Morning (White) Mancill is currently protected by the Native Americans Project for reasons described below. Join: Native Americans Project Discuss: native_americans
Due to family tradition about her being a Native American and if so, which tribe, this profile is being tracked and co-managed by WikiTree's Native Americans Project.
The earliest (and only documented?) mention yet found of her is a 1904 biographical sketch of a grandson, Dr. Alexander Sherman Palmer, which identifies his mother as Morning D. [Dizenia] Mansell, and her parents as William and Morning (White) Mansell.[1] Note that there is no reference to Morning being Native American. Nor inclusion of the middle name "Dove" or "Flower."
Per the 1880 and 1900 census records, daughter Morning Dizenia lists the birth place of both her parents as South Carolina.[2][3]
See Research Notes below that find Mansell, White and Dove families living in Fairfield, South Carolina in 1790. Researcher Gloria Reid suggests that members of these three families moved together to Alabama.
Tradition, without source, claims she was the second wife (or unmarried partner) of William Mansell.
Some say they had three children, the eldest of whom was John Mansell, born in 1828, and Elvis's great-great grandfather.[citation needed]
Others say they had four children together, three of whom survived: John Mansell, Morning Dizenia Mansell, James J Mansell.[4]
Julian Riley has introduced the following theory without citing any evidence (see comments below): "William Mansell had a friend Moses Purser who had moved to Marion County, Alabama with his new wife Maphy Arnett White and her daughter, Mourning White, William and Mourning were never married, because William was already married. William and Mourning had 3 and maybe 4 children. William had 2 sets of children in Marion County, Alabama at the same time. William and Mourning are the parents of John B. Mansell."
Both Whites and Pursers lived in Marion, Alabama in 1850-- right next to each other. This is, of course, a century later.[5]
Morning supposedly passed away in 1835, likely in Alabama, and is possibly buried at the Old Manscill Cemetery.[6]
Research Notes
NEW [Sep 2023]: Consider researching the 1790-1820 censuses for White and Manscill (var. spellings) families in Fairfield County, South Carolina.
Note that there were two Dove families in Fairfield, SC as well-- Benjamin Sr and Benjamin Jr. (enumerated adjacent to each other).[10]
Disputed Origins
A previous version of this profile claimed that Morning White was a) a full-blooded Cherokee, and b) that "Dove" and/or "Flower" was part of her name. However:
"None of the people listed in the genealogy for Elvis' mother have any connection to the Cherokee:
No one in the Mansell family lived with or near the Cherokee.
There is no one named "White" or "Mansell/Mancill" on the 1835 Cherokee census.[11]
There does not appear to be documentation for any marriage for William Mansell/Manscill, the ancestor with the supposed Cherokee wife.
William Mansell is found on the 1840 census in Marion County, Alabama with a wife and children, all listed as white. [12]
but we have found evidence that he was alive as late as 1855 when a man by his name in the same county applied for a land grant based on military service.[14]
No one in this family appears on the Siler/Chapman rolls from 1851 of Cherokee East of the Mississippi and it does not appear that anyone in this family applied for a share of the Eastern Cherokee payment in 1907. Both the 1851 and 1907 rolls involved money, so people were quite eager to sign up and get their share."[15]
One researcher claims that the Mansell line goes back to colonial Massachusetts and that the Native origins go back multiple generations earlier than this Morning White. While original records are referenced, the author makes leaps in conclusions several times.[16]
If Morning was Native American at all (and there appears to be no evidence that she was), she was not Cherokee.
Other Disputed Claims
Other unconfirmed claims include:
The appellation "White" in Morning's name has been claimed to refer to her status as a "friendly Indian."[17] and that early American settlers called peaceable Natives "white," while "red" was the designation for warring Indians or those who sided with the British in the Revolutionary War. There is no historical documentation that supports this claim.
In the Cherokee political system, villages had a "white" or peace chief, the head man. If needed, someone else was chosen as the "red" or war leader.[15]
William Mansell, after fighting with Andrew Jackson in the Indian Wars of the early nineteenth century, returned (?) to Tennessee from the Indian Wars, and married Morning White Dove.[citation needed]
We find no evidence that William served in any war. Kathie Forbes scoured pages of War of 1812/ Horseshoe Bend and Flordia Indian Wars service records and found no Mansell with any spelling.
Moreover, added to Elvis's lineage were Morning's supposed Indian complexion and fine line of cheek. There is no known photograph or other image of her made in her life time.
"The inaugural Native American Music Awards, Graceland confirmed Elvis Presley's Native American heritage"[18]
The prominent early Indian tribes in Tennessee were the Cherokee and the Chickasaw.[19] where William Mansell may have been an early American settler. (William was in Tennessee in 1818 when he volunteered to fight in the Seminole war. See his profile for details.)
Some claim that photos on her findagrave memorial indicate she was a Native American, but also note that no tribe is indicated. However, given the part of Alabama she was supposedly born it (others say she was born in the Carolinas), Chickasaw would be a good guess if she was Native American at all.
Descendants who have taken DNA reveal no evidence of Native American DNA.[citation needed]
Sources
↑ Joel Campbell Du Bose, Notable Men of Alabama, Atlanta, GA: Southern Historical Society (1904), volume II, p 381
↑ Julian Carl Riley, Roots Of Elvis (Tribal Pages website); requires membership to see details. BETTER SOURCE SOUGHT; NOTE: This theory is not included in Riley's 2010 book by the same title.
↑ 1835 Cherokee Census. Transcript, Oklahoma Chapter, Trail of Tears Association, Park Hill Oklahoma, 2002.
↑ "United States Census, 1840", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHB4-JV6 : Thu Jul 20 19:33:45 UTC 2023), Entry for W Mansel, 1840. 1 male 40-49, 1 female 30-39, 4 children aged 5-14
↑ Unsourced memorial (no grave or marker) Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/18135912/william-a-mansell: accessed 11 November 2022), memorial page for William A. Mansell (1795–1842), Find a Grave Memorial ID 18135912, citing Old Manscill Cemetery, Marion County, Alabama, USA; Maintained by Donna Goble (contributor 46804857) .
↑ Add citation for 2002 manuscript found at DAR library
↑ 15.015.1 Research of Kathie Forbes posted to Wikitree G2G Forum 7 Dec 2019; see this G2G thread.
↑ Jim Farmer, "Edward Mansell: An Indian Connection for Elvis Presley," Pioneers Along Southern Trails (blog), dates Friday, September 4, 2015; Edward Mansell
↑ Stated without source in Manataka American Indian Council web site (archive.org copy from 2018). Organization is no longer online or in existence as of Jan 2022 at least. Not reliable.
DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Morning by comparing test results with other carriers of her mitochondrial DNA.
However, there are no known mtDNA test-takers in her direct maternal line.
It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Morning:
My name is Deborah Huddleston, my father is coy Lee Huddleston, his mother is Lillie cumi Palmer, her father is Henry Sherman Palmer, his father is George flowers Palmer, his mother is morning dove dizenia mansell, her mother was morning dove white and father was William mansell. Weather they were or were not legally married doesn't mean that children were not produced. My grandparents and their grandparents claimed Cherokee descent. You gotta realize that not every native wanted to give up their land and be forced to move to Oklahoma just because land and money was being offered by the government. Not everybody wants to be a sell out. When the Cherokee were being relocated,a lot of them hid in Tennessee, and some were eventually caught and made to walk the trail of tears to Oklahoma. Why would morning dove leave if she was married to a white man, who had been a soldier and could offer her protection from the persecution her people were enduring. I believe that her name is not included in the Dawes rolls because she wasn't about to give everything up to go to infertile lands with suffering for her people. Morning dove and William mansell end up going to Alabama when he claims a large parcel of land. The claim was submitted through the Pikeville courthouse. All documents claim morning dove as his full blooded Cherokee wife. His land claim number was T9R16s13. In the Mormon family history center, they are documented as husband and wife under reference #5025795 pg 7. My grandparents claimed and had pride in their heritage.
If you have documents that show that Morning White was Cherokee, please share them here. The family does not appear on the 1835 Cherokee Census, and apparently she died not long after then, before the Trail of Tears. The county that the Mansells lived in in Alabama was land that was taken from the Chickasaw Indians in 1816.
William Mansell had a friend Moses Purser who had moved to Marion County, Alabama with his new wife Maphy Arnett White and her daughter, Mourning White, William and Mourning were never married, because William was already married. William and Mourning had 3 and maybe 4 children. William had 2 sets of children in Marion County, Alabama at the same time. William and Mourning are the parents of John B. Mansell. I have DNA from Wilber Mansell, Great Great grandson of John B. Mansell, and it shows no native American blood. I have DNA from every line connected to Elvis Presley. Much is not what people believe.
We concur about the Native American claims, but what is your source that a) William had children by Mourning White while married to (Elender?), and b) that Mourning was daughter of Maphy Arnett White and step daughter of Moses Purser?
This is a theory I have not yet seen.
Have you determined which set of children go with which mother?
And I see that wikitree has a profile for Moses Purser and his wife but that one claims Mourning was the mother not daughter of Maphy and doesn't refer to a maiden name Arnett. It also repeats the Native theory.
James Joel Palmer is from Marion County, Alabama. His great great grandparents were William Mansell and Morning White. If she had native American blood , so should he. William Mansell was not married to Morning White. He already had a wife and children living in Marion County, Alabama. I have written a book ROOTS OF ELVIS PRESLEY.
Thanks, Julian. My understanding about your book is that it focuses on the Presley side of the tree, not the Mansell side. Is that inaccurate?
Regarding your comment about the wife in Marion Co., Alabama: Are you referring to Elender?
We are basing Morning White [not a Native American] as an additional (earlier?) wife on the 1904 biographical sketch of a grandson, Dr. Alexander Sherman Palmer, which identifies his mother as Morning D. [Dizenia] Mansell, and her parents as William and Morning (White) Mansell.
All that said, I am finding all these Mansell generations (especially pre-1850 ones) very difficult to tease apart/correctly group.
p.s. I hope the profile narrative above makes it clear that we do not think Morning White was Native American. What we try to do here is acknowledge that there is a family tradition, while at the same time pointing out the lack of documentary evidence for it.
The story about Elvis Presley's connection to native Americans started in the Book Gladys and Elvis. Roy Turner interviewed Joal Palmer in Hamilton, Alabama. Mr. Palmer told Roy the story and Roy published the story. I never believed the story because no Indian ever named his child Morning White Dove. That sounds like a Saturday afternoon western. I ask Roy about the story and he said he believed family stories to be true. I drove to Hamilton and found Joal Palmer and filmed his answers. He said his grandparents were dark and they thought they were native American. That is all there is. DNA from Wilber Mansell shows no native American blood. The story of Elvis having Jewish blood also came from Roy Turner. That story is not true. DNA from Lowery Tackett shows no Jewish blood. I have been for 10 years to find a child of Elvis, Vernon Presley, or Jessie D. Presley. So far nothing.
Thanks, Julian. How is Joel Palmer connected to the Mansells? Did you ever publish or otherwise share your interview? May I incorporate your comment into the narrative?
I think there might actually be a “Morning Flowers” in the mix, she shows up in trees as the mother of William who married Morning White, but of course is not documented! She would be much older than either of these two profiles, a previous generation.
Flowers-1896 and White-7956 appear to represent the same person because: Represents the mother of Morning Disenzia Mansell (who is also being merged) and husband of William Mansell. Only known documented last name is WHITE (not FLOWERS). Source: Joel Campbell DuBose, Notable Men of Alabama, Vol II, p 381.
As far as the role of women, and women staying with the Cherokee, first of all, a Cherokee wife was only an asset to a white man while he lived in her community. A non-white spouse in a white community in the South was not an asset. Theda Purdue's "Cherokee Women" is an excellent book for understanding the role of women in Cherokee culture and Cherokee concepts of "marriage." Quoting Purdue, "The only permanent members of a household were the women. Husbands were outsiders; they were not kinsmen... The absence of kinship ties was a distinct liability in Cherokee society.... Hostility to early traders probably stemmed from the Europeans' lack of relatives and place in the social structure." pp. 43, 48, 49
People just make this stuff up, sometimes based on some tidbit of actual information. In the Cherokee political system, villages had a "white" or peace chief, the head man. If needed, someone else was chosen as the "red" or war leader. Whether this is the source of the statements on this profile I don't know.
Thanks, Kathie. What would you recommend as the best books or other sources for understanding the history of the Cherokee as well as their practices? I'd like to read more about the unlikelihood that a Cherokee woman would not leave her tribe to join a white mate. I was also struck by the "red" vs "white" Cherokee or other Native Americans. I wonder where THAT originated?
I would recommend these books but thats just me. "Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change, 1700-1835" by Theda Perdue a professor at the University of North Carolina.
The Cherokee were pushed out of South Carolina before the Revolutionary War. If Mourning Flowers or Mourning Dove White was Cherokee, her white husband would have been living with her in the Cherokee Nation. Mourning was a common name for white women in the 18th century. Cherokee people had Cherokee names, and the Cherokee language does not have an R sound. That is just complete hogwash about any Cherokee being called White because they were friendly to settlers. The only early Cherokee names with White in them are Whitepath, White Tobacco, and Whitemankiller. Basically,, people will believe anything about Elvis.
I did see some claims that the Mansells (var spellings) were In South Carolina census records prior to going west to Tennessee and Alabama. Is that perhaps the source of the Cherokee origins?
I was amazed not to find any analysis / criticism of this heritage (including concern about both a Mo[u]rning Flowers and a Mo[u]rning Dove). But it looks like the same text is being repeated across the Internet and not just on trees but in articles. Trying to track the oldest source for the claims.
There is zero documentation that this woman ever existed. No evidence that the Mansells/Mancills ever lived with or near any Cherokee; they lived in southern Alabama, land taken from the Creeks and Choctaw, and supposedly in western Tennessee, former Chickasaw lands. No one in this family appears on the 1851 censuses of Cherokee East of the Mississippi, or on applications for the Eastern Cherokee payment in 1907.
Stories say William Mancill fought at Horseshoe Bend but he appears on none of the rolls of American soldiers or Cherokee there.
This person, if she existed at all, might be either a daughter, cousin, or niece of my Media White. I do connect with Elvis, but through his Presley side, back to an Andreas Preslar.
In this article, she is called Mourning Flowers, not Mourning Dove. It also indicates she was born in what is now South Carolina, and that she was Cherokee.
edited by Kathie (Parks) Forbes
Regarding the supposed land claim, No. T9-R16-S13, there is no record of this claim at the BLM. Claims for this area were filed at Huntsville. All 1830’s claims for “Mansell” or similar are in far southern Alabama. Marion Township 9, R16, section 13 was registered to four men named Kilgore, Moss, Stanphill, and Still between 1842 and 1847. https://glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=MS2940__.276&docClass=STA&sid=l2kyeknu.wie#patentDetailsTabIndex=2
This is a theory I have not yet seen.
Have you determined which set of children go with which mother?
See https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/White-45261
Regarding your comment about the wife in Marion Co., Alabama: Are you referring to Elender?
We are basing Morning White [not a Native American] as an additional (earlier?) wife on the 1904 biographical sketch of a grandson, Dr. Alexander Sherman Palmer, which identifies his mother as Morning D. [Dizenia] Mansell, and her parents as William and Morning (White) Mansell.
All that said, I am finding all these Mansell generations (especially pre-1850 ones) very difficult to tease apart/correctly group.
https://www.wikitree.com/g2g/982332/elvis-ancestry-who-were-the-parents-of-john-mansell
https://www.amazon.com/Cherokee-Women-Culture-1700-1835-Southeast/dp/0803287607
"Cherokee Women In Crisis: Trail of Tears, Civil War, and Allotment, 1838-1907" by Carolyn Ross Johnston https://www.amazon.com/Cherokee-Women-Crisis-Allotment-Contemporary/dp/081735056X/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1291860288&sr=1-1-fkmr0
edited by Casey Dennis
I was amazed not to find any analysis / criticism of this heritage (including concern about both a Mo[u]rning Flowers and a Mo[u]rning Dove). But it looks like the same text is being repeated across the Internet and not just on trees but in articles. Trying to track the oldest source for the claims.
Stories say William Mancill fought at Horseshoe Bend but he appears on none of the rolls of American soldiers or Cherokee there.
https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4211189_00213?pId=11907700 if you flip to the next page.... https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4211189_00214?pId=11907700 You see Benj Mansel (who is believed to be Hannah's brother) on that page. Both from NC. A few pages down you find James Mansel, age close to James J Mansel, son of William https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4211189_00216?pId=11907700 This is the only document I have ever seen with Elender. Both Hannah and Benjamin are the assumed children of Elender and William Mansell. I am from the Kimery line and Hannah was my 3x G Grandmother. The links are census on Ancestry, so I hope they open for you. If not, they are the 1960 census form in Marion County, Alabama. I found these while looking for clues to my Donaldson line. Hannah's daughter Amanda (Mandy) Kimery married my 2x G Grandfather Wiley Baxter Donaldson.
https://www.andalusiastarnews.com/2017/11/11/mancill-ancestor-settled-early-in-sanford-community/
And that article appears to be derived from a book called The heritage of Covington County, Alabama, which is only available in print.