This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/DiB.2ACI/74.125.1.1 Message Board Post: Lisa I have the book of Isaac Thomas of Sevierville Tenn.The way it is written it is open to interpretation.It talks about the Traders of the time having a dusky mate and half a dozen half breed children among thier chattel's.When at the same time having a white wife. However this was not the case with Isaac Thomas he was a bachler at the time. Does this mean he had no woman for 45 years until he married Elizabeth Messingill ??? Or does this mean he had a Cherokee woman while he was a bachler and he did not have a white wife at the same time??? The book also states that a Cherokee woman was not considered a wife,but "Chattel".Also there were the Black Dutch Laws making it againest the law to legally marry anybody of color. You were allowed to "own them" ,but not "marry them". It is a evident that there was a "Thomas" that inermarried with the Cherokee.There are too many Thomas's on the Cherokee Rolls. During my research Isaac Thomas was the best canidate to have Fathered Cherokee Children.He lived with them and spent more time with the Cherokee than either of his two brothers.As for as I have found Isaac Thomas was the only Thomas that I have found to have been in the right place at the right time.Isaac Thomas also had a "THING" for Cherokee woman Nancy Ward.Have you read the book Nancy Ward and Dragging Canoe by Pat Alderman.There are also a number of books that state that Traders were required by the Cherokee,to have a Cherokee woman in order to do buisiness amoung the Cherokee,not to mention actually building a house and living in Chota. I have been to the Sevierville Library and they have told me in no certain terms that there is know way Isaac Thomas had a Cherokee Wife.Look at another Great Americian Thomas Jefferson.They denied him having a Black Wife for centeries,but he did. We may never know the truth,but let's keep looking! Thanks larry Thomas