Passports Reveal Data on Southern Pioneers
Access to Southern Territories Restricted from 1770 to 1823
Aug 15, 2009 Rosemary E. Bachelor
One reason family researchers have faced the perennial problem of finding records of early settlers in the southern states east of the Mississippi River is that this territory was long under Spanish or Indian jurisdiction. By law, only persons issued passports were allowed to enter these territories.
Finding Genealogical Data in Southern Passports
Ironically, it is these very same passports that make up the most complete collection of records relating to those pioneers. Following eight years of research in the records of the U. S. War Department, the U. S. State Department, archives of the individual states carved out of these territories, plus records of both the Spanish and British in “West Florida”, researcher Dorothy Williams Potter became the only person to ever locate, research and collect this body of genealogical data.
Henry Bloodworth (1771-1858) is typical of these pioneers. He left North Carolina to settle in Wilkinson County, Georgia. His grandson, Augustus Rayburn Bloodworth (1847-1913), lived on the family homestead, which only a few years ago still was standing on County Line Church Road in the Union settlement of Baldwin County, Georgia. Baldwin County was created from part of Wilkinson County land occupied by the Indian Creek Nation until a treaty in 1802 made it part of the United States.
Passport Data for 5,000 Travelers in Spanish and Indian Territories
This collection of passports and related documents pertains to more than 5,000 people—all carefully indexed—who traveled or migrated into the lower Mississippi Valley area from such places as Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Mississippi, Virginia, the Carolinas and other localities. The passports are filled with information vital to researchers of early families in this area.
Many of these passport holders settled in the western Florida panhandle, western Georgia and parts of the present Alabama and Arkansas. Numerous others were passing through enroute to new homes in Texas and points further west.
Book Gives Passport Data
The fruits of Dorothy Potter’s labors were published in a 1982 book so popular that it was reprinted in 1990 and 2007. This 461-page, illustrated book received a Certificate of Merit from the Tennessee Historical Commission, which cited the author for making a major contribution to genealogical research in southern states.
Both used and new copies of Potter’s book can usually be found on the Amazon website by entering either the author’s name, Dorothy Williams Potter, or the book title, Passports of Southeastern Pioneers 1770-1823.
Source:
Reviewing information from the publisher, Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD, when the 1990 reprint was issued.
Augustus Bloodworth (1847-1913)
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1787 U. S. Map
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