Various blood connections to the Cherokee pre-removal includes an Indian agent who lived on Hiwassee Island, allied with Chief John Jolly, married into the tribe, and travelled west with some of the first Old Settlers. Distant relatives include members of the Vann and Haney families. But my ancestors mostly mixed with Anglo/Irish settlers in what is now Arkansas and Louisiana.
Other connections to the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), enrolled and non, include relations from the Morton, Swanson, Terrell, Hamm, Hays, and Hicks lines. While at least one of my grandparents was enrolled, many ties are hard to connect and some family stories remain unsubstantiated.
I am the direct lineal descendant of Indigenous women enslaved in Louisiana, including Marie-Jeanne Elisabeth “Lisette” de l’Isle (Nanatsoho/Nasoni Caddo*), and her daughter, Marie-Louise. In Louisiana, the enslavement of Indigenous peoples was intergenerational, based on the status of the mother. (*Lisette was recorded as being Nanatsoho/Nasoni Caddo, but it is possible she may have been Lipan/Canneci Apache.) Download the certified genealogical report here.
My great-grandmother, Marie-Louise, was emancipated after the death of her enslaver and biological father, Sieur Bertrand dit Dauphine. However, she was then “married” off to Frenchmen at 14 and again at 16. These arrangements were most often forms of bondage. However, dozens of her descendants were born free, some of whom were also descended from another line of enslaved Indigenous women, beginning with Angélique dite Dumont (Hasinai Caddo).
My ancestors married into and were enslaved by the St. Denis family. Jeanne de la Grande Terre (Chitimacha) was my great-aunt’s mother-in-law. Therefore, my Afro-Creole relatives include the Dumont, Davion, Gagné, Bertrand, Prévot, Poirier, Dupart, de l’Isle, and Derbanne lines.
While some of my Indigenous ancestors were bought and sold at St. Jean-Baptiste des Natchitoches and Los Adaes or Nacogdoches, others (Mescalero, Jicarilla, and Lipan Apache) can be traced to New Orleans and Opelousas at the Attakapas through their enslavers and their families.
My biological mother’s paternal line includes Lipan, Jicarilla and Mescalero Apache ancestry from both sides of what is now the US-Mexico border. Family names include López, Montero, Cantu, Martinez, and Garce/Garcie/Garcés.
Leila K. Blackbird 