A Tutelo Inquiry: The Ethnohistory of Chief Samuel Johns’s Correspondence with Dr. Frank G. Speck

Abstract

Obscured by the invasive expansion of an aggressive Iroquois confederacy, there exists today a remnant population of eastern Siouan peoples known as Tutelos amid the Six Nations Reserve at Grand River, Ontario. While there is a general dearth of source materials for the Tutelo Indians of Virginia, there is an interesting correspondence between a Native elder at Grand River and Dr. Frank G. Speck that took place during the years 1934 and 1935. These letters, composed for Chief Samuel Johns, reveal insight concerning the enduring complexity of American Indian identity. In noting this ethnohistorical puzzle, it is the purpose of this article to explore and examine the Tutelo initiative and voice in asserting a unique ethnic identity amid the Hodenosaunee, or Great League of the Iroquois. For far too long, the collaborative and self-motivated participation of Native Americans in anthropological fieldwork has been ignored because their role has usually been characterized simply as “informants.” In his correspondence with the noted University of Pennsylvania anthropologist Frank Gouldsmith Speck, Chief Johns reveals his Tutelo ancestry and makes an inquiry concerning that ethnic heritage. By this standard, the Johns letters stand out as an inquiry of scholarly interest in Native ethnohistorical criticism and research. Chief Johns initially writes Speck from Middlemass, Ontario on 4 September 1934. In his first letter, Johns reveals his Tutelo ancestry and requests historical information regarding the tribe. On 31 December 1934, Johns again writes Speck informing him of historical findings that report the Tutelo country along the east branch of the Susquehanna River