Saponi facts for kids
Distribution of Tutelo-Saponi language
|
|
| Regions with significant populations | |
|---|---|
| Virginia and North Carolina (historically) | |
| Languages | |
| Tutelo-Saponi, English | |
| Religion | |
| Christianity, Indigenous religion | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Tutelo, Occaneechi, Monacan, Manahoac, other eastern Siouan tribes |
The Saponi or Sappony are a Native American tribe historically based in the Piedmont of North Carolina and Virginia. They spoke a Siouan language, related to the languages of the Tutelo, Biloxi, and Ofo.
Since the mid-20th century, certain groups in the Southeast have organized to assert their American Indian cultural identity; some claim descent from the historic Saponi. Three state-recognized tribes in North Carolina, the Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation, and the Sappony (formerly known as the Indians of Person County until 2003) all identify as Saponi. None of these organizations are federally recognized as a Native American tribe.
Contents
Etymology
The origin and meaning of Saponi is debated. Ethnographer James Mooney suggested the word might come from the Siouan term sapa meaning "black."
German explorer John Lederer suggested their name came from Sepy, a female immortal in their religion. He wrote that either four tribes or clans were named for this spirit and three other closely related female spirits from whom the Saponi believed they descended. Evidence came from a short list of names given by the missionary Samuel Kirkland.
Alternatively, the late University of Kansas linguist Robert L. Rankin suggested that their name might derive from sa:p oni: meaning "shallow tree" or sa:p moni meaning "shallow water."
Language
The Saponi language, now extinct, was a Siouan language, closely related to Tulelo.
According to William Byrd II, the Saponi spoke the same language as the Occaneechi and the Steganaki (also known as Stuckenock).
By the time linguistic data was recorded, many related eastern Siouan tribes had settled together at Fort Christanna in Brunswick County, Virginia, where the colonists sometimes referred to them as the Christanna Indians. Horatio Hale recorded the Tutelo language in considerable detail. In the 21st century, his work is being used by the Occaneechi as the basis for the revival of the Tutelo-Occaneechi language, also called Yésah.
The Saponi dialect is known from only two sources. One is a word list of 46 terms and phrases recorded by John Fontaine at Fort Christanna in 1716. This contains a number of items showing it to be virtually the same language as recorded by Hale. The other source is William Byrd II's History of the Dividing Line betwixt Virginia and North Carolina (1728), in which he recorded the names of some local creeks. Byrd's scant list has been found to have included several names from unrelated Indian tribes.
Territory
The Saponi lived in present day Virginia and North Carolina and had 17th and 18th-century settles along the Roanoke River, its tributary the Staunton River, and the Yadkin River. Lands in the Virginia Piedmont were dominated by oak, hickory, and pine forests.
History
17th century
English explorer Edward Bland wrote in 1650 about the "Occononacheans and Nessoneicks" living on Roanoke River. The Nessoneicks were Saponi. In 1670, John Lederer visited what he described as "Sapon, a Village of the Nahyssans," who were the Saponi. Lederer wrote about the Saponi: "The nation is governed by an absolute Moarch; the People of a high stature, warlike and rich."
In 1671 Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam led an expedition that passed through several Saponi villages. After their vist, the Saponi and Tutelo moved downriver and settled with Occaneechi people. Nathanial Bacon led an attack against the tribes in 1676. In 1677, the Virginia colonial government named the Saponi as tributary Indians under the colonial governor's protection.
18th century
English explorer John Lawson wrote about the Saponi in 1701. He noted they fought against the Seneca and trapped beaver for the fur trade. Shortly after his village, the Saponi migrated into North Carolina. A band of Saponi returned to Virginia in 1708. There Occaneechi and Stukanox joined them.
Nearly decimated, the Saponi relocated to three islands at the confluence of the Dan and Staunton rivers in Clarksville with their allies, the Occaneechi, Tutelo, and Nahyssans.
By 1701, the Saponi and allied tribes, often collectively referred to as "Saponi" or "Tutelo," had begun moving to the location of present-day Salisbury, North Carolina to gain distance from the colonial frontier. By 1711 they were just east of the Roanoke River and west of modern Windsor, North Carolina. In 1714, Governor Spotswood resettled them around Fort Christanna in Virginia. The tribes agreed to this for protection from hostile tribes. Although in 1718 the House of Burgesses voted to abandon the fort and school, the Siouan tribes continued to stay in that area for some time. They gradually moved away in small groups over the years 1730–1750. One record from 1728 indicated that Colonel William Byrd II made a survey of the border between Virginia and North Carolina, guided by Ned Bearskin, a Saponi hunter. Byrd noted several abandoned fields of corn, indicating serious disturbance among the local tribes.
In 1740, the majority of the Saponi and Tutelo moved to Shamokin, Pennsylvania. They surrendered to the Iroquois and joined the latter in New York. They were formally adopted by the Cayuga Nation in 1753, though they ultimately ended up in a number of different places. Shortly after the Revolutionary War Samuel Kirkland noted a community of them living near Fort Niagara who are later believed to have joined the Mohawk, whereas others continued into Canada alongside the Cayuga. During the war, they were tasked by the Iroquois to find land near Buffalo, NY to replant the field destroyed by Washington's troops.
Smaller bands were noted in Pennsylvania as late as 1778. Some were still in North Carolina much later. Since most of the Iroquois sided with the British in the American Revolutionary War, after the victory by the United States, the Saponi and Tutelo who had joined the Iroquois were forced with them into exile in Canada. After that point, recorded history was silent about the tribe.
After the American Revolution
The Saponi intermarried with non-Native people. In some of the early Spanish and Portuguese colonies, mulatto meant mixed-race African and Native American, but in the English language, it came to mean persons of mixed European and African ancestry. Because of slavery society, some whites in slave state areas tended to classify anyone of visible African ancestry as African, even mixed-race people who identified and lived culturally as Native American. But in other parts of the South, race was considered a more fluid concept, with mixed-race people being classified as "white", "Indian", "negro", "mulatto", or sometimes even "Mexican", as the situation suited them.
Because South Carolina taxed American Indian slaves at a lesser rate than African slaves as early as 1719, that colony had legislated that "all such slaves as are not entirely Indian shall be accounted as negro." After the legal decision in Hudgins v. Wright in 1808, Virginia tended to classify persons of mixed Native American and African ancestry as 'Negroes', a decision that favored slaveholders after Indian slavery was ended.
Colonial and early United States governments generally failed to recognize how people identified culturally. The problem grew more severe at the turn of the 19th century, resulting in records that are biased toward classifying all free people of color as African American, when some identified culturally and by descent as members of specific Native American tribes. There have been many academic disagreements about the cultural identity of numerous people recorded simply as free blacks or free people of color.
Jack Forbes has noted that the terms "mustees" and "mulattoes" at one time referred to persons of part American [Indian] ancestry. A mustee may have been primarily part-African and American [Indian], and a mulatto was usually part-European and American [Indian], but the latter term particularly was used more generally to refer to mixed-race people of African American and European ancestry. At the time, the federal censuses had no classification for American Indian, and did not ask people with which culture they identified.
Paul Heinegg and Virginia DeMarce have found that a high percentage of people identified as "free blacks" or "free people of color" in federal censuses from 1790 to 1810 (when there was no designation for Indian) in the Upper South were descended from families classified as free African Americans in colonial Virginia. Most were free because they were descended from unions between white women (who were free) and African or African-American men. Their children and descendants maintained this free status. At the time, most working-class people shared living and working quarters. These families were documented through extensive research in colonial records of Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay Colony, including court records, land deeds, wills and manumissions. Some free African Americans were descended from enslaved Africans freed by owners as early as the mid-17th century. By the early decades of the 19th century, such free families had many descendants; they often moved to frontier areas where racial strictures were reduced. In some areas, the lighter-skinned descendants formed close communities in which they called themselves or were known as Indian, Portuguese or one of a variety of terms, such as Melungeon. In some cases, descendants married more into one or another of their ancestral communities, becoming increasingly white, black or Indian.
Issues about identity became more confusing under Jim Crow in the late 19th century as white Democrats imposed racial segregation to enforce white supremacy. In the 20th century, as both North Carolina and Virginia adopted one-drop rules as part of their racial segregation laws, requiring all individuals to be classified as either white or black (essentially, all other or all people of color). They classified as black any person with any black ancestry, regardless of how small. Walter Ashby Plecker, the Registrar of Virginia's Bureau of Vital Statistics, issued orders to field offices to change birth records of individuals whose families he had decided were trying to pass as Indian to avoid being classified as black. Due to his application of the Racial Integrity Act, records of many Native American-identified people were changed without their consent, and often without their knowledge. In later years, their descendants have had difficulty in proving their communities' continuity of identity.
Culture
Very little of Saponi culture has been recorded. Catawba Texts, written by Frank G. Speck in 1934, about the closely related Catawba people to the south, gives some indications of cultural practices and beliefs held in common with both the Catawba and neighboring tribes of other language groupings, such as the Cherokee. The book mentions a story of a giant, blood-sucking snake that was killed by a giant eagle. This mirrors other Siouan stories of Thunderbirds facing off against evil snake monsters. Catawba Texts also includes practical instructions such as methods of making pottery, baskets and traps, various ways of fishing, instructions on how to make hominy and cornbread, and how to tan hides and make soap.
State-recognized tribes
Three groups, each recognized by the state of North Carolina, claim descent from the historical Saponi people. North Carolina recognized the Indians of Person County in 1911 as an American Indian tribe. In 2003 they formally changed their name to Sappony. They are based in Roxboro, North Carolina.
The Haliwa-Saponi Indian Tribe, a group based in Halifax and Warren counties, was recognized by North Carolina in 1965. They organized in the 1940s under the name Haliwarnash Indian Club, later shortened to Haliwa Indian Club. They changed their name in 1979 to include a reference to the historic Saponi. They are headquartered in Hollister, North Carolina.
This group attracted media attention for claiming its tribal council had reviewed and approved a loan for $700,000 and a $600,000 HUD grant for matching funds. The North Carolina Auditors became involved at that time.
The Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation was recognized by the state of North Carolina in 2002, after being organized in 1984 as the Eno-Occaneechi Indian Association. In 1995 it added Saponi to its name. The group claims descent from several Siouan-speaking peoples and is headquartered in Mebane, North Carolina.
Unrecognized organizations
Numerous unrecognized tribes and other organizations claim Sapon ancestry. These include the Mahenips Band of the Saponi Nation of Missouri in the Ozark Hills, with headquarters in West Plains, Missouri. In 2000, the Saponi Nation of Missouri submitted a letter of intent to Petition for Federal Acknowledgement of Existence as an Indian Tribe; however, they did not follow through with submitting a petition.
Ohio
Ohio is home to the second-largest population of people who claim Saponi ancestry. Ohio has no federally recognized tribes or state-recognized tribes.
Director of the Haliwa-Saponi Historic Legacy Project, Dr. Marty Richardson wrote, "A large group of Meadows Indians migrated to Ohio after 1835 and took advantage of fewer race-based restrictions." However, 1818 to 1842 marked Indian removals in Ohio.
In 1998, the Saponi Nation of Ohio submitted a letter of intent to Petition for Federal Acknowledgement of Existence as an Indian Tribe to the Bureau of Indian Affairs; They did not follow through with submitting a petition.
In addition, the Carmel Indians of Carmel, Ohio, and Magoffin County, Kentucky, claim descent from the historic Saponi tribe, but also identify as Melungeon, an Appalachian group who descends from African and European settlers.
