Barbara Lee Rowe, founder of The Kin of Rock and Roll, in working together with Casiah family members, has learned startling new information regarding Elvis Presley's Native American heritage. While known to have Cherokee blood, and, perhaps, Creek or Chickasaw, Elvis' direct Presley line may include his descent from a Tuscarora Indian Chief! Further to this, is the new knowledge that Dunnan Presley, Sr. and Jr., Elvis' 2nd and 3rd ggrandfathers, was probably DUNNING, named for a maternal grandfather, Dunning Casiah. The Kin of Rock and Roll is continuing the research to confirm this information and will post documentation as it becomes available...

A good portion of southern heritage includes the white-anglo and Native American mix. Many Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw and white intermarriages had taken place since the earliest of times. It is not difficult to find Native American lineage in your family history tree.

Elvis had a true infatuation with the Native American spirit. His spiritual nature and darker skin was only part of the native American mystique. He admired the people of the long houses and tribes. He displayed various Native American artifacts in his jungle room at Graceland including the magnificent headdress once presented to him. He was extremely touched when the heard of the Sioux Tribe had the little Indian Maiden present him with the award for his portrayal of a half-breed in the film, "Flaming Star" and for bringing to light the plight the Native American.

On Elvis' mother's side, there is noted to be a full-blooded Cherokee through a woman named Mourning Dove White who was said to have married William Mansell, Elvis' 4th ggrandfather. New speculation has arisen that Mourning Dove White was either a Creek or Chickasaw Indian as there were no Cherokee in the Mississippi region at that time. On the Presley side, there is both Cherokee and Tuscarora which can be openly documented. Both Mansell and General John Bell Hood's grandfather and ggrandfather were noted Indian fighters.

Included in the Presley family intermarriages is the family name of Casiah/Keziah. This is the name of a family belonging to the Tuscarora tribe of North Carolina, Bertie County, formerly known as Chowan County.

The Tuscarora were, in essence, forced to give away their lands in NC and in the mid-1700's, a series of treaties were established to prepare for this final conclusion. By 1760, most of the Tuscarora had gone the way of New York to join forces with the Iroquois Confederacy and built up their reservation in Sanborn, near Niagara Falls, and they stand today as one of the few remaining "traditionalist" tribes in the nation. However, two clans of that tribe stayed behind in NC to oversee, or protect, the ancestral lands remaining, the Bear Clan and the Deer Clan.

Lore has it that the Casiah people took their name from the nearby river, the Casiah River. Owing to misspelling by the British, the river came to be known as the "Cashie River."Chief Casiah, and family members, presided during the destruction of the tribal lands, and in 1831, Chief Nicholas Casiah was one of seven chiefs of the NC tribe who signed over the final "deed." Some of the Casiah, Deer Clan, remained in North Carolina, while others left for New York. A Chief William Casiah has been recorded as having been at the New York Tuscarora reservation.

Among some of the Casiah/Keziah intermarriages to the Presley family was the family of Winchester. William Winchester, a soldier in the NC Militia during the American Revolution, married Sarah Keziah, a daughter to the probable Chief Nicholas Cashie. Sarah's brother, Sandifer, had named one of his sons Nicholas, perhaps after his father.

In the direct Presley family line was Charles Presley who married Polly Keziah. the daughter of Dunning Casiah, brother of Sarah and Sandifer.

READ THE HISTORY HERE>> 1 | 2

"O-neh!"

Deborah Cavel Grant, descendant of Sandifer Casiah, has done much research on our Tuscarora line. Here is Deborah's History of the Tuscarora and History of the Tuscarora PDF