Descendants of families which had been free during the colonial period continued to comprise a major part of the free African American population due to natural increase. In 1810 the Going/ Gowen family, free since the mid-seventeenth century, headed forty "other free" households with 105 persons in Virginia, sixty-two persons in North Carolina, eleven in South Carolina, and ten in Louisiana; the Chavis family, free since the seventeenth century, headed forty-one households containing forty-six persons in Virginia, 159 in North Carolina, and twelve in SC.

Several free African Americans voted in the North Carolina General Assembly elections in 1701 [Saunders, Colonial Records, I:903]. Jack Braveboy was living in Chowan County before 17 July 1716 when he was presented by the court: a negro, Coming into this Government with a woman and do live together as man and wife, it is ordered that the sd. Braveboy produce a Sufficient Certificate of their Marryage [Hoffman, Chowan Precinct North Carolina 1696 to 1723, 224]. In 1725 John Cotton was indicted for marrying a "Molatto Man to a White woman," and in 1726 the Rev. Mr. John Blacknall was fined fifty pounds for "joyning together in ... Matrimony Thomas Spencer and Martha paule a Molatto Woman" [Saunders, Colonial Records, II:591, 662]. Many of those who were free in Northampton County, Virginia, settled in Craven County, North Carolina. They were the Carter, Copes, Driggers, George, and Johnston families. They can be traced directly back to their seventeenth century VA ancestors. Those in the early eighteenth century lists of Northampton County, VA tithables who immigrated to North Carolina were the Allen and Roberts families. The descendants of Nicholas and Bungey Manuel, "negro slaves" freed by the 28 October 1718 Elizabeth City County, VA will of Edward Myhill, were in the Edgecombe NCMilitia in the 1750s [Elizabeth City County Deeds, Wills 1715-21, 194-5; Clark, Colonial Soldiers of the South, 675]. James and Peter Black came to Craven County from Essex County, Virginia, where they had been free born. John Heath tried to sell them as slaves to William Handcock, but the Craven County court intervened on their behalf on 21 June 1745. Moll, Nell, Sue, Sall, and Will Dove, "Negroes," came to Craven County, North Carolina, from Maryland with Leonard Thomas who was trying to keep them as his slaves in September 1749, but William Smith travelled to Maryland and proved their claim that they were free born [Haun, Craven County Court Minutes, III:465; IV:11-12]. The family histories of over 80% of those counted as "all other free persons" in the 1790-1810 federal census for North Carolina indicate that they were descendants of African Americans who were free in VA during the colonial period. Free African American immigrants were of sufficient number in 1723 that the North Carolina General Assembly received complaints of great Numbers of Free Negroes, Mulattoes, and other persons of mixt Blood, that have lately removed themselves into this Government, and that several of them have intermarried with the white Inhabitants of this Province... [Clark, State Records, XXIII:106-7].

While some North Carolina residents were complaining about the immigration of free African Americans, their white neighbors in Granville, Halifax, Bertie, Craven, Granville, Robeson and Hertford counties welcomed them. Their neighbors may have been accustomed to living among free African Americans in Virginia; they may have moved from VA in company with them; or perhaps they were drawn together by the adversities of the frontier. Neighbor depended heavily upon neighbor, and whites may have been more concerned with harsh living conditions than they were with their neighbors' color. The slave population on the frontier was much lower than in the settled areas of Virginia, so the presence of free African Americans would not have posed a threat to most settlers. And several of these free African Americans owned slaves of their own. However, land ownership was more likely the social equalizer for them and their white neighbors. The McKinnie family, originally from Isle of Wight County, Virginia, was one of the leading white families in the area around the Roanoke River. Barnaby McKinnie, member of the General Assembly from Edgecombe County in 1735, was witness to many of the early Bass, Bunch, Chavis, and Gibson deeds. John McKinnie called Cannon Cumbo his friend when he mentioned him in his 28 February 1753 Edgecombe County will. Other leading white settlers who sold them land adjoining theirs and witnessed their deeds were Richard Washington, William and Thomas Bryant, Richard Pace, and William Whitehead. Arthur Williams, member of the General Assembly for Bertie County in 1735, and John Castellaw, (brother?) of James Castellaw, a member of the Assembly from Bertie County, had mixed-race common-law wives, Elizabeth and Martha Butler [Saunders, Colonial Records, IV:115 and the Butler history]. On 9 November 1762 many of the leading residents of Halifax County petitioned the Assembly to repeal the discriminatory tax against free African Americans, and in May 1763 fifty-four of the leading citizens of Granville, Northampton, and Edgecombe Counties made a similar petition. They described their "Free Negro & Mulatto" neighbors as persons of Probity & good Demeanor (who) chearfully contribute towards the Discharge of every public Duty injoined them by Law.

Edward Carter was the fourth largest Dobbs County landowner with 23,292 acres in 1780 [L.P.46.1 in Journal of N.C. Genealogy XII:1664]. He was head of a Dobbs County household of 8 "other free," one white woman, and 20 slaves in 1790 [NC:137].(6) The Bunch, Chavis and Gibson families owned slaves and acquired over a thousand acres of land on both sides of the Roanoke River in present-day Northampton and Halifax counties, and the Chavis and Gowen families acquired over a thousand acres in Granville County. William Chavis, a "Negro" listed in the 8 October 1754 muster roll of Colonel William Eaton's Granville County Regiment, owned over a thousand acres of land, a lodging house frequented by whites, and eight taxable slaves [Clark, Colonial Soldiers of the South, 716]. His son Philip Chavis also owned over a thousand acres of land, travelled between Granville, Northampton, and Robeson Counties, and lived for a while in Craven County, SC.

Some members of the Gibson family moved to SC in 1731 where a member of the Commons House of Assembly complained that "several free colored men with their white wives had immigrated from Virginia." Governor Robert Johnson of SC summoned Gideon Gibson and his family to explain their presence there and after meeting him and his family reported, I have had them before me in Council and upon Examination find that they are not Negroes nor Slaves but Free people, That the Father of them here is named Gideon Gibson and his Father was also free, have been informed by a person who has lived in VA that this Gibson has lived there Several Years in good Repute and by his papers that he has produced before me that his transactions there have been very regular, That he has for several years paid Taxes for two tracts of Land and had several Negroes of his own, That he is a Carpenter by Trade and is come hither for the support of his Family [Box 2, bundle: S.C., Minutes of House of Burgesses (1730-35), 9, Parish Transcripts, N.Y. Hist. Soc. by Jordan, White over Black, 172]. Like the early settlers of the North Carolina frontier Governor Johnson was more concerned with the Gibsons' social class than their race. Many of the free African Americans who were counted in the census for South Carolina from 1790 to 1810 originated in VA or North Carolina. They were: Bass, Berry, Biddie, Bonner, Bowman, Bradley, Braveboy, Bryan, Bugg, Bunch, Butler, Buzby, Carter, Chavis, Clark, Collins, Combest/ Cumbess, Cumbo, Demery, Driggers, Ferrell, Gallimore, Gibson, Gowen, Grooms, Hagan, Haithcock, Harmon, Hatcher, Hawley/ Holly, Hays, Hazell, Henderson, Hicks, Hilliard, Howard, Huelin, Hunt, Ivey, Jacobs, Jeffries, Jones, Kersey, Lamb, Locklear, Lowry, Lucas, Matthews, Mitcham, Mosely, Mumford, Oxendine, Pavey, Rawlinson, Reed, Rouse, Russell, Scott, Shoecraft, Shoemaker, Sweat, Tann, Turner, Valentine, Weaver, Webb, Wilson, and Winn. They represented many of the "free persons of Colour" of present-day Liberty and Marlborough counties SC who petitioned the legislature to repeal the discriminatory tax against "free Negroes" on 20 April 1794: Richard Evins (Evans), Nathaniel Conbie (Cumbo), George Collins, William (his mark) Turner, Thomas Hulen, Spencer (his mark) Bolton, William (his mark) Swett, Solomon Bolton, James (his mark) Shewmak (Shoemaker), John (his mark) Turner, Junr., Solomon (his mark) Shewmk, Sampson (his mark) Shewmak, Thomas (his mark) Shewmake, Junr., Thomas (his mark) Shewmake, Senr., John (his mark) Shumake, James (his mark) Shumake, David Collins, Thomas Collins, John (his mark) Turner, Senr., Mildred (her mark) Turner, Grenelaper(?) (her mark) Turner, Catherine (her mark) Turner, Elias Hulon, Cudworth Oxendine, Archmack Oxendine, Dellie Gibson, and Drusilla Gibson. Others who signed the petition were Isaac Linagear, Isaac Mitchell, Jonathan Price, Nathan Price, G(?)reter (his mark) Colder, Moses (his mark) Colder, and George Mccloud. Stephen Gibson, Isaac Linegear, Jr., Jur.(?) Driggers, James Ivey, Joseph (his mark) Bass and Levi Gibson were considered white when they signed in support of the petition [SC Department of Archives and History, General Assessment Petition, 1794, no. 216, frames 370-374, Free People of Color ST 1368, series no. 165015, item 216]. Few colonial SC county court records have survived, so it is difficult to determine the origin of the other families. However, at least three families were the descendants of white slave owners who left slaves and plantations to their mixed-race children: Collins, Holman, and Pendarvis. James Pendarvis expanded his father's holdings more than fourfold to 4,710 acres and 151 slaves. John Holman, Jr., established a plantation with 57 slaves on the Santee River in Georgetown District and then returned to his homeland in Rio Pongo, West Africa to resume the slave trading he learned from his English father [Koger, Black Slaveowners, 104, 108-110, 112-121]. According to Koger, free Indians in Charleston were part of the free African American community. They married members of the free African American community and were members of the Brown Fellowship Society, an organization of "lighter skinned men" which maintained a cemetery, operated a school for the children of its members, and supported charity and social functions. Proof of descent from a free Indian allowed free African Americans to avoid the discriminatory state capitation tax [Koger, Black Slaveowners, 16-17; S.C. Dept. of Archives & History, Public Programs Document Packet No.1]. Free association of Indians and African Americans is also evident from their family genealogies. Rachel Garden, "a free Mustee," married Robert Baldwin, "a free Blackman," in Charleston on 5 September 1801.

In mid-eighteenth century North Carolina we find wealthy mixed race families counted in some years by North Carolina tax assessors as "mulatto" and in other years as white. Jeremiah and Henry Bunch, Bertie County slave owners, were taxed in Jonathan Standley's 1764 Bertie County list as "free male Molattors" in 1764, but as whites in Standley's 1765 Bertie list, and again as "free Molatoes" in 1766 [CR 10.702.1]. Michael Going/ Gowen was taxed in Granville County as white in 1754 and was called "Michael Goin, Mulattoe" in 1759 [CR 44.701.19]. John Gibson, Gideon Gibson and Gibeon Chavis, all married the daughters of prosperous white farmers. Some members of the Gibson, Chavis, Bunch and Gowen families became resolutely white after several generations. While some free African Americans owned slaves and were accepted in white society, others married slaves and socialized with slaves. Hester Anderson, one of those freed in 1712 in Norfolk County, was the common-law wife of a slave. She was the ancestor of the Artis family of Southampton County, Virginia, and several North Carolina counties. James Revell of Cumberland County entrusted his executor with the task of making application to the legislature for his wife's freedom [WB C:21].(7) Abel Carter was suspected of aiding a runaway slave. The 14 November 1778 issue of the North Carolina Gazette of New Bern advertised a reward for a negro fellow named Smart ... Tis supposed he is harboured about Smith River by one Abel Carter, a free Negro, as he has been seen there several times [Fouts, NC Gazette of New Bern, I:83]. However, the majority were small farmers owning a few hundred acres who married other free African Americans. Their marriages can be identified from colonial wills and tax lists, and they were recorded in the county marriage bonds starting in the late eighteenth century. They suffered under the discriminatory North Carolina tax law enacted in 1749 which described taxables as all and every White Person, Male, of the Age of Sixteen Years, and upwards, all Negroes, Mulattoes, Mustees Male or Female, and all Persons of Mixt Blood, to the Fourth Generation, of the Age of Twelve Years, and upwards, and all white Persons intermarrying with any Negro, mulatto, or Mustee, or other Person of mixt Blood, ... shall be deemed Taxables... [Leary & Stirewalt NCResearch, Genealogy and Local History, chapter 13].

Free African Americans were also in danger of having their children stolen and sold into slavery. In his Revolutionary War pension application on 7 March 1834 Drury Tann declared in Southampton County, VA court that he was stolen from his parents when a small boy by persons unknown to him, who were carrying him to sell him into Slavery, and had gotten with him and other stolen property as far as the Mountains on their way, that his parents made complaint to a Mr. Tanner Alford who was Then a magistrate in the county of Wake State of North Carolina to get me back from Those who had stolen me and he did pursue the Rogues & overtook Them at the mountains and took me from Them. An advertisement in the 10 April 1770 issue of the North Carolina Gazette of New Bern describes how the Driggers family was victimized in Craven County, North Carolina: broke into the house ... under the care of Ann Driggus, a free negro woman, two men in disguise, with marks on their faces, and clubs in their hands, beat and wounded her terribly and carried away four of her children [Fouts, NC Gazette of New Bern, I:65-6]. And John Scott, "freeborn negro," testified in Berkeley County, South Carolina, on 17 January 1754 that three men, Joseph Deevit, William Deevit, and Zachariah Martin entered by force, the house of his daughter, Amy Hawley, and carried her off, with her six children, and he thinks they are taking them north to sell as slaves. One of the children was recovered in Orange County, North Carolina, where the county court appointed Thomas Chavis to return the child to South Carolina on 12 March 1754 [Haun, Orange County Court Minutes, I:70-1]. Stealing free African Americans to sell them into slavery in another state was not a crime in North Carolina until 1779. However, free African Americans were afforded some protection under the law. In 1793 the murderer of John James of Northampton County was committed to jail according to the 20 March 1793 issue of the North Carolina Journal: Last night Harris Allen, who was committed for the murder of John James, a free mulatto, of Northampton County, made his escape from the gaol of this town. He is a remarkable tall man, and had on a short round jacket [Fouts, NC Journal, I:205].

Many of the families in this history have at least one member who fought in the Revolutionary War. Several moved to SC in the eighteenth century, and their names appear in the musters of the SC Militia in the 1759 Cherokee Expedition [Clark, Colonial Soldiers of the South, 701, 883, 892, 894]. This service alongside whites established long lasting friendships. William Bryan, a Justice of the Peace for Johnston County, testified in court for Holiday Haithcock in support of his application for a Revolutionary War pension on 21 September 1834 explaining that in the times of our Revolutionary War free negroes and mulattoes mustered in the ranks with white men ... This affiant has frequently mustered in company with said free negroes and mulattoes ... That class of persons were equally liable to draft - and frequently volunteered in the public Service. And H. Thompson Venable wrote for him to the Commissioner of Pensions in Washington, the case of Holliday Hethcock of N.C. has been suspended merely because he was a free man of color. As we understand that several cases of this sort have been admitted, you will oblige us by having it admitted. Charles Roberson Kee, a leading citizen of Northampton County, testified that he knew Drury Walden for more than twenty years and that no man, not James Polk himself is of better moral character.

Many free African American families sold their land in the early nineteenth century and headed west or remained in North Carolina as poor farm laborers. This was probably the consequence of a combination of deteriorating economic conditions and the restrictive "Free Negro Code" laws. Beginning in 1826 and continuing through the 1850s NCpassed a series of restrictive laws termed the "Free Negro Code" by John Hope Franklin. Free African Americans lost the right to vote and were required to obtain a license to carry a gun. Tensions arising from Nat Turner's slave rebellion in nearby Southampton County, Virginia, played a major role in the passage of these laws.(13) It is also possible that moves against the African American population helped to divert the attention of poor whites from their worsening economic conditions in the 1830s. With the whole state literally up in arms over Nat Turner's rebellion, delegates to the General Assembly from Newbern called on the Assembly "setting forth the incompetency of free persons of color exercising the privilege of voting." Edmund B. Freeman, editor of the Roanoke Advocate, a Halifax County Weekly, boldly came to their support in the January 5, 1832 issue: It cannot be denied that free negroes, taken in the mass, are dissolute and abandoned -yet there are some individuals among them, sober, industrious and intelligent - many are good citizens; and that they are sometimes good voters we have the best proofs ... We do think that too much prejudice is excited against this class of our population... -but, at the same time, there is a class of white skinned citizens, equally low and abandoned, whose absence whould be little regretted [N.C. Archives, Microfilm HaRA-2]. If his attitude toward free African Americans was typical of white Halifax County residents, this would help to explain why free African Americans made up over 18% of the free population of the county in 1810 [NC:59]. The editor's backhanded compliment certainly compares well to the sentiments of Robeson County residents:

Indians who adopted English customs became part of the free African American communities. There were no Indian communities separate and distinct from the free African American communities. In order to have established a separate Indian community, Indians would need to have had a strong preference for marriages and relationships with other Indians. However, no such preference is evident in the marriages of families with Indian ancestry. They appear to have made no differences between themselves and African Americans. There were no complete nuclear Indian families (both parents, plus children) among Indian slaves mentioned in seventeenth century Accomack and Northampton County records, while there were many among African slaves [Deal, Race and Class, 75]. did not find any nuclear Indian families in the eighteenth century VA and North Carolina tax lists.(16) Molly Cockran, a free Indian woman from Goochland County, had a child by a slave, "Negro Ben," in August 1765 [Jones, The Douglas Register, 348]. The children of Judith Cypress, an Indian woman from Surry County, Virginia, married African Americans. Both families became part of the free African American community. John Teague was an Indian tenant on land in Accomack County on 8 September 1725 [Orders 1724-31, 37]. His likely descendants were Robert Teague, a "Mulato" taxable on himself and a horse in Northampton County, Virginia, in 1787 [Schreiner-Yantis, 1787 Census, 1260] and Sacker Teague who registered as a "free Negro" in Accomack County: born July 1785, a light Black, 5 feet 10-1/2 Inches, Born free [Register of Free Negroes, no.3]. William Press, an Indian "born ... of the body of a free Negro called Priscilla," was fined for failing to list himself as a taxable in Northampton County, Virginia, in 1730 [Mihalyka, Loose Papers 1628-1731, 239]. The descendants of David Pinn, an Indian taxed in Benjamin George's Christ Church Parish, Lancaster County household in 1745 and 1746 were so much a part of the African American community by 1785 that a descendant left his estate to his wife with the proviso that she not marry a slave. Otherwise, it was to go to his sister who was married to a member of the free African American Nickens family [Library of VA Microfilm, Lancaster Tithables 1745-95, 1, 6; Northumberland County Wills and Administrations, 80].

John Bunch, "a Mulatto," and Sarah Slayden, a white woman, petitioned the Council of VA to allow them to marry because the Minister of Blisland Parish (in New Kent and James City counties) had refused to marry them. The Attorney General was undecided whether the petition "came within the intent of the Law to prevent Negros and White Persons intermarrying" because he could not resolve "Whether the issue begotten on a White woman by a Mulatto man can properly be called a Mulatto, that name as conceive being only appropriated to the Child of a Negro man begotten upon a white woman or a white man upon a negro woman...[McIlwaine, Executive Journals of the Council, III:28, 31]. In October 1705 VA passed a law barring anyone convicted of a crime as well as "any negro, mulatto or Indian" from holding office and added, "for the clearing all manner of doubts which hereafter may happen to arise upon the construction of this act, or any other act, who shall be accounted a mulatto, Be it enacted and declared...That the child of an Indian and the child, grandchild, or great grandchild, of a negro shall be deemed, accounted, held and taken to be a mulatto" [Hening, The Statutes at Large, III:229-235]. This has been taken by some to mean that there was a community of people of mixed white and Indian ancestry in Virginia. However, no such community existed. The law was apparently enacted in response to the request of John Bunch, a "Mulatto," the son or grandson of an African American man, who petitoned the Council of VA on 16 August 1705 for permission to marry a white woman. In October 1785 VA passed a law specifically "declaring what persons shall be deemed mulattoes": every person of whose grandfathers or grandmothers any one is, or shall have been a negro, although all his other progenitors, except that descending from the negro, shall have been white, shall be deemed a mulatto, and so every person who shall have one-fourth or more of negro blood, shall, in like manner, be deemed a mulatto [Hening, The Statutes at Large, XII:184]. But regardless of the legal definition, the word "Mulatto" was most commonly used by the colonial county courts of VA and Maryland when they prosecuted over one thousand cases in which white women who had children by a slave of African descent were sold with their "Mulatto" children as servants. The few cases in which a woman had a child by an Indian were prosecuted under the same law as white bastardy for which the penalty was a fine or corporal punishment.

Some of the lighter-skinned descendants of these families formed their own distinct communities which have been the subject of anthropological research. Those in Robeson County, North Carolina, are called "Lumbee Indians," in Halifax and Warren counties: "Haliwa-Saponi," in South Carolina: "Brass Ankles" and "Turks," in Tennessee and Kentucky: "Melungeons" and "Portuguese," and in Ohio: "Carmel Indians." Several fantastic theories on their origin have been suggested. One is that they were from Raleigh's lost colony at Roanoke and another that they were an amalgamation of the Siouan-speaking tribes in North and SC [Blu, The Lumbee Problem, 36-41]. Documents from a court case held in Johnson County, Tennessee in 1858 provide a detailed description of one such family. They illustrate the extent to which the family was accepted by the white community and the extent to which the family history was already clouded by myths in 1858. Joshua Perkins, born about 1732 in Accomack County, Virginia, was the "Mulatto" son of a white woman [Orders 1731-36, 133]. He owned land in Robeson County, North Carolina, in 1761, moved to Liberty County, South Carolina, and in 1785 moved to what later became Washington County, Tennessee [Bladen County DB 23:80, 121, 104-5, 424-5, 147-8; Philbeck, Bladen County Land Entries, no. 1210]. Along the way, succeeding generations of his family married light-skinned or white people. They owned a ferry, race horses, and an iron ore mine; ran the local school house, and were election officials. However, conditions had changed drastically just prior to the Civil War in 1858 when Jacob F. Perkins, great-grandson of Joshua Perkins, brought an unsuccessful suit against one of his neighbors in the Circuit Court of Johnson County for slander because he called him a "free Negro" [The Perkins File in the T.A.R. Nelson Papers in the Calvin M. McClung Collection at the East Tennessee Historical Center]. More than fifty witnesses made depositions or testified at the trial. Many of the deponents had known three generations of the family in North Carolina SC or Tennessee. Sixteen of twenty-two elderly witnesses who had actually seen Joshua Perkins testified that he was a "Negro," describing him as a dark skinned man with sheeps wool and flat nose ... [Ibid., deposition of Nancy Lipps]. black man, hair nappy ... Some called Jacob (his son) a Portuguese and some a negro [Ibid., deposition of John Nave, 88 years old]. Knew old Jock (Joshua) in North Carolina on Peedee ... right black or nearly so. Hair kinky ... like a common negro [Ibid., deposition of Abner Duncan, 86 years old]. However, eighteen witnesses for Perkins testified that Joshua Perkins was something other than "Negro" - Portuguese or Indian.(19) They said little about his physical characteristics and those of his descendants. Instead, they argued that he could not have been a "Negro" and been so totally accepted by his community: dark skinned man ... resembled an Indian more than a negro. He was generally called a Portuguese. Living well ... Kept company with everybody. Kept race horses and John Watson rode them [Ibid., deposition of Thomas Cook, 75 years old]. mixed blooded and not white. His wife fair skinned ... They had the same privileges [Ibid., deposition of Catherine Roller, 80 years old]. Hair bushy & long - not kinky. Associated with white people ... Associated with ... the most respectable persons. Some would call them negroes and some Portuguese [Ibid., deposition of John J. Wilson, about 70 years old]. He was known of the Portuguese race ... Four of his sons served in the Revolution ... Jacob and George drafted against Indians ... they came from and kept a ferry in SC [Ibid., deposition of Anna Graves, 77 years old]. They kept company with decent white people and had many visitors [Ibid., deposition of Elizabeth Cook, about 71]. I taught school at Perkins school house ... they were Portuguese ... associated white peoples, clerked at elections and voted and had all privileges [Ibid., deposition of David R. Kinnick, aged 77]. Some who testified in favor of the Perkins family had never seen Joshua Perkins and seemed to be genuinely confused about the family's ancestry: I was well acquainted with Jacob Perkins (a second generation Perkins). A yellow man - said to be Portuguese. They do not look like negroes. have been about his house a great deal and nursed for his wife. She was a little yellow and called the same race. Had blue eyes and black hair. Was visited by white folks [Ibid., deposition of Mary Wilson]. One of the deponents, seventy-seven-year-old Daniel Stout, explained very simply how people of African descent could have been treated well by their white neighbors: Never heard him called a negro. People in those days said nothing about such things [Ibid., deposition of Daniel Stout]. Many of these light-skinned communities were isolated from both the white and former slave populations after the Civil War. Mobile Hobson was the descendant of Ann Hobson, a white woman of Elizabeth City County, and a slave. He was a very old man when interviewed by the VA Writers Project which described him as "Grecian featured with skin as white as a white man's." He described events in Poquoson, Virginia, after the Civil War: We used to go to de white churches fo' de war; an' arter dey started schools dey say we was Injuns. Well, we was, too, partly. But we wasn't no Negroes. First dey say we couldn't go in de white church no more. Well, we stopped goin'. Den when dey start de schools, dey say we couldn't go to de white schoolhouse. Some wouldn't go to de colored schoolhouse, an' some would. My dad wouldn't let us go to school wid de Negroes, so we didn't git no schoolin. When it come to marryin' we was in a worse fix. Couldn't marry white an' we wasn't aimin to marry colored. Started in to marryin' each other an' we been marryin' close cousins ever since [WPA, The Negro in Virginia, 36]. (The foreword to the 1994 printing warns that a thicker dialect was added in some interviews). And a study in 1886 described these groups and their relations with the newly freed slaves: The line of demarcation between the Old and New "Ishy" is not only still plainly visible, but bids fair long to continue so. Associating but little with each other, intermarriage is not common. A free Negro who marries a freed one almost invariably loses caste and is disowned by his people. In their habits, manner, and dress, the free negroes still resemble, as they always did, the poorest class of whites much closer than they do the freedman [Dodge, "Free Negroes of North Carolina," Atlantic Monthly 57 (January 1886):20-30].(20)

A study in 1920 described the group in Halifax County:

Probably the largest group of free Negroes to be found in North Carolina was the exclusive "old issue" settlement known far and wide as the Meadows, near Ransom's Bridge on Fishing Creek in Halifax County. The group still bears the appellation "old issue" and are heartily detested by the well-to-do Negroes in the adjoining counties [Taylor, R. H., The Free Negro in North Carolina (James Sprunt Historical Publications) v. 17, no.1, p.23].

King Edmunds, James Harrison, Ned, Peter, Robert Scoller, Sam, Wanoke Robin, William Hines, Frank, Wanoke Robin, Jr., Cockarons Tom, and Cockarons Will (in 1735). Sam, Frank, Jack Will, John Turner, Wat Bailey, and George Skiper (in 1750). John Turner, and Celia Rogers (a Nansemond Indian) and Suky Turner (in 1795) [Surry County DB 8:550; Southampton County DB 1:98; 7:714]. Between 1734 and 1756 the Nottoway had been so reduced by "the want of the common necessaries of life, sickness, and other casualties" that the Virginia Legislature allowed them to sell a total of 18,000 acres of their land in Southampton County [Hening, Statutes at Large, IV:459; V:170; VI:211; VMHB V:339]. They used land sales and leases to support themselves. There were only six adults and eleven children in the census taken in 1808: adults: Littleton Scholar, Tom Turner, Jemmy Wineoak, Edy Turner, Nancy Turner, and Betsy Step children: Tom Step, Henry Turner, Alexander Rogers, John Woodson, Winny Woodson, Anny Woodson, Polly Woodson, Fanny Bartlett, Solomon Bartlett, Billy Woodson, and Jenny Woodson [Executive Papers June 21- July 22, 1808, Gov. William H. Cabell, Box 154a, LVA]. No adult Indian was married to or sharing a household with any other adult Indian [Roundtree, "The Termination and Dispersal of the Nottoway Indians of Virginia," VMHB 95:193-214]. A legislative petition from Southampton County in 1818 reported that Their husbands and wives are chiefly free negroes [Legislative Petition, Southampton County, December 16, 1818, LVA]. Some of the names of the Chowan Tribe were recorded in Chowan County deeds by which they sold their land on Bennett's Creek in 1734 in what was later Gates County. They were Charles Beasley, James Bennett, Thos Hoyter, Jeremiah Pushin, John Reading, John Robins, & Nuce Will [Chowan DB W-1, 215-216, 237-239, 247-253]. When the surviving members of the tribe sold the last 400 acres of their 11,360 acre patent in 1790, they were described as a parcel of Indian women, which has mixed with Negroes, and now there is several freemen and women of Mixed blood as aforesaid which has descended from the sd Indians[General Asembly Session Records, Nov-Dec 1790, Box 2; Gates County DB 2:273, 274; A-2:33].

ainder joined them in 1802 [Swanton, Indian Tribes of North America, 87]. Since they left the Southeast, it is difficult to determine the extent to which they mixed with the free African American population of Bertie County. Many of their names were recorded in the deeds of 1766 and 1777 by which they leased over 8,000 acres of the land in the southwest corner of Bertie County between the Roanoke River and Roquist Pocosin to the Attorney General:

James Allen, Sarah Basket, Thomas Basket, William Basket, Betty Blount, Billy Blount, Sr., Billy Blount, Jr., Edward Blount, George Blount, Sarah Blount, Thomas Blount, Bille Blunt, Jr, Samuel Bridgers, William Cain, John Cain, Molly Cain, Wineoak Charles, Jr., Wineoak Charles, Sr., Bille Cornelius, Charles Cornelius, Isaac Cornelius, Billy Denis, Sarah Dennis, Billy George, Snipnose George, Watt Gibson, James Hicks, John Hicks, Sarah Hicks, Senicar Thomas Howell, Tom Jack, Capt. Joe, John Litewood, Isaac Miller, James Mitchell, Bille Mitchell, Bille Netof, Bille Owens, John Owens, Nane Owens, William Pugh, John Randel, Billy Roberts, Tom Roberts, Jr., John Rogers, Harry Samuel, John Senicar, Thomas Senicar, Ben Smith, John Smith, Molly Smith, Thomas Smith, Bille Sockey, William Taylor, Bridgers Thomas, Tom Thomas, Lewis Tuffdick, West Whitmel Tufdick, Whitmel Tuffdick, Isaac Whealer, James Wiggians, John Wiggins, Molly Wineoak and Bette Yollone [DB L-2:56; M:314-9].

1. Tithable Heads of Household:

Bastian Cane and his wife Grace, Emanuel Driggers, Basshaw Ferdinando, his wife Susan, and Hannah Carter, John Francisco Negro and Christian Francisco, William Harman and his wife Jane, Anthony Johnson, John Johnston (2), John Kinge, Philip Mongon and his wife, Francis Pane Negro, King Tony and his wife Sarah.

Tithables in White Households: John Archer Negro, Peter Beckett Negro, Edward and Thomas Carter, Thomas, Frances, and Mary Driggus Negro, Peter and Joan George, Jane Guzell, Ann Harmon, Gabriel and Bab Jacob, and Daniel and Isabell Webb [Order Books 1657-64, p.103, fol.104, 176, 198; 1664-74, fol.14, 15, 19, 42, 54, pp. 15, 42, 54, 55; 1674-79, fol.114, p.191]. In the year 1677 there were 25 tithable free African Americans and 53 tithable slaves out of a total of 467 tithables [1674-79, 189-91]. 2. Female free African Americans were made tithable in 1668, but the 1705 law did not include them [Hening, Statutes at Large, III:258-9]. Norfolk County officials did not enforce the 1723 amendment until 1735-1736 when female members of the Anderson, Archer, Bass, Hall, Manley, and Price families were taxed [Wingo, Norfolk County Tithables, 1730-1750, 144, 157, 168, 183, 185, 190]. Surry County probably did not enforce the 1723 amendment until 21 November 1758 when the Surry County court presented thirteen free African Americans for not listing their wives as tithables. They were the Banks, Barkley, Barlow, Charity, Debrix, Eley, Peters, Simon, Tann, Walden, and Wilson families [Orders 1757-64, 135]. 3. Families descended from white women whose histories are included in this work include the Allen, Alvis, Ancel, Anderson, Armstrong, Arnold, Baker, Baltrip, Banks, Barber, Barnett, Bazden (2 children), Beckett, Bell, Bibbens, Bibby, Boon, Boyd, Britt, Brooks, Bryant, Bugg, Bunch, Bunday, Burke, Burkett, Burnett, Burrell, Buss, Butler, Byrd, Cassidy, Chambers, Clark, Collins, Combess, Conner, Cook (two families), Cooley, Copes, Cousins, Cunningham, Cuttillo, Davenport, Davis, Day, Dempsey, Dennis, Donathan, Driver, Duncan, Dungee, Dunn, Dunstan, Elliott, Ellis, Farrell, Finnie, Fletcher, Flora, Fortune, Gallimore, Grace, Graham, Grant, Grantum, Graves, Gray, Grayson, Gregory, Griffin, Grimes, Gwinn, Hall, Hamilton, Hammond, Harrison, Haws, Haynes, Heath, Hilliard, Hobson, Hodges, Hogg, Holt, Hood, Howard, Howell, Hubbard, Hughes, Kelly, Kent, King, Lamb, Lang, Lansford, Lawson, Lewis (two families), Lighty, Ligon, Locus/ Lucas, Lynch, McCarty, McCoy, McIntosh, Madden, Magee, Manly (two families), Martin, Mason, Matthews, Mays, Meade, Mills, Morgan, Morris, Murray, Murrow, Nicholas, Norris, Norman, Oliver, Overton, Oxendine, Palmer, Parsons, Perkins, Phillips, Pickett, Pierce, Powell, Price, Proctor, Pryor, Pursley, Range, Redman, Reed, Ridley, Roach, Roberts, Robinson, Rollins, Ross, Ruffs, Russell, Sample, Sampson, Saunders, Scott, Shepherd, Simmons, Simms, Simpson, Sorrell, Sparrow, Stephens, Stewart, Stringer, Swan, Symons, Tate, Thomas, Timber, Toney, Tootle, Toyer, Tyler, Tyner, Tyre, Venie/ Venners, Wallace, Warwick, Webb (two families), West, Whistler, White (two families), Wiggins, Williams, Wilson, Winn, Wise Wood, Wooten and Worrell families.

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007) Pamlico Total population Extinct as a tribe Regions with significant populations North Carolina Languages Algonquian (historical) Religion Tribal religion (historical) Related ethnic groups Chowanoke, Machapunga The Pamlico (or Pomouik) were a Native American people of North Carolina. They spoke an Algonquian language also known as Pamlico or Carolina Algonquian. Contents [hide] 1 Geography 2 History 2.1 17th century history 2.2 18th century history 3 Culture 3.1 Ceremonies 4 See also 5 References Geography

The Pamlico Indians lived on the Pamlico River in North Carolina. Named after them were Pamlico Sound, the largest sound in North Carolina, and Pamlico County. They are one of the most southerly Algonquian tribes on the Atlantic seaboard, and the most southerly one for which scholars collected a vocabulary.

History
The Raleigh colonists referred to the Pamlico in 1585-86 by the name Pomoui. 17th century history[edit] The Arrival of the Englishmen in Virginia, 1607. In 1695, smallpox, called "A great Mortality", devastated the Pamlico and neighboring Algonquian communities and reduced their populations. In 1701 the explorer John Lawson noted their Algonquian language and vocabulary (Lawson, 1860). By 1710 the Pamlico people were so limited that they lived in a single small village.

Algonquian village on the Pamlico River estuary

By 1709 the total North Carolina Algonquian population was down to some 600 from at least several thousand at the time of English encounter. The Tuscarora War, 1711-1713, claimed more fatalities among the Algonquian allies than of the Tuscarora. In the late stages, the Tuscarora turned on some of their allies. They likely incorporated some of the Pamlico as slaves. By the end of the century, only a handful of Algonkians remained.
With the decrease in numbers came the loss of tribal lands. Thus, the Weapemeoc Indians sold their lands on Albemarle Sound in 1660 and 1662 and started to move to the interior. By 1697 they complained against the encroachments of white settlers in their new location. The English assigned a reservation on Bennetts Creek to the Chawanokes (Chowan) before 1700; they reduced its sized from 12 to 6 square miles (16 km2) by 1707; the Chowanoke sold off land in 1713. After the Tuscarora War, the Machapunga also were assigned to a reservation. Other groups on the Pamlico Sound joined either the Machapunga or the Tuscarora.
With growing white presence in eastern Carolina, more products of European origin were introduced to the Indians. Guns were regularly used instead of bows and arrows during the eighteenth century. Iron hatchets had likewise replaced wooden clubs. English clothes were also widely used by the Indians. The Roanoke chief had an English-style house built in 1654. Other practices persisted through the nineteenth century, including the women making baskets of rushes and silk grass. They decorated them with woven-in life motifs.

The Algonquian languages (/æl'g??kwi?n/ or /æl'g??ki?n/;[2] also Algonkian) are a subfamily of Native American languages which includes most of the languages in the Algic language family. The name of the Algonquian language family is distinguished from the orthographically similar Algonquin dialect of the indigenous Ojibwe language (Chippewa), which is a senior member of the Algonquian language family. The term "Algonquin" has been suggested to derive from the Maliseet word elakómkwik (pronounced [?læ'gomogwik]), "they are our relatives/allies".[3][4] A number of Algonquian languages, like many of the Iroquoian languages of the hereditary enemies of the Algonquian peoples, have already become extinct.

Speakers of Algonquian languages stretch from the east coast of North America to the Rocky Mountains. The proto-language from which all of the languages of the family descend, Proto-Algonquian, was spoken around 2,500 to 3,000 years ago.[5] There is no scholarly consensus as to the territory where this language was spoken.

Contents
1 Family division
1.1 Subgroups 2 Grammatical features 3 Vocabulary 4 See also 5 References 6 Bibliography 7 External links

Main articles: Plains Algonquian languages, Central Algonquian languages and Eastern Algonquian languages

This subfamily of around 30 languages is divided into three groups according to geography: Plains, Central, and Eastern Algonquian. Only Eastern Algonquian constitutes a true genetic subgroup.[6]
The languages are listed below, following the classifications of Goddard (1996) and Mithun (1999). Extinct languages are marked with †, and endangered languages are noted as such. For dialects and subdialects, consult the separate main articles for each of the three divisions.
Plains
1. Blackfoot
Arapahoan (including Nawathinehena (†), and Besawunena (†))
2. Arapaho proper
3. Gros Ventre (†)
4. Cheyenne (Šahíyena) Central
5. Cree–Montagnais–Naskapi
6. Menominee (severely endangered) Ojibwe–Potawatomi
7. Ojibwe (Ocipwe?)
8. Potawatomi (nearly extinct)
9. Sauk–Fox–Kickapoo (severely endangered)
10. Shawnee (Ša?wano?ki) (severely endangered)
11. Miami–Illinois (†) Eastern
12. Mi'kmaq Abenaki
13. Western Abenaki (nearly extinct)
14. Eastern Abenaki (†)
15. Malecite–Passamaquoddy
16. Massachusett
17. Narragansett (†)
18. Mohegan–Pequttôog (†)
19. Quiripi-Naugatuck-Unquachog (†)
20. Mahican (†) Delawarean
21. Munsee (nearly extinct)
22. Unami (†)
23. Nanticoke–Piscataway (†)
24. Carolina Algonquian (†)
25. Powhatan (†)
26. Etchemin (†) (uncertain - See Eastern Algonquian languages)
27. Loup A (†) (probably Nipmuck (†), uncertain - See Eastern Algonquian languages)
28. Loup B (†) (uncertain - See Eastern Algonquian languages)
29. Shinnecock (†) (uncertain)
Subgroups[
Eastern Algonquian is a true genetic subgrouping. The Plains Algonquian and the Central Algonquian groups are not genetic groupings but rather areal groupings. However, these areal groups often do share linguistic features, but the sharing is attributed to language contact.[7] Paul Proulx has argued that this traditional view is incorrect,[8][page needed] and that Central Algonquian (in which he includes the Plains Algonquian languages) is a genetic subgroup, with Eastern Algonquian consisting of several different subgroups. However, this classification scheme has failed to gain acceptance from other specialists in the Algonquian languages.[9]
Instead, the commonly accepted subgrouping scheme is that proposed by Ives Goddard (1994). The essence of this proposal is that Proto-Algonquian originated with people to the west, perhaps in the Plateau region of Idaho and Oregon or the Rocky Mountain-Great Plains boundary of Montana, and then moved east, dropping off subgroups as people migrated. By this scenario, Blackfoot was the first language to branch off, which coincides well with its being the most divergent language of Algonquian. In west-to-east order, the subsequent branchings were:
Arapaho-Gros Ventre, Cree-Montagnais, Menominee, and Cheyenne;
then the core Great Lakes languages: (Ojibwe–Potawatomi, Shawnee, Sauk–Fox–Kickapoo, and Miami–Illinois); and finally, Proto-Eastern Algonquian.
This historical reconstruction accords best with the observed levels of divergence within the family, whereby the most divergent languages are found furthest west (since they constitute the earliest branchings during eastern migration), and the shallowest subgroupings are found furthest to the east (Eastern Algonquian, and arguably Core Central). Goddard also points out that there is clear evidence for pre-historical contact between Eastern Algonquian and Cree-Montagnais, as well as between Cheyenne and Arapaho-Gros Ventre. There has long been especially extensive back-and-forth influence between Cree and Ojibwe.[10]
It has been suggested that the 'Eastern Great Lakes' languages—what Goddard has called 'Core Central', e.g., Ojibwe–Potawatomi, Shawnee, Sauk–Fox–Kickapoo, and Miami-Illinois (but not Cree–Montagnais or Menominee), may also constitute their own genetic grouping within Algonquian. They share certain intriguing lexical and phonological innovations. But, this theory has not yet been fully fleshed out and is still considered conjectural.
Algonquian is sometimes said to have included the extinct Beothuk language of Newfoundland, whose speakers were both in geographic proximity to Algonquian speakers and who share DNA in common with the Algonquian-speaking Mi'kmaq.[11][12] Linguistic evidence is scarce and poorly recorded however, and it is unlikely that reliable evidence of a connection can be found.[13]

Grammatical features
The Algonquian language family is known for its complex polysynthetic morphology and sophisticated verb system.[14] Statements that take many words to say in English can be expressed with a single word. Ex: (Menominee) paehtawaewesew "He is heard by higher powers" (paeht- 'hear', -awae- 'spirit', -wese- passivizer, -w third-person subject) or (Plains Cree) kastahikoyahk "it frightens us". These languages have been extensively studied by Leonard Bloomfield, Ives Goddard, and others.
Algonquian nouns have an animate/inanimate contrast: some nouns are classed as animate, while all other nouns are inanimate.[14] There is ongoing debate over whether there is a semantic significance to the categorization of nouns as animate or inanimate, with scholars arguing for it as either a clearly semantic issue, or a purely syntactic issue, along with a variety of arguments in between. More structurally inclined linguistic scholars have argued that since there is no consistent semantic system for determining the animacy of a noun, that it must be a purely linguistic characterization. Anthropological linguists have conversely argued the strong connection between animacy and items viewed as having spiritual importance.
Another important distinction involves the contrast between nouns marked as proximate and those marked as obviative. Proximate nouns are those deemed most central or important to the discourse, while obviative nouns are those less important to the discourse.[15]
There are personal pronouns which distinguish three persons, two numbers (singular and plural), inclusive and exclusive first person plural, and proximate and obviative third persons. Verbs are divided into four classes: transitive verbs with an animate object (abbreviated "TA"), transitive verbs with an inanimate object ("TI"), intransitive verbs with an animate subject ("AI"), and intransitive verbs with an inanimate subject ("II").[15]
Vocabulary
See the lists of words in the Algonquian languages and the list of words of Algonquian origin at Wiktionary, the free dictionary and Wikipedia's sibling project.
Loan words
Main article: List of English words of Algonquian origin
Because Algonquian languages were some of the first which Europeans came into contact in North America, the language family has given many words to English. Many eastern and midwestern U.S. states have names of Algonquian origin (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, etc.), as do many cities: Milwaukee, Chicago, et al. Ottawa, the capital of Canada, is named after an Algonquian nation, the Odawa people.
For a more detailed treatment of geographical names in three Algonquian languages see the external link to the book by Trumbull.
See also
The word woman in the different Algonquian languages
Algic languages (from Proto-Algic)
Algonquian Bible
Algonquian peoples
Algonquin language - a similarly-named language which is a member of the Algonquian language family
Central Algonquian languages
Eastern Algonquian languages
Plains Algonquian languages
Indigenous languages of the Americas
Leonard Bloomfield
Ives Goddard
H.C. Wolfart
References[edit]