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Friday, September 04, 2009
Pocahontas's Family Tree
In my family law class yesterday, we began our discussion of the fundamental right to marry with the case of Loving v. Virginia, in which the Supreme Court struck down Virginia's anti miscegenation laws as unconstitutional. As an Indian law scholar, one of the things that has always struck me about the case is the footnote regarding the Pocahontas exception. Under Virginia's "one drop" rule, one drop of non-white blood was enough to remove a person from the "white" category. The exception however was for the descendants of Pocahontas and John Rolfe. These descendants, presuming they had no other non-white heritage, could still claim to be white.
When I first encountered this exception I was surprised that there were enough descendants or people who wished to claim descent from Pocahontas for this to be an issue. Pocahontas and Rolfe only had one child but according to to the Pocahontas websites, they have thousands of descendants (including two former first ladies, Edith Wilson and Nancy Reagan). However, even if there are thousands of descendants I couldn't see why this fact justified the statute. Even in the uber-race conscious Virginia of the pre civil rights period, it is unlikely that such descendants would have had problems "passing" for white. Such descendants would have been no more than 1/16th Indian and the documentation of this fact would likely have been sparse. Therefore, the purpose of this exception must not have been to protect such people from being "exposed," but rather to allow such people to brag about their Pocahontas connection. I can only conclude that the statute was passed to protect bragging rights. I am curious if this is a lone example or if anyone can think of any laws that have similar purpose.
Posted by Marcia Zug on September 4, 2009 at 12:38 PM | Permalink
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Comments
To a lawyer "one drop' is of interest. To the real descendants of John Rolfe's Indian wife, who search for ancestors, the facts are either they are, or they are not descended from said "Pocahontas".
By the way "Pocahontas" actually meant one who might have sex with the whites, or others perhaps. She had an Indian name used by my lines. Some one put a spin on this.
The real problem is some of the "one drop" types in VA rooted out most real descendants. Even spoke of us as "Ugly" branches, lacking foliage. (source PD by Wyndham Robertson)
DNA is backing us up. I have less than 1% Indian blood, but some of those claiming to be her descendants have 0%. Making them clearly phoney.
My point is simple. I search for the truth. Not for genetics, not for some weird idea of mistaken fame based on nothing.
Join us, may the truth set you free.
Ken
Posted by: ken | Sep 28, 2016 12:21:47 PM
Hello, I just worte out one,not sure it was sent.Im searching to see if I have connection with Pocahontas.Im Cobb,,John Cobb& Jane Godfrey Taunton Mass..Moon,Styles,Slade French,Benson,etc. Evan Proctor...HouseofProctor ,yes..zeke Proctor,,William Proctor& Dicey Downin....
Posted by: Janet | Feb 28, 2016 1:16:08 PM
Robert Bolling and Jane Rolfe never had a daughter named Rebecca Bolling. They had one son that lived to adulthood. It is very well documented in the Pocahontas Foundation books.
Posted by: Kendra | Jun 25, 2015 5:06:46 PM
Hi, My birth name is Christina Leigh Myers and I would just like to say is that my Aunt Mary took 10 years of hard research and went through genealogy.com and it has been found that I am in fact the 16Th generation of Pocahontas through Rebecca Bolling which is the child of Robert Bolling and Jane Rolfe. They was the children of John Bolling and Mary Carie and Thomas Smith Rolfe and Jane Jana Poythress.I just thought that you might like to know that there are a lot of true descendants of Pocahontas and I am very proud of my Native American lineage. Thank you
Posted by: Tina L. Johnson | Sep 14, 2009 3:04:42 AM
In understanding why the FFVs were proud of their Pocahontas blood, you have to take into account another salient fact: she was royalty.
Her father may have been a petty king, but he was a king, and in the social constructs of old Virginia that counted for a lot. If you read through the old accounts, you will find frequent reference to her being a princess.
Why was it well known? It was well known because back in the day the ruling class of Virginia was heavily interrelated and not all that large. It was a society where heritage and antecedents were extremely important, and people knew each other's family lines, just as today you might know what academic degrees a colleague has amassed.
The antebellum social constructs that got carried over into the early 20th century were pretty complex. It was a very different world and culture, and it's misleading to think that how they thought about things is the same as today.
Posted by: Carter | Sep 5, 2009 9:01:42 PM
Also, it is worth noting that miscegenation laws were not drafted or interpreted in a uniform way. While some states had laws that were interpreted to ban all marriage between white and non-white couples, some states prohibited marriage between white/black couples but not between all couples who might be considered interracial today.
In particular, not every state with a miscegenation law would have prohibited a marriage between even a full blooded Native American and a white person, even if the "one drop" rule was generally applied.
Contemporary social convention in the United States considers African Americans even if they have only a small proportion of African American ancestors to be African American, even at a glance, but often classifies someone with only a very small proportion of Native American or Hispanic ancestors as white.
The definition of who is "white" itself has also not been constant at the margins. For example, at different points in history and at different places in the U.S., a person of North African or Middle Eastern descent might or might not have been considered "white." The census definitions of racial categories have changed in almost every decade.
Posted by: ohwilleke | Sep 5, 2009 12:35:13 AM
Laws prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of religion and sexual orientation have a strong element of protecting a right to "brag" about your identity. Only a very small minority of religious beliefs can not be hidden; and religion based animus against religious views like atheism and Scientology are very significant. Similar most people who are homosexual and a significant portion of transgender people are capable of "passing" for heterosexual cisgender people if they must.
Statutes of limitations, generally, and adverse possesion laws, in particular, also often serve the purpose of allowing someone to brag, or at least admit to, acts that it is possible that no one would catch otherwise. Use immunity from prosecution for testimony in order to overcome 5th Amendment issues also has this character, as does immunity in connection with participating in a true commission. One also sees a similar issue come up in the privilege for institutional review commuties at hospital, which allows one to "brag" about one's mistakes to one's peers for one purpose, without liability. Rule of Evidence 408, which protects one from having "bragging" made in settlement negotiations offered against you at trial, is also a bit like that.
More interesting, analytically, and unusual are legal rules like "don't ask, don't tell" which permit something so long as it is not publicly admitted. Another example involves the rules of the Colorado courts which allow access to "unpublished" appellate court opinions since they are a matter of public record, but do not allow them to be "published."
Posted by: ohwilleke | Sep 5, 2009 12:22:49 AM
I think Orin raises an interesting point but it may change the timing of my question more than the substance. If t it was well known in the early 20th century that these first families were Pocahontas's descendants and without the exception these families would run afoul of the racial classification laws then my question is, why was their lineage so well known? John Rolfe and Pocahontas had one son who according to the websites, only had one daughter. Consequently, there was no immediate surname giveaway and considering the scanty record keeping in the 17th and early 18th centuries I would assume that the reason people knew who the descendants of Pocahontas were was because these families did not hide the connection. They were proud of their Pocahontas ancestry.
Posted by: Marcia Zug | Sep 4, 2009 7:55:34 PM
To understand this you need to understand the concept of FFV, or First Families of Virginia. Back in the day (which is to say, up until about the 1960s) Virginia politics was strongly influenced, if not outright dominated, by a small group of families that could trace their lineage back to the earliest white settlement in the state. These families were heavily intermarried, which mean that the Pocahontas blood got around in this small and influential group. There was no question of going incognito, as everyone who mattered knew not only who you were but who your grandparents were, but it is also true that having that drop of Pocahontas blood was considered something to brag about.
As Virginia industrialized and the DC suburbs grew, the influence of the FFVs has waned, but you can still find traces of the old days in various Richmond law firms and social institutions. There is a FFV society, which today matters only to those who belong to it.
Posted by: Carter | Sep 4, 2009 1:36:01 PM
I googled around a bit, and here's what wikipedia had to say:
*****
In the case of Native American descendants with whites, the one-drop rule of definition was extended only so far as those with more than one-sixteenth Indian blood, due to what was known as the "Pocahontas exception." The "Pocahontas exception" existed because many influential Virginia families claimed descent from the American Indian Pocahontas of the colonial era. To avoid classifying such people as non-white, the Virginia General Assembly declared that a person could be considered white as long as they had no more than one-sixteenth Indian "blood".
******
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-drop_rule
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Sep 4, 2009 1:22:52 PM
Marcia writes: "Therefore, the purpose of this exception must not have been to protect such people from being exposed, but rather to allow such people to brag about their Pocahontas connection. I can only conclude that the statute was passed to protect bragging rights."
I don't know anything about this, but I wonder if the exception was a result of a particularly influential or socially important family or group of families having long been known to have descended from Pocahontas. If that's the case, the statute wouldn't protect bragging rights: It would protect these important and influential families. But I'm just speculating; I haven't studied the history of the exception myself.
Posted by: Orin Kerr | Sep 4, 2009 1:07:33 PM
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