Amanda Ann Williams III
The third Amanda Ann starting at the time of capture of the Manahoic Native in the 19th Century.
The Preface of this Blog
This Preface explains the creation
of this large family that accumulated in Stony Point, Va. just outside Charlottesville
after the Civil War. These Native
Americans that came out of freed people, half Indian slaves, and other Native
American cultures who had to recreate their lives outside of established Native
American Societies.
My parents along with my brother and
sister went to visit my Great Uncle Joe in the 1950s. I was 7 years old. That
was the only time I was in Stony Point until age 20. One day I woke up, got out
of my bed in West Mifflin, Pa. near Pittsburgh and decided to go see these
people that I have not seen in 13 years. I went to Wilkinsburg, got my
girlfriend Amanda Ann Porter and drove to her parents house near Mitchell, Va. At the time, I did not know that on the
mountain over shadowing the area is where Eliza Thorne worked as a slave.
The next day we sat out to look for
Great Uncle Joe. For some reason, I was able to drive to his house using
landmarks that I only saw once 13 years ago. He was not home. So I sat in the
car waiting for them to come home. An old man walked across the street to my
car and ask what I wanted. At that time, I did not know that I was talking to
Eliza Thorne's grandson.
After meeting Great Uncle Joe, we
drove down to the paved road, made a right and saw a mail box with the word,
"Brown" on it. We stopped, got out of the car, and looked at it. A
woman came out of the house and walked toward us. I did not know the woman and
I got a little scared. She asked me what was I looking for? I explained who I
was related to. She smiled and she gave me a hug. Then she explained that I am
her lost great nephew. She is my Great
Aunt Arlene, my grandfather John Brown's sister.
A few years later, my Great Uncle Joe
gave the first family reunion that I ever attended at his house. He brought out
all the pictures of his Ancestors. Unfortunately I only took one picture and
that was Eliza Thorne.
The Genealogy
The Genealogy of Darnell L Williams
did not come about because I wanted it to be something special. At 20 years
old, I did not understand the need for it. The movie "Roots" was not
on TV at that time. This was a time when
Black people was trying to find a word that they can call themselves. When Uncle Joe was a baby, White leaders in
America was trying to merge all Americans
into some type of society that they can call American.
Congress Granted Citizenship to All
Native Americans Born in the U.S. on June 2, 1924. Native
Americans have long struggled to retain their culture. Until 1924, Native Americans were not citizens of the United States.
People all my life told me that I just want to call myself Native American because
I did not want to identify with Africans. Before June 2, 1924 it was legal to
walk up to a Native on the street and shoot them without any fear of arrest. So many Native Americans would identify with
Black or White people to pass as an American. This makes their argument about
me sound foolish if you know your history.
Read "6 Shocking Facts About
Slavery, Natives and African Americans"
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States includes slavery by Native Americans as well as slavery of Native
Americans roughly within the present-day United States. Tribal territories and
the slave trade ranged over present-day borders. Some Native
American tribes held war captives as slaves prior to and during European colonization. Some Native Americans were captured and sold by others into slavery to
Europeans, and to small number of tribes, in the late eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries. They adopted the practice of holding slaves as chattel property and held increasing numbers of African-American slaves.
Raids also
destroyed several other Florida tribes, including the Timucua. In
1685, the Yamasee were persuaded by Scottish slave traders to attack the
Timucuans, the attack was devastating. Most
of the colonial-era Native Americans of Florida were killed, enslaved, or
scattered. It is estimated that
English-Creek raids on Florida yielded 4,000 Native American slaves between
1700 and 1705. A few
years later, the Shawnee raided the Cherokee in similar fashion In
North Carolina.
So this is how the Native
population of natives slaves came about. No, we are not all from Africa. Some
of us are pure Native. Some like Eliza Thorne are half Native. Some are not
Native at all but high priced African slaves.
Public School
The schools especially in places like
Pennsylvania do not teach this but that we are all from Africa. If you have
dark skin you are not from America but Africa. They don't account for the light
skin people at all. I just got out of
High School and I knew then that they did not teach any nonwhite History in the
America's or Southern Africa. It was all European History, causing people of
color to sit in the classroom with a blank look on our faces. Then people
including our parents did not understand why we did not like History
Class. Our Ancestors were never included
unless it was about something negative. It is still the case, which the news.
I did something
about it!
The hidden agenda that my Great Uncle
Joe had was that Eliza Thorne died without a Will or Trust. She told her grandson that the 11 Acer farm
was his. Everyone in Stony Point knew this
and excepted the fact that it was his farm. Then he died telling his son that
it was his farm. Two problems with this.
The White English way of law caught up with the people in Stony Point
and second, The Grandson's wife was still alive and living on the property.
So Eliza Thorne's "Grand
Daughter in law" took her grandson to court over the property. The Judge
ruled that it was not anyone's property and it had to be divided up among all
the families descended from Eliza Thorne. This is why Eliza Thorne's Genealogy had to be
created. John and Lucy, my grandparents was not
included in this "land give away." Many people thought that my timely
arrival was to grab some land. I did not care. Many people found out that the
money that they got was enough to buy some groceries or money to fix a car.
I seen an opportunity to take what Great
Uncle Joe did and build on it to the Genecology that it is today.
Conclusion
In Uncle Joes time, his Post Indian Culture
was great when your involved in Tribal Living.
You and your neighbors are relative, living under the same rules. You do not have to worry about being called an
Indian, Negro, Colored, and etc.
I came along in another culture. White
people are Germans, Italians, French, English, and ETC. They are still White
people. But if you are people of color, everyone expects you to call yourself
Black. They don't like when you say that you are a Native, Caribbean, part
English, or anything else. They expect you to say that you are Black. That is
like saying that you are "Other." You have no past.
I let people know that by keeping my
past that I have pride in myself and that I do not need them to tell me who I
am. I let everyone know that I have a family history past, I am not an
"other.". I made sure my
children know this by their names. Stephanie Ann Williams knows that her mother's
middle name is "Ann." Her mother was named after the first Amanda Ann
Porter who was captured in her Spotsylvania Indian Village, Va. and sold into slavery to Noah Smith. Her sister, Amanda Ann Williams III is the
third Amanda Ann out of slavery.
They tell their story no matter if it
was in school or with a friend. No one can make them believe some "made up
government or School District" story about themselves because they know
who they are and hold themselves in high self esteem. My
grandsons David and Daniel know the truth and let's people know who they are.
They do not sit in school with a blank look on their face. They speak up!
No comments:
Post a Comment