Sachems / Chiefs - Leaders

 

 



Payta Kootha, Shawanoe Warrior (Shawnee)
Flying Clouds or Captain Reed
This image could also represent Wee-A-Se-Sa-Ka
Aka Hahgoosekaw

 

 
Captain Reed was known as Wee-A-Se-Sa-Ka
(Notoweegan)

Captain Reed was known among the Shawnee and Long Hair, among the Chickamauga of Ohio. He was married to Sarah Elizabeth (d.o.b. 1778), who was enrolled in the Cherokee Nation according to the records of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, but she was also known as Sarah Kersey (Coursey) in the 1790 census of Abbeville S.C. She was the daughter of Go-Sa-Du-I-Sga and Walter Scott, the mixed blood son of Alexander Cameron and his Chickamauga (Lower Cherokee) wife. Captain Reed was enumerated in the same 1790 census, directly below Sarah Kersey's (Coursey) name, which is significant in showing an interconnection perhaps as a common law wife. However by 1830, Sarah Kersey was enumerated in the Federal Census as Sarah Reed in the same county of Abbeville S.C., which demonstrates she was Captain Reed's legal wife at the time. Cameron, the father of Walter Scott and grandfather of Sarah Elizabeth was appointed by John Stuart to serve as Deputy Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1766.

It is also said that Captain Reed could have been of Creek origin.

Family Data

Walter Scott had died ca. 1796 in the Pendleton District of South Carolina, the formerly heavily Indian populated district north of Abbeville Co.  Cameron was a loyalist who sympathized with the Chickamauga cause and as a result was given land by Chief Oconostota on the Little River in present day Abbeville County S.C., the birth place of Dragging Canoe along the Saluda River and the Chickamauga movement. Sara Reed was enumerated in Abbeville in the 1830 federal census demonstrating the family's connection to the ancestral land given by Oconostota.The center for the early political activity for the tribe and family was  Charleston S.C., where Oconostota was a member of the Scottish Society before the Revolutionary War, the place where treaties were made and broken, and the place where they owned property and was quite prominent among the local Indian community.

Sara Reed exemplified this prominence in Charleston when she had selected the following Indian executors of her will and possible relatives in 1834 namely J.B. Matthews, Joseph Dereef and W. McKinney, who was the mixed blood descendent of the Shawnee (Savana) trader McKinney (the McKinneys are enumerated on the 1867 Shawnee rolls). Issabella was the grandmother of Issabella, ("Grandma Tea") who was born in South Carolina in 1856 and died in 1939. She was the last traditional medicine woman in the family. Sara Reed in her will mentioned her daughter-in-law, Hetty(dob ca. 1790) a.k.a. Issabella (Elizabeth) and her daughter, Catherine as the beneficiaries of her will.Issabella (Elizabeth),her son William and daughter Sara (named after her grandmother Sara Reed),  the mother of "Grandma Tea" were enumerated in Charleston in 1850 in the household of William Ingles (dob ca.1817). William Ingles was the nephew of Issabella (Elizabeth) and son of Catherine whom Issabella named her daughter after (refer to the above mentioned will). 

 Issabella (Elizabeth) and her sisters Catherine and Martha Sophia Ingles (the wife of Thomas Ingles) were considered Moors according to South Carolina documents; but other records i.e. church records, wills, etc. indicate that the family had connections to the Nanticoke Moors. The Ingles family had early ties with the Shawnee Indians (see Pangburn,v.1) through adoption, intermarriage and Reed Island (present Tazewell Co., Va.) near Ingles Ferry, an early Indian town of displaced Shawnees and Lower Cherokees ca. 1750. William Ingles was married to Jennetta Elizabeth Glover ca. 1832 in Charleston, the daughter of Joseph Glover and Jeanerette a.k.a. Betsy. They were married in April 1784 in Santee S.C. Joseph Glover was the son of Charlesworth Glover a.k.a. The Good Warrior of Estatoe, who was a Cherokee that became prominent in the nation ca. 1760.The author Snow Flower in her book, This Story categorizes Charleston S.C. as a port city of a considerable Shawnee significance, which would explain the Ingles residence along with other Shawnee families i.e. the McKinneys, and the father of Puckeshinwa (Paxinosa) who had settled there in 1770. In the early 1700's, John Lawson the surveyor, mentions the Shawnee (Savanah) towards the south end of the Ashley River which would be in the proximity of present day Charlestown. The old Indian name for the Ashley River is the Ashepo or Ishepo River, the name sake of the Ishpoko Shawnees. The De'Isle's map of 1700 locates the Shawnee at the headwaters of the Santee and Peedee rivers, which formed a tributary of the Cofitachiqui Empire.  

Grandma Tea (Yahola in Creek) married Istifani (Stephney), meaning "skeleton like" in Muskogee (Creek). Istifani was the son of July (Jo-Lee) and Phyllis. Phyllis was the daughter of Hagar and Wa-Lee (Wallace). Hagar was the daughter of Blind Hannah and Old Man July. Istifani (Stephany) was a descendent of those Tuckabatchee who were part of Osceola's (Asiyahola) band that was captured during the Second Seminole War and bought to Sullivans Island in Charleston. 

 The Tuckabatchees 

 ...were originally Shawano (Savana) Indians from the Ispogogi a.k.a. Kispogotha warrior clan who had aligned with the Creeks in Alabama.The word Ispogogi has its roots in the Musgogi word Istifani rendering a connection to spirit men.It is historic fact that because the Ispogogis were always at war, it had diminshed their population. These warriors were frequently victims of captivity, death or enslavement. Today there are only a few mixed clan Ispogogis who had survived.Creek tradition defines the Ispogogis as cosmic beings who had given several brass plates along with a sacred code of conduct to the Creeks (Musgogis). Their Cosmic Dance is the Istifani Banga, a traditional Musgogi Ghost Dance which the Tuckabatchees perform as a War Dance. Osceola (Asiyahola) was a Creek from this particular area and became a Seminole through geographic attachment.Tecumseh and his brother The Prophet as well as Big Jim a.k.a.Wapameepto (Gives Light As He Walks) had Ispogogi lineage. Some of the Puckham ancestors lived in the 18th century in a parish named after the Ispogogis known as Stepney (Istifani) parish in Somersex Co., Delaware. Various Ispogogi Shawano war chiefs i.e. Opessa, Wannys, etc. have aligned with the Nanticokes and Notowegas (Conestoga/Susquehanna) on different occassions to strenghthen their forces against European encroachment and their Indian allies.

 

 Asiyahola or "Osceola"

At Charleston this part of the family that was held in captivity along with Osceola was sold into slavery at the end of the Second Seminole War by their captor Major Heriot, who served as part of the Charleston Brigadoons in Florida. Captain John Pettygrew, the grandson of the Creek trader John Pettygrew acquired and owned the family through Major Heriot. 


  
This *image typifies the Chickamauga Seminoles who were led by
Osceola (Asiyahola)

Regina, was one of the daughters of Grandma Tea and Istifani. Regina married William Holmes Swinton. They were the parents of Estelle born in 1903 in Georgetown, S.C., whose Indian name was Ha See meaning Sun in the Muskogi (Creek) language, the wife of Amar Sanyal born in Calcutta, India in 1895. William was the son of John Swinton and Eliza Holmes, a Powhattan Indian the daughter of Rebecca Holmes and grand daughter of Elizabeth Edwards and John Bee Holmes the grandson of the Choctaw trader John Bee. He was the great grandson of Nellie McDowell Swinton, the grandaughter of a Cherokee and Indian trader William McDowell. John was the grandson of Scipio and Binky (Pinky). The family originated at Black Mingo Creek a.k.a. Indian Town Village, along the Black River. Scipio was born ca 1735 and was the grandson or grand nephew of Captain (Chief) Johnny of the Wingyaw or Black Mingo Indians *(see Hodge). Scipio's great grandfather was John Lawson's SeWee guide also named Scipio, and the Cassikey of Black Mingo Creek Village.

John Swanton (52;Bull 145:101) mentions "a body of mixed bloods in their old country," to whom the name Wacamaw is applied.**The lower course of the Peedee River and the Black River are the historic seats or territory of the mixed band of Wacamaw and Black Mingo (Winyaw) Indians; which is Swinton's tribal heritage and ancestral location since the arrival of the Europeans. The earliest record of the Britt family in South Carolina is on the Sampit River, Georgetown, S.C. in 1710, birth of Thomas Britt Jr. a.k.a. Thomas Puckham. The family name Puckham perhaps derived from the Enlish adaptation of the family's village name of its progenitor John Puckham which was Puckamee, in northern Somerset County, Maryland. As with most Indians in the South, the Swintons were statistically and systematically categorized as free people of color on the federal census reports.. However as common with most Indians, they had married into other Indians such as the Britts who were Notowegas from Virginia, who descended from John Puckham, a Nanticoke Indian and Joan Johnson, a mustee whose daughter Susannah Puckham had a child by the Indian trader Thomas William Britt. The child was baptized in ca. 1720. 

Susannah Britt was the daughter of Daniel Britt and Mary Moselley (Nanticoke Indian). Daniel Britt was the great grandson of Thomas Britt (Indian Trader) and Sussannah Puckham (Nanticoke Indian) and grandson of their son Samuel Puckham and his wife Ann.The earliest record of the Britt family in South Carolina is at the Sampit River in Georgetown S.C. The later records show the family residing in Darlington Co.,S.C. ca. 1790's which is an outlying neighborhood of the Sardis community and Cheraw. Susannah Britt married Richard Knights (Nights) and the family was enumerated in Cheraw S.C. in the 1790 U.S. Federal Census. Their daughter Issabella (Lizzie) married, John Swinton.The family was living in Prince George Winyaw Tshp., the ancient seat of the Black Mingo (Wingyaw), where the Knights were attending the Episcopal Church of Prince George Winyaw since the early 1800's. They were the parents of William Swinton.

The Britts, who ultimately had settled in Marion S.C. and surrounding counties forming the Sardis Indian community; and the Knights (Nights) who descended from Indians from Cheraw and Georgetown (see church records of Prince George of Winyaw Episcopal Church early 1800's) via Shawano Town, in present day Aiken Co. 

Today the tribe claims descent from a collective group of the Chickasaw Tribe,  Savana (Shawnee), Lower Cherokee (Chickamauga/Yemassee) and Mingo (Conestoga/Seneca), who were historically known as Notowegas in South Carolina.

*Bureau of American Ethnology part 2 page 1033.......Some historians consider the Black Mingo to be a detached group of Iroquois. The connection with Winyaw and Black Hook (Back Hook) needs further research. 

**see Wes White Files at the South Carolina Historical Society at Charleston S.C.

Sarah Reed (dob ca.1842), the grand daughter of the Shawnee chief, Captain Reed, Wee-A-Se-Sa-Ka and Sarah Elizabeth (a.k.a. Sarah Kearsey also spelt as Coursey). She was a traditional medicine woman and midwife, who descended from two long lines of medicine practitioners inclusive of her mother Issabella (Elizabeth Moore/Moseley), a Nanticoke practitioner and her father John Reed (the son of Captain Reed), whose ancestry is among the ancient Mekoche band of Shawnee healers. Issabella (Elizabeth) was one of three sisters, namely Catherine and Martha Sophia Ingles who according to South Carolina documents (Hicks 98: 313) stated that Sussannah (a.k.a. Hannah Moseley in Sussex Co.Del. rec'ds) was their mother. The South Carolina affidavit mentioned above, stated that Lucy Moore and her daughter Sussannah came to Chasrleston S.C. about 1775 and were considered Moors by the local community. However early records of Sussex Co. Delaware substantiate that Hannah (Susannah), Elizabeth (Issabella) and William Moseley were also domiciled in Sussex Co. Delaware at an early time and were noted as family members. 

The Church of the Latter Day Saints records indicate that Lucy Moore was born in Powhattan Co. Va. in 1758 and married George Moseley. Lucy's parents Rachel Moore a.k.a. Rachel Blango and "Old" Punch, appear in a Beaufort Co. docket no. 41 where in Richard Cogdell had presided a case against them. The Moorish connection with the family can be assummed with the Blango surname which is of Spanish/Portuguese origin meaning white.Nevertheless the White surname, as early as 1748 was the name of a Nanticoke sachem, who had led a fugitive band of Nanticokes to seek refuge among the Seneca at Conestoga (see Indian Tribes of Hudson's River 1700-1850 by E.M. Ruttenber, page 199). It is also historical fact that the remnant bands of Nanticoke and Delaware did merge with the Shawano (Shawnee) and Conestoga (Mingo) in Pa., Va., Md., Del., N.J. and ultimately in S.C. as Notowegas. 

Benjamin Franklin did make reference to a Moorish-Conestoga alliance in 1764 in a narative addressing the late massacre in Lancaster Co. Pa. of a band of Conestoga (MIngo) Indians who were murdered by the Scotch Irish settlers. Benjamin Franklin stated that they (Conestoga) " would have been safer if they would have submitted to the Turks (Moors)"(see Great Documents in American Indian History edited by Wayn Moquim). 

South Carolina documents contain sworn testimony from the local community(early 1800's to late 1700's) that the Bunch (Punch) ancestry was of Egyptian, Moorish and Indian ancestry (Hicks:1998). The Harvard historian and linguist Leo Weiner stated that Columbus was well aware of the Madinka (West African Muslim) and Moorish/Turkish presence in America. In 1920 he wrote, Africa and the Discovery of America in which he mentioned that especially in North America and Canada, the Moors /Turks were trading and intermarrying with the Iroquois and Algonquin Indians. This intermarriage was discernable in the Nanticoke language in the numerals one to ten which are of Madinka origin (see Forbes, Africans and Native Americans). Barry Fell the archeologist and linguist, in his work Saga America, 1980 had identified the Algonquin language as having words of Arabic origin, especially words dealing with the sciences i.e. navigation, astronomy, meterology, medicine and anatomy.Fell also mentioned that this significant presence of Judaic-Islamic presence in Turtle Island (America) from Northern and Western Africa was present before the European arrival,which had resulted in the descendants of these Muslim visitors of North America amalgamation into the the present Iroquois, Algonquin, Anasazi, Hohokam and Olmec native populations. 

In evidence of the above studies, is the Extra Census Bulletin of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory published by the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Census Office in 1894 (see page 27, Creeks in South Carolina) mentions the Yamasee (Jamasi,a Spanish/Portuguese spelling the J is pronounced as an H),".....as one of the small number of isolated tribes of dark complexion, found widely scattered among the inhabitants of North and South America. Suppose to have been immigrants from Africa prior to the European discovery of America (see Human Species, by A.DeQuatrefages)" Needham, the royal surveyor in the early 1700's, along with Gabriel Arthur mentioned that the Waxhaws (Wesacky) children were bought up in the homes of the Tamahittans as the ianesaryes (Yamasees) are among the Turks (Moors) (see Swanton's North American Ind-Waxhaws). Arthur's statement affirms the Moorish connection as part of the indigenous Yamasee. 

Furthermore Dr. Brent Kennedy, a Melungeon historian at the University of Va. at Clinch, included in his research a Moorish and Native American early colonial connection from Barbados, that was transplanted to Va. and the Carolinas (see http://www.geocities.com/bourbonstreet/inn/1024/brent.html). The White (Blango) and Moore family names appear among the above list. 

Lucy Moore/Moseley's father Punch (Bunch) was most likely the "Old" Punch that was the grandson of an Onandaga chief, known as the Bunt (see Pangburn vol.1). In 1759, Sir William Johnson gave a silver gorget to the Bunts grandson Punch, who was appointed chief by his grandfather. But it appears that Punch was captured by the English at Fort Pitt, along with his Shawnee colleagues ca.1760's. Punch obviously escaped because his descendent Micajah Bunch (Punch) is cited as a delinquent taxpayer in the Indian country of Ohio, ca 1773. This is the same area where 20 years later Punch signs the Greenville Peace Treaty. Another descendant Gideon Bunch (Punch) name appears along with Gideon Gibson in South Carolina documents, when they sold their Halifax Co. lands to Montfort Culbeck and both families were taxed in 1755 as "free molatas" (Indian) in Orange Co. North Carolina. Gideon Bunch moved to Berkeley Co. South Carolina on the northeast side of Four Holes Swamp on Dec. 5, 1758, when he recorded a plat for 100 acres. The above date is significant because it is the 1748 to 1758 time frame of the Notowegas in the above area, when they were under French orders to capture those Natchez who had destroyed their settlements along the Mississippi. Also the Northern Iroquois affinity can be determined when considering the following article in the South Carolina Gazette, Aug.15 , 1768, reported that a group of bandits a numerous collection of outcasts, mulattos (Indian and white according to S.C. doc.), mustees (Indian and black), Free Negroes, etc., all from the borders of Va. and other northern colonies, headed by Gideon Gibson. Gibson escaped the Negro law by "providing upon comparison more red and white in his face than could be discovered in the faces of half of the descendants of the French refugees in the House of the Assembly," (see Pangburn vol.1). 

The Punch (Bunch) surname became associated with the Wyandot (Mingo) who had intermarried with the Shawano and Seneca. The emergence of the name among the Southern tribes most likely occurred before 1791, when Punch was captured in the 1760's and when he and Rachel Moore/Moseley were in Va. in the 1750's. Another possibility is when George Punch accompanied Grey Eyes in his mission to the Creeks, Cherokees, and other Southern tribes in an attempt to solidify an alliance of all the Eastern Woodlands tribes against General Anthony Wayne and his militia.(see Pangburn vol.1 page 407).

 

 

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