The great-great-great-grandfather of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reportedly served with the Tennessee Volunteer Militia, helping to massacre Native Americans from 1837 to 1838.
Warren’s ancestor, Jonathan Crawford, served in Major William Lauderdale’s battalion against the Seminole tribe at the Battle of Loxahatchie River and the Battle of Pine Island.
Per Breitbart:
Evidence supporting Jonathan Crawford’s service under Lauderdale in Florida was brought by his widow, Neoma O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, also known as Neona Crawford, to the Bledsoe County Commission of Bledsoe County, Tennessee in 1850 and 1851, when she applied for a pension from the U.S. government for her husband’s service during the 1837-1838 Second Seminole War.
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Neoma O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is Sen. Warren’s great-great-great grandmother. She and Jonathan Crawford were parents of Sen. Warren’s great-great grandfather Preston H.Crawford.
In that time period, widows of soldiers who served the United States in the Tennessee Militia began their request for pensions at the county level. William Brown, the chairman of the Bledsoe County Court in 1851, offered these observations about Neoma O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford’s request for a pension when it was brought to his attention.
You can see a scanned image of the pension at Breitbart.
Jonathan Crawford is the same ancestor of Elizabeth Warren who one year earlier in 1836 served in the Tennessee Militia that rounded up Cherokees living in Tennessee at the beginning of the Trail of Tears.