He authored "The Pathway to Perfection Sermon Book" in about 1675 and gives a family biography of Nathanel and his sons. In that book, he says of himself: "John Basse married the daughter of the King of the Nansemond Nation by name Elizabeth in Holy Baptism"

Born in Middlesex Parrish according to Sampson County Heritage book.

See John Bass Family Bible Records

http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/search/collection/p15...d/order/title/page/6

John Basse was born 7 Sep 1616 in England and died 2 Apr 1699 in Isle of Wight County, VA. John, like many other early VA settlers, finding a dearth of English women in the colonies, married an Indian woman 14 Aug 1638. Her Christian name was Elizabeth (some say Kezziah Elizabeth Tucker — and indeed the name Kezziah seems to propagate in this family) who was born about 1620 on the Nansemond tribe’s native lands and died 4 Dec 1676. She was, though, the daughter of some say King Robin The Elder, king of the Nansemond Nation -- a small tribe occupying the lands on the Isle of Wight side of the James River. The county south of Isle of Wight was for a long time called Nansemond County then merged with Nansemond City which merged with Suffolk, as it is now known. References to Nansemond can still be found.

The Virginia Genealogical Quarterly has published a verbatim transcript of the prayer book of John’s father Nathaniel Basse. They did not make it clear which were Nathaniel’s or John’s entries and which entries were added later by a descendant, but the context fairly well makes that clear. I have skipped some of the verbiage relating to births of John’s siblings.

Nathaniel Basse and Mary Jordan were married ye 21 day of May in ye yeare of our blessed Lord and Saviour 1613.

Humphrey Basse sonne of Nathll and Mary Basse ...borned..15 .. Julii .. 1615. Dyed in 1622 AD.

John Basse was borned ye 7 day of VIIber in ye year of our Lord God 1616 ye sonne of Nathaniell and Mary Basse his wife.

William Basse ..borned ..1618.

Anthony Basse...borned.. 1620.

Edward Basse..borned..1622.

Anne Basse...borned...1624.

Genevere Basse ye daughter of Nathaniell Basse and Mary his wife was borned on ye 9 day of 8ber in ye year of our blessed Lord God 1624 about ten minutes after Anne was borned. Blessed be God for his tender mercies. Amen.

Humphrey Basse....dyed....1622.

John Basse married a daughter of ye King of ye Nansemond Nation by name Elizabeth in Holy Baptism and in Holy Matrimonie ye 14 day of August in ye yeare of Our Blessed Lord 1638. Dyed 1699 AD.

William Basse ...was married to Sarah Batten....1641.

Edward Basse sonne of Nathil Basse & Mary Basse yt unregenereated by ye Spirit of God took in marriage one virtuous Indian maydn by the Christian name of Mary Tucker and went to live amongst the Showanee in Carolina in 1644 AD.

He went to Carolinas in later years in p’sue of trade and not in 1644. Dyed in 1696 AD.

This is the book of John Basse. Steale it not.

John Basse borned in 1616.

John Basse Dyed in 1699 AD.

Norfolk County, VA.

This doth certify that William Bass, son of John Bass and grandson of William Bass, is of English and Indian descent and is not a Negroe nor yt a Mulattoe as by some falsely and maliciously stated. His late mother, Sarah Ann Bass, was a virtuous woman of Indian descent, a daughter of Symon Loving and Joan Tucker, lawfully begotten. Sd Joan Tucker was a sister of Robin Tucker, a Christian Indian of ye Nansemond Nation. The sd Willima Bass, the elder, was a son of Mary Bass and William Bass Sr. Mary was a daughter of Great Peter, King of Nansemond. These are of common knowledge.

All of the Basses of this County descend from Captn Nathaniell Basse as satisfactorily proved by the records preserved.

May ye 17, 1797

Well this is actually quite confusing especially since many sources that purport to document the life of John Basse cite this prayer book but then say that John’s Indian bride was Kezziah Elizabeth Tucker and that she was the daughter of Robin the Elder, Nansemond King.

–From the prayer book entries, we can be quite certain that John married an Indian woman. Her name was Elizabeth, but I don’t know how it has been determined it was Kezziah Elizabeth (maybe later documents called her Kezziah). Kezziah was a name, though, that John’s children used when naming daughters. And Tucker is a surname that seems to be associated with any number of Indians as part of their Christian names.
–I’m not sure how many generations removed we are in terms of William Bass who is trying to prove his race to the Court. He says his father was John and his grandfather William. It then says that Grandfather William was the son of William and Mary and Mary was an Indian. Are any of these people covered by Nathaniel’s prayer book? It could only be this last William, the father of William, grandfather of John and great-grandfather of the appellant. But Nathaniel says his son William married Sarah Batten.
–And Robin Tucker is mentioned, not said to be King, while the King is said to be Great Peter — but again these could all be descendants of the King Robin the Elder, said to be Elizabeth Tucker’s father.
–A modern history of the Nansemond people indicates that Great Peter was the King of the Nansemonds in 1710 and it says further that he was at least 61 in 1710. Since Kezziah married in 1638, she was born about 1620, say, and would have been about 90 had she lived to 1710. I don’t think she was the daughter of Great Peter, was she his brother and both the children of Robin the Elder?
–It’s a lot to sort out.

Historical footnote: the reference to the month of birth for John — VIIber — may also not be immediately obvious. On the Julian calendar, in use until 1582 by most of Europe but up until the 1752 acceptance of the Gregorian calendar by Britain and its colonies, defined the New Year as starting March 25 and placed January and February as the last months of the year.

Hence, in the year, say for example, 1616 when John Basse was born, January 1 to March 24, 1615 were followed immediately by March 25, 1616 and then continuing through December 31, 1616 and further continuing until March 24, 1616, and then it was 1617. So for dates up until 1752 and for a while afterwards, a genealogist needs to be careful when interpreting dates. A couple could marry April 1 in the year 1730 and have their first child March 1, 1730 and there would not have been even the hint of scandal involved. Genealogists sometimes use ”double dating” to indicate such possibly ambiguous dates. That birth date may be written March 1 1730/31, for example.

Moreover, as part of the conversion to the Gregorian calendar, 10 days were also dropped out of existence. George Washington, for example, as a boy probably thought his birth date was 11 Feb 1731, but after the acceptance of the Gregorian calendar, to know his exact age, you needed to use 22 Feb 1732 as his date of birth.

Finally, as part of the conversion to the new style calendar, the start of the New Year was declared to be January 1 and January and February became the first two months of the year not the last two. The names of some other months, though, harken back to those older calendars. Sep — tember was the seventh month or VIIber (when John was born), Oct — ober was the eighth month, Nov -- ember ninth and Dec — ember tenth. (July was formerly Quin — tillas and August Sex — tillas.)

And here is an article found on the Nansemond website — www.nansemond.org — written by Dr. Helen C. Rountree, Ethno historian.

The Nansemond Indians originally lived along the Nansemond River and were part of the empire (not a confederacy) ruled by Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas. When the English arrived in Virginia, the tribe had about 300 warriors and a total population of perhaps 1200 people.

The Nansemonds were initially wary and often hostile toward the English, but by the 1630's some of them had changed their minds. A family sermon book still in the Chief's possession records the 1638 marriage of John Bass, and a Nansemond convert to Christianity named Elizabeth. Everyone in the modern Nansemond tribe is descended from that marriage.

The Nansemonds split apart later in the 17th Century. The Christianized Nansemonds remained on the Nansemond River and became English-style farmers, though they retained their love of hunting and fishing and still called themselves "Nansemonds." The other Nansemonds warred with the English in 1644, fled southwest to the Nottoway River, and had a reservation assigned them there by the Virginia colony. By 1744 they had ceased using the reservation and gone to live with the Nottoway Indians on another reservation nearby; their old reservation was sold in 1792. In 1806 the last surviving Nansemond on the Nottoway Reservation died.

Meanwhile, in the 1720's, the Christianized Nansemonds moved to an area just northeast of the Dismal Swamp, where game was more plentiful and English settlers fewer; some of them live there still. But their neighbors were not always tolerant of their Indian ancestry. Several times in the 18th Century Nansemond people had to get certificates from the Norfolk County Clerks stating that they were of Indian and English ancestry and loyal to the English of Virginia. And in the 1830's, when Virginia enacted repressive laws against non-whites, the Nansemonds got their Delegate to have a law passed so that they could be specially certified as Indian descendants, exempt from the discriminatory laws.

In 1850 the Methodist Church established a mission for the Nansemonds; a county school was added there in the 1890's. That mission is now Indiana United Methodist Church in Bowers Hill, home of an Indian and white congregation and meeting place for the modern Nansemond tribe. The late 19th Century Nansemonds joined their non-Indian neighbors in moving away to nearby cities. When an anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution made a census in 1901, the tribe had about 180 people, more than half of whom lived in Norfolk and Portsmouth.

In the 1920's the Nansemonds almost managed to reorganize their tribe thanks to Frank Speck, an anthropologist from the University of Pennsylvania. But in the very repressive atmosphere that existed then for non-whites, the organization did not come off. It was not until the post-Civil Rights Era, when other Indian groups without reservations got formal recognition from the Commonwealth of Virginia, that the Nansemonds finally organized and got recognition as a tribe (in 1984). By that time, most of them had lived successfully for two or more generations in local cities as "whites with Indian ancestry"; the changeover to being "Indians with white ancestry" has not been hard.

Today the Nansemond Indian Tribal Association (the Nansemond tribe's official name) can be seen as a family as well as an ethnic organization, with members devoted to celebrating and continuing its unique -- and uniquely American -- heritage.

A visit to the Nansemond website will show some fund-raising activity related to a proposed Museum. I would consider, before rushing to make a donation, that while I am fairly certain of the Lawther’s connection to the Bass family through Rebecca Bass, wife of John Deloit Lamb, I am less certain of how exactly Thomas Bass connects to John Basse. I think his presence in Wayne County, the fact that his son was married by Andrew Bass and all of the several lineages available for him — all strongly suggest he is a descendant of John Basse — but I wish there wasn’t even the smallest uncertainty.

According to John Basse' own book, his wife Keziah was the daughter of the King of the Namsemond Tribe of Indians -- whose name was given as Robin the Elder on an Internet Tree, not sure which.

Her name is given as Keziah E Tucker in the Pilgrims book. Assuming this is the person referred to by John Basse as quoted on the Isle of Wight site, the E must have been for Elizabeth. John also says his brother Edward married an Indian maiden with the Christian name Mary Tucker.

So, maybe Keziah was her Indian name and Elizabeth her baptized name and Tucker a name given many Indian maidens.

The Nansemonds were originally around Norfolk, later moved to the area that is now Isle of Wight and Surry counties and ended up with the Nottaways on a reservation in Southampton,VA.

The Sampson County Heritage book says Keziah died the 4th day of Xber -- meaning December, another other source said October, misunderstand the reference to December as month 10.

A footnote — the Nansemonds. The Nansemond Tribe continues today as one of the remaining tribes of the Powhatan Empire and was officially recognized as a tribe by the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1984. Their current chief is Barry ”Big Buck” Bass, son of Earl ”Running Deer” Bass.