INDIAN BLOOD IN THE JEFFCOAT FAMILY?

 

Dee S. Jeffcoat writes in her book, "Seeds of Jacob", that many Jeffcoat decendants had written to her asking questions concerning allegedly "Free Non-White" Benjamin and Elijah. Her answer was that she searched Census records for hours, trying to confirm or contradict this presumption. She was unable to find Benjamin and Elijah's families classed in any other than the free-white categories; however, they did own some slaves. The young lady helping her (employee of the Archives) said that an entry in the "free non-white" category wouldn't necessarily mean he was the head of the house or part of the family, as some Negroes were free then (early 1800's) I believe any family with Indian ancestry is aware of it just as I am aware of mine, and the fair blue eyed lady at the Archives said she too had an Indian ancestor. Most of us are proud of our Indian heritage.

Mr. Lee R. Gandee says the Indians by nature are a very religious and honest people and that he always did think that the whites corrupted the Indians rather than the other way around.

An excert from one of his interesting letters states, "The marriage of Dark Lantern to one of the first traders of the Congaree is evidence that some of the Indian women were lovely, for Dark Lantern was called "The Cherokee Beauty" and in Charleston had the reputation of being the most beautiful woman in the entire Colony. The marriage did not last, for the Cherokee had a custom by which a woman divorced her husband at will, simply by setting his things outside the house and telling him to go back to his mother. That was all it took. So, Dark Lantern simply did that and married another white man with more money.

The records say that the Trading Parties out from Charleston had so many young men eager to join them that they could never all go, and it was taken for granted that if a boy went into the trade, he would have and Indian wife in the back country as a go-between with the tribe to teach him the language and look after him when he was among the Indians. Under such circumstances, it was inevitable that there should be a good number of mixed-bloods in South Carolina before the Revolution. Most of them went straight into the white community in the second generation, for it is a peculiarity of the Indian that white-Indian children invariably resemble the white parent, and when a person is 3/4 white, the Indian blood is hardly perceptible. My family has passed for pure white for 150 years, and my wife's family which was pure Indian in 1825, has for 100 years been "white" as native-born Britishers. They were Harrises, descendant of Peter Harris, a pure Catawba. The Harris grandchild married a Stanley and had a pantation in what is now Hampton County, "Alligator Log," it was called, stretching for over 14 miles along the old Barnwell-Beaufort Road, and back from it to the Saltkehatchee River, about four or five miles."

Mr. Gandee tells of several different families who were part Indian. To quote him again: "Before 1736, Thomas Brown, at present Cayce, S. C., had a son by a Catawba or Wateree woman. He gave him land, slaves, and property enough to set up as a planter in Richland County, and the boy was one of the best liked persons in the early Saxe Gotha community. He was educated in Charleston and possibly in Scotland, for his father reared him as British. I do not know anything about his descendants, but a group of Browns lived around that vicinity from then on."

Mr. Gandee says there were many small groups of Indians in Lexington. There were Cherokee, Wateree, Congaree, and probably some Creeks. To quote Mr. Gandee again, he says, "I don't know how late there were Indians around that area. My only indication is that Convent Church, near North Edisto, was armed because Indians were lurking about. However, it was founded by people from Cloud's Creek, and the tradition may refer to earlier experiences there. In the 1760's the Cherokees massacred 24 or 25 people near the North Edisto, but in 1774 the only land near that vicinity shown settled was Rottenburys, which was at the Pelion crossing. Rottenbury left there and showed up later in the Edisto Fork. I expect they lost some members in this massacre, but it was not an uprising of nearby Indians but a raid from farther up, beyond Saluda Old Town."

THE BAD SEED

In another account, Mr. Gandee states, "I have read some court records of some pretty wild Jeffcoat-goings-on. Samuel would turn over in his grave to hear of one in particular. This young scamp was running from the law back about 1880, and got to the Savannah River. The law was hot after him, so he stripped, jumped in, with his pistol in his teeth and swam over to Georgia. It was on a Sunday morning and I can imagine what a young man would be likely to feel, stark naked on Sunday morning, out of state. He was not naked long, though, for he found a road and held up a man and his wife going to church, found the man too small for his clothes to fit him, but made the woman take off her dress and bonnet, dressed in them, took the buggy, and rode back across the bridge into South Carolina and back close enough home so he could hide out in the swamp where his folks could bring him things until he had time to think through his problems with the law." Mr. Gandee closed with, "He was not close kin to you, I know.

A CHICKEN SEED??

One of the Daniel Jeffcoats in the Civil War (there were three) from Lexington Co. deserted twice the records say. "Ha, ha, ha, a double chicken," laughed my youngest son, Michael. But I say not necessarily so, perhaps he just wanted to see the folks back home. Maybe it was Christmas and his feet refused to take him anywhere else. After all, what were two visits in the course of a long terrible five year war. Anyway, I doubt that he could have cared less about someone calling him chicken more than a century later.

 

* All excerpts have been taken from Dee S. Jeffcoat's book, "Seeds of Jacob."