Jasper County Democrat, Volume 5, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1903 — Red-Bone Men. [ARTICLE]

Red-Bone Men.

Down lu the South there Is a class of people called "red bones,” said Lewis Marshall, of Charleston, 8. C., to a friend the other day. They are the most peculiar people In the United States. No one living absolutely knows the race from which they sprang or whence the original settlers came. They live very nearly on the boundary line between South Carolina and Georgia, in the northwestern part of the first-named State. They are very clannish, mix very little with people not of their race and In a manner are quite thrifty. In slavery times they owned slaves, visited the several summer resorts of the southern mountains and in a way put on quite a little style. While 1 have nothing but supposition to guide me, I am of the opinion that they are descendants of the Basques of southern France. They do not lack courage, for a company of them served In Hampton's legion during the late civil war and bore themselves bravely at the first Manassas. Their skin is of a swarthy red, resembling that of the Indian, but at that point all resemblance ceases, except It be that they are very hot of temper. I have often wondered why the ethnologists of this country have not studied these people. Surely a monograph on them would be highly luteresting.