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Wilson-42454 Sandbox

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I adopted https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Bunch-2375&errcode=adopt_ok


NANCY

I don't like the way the profile looks. It's all over the place. I've even found information said twice but in different locations. I think we need to work on it. I received a notice that a member changed the way I had our book references done. I don't care but I wanted to check with you. When I reference a book I follow the examples given on the edit page which are from Evidence Explained which is what I "think" we're all supposed to be using...or tying to lol. We can leave it or put it back. It's up to you.

We need to figure out how Hugh Gwynn got John and from where. IF John was one of the 1619 1st blacks in Va brought in from the West Indies (see my work below) then don't you think we need to change the whole Scottish reference starting with Bunch-40. They can't be from Scotland if he's from Africa. According to all the Ancestry articles there was another John Punch that appears to have been from Scotland. See Appendix B on the Maternal Article.

Take a look down below where I did the original skeleton. I added a WT profiles skeleton. Hope this can help sort out the mess.


Lucy - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Abney-525 Slave list


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Biography

This profile is part of the Bunch Name Study.
U.S. Southern Colonies Project logo
... ... ... was a Virginia colonist.

John Punch (fl. 1630s, living 1640) was an indentured African who lived in the Colony of Virginia during the seventeenth century. John Punch crossed the ocean by ship with indentured European men.[1][2] In July 1640, the Virginia Governor’s Council sentenced him to serve for the remainder of his life as punishment for running away to Maryland. In contrast, two European men who ran away with him were sentenced to longer indentures, but not the permanent loss of their freedom. For this reason, historians consider John Punch the “first official slave in the English colonies,”[3] and his case as the "first legal sanctioning of lifelong slavery in the Chesapeake."[1] Historians also consider this to be one of the first legal distinctions between Europeans and Africans made in the colony, [4] and a key milestone in the development of the institution of slavery in the United States.[2]

In July 2012, Ancestry.com published a paper suggesting that John Punch was an eleventh-generation grandfather of President Barack Obama on his mother’s side, on the basis of historic and genealogical research and Y-DNA analysis.[5][6] Punch’s descendants were known by the Bunch or Bunche surname. Punch is believed to be one of the paternal ancestors of the 20th-century American diplomat Ralph Bunche, the first African American to win the Nobel Peace Prize.[7]


Life

John Punch was a servant of Virginia planter Hugh Gwyn, a wealthy landowner, a justice, and a member of the House of Burgesses, representing Charles River County, which would become York County in 1642.[8] In 1640, Punch ran away to Maryland accompanied by two of Gwyn’s European indentured servants. All three were caught and returned to Virginia. On 9 July, the Virginia Governor’s Council, which served as the colony’s highest court, sentenced both Europeans to have their terms of indenture extended by another four years each. However, they sentenced Punch to a life of servitude. In addition, the council sentenced the three men to thirty lashes each.[9]

Court Transcripts[10]
June 4, 1640.
Upon the petition of Hugh Gwyn gen wherein he complained to this board of three of her fercants that are run away to Maryland to his much lofs and p'judice and wherein he hath humbly requefted the board that he may have libery to make [10] the fale or benifit of the faid fervants in the faid Maryland which the Court taking into Confideration and weighing the dangerous confequences of fuch p'nicious p'cident do order that a letter be written unto the faid Governour to the intent of faid fervants may be returned hither to receive fuch exemplary and condign punifhment as the nature of their offence fhall juftly deferve and then to be returned to their faid mafter.
9th of July, 1640.
[11]
Whereas Hugh Gwyn hath by order from this Board Brough back from Maryland three fervants formerly run away from the faid Gwyn, the court doth therefore order that the faid three fervants fhall receive the punifhment of whipping and to have thirty ftripes apiece one called Victor, a dutchman, the other a Scotchman called James Gregory, fhall firft ferve out their times with their mafter according to their Indentures, and one whole year apiece after the time of their fervice is Expired. By their faid Indentures in recompenfe of his Lofs fuftained by their abfence and after that fervice to their faid mafter is Expired to ferve the colony for three whole years apiece, and that the third being a negro named John Punch fhall ferve his faid mafter or his affigns for the time of his natural Life here or elfewhere.

Three different sources are cited in a 2012 article written by Jeffrey B. Perry, in which he quotes Ancestry.com, stating "only one surviving [written] account... certainly pertains to John Punch’s life..., a paragraph from the Journal of the Executive Council of Colonial Virginia, dated July 9, 1640."[12][13]
INDENTURED STATUS

The transformation from indentured servitude (servants contracted to work for a set amount of time) to racial slavery didn't happen overnight. There are no laws regarding slavery early in Virginia's history. In Virginia court records prior to 1661 the negroes are called negro servants or merely negroes - never, as it appears, definitely slaves.[14]

John H. Russell defined slavery in his book The Free Negro In Virginia, 1619-1865:

The difference between a servant and a slave is elementary and fundamental. The loss of liberty to the servant was temporary; the bondage of the slave was perpetual. It is the distinction made by Beverly in 1705 when he wrote, "They are called Slaves in respect of the time of their Servitude, because it is for Life." Wherever, according to the customs and laws of the colony, negroes were regarded and held as servants without a future right to freedom, there we should find the beginning of slavery in that colony.[15]

Three matters were decided by the Virginia Governor’s Council from 04 June 1640 through 09 July 1640. Historians have noted that John Punch ceased being an indentured servant and was condemned to slavery, as he was sentenced to "serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life."[11] Edgar Toppin states that "Punch, in effect, became a slave under this ruling."[16] Leon A. Higginbotham said, "Thus, although he committed the same crime as the Dutchman and the Scotsman, John Punch, a black man, was sentenced to a lifetime of slavery,"[17] Winthrop Jordan also described this court ruling as "...the first definite indication of outright enslavement appears in Virginia... the third being a negro named John Punch shall serve his said master or his assigns for the time of his natural life here or elsewhere."[18]

Theodore W. Allen notes that the court’s "being a negro" justification made no explicit reference to precedent in English or Virginia common law, and suggests that the court members may have been aware of common law that held a Christian could not enslave a Christian (with Punch being presumed to be a non-Christian, unlike his accomplices), wary of the diplomatic friction that would come of enslaving non-English Europeans, and possibly hopeful of replicating the lifetime indentures of African slaves held in the Caribbean and South American colonies.[19]

Significance

In his A Biographical History of Blacks in America since 1528 (1971), Toppin explains the importance of Punch’s case in the legal history of Virginia: “Thus, the black man, John Punch, became a slave unlike the two white indentured servants who merely had to serve a longer-term. This was the first known case in Virginia involving slavery.”[16] It was significant because it was documented.[16]

The National Park Service, in a history of Jamestown, notes that while it was a "customary practice to hold some Negroes in a form of life service," Punch was the "first documented slave for life."[20]

Other historians have also emphasized the importance of this court decision as being one to establish a legal acceptance of slavery. John Donoghue said, "This can be interpreted as the first legal sanctioning of lifelong slavery in the Chesapeake."[1] Historians consider this difference in penalties to mark the case as one of the first to make a racial distinction between black and white indentured servants.[11]

Tom Costa in his article, "Runaway Slaves and Servants in Colonial Virginia," says, "Scholars have argued that this decision represents the first legal distinction between Europeans and Africans to be made by Virginia courts."[21]

Some historians have speculated that Punch may never have been an indentured servant. In his 1913 study of free negroes in Virginia, John Henderson Russell points out that the court decision was ambiguous. If Punch was not a servant with future prospects of freedom, his sentencing was less harsh than his white accomplices. If Punch was a servant, then his punishment was much more severe than that of his white accomplices. But Russell states that the "most reasonable explanation" was that the Dutchman and the Scot, being white, were given only four additional years on top of their remaining terms of the indenture, while Punch, "being a negro, was reduced from his former condition of servitude for a limited time to a condition of slavery for life."[15] Russell noted that the court did not refer to an indentured contract related to Punch, but notes that he was a "servant," and it was most reasonable that he was a limited-term servant (of some sort) before he was sentenced to "slavery for life."[15]

In the same 2012 article referenced above, Perry says that the court ruling specifically refers to the indentured contracts of Viktor and James Gregory and extends them, while the court decision refers to John Punch only as a servant. Perry adds, "What is likely is that Punch was previously subjected to limited-term chattel bond servitude" and says that "in Virginia chattelization was imposed on free laborers, tenants, and bond-servants increasingly after 1622, that it was imposed on both European and African descended laborers, that it was a qualitative a break from English labor law, and that the chattelization of plantation labor constituted an essential precondition of the emergence of the subsequent lifetime chattel bond-servitude imposed on African American laborers in continental Anglo-America under the system of racial slavery and racial oppression."[22]

Descendants

Drawing on a combination of historical documents and Y-DNA analysis, Ancestry.com stated in July 2012 that there is a strong likelihood that United States President Barack Obama is an eleventh-great-grandson of Punch through his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.[6][23]

Genealogical research indicates that some time in the the 1630s, Punch married a white woman, likely also an indentured servant. By 1637 he had fathered a son called John Bunch (labeled by genealogists as “John Bunch I”). While researchers cannot definitively prove that Punch was the father of Bunch, he is the only known African man of that time and place who is a possible progenitor. Punch and his wife are known as the first black and white couple in the colonies who left traceable descendants.[9] It remains possible that the father of Bunch was another African, of whom there is no record, but the similarity of the names would still need to be explained. Due to some challenges by racially mixed children of Englishmen to being enslaved, in 1662 the Virginia colony incorporated the principle of partus sequitur ventrem into slave law. This law held that children in the colonies were born into the status of their mothers; therefore, children of slave mothers were born into slavery, regardless of whether their fathers were free and English or European. In this way, slavery was made a racial caste associated with people of African ancestry. The law overturned the English common law applicable to the children of two English subjects in England, in which the father’s social status determined that of the child.[24]

At the same time, this law meant that racially mixed children of white women were born into their mother’s free status. Paul Heinegg, in his Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware found that most families of free blacks in the 1790-1810 U.S. censuses could be traced to children of white women and black men, whether free, indentured servant, or slaves, in colonial Virginia. Their children were born free and the families were established as free before the Revolution.

Punch’s male descendants probably became known by the surname Bunch, a very rare name among colonial families. Before 1640, there were fewer than 100 African men in Virginia, and John Punch was the only one with a surname similar to Bunch.[8] The Bunch descendants were free blacks who became successful landowners in Virginia. Some lines eventually assimilated as white, after generations of marrying white.

In September 1705 a man referred to by researchers as John Bunch III petitioned the General Court of Virginia for permission to publish banns for his marriage to Sarah Slayden, a white woman. Their minister had refused to publish the banns. (There had been a ban on marriages between Negroes and whites, but Bunch posed a challenge, as he was apparently the son of a white woman, with only a degree of African ancestry. At the time, mulatto meant a person of half Negro and half white ancestry.)[8] This John Bunch appealed the denial to the General Court of Virginia. The decision of the the court is unknown, but in October 1705 the General Court of Virginia issued a statute expanding the use of the term "mulatto." The court said a mulatto was someone who was a "child, grandchild, or great-grandchild of a black or Native American."[8]

In the early nineteenth century, racially mixed people of less than one-eighth African or North American ancestry (equivalent to one great-grandparent) were considered legally white. Many racially mixed people lived as white in frontier areas, where they were treated in accordance with their community and fulfillment of citizen obligations.[7][25] This was a looser definition than that established in 1924, when Virginia adopted the "one-drop rule" under its Racial Integrity Act, which defined as black anyone with any known black ancestry, no matter how limited.

Records do not show a marriage for John Bunch III, but the mother of one of his children was later noted as being named Rebecca. He had moved to Louisa County as part of the colonial westward migration to the frontiers of Virginia.[8]

Through continued intermarriage with white families in Virginia, the line of Obama’s maternal Bunch ancestors probably were identified as white as early as 1720.[9] Members of this line eventually migrated into Tennessee and ultimately to Kansas, where descendants included Obama’s maternal grandmother and his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham.[9] Another line of the Bunch family migrated to North Carolina, where they were classified in some records as mulatto. They intermarried with people of a variety of ethnic origins, including Europeans.[9]

The Bunch (sometimes spelled Bunche) family was established as free before the American Revolution. The Bunch surname lines also became associated with the core racially mixed families later known as Melungeon in Tennessee.[7]

Bunch family members also lived in South Carolina by the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Several members of the Bunch family from South Carolina were living in Detroit, Michigan by the 1900 and 1910 censuses,[7] as a result of moving in the Great Migration. Researcher Paul Heinegg, known for his genealogy work on free African Americans of the colonial and early federal periods,[26] believes that Fred Bunche was among those Bunch descendants from South Carolina, as people often migrated in related groups. His son Ralph Bunche, born in Detroit, earned a doctorate in political science and taught at the university level. He helped plan the United Nations, mediated in Israel, and later served as U.S. Minister to the United Nations, eventually being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.[7]

White House Press Briefing.
Q: Okay. And then ancestry.com says that President Obama may be related to the first documented African slave in pre-revolutionary America -- a guy named John Punch, who was an indentured servant, who was sentenced to a life of slavery after an unsuccessful escape attempt in pre-revolutionary Virginia. Is the President aware that ancestry.com has said this and does he have any reaction to it?
MR. CARNEY: I think that sort of came out yesterday and, as you know, I was traveling with my son. I haven't had that discussion with him. I have no idea if it's accurate. All I can tell you is it certainly reflects the remarkable nature of our country and the diversity within it. But again, I can't vouch for the findings.
Q: Can you ask him?
MR. CARNEY: I might. [27]
DNA

Y-DNA testing of direct male descendants of the Bunch family lines has revealed a common ancestry going back to a single male ancestor of sub-Saharan African ethnicity.[9][28] Genealogists believe this male ancestor to be John Punch, the African. He was probably born in present-day Cameroon in West Africa, where his particular type of DNA is most common.[9]

John Punch had been a servant of Humphrey and John Gwynn’s father, Hugh. The Gowen and Bunch families bear the same deep-clade yDNA, which means that their origins were from the same region of Africa. Given that there were so few African Americans in Virginia at that period, it may indicate that they traveled from Africa together. They continued to live and move together in the following centuries, from Virginia to the Carolinas, Tennessee, and beyond. Page 11
The DNA of the descendants, Lucy (Wilson) Robinson and Roberta (Mingledorff) Duvall, seem to support the Cameroon Ancestry supposition. Both have Cameroon DNA with Roberta having the most.

Research Notes

Heinegg believes that Bunche was descended from Bunch ancestors established as free blacks in Virginia before the American Revolution. There were men of the Bunch surname in South Carolina by the end of the 18th century. Quote: "Others [of Bunch Family] in South Carolina i. Lovet, head of a South Orangeburg District household of 8 "other free" in 1790 [SC:99]. He lived for a while in Robeson County, North Carolina, since "Lovec Bunches old field" was mentioned in the 1 March 1811 will of John Hammons [WB 1:125]. ii. Gib., a taxable "free negro" in the District between Broad and Catawba River, South Carolina, in 1784 [South Carolina Tax List 1783-1800, frame 37]. iii. Paul2, head of a Union District, South Carolina household of 6 "other free" in 1800 [SC:241]. iv. Henry4, head of a Newberry District, South Carolina household of 2 "other free" in 1800 [SC:66]. v. Ralph J., Nobel Peace Prize winner in 1950, probably descended from the South Carolina branch of the family, but this has not been proved. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, on 7 August 1904, son of Fred and Olive Bunche. The 1900 and 1910 census for Detroit lists several members of the Bunch family who were born in South Carolina, but Fred Bunch was not among them."[7]

It is unknown who he [Bunche?] was married to. The only information is that she was born about 1612 in Virginia.

Items to dig deeper into:

• Family of Barack Obama
• John Casor
• List of slaves


MY WORK

Context

The first African slaves are brought to Virginia in August of 1619 by Captain Jope in a Dutch ship that landed at Point Comfort with no supplies but twenty Negroes from the West Indies. Governor Yeardley and a merchant, Abraham Piersey, exchanged them for food and supplies to Captain Jope. These Africans become indentured servants like the white indentured servants who traded passage for servitude.[29][30] It's worth exploring further how Hugh Gwynn (abt.1600-abt.1654) actually acquired John and from whom. Gwynn was an early settler in Charles River county, subsequently York county, was a justice from 1641, and a burgess for York in 1639 and 1646. He patented lands at the mouth of the Pyanketank river in 1642.[31] [32]


      • See

https://genealogyadventures.net/2018/07/23/ghosts-in-the-dna-the-lost-diversity-of-early-colonial-virginia/amp/

Ghosts in the DNA: The lost diversity of early colonial Virginia. Brian Sheffey Brian Sheffey



September 1671 Act III was passed and was said to be for "the better discovery of what persons borne in this country are and ought to be accounted tythables." The owners and masters of all negro, mulatto, and Indian children had to give an accounting along with their had to be ages. It went on to say that all negro, and mulatto children, and slaves born in this country had to be registered, by their respective masters or owners in the parish register with their exact ages within twelve months of their birth. If they weren't the master or owner would have to pay a levy for them that year, and every other year until the register was made. It went on to say that all Negro women (free or not) born in this country would be tythable at the age of sixteen.[33]

It wasn't until November of 1862 with Act II that all Indian women servants above the age of 16 who were sold to the English would be tythable.[34]


October 3, 1670 at the assembly held at James City, Virginia Act 1 was created that declared who would be considered slaves. It said that all servants not being Christians, imported into this country by shipping would be slaves. If they came by land as boy and girls then they would serve until they thirty years of age. If they came as men or women they would serve for no more than twelve years. It specifically mentioned all Negroes, Moores, mullatos, and other born in "heathenish, idollatrous, pagan and mahometan parentage and country" may be purchased, procured, or otherwise obtained as slaves.[35]





However, their status as slaves or indentured servants remains unclear. Philip S. Foner pointed out the differing perceptions held by historians saying, "Some historians believe that slavery may have existed from the very first arrival of the Negro in 1619, but others are of the opinion that the institution did not develop until the 1660s and that the status of the Negro until then was that of an indentured servant. Still others believe that the evidence is too sketchy to permit any definite conclusion either way."[36]

Historian Alden T. Vaughan also recognizes differing opinions over when the institution of slavery started, but he says that most scholars agree that both free blacks and enslaved blacks were found in the Virginia colony by 1640. He notes, "On the first point--the status of blacks before the passage of the slave laws--the issue is not whether some were free or some were a slave. Almost everyone acknowledges the existence of both categories by the 1640s, if not from the beginning."[37]

1654 A Virginia court grants blacks the right to hold slaves.

The transformation from indentured servitude (servants contracted to work for a set amount of time) to racial slavery didn't happen overnight. There are no laws regarding slavery early in Virginia's history. In Virginia court records prior to 1661 the negroes are called negro servants or merely negroes - never, as it appears, definitely slaves.

A few Negroes attained freedom in early Virginia because the first comers, imported before definitive slavery was established, were dealt with as if they had been indentured servants. The status of most Negroes was that of servants; and they were identified and treated as such down to the 1660's.



The word, "slave" was, of course used occasionally but it had no meaning in English law. It was more significant in colloquial usage. It commonly described the servitude of children; so the poor planters complained, "Our children, the parents dieinge" are held as "slaues or drudges" for the discharge of their parents' debts. When domestic Negroes were occasionally called slaves it merely meant that they performed the most menial labor or occupied the lowest rung on society's ladder. In Europe and in the American colonies, the term slavery was, at various times and places, applied indiscriminately to Indians, mulattoes, and mestizos, as well as to Negroes. For that matter, it applied also to white Englishmen who were in penal or debtor servitude. Though used, the word had no meaning in law. It was a term of derogation that expressed contempt. True slavery came later in the century, racism still later.


The first negroes introduced into the North American Colonies, that is to say Virginia, do not seem to have been slaves in the strict sense of the term. If the term slavery can be used at all it is only in the sense of political as distinguished from domestic slavery. Though slavery by the Spanish was well known to the people of Virginia they tended to retain negroes only as a servant. This was largely due to the developing institution of servitude in colonial society. For social and moral reason it was preferable to any system of slavery, and particularly to that of negroes and Indians.

Servitude was first applied to whites and then to negroes and Indians. It began to receive legal definition as soon as colonial law became operative in 1619, at the very time the first negroes were imported. It was only natural that they should be absorbed into the growing system which was spreading to all of the colonies. Negro and Indian servitude thus preceded negro and Indian slavery, and together with white servitude in instances continued even after the institution of slavery was fully developed. Virginia was not the only colony in which this relationship existed. The negro and Indian servitude passed historically into slavery in most of the English-American colonies, if not all.


The status of Negroes was that of servant, and so they were identified and treated as such until the 1660's. It wasn't until the 1660's, with the development of large-scale plantation economy that the status of Negro servants began to deteriorate.

The two institutions of servitude and slavery continued to exist side by side. The hardening of the conditions of servitude migrated into those of slavery.

Servitude occupied a primary position in colonial development and was a product of customary law.


1640 The Virginia government at Jamestown passed statutes and codes in 1640 that differentiated between white indentured servants and blacks in permanent servitude.[38]


It wasn't until 1661 that a reference to slavery entered into Virginia law, and this law was directed at white servants; those who ran away with a black servant. Addition of time to the original service was the customary punishment inflicted upon servants for running away. Sentencing Punch, Victor, and Gregory to thirty lashes was considered a severe punishment even by the standards of 17th-century Virginia. Virginia passed Act CII called, "Run-aways", in March of 1661 which said "negroes are incapable of making satisfaction [for the time lost in running away] by addition of time." If a white person ran away with a negro he not only had to serve his additional time but that of the negro's.[39] This legislative phrasing was used in part to move negroes from servitude into slavery. The following year, in December 1662 the colony went one step further with Act XII which stated that children born would be bonded or free according to the status of their mother. The only mention of race is in regards to the child "gotten by an Englishman upon a Negro woman". The law went on to say that any Christian fornicating with a Negro man or woman would receive double the fines imposed by the former act.[40]



Virginia was not the first to sanction domestic slavery, but rather the third preceded by Massachusetts in 1641, and Connecticut in 1650. Prior to these dates the legal status of all subject negroes was that of servants, and their rights and duties were regulated by legislation that was the same as, or similar to white servants.



The first African slaves were brought to Virginia in August of 1619 by Captain Jope in a Dutch ship. Governor Yeardley and a merchant, Abraham Piersey, exchanged supplies for the twenty of them. These Africans become indentured servants like the white indentured servants who traded passage for servitude.[41] A report from John Rolfe to Edwin Sandys on Jan 1619/20 described the event.[42]



1629 Commerce and land accumulation begin to create greater social and economic disparities in Virginia colony. Merchants increase their connections with London and trade in indentured servants, slaves, and tobacco. Headrights award fifty acres of land per person to the individual responsible for bringing freemen, indentured servants, or slaves into the colony. Estate owners accumulate additional land through the purchase of headrights, and a thriving commerce in them arises.[43]




1640 The Virginia government at Jamestown passes statutes and codes that differentiate between white indentured servants and blacks in permanent servitude. By the 1680s, permanent servitude has become even more identified with race.[44]

1699 Parliament opens the slave trade to British merchants, and the number of Africans brought to the colony begins to increase dramatically. Sugar and molasses are shipped from the West Indies to New England where they are distilled into rum. In West Africa, rum is traded for slaves, who are taken usually to the West Indies. This triangular trade becomes a mainstay of the American colonies.[44]



Oscar and Mary F. Handlin. “Origins of the Southern Labor System.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol. 7, no. 2, Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1950, pp. 199–222, https://doi.org/10.2307/1917157. p 203


People & Events. Virginia Recognizes slavery 1661-1663. PBS Online


Vaughan, Alden T. “The Origins Debate: Slavery and Racism in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 97, no. 3, Virginia Historical Society, 1989, pp. 311–54, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4249092.

Ballagh, James C . A History of slavery in Virginia. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1902. Internet Archive Page 28-115.


Sources

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 John Donoghue, “Out of the Land of Bondage”: The English Revolution and the Atlantic Origins of Abolition, The American Historical Review, Volume 115, Issue 4, October 2010, Pages 943–974. Available for Download
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Finkelman, Paul. Slavery in the Courtroom: An Annotated Bibliography of American Cases. Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1949. Page 3. Available at the Internet Archive
  3. ↑ Coates, Rodney D. “Law and the Cultural Production of Race and Racialized Systems of Oppression: Early American Court Cases.” American Behavioral Scientist. Volume 47, Issue 3, November 2003, Page 333. Paper Available Online.
  4. ↑ Tom Costa, Runaway Slaves and Servants in Colonial Virginia, (Charlottesville, VA: Encyclopedia Virginia, 2011) https://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Runaway_Slaves_and_Servants_in_Colonial_Virginia Virginia Humanities]
  5. ↑ Bill Pante, "Surprising link found In Obama's family tree," CBS News, July 30, 2012. CBS News
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Sheryl Gay Stolberg, "Obama Has Ties to Slavery Not by His Father but His Mother, Research Suggests," New York Times, July 30, 2012. NY Times
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Paul Heinegg, Free African Americans in Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware, 1995-2000, Free African Americans - Bunch Family
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 8.4 Paul C. Reed, FASG; Natalie D. Cottrill, MA; Joseph B. Shumway, AG, Professional Genealogists; Anastasia Harman, Lead Family Historian, "Descent of the Bunch Family in Virginia and the Carolinas," (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com., 15 July 2012) Read at Internet Archive
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 Anastasia Harman, Paul C. Reed, Natalie D. Cottrill, Joseph Shumway, "Documenting President Barack Obama’s maternal African-American ancestry: tracing his mother’s Bunch ancestry to the first slave in America," (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 16 July 2012) Read at Internet Archive.
  10. ↑ McIlwaine, H. R. (Henry Read), 1864-1934 editor. Minutes of the Council and General court of colonial Virginia, 1622-1632, 1670-1676, with notes and excerpts from original Council and General court records, into 1683, now lost. Richmond, VA: The Colonial Press, Everett Waddey Company, 1924. Page 466. Internet Archive
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Helen Tunnicliff Catterall, Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, Volumes 1 - 5, (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1926) p. 93. Read Online
  12. ↑ Jeffrey B. Perry, "There’s No Basis for the Claims that John Punch was 'Indentured' -- Or That His Fellow Escapees Were White" (August 6, 2012) Blog
  13. ↑ Pearl Duncan, "John Punch Wasn't the First Slave in America -- Just the First Slave in the English Colonies," History News Network, August 6, 2012. History News Network
  14. ↑ Ulrich Bonnell Phillips. Life and Labor in the Old South. Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company. 1929. Page 170. Internet Archive
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 John Henderson Russell, The Free Negro In Virginia, 1619-1865 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1913) pp. 29-30. Read at Internet Archive
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Edgar A. Toppin, A Biographical History of Blacks in America Since 1528 (New York, NY: David McKay Company Inc., 1971) p. 37.
  17. ↑ A. Leon Higginbotham, In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period (Westwood, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978)
  18. ↑ Jordan Winthrop, White Over Black: American attitudes toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1968) p. 75. Limited View
  19. ↑ Theodore W. Allen, "Summary of the Argument of The Invention of the White Race," Cultural Logic, 1998. Available for download
  20. ↑ "African Americans at Jamestown," Jamestown: History and Culture, National Park Service, Historic Jamestowne
  21. ↑ Tom Costa, "Runaway Slaves and Servants in Colonial Virginia," Encyclopedia Virginia, (Virginia Humanities in partnership with Library of Congress, 2011) Virginia Humanities
  22. ↑ Jeffrey B. Perry, "There's No Basis for the Claims That John Punch Was ‘Indentured’ -- Or That His Fellow Escapees Were ‘White," History News Network, June 8, 2012. History News Network
  23. ↑ Kathleen Hennessey, Obama related to legendary Virginia slave, genealogists say, Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2012.
  24. ↑ Taunya Lovell Banks, "Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit - Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia," Akron Law Review #799 (2008). Digital Commons Law, University of Maryland Law School, Faculty Scholarship, Pub. 52. Digital Commons
  25. ↑ Ariela Gross, "Of Portuguese Origin: Litigating Identity and Citizenship among the 'Little Races’ in Nineteenth Century America," Law and History Review (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press for the American Society for Legal History, Fall 2007) Vol.25 (3). Archive.org
  26. ↑ Reed, "Descent of the Bunch Family in Virginia and the Carolinas," p. 6.
    Quote: “Heinegg has done an extraordinary job constructing the genealogies of free blacks and should be one of the first sources people check for African-American ancestry in the colonial period.”
  27. ↑ Daily Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, 7/31/12. James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. 12:46 P.M. EDT. Obama Press Conference.
  28. ↑ “Obama descends from first African enslaved for life in America” (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 08 October 2012) Blog
  29. ↑ Library of Congress. Digital Collections. Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606 to 1827. 1610 to 1619 The event described in records from John Rolfe to Edwin Sandys dated Jan 1619/20.
  30. ↑ Kingsbury, Susan Myra editor. The records of the Virginia Company of London. Library of Congress. Washington, DC: Government. Printing Office, 1906-1935. Image 267
  31. ↑ Tyler, Lyon Gardiner. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography. Volume I. Part IV - Burgesses And Other Prominent Persons. New York, NY: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915. Page 249. Read Online
  32. ↑ Encyclopedia Britannica. Old Point Comfort Point, Hampton, Virginia, United States. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Britannica
  33. ↑ Hening. Page 296.
  34. ↑ Hening. Page 492.
  35. ↑ Hening. Pages 490-491.
  36. ↑ Philip S. Foner, History of Black Americans: From Africa to the Emergence of the Cotton Kingdom (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1980)
  37. ↑ Vaughan, Alden T. “The Origins Debate: Slavery and Racism in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol. 97, no. 3. Montross, VA: Virginia Historical Society, 1989, pp. 311–54, Article
  38. ↑ Library of Congress. Digital Collections. Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606 to 1827. 1640-to-1699
  39. ↑ Hening. Page 26.
  40. ↑ Hening. Page 170.
  41. ↑ Library of Congress. Digital Collections. Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606 to 1827. Articles and Essays. Virginia Records Timeline: 1553 to 1743. 1610-to-1619
  42. ↑ Kingsbury, Susan Myra editor. The records of the Virginia Company of London, 1606-26, Volume III. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1906-1935. Library of Congress. Image 267
  43. ↑ Library of Congress. Digital Collections. Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606 to 1827. Articles and Essays. Virginia Records Timeline: 1553 to 1743. 1620-to-1629
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 Library of Congress. Digital Collections. Thomas Jefferson Papers, 1606 to 1827. Articles and Essays. Virginia Records Timeline: 1553 to 1743. 1640-to-1699

See also:

  • Allen, Theodore W., The Invention of the White Race. (2 volumes) The Origin of Racial Oppression in Anglo-America, vol., 2 (Brooklyn, NY: Verso Publishing, 1994). Download Available
  • Hening, William Waller. The Statutes at Large; A Collection Of All The Laws of Virginia From The First Session Of The Legislature, In The Year 1619. Volume II. New York, NY: R. & W. & G. Bartow, 1823.
  • “Slavery and Indentured Servants”, Law Library of Congress. Slavery
  • “The Bunch Y-DNA Project”, hosted by World Families.net (unsecure site)




Using the Family Skeleton (below) that I created from the Ancestry.com genealogy document I created this corresponding skeleton for this family's WikiTree Profiles.

BUNCH WIKITREE SKELETON


Generation 1
John Punch (abt.1612-abt.1683)
John Punch had been a servant of Humphrey and John Gwynn’s father, Hugh. The Gowen and Bunch families bear the same deep-clade yDNA, which means that their origins were from the same region of Africa. Given that there were so few African Americans in Virginia at that period, it may indicate that they traveled from Africa together. They continued to live and move together in the following centuries, from Virginia to the Carolinas, Tennessee, and beyond. Page 11
Generation 2
children of John Punch (abt.1612-abt.1683)
He died by 1704, It is possible that John Bunch I, as an aged man, could still have been holding on to 100 acres of land in New Kent County 1704, but he was not found in any records of York County during the intervening period, nor in records of St. Peter’s Parish that begin in 1684. The records of Blisland Parish do not survive before 1721. page 2. John obtained a patent in New Kent County on 18 March 1662/3, adjacent the land of Richard Barnhouse and not far from Blisland Church and Wahrani Creek. Virginia Land Patent Book 4, pages 351–52, FHL microfilm 29322; also available online, “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 4, pages 351-52, .tif image, http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/004/004_0366.tif, accessed 23 May 2012. AND Virginia Land Patent Book 4, page 95, FHL microfilm 29322; also available online, “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 4, page 95, .tif image, http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/004/004_0109.tif, accessed 28 May 2012.
Virginia Land Patent Book 4, page 33, FHL microfilm 29322; also available online at “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 4, page 33, .tif image http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/004/004_0047.tif, accessed 28 May 2012. Virginia Land Patent Book 3, page 193, FHL microfilm 29319; also available online, “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 3, Page 193, .tif image, http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/002-2/002_0622.tif, accessed 28 May 2012.
The name of John Bunch’s wife is not known, but the fact that his great-grandchildren were able to freely marry white neighbors suggests that she was white.
The fact that John Bunch I disappears from records of York County argues in favor of the conclusion that he moved to New Kent County after he improved his grant. Records of York County survive fairly intact for this period. No records survive for New Kent County at the level of the local court before 1800. page 11
Generation 3
children of John Bunch I (abt.1637-abt.1700) - wife unknown
Someone created a profile for Mary Bunch (1660-abt.1682) but she's not on the Ancestry Skeleton
Generation 4
children of Paul Bunch Sr (abt.1652-abt.1726)


children of John Bunch II (abt.1666-abt.1729), wife Mary (Gibson?)
  • John Bunch IIl (abt.1690-1742) (John4 Bunch III b abt 1680–85. d shortly before 14 March 1741/2 ***Is this profile the right man?? Dates don't match Ancestry document.


children of Henry Bunch Sr. (abt.1665-), wife unknown
  • Need the following created
  • Paul4 Bunch, born about 1690–95, intended to settle in Beaufort County, North Carolina, before his death, but died in 1741.
  • Julius4 Bunch, born about 1700–10,
  • Jesse4 Bunch, born by 1708
Generation 5
children of John B Bunch Sr (abt.1695-abt.1742), wife Mary (Gibson? Moved to SC
The people lately come into the Settlements having been sent for, I have had them before me in Council and upon Examination find that they are not Negroes nor Slaves but free People, that the Father of them here is named Gideon Gibson and his father was also free, and I have been informed by a person who has lived in Virginia that this Gibson has lived there Several Years in Good repute and by his papers that he has produced before me that his transactions there have been very regular, That he has for several years paid Taxes for two tracts of Land [in Hanover County—his two patents] and had seven Negroes of his own, That he is a Carpenter by Trade and is come hither for the support of his Family.
The account he has given of himself is so Satisfactory that he is no Vagabond that I have in Consideration of his Wife[’]s being a white woman and several white women capable of working and being Serviceable in the county permitted him to settle in this Country upon entering into Recognizance for his good behavior which I have taken accordingly Page 20. AND South Carolina, Deed Book Q-Q, pages 193–94 as cited in Clara A. Langley, South Carolina Deed Abstracts, 1719–1772, Vol. III, 1755–1768, Books QQ-H-3 (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1983), pages 6–7.
Gideon was taxed as a mulatto in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1755 (with the Collins and Gibson families). - 4 Heinegg, Free African Americans, vol. 1, page 221.
Need to create these profiles:
  • John5 Bunch, (John5/John4/Paul3/John2/John1) b abt 1710, was apparently an adult by 1735 when his parents gave him half their tract and the town lot in Amelia Township, Berkeley County, South Carolina. John had a grant of 250 acres on the Four Holes adjacent John Oliver on 18 January 1765. - Holcomb, South Carolina’s Royal Grants, Volume Two, page 90 (citing 11:712, plat certified 25 November 1764).
  • Naomi Bunch, b abt 1720–22
  • Paul Bunch, b abt 1720–25, married Amy [Naomi?] Winigum on 28 April 1648 in Orangeburg, South Carolina


children of John Bunch IIl (abt.1690-1742)
wife uncertain Rebecca? died 16 March 1770. Did he have children with Sarah Slayden?
  • Need to create this profile:
  • James5 Bunch, b abt 1724–25 (definitely bef1728) d testate in 1802, made his will 27 April 1795, wife Mary Bunch


children of Henry Bunch Jr. (abt.1690-abt.1775)


children of Shadrack Bunch (abt.1720-abt.1786) wife SARAH
Need to create these profiles:
  • William Bunch
  • Collen Bunch


Not created yet:
children of Paul Bunch, born about 1690–95
intended to settle in Beaufort County, North Carolina, before his death, but died in 1741.
  • Paul Bunch by 1720,


Not created yet:
'
children of Julius Bunch', born about 1700–10, wife Joana
  • Nazareth Bunch
  • Joshua Bunch
  • MAYBE Solomon Bunch and Julius Bunch Jr.


Possible children of Jesse Bunch (Jesse4/Henry3/John2/John1)
Shadrack & Ishmael Bunch
they fought together during the French and Indian War in a company of men from Chowan County commanded by Captain Lewis according to a list drawn up 25 November 1754. - 0 Clark, The State Records of North Carolina, Vol. XXII, vol. 22, pages 325–26
Generation 6
children of Gideon Bunch (abt.1715-abt.1804)
-Timothy W. Rackley, Granville County, North Carolina Tax Lists, 1747–1759 (Kernersville, North Carolina: by the author, 2003), page 8. Micajah and Liddy Bunch were taxed in Granville in the household of John Stroud (Rackley, Granville County, North Carolina Tax, page 44).
-Chowan County in 1746 (1 white), 1748 (2 whites and 6 blacks), 1750 (10 tithables), 1751 (8 tithables), 1753, 1765 (1 white, 5 black: Stephne, Tony, Stephne, Murrear, Patt), 1768 (1 white, 5 black: Jeny, Doll, Stephney, Mariah, Stephney), and 1770 (1 white, 6 black: Stepney, Stepney, Toney, Moriah, Doll, Grace). David Barrett and Janet Searles Barrett, Chowan County, North Carolina Tythables and Taxables, 1717 to 1770: A Compilation of 121 Tax Lists and Records (Elizabeth City, North Carolina: Family Research Society of Northeastern North Carolina, 2009), pages 33, 43, 49, 63, 64, 91, 111, and 118.
-The will of Micajah Bunch was proved in Chowan County (dated 6 December 1783). He named his wife Mary, sons Micajah Bunch, Joseph Bunch, Edward Bunch, James Bunch, Thomas Bunch, and daughters Penelope, Lydia, and Frances. Chowan County Will Abstracts, 1707–1850 (Edenton, North Carolina: The Edenton Tea Party Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1976), page 34 (Book B:62) 110
Paul Bunch (abt.1722-aft.1762), possibly born as early as 1722, died testate in Wake County, North Carolina, in 1771
Need to create these profiles:
  • William Bunch, age 16 and more in 1761 (born before 1745),
People have created these profiles but Ancestry document doesn't list them
John Layford Bunch Sr (1742-1828)
Elijah Bunch Sr (1750-1815)
Ephraim Bunch (abt.1750-1804)
Frederick Daniel Bunch (1760-1816)


children of Henry Bunch (Henry5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
Charles Bunch (Charles6/Henry5/John4/John3/John2/John1) See page 45


children of Lucretia (Bunch) Meredith (1718-1774)


children of William Bunch (1718-aft.1774), wife FEEBEE (“Feabea”) Bunch
Need to create these profiles:
  • Nancy [Anna] Bunch, b 18 September 1755 mother FEEBEE (“Feabea”) Bunch
  • David Bunch born by 1756


children of David Bunch (1722-1776), wife MARY “POLLY,” by whom he was father of eleven children, one was Paul Bunch
Source 229 at https://web.archive.org/web/20180127232248/http://c.mfcreative.com:80/offer/us/obama_bunch/pdf/descendancy_final.pdf list these additional children
David Bunch’s will was abstracted by Malcolm H. Harris, “Early Quaker Families in Louisa,” The Louisa County Historical Magazine, 11 (1979), pages 7–24; and Chappelear and Hatch, Abstracts of Louisa County, Virginia Wills and Estates, pages 46–47.


Profile not created
children of James5 Bunch, (G1/G2#1/G3#2/G4#1/G5#8/) b abt 1724–25 (definitely bef1728) d testate in 1802, made his will 27 April 1795 wife Mary Bunch
  • Elizabeth Bunch
  • Sukey Bunch Coil
  • Sally Bunch Scott
  • Martha Bunch Harris
  • Priscilla Bunch Scott
  • Margery Bunch Harris
  • Molly Bunch Gentry
  • Nancy Bunch
  • James Bunch


children of Samuel Bunch (abt.1726-1783), wife Mary Hudson*important
There was one other Charles Bunch in the South at this period, his first-cousin (son of Henry Bunch). Charles, son of Henry5 Bunch (John4 Bunch III, John3 Bunch II, John2 Bunch I, John1 Punch) moved with his father to Bedford County, Virginia, before finally settling in Kentucky.282
Charles, son of Samuel5 Bunch, left Virginia for Tennessee, following relatives who had settled in Grainger County. The two men therefore followed distinctly different migration routes by which they can be distinguished.
This profile is attached to him but the dob is around 1770. That doesn't work John Bunch (1770-)
Generation 7
children of James Bunch (1750-1820)
Need to create this profile
  • William Bunch, b in Tn circa 1787, who m Ann Benge, dau of David Benge, in Clay County, Kentucky, on 28 January 1812.
Someone created these profiles but Ancestry document doesn't list them
Elizabeth (Bunch) Baker (1786-1846)
George Bunch (1794-1834)


children of Charles Bunch (abt.1765-1849) m Mary Bellamy
I certify that Nathaniel Bunch, a private in my company W[est] T[ennessee] Militia under the command of Maj[o]r Gen[era]l [Andrew] Jackson in the expedition against the Creek Indians, has served from the 4th day of October 1813 to the 10th day of Febr[ua]ry 1814 And is honorably discharged. [signed] Abel Willis, Cap t 2nd Reg[imen]t, W. T. M. Charles Sevier[,] Major, 2d Reg[imen]t W. T. M. Page48
This profile is attached by not listed on the Ancestry document
Charles Clint Bunch (1788-abt.1849)


Generation 8
children of Nathaniel Bunch Sr (1793-1859) m Sarah Wade Ray in Overton County, Tn, on 15 Nov 1810 when he was only 17yo.
  • John Bunch (1812-1892) b 1 Dec 1812, d 3 Feb 1892 & buried in Rule Cemetery, Carroll Co, Ark, on 2 Nov 1834 m Cynthia Newberry, (b 5 Oct 1813, d 28 Dec 1835) m (2) on 13 April 1836, Louisa Jane “Eliza” Qualls, (b 22 Aug 1818, Tn, died 1900) (buried with husband in Rule Cemetery), mother of fourteen children.
  • Anna (Bunch) Allred (1814-1893) b 27 March 1814 m Samuel Thompson Allred*Obama line*
  • Bradley Bunch (1818-1894) b 9 Dec 1818, Overton Co, Tn, d 1 Aug 1894, b Bunch Cemetery, Berryville, Carroll Co, Ark m in Tn circa 1837, Jane Boswell, (5 Oct 1817-9 Jan 1890), buried with her husband. 13 kids
  • Nathaniel Bunch Jr (abt.1826-1896) b 14 June 1824, Overton Co, Tn, d 27 Feb 1896, buried in Liberty Cemetery, Dinsmore, Newton Co, Ark m Orlena Newberry, (13 Feb 1828 - 8/9 March 1898)
Need to create these profiles
  • Charles8 Bunch, b 29 Oct 1815, Overton Co, Tn, d 1880, m Mary ‘Polly’ Coffman, b 22 Aug 1818, d 1887. parents of six children.
  • Calvin8 Bunch, b 4 March 1817
  • Obedience08 (“Biddie”) Bunch, b 12 March 1820, Overton Co Tn, apparently died in 1857 in Osage Township, Carroll Co, Ark m Nathaniel (Nathan) Selby. 8 kids
  • Nancy8 Bunch, b 24 Jan 1826, Overton Co, Tn, d 23 Dec 1853, m 12 Dec 1846 Andrew J. Whitley - (15 March 1827, Ala, - 4 Nov 1905, Wylie, Texas). three children.
  • Larkin8 Bunch, b 24 Oct 1827, Overton Co, Tn, killed 24 Sep 1864 at Pilot Knob, Missouri (near St. Louis, carrying the co flag when killed), buried on battlefield at Ironton, Missouri. He married on 24 October 1852, in Newton County, Arkansas, Eliza Maxwell, b 8 May 1835, Overton Co, Tn, died of the grip and pneumonia on 12 April 1891, buried in Liberty Cemetery, Dinsmore, Newton Co, Ark. 5 kids




BUNCH FAMILY SKELETON


Just finished the skeleton that Ancestry did. Let me know if you find any errors. When you're ready we'll start putting it back together - Lucy

Generation 1
John1 Punch
John Punch had been a servant of Humphrey and John Gwynn’s father, Hugh. The Gowen and Bunch families bear the same deep-clade yDNA, which means that their origins were from the same region of Africa. Given that there were so few African Americans in Virginia at that period, it may indicate that they traveled from Africa together. They continued to live and move together in the following centuries, from Virginia to the Carolinas, Tennessee, and beyond. Page 11
Generation 2
children of John1 Punch
John Bunch I (John2/John1) appears to have been born about 1632-5.
He died by 17049, It is possible that John Bunch I, as an aged man, could still have been holding on to 100 acres of land in New Kent County 1704, but he was not found in any records of York County during the intervening period, nor in records of St. Peter’s Parish that begin in 1684. The records of Blisland Parish do not survive before 1721. page 2. John obtained a patent in New Kent County on 18 March 1662/3, adjacent the land of Richard Barnhouse and not far from Blisland Church and Wahrani Creek. Virginia Land Patent Book 4, pages 351–52, FHL microfilm 29322; also available online, “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 4, pages 351-52, .tif image, http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/004/004_0366.tif, accessed 23 May 2012. AND Virginia Land Patent Book 4, page 95, FHL microfilm 29322; also available online, “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 4, page 95, .tif image, http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/004/004_0109.tif, accessed 28 May 2012.
AND
Virginia Land Patent Book 4, page 33, FHL microfilm 29322; also available online at “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 4, page 33, .tif image http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/004/004_0047.tif, accessed 28 May 2012. Virginia Land Patent Book 3, page 193, FHL microfilm 29319; also available online, “Virginia Land Office Patents and Grants,” Library of Virginia (Online: Library of Virginia, 2012), Patent Book 3, Page 193, .tif image, http://image.lva.virginia.gov/LONN/LO-1/002-2/002_0622.tif, accessed 28 May 2012.
The name of John Bunch’s wife is not known, but the fact that his great-grandchildren were able to freely marry white neighbors suggests that she was white.
The fact that John Bunch I disappears from records of York County argues in favor of the

conclusion that he moved to New Kent County after he improved his grant. Records of York County survive fairly intact for this period. No records survive for New Kent County at the level of the local court before 1800. page 11

Generation 3
children of John Bunch I (John2/John1)- wife unknown
  • Paul Bunch (Paul3/John2/John1) born about 1652–58
Paul Bunch’s will is transcribed by John Anderson Brayton, Transcription of Provincial North Carolina Wills, 1663–1729/30, Volume 1, A–K (Memphis: by the author, 2003), pages 100–101.
  • John Bunch II, Sr, (John3/John2/John1) born about 1655–60 Mary (Gibson?)
  • [Henry?] Bunch, (Henry3/John2/John1) born about 1660–70
Generation 4
children of Paul Bunch, (Paul3/John2/John1)
  • John4 Bunch, (John4/Paul3/John2/John1) born about 1678–80 mother unknown,
John owed quit rent on 640 acres in Bertie Precinct on 12 June 1737 (he was listed next to Henry Bunch). - Walter Clark, The State Records of North Carolina, 26 Volumes (Goldsboro, North Carolina: Nash Brothers, 1907), Miscellaneous Records, vol. 22, page 240.
  • [Elizabeth] Bunch, (Elizabeth4/Paul3/John2/John1) born about 1675–79, mother unknown married John Russell.
  • Keziah Holdbee, (Keziah4/Paul3/John2/John1) born about 1724, was still a minor in 1742 (so born after 1721). mother was Fortune Holdbee
  • Jemima Holdbee, (Jemima4/Paul3/John2/John1) born circa 1726 (before Paul Bunch made his will) mother was Fortune Holdbee
children of John Bunch II, Sr, (John3/John2/John1) wife Mary (Gibson?)
  • John Bunch III (John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1680–85. d shortly before 14 March 1741/2
children of [Henry?]3 Bunch, (Henry3/John2/John1) wife unknown
  • Henry4 Bunch, (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1) born about 1685–90, died intestate Bertie County in 1775. His will was dated 21 April 1775 and proved August term 1775.
  • Paul4 Bunch, (Paul4/Henry3/John2/John1) born about 1690–95, intended to settle in Beaufort County, North Carolina, before his death, but died in 1741.
  • Julius4 Bunch, (Julius4/Henry3/John2/John1) born about 1700–10,
  • Jesse4 Bunch, (Jesse4/Henry3/John2/John1) born by 1708
  • Shadrack Bunch, (Shadrack4/Henry3/John2/John1) born about 1715–25
Generation 5
children of John4 Bunch, (John4/Paul3/John2/John1) wife Mary (Gibson?) Moved to SC
  • Gideon Bunch, (Gideon5/John4/Paul3/John2/John1) b abt 1704–05 mother ? Mary (perhaps named after Gideon Gibson)
The people lately come into the Settlements having been sent for, I have had them before me in Council and upon Examination find that they are not Negroes nor Slaves but free People, that the Father of them here is named Gideon Gibson and his father was also free, and I have been informed by a person who has lived in Virginia that this Gibson has lived there Several Years in Good repute and by his papers that he has produced before me that his transactions there have been very regular, That he has for several years paid Taxes for two tracts of Land [in Hanover County—his two patents] and had seven Negroes of his own, That he is a Carpenter by Trade and is come hither for the support of his Family.
The account he has given of himself is so Satisfactory that he is no Vagabond that I have in Consideration of his Wife[’]s being a white woman and several white women capable of working and being Serviceable in the county permitted him to settle in this Country upon entering into Recognizance for his good behavior which I have taken accordingly Page 20. AND South Carolina, Deed Book Q-Q, pages 193–94 as cited in Clara A. Langley, South Carolina Deed Abstracts, 1719–1772, Vol. III, 1755–1768, Books QQ-H-3 (Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1983), pages 6–7.
Gideon was taxed as a mulatto in Orange County, North Carolina, in 1755 (with the Collins and Gibson families). - 4 Heinegg, Free African Americans, vol. 1, page 221.
  • John5 Bunch, (John5/John4/Paul3/John2/John1) b abt 1710,
was apparently an adult by 1735 when his parents gave him half their tract and the town lot in Amelia Township, Berkeley County, South Carolina. John had a grant of 250 acres on the Four Holes adjacent John Oliver on 18 January 1765. - Holcomb, South Carolina’s Royal Grants, Volume Two, page 90 (citing 11:712, plat certified 25 November 1764).
  • Naomi Bunch, (Naomi5/John4/Paul3/John2/John1) b abt 1720–22
  • Paul Bunch, (Paul5/John4/Paul3/John2/John1) b abt 1720–25, married Amy [Naomi?] Winigum on 28 April 1648 in Orangeburg, South Carolina
children of John Bunch III (John4/John3/John2/John1) wife uncertain Rebecca? died 16 March 1770. Did he have children with Sarah Slayden?
  • John5 Bunch IV, (John5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1708, d shortly before 13 January 1777 never married
  • Henry5 Bunch, (Henry5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1709–12,
  • Nancy5 Bunch, (Nancy5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1712, still unmarried & alive in 1777
  • Lucretia5 Bunch, (Lucretia5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1715, m James Meredith & mentioned in bros John’s will in 1777
  • William5 Bunch, (William5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1718
  • Samuel5 Bunch, (Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born about 1720, died testate, making his will on 30 January 1782, wife MARY HUDSON
  • David5 Bunch, (David5/John4/John3/John2/John1) mother Rebecca b 24 June 1722, d testate Louisa Co 18 April 1776. mom Rebecca (she d. 16 March 1770) m Mary Polly born 29 August 1729, died 4 May 1807
  • James5 Bunch, (James5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1724–25 (definitely bef1728) d testate in 1802, made his will 27 April 1795, wife Mary Bunch
children of Henry Bunch, (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1)
  • Jeremiah Bunch [Sr.] (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1) b abt 1715–20,133 will dated 8 March 1797, Bertie County, North Carolina.
  • Tamerson Bunch (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1) married Thomas Bass.135 3.
  • Susannah Bunch (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1) married Lazarus Summerlin.
  • Rachel Bunch (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1) married Joseph Collins.
  • Nancy Bunch (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1)married Isaac Bass.
  • Embrey Bunch, (Henry4/Henry3/John2/John1) b abt 1730, left a will dated 20 July 1780.
children of Paul Bunch, (Paul4/Henry3/John2/John1)
  • Paul Bunch (Paul5/Paul4/Henry3/John2/John1) by 1720,
children of Julius Bunch, (Julius4/Henry3/John2/John1) wife Joana
  • Nazareth Bunch (Nazareth5/Julius4/Henry3/John2/John1)
  • Joshua Bunch (Joshua5/Julius4/Henry3/John2/John1)
  • MAYBE Solomon Bunch and Julius Bunch Jr.
children of Shadrack Bunch, (Shadrack4/Henry3/John2/John1) wife SARAH,
  • William Bunch (Shadrack4/Henry3/John2/John1)
  • Collen Bunch (Shadrack4/Henry3/John2/John1)
  • Rachael Bunch Goodwin (Shadrack4/Henry3/John2/John1)
  • Mary Bunch (Shadrack4/Henry3/John2/John1)
Possible children of Jesse Bunch (Jesse4/Henry3/John2/John1)
Shadrack & Ishmael Bunch they fought together during the French and Indian War in a company of men from Chowan County commanded by Captain Lewis according to a list drawn up 25 November 1754. - 0 Clark, The State Records of North Carolina, Vol. XXII, vol. 22, pages 325–26


Generation 6
children of Gideon Bunch, (Gideon5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Micajah Bunch, (Micajah6/Gideon5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born by 1726. (w Liddy)

-Timothy W. Rackley, Granville County, North Carolina Tax Lists, 1747–1759 (Kernersville, North Carolina: by the author, 2003), page 8. Micajah and Liddy Bunch were taxed in Granville in the household of John Stroud (Rackley, Granville County, North Carolina Tax, page 44). -Chowan County in 1746 (1 white), 1748 (2 whites and 6 blacks), 1750 (10 tithables), 1751 (8 tithables), 1753, 1765 (1 white, 5 black: Stephne, Tony, Stephne, Murrear, Patt), 1768 (1 white, 5 black: Jeny, Doll, Stephney, Mariah, Stephney), and 1770 (1 white, 6 black: Stepney, Stepney, Toney, Moriah, Doll, Grace). David Barrett and Janet Searles Barrett, Chowan County, North Carolina Tythables and Taxables, 1717 to 1770: A Compilation of 121 Tax Lists and Records (Elizabeth City, North Carolina: Family Research Society of Northeastern North Carolina, 2009), pages 33, 43, 49, 63, 64, 91, 111, and 118. -The will of Micajah Bunch was proved in Chowan County (dated 6 December 1783). He named his wife Mary, sons Micajah Bunch, Joseph Bunch, Edward Bunch, James Bunch, Thomas Bunch, and daughters Penelope, Lydia, and Frances. Chowan County Will Abstracts, 1707–1850 (Edenton, North Carolina: The Edenton Tea Party Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, 1976), page 34 (Book B:62) 110

  • Paul Bunch, (Paul6/Gideon5/John4/John3/John2/John1) possibly born as early as 1722, died testate in Wake County, North Carolina, in 1771
  • William Bunch, (William6/Gideon5/John4/John3/John2/John1) age 16 and more in 1761 (born before 1745),
children of Henry Bunch (Henry5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
Charles Bunch (Charles6/Henry5/John4/John3/John2/John1) See page 45
children of Lucretia5 Bunch, (Lucretia5/John4/John3/John2/John1) m James Meredith
  • Bradley Meredith (Bradley6/Lucretia5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
children of William5 Bunch, (William5/John4/John3/John2/John1) wife FEEBEE (“Feabea”) Bunch
  • Nancy [Anna] Bunch, (Nancy Anna6/William5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 18 September 1755 mother FEEBEE (“Feabea”) Bunch
  • Martin Bunch (Martin6/William5/John4/John3/John2/John1) apprenticed as carpenter 10 Oct 1768
  • David Bunch (David6/William5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born by 1756
  • Winslow Bunch (Winslow6/William5/John4/John3/John2/John1) m Celia Tudor there on 16 May 1783
children of David5 Bunch, (David5/John4/John3/John2/John1) wife MARY “POLLY,” by whom he was father of eleven children, one was Paul Bunch
  • Paul Bunch (Paul6/David5/John4/John3/John2/John1) (born 28 May 1772)
  • ten more children including by Mary, other mother?
John Bunch (born 1747),
Joseph Bunch (born 1749),
Pouncey Bunch (born 1750/1)
William (born 30 November 1752
Jane (born 9 December 1754),
Mary (born 10 March 1757),
David (born 1759, died 1835),
Lucretia (born 7 January 1761),
Anthony (born 19 November 1762),
Thomas (born 17 February 1765),
Nathaniel (born 25 July 1767),
Winnie (born 20 December 1769),
children of James5 Bunch, (James5/John4/John3/John2/John1) wife Mary Bunch
  • Elizabeth Bunch (Elizabeth6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Sukey Bunch Coil (Sukey6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Sally Bunch Scott (Sally6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Martha Bunch Harris (Martha6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Priscilla Bunch Scott (Priscilla6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Margery Bunch Harris (Margery6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Molly Bunch Gentry (Molly6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • Nancy Bunch (Nancy6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • James Bunch (James6/James5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
children of Samuel5 Bunch, (Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) wife Mary Hudson*important
  • Rebecca6 Bunch Meredith, (Rebecca6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born about 1744 kicked out of Quakers, she married a non Quaker
  • John6 Bunch, (John6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born about 1748
  • Mary6 Bunch, (Mary6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b circa 1751, m cousin Anthony Bunch (b 19 Nov 1762) (fa was David Bunch) on 28 June 1787 (bond 26 June)
  • George6 Bunch, (George6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born about 1753 m Sally Sergeaant -Louisa County -18 July 1783 (bond dated 15 July).
  • James6 Bunch, (James6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born 1755
  • Judith6 Bunch, (Judith6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1757, m cousin David Bunch, son of uncle David.
  • Samuel6 Bunch, (Samuel6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1759
  • Ann6 Bunch, (Ann6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born about 1764
  • Charles6 Bunch, (Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born about 1767, m Mary Bellamy in Louisa County by bond 9 January 1792.
There was one other Charles Bunch in the South at this period, his first-cousin (son of Henry

Bunch). Charles, son of Henry5 Bunch (John4 Bunch III, John3 Bunch II, John2 Bunch I, John1 Punch) moved with his father to Bedford County, Virginia, before finally settling in Kentucky.282 Charles, son of Samuel5 Bunch, left Virginia for Tennessee, following relatives who had settled in Grainger County. The two men therefore followed distinctly different migration routes by which they can be distinguished.

Generation 7
children of James6 Bunch, (James6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1)
  • William Bunch, (William7/James6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b in Tn circa 1787, who m Ann Benge, dau of David Benge, in Clay County, Kentucky, on 28 January 1812.
children of Charles6 Bunch, (Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) m Mary Bellamy
  • Nathaniel7 Bunch, (Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) born 23 April 1793, Louisa County, Virginia, m Sarah Wade Ray in Overton County, Tn, on 15 Nov 1810 when he was only 17yo.
I certify that Nathaniel Bunch, a private in my company W[est] T[ennessee] Militia under the command of Maj[o]r Gen[era]l [Andrew] Jackson in the expedition against the Creek Indians, has served from the 4th day of October 1813 to the 10th day of Febr[ua]ry 1814 And is honorably discharged. [signed] Abel Willis, Cap t 2nd Reg[imen]t, W. T. M. Charles Sevier[,] Major, 2d Reg[imen]t W. T. M. Page48
  • Susan7 Bunch, (Susan7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b abt 1795–6, Tennessee, m David Coffman (Bapt prch) in Grainger County, Tennessee on 20 August 1813
  • Charles Albert7 Bunch, (Charles Albert7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b circa 1798, Grainger County, Tn, wife Katherine Carlock at least 8 kids, check Missouri also
Generation 8
children of Nathaniel7 Bunch, (Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) m Sarah Wade Ray
  • John8 Bunch, (John8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 1 Dec 1812, d 3 Feb 1892 & buried in Rule Cemetery, Carroll Co, Ark, on 2 Nov 1834 m Cynthia Newberry, (b 5 Oct 1813, d 28 Dec 1835) m (2) on 13 April 1836, Louisa Jane “Eliza” Qualls, (b 22 Aug 1818, Tn, died 1900) (buried with husband in Rule Cemetery), mother of fourteen children.
  • Anna8 Bunch, (Anna8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 27 March 1814 m Samuel Thompson Allred*Obama line*
  • Charles8 Bunch, (Charles8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 29 Oct 1815, Overton Co, Tn, d 1880, m Mary ‘Polly’ Coffman, b 22 Aug 1818, d 1887. parents of six children.
  • Calvin8 Bunch, (Calvin8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 4 March 1817
  • Bradley8 Bunch, (Bradley8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 9 Dec 1818, Overton Co, Tn, d 1 Aug 1894, b Bunch Cemetery, Berryville, Carroll Co, Ark m in Tn circa 1837, Jane Boswell, (5 Oct 1817-9 Jan 1890), buried with her husband. 13 kids
  • Obedience8 (“Biddie”) Bunch, (Obedience8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 12 March 1820, Overton Co Tn, apparently died in 1857 in Osage Township, Carroll Co, Ark m Nathaniel (Nathan) Selby. 8 kids
  • Nathaniel8 Bunch, (Nathaniel8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 14 June 1824, Overton Co, Tn, d 27 Feb 1896, buried in Liberty Cemetery, Dinsmore, Newton Co, Ark m Orlena Newberry, (13 Feb 1828 - 8/9 March 1898)
  • Nancy8 Bunch, (Nancy8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 24 Jan 1826, Overton Co, Tn, d 23 Dec 1853, m 12 Dec 1846 Andrew J. Whitley - (15 March 1827, Ala, - 4 Nov 1905, Wylie, Texas). three children.
  • Larkin8 Bunch, (Larkin8/Nathaniel7/Charles6/Samuel5/John4/John3/John2/John1) b 24 Oct 1827, Overton Co, Tn, killed 24 Sep 1864 at Pilot Knob, Missouri (near St. Louis, carrying the co flag when killed), buried on battlefield at Ironton, Missouri. He married on 24 October 1852, in Newton County, Arkansas, Eliza Maxwell, b 8 May 1835, Overton Co, Tn, died of the grip and pneumonia on 12 April 1891, buried in Liberty Cemetery, Dinsmore, Newton Co, Ark. 5 kids




Memories: 1
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Nancy (Lowe) Sitzlar
Lucy,

Just discovered this message. Sorry, I have not been on here life got just a little hetic. I agree that the profile needs help. The Scottish part does not belong with the profile we have been trying to fix I tried to explain all this to Lisa but it did not help. There are two different families. If I made some mistakes I am sorry. It has been a mess sorting this out. I think all your information looks great and which ever way you want to do the book reference I will be happy.

posted 4 Dec 2021 by Nancy (Lowe) Sitzlar   [thank Nancy]
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Smith-62120 Ellen Smith
You have done wonderful work here, Lucy! Please don't be shy about copying your text onto the profile page at Ennes-110.

There are many misconceptions about "project protection." (They drive me crazy.) People think that they mean the profile as practically perfect and must not be touched. In fact, in many cases (like this one), the profile is protected solely (or almost entirely) to prevent the LNAB being changed by somebody who found a different name in their family tree. We absolutely do not want people to be discouraged from making productive edits like yours.

I made a few tweaks here mostly on sources.

  • When citing baptism records, it is important to include the names of the parents, in addition to name of the child and names of witnesses. All of these details can be important for genealogy.
  • I much prefer that source citations point primarily to the publication by the person who transcribed the records (in this case, Vosburgh), rather than letting people think that an index record from FamilySearch or Ancestry is the original font of all information.
  • WikiTree maintains many "Source" pages that can be used as source citations in profiles to help people get a full source citation to copy into a profile that includes a link that people can click on to find the source (book, book series, etc.) online on whichever platform(s) they prefer. The Space page I added to the Vosburgh citation is one of those.
posted by Ellen Smith