HER MAMA WAS AN INDIAN

Nov 1, 2023
4 min read

Updated: Dec 24, 2023

I am the woman with the black black skin

I am the laughing woman with the black black face

I am living in the cellars and in every crowded place

I am toiling just to eat 

In the cold and in the heat

And I laugh

I am the laughing woman who’s forgotten how to weep

I am the laughing woman who’s afraid to go to sleep

—ANGELINA WELD GRIMKE, “FRAGMENT” (c. 1930)

Our mixed racial background was spoken of with pride by my maternal family. Their features aligned with the aesthetics of our European DNA, affording them privileges that came at a high cost. While primarily unconscious, my family was not immune to internalized anti-Blackness. My siblings and other family members were curious about our “Native American” and European Ancestors. I had a deep hunger to know about our African ancestry—my earliest memories of family stories related to obscure Indian great-great-great-grandmothers with long hair and high cheekbones.

My Aunt Bruetta's story of my third great-grandmother transported me back through time. Big Mama is a small girl living with her Indian mother. Her mother would sing and speak with her across the room, keeping a safe distance. She had consumption and tried desperately to still hold on to her daughter.

According to Aunt Bruetta, her father was a rich white man of Dutch descent. When her mother dies, her father takes her away to live with the Campbell family. She falls in love with their youngest son, Willie (John William) Campbell. They marry and have four daughters before he dies.

Aunt Bruetta made me forget my mother's golden rule to question everything. Her tales were sacrosanct. She made our Ancestors come alive. When we asked questions, she always had a ready answer. The Indian mother was from the Choctaw tribe. Big Ma got her blue eyes from her white father. I didn't ask why her father would give Big Ma to the Campbells. How did the family feel about Daddy Willie marrying Big Ma? Did they consider her to be adopted? Big Ma looked Black to me. Was her mother Black and Indian? Did she have other family members? WHAT MY DNA AND RECORDS SAYS

Carrie Carroll is my direct maternal second great-grandmother. I can test the stories of Aunt Bruetta through DNA and a deep dive into the records. mtDNA is a mitochondrial DNA test that only focuses on the mother's line back thousands of years. The mtDNA is categorized by haplogroups, which shows the migration of your maternal line. If Big Mama's mother were Choctaw, my haplogroup would originate in the Americas. My haplogroup is L1C1D1. This shows that my maternal line is descended from an African woman, not an Indigenous American.

L1c

Haplogroup L1c emerged at about 85 kya. It reaches its highest frequencies in West and Central Africa, notably among the Mbenga Pygmy peoples. (see map).[7] Among the Mbenga, it is carried by 100% of Ba-Kola, 97% of Ba-Benzélé, and 77% of Biaka.[8] Other populations in which L1c is particularly prevalent include the Bedzan (Tikar) people (100%), Baka people from Gabon (97%) and Cameroon (90%),[9] the Bakoya (97%), and the Ba-Bongo (82%).[7] Common also in São Tomé (20%) and Angola (16–24%).[10]

Family Tree DNA lists my Haplogroup origins from Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas. My most recent origins are linked to Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. While there is the presence of Indigenous American ancestry, the minute percentage of inherited Indigenous American ancestry in my mtDNA does not show any presence in my autosomal DNA on the Family Tree DNA test, indicating that my Indigenous connection goes beyond a 3rd or 4th grandmother. After autosomal DNA updates on Ancestry, Family Tree DNA, My Heritage, Living Tree DNA, and 23 and Me; Indigenous American DNA traces ONLY showed on 23 and Me at Indigenous American 0.7% and Indonesian, Thai, Khmer & Myanma 0.5%. Any previous Indigenous Ancestry on the other autosomal tests no longer shows. In conclusion, DNA shows that the story about the mother of Carrie Carroll was NOT an Indian.

Big Ma's mother is listed as Harriett Gore on her death certificate. My search for her mother continues in the 1870 United States Census record for Mississippi. My Grand Aunt Almeta witnessed the information on the death certificate. I don't believe that is a random name picked by my aunt. I will explore a Harriett Gore I found in Webster County, Mississippi. The same town I traced my Carroll line.