bringing the Revolutionary War and the Civil War to its doorstep. British troops marched into town in May 1779 and turned it into an inferno as combustible material in waterfront warehouses ignited. Eighty years or so later, Union forces rode into town, set up headquarters at the extravagant Riddick’s Folly mansion and endured a year-long siege that ended when the Confederates marched off to Gettysburg.

Railroads from just about every point in Virginia made Suffolk a major hub. The Seaboard Station Railroad Museum has an intricate model train setup that shows the old town.

It all started with John Constant. His plantation, called Constantia, survived both wars but was eventually crowded out by Cedar Hill Cemetery. There’s a replica of the house, I’m told, on West Washington Street.

What has survived is Constant’s Wharf Public Park and Marina, a new centerpiece for the city, next to the Hilton Garden Inn. Hmm, I could cruise up to the marina of a summer evening, take in a TGIF concert at the park, dine at one of the town’s trendy restaurants, take in a play at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts, and then, since there’s no place to sleep in a dinghy, rough it at the Hilton.

In May 1863, Harper’s Weekly published this illustration of Constant’s Wharf in Civil War-era Suffolk.

Keziah Dennis, c.1899
Pamunkey Tribe
Smithsonian Institution #888

 The Chiefdom of Powhatan, 1607 with the Nansemond tribal area in center bottom of map

Our tribe is finally recognized by the United States

Courtesy Office of Senator Mark Warner

Senator Tim Kaine (left) Chief Stephen Adkins (Chickahominy), Chief Lee Lockamy (Nansemond) and Senator Mark Warner (far right) share a moment of congratulations. 

"Virginia Senators Mark Warner and Tim Kaine ... have worked for years to get federal recognition for several Virginia tribes.  These include... the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan, and the Nansemond.  As Senator Warner explained:

“We and some of the folks who are in the gallery today were not sure this day would ever come, but even here in the United States Congress and the United States Senate, occasionally we get things right. And boy, oh, boy, this is a day where we get things right on a civil rights basis, on a moral basis, on a fairness basis, and to our friends who are representatives of some of the six tribes who are finally going to be granted federal recognition, we want to say thank you for their patience, their perseverance, their willingness to work with us and others,” said Senator Warner.

Assistant Chief Wayne Adkins, from the Chickahominy Indian tribe, interjected a sense of the time involved:

“It was surreal after 18 years of working. It definitely was not a let down, but when you put i[n] so much work after so many years, it was strange [for it] to be such a brief moment,” he said."

Thanks to my blogger friend, an attorney and pagan living in Washington DC, (Hecatedemeter) for posting this above quote.

My ancestors may at last no longer be forgotten.  The Nasamond Tribe of Virginia was part of the original peoples pushed aside by Virginia colonials.

Here are several posts that I gave to my old blog years ago...about our Rogers connection...

No Blue Blood
Sunday, August 11, 2013

No Blue Blood

Genealogists get fired up about...people who published documents which invented relationships. If you can't trust genealogy, who can you trust?

I of course have not read the last 12 years of the conversation which started in 1999 about the Bass families.  There were some emails published under one of these person's listings, and I found it very interesting.

Apparently a Mr. Bell was paid to connect a family with some blue bloods.  Others have said to question the book "Bass Families of the South", by Albert Bell.

"I think that all this controversy in the Bass Genforum is healthy and will help more people to understand that Bell's book is flawed." Mike Crandall, Aug 11, 1999

 From: FredBright

 To: Mike and Ruthie Crandall

Date: Friday, August 20, 1999 

Subject: Bell's Book

Mike-      I enjoyed your email which was forwarded to me by War Chief, Earl Bass. You are correct. There are many incorrect entries in Dr. Bell's book. People can say what they want, but the truth is, he was trying very hard to establish a Huguenot connection for a particular group of people, with Bass surnames.

The interesting thing is that this led to writing to the Native American Tribe of Virginia of which I'd never heard, the Nansemond Nation, which may be my ancestors.

What a headache.  These people have dates and source data attached to them, so there are families there, which are true relationships.  I need to slowly go through and justify the ones that belong to the Bass family which was my grandfather's mother's family.

Earlier information triggered another person to make a newsletter, which unfortunately doesn't have much published. http://www.tbass.com/basse.htm

It was a good idea however and there's a link to http://www.tbass.com/photopage/

The Nansemond Tribe holds its POW-WOW each Fall in the Chesapeake/Suffolk VA area near where they lived when the Europeans came in the late 1500's. They are a part of the Powhatan Chiefdom which included 32 Algonkian-speaking tribes in the tide water area of Virginia. The European part of my family, John Bass/Basse married into the tribe in 1638. His was one of two Christianized marriages between European and American Indians according to Helen C. Rountree in The Powhatan Indians of Virginia through Four Centuries. Their culture is recorded in The Powhatan Indians of Virginia: their traditional culture by the Ms. Helen C. Rountree. I have attended the POW-WOW each Fall for the past three years. I met former Chief Earl "Running Deer" Bass, and present Chief Barry "Big Buck" Bass at their homes at the northern end of Dismal Swamp in the summer of 1993. Chief Barry Bass, his wife Betty, and The Nansemond Association are most gracious host for the POW-WOW each year. I have been to a lot of POW-WOWs over the years, but I must admit that I get much more pleasure out of attending the POW-WOW of my peoples. AHO MITAKA OYSIN, Grandfather I give thanks for the winds which have come an blown the fog away so that I could know who I am. AHO...   {Updated 01/01/13}  

 

 

This sign announces the gathering of people for the Nansemond Tribal Pow-Wow which is held north of Suffolk VA each year in Late Summer or Early Fall. Chief Barry "Big Buck" Bass greets all attendees graciously.

Though it was updated 2013 in January, tbass hasn't posted any pictures since the 2000 pow wow. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

But Definitely Red Blood

Monday, August 12, 2013

But definitely RED blood!

I've spent most of this afternoon, when I should have been potting, since I am supposedly a potter, chasing the various Nansemond Indian relatives that I'm pretty sure I'm related to.

Not 100%.  But partly that's because the Bass family tree got skewed over towards the English nobility.  And partly I find that a certain official in Virginia was really pretty bad to the Indians.

This label on the photo is wrong, since Mr. Weaver was Pakistani, a bit of East Indian, not west!

THE SMITHSONIAN GIVES THIS INFO: This photo shows members of the Weaver and Bass families: William H. Weaver is sitting; Augustus Bass is standing behind him. The Weaver family were indentured East Indians (from modern-day India and Pakistan) who were free in Lancaster County by about 1710. By 1732 they were taxables in Norfolk County and taxable "Mulatto" landowners in nearby Hertford County, NC by 1741. By 1820 there were 164 "free colored" members of the family in Hertford County. In the 1830s some registered as Nansemond Indians in Norfolk County. (Smithsonian Institution, Nansemond Indians, ca. 1900.)

 The Nansemond Indians originally lived along the Nansemond River and were part of the empire ruled by Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas. When the English arrived, the tribe had about 300 warriors and a total perhaps of 1200 people. 

They were initially wary and often hostile toward the English, but by the 1630's some had changed their minds. A family sermon book still in the Chief's possession records the 1638 marriage of John Bass, and a Nansemond convert to Christianity named Elizabeth. Everyone in today's Nansemond tribe is a descendant from that marriage. 

(The chiefs are usually named Bass.) 

Christianized Nansemonds remained on the Nansemond River and became English-style farmers, though they kept hunting and fishing; the other Nansemonds warred with the English in 1644, fled southwest to the Nottoway River, and had a reservation assigned them there by the Virginia colony. By 1744 they'd left the reservation and gone to live with the Nottoway Indians on another reservation nearby; their old reservation was sold in 1792. In 1806 the last surviving Nansemond on the Nottoway Reservation died.

In the 1720's, the Christianized Nansemonds moved to an area just NE of the Dismal Swamp, where game was plentiful and English settlers fewer; some of them live there still. Their neighbors were not always tolerant of their ancestry. In the 18th Century Nansemond people had to get certificates from the Norfolk County Clerks stating that they were of mixed ancestry and loyal to the English of Virginia. In the 1830's, when Virginia enacted repressive laws against non-whites, the Nansemonds got their Delegate to have a law passed so that they could be specially certified as Indian descendants, exempt from the discriminatory laws. 

An anthropologist from the Smithsonian made a census in 1901, the tribe had about 180 people; more than half lived in Norfolk and Portsmouth. In the 1920's the Nansemonds almost managed to reorganize their tribe but in the repressive time that existed then for non-whites, they failed. It was not until the post-Civil Rights Era, when other Indian groups without reservations got formal recognition from the Commonwealth of Virginia, that the Nansemonds finally organized and got recognition as a tribe (in 1984). By that time, most of them had lived successfully for two or more generations in local cities as "whites with Indian ancestry"; the changeover to being "Indians with white ancestry" has not been hard.

Today the Nansemond Indian Tribal Association can be seen as a family as well as an ethnic organization, with members devoted to celebrating and continuing its unique heritage.

Note on Panaky children's photo

Unidentified Family, Bowers Hill, Virginia
Nansemond Tribe
Smithsonian Institution #870

 **************************

The Virginia School system had a lesson plan that talks about racism toward Native Americans.

---------------------------------------

September 13, 1723

Indians at Nansemond Town Petitioned the Governor

  

"This is the perfect short document to discuss the interactions between European settlers and American Indians in colonial Virginia. A group of Virginia Indians appealed to the governor to help them as North Carolina settlers were coming over the border to survey the Indians' land with plans to build houses on it. Further, the colonists had been allowing their livestock to graze in the Indians' corn fields and were eating the Indian's crops themselves. 

 *******************************

The federal government has recognized more than 500 different Indian tribes from around the nation, but Virginia tribes have had a hard time securing the official acknowledgement, because an administrative decision to do so by the Bureau of Indian Affairs would require documentation that the current tribal members have a continuous line of descent from the historical tribe.

That documentation no longer exists for the Virginia tribes because of Walter Plecker, a white supremacist who was the registrar of Virginia’s Bureau of Vital Statistics from 1912-1946.

Claiming that Indians had become a “mongrel race,” Plecker replaced “Indian” with “black” on all of the birth and death certificates that came through his office. His deeds ensured that no modern Indians would be able to prove their blood connections to their race.

  http://www.suffolknewsherald.com/2011/02/18/senate-house-consider-indians/

_________________________

I have more that I will share with your tomorrow.  Since I've an ounce of Nansemond blood, now they are my tribe.  I dare say I have a few ounces of other races mixed into my mongrel blood as any proud American probably does.