A full-blooded Cherokee Indian named Morning White Dove was born in 1800. The white in the name referred to her status as a friendly Indian. Those that were called ‘red’ were classed as warlike or who had sided with the British redcoats during the American revolution. All this was lost, one way or another, on Morning White Dove for she was friendly enough that by the time she turned eighteen years old she married a white southerner named William Mansell. For him it was an easy choice made even easier for there was not too many white women on the America frontier back then to choose from.
William learned much from the union. He gained old Indian knowledge of the terrain, of forests and prairies, crops and game, medicine lore, healing plants, and the ‘setting of broken bones’. Morning White Dove in return had got a hard working man, a provider with some ambition, and that could sing a song or two when pressed. The world gained from them much more.
The mix of this handsome couple would help define the looks and spirit of one man many years later, for without them he would never have been born at all. Morning White Dove and William Mansell would go on to become proud parents of three children whose eldest was a son called John Mansell.
In his turn, John would go on to become the great- great grandfather of Elvis Presley.
A very young Elvis Presley
Barry Clifford
No comments:
Post a Comment