Mami T -- Part 2

In the files that were shared with me by Sharon Tibbits Grant there is a note which stated that Mami T was a Cherokee Indian. This information had been shared with Sharon, by whom I do not know.  However this information has never been verified or documented that Sharon nor I have been able to find, and Sharon is a researcher who is now retired.

If Mami T was Native American, I would be more inclined to think she was of Creek descent rather than Cherokee. Also if she was Native American this would explain why she was not subservient to males. In most clans or tribes females are equal, and in most; the lineage is through the female, and they are highly honored as the givers of life.

Her father’s name was James Taylor, and he was born in 1800 in Beaufort, South Carolina. The Native Americans I found there are listed as Cusabo Creeks, and I also find they are listed as an extinct clan or tribe. I have since received information from Richard Thorton, that they are not extinct; they were absorbed by other tribes.

 I have found Taylor’s on both Creek and Cherokee rolls, but I have never found his name on any of the rolls that I've looked at, and I have never discovered the names of his parent’s in any census records or any other source.

On the entire census records that I have looked at they were listed as white. But this was at a time in history when many Native Americans were deliberately trying to hide their identity by passing for white if their skin was light enough, if not then Black Irish or Black Dutch or maybe even Mulatto, anything except Native American!

I have found the migration route that he traveled from South Carolina to the place they migrated to and settled in what eventually became Holmes County, Florida which was located on the Choctawhatchee River.

I checked with a friend Richard Thorton, who is a Native American Architect, Historian and researcher, and he told me this route was a Creek migration route, and the area where they settled on the River was where many Creeks and other Native American’s came to and settled in those days, and those who were not captured and removed to the Indian Territories or killed; were eventually absorbed into the white population.

In order to avoid capture and survive they had to deny who they actually were and live in secrecy for the remainder of their lives. And so many never talked about their true identities, not even to their descendants it was too dangerous, even through several generations! And this has only changed in the recent past.

So much has been lost of their culture and their records; a tremendous injustice to say the very least; has been done to the Native American by the influx of those who came to take their lands from them in the name of greed!  Instead of trying to live in peace among them as guests in their homeland, they slaughtered them by the thousands, and drove them from their homes and took their lands!