SALMON RETURNING HOME story

Remembering Rose Eleazer Samuels of the Shinnecock Nation
(1936 - 2011)

Shinnecock Grandmother Rose Eleazer Samuels 1936-2011

Rose Samuels was a direct descendant of Shinnecock and Unkechaug Indians and long a champion of their struggles and of her right to tribal land. Samuels fought unsuccessfully for decades to return to the Shinnecock reservation, where her father was born and raised. She realized the goal only in death.

"It hurts me to my heart that the only way she got her land is to be buried there," said her daughter Sharilyn Daugherty of Stone Mountain, Ga. "It's so bittersweet."

Daugherty said her mother's struggle for the right of all tribal members to live on the Shinnecock reservation would be carried on by her children, grandchildren and other family members.

"It's symbolic that she is going back to where her father is from, and to be buried there," said Janine Tinsley-Roe a cousin of Samuels' and executive director of Shinnecock-Sewanaka Society Inc., which advocates for tribal causes. "She was truly a spiritual elder here, but she didn't have tangible land."

Samuels was a great, great, great granddaughter of the Rev. Paul Cuffee, an Episcopalian Saint who ministered to the Shinnecock faithful 200 years ago.

Rose Eleazer was born in Patchogue on May 1, 1936, the daughter of Paul Cuffee Eleazer and Rose Madelyn Smith Eleazer. She grew up in Sayville and went to Sayville High School, where she was the first Native American on the cheerleading squad. She later attended St. Rose College in Massachusetts.

In 1954 she married Harry L. Samuels and they lived for 20 years in California before divorcing. The couple had five children. Rose Samuels returned to Long Island in the early 1990s and she was famous for a Native American pumpkin bread that she sold at the annual Shinnecock Pow Wows.

In addition to her daughter Sharilyn, Samuels is survived by a son, Ronald Glenn Samuels of Stone Mountain, Ga., two other daughters, Roslyn Gayle Samuels Sledge of Lithuania, Ga. and Darlene Rose Samuels Muhammad of Bay Shore; two sisters, Viola Gavin of Central Islip, and Charlotte Pierce of Centereach; 10 grandchildren and thirteen great grandchildren. She was predeceased by a son, John Richard Samuels, and her former husband. ~ anon 

Jerry Eaglefeather

I'm one of the main people responsible in America for the "Acknowledgement of Black Indians" And in '79 I began a trek to wake America up about Black Indians. I had the first web site and have been awarded in many states by congressmen for being the pioneer of our heritage. There were no book out and no articles before I began to wake America up about our heritage. I will post some of these awards. And my family is the ones who got Native Americans recognized in the state of NYC [Chief BlackHawk San Carlos} my father and (Distar Tay) Mohawk My Grandmother posted in my photos. Not New York I said NYC for the Day of the Native American. I have a web site BlackIndians.com and it has been around since then. The first Black Indian Association and the first Tribal group in American a we are called Binay. It stands for Black Indians And Intertribal Native Americans Association. BIINAA. Pronounced Binay. William Loren Katz jumped on the band wagon and contacted me and then published the book Black Indians. And others followed. This was not a time of acceptance and I received thousands of hate mail from everyone. But I was a living proof and I would not deny myself. And while there were others many where afraid to speak out. And most of our Pow wows and gatherings were private affairs and closed to the public.

In those days many Natives hated black Indian people they felt threatened and felt like there was no such thing. And they didn't have much as it was. Yet the many so called white natives flocked to the reservations with their money after Dances with wolves came out and they paid there way to tribal rolls. Many of them had learned from the white man how to hate and this was a very sad time. But I continued at the Pow wows and continued to share our heritage and our culture had to be refined and we needed a place. In those days I was ostracized. And I continued to persevered through it because I was told to do this by our Creator. And I continued to preach love and unity and acceptance and I do so now. We are one. To accept one another and tell everyone that we did not chose who we are. Creator did. And we are like Creator each and every one of us. You did not chose you. And since this is so, then we are all a special part of Creator so that if we hate anyone of us then there is part of our Creator that we hate. We must not hate Red, Black, Yellow or White for those are our Sacred colors and in the sacred hoop our vertical line connects us to Creator and our Horizontal line connects us to each other and we are all in the Circle which is Mother earth for this gives us balance. Hatred has no place. We are who we are by the grace of God.

Kai-YenTuwa Rose

 I use to date her, Her name is Kai-YenTuwa Rose. She is Black Shinnicock-Cherokee. She is an excellent Fancy Shawl dancer. And we have done many shows and events together. Including the big production "The Giving Of Thanks to the Native Americans" In NYC. - Jerry Eaglefeather 

NDN STORIES TOLD

Wayne Duncan - Black American Indian 
Shinnecock and African heritage

There is a saying among some tribes that means as much then as now. "It takes a thousand voices to tell a single story." This is a glimpse into a way of seeing an incident and telling what happened from every conceivable way so the listener hears the truth through the veil and the knowledge he or she sees the world they live in. - Alowan Chanteh Inyan Wichasha, Keeper of Stories 2.15.13

THE SHINNECOCK INDIANS OF EASTERN LONG ISLAND.

The Shinnecock Nation is a federally recognized Indian Nation, located on the East End of Long Island adjacent to the Town of Southampton. Federal recognition was achieved October 1, 2010, after thousands of years of documented history on Long Island, and 32 years of struggle with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As the 565th federal tribe, its banner has taken its place among other tribal flags at the U.S. Department of the Interior, BIA, Hall of Flags, Washington, D.C.

I Love Ancestry

Roberta Hunter Cuyjet And daugther Sienna
Shinnecock and African heritage

"Do not judge your neighbor until you walk two moons in his moccasins. --Cheyenne proverb

"Do not wrong or hate your neighbor for it is not he that you wrong but yourself." --Pima proverb

AFRICAN SHINNECOCK man

Edward Gumbs

Shinnecock and African heritage

"Seek wisdom, not knowledge. Knowledge is of the past, Wisdom is of the future." --Lumbee proverb

THE SHINNECOCK INDIANS OF EASTERN LONG ISLAND.

The Shinnecock Nation is a federally recognized Indian Nation, located on the East End of Long Island adjacent to the Town of Southampton. Federal recognition was achieved October 1, 2010, after thousands of years of documented history on Long Island, and 32 years of struggle with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. As the 565th federal tribe, its banner has taken its place among other tribal flags at the U.S. Department of the Interior, BIA, Hall of Flags, Washington, D.C.

(c) Photo courtesy of Toba Tucker

I Love Ancestry

The beauty of masculine energy balanced and focused is penetrating, if evenly directed and centered within the being. The power of a man's beauty of face, spirit and body is as mysterious a responsibility as any. It is what the boys in my family are taught at some point, in a way unique to each personality. It has to because sexual energies come with lineage, and if that lineage holds within itself generations of social responsibilities the elders (the fathers and uncles) have to teach by example first, by words later. 

This young man brings it home. It is in his eyes, and in the way his right hand holds the sacred pipe, and how his body is poised to serve, to protect, and carefully begin a pipe ceremony. How a man holds a thing, a person, an idea, a trembling soul is the man. His looks into and upon the world(s) he sees tell a story of who he is to those important to his life. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories 2.15.13