Native Heritage Project

Surname Reversion??

Posted on April 9, 2012 by Roberta Estes

While working on the Emmet Co., Michigan death records, things started to fall into a pattern. Most records groups are that way and you develope an understanding to some extent of how things were handled within a record grouping.

In these recrds from the late 1860s and early 1870s, we see a lot of Native-sounding names and several European ones, both English and French. Some people have last names, but their parents don’t, which is to be expected of people born around 1800 or even in the 1700s in upper Michigan.

In most cases, the surnames of the children match at least the surname of the father, but there are a few rather confounding exceptions.

These are of note because the parents have European surnames, but the children, who are the ones who died, did not.

For example, Rosine Osawmankekk, an Indian, died at the age of 1 year of unknown causes. Her parents were William Flinn and Margaret Flinn. How did we go from Flinn to Osawmankekk? Even if the native people were somewhat confused, the people in the resigtrar’s office know how surnames worked. Apparently so did Rosine’s parents as they both has European first names and carried the same last name. Was Osawmankekk a nickname that somehow was mistaken for a surname? We’ll never know.

This goes to show that sometimes the old saying about “one step forward and two steps back” comes into play in the most unusual of circumstances.

Posted in Names | Leave a comment

Indians and Rhode Island in the Revolutionary War

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Roberta Estes

Working from the DAR document, Forgotten Patriots, I’m now in Rhode Island, taking my whirlwind tour of all states who provided soldiers for the Revolutionary War. Am I ever glad there weren’t 50 then!

Rhode Island was a small state, but they provided a great deal of military support for the Revolution. Half of all able-bodied men were enlisted at one time. No family was unaffected.

In 1774, Rhode Island took a census which showed a total population of 54,435 whites, 3.761 blacks and 1,482 Indians. The Indians were not clustered in one place or another, but lived in every county and were occupied in commerce, agriculture and other trades, as were their African-American and white counterparts.

In 1776, the British captured Newport, RI, the commercial and trade hub of the state. Times became desperate. Another census taken in 1777 to determine how many men over the age of 16 were able to bear arms revealed that many of these men were already serving in the militia, although they had not been paid in months and wouldn’t be for many more.

In February 1778, desperate for troops, the Rhode Island assembly passed a resolution that “every able bodied negro, mulatto or Indian man slave” could enlist in the Army for the duration of the war. They would be entitled to the same bounties and other enticements as any other soldier, and at the end of that time, they would be free, totally free, “as though he had never been encumbered with any kind of servitude or slavery.” Masters were to be paid for each slave who enlisted. Of course, funds were slow to arrive, but enlistments boomed. For those enslaved, this was the only opportunity for freedom they would ever see.

Rhode Island was more meticulous than many other states in terms of recording race or at least something about their soldiers. To date, working my way from north to south, they are the only state that used the word “mustee” in addition to mulatto. Mustee of course, implies Indian admixture where mulatto could be anything plus white. There are quite a few people noted as “mustee” in the records. There is only one tribe specifically mentioned, the Narragansett.

You can read about the Narragansett at this link: http://www.narragansett-tribe.org/history.html

Posted in Military | Leave a comment

Who Died and Why? Ottawa Death Records in Emmet County, Michigan.

Posted on April 8, 2012 by Roberta Estes

Our ancestors, and all people, speak through the records they leave behind. It’s up to us to weave the story being told by listening to the whispers that drift through the ages.

Emmet County Michigan kept death records beginning in 1867 through 1875 inclusive that included race and quite a bit of additional information. Blanks to be completed, although not all always were, included death date, place of death, sex, race, marital status, age, cause of death, birthplace, occupation, father’s name and residence and mother’s name and residence. Ironically, nothing about a spouse.

In the 1860s in the upper portion of Michigan, many of the Native people did not yet speak English. French was their second language.

The 1870 census shows many of these families, but the death records provide us with information that the census can’t. Let’s see what these records have to say, as a group, about these people.

The Native death records stack up like this:

1867 – 7 records
1868 – 0
1869 – 36
1870 – 42
1871 – 32
1872 – 28
1873 – 26
1874 – 29
1875 – 21

I don’t for one minute think that all Native deaths were recorded, especially not in 1867. In 1868, people did not stop passing over, but they may not have been recorded as Native, or at all. We’ll use the records we do have.

There are a total of 218 deaths recorded. Of these, most are recorded in a normal way in terms of the child’s name matching that of at least the father. The mother’s name is often recorded as the same as the father but in some cases, it appears to be the mother’s maiden name. The form is not specific in what it’s asking.

In one case in the death of a very young baby, the child’s surname matches neither of the parents surnames, so there are anomalies. In a second case, the surname appears 3 times, once for the child that died and once for each parent, but it’s spelled differently in the same death entry for all 3 people.

Surnames were new to these people and not everyone used them. In another case, the childs name is one word. The father’s surname is similar, but written in 3 syllables. You can see the evolution of that name. There’s no telling what it wound up being in the 1900s.

The cause of death field is very interesting, although in about half of the deaths, the reason is either blank or “unknown.” Of course, we don’t know if the people involved didn’t know why the person had died, or it was simply unknown to the registrar. And language was a barrier, so we are left to wonder. My favorite “cause of death” found was very succinctly put – “birth.” Well, yes, now that you mention it!

Those that we do know are shown as follows:

Abscess of lower limb – 1
Apoplexy – 2
Asthma – 1
Birth – 1 (5 days old)
Bled to death from navel – 1 (3 days old)
Born fever – 1 (child 1 month old)
Burns – 2 (children ages 1 and 5)
Childbirth – 2
Chills and Fever – 2 (2 babies)
Chronic diarrhea or diarrhea – 11 (all babies under one year)
Cold – 2
Congestion in lungs – 2
Consumption – 26 (tuberculosis) ages 1 to 75
Croup – 1 infant
Dysentery – 4 (infant through 21)
Ergslipelas – 1, age 80, streptococcal skin infection known as “holy fire”
Fall of tree limb – 1 (age 42)
Fever – 6 (all age 3 or under)
Frozen – 1 (male, age 22)
Infantile disease – 1
Inflammation of the lungs (one says from a cold) – 3 (ages 16-57)
Injuries from fall – 1 child
Insanity – 1 (age 11)
Lung disease – 1
Old age – 4 (ages 63, 77, 82 and 100)
Rheumatism – 1 (age 59)
Scarlet Fever – 5 (ages 1 – 18, all in 1870/71 winter, all in Bear Creek)
Scrofula – 1 (tuberculosis infection of the lymph nodes in the neck)
Scurvy – 1 child 2 months old
Spinal Meningitis – 34 – called by several names: Meningitis – 14, ages 5 days to age 64, 3 in 1873, the rest in 1874, looks like it started in Bear Creek and spread to Cross Village: Brain Disease – 2 – 1870, 1873; Disease of the Brain or Head – 10 – 1 in 1969 and 9 in 1874; Headache – 8 – 1 in 1869, 5 in 1870 and 2 in 1873 for a total in all categories of 34.
Veneral(sic) – 1 male age 22 (probably meant to be venereal)
Weak Infantile – 1 infant 1 day old
Whooping cough – 9 in 1869 and 1870, all children 3 or under

It looks like the big killers were Meningitis which killed 34, consumption which killed 26, although all lung issues (except whooping cough) totaled 35, so very close to meningitis. All types of bowel issues totaled 15.

I find it particularly interesting that the person who died at age 63 was considered to have died of old age.

Over and over we read of the “sickness” and “disease” that afflicted the Native people. Clearly, these are not the early plagues that included small pox, but the Meningitis epidemic and the bout with both Scarlet Fever and Whooping Cough were contagious and would fall into the category of a “sickness.” We can also see that they were fairly well contained within villages, except that Meningitis spread to a second village where it was more deadly than where it was first introduced. These death records put names to the sicknesses that killed people. By this point in time, these would be the same illnesses that afflicted the European settlers in the same region, striking fear in the hearts of everyone.

By far, more infants died than anyone else. Most people expected to lose half of the children they brought into the world. Most of those deaths could have been easily averted by antibiotics, but antibiotics had not yet been invented.

Deaths by age were as follows, where it was recorded:

Less than 1 month – 14
1 month to 1 year – 51
1-2 years – 47
2-3 years – 16
3-4 years – 7
4-5 years – 2
5-6 years – 7
6-7 years – 3
7 – 8 years – 1
8-9 years – 3
9-10 years – 1
11 -19 years – 17
20-29 years – 12
30-39 years – 3
40-49 years – 8
50-59 years – 7
60-69 years – 6
70-79 years – 4
80-89 years – 3
90-99 years – 0
100 years – 1

Let’s think for a minute about that 100 year old Indian. Her name was Mary Babapusqua and she died on October 28th, 1873. She is noted as “white” although it would be nearly impossible for her to be white with a surname like that, unless she was adopted, and being born at Little Traverse, which was an Indian village. She also died in the village. She was a widow and no one knew her parents names or where they lived. One thing is for sure, her parents in 1773 when she was born would have had entirely Native names, although Mary surely could have been mixed race although she is not listed by that name on the 1836 half-breed census. I was not able to find her on the Michigan 1870 census, but she assuredly was there and living with someone. It’s difficult to tell how and when she used her last name and in what way.

Mary was born when the United States was still 13 colonies. Her parents probably were loyalists and her father may have fought with the British against the colonies. She grew up in a time when there were no settlers on the Great Lakes, just a few traders and some missionaries on Mackinac Island. The first mission was founded there in 1670, a century before her birth. Since she had a Christian first name, and one that is venerated in the Catholic faith, she may have been baptized Catholic as a child, or she may simply have been given that name at a later time.

She was born and died in the same location, Little Traverse, known as Harbour Springs today. It was also known by the French name L’Arbour Croche, meaning Crooked Tree. Little Traverse was the site of a wooden fort before the French built a much larger one on Mackinac Island in the late 1700s and a thriving trading community existed in the shelter of Little Traverse Bay. Emmet County was the home of several Indian villages which dotted the shores of the Lake Michigan. The county is located at the tip of the “mitten” of lower Michigan which adjoins the Straits of Mackinaw.

Most of the Indians were born and died in the various Indian villages in Emmet County. There seems to be a lot of movement between villages. Outside of Emmet County, two Native people were born in Canada, 1 in Charlevoix, 5 in Cheboygan, 1 in Elk Rapids, 1 in Grand Rapids, 1 in Montreal, 1 in Muskegon, 1 in Ontario and 1 in Pentwater. Aside from the two major villages in Emmet County, Little Traverse and Cross Village, we find other smaller villages including Bear Creek, Coop Village, Labroix, Little Mouse, Mesakotasing and Middle Village. Some of these locations are lost to us today, but thanks to these death records, the people themselves are not.

You can see the Emmet Count, Michigan Native death record transcriptions at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~minatam/birth-death/emmet-native-death-index.txt

Posted in Michigan, Ottawa | 5 Comments

London Hazard, Revolutionary War Soldier

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Roberta Estes

London Hazard was a slave. Well, he was up until the Revolutionary War. During the time of the Revolutionary War, a man could pay a substitute to serve in his place. Most of the time, I’m not thinking that there is enough money to pay someone to risk their life, but there were surely a lot of men who were substitutes. In my family one man was a substitute for his father who was up in years.

In any case, more, much more, was at stake for London Hazard. If he lived through the war, he would obtain far more than his pay and a good story to tell his grandkids. He was earning his freedom. London Hazard served as a substitute for Samuel Hazard, a relative of his master, Godfrey Hazard. London was given his freedom after the war. He resided at South Kingston and was 53 yeas old, although it isn’t clear when this age was recorded. It could have been when he served, or later when he was perhaps filling out paperwork.

This record, although short, gives us absolutely critical information. First, it tells is that he was mixed African American and Indian. It tells us that his mother was a slave, regardless of his father’s status, because children were born into the status of their mother. It tells us how he obtained his surname and it tells is where he lived.

If he was 53 years old when he enlisted, about 1780, then he was born in 1727. This means that his parents, if one was a full blooded Indian, would have been born about 1700 or so. It was illegal after 1705 to import Indian slaves into Virginia, so his Indian ancestor was likely enslaved before that time.

There is lots of good information here for his descendants. I hope some of them are looking for him.

Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War

http://www.dar.org/library/publications/Forgotten_Patriots_ISBN-978-1-892237-10-1.pdf

Posted in Military, Slaves | 1 Comment

General Joseph Martin and Betsy Ward

Posted on April 7, 2012 by Roberta Estes

Excerpted from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Martin_(general)

“Martin was a robust figure in the history of the early frontier,” according to the WPA guide to the Old Dominion. “He was born in Albemarle County in 1740, ran away to fight Indians at 17, became an Indian agent, land agent, and officer of militia, fighting Indians all up and down the frontier. In 1774 he came to Henry County, established himself at Belle Monte on Leatherwood Creek, for nine years sat for his district in the general assembly, and in 1793 was made a brigadier general of state militia. He was a brawny, picturesque man, more than six feet tall and the father of 18 children; wore buckled knee breeches and a great beard, braided and thrust inside his shirt.”

Martin first married Sarah Lucas in Orange County, Virginia. After her death in Henry County, Martin married Susannah Graves, a descendant of Captain Thomas Graves of Jamestown, Virginia. While married to Sarah Lucas and then to Susannah Graves, Martin was simultaneously married to his half-Cherokee wife, Elizabeth “Betsy” Ward, the daughter of Nancy Ward, a power within the Cherokee tribes, and her husband, English trapper Bryant Ward. The polygamous relationship, justified by Martin as common practice among frontiersmen operating among the tribes, caused considerable consternation to General Martin’s son, Col. William Martin.Joseph Martin and Betsy Ward had two known children. (Joseph Martin’s son by his Cherokee wife was educated in Virginia schools, but afterwards elected to return to the Cherokee.)

Joseph Martin had 18 children by his two European wives and his Cherokee wife. There were many rumors of additional Native wives, none of which are well documented, and any or all of which could be true.

One daughter through Betsy Ward is known, a son is reported as well, and a third female with the Martin surname, speculated to be a daughter is married into the Cherokee Benge family. One thing is for sure, if Joseph Martin’s DNA line is identified and confirmed, we could then one day know which Martins are descended from his line and which are not.

Additional genealogy information about General Joseph Martin is available here:

http://debzone1.tripod.com/susannahchilesandjosephmartin/

Posted in Cherokee, Military | 17 Comments

The Cole and Bowman Families of Harlan Co., Ky.

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Roberta Estes

The Cole family of Harlan Co., Ky. carries strong oral history of Native heritage. The following extracted information provides some documentation for their oral history. The full article can be found at. http://shaybo-therisingtide.blogspot.com/2011/09/harlan-county-kentucky-indians.html

INDIAN BLOOD RUNS IN
MANY HARLAN COUNTY FAMILIES ©
by Holly Fee-Timm
[originally published 3 June 1987
Harlan Daily Enterprise Penny Pincher]

There are two local families with documentary evidence supporting their claims to Indian blood. These are the Cole and Bowman families. The Coles are listed in census records for 1860 Lee County, Va., and for 1870 Harlan as being Indian. The state and counties of birth given for the Cole family of 1860 implies they moved around frequently. The head of the household, John Cole, was born about 1799 in Lincoln Co., North Carolina. His daughter Eliza was born in Scott Co., Va., and daughter Elisabeth, in Knox Co., Ky. Eliza’s two children, Jacob and Elmira were born in Lee Co., Va.

Next door to John’s household is another Eliza Cole, born about 1834 in Lee Co., Va., with two daughters – Jane born in Claiborne Co., Tenn., and Elisabeth born in Lee Co., Va. All of these Coles and a Jefferson Cole living in the same neighborhood were listed as Indians. Elsewhere in Lee County was a John M. Cole, 20, also of Indian blood.

In 1870, the younger Eliza Cole, her two children mentioned above and three more children, Robert, Mary Jane and Mollie were listed in Harlan County. All were indicated as being Indian. It must be noted that the degree of Indian blood is not listed in census and even a small fraction could be cause for such a listing.

Jacob Cole married Kizzie Eldridge, another family with a strong tradition of Indian blood. Mary Jane Cole married William Brittain, son of James and Jane Ely Brittain. The Coles were closely connected with another area family with proven Indian blood, the Bowmans. Hawkins Bowman was born about 1790 in North Carolina. In 1838, in Lee Co., Va., he married Nancy Barbour.

In 1879, his widow applied for a pension on his military service. She stated that he had served in the Tennessee Infantry in the War of 1812 under Captain Jesse Cole. She described him as being of dark complexion, commonly called part Indian and that he was about five-feet nine inches tall. They had at least seven children: George, Mary who married Hiram Fugate, Lucinda, John, Nancy, Thomas who married Mary Moore, and Elijah. In the 1860 census of Harlan County, Hawk Bowman is listed as a blacksmith. In the 1870 Harlan, the family is listed as Indian.”

Posted in Kentucky | 27 Comments

1836 Halfbreed Ottawa and Chippewa Census – the Hidden Stories

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Roberta Estes

I’ve just finished entering the names on the 1836 Census of Ottawa and Chippewa Halfbreeds (Michigan) into the Native Names document. Here’s the link to the original source if you want to take a look. http://www.mainlymichigan.com/nativedata/1836OttChipCensus/1836OttChippPaging.aspx and http://www.mainlymichigan.com/nativedata/1836OttChipCensus/1836OttChipp-index.aspx

There is a lot of good information contained in this document that needs to be sifted and retrieved.

First, it’s of note that all of the 585 “halfbreeds” as they are called, have non-Native surnames. They also have non-Native first names. If you didn’t know they were Indians, you would never know by looking at their names. And this is in 1836, still very early. Many of the adults were born in the 1700s. There weren’t many old people. The oldest man was 80, born in 1756, and ironically, a drunk. Two people were in their 70s, ages 74 and 70. One was 65, eight were in the 50s and 13 in their 40s. Many people weren’t just half, they were one quarter, so the admixture had been occurring fairly regularly it appears, for some time. It appears to not have been unusual.

By far the majority of the admixture that could be easily determined was French, and all French men and Native women. There were a few non-French names, such a Butterfield and McDonald, but not many. There was one mention of a negro who married a Pawnee woman. For the most part, as best I can tell, it appears that paternal naming patterns had been widely accepted, at least relative to the mixed people. Having said that, of course there must be one that is different. John Holliday is a resource mentioned often in terms of identifying who is related to who, but his own son is listed as George Berkhart.

People lived in a number of locations. Locations where people lived that were approved included:

Grand Isle
Grand River
L’Arbre Croche
Macinac
Moskego
Sault St. Marie
St. Ignace
Iroquois Point
Beaver Island
Grand Traverse

People had to be residents of specific locations in order to collect the funds. Another treaty had been arranged elsewhere as the “Treaty of Chicago” was mentioned. I wonder if they also provided for their mixed-blood relatives. A number of reasons for rejection were given. Too young, born since the treaty, lives out of the district, 1/8th blood, so not closely enough related, and no relationship to the Indians. There were only 4 of those, but it seems that money always attracts someone trying to take advantage, then as now.

One of the things I found so interesting is the wide range of places that people lived. Two places have people living there that were both approved and rejected, based on the situation at hand: Green Bay and Lake Superior. One man said he went to Green Bay in the fall on business and returned this spring. What kind of business would he have there that would take the entire winter, and why would he travel in the fall?

Locations and other tribes mentioned were:

Lake Superior (Indians)
Black River
Detroit (attending school)
Leach Lake and Leech Lake Indians
Northern Indians
La Pointe and La Pointe Indians
Font du Lac
Pawnee
British Indian (meaning Canadian)
North end of Lake Superior
Lac du Flambeau
Red River
Cree descendant
Grand Portage
child of Muskego parentage
Menomonee
Chippewa River
land West of the Mississippi
Mississippi Indians
Saginaw Indians
Chicago
Northwestern descent
Canadian Indians
descended from Hudson Bay Indians
West end of Lake Superior
Mt. Oberlin
“on the lakes”

Anyone who thinks these Indians just stayed home in their local villages is obviously sorely mistaken. The Great Lakes and Rivers obviously served as highways and the Indians traveled widely. The Hudson Bay is a long way, especially if you are paddling.

Posted in Chippewa, Ottawa | 7 Comments

From Nansemond to Monacan: The Legacy of the Pochick-Nansemond among the Bear Mountain Monacan

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Roberta Estes

Jay Hansford C. Vest wrote an article which was published in 2003 titled From Nansemond to Monacon: The Legacy of the Pochick-Nansemond among the Bear Mountain Monacon (American Indian Quarterly, Summer/Fall 2003, Vol 21, No 3 and 4).

The article discusses in depth the history of the Pochick-Nansemond band of the Monicans, also called “Issues”, “Brown People” and mulattoes. By 1685, the Iroquois were harassing the Monacon, and by 1714, the Monacon were among the people at Fort Christanna. Following the closure of Fort Christanna, this particular band apparently moved to what is now Rockbridge and Amherst Counties. The only evidence of this is that Thomas Jefferson described “Indian mourners” coming to visit an Indian grave near Monticello in Albemarle Co., Va.

Genealogical evidence of this Monacan connection to Fort Christanna is evident in some of the surnames as well as the surnames of several well-known traders. The Native people had to take their surnames from someplace. Land patents adjoining the Saponi Fort include Urvine (Irvine), Turner, Floyd and West (Vest). Trader names include Beverly, Irwin (Irvin), Hicks (Hix) and Jones (Johns).

The next connection we have is a will from John Bias of Amherst Co., to his natural son Obadiah Knuckles, August 1835. It is believed that this John Bias is a member of the Native Bass family. Obadiah Knuckles was on the original Monacon tribal rolls and married Belinda Gue and secondly, Susan Johns, daughter of Tartleton Johns and Elizabeth Redcross Johns. This document, as well as others, identifies Obadiah Knuckles as the biological son of John Bias. Today, were one of the Knuckles males to take a DNA test, we would expect that they might well match a Bass.

Peter Houck in Indian Indians in Amherst County tells us about interviews conducted among the Bear Mountain people, “Following…Johns, Branham and Redcross…there were numerous other people with different names, who arrived in the community over the next 150 years, Beverly, Clark, Adcock, Terry, Nuckles, Hicks, Hamilton, Lawhorne, Penn, Lawless and Roberts are recognizable surnames but there were others.”

Interestingly enough, we find many people with these same surnames registering in the WWI draft in 1917/1918 as Indians.

Posted in Monacan, Nansemond | 15 Comments

The Piquettes and their Bad Decade

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Roberta Estes

The Piquette family was having a bad decade, or so it seems. In the 1836 Halfbreed Chippewa and Ottawa census, there were several people enumerated by the last name of Piquette. Several had unusual situations which tell us something of their history.

Several families were admitted onto the roll to receive funds, but one wife, Lisette, told the enumerator that her family was from the Fon du Lac region, which is in Wisconsin. That family was denied, and I bet she was one very unpopular lady.

Three children were noted as being children of Francis P. (Piquette) “of the old stock.” I’m sure there is some meaning there that has been lost to us today, but I’d surely like to know what is meant by the “old stock.” These are the only entries that refer to the old stock.

Poor Mary, age 4, was noted as being the child of Madaline P. (Piquette), “a bad woman.” I want to know, bad in just what kind of way???

Louisa Piquette, age 14, has the note by her name that her father is a drunkard and her mother is dead. I wonder what happened to Louisa.

The next entry is for Francis Piquette, Sr., age 80, “a drunkard and improvident”, that followed by “pay him one tenth.” Francis is half Chippewa. This could well be the Francis of the “old stock” as there is another Francis, age 36 on the roll as well.

A third Francis, age 7, has been abandoned by his parents.

Three Piquette children, ages 9, 12 and 14, are noted as being the children of Angelique Ojibway and a Canadian who ran away.

Two conditions that are seen fairly often in these records are orphans and notes that young children are “bound to the mission.” Some of those “bound children” are orphans, but many have nothing noted to indicate why. There is more abandonment than I would expect to see. I think of Native children living in a protected family group, meaning the tribe or band, and abandonment is not a term I generally see in connection with Native children. Either it was more prevalent than I’m aware of, is perhaps perceived differently by Native people and Europeans, or there is some cultural or social force at work here that sets this group apart from the southeastern tribes I’m more familiar with.

Posted in Chippewa, Ottawa | Leave a comment

Hole in the Day

Posted on April 3, 2012 by Roberta Estes

I’ve been working with the records in the Book Shawnee Heritage I recently. I will have some commentary on that later, but for today, I found something I thought was extremely interesting.

The author’s goal is to list the names of the Shawnee people that he can find. In this case one person is known by 3 names.

One of his names is Thobequebah. Obviously, that is his name in Chippewa or Shawnee, as he is a Chippewa adopted into the Shawnee tribe. That word, “adopted,” in this case means “kidnapped” and then subsequently adopted into the tribe. There was a lot of that going on between the tribes. Maybe an early way to avoid genetic problems with too much intermarriage:)

In any case, his second name was Hole in the Day. Think about what that might mean for a minute before we go on to his third name which will give the answer away, straight away.

Before I give you the answer, one more tidbit. According to the author, this man was born about 1750. The Chippewa people live in the northern part of the Midwest, in Michigan and surrounding states, and in Ontario Canada, primary on the waterways of Lake Superior and the other Great Lakes

Ok, one more hint. This map may indeed provide a more accurate birth year for our Native man.

The above map is a map of eclipses in North America in 1750 and earlier. Unfortunately, there is not a comparable map for 1750 and later, but the information I was able to ind did not show any eclipses in this region.

So, now do you know his third name? Of course you do, Hole in the Day is another way to describe an eclipse, which was his name. Now, the next question that pops up is why? If his parents were living in Michigan at that time, according to this map, they would not have seen any eclipses near that date. As we discovered when viewing the 1836 Chippewa and Ottawa Halfbreed records, the Native people were anything but stationary. So perhaps, Eclipse was living someplace else, maybe in Canada, when he was born and his family or tribe saw an Eclipse to mark the occasion on July 25, 1748.