In my recent post on the case of Harris Melton, Native American ancestry was something to deny and be ashamed of, circa 1850's. Fast forward half a century, and for some, that perception began to change.
It started with the Dawes Act of 1887, also called The General Allotment, which allowed the President to subdivide tribal lands into "allotments", or a sort of grant given to heads of families, or single people. This was contrary to the native peoples way of doing things, or their historical view of land as owned by the whole, and just territories belonging to various tribes. Now, they were being brought into capitalism, and the notion of private property. Because of this, and by the time of this, there had developed a growing group of people of mixed heritage, Native American and whatever else, especially those of European mix. The government had a job of determining who was eligible for these lands and who were not.
At first, the Five Civilized Tribes were exempt from the Dawes Act. These consisted of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee and Seminole. The Curtis Act of 1898 included these tribes and basically shutdown their methods of self-governance. I will not go into the devastating effects these acts had on the tribes, or the loss of land, only the side effect that infiltered Stanly County, and my own family tree.
The commission had to determine blood quantums, and as there was a lack of records to prove or disprove what level of "Indianness" someone possessed, it was a very random procedure. Because there was financial gain of land, and sometime small penisons.
On August 23, 1907, Mary M. Hatley of Stanly County, North Carolina applied to the Court of Claims of the Eastern Cherokee for membership. She was not the only one.
Mary M. Hatley was mentioned in my last post, linked here: The Dandelions of Aaron Sanders.
Mary Miranda Sanders was the daughter of Stephen J. Sanders and Dicy Morton Sanders. She was born September 26, 1849, and was the first of their three children. She was the granddaughter of Aaron and Nancy Sanders and Hezekiah and Susanna Hathcock Morton. She married James Ruffian Hatley, and that is where the Hately name came into the picture.
On her application, 56 year old Mary listed her tribe as the Eastern Cherokee and gave her "Indian Name" as Morton. She also listed the names, ages and year of birth of her children; Alexander Hatley, 40, Fronia Holland, 37, Sarah J Hatley, 35, Auvasia Kirk ( A.H.) Hatley, 25, Mittle Lightfoot, 21, Emma Hatley, 18 and Martin Luther "ML" Hatley, 16.
On the next page, she listed her parents, Stephen Sanders and Dicy Bowers, as her mother, Dicy Morton Sanders had married her second husband, Moses Bowers by then. She listed the year of her father's death as 1863, and that her mother's status was living, in Albemarle, NC. She listed her two sibling as Sallie Sanders Whitley, born in 1858, of Whitley, NC and her brother, William E. Sanders, 185?, age 52, of New London, NC, (both in Stanly County).
Her grandparents were listed again, Aaron and Nancy Sanders and Hezekiah Morton and Susan Ann Morton. Why the Morton's names were repeated with dashes on the first line under them, I don't know. She stated they were born in Montgomery County, now Stanly, NC and that she was born in Stanly, NC. She then listed her siblings:
James Morton - Dead
Ezekial Morton - Dead
Joseph Morton of Albemarle
Jesse Morton of Whitley, NC
Mary Festperman of Albemarle, NC
William G Morton - Dead
In the remarks of her application, Mary wrote, "My mother is Dicy Bowers, daughter of Hezekian Morton, whose mother was Elizabeth Morton, wife of Ezekial Morton and where name was Elizabeth Brumbalo a member of the Eastern Cherokee Indians before her intermarriage with my great grandfather, Ezekial Morton".
There were several of these, applications for membership to the tribe by descendants of Elizabeth Brumbalow. The question is, where did these Great Grandchildren and Grand Children get the idea that she was Cherokee? And was she?
Rev. Ezekial Morton and Elizabeth Brumbalow Morton were among my 5th Great Grandparents. That far back, I would carry only a small fraction of their DNA, if any at all. However, these closer generations seemed sure of it. Elizabeth B. Morton was born January 7, 1775 and died on July 26, 1856, in Oakboro, NC. Her parents were Edward and Elizabeth Brumbalow, who died around 1810. She lived long enough for most of her Grandchildren and perhaps some of her Great Grandchidlren, to have known her personally. The rumour of Cherokee ancestry had to have came from somewhere, and I believe it is the source of the rumour passed down to this day, of several western Stanly oriented families with surnames like Morton, Almond, Burris, Burleyson, Hatley, Whitley, Honeycutt and others, that they have Native American ancestry.
One young lady among this stock of names asked me a few years ago asked me to look into her family tree to find her Indian ancestor. While she looked no part indigenous, her father is indeed a dark-skinned, dusky looking fellow. The only possible link back to any possiblity of indigenous heritage I found for her in five generations was the Mortons.
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Stanly News and PressAlbemarle, North Carolina • Page 3 |
J. R. Price, an attorney took the Morton claims to Washington in 1907. Their proof was vague, just family lore that perhaps had stemmed from Elizabeth Brumbalow, herself, but from whatever the source, it was exigous, and not enough to secure the family membership to the tribe. Again, it was clamied, not proven and not accepted. This does not mean it was not true, but yet again, it doesn't prove that it was.
An article came out about the time, that a grandson, Rev. D. S. Morton, and claimed that he denied the heritage, then he went on to contradict himself.
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| Stanly News and Press | Albemarle, North Carolina • | Thu, Aug 29, 1907 | Page 3 |
"I remember Grand-mama very well. She was a devout Christian. her maiden name was Bromblo, but she was not the only one of that name who lived in this country."
"Grand-mama was dark complected but no darker than many other people whom I have seen. She possibly might have been related to the Indians. I do not know."
He goes on to state that if he is related to Indians, he is not ashamed, but hopes people would not be misled by such a legendary story.
Over a decade ago, I started a project called, "The Indians of Stanly County". The object of this project was to trace the lineage of some Stanly County families known to me who were visibly dark-skinned and try to find where their duskiness may have originated.
The Chandlers had one member who had migrated west into the mountains from their Davidson County origins, and returned back home with an "Indian" bride by the surname of Bell. This family would move aferwards to Stanly County from the uppper Badin Lake region of the Davidson and Montgomery County border. Later research shows the Bell family may have actually been Melungeon, as that name exists in their midst and DNA shows a healthy trace of both Amerindian and African ancestry.
A branch of the Almond family had a fairly recent ancestor who was part of a small remnant group of Native Americans who lived in the upper South Carolina couties of Marlboro and Chesterfield.
Two families had recent ancestors that were part of the Lumbee tribes.
Several others had no clear Native American ancestors, but led back to, wait for it...the Morton family.
Some had one particular ancestor in common, a man named William Riley Morton.
One Underwood family descended from William R. Morton (18 Jan 1902 - 20 Apr 1967), who was a son of William Riley Morton ( 13 Jul 1860 - 22 Mar 1950). He would have been the living generations' Great Grandfather, those in their 60's now.
A Bowers family descended from Nara Lee Poplin (24 Feb 1916- 25 Dec. 1977), who was the daughter of Jonah Lee Poplin (1896-1959) and Selma Morton Poplin (3 March 1896- 3 Feb 1975).
Selma Morton Polplin was a daughter of the same William Riley Morton (1860-1950). In this case, he would have been the Great Great Grandfather of the living generation in their 50's and 60's now.
William Riley Morton must have been a dark featured, olive-skinned fellow. He also enjoyed a long life of nearly 90's years, born early enough to have had vague memories of the Civil War as a small boy and living through both World Wars and into the age of the riveting 1950's. He and his wife, Nancy Winfred Dick were a very philoprogenitive couple, producing a family of 9 children:
1893-1974 Cevilla Morton Talbert
1896-1975 Selma Morton Poplin
1897-1962 Benjamin Franklin Morton
1900-1896 David Hasten Morton
1902-1967 William R. Morton Jr.
1904-1982 John Floyd Morton
1906-1971 Albert Kirk Morton
1909-1994 Raymond Alexander Morton
1912-1989 Nancy Magnolia Curlee
This William R. Morton was the son of John Wesley Morton ( 1829-1870) and Lydia Adeline Ledbetter Morton, (1833-1909), daughter of Albert Ledbetter and Temperance Jane Tucker Ledbetter, whom I have touched on in my Big Lick posts.
John Wesley Morton was the son of Joseph Calvin Morton (1801-1889) and Margaret Ann Hatley (1807-1889).
Joseph Calvin Morton was the son of Rev. Ezekial John Morton (1770-1834) and Elizabeth Betsy Brumbalow (1775-1856).
There was an Efird family with the same circumstances, dark, swarthy complexion, indigenour features, considered white and stemming from known white families. Where did the dark genes come from? Again, I found Mortons in their line, and no clear lineage other than that of anything but European heritage.
This line stems from Walter Haywood Morton (1895-1951) who married Mary Lucy Honeycutt (1903-1998).
Walter was the son of Adam Archie Morton (1859-1946) and Arwelder Magdalene (Crisco, Honeycutt or Hinson) (1865-1930).
Adam was the son of Allen Green Morton, Sr. (1827-1894) and Elizabeth Burris (1827-1912).
Allen G. Morton was the son of ..well we're back to Ezekial Morton and Betsy Brumbalow again.
Anyone seeing a pattern here?
And the Honeycutts? They descended from an entirely different William Riley Morton. This William R. Morton (1879-1933) married Rebecca Cagle (1882-1967) and also fathered a large family.
W. R. was the son of Enoch Willis Morton (1850-1927) who married Francis Springer (1852-1923).
Enoch was the son of Allen Green Morton and Elizabeth Burris, mentioned above, who of course leads back to the same couple, Ezekial and Betsy Brumbalow Morton.
Genetics are a crap shoot. A red head can pop up from nowhere. One kid can be short like his mother's Dad and his brother tall like his own father. You never know, despite some being recessive and others dominate. Darker genes tend to be dominate, brown eyes over blue ones, brunette over blonde, dark skin over fair, but there are exceptions. Could the darker skin of an indigeneous heritage have made its way down the generations from Betsy Brumbalow to certain of her descendants, but not others? It's certainly possible, that's the way things work. We carry tiny pieces of those who came before us, and at some point, pieces of others that came before us fall off as we can't hold them all, but that doesn't mean they are not our predesessors, we are.
Could what Betsy's grandchildren believed of her be true? I think it could be.
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