Sometimes Words Just Aren't Enough

Old Tupperwear Two Feathers, aka Gary Gabeheart, has called me evil on his pathetic little excuse for a blog. Oh, I am crushed. Here you are, fuckface, my heartfelt response:

That goes to that cow you run with, too.

The Redbone Elder Speaks

LV Hayes who has written here before and who is the preimminent genealogist of the Redbones of southwest Louisiana, has started his own blog, called Louisiana Redbones. When individuals who should know better attempted to keep LV from the debate on the KPLC blog, LV decided to by-pass them and go directly to Louisiana's Redbone communities by use of his own blog. His first article is entitled If You Don't Tell Your Own Story.

People who are not Redbones insist on calling us "mysterious," "violent," even "clannish." Those people are ignorant, at least where Redbones are concerned. They could save themselves a lot of grief by asking us who we are. We're more than happy to set them straight.

The Redbone Heritage Foundation, or as LV refers to them, "The Rage and Hate Foundation," is intent on spreading lies, damn lies, malicious slander, and worst of all, misinformation. Those cretins have no ties to the Redbones of Southwest Louisiana. Tupperwear Two Feathers, a semi-Mexican wannabe Indian, lives in Missouri. Princess Snaggle Tooth, aka the Felonious Sow, lives in Kentucky. They're probably up there now, celebrating their Black ancestry, this being Black history month and all.

In response to their crap, LV has stepped up to the plate and with Louisiana Redbones, he has hit a homer. Be sure to visit his site and leave a comment. Oh, and be sure to bookmark it.

If this is your first time and visit and you're trying to determine your Redbone roots, leave a message and ask any question you might have. Our experts are standing by ready to help out.

Redbones Rampant, the Sequel

The last time a bunch of know-it-all assholes called a bunch of us Redbones it ended in a gunfight. That was in 1892. KPLC's general manager, Jim Serra, thought he would focus attention on our people, so in a blog posting entitled Mysterious People, or some such nonsense, he glossed over our 200 year history and set the stage for the outlaws of the Redbone Heritage Foundation to spout their crap as if they were experts on our people, the Redbones of southwest Louisiana.

He presented Don Marler as an expert because of Marler's self-published book on Louisiana Redbones. You know the book. The one where Marler suggests that Redbones have African in their genetic admixture, never mind that we have steadfastly denied that possibility for over 200 years. Marler's book is so laden with mistakes and phony conclusions that it doesn't even deserve mention.

The other "expert" Serra gave credence to was Gary Gabeheart who still presents himself out to be some sort of Amerindian. He's got The Card. I have known Indians all my life, and Gabeheart is the first one I've ever known to go around bragging about having "the card." Of course, no one ever saw his card. That's why I made him one. Now the next time someone asks him about it, he can show them this:

Hey, if the feather fits, I say let the son-of-a-bitch wear it.

Serra's now cut off the Comments to his post because of his inability to keep people civil. That's fine with me. He was giving a forum to outsiders to go on at length about Redbones. There was much more bullshit than information being spread.

If you're a Redbone connected to southwest Louisiana and have something to say, go for it. That's what this forum is for.

The Tail That Wagged the Dog

The Redbone Heritage Foundation (RHF), which I 
call the Rage and Hate Foundation due to the 
proclivities of its leadership to attack and 
defame anyone disagreeing with them, is a peculiar 
organization. It has perhaps 25-30 members 
overlorded by a clique of Goins descendants (I 
like to call them the Goins mafiosi). These Goins 
folks may be bonafide "redbones", depending on 
who is making the classification, but they don't 
really know much about "redbones" per se. That's 
because all of the Goins cliquistas except one 
come from some other state where they grew up far 
from the cultural influences of the "real 
redbones", who live predominantly in western 
Louisiana. The cliquistas probably never saw a 
"real redbone" until they attended the first RHF 
conference at Alexandria, LA in 2005. They liked 
what they saw so well they hijacked it, which 
gives you some idea of the cultural background 
they came from.

Little is known of most of these RHF poobahs 
because while they will gladly steal your gen 
data, they get shy when asked for their own. 
In short, we have to take their word that they 
are who they say they are and it would appear 
that they're a tad self-conscious about it. 
That is apparently why they are constantly 
accusing some real "redbone", like yours truly 
for example, of not being one. It's the old 
ploy of distraction by diversion of attention. 
Which is even more bizarre when one considers 
the fact that some of the RHF board members are 
not even "redbones" at all. Don Marler the 
pseudo-historian and Alvie Walts the message 
thief are the most prominent in this category.

While we don't know much about the current 
RHF leadership, it doesn't take long to 
conclude from their writings and activities 
and the sentiments expressed therein that 
psychologically speaking, these must be some 
deeply disturbed individuals. Some of them 
alledgedly have criminal backgrounds, but the 
most characteristic flaw is their universal 
egomania.  It takes considerable over-valuation 
of one's self-worth to entertain some of the 
beliefs they obviously hold and countenance 
some of the pursuits they engage in.

These RHF honchos actually believe that they 
represent ALL of the Louisiana "redbones" 
everywhere and moreover SPEAK for them!!! Four 
officers (President Stacy Webb, Board Members 
Gary Gabehart, Don Marler, and Alvie Walts) in 
an organization comprising perhaps 25-30 
members think they speak for a population of 
tens of thousands of Redbones (nobody knows how 
many Redbones there are, but I've got 10,000 
plus Ashworth and 10,000 plus Perkins folks 
listed in my gen database, so that's at least 
20,000 right there), most of which have never
even heard of the RHF much less its frenetic 
leadership.

If that's not a case of the tail wagging the 
dog, I don't know what is. ROTFLMAO!

LV the Redbone Elder

Reviewing the Lagniappe Article

The copy of the Sep. 20 edition of the Lagniappe 
Magazine sent by Jim Serra arrived at my house 
Friday afternoon. This is a weekly mag published 
in Lake Charles, LA. The article of interest 
therein is entitled "The Mystery People" and 
appears on pages 44-47. Its sub-title is "While 
keeping to themselves, Redbones make a mark on 
area history"; the author is Brad Goins.


Mr. Goins is from Tennessee, so he apparently 
doesn't know much about Louisiana Redbones. Which 
leaves him dependent on his local sources, which 
appear to have been Gary Gabehart and Don Marler 
in the main, though Sammy Tippit and Cyndie Goins 
Hoelscher are cited as sources. All of these 
individuals are Redbone Heritage Foundation (RHF) 
board members; all of them except Marler are Goins 
descendants. Marler is not a Redbone, though he 
has been known to write essays telling real 
Redbones what it feels like to be a Redbone [gag, 
barf, puke!]. Talk about your over-inflated egos!

This article is very much a Goins affair. Other 
Redbone families get scant mention, and the three 
people photographs all depict Goins-related 
persons. The frontispiece is Charlie Thomas, who 
is captioned as "a 19th-century Redbone". This 
fellow is actually the maternal grandfather of 
Gabehart, though that fact doesn't seem to be 
mentioned in the article, but whether or not he 
was a Redbone, I cannot say; he did marry Nancy 
Goins, who was one. It's nice that the Goins 
clique which runs the RHF (7 of their 10 officers 
are Goins descendants, 2 are not Redbones, the 
10th has quit in disgust; all except one live 
outside Louisiana) is appreciative of their 
acclaimed ancestors, but if they want to have a 
Goins Heritage Foundation, then why don't they go 
off to Two Feathers, TX and organize one and 
leave us Louisiana Redbones alone?

The rest of the article is filled with some 
historical facts and a whole lot more of the 
same type of disinformation Marler (mainly) and 
Gabehart loaded Jim Serra's wagon with when he 
was using them as sources for his Sep. 9 article 
on the KPLC-TV blog site. None of the palaver 
about the "one drop rule" is applicable, for 
example. Some of the historical facts are a 
little tawdry. Isaac Ryan and Reuben Calvin 
Goins were 1st cousins twice removed (same as 
3rd cousins), not first cousins as Brad states 
based on Gabehart's info. Instead of citing any 
other examples, I'll leave it to y'all to read 
the article and see for yourself.

If you don't have access to it, I hope to be 
able to scan a copy and upload it to the group 
archives in the near future (when that will be, 
I don't know, because my work schedule is 
already overloaded to the max; fighting the 
evil of the RHF is a full-time job). It's not 
Brad Goinses fault that he got stuck with the 
same con artists that pulled the wool over
Serra's eyes, and "The Mystery People" is worth 
a read, even if just to observe the strategy 
and tactics of deception and disinformation 
used by the RHFers.

I've been hoping to write a piece on this 
type of exposition and argumentation, but have 
not gotten to it. Basically, it goes like 
this: The RHFers as well as certain others, 
such as Larry Keels, owner of the Yahoo 
discussion group called Melungeons or Redbones 
or Renegades, dredge up some factoid from 
anywhere having to do with something that might 
possibly have something to do with the 
Louisiana Redbones. For example, the Redbones 
were called "free colored" on the 1820-40 
Louisiana censuses; therefore, anything in the 
world having to do with "free colored" people 
is regarded by these wannabe scholars to be 
relevant to Redbones. They copy that 
information and then slap it down triumphantly 
somewhere, usually in one of the several 
Redbone discussion groups on Yahoo, as if they 
had just proved something about Louisiana
Redbones. If the information is indeed 
pertinent, then maybe they have, but more often 
the relevance resides only in their hyperactive 
imaginations. It also appears that they rarely, 
if ever, spend any time on analysis and 
verification.

Larry is the most industrious follower of this 
strategy, and he does occasionally come up with 
a gem of new information, but Marler's book 
_Redbones of Louisiana_ is full of examples, and 
that's where I would direct the student. Marler 
has seven whole appendices of surnames, for 
example, including one titled Redbone Surnames. 
The idea of presenting all of this mostly useless 
information is, I suppose, to identify where 
Redbone families could have come from, but mere 
possession of identical names is no sure 
guarantee of any sort of genetic or other 
relationship. A specifically causal connection 
must be demonstrated, and no such connection is 
known with Seminoles or Cherokees or whatever. 
The Lumbees have a Dial family? We've known that 
practically for ever, but no gen relationship 
has ever been demonstrated between that Dial 
family and the Dial family that became the 
Louisiana Redbone Dial family. We're still 
looking for the link.

And so it goes. Even on his Redbone list, 
Marler has so many surnames which aren't 
demonstrably Redbone that the list is largely 
useless or at least misleading. Well, the 
door is always open for Marler (and the 
others) to demonstrate the truth and 
pertinence of his (their) "evidence". I'd 
especially like to see his proof for any 
Redbone, much less a "white" one, ever being a 
slave anywhere at any time. The Redbones were 
never slaves, Don, and we won't be slaves now 
for you or the self-promoting egomaniacs of 
the RHF who have hijacked our foundation.

LV Hayes
Just another Redbone Elder

Family Photographs

If you haven't bothered to check out the online photo album of the Redbones of southwest Louisiana, I just added a bunch of pictures I was able to scan on my last trip down. There are some great pictures.

This is Emidee Ashworth, the son of Elias Ashwroth and Sarah Elizabeth Clark. Elias was a son of Andrew Jackson, the brother of Thompson Lorraine, my great-great-grandfather.

Here's one of the Bass girls on the new bridge across Bearhead Creek.

Another favorite is this one of Buddy getting baptized.

Buddy is my first cousin, the youngest son of Lela and Albert Miller.

This is Elizabeth Miller and two of her grandsons. I know the shorter of the two is Clebert Miller, and I think the taller of the two is Donald Ray.
This one is just a bunch of cousins having fun.

Go see the entire bunch if you've got a few minutes.

Redbone Questions

This next October 27, 2007, the people known as Redbones in Southwest Louisiana are having a townhall discussion about their understanding of things Redbone. We're going to meet at the VFW Hall in Starks, Louisiana and talk. Anyone who wants to say something gets to. Everybody's invited.

Why Starks? Well, because there are a lot of Redbones living in the area. If you factor in the fact that most Redbones nowadays have cars and trucks, everybody within a hundred miles ought to be able to get there without much difficulty. That should cover most Redbones.

Redbones have never had an opportunity to go on record about how they feel about the word Redbone. Maybe we have individually, but not as a group. I think we need to talk about it outloud. The Bearhead Creek Redbones, a loosely organized but tightly knit group of Redbones with ties to the area, are organizing this gathering. We are supported in this endeavor by the Starks Historical Society.

Here are the questions we are asking you to think about. Feel free to answer any or all of the questions in a comment. The good ones I'll be happy to pull up and feature as a post. Here are the first questions.

1. Do you think of yourself as a Redbone?

2. Does the rest of your family identity itself as Redbone?

3. Have you ever talked about it?

4. Have you ever heard any myths about the origin or Redbones?

5. What do you think?

6. What surnames do you think are Redbone?

7. Have you ever experienced any discrimination that might be because you're a Redbone?

8. What are the advantages of Redbones speaking out about their ethnic identity?

9. How about disadvantages?

This is just a starting point to get everyone to think about the gathering in Starks. This is going to be an historic occasion. Redbones are going to come together and talk about their history, their sense of identity, their feelings about each other and the dominant society. We are inviting any and all people who feel kinship with Louisiana Redbones to come and share their feelings and experiences. Come home. Come home and connect with your families. Come visit the cemeteries and bless the memories of your ancestors. Come and be blessed. Come and be reunited with your homeland cousins.

We do ask that you check your guns at the door.