Caustic Burno":33ijwfj1 said:
M-5":33ijwfj1 said:
From my research one branch goes back to 1320 Norfolk England and those decendants came to the new world 3 centuries later, It seams the family tree blossomed in North Carolina and spread into south GA plantations and eventually the panhandle florida. my maternal side has Penobscot maine as the origin but was best know as the Coweta creek tribal nation east.
The Penobscot actually made the first compound bow it really quite a feat of engineering for the time.
he was my 5th great grandfather
Joseph Islands
Back in Georgia, a century ago, a little Creek Indian boy was permitted by his father to live with a Baptist white man who sent the lad to Sunday school with his own children. He learned to read and write and speak the English language. That boy was Joseph Islands who came with the Creeks when they moved West. In trying to lead a seeker to the light, he found the way himself and they rejoiced together. There was then, at North Fork Town, no church or pastor, but Joseph took his Bible which the white man in Georgia had given him, and read it from house to house. He exhorted the people more than two years, praying that God would send some one to administer the ordinances. He was ordained himself in 1845 by Ramsay Potts and Joseph Smedley, missionaries in the Choctaw Nation. At that time, while believers were being persecuted in the Creek Nation, these missionaries would visit that
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section occasionally and baptize converts on the Choctaw side of the river.
At a Creek Council in 1845 a chief made a long speech in favor of enforcing the law against praying. "When God made all things he made white people and black people to pray but he never required the Indian to pray to him." Another Indian, not a Christian, arose and said: "The chief who has just addressed you spoke angrily about the praying people and warmly insisted that the law against them should be enforced, but he never once alluded to whiskey nor to those who drink it. When God made all things he made white people and black people to drink whiskey, but he never made his red children to get drunk on bitter water. Whiskey is doing the Creek man more harm than preaching and praying. Now stop and consult on the whiskey law." The case was carried over to the next council. The first chief who spoke was afterwards baptized by H. F. Buckner.
Joseph Islands left a good house and moved into a small log cabin and gave the better house for a place of worship. The American Indian Missionary Association offered him $50 for his services, but he declined at that time to accept it, for fear such gift might prejudice the unsaved Indians against him. All about him Indian converts were being whipped. He was threatened but went on with his work undismayed. For several years he served as pastor of the North Fork Church. He made a profound impression on the Creek Nation. His genuine Christian character and his courageous spirit broke the force of the persecutions and a great revival swept through the Creek Nation. On March 8, 1848, a few months before Buckner came on the field, Joseph Islands answered the call of his Lord, "Come home."