Which area were driggers associated with?
Driggers Driggers is a surname. It arrives from Celtic descent, and is thought to be a name given to "Dredge Diggers" and slowly changed to Driggers. It is also believed to be a branch of the "Rodriguez" surname in the Southern United States, beginning with Emmanual Rodriguez. Emmanual Rodriguez is believed to have been an African settler in Virginia. Today in the Southern United States, Driggers can be found in descendants of tri-racial isolate groups such as the Brass Ankles, Lumbee, and Melungeon as well as distinct Native American groups in the Southeast such as the Catawba.
Emanuel Driggus Emanuel Driggus (surname was possibly derived from Rodriguez) (b. c. 1620s-d. 1673) and his wife Frances were Atlantic Creole slaves in the mid-seventeenth century in Virginia, of the Chesapeake Bay Colony. They first appear in a record of sale in 1640 to Captain Francis Potts; at the time they arranged for a contract of limited indenture for their two children in service. The Driggus couple had other children, who were born into slavery. In 1657, Captain Potts sold two of their children, Thomas and Ann Driggus, to pay off some personal debt.