Author:
Marla K. Jones (I have a similar family story)
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Date Posted: 21:31:35 08/31/08 Sun
Author Host/IP: c-76-28-248-225.hsd1.wa.comcast.net/76.28.248.225
In reply to:
Donna Lutes
's message, "Margaret Stove of Nanaimo, B.C." on 16:28:09 02/21/07 Wed
I have the scoop shaped teeth, my dentist told me, so that means I have Indian or asiatic-type blood somewhere. The only rumour I heard was that a pioneer ggg grandfather in Anacortes, WA had a Swinomish Indian "housekeeper" who he had a couple sons by, before obtaining a proper white wife. I set out to find if I was descended from her.
I was pretty mad when I found out that I might be part native and no one bothered to tell me, in fact covered it up (women in the family very active in morality movement, temperance, the church, and found it scandalous and suppressed it).
He had a white wife in Boston whom he married at about age 25, whom he had one daughter with and then divorced. Then he came out to Washington state, had an Indian "housekeeper" for a few years. On the 1870 census the household is listed as him, white, 2 sons who were both listed as white, and his Indian houskeeper. By their ages,he would have been 30 and she 18 when they had their first son.I am sure those 2 sons were halfbreed. Because he had no sons by his first marriage and why would an Indian mother come to work for him bringing 2 all white sons? And there is not a trace of anything in the family history about fostering, adopting, etc. of a friend's children, or anything. Other families on that census listed race as W 1/2 I (white 1/2 Indian - all down that roster the white male head of household and Indian housekeeper and halfbreed kids was very common, but these 2 sons were listed just as white (W)).
He eventually disposed of Anna and teh two boys and married a respectable white woman and had 3 legitimate sons,they show up on the 1880 census. The two "white" sons and housekeeper from the 1870 census are gone from the household roster on the 1880 census. One of his white sons inherited his very large farm.
I have found out now that I am definitely from the first of the sons from the marriage to the 2nd white woman, in WA.
It sounds like the second sons looked up the halfbreed sons later and they had no mystery about their relation to each other.
I am sure this is quite common with other ethnicities too, especially black in the south. I read about a white man who had a black "housekeeper", he built her her own house down the path from his house for appearances sake but he never married anyone else and he had several children with her and was very upset when she died. They ran a successful dairy farm together and she was well known for selling good milk that never got anyone sick or had an off flavor (this is in the days before pasteurization, but she used better, cleaner and more scientific methods than many at the time including "sunning" the milk - today juices such as Odwalla are UV-ray pastuerized).
My spouse is a good part native american and we are having trouble tracing his ancestry for the same reason as this. But his ancestors were wily and avoided getting shipped off to Indian territory (his tribe, the Forest Potatwatomi, were only recognized in the 1990's as those who managed to hide and escape removal to Indian Territory of Kansas and Oklahoma.) I knew two girls in school who were first generation half breeds, one Makah and one Flathead. Both these girls were blond and blue eyed but had very distinct non-white facial structure. I met their parents and one was dark and one was light but the kids got the light coloring. So it is so easy to pass off your kids as white when it suits what you think is best. But what floors me is when people lie even to themselves and their kids, hoping to erase the past.
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