Elizabeth Monacan Going

Goen Childress Ancestress

Elizabeth Monacan (c 1730 - 1803 ?) is the wife of David Sr Going (c 1727 - 1805).

Known in colonial records only by her first name, Elizabeth, and description "Mulatto", she likely died before her husband made his 1803 will, proved 1805, as she is not mentioned. However, she also may have been excluded from his will because she was an Indigenous non-Christian woman. In this day and age, the social construct imposed by Euros based on "race", that is, melanin content of skin plus origin, is considered offensive by many. As an Indigenous non-Christian person, Elizabeth wouldn't have followed patriarchal Euro custom in naming, she would have been born to and of her people who are Monacan (Eastern Sioux). 

Please note in modern common usage the definition of the word "Mulatto" does not agree with the legal definition of Elizabeth's day and age:

"And for clearing all manner of doubts which hereafter may happen to arise upon the construction of this act, or any other act, who shall be accounted a mulatto, Be it enacted and declared, and it is hereby enacted and declared, That the child of an Indian and the child, grand child, or great grand child, of a negro shall be deemed, accounted, held and taken to be a mulatto."

-- General Assembly of Virginia, 4th Anne Ch. IV (October 1705) 

• Indigenous Nation - Monacan (Eastern Sioux)

We know that Elizabeth was Indigenous "Indian" and not African-American or European after a decision in 1847 in the Kentucky circuit court of a descendant John H Going that his mother (Elizabeth's daughter) was an "Indian".

"Monacan (possibly from an Algonquian word signifying a digging stick or spade) . A tribe and confederacy of Virginia in the 17th century. The confederacy occupied the upper waters of James r. above the falls at Richmond. Their chief village was Rasawek. They were allies of the Manahoac and enemies of the Powhatan, and spoke a language different from that of either. They were finally incorporated with other remnants under the names of Saponi and Tutelo (q. v. ). The confederacy was composed of the Monacan proper, Massinacac, Mohemencho, Monahassano, Monasiccapano, and some other tribes.
"The Monacan proper had a chief settlement, known to the whites as Monacantown, on James r. about 20 m. above the falls at Richmond. In 1669 they still had 30 bowmen, or perhaps about 100 souls. Thirty years later, the Indian population having died out or emigrated, a Huguenot colony took possession of the site.
Consult Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East, Bull. B. A. E., 1894. ( j. m. ) "
Source:
Handbook of American Indian Tribes North of Mexico Vol 1 p 930-1, by F W Hodge 1907-10

In 1753 the Cayuga Nation (Gayogohono) of the Iroquois Five Nations (Wisk Niwakonwontsiake) adopted the Monacan, who by then had coalesced with other Eastern Sioux remnants, Saponi and Tutelo; however not all removed to the north, many remnants migrated west to the Ohio Valley, and to the south, and joined other nations.

By tradition, one inherits one's nation and clan from one's mothers, not fathers: "you are what your mother is". That is tradition, and it is an inherent birthright, not given by any government in the "world of men".

-- 27 Jul 2019, L A Childress

Elizabeth Monacan | Wikitree

Story of the Red Fox Clan

Story Of The Red Fox Clan

A Chickasaw Legend

Red Fox (Chula homa) was once found in a cave asleep by a hunter. The hunter crept up to him and saw that it was Chula. As he lay there asleep he looked red all over, and in consequence the hunter called him Red Fox. 

From that time on his descendants have been known as the Red Fox clan. 

Some time after this Red Fox took up with a woman belonging to the Wildcat clan (Kowishto iksa). Their descendants were known as Chula homa iksa, and they lived only in the woods. They made a living by stealing from other people, and that was why they wanted to live in the timber continually. If this clan had been handed down through the women, it would have been numerous today; but since it depended on the father's side it did not last long. 

They kept on stealing until about 1880, when the other people got tired of them and killed nearly all, so that there are now only a few remaining among the Choctaw and Chickasaw. 

A person of the Red Fox clan did whatever he liked. 

Once a man of this clan went hunting. He did not return that day nor the next day after. In fact he was gone for several days, and presently the people thought something had happened to him and chose three men to send in search of him. 

These men at length reached a place where they expected to find him, but when they got close to it he was not there. They discovered that he had taken up with a woman of the Bird clan (Foshi iksa); that was why he had not returned home. When they at length came to the place where he was living, he told them that he did not think it was harmful to take any woman, whether she was of the same clan or not. 

Therefore, when he met this woman and found that he liked her and that she liked him, they lived together. The men told him that it was against the will of his people and contrary to their customs, but he could not be persuaded and after a while they left him. Before he left his people he had already been married. Afterwards he wanted to go back to live with them as he had before, but they would not listen to him. 

It was the belief of the people of the Red Fox clan that one should not marry outside, and it was their law that if one did so they would not have anything to do with him. They would not help him in any way but he who obeyed their customs was held in respect among them. They believed that things moved on as was intended by the Creator, but some people did not have any regard for this and did not care what happened to them. 

The customs and habits of the Red Fox clan are different from those of any other, and the same was true of those of the Double Mountain people. Anyone who wanted to learn their ways must marry one of their women (which, judging by what was said in the last paragraph in the case of the Red Foxes, would seem to have been difficult). 

When winter was approaching and these people wanted to go on a hunt, they began their preparations a considerable time in advance. Some of them would get together and decide how many were to go and how long they would be gone. 

Then these persons would fast for four days and meanwhile the women would cook food for them to take, enough to last for the time determined upon. They made sacks into which to put cold flour (banaha). While the men were fasting they would not sleep with their wives, for if one did he thought that luck would abandon him and he would kill no deer. 

Some would not observe these rules and in consequence they were usually excluded from the party. If such a person were permitted to go, the deer would see him first and run off. But those who obeyed the regulations would have good luck and kill many deer and bear to bring home. 

When they killed a deer they dried the meat to last them through the winter. When they went after bear they hunted about until they discovered his lair and then one of the hunters went into it bearing a pine torch. 

<====<< <> >>====>

-- (story recorded by) John R. Swanton, 44th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1926
* Red Fox = Tcula homa, Cholla homma, also Chulahoma

Mulatto descendants of Mihil Gowen

One of the sons of Mihil Gowen (variants Goen, Going, Goins, etc) is Christopher who was born to a woman whose name is unknown about 1660 in James City of the early English colony in Virginia.

Christopher Going, believed to be a son of Mihil Goen and an Indigenous (likely Powhatan) Woman, is believed by some to have been one of the first "Black Indians" (also known as Maroons*) in North America.

While some believe Christopher's mother was a "white" i.e. Euro-Christian woman her name was apparently never recorded in any colonial era document so far discovered, nor has any description of her ever been found, so it is just a legend (unproven and undocumented). Although as part of a colonial system which normalised the documenting of details of people considered by them to be subjects of the English Crown, that her name was not recorded is a little unusual to say the least. 

This lack of documentation and description could easily be understood and explained if she was an Indigenous woman still using her own language and known only by the name her people called her, which was probably unintelligible to colonial bureaucrats had they even had any reason to record her name, which apparently they did not.

Part of the legend appears to spring from the fact some of her and Mihil Gowen's descendants are described as "Mulatto" in colonial records but an assumption is made that the legal definition of the word when the records were made is identical to what it has come to mean in modern times in common usage, which is of a person who is of mostly European mixed with African ancestry. It does not at all mean the same thing, here is the original definition by colonial legislators:

"And for clearing all manner of doubts which hereafter may happen to arise upon the construction of this act, or any other act, who shall be accounted a mulatto, Be it enacted and declared, and it is hereby enacted and declared, That the child of an Indian and the child, grand child, or great grand child, of a negro shall be deemed, accounted, held and taken to be a mulatto." -- General Assembly of Virginia "4th Anne Ch. IV (October 1705)"

And so it appears the Virginia colonial government made no distinction between descendants who had either or both Indigenous and African ancestry mixed with European, and in my opinion, nor should anyone today make such a distinction especially when it leads to the "paper genocide" or erasure of our Indigenous ancestors in favour of continuance of a biracial system of apartheid which was at its regrettable height during the Jim Crow era, and which ended in 1967 with Loving v Virginia and the dawn of the US Civil Rights era.

-- L A Childress, 3 Feb 2018

* Maroon is defined as "of a very dark brownish crimson color" in dictionaries, and while "Black Indian" is often used in North America today to describe people who descend from alliances between Africans and Indigenous peoples, "Maroon" has been used in other of the English colonies e.g. Jamaica. The origin of the word appears to be French Marron which means "chestnut" for the colour. See Wikipedia Jamaican Maroons.

Chickasaw Land Allotments

While some of the Chickasaw removed voluntarily c 1830, many did not remove, because their treaty allowed that they would remove from their homeland only when "suitable land" for them had been found in the west in replacement of their own homeland. While this never happened, according to some there was no land to be found that could ever replace their own, eventually a trust was created and land was purchased for them from the Choctaws who had already removed to Oklahoma. There have been many complaints over time including from Chickasaw who had gone there, that many or most of the people who showed up in Oklahoma to accept that purchased land were Euro-American settlers, not related to the Chickasaw Indigenous peoples. In the 1840s Mississippi started to allot the Chickasaw homeland which had been surveyed; there are a plethora of names in the original Chickasaw language on the BLM Chickasaw land allotment list (not included here) showing that large numbers of Indigenous peoples at the time were still using their language and not yet observing the European custom of naming, and they had remained in their homeland. Many however were using the European naming custom and had adopted English names, such names probably conferred with a Euro-Christian religious ceremony such as baptism or christening or simply adopted as a name for other reasons. The following extract is from Mississippi Land Patent Database. The county designation represents which county the land is in today, not at the time of allotment by BLM. Families listed are those related by marriage to children of Orpha Eliza Box (1799 - 1871) Goen Childress Sr (1798 - 1870) of Chulahoma, Marshall MS; where a name is marked with an asterisk * it's an individual in my own direct line. Most families below also appear on the 1860 US census for Marshall MS as "Free White Mulattos" (see previous post for more about this).


Desoto MS

Last Name    First Name  MI  SECTION   TOWNSHIP   RANGE  MERIDIAN    TOTAL_ACRE   SIGN_DATE    REMARKS
ALLEN        GEORGE      G   13        1S         9W     CHICKASAW   0            1840/11/16
ALLEN        GEORGE      G   18        1S         8W     CHICKASAW   0            1840/11/16
ALLEN        GEORGE      G   19        1S         8W     CHICKASAW   1606.42      1840/11/16

SAUNDERS     BENJAMIN    L   28        3S         7W     CHICKASAW   160.39       1838/08/14   ASSIGNEE OF JESSEE B CLEMENTS
SAUNDERS     BENJAMIN    L   28        3S         7W     CHICKASAW   160.39       1838/08/14   ASSIGNEE OF JESSEE B CLEMENTS

Lafayette MS

Last Name    First Name   MI  SECTION   TOWNSHIP   RANGE  MERIDIAN    TOTAL_ACRE   SIGN_DATE    REMARKS

ALLEN        BENJAMIN     F   22        7S         4W     CHICKASAW   321.58       1845/10/14
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   15        10S        4W     CHICKASAW   159.91       1844/12/09
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   33        9S         2W     CHICKASAW   160.03       1844/12/09
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   18        9S         3W     CHICKASAW   158.56       1843/06/15
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   36        9S         3W     CHICKASAW   160.5        1843/06/15
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   9         7S         4W     CHICKASAW   8            1844/12/09   WEST OF TALLAHATCHIE RIVER
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   15        10S        3W     CHICKASAW   160.06       1844/12/09
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   31        9S         2W     CHICKASAW   162.25       1844/12/09
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   1         10S        3W     CHICKASAW   320.2        1844/12/09
ALLEN        BENJAMIN     F   22        7S         4W     CHICKASAW   321.58       1845/10/14
ALLEN        JARED        S   34        8S         2W     CHICKASAW   160.24       1839/05/01   ASSIGNEE OF THOMAS COOPWOOD
ALLEN        HARRIS       O   22        10S        3W     CHICKASAW   160.14       1844/12/09

BELL         ENOCH        C   22        10S        2W     CHICKASAW   160          1839/05/01
BELL         ENOCH        C   2         10S        1W     CHICKASAW   160.04       1839/05/01
BELL         WILLIAM      T   2         10S        2W     CHICKASAW   159.94       1842/04/09
BELL         ENOCH        C   2         10S        1W     CHICKASAW   160.04       1842/04/09
BELL         THOMAS           4         10S        2W     CHICKASAW   159.92       1840/10/06
BELL         ENOCH        C   15        10S        2W     CHICKASAW   159.96       1839/05/01
BELL         ENOCH        C   9         10S        2W     CHICKASAW   159.82       1839/05/01
BELL         JONATHAN         35        10S        3W     CHICKASAW   161.71       1839/05/01
BELL         ENOCH        C   14        10S        2W     CHICKASAW   160.02       1839/05/01
BELL         WILLIAM      T   2         10S        2W     CHICKASAW   159.94       1842/04/09
BELL*        ELIJAH           15        9S         1W     CHICKASAW   160.66       1842/04/09
BELL*        ELIJAH           27        9S         1W     CHICKASAW   160.28       1842/04/09
BELL         ENOCH        C   35        9S         1W     CHICKASAW   160          1842/04/09

WALDROP      GREENBERRY       11        8S         1W     CHICKASAW   160.02       1844/12/09
WALDROP      GREEN        B   12        8S         1W     CHICKASAW   159.99       1843/12/05
WALDROP      GREENBURY        12        8S         1W     CHICKASAW   159.99       1844/12/09

Marshall MS

Last Name               First Name   MI  SECTION   TOWNSHIP   RANGE  MERIDIAN    TOTAL_ACRE   SIGN_DATE    REMARKS
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   22        6S         1W     CHICKASAW   159.88       1838/08/09
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   12        5S         2W     CHICKASAW   160.7        1842/04/09
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   12        5S         2W     CHICKASAW   160.7        1840/11/16
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   7         5S         2W     CHICKASAW   158.5        1839/05/06
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   17        5S         3W     CHICKASAW   160.24       1842/04/09
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   15        6S         1W     CHICKASAW   160.66       1842/04/09   ASSIGNEE OF ROBERT J MOORE
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   1         6S         2W     CHICKASAW   160.39       1843/06/15
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   2         6S         2W     CHICKASAW   160.6        1843/06/15
ALLEN        HARRIS        O   17        5S         3W     CHICKASAW   160.24       1842/04/09

SAUNDERS     ROBERT            6         4S         3W     CHICKASAW   168.28       1838/08/02   ASSIGNEE OF VOLNEY PEEL
SAUNDERS     ROBERT            2         5S         3W     CHICKASAW   160.27       1838/08/07   ASSIGNEE OF DANIEL GREEN

WALDRUP      ANDERSON          29        4S         1W     CHICKASAW   160.84       1838/08/14

Tate MS

Last Name    First Name   MI  SECTION   TOWNSHIP   RANGE  MERIDIAN    TOTAL_ACRE   SIGN_DATE    REMARKS

BELL         ROBERT           17        5S         8W     CHICKASAW   638.72       1842/11/09

SANDERS      ANDREW       J   18        6S         9W     CHICKASAW   185.25       1847/05/17
SANDERS      IRA              18        6S         9W     CHICKASAW   184.25       1847/05/17
SANDERS      GEORGE       W   18        6S         9W     CHICKASAW   159.25       1847/05/17
SANDERS      ROBERT           8         6S         9W     CHICKASAW   319.4        1844/12/09
SAUNDERS     ROBERT           17        6S         9W     CHICKASAW   159.4        1844/08/14
SAUNDERS     ROBERT           17        6S         9W     CHICKASAW   159.4        1843/11/28

Partial list of Original Mississippi Chickasaw land allotments to individuals, compiled from General Land Office - a precursor to BLM - records

Map showing the Township (N, S) and Range (E, W) of Mississippi

Chickasaw Territory (in 178 yellow section) GLO now BLM survey.

"The legislature shall have power to admit to all the rights and privileges of free white citizens of this state, all such persons of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes of Indians, as shall choose to remain in this state, upon such terms as the legislature may from time to time deem proper. " -- Mississippi Constitution of 1832, Article 7, Sect. 18

-- 12 Jan 2018 L. A. Childress; edit 19 Jan 2018; added link to Elijah H Bell page at wikitree 26 Jan 2018