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Sorry, Barb. I failed to
answer a couple of your questions.
No, Indians only lived in a
relatively small part of the South, and but for the Cherokees contributed next
to nothing to white society. The Cherokees were the most advanced tribe, not
just in the South, but in the country and the only one to have
a language written and spoken at a time
when they were still tribesmen.
There were a lot of different
ancestors.
As Matt said, many i n the Carolinas were
Scots. There was heavy concentration of Scots in Tennessee and
Kentucky. I am both Scots and Cherokee. It is a rare family in the South
that does not have some Cherokee blood.
Then there is the Melungeons,
who are said to be part of the Lost Tribe of Israel.No one can even guess how
long they have been in Tennessee. They now have spread into Virginia, North
Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia. The Israeli
government has a team (don't think they
have finished their work) looking at the
possibility that they might be lost
tribesmen. Some of their writings and symbols appear to be the same as some
Jewish ones. For a time, they were passed off by alleged historians as
descendents of
slaves, Well, my dear, DNA testing
put a stop to that theory.
It seems sensible that white
Europeans
developed the Southern culture,though it is
distinct from any of the participants.
The phrase Native American should
only be used sparingly. Indians, who come from Asian ancestors, came from the
north when a land bridge still connected Alaska and
Russia.
They were not the first, but
more likely the fourth or fifth group, all Asians of different cultures, but
were the first ones to establish themselves here permanently.
Diggings and dating of material in Colorado
and Wyoming have shown their existence, but not much else.
So, there are no native
Americans, in that sense.
Hermit in the Woods
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