Elizabeth ‘Betty’ Welch

Biography

https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Blythe-641

Elizabeth "Betty" Blythe was born in South Carolina in 1795. [1] She married John Welch, a Cherokee, about 1824. They were the parents of at least seven children, Jonathan, John, Richard, Martha, Rebecca, Lloyd, and Stacy. [2] She passed away in 1885. She is listed as white on all U.S. Censuses except 1880, when she was living with Indian relatives.

Residence (1850) Cherokee, North Carolina, United States [3]
Residence (1860) Valley Town District, Cherokee, North Carolina, United States [4]
Residence (1870) North Carolina, United States, living with daughter Martha [5]
Residence (1880) Valley Town, Cherokee, North Carolina, United States, living with niece Mary Powell [6]
Death 1885, burial Welch-Blythe Cemetery, Marble, Cherokee County, North Carolina, modern stone [7]

John Welch, born c.1790 and his family are very well documented. He married a white woman named Elizabeth "Betty" Blythe. She was not Cherokee. She is a big part of the reason that John Welch was able to protect a large number of his friends and neighbors from being Removed and was able to keep his home. No evidence that he had any other wives, his children are also well-documented.

“A Struggle for Cherokee Community: Excavating Identity in Post-Removal North Carolina” by Lance Greene. < link > page 71-72.

The liminality of this period for the Cherokees of North Carolina and of their ability to use it to their advantage is nowhere better illustrated than in the personage of Betty Welch. A white woman married to a Cherokee man, she and her husband John created a space for fugitive Cherokees after the removal. Her background and life choices had made her fully aware of the social precepts of the day. Up to the time of the removal, Betty is almost invisible in the historic record. However, the unusual circumstances of the removal and its aftermath propelled her into a position of power. By the end of 1839 she possessed title to all chattel and land wealth of the Welch farm, maintained power of attorney for her family, and publicly represented an estate with an adult work force of six family members, three African American slaves, and approximately 55 Cherokee members of Welch's Town (Tables 1, 2). Although she may not have desired this position, she forcefully maintained the farm and publicly fought for the disbursement of Cherokee funds and for the right of Cherokees to stay in North Carolina in the face of a "voluntary" removal effort in the 1840s. As with the Cherokees of Welch's Town, her ability to achieve this power and status resided in her willingness to overlook what most could not: she had married a Cherokee and accepted (if not embraced) Cherokee tradition.

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References

1. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14011403/john-b.-welch
2. “A Struggle for Cherokee Community: Excavating Identity in Post-Removal North Carolina” by Lance Greene. < link >