The Native connection between Nasemond and colonials of Virginia

Reposting from: Sunday, August 18, 2013

The Native connection

The Nansemonds have said that the book which is not considered accurate uses the surname Tucker to refer to the original Indians who married Western European settlers.  They seem to discount that name, and say any time Kesiah Tucker comes up as Elizabeth Bass's name, it stems from the book that isn't accurate.  But that had been her name as daughter of the Chief of the Powhatans.
  
If one book calls her that name, however, it seems to me that it is just like an alias, not to be discounted completely.  I see throughout the family tree, other women named Kesiah, which must be in honor of that matriarch.  So the book could not have been wrong about her having that other (Indian) name.  It probably would not have been acceptable if the family were strict Christians however.

And I haven't yet researched the religious affiliations of my ancestors...if any is known.  Early Virginians belonged to the Church of England, which became the Episcopal Church later in America.  It wasn't until near the Revolutionary War that Baptists petitioned for their own religious freedom. 

The 10,000 name petition (dated 16 October 1776) has been digitized at the Library of Congress website. It was signed by people from all over Virginia who wanted an end to persecution of Baptists by the Established Church. Baptists and Baptist sympathizers alike signed the petition. 

 And there were also Quakers in the Suffolk area as well. 

Incidentally, the wife would be in charge of the household meals, bedding, clothing and child rearing, but at some point the families probably moved out of the houses of the tribe and into cabins like the Europeans had.  I wonder when that happened.  Somehow I think it took several generations.

And especially important to remember about this family, and this tribe, is the persecution from the white culture.  No wonder some of my ancestors moved from VA to NC, GA, AL, and then TX.

Powhatan style home in Williamsburg,VA

http://cova-inc.org/resources/edu_ark_viintro.html
This link is for a resource kit.  Very well done archeological background of Virginia native peoples.

the best research link I’ve found is: 

 https://familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Nansemond_County,_Virginia

site has lots of original document links.
More History From http://encyclopediavirginia.org/Nansemond_Tribe#start_entry 

Time Line

• December 1608 - Christopher Newport returns to England from Jamestown accompanied by the Indian Machumps. John Smith, meanwhile, attempts to trade for food with Indians from the Nansemonds to the Appamattucks, but on Powhatan's orders they refuse.
• Early September 1609 - John Smith sends Francis West and 120 men to the falls of the James River. George Percy and 60 men attempt to bargain with the Nansemond Indians for an island. Two messengers are killed and the English burn the Nansemonds' town and their crops.
• June 1611 - Sir Thomas Dale leads a hundred armored soldiers against the Nansemond Indians at the mouth of the James River, burning their towns. 
• August 14, 1638 - John Bass, who may be the son of Nathaniel Basse and Mary Jordan Basse, marries Elizabeth, a Nansemond woman who has converted to Christianity. 
• 1792 - The Nansemond tribe sells its last known reservation lands, 300 acres on the Nottoway River in Southampton County.
• 1850 - The Indiana United Methodist Church in Chesapeake is founded as a mission for the Nansemond Indians.
• March 20, 1924 - Virginia passes the Racial Integrity Act, a law aimed at protecting whiteness on the state level. It prohibits interracial marriage, the only exception being a marriage between a white person and a person with one-sixteenth or less Indian blood.
• 1930 - The General Assembly passes a law defining Virginia Indians as those possessing one-quarter or more of Indian blood and less than one-sixteenth of black blood. The law also stipulates that such people will be considered black unless they live on a segregated Indian reservation.
• February 20, 1985 - The Nansemond tribe is formally recognized by the [Virginia] General Assembly in House Joint Resolution 205.
• January, 2018, the legislation will grant federal recognition of the following six Virginia tribes: the Chickahominy, the Eastern Chickahominy, the Upper Mattaponi, the Rappahannock, the Monacan, and the Nansemond.
• 
  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.