My Irish Native Americans

      

Emily Beane aka Obezaun

     Today as I was reviewing and entering information about the McGarr family into my Ancestry tree  I got a surprise.  It seems one of my McGarr line married a Native American.  Well, half native, but enough so that he and his siblings were listed in the Indian Census Rolls.  He even had a native name, Mah Koonce, to go along with his English name which was Truman Beane.  

     Truman was the son of an Englishman named Wallace Beane (1832-1899) and his Native American wife Emily Branley (1840-1915), whose native name was Obezaun.  She was a member of the Mississippi Band of Chippewas who in her later years lived at the Gull Lake Reservation.  I was initially confused by the Indian censuses but discovered that at least at Gull Lake, an individual did not have to be an actual resident of the reservation to be included in this census.  It seemed to actually be more of a head count of tribal members.  For instance, in 1900 Truman was listed on both the Federal and Indian censuses.  I also found the Beanes listed in a land allotment database.  The Nelson Act of 1889 established the allotment of American Indian lands to American Indians in Minnesota, enabling them to become landowners. The real goal however, was the removal of the Chippewa from their reservations with the "surplus land" being sold to white settlers and logging and mining companies.  Naturally, I was curious about all this, I had questions. After much reading things began to be clearer.

     Emily or Obezaun, the matriarch of this family, was born about 1840, probably near the shores of Gull Lake in Minnesota.  A tree online asserts her father was the handsome, charismatic leader, Chief Hole In The Day, but offers no proof of that.  Turning to one of my favorite sites, Google Books, I found a book called, The Assassination of Chief Hole In The Day.  It was filled with interesting information, and even named one of his children as, "Ohbezzum", that's pretty close to Obezaun.  It also said one of his wives was a white woman, reputedly Irish.  Unfortunately, the book also said three of his children, including Ohbezzum, died young.  Then I tried typing, Mah Koonce Bean, into Google's search box.  The first hit was a site with old genealogies of the White Earth Agency Native Americans!  There I found Obezaun's father was in fact, Ogahbaishcumoquay, her mother was Baydwayway.  So much for being the chief's daughter.

Obezaun and Wallace Beane

     But how did Obezaun get together with Wallace Beane from England in the first place?  Another book at Google helped explain that.  Wallace came to America and spent several years knocking around Illinois before moving west to St. Paul Minnesota, where he worked hauling merchandise from that place to the frontier beyond the city.  In 1856 Wallace moved his business to the Chippewa agency, most likely it was here that he crossed paths with O.  Yet another publication on Google Books recorded Wallace being paid for delivering oats to the Pillager and Lake Winnebagosh Chippewa bands.  He married Obezaun in 1859, several years after the birth of their first child Franklin, going on to have seven more, one of whom was Truman who married Mary O'Neil.  

     I wondered how Wallace and Obezaun's mixed marriage was viewed by their neighbors.  While there were probably some who looked askance at their union, it remains there were exactly three white women living in their area as late as 1866, none single, and such marriages were not uncommon.  Evidence of that can be seen in a report done in 2014 concerning eligibility requirements for tribal membership, determined by, "blood quantum".  One tribe member when asked his opinion on the current requirements in 2014 stated, "They should be lowered, they have a lot of us down as part Irish".

     But back to the McGarrs -- what was an Irish girl like Mary O'Neil, whose mother Eliza McGarr was the child of Irish immigrants, doing in the wilds of 19th century Minnesota?  That's a long story.  The short version is, Mary's father, Philip O'Neil, brought his wife Eliza McGarr and their four children to Iowa from New York, (their fifth, the above-mentioned Mary, was born in Iowa), at the same time Eliza's parents John McGarr and his wife Hannah Kilfoyle left the state in a bit of a hurry right after John was acquitted of murder.  After Eliza's untimely death at the age of thirty-one, Philip left Iowa under circumstances explained in still another tome -- "he stayed until 1878 when he was called away to the regret of his numerous creditors". You have to love Google Books.

     By the time of the 1900 census Philip was in Brainerd, Minnesota, living with his daughter Elizabeth O'Neil Breason and her family.  Mary O'Neil and her husband Truman Beane, aka Mah Koonce, whom she had married in 1889 in Crow Wing, Minnesota, were living in Brainerd as well.  Mary died that year of "heart trouble", as the newspaper put it, but the cemetery has a record of an infant born to her at the same time who also did not survive.  A sad fact of life in those days.  Her own mother, Eliza McGarr, may have suffered the same fate.  Her death came two years after Mary's birth, just when a new baby might have been expected to join the family.

     One of the many things I really love about doing family research is the fascinating history that comes with it.  I have learned so much about Irish and American history while seeking my own personal history.  And now a small bit of Native American history as well.

     

He's not Obezaun's father, but he's pretty handsome so I included his picture