This lineage, goes way back, but I'll start from what I've been told and what documentations can  verfiy.

My own father, his brother and my great uncle Popeye told me my great grandmother Nettie Sneed  Pettiford had indian(native america) blood in her, her father my great great grandfather Newell  Pettiford had indian blood in him and his father Lonnie Pettiford my great great great granddaddy  was the Indian, and smoked a pipe like an Indian (so stereotypical). Growing up I always heard  from relatives on my mom side and dad side, bring up that we have indian blood, but I could never  find them and never saw any pictures of them. And me having a passion for research decided to find  out if the hidden legends were true. While digging through my family tree I found that my roots  were deeply embedded in North Carolina, dating as far back as I could go, even documented as far  back as the 1600's through other surnames, such as Bass, Anderson and Chavis. Those three names  would marry into the Pettiford family, creating an interesting group of people, who were never  refered to as indian or native american on the census, but free people of color or mulattoes.