All these families, moreover, were linked
with the
Cherokee-Chickasaw-Choctaw-Powhatan
ruling dynasties. The common
denominator in all these families
was their (crypto-) Judaism.
Isaac Cooper appears to have acted as a
general factotum for life-change events,
marrying young people (even newly
arrived Jews from New York City in
1797), serving as character witness for
other crypto-Jews and new residents in
court, and possibly performing
circumcisions and funerals. (See
“History ofSalt Works of the Big South
Fork (BSF)” on USGenWeb, 15 Oct 1998, by
Lanny R. Slavey, and Yates and Cooper
Cherokee-Choctaw-Sephardic Genealogies
at http://familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/p/a/n/Donald-N-Pantheryates/If doubts should be expressed about the open
or conscious nature of their Judaism, I
have a copy of letters written in 1848
between two of Isaac Cooper’s
sons-in-law John Adair and John
Lovelace, husbands respectively of Sarah
Cooper and Mary Cooper, in which one
calls the other, affectionately, a
“Jew.”) These families were not only
quite literate but had storekeeping and
accounting skills, something rare on the
frontier.
FIG. 13. DAVID CROCKETT (1786-1836) came from a Tennessee French Huguenot
family originally from Bordeaux
in southern France
(Crocquetaine). The family
evidently before that were
Spanish-Portuguese Jews. He
exhibited good looks typical of
Sephardic Jews as well as an
acid wit in storytelling and is
remembered as the father of
political public relations in
American history. Crockett
identified strongly with the
Cherokee Indians and opposed
their removal both in Congress
and in virulent pamphleteering
campaigns.
FIG. 14. JONATHAN BURKE (1797-1875) was the son of a
Jewish-Indian Troxell mother
said to be related to Chief
Doublehead. The Burkes came to
America from Cork, Ireland, in
1722 and built one of the first
blockhouses on the Virginia
frontier, Burkes Garden in
Orange County. Their noble
Sephardic origin is indicated by
the fact that the Burke coat of
arms shows a French name
DeBurque with a knight and a
panther with a chain around its
neck. Jonathan married a
daughter of Isaac and Nancy
(Black Fox) Cooper. The
Troxells, who are buried with
Hebrew stars of David in and
around Wayne County, Kentucky,
were once Swiss Jews (Trachsel,
meaning “Little Dragon’), with
roots in Palestine.
In 1793, when Isaac Cooper married
Nancy, or Nunhyi (her namesake was Nancy
Ward, literally, She-Who-Consorts-with-
the-Spirit-People), the daughter of
Black Fox, or Enola, a lieutenant of
Chickamaugan chief Dragging Canoe (died
March 1, 1792), he married a cousin, a
Jewess, in the time-honored manner of
Marannos. Another daughter, called Mary
Ann Black, had previously married
William Davis (1753-1848), who later
became a chief at Creek Path, Black
Fox’s future town of residence in
northern Alabama. A third daughter,
Rachael, married Michael Cline—a
descendant lives in Utah. A son, also
known as Black Fox, married Lucy Bolen,
of Pocahontas’ people. Who was Black
Fox? I believe he was the son of a
Scottish trader named Black. The Blacks
were one of the secret Jewish clans
prominent in early North Carolina
history. In a similar transformation,
Thomas Glass, born in the white
settlements of North Carolina about 1755
became The Glass (Cherokee adaketi,
Tauqueto). “The Glass” served in the
South Carolina Rangers between 1779 and
1780 and imperceptibly “became” a
Cherokee and Chickamaugan. Black Fox and
The Glass signed several treaties as
co-chiefs of the Nation, as did Chief
John Looney (1776-1846) and George Guess
(Sequoyah). But Glass was a white
surname, not an English translation of
an Indian name. Thomas Glass’s
granddaughter Sarah Glass, born 1812,
married Isaac Cooper’s son William Labon
Cooper, and this family hid in the
mountains of Ashe County, N.C.,
returning to their Watauga roots.
Descendants account themselves to be
Melungeon and Wolf and Paint Clan
Cherokee. Cherokee history commemorates
Black Fox as the last of the fullblood
chiefs (except Pathkiller perhaps), but
it is clear from his struggles with the
traditionalist party that he was most
likely a mixed blood, as were Quatsie
Beamer (“Patsy”), Oconostota, Jacob the
Conjuror, Nancy Ward and most of the
other prominent Echota Cherokee leaders
of the time. The name Enola is not a
Cherokee word, but it is found among the
Choctaw and Chickasaw, and it may be
Hebrew in origin. It is said to refer to
the mysterious long-tailed animal called
black fox in the fur trade and bear cat
(mashiko) by the Tennessee
Indians, actually a type of ferret
(Martes pennati). The Black Fox family
also married with the Looneys and Gists,
known Sephardic Jews. (For further
reading, see Brent Yanusdi Cox, Heart
of the Eagle. Dragging Canoe and the
Emergence of the Chickamauga
Confederacy, Chenaunee Publishers,
Milan, Tenn., 1999.)
FIG. 15. STATUE OF NANCY WARD, the Beloved Woman of the Cherokee Nation. She
holds an unidentified small
animal which I believe is a
black fox kit, symbolic of her
position as mother and nurturer
of the secret state of Watauga
(shown on shield). Courtesy
D. Ray Smith.
FIG. 16. THE BLACK FOX (Martes pennati) is a perfect symbol for the Cherokee
people (“cave dwellers”) in
their transformation to mixed
bloods because it is a fierce
fighter, lives in caves and,
famously, disappears. According
to Indian tradition, the
enola knows the paths of the
spirit world.
People have often remarked upon the
inconsistency of common Melungeon
surnames. There appears to be no “key”
to them. Scottish, Irish, Welsh, German,
English, French, and Spanish/Portuguese
are found together, and one family will
marry with another apparently without
rhyme or reason. The following are taken
from Nancy Sparks Morrison’s Melungeon
Health Page, chosen as an authoritative
and undisputed list. Once the Jewish
identity of Melungeons is realized,
everything falls into place. (The notes
below are mine and Elizabeth Hirschman’s
and will be elaborated upon and
documented in our forthcoming book,
Sephardic Scotland.)
