Why do so many "whites" have some Cherokee ancestry?

In looking in the thread that asks what nationalities you have, I noticed a lot of people say they are part Cherokee. Not "part Native American" but part Cherokee, specifically refering to one tribe. I think it's interesting, though. Why not Algonquin, or Seminole, or Creek, or Iroquois-area? I don't know much about the Cherokee other than that they had a "civilized" tribe and that they were forcably removed by Andrew Jackson, who defied the Supreme Court when they ruled that removing them from their lands to Oklahoma was unconsitutional (by "civilized," I mean in the Western "ideal." The Cherokee had their own alphebet based on ours, their own coins, a republican form of government, and some of them even owned black slaves.) How is it that many people who have caucasian ancestry are also able to claim some Cherokee heritage? I think it's cool I meet someone who's part Native American when you wouldn't think otherwise, but why is it that the Cherokee specifically are mentioned more so than other tribes?

Since then, everybody claims to be Cherokee.


Indian Reservation
( Paul Revere and the Raiders )

They took the whole Cherokee Nation
And put us on this reservation
Took away our ways of life
The tomahawk and the bow and knife

They took away our native tongue
And taught their English to our young
And all the beads we made by hand
Are nowadays made in Japan

Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die

They took the whole Indian Nation
And locked us on this reservation
And though I wear a shirt and tie
I’m still a red man deep inside

Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die

But maybe someday when they learn
Cherokee Nation will return
Will return
Will return
Will return
Will return

:shrug:

Pretty much their swan song for unrelated reasons.

Sorry.

I was on the radio when that song was released. I don't remember it being banned.

And it was just the words to our Declaration of Independence.

:rofl:

Although I've wondered why Cherokee is the claimed tribal ancestry of many whites and blacks, as opposed to the myriad of other tribes.

:rofl:

If you ask people what nationality they are, most will say "part Choctaw" and not Native American.

I'm only speaking for my 1/16 hot tsalagi blood.

My mother always claimed some Cherokee extraction and taught me to count and speak a little in one dialect. One grandmother claimed some Wyandotte and, coming from W.Va., I suspect that has some truth in it.

a couple of months ago while tracing ancestors. It seems intermarriage was particularly high between european settlers and cherokee (as compared with other tribes). I also read that many who think they had cherokee in their background actually had creek.

where many, many Scots-Irish, English and some Irish immigrated.

while pursuing information on my ancestors. It's been a lot of fun and all I know so far is how little I know.

I've got a female ancestor 4 generations back who everyone along her line claims was 1/2 Cherokee that I can't verify, trace, or find anything out about. It's very frustrating.

I have a great-grandmother who was 1/2 Native American; I've been told she was Cherokee or Blackfeet. But her name was Mary Jane Smith, obviously a name provided for her by white America, and it is virtually impossible to find anything traceable with that information. Head-bangingly frustrating.

The Cherokee were moved clear across the country. What other group of Native Americans were moved as far from their home as the Cherokee? Hence, it isn't surprising to me that they have descendants all over the US.

!

Some of my Cherokee ancestors came to Oklahoma on the Trail of Tears.

I have a picture of one of my great grandfathers, who was 100% Cherokee. He was quite a handsome man. In the photo, he looks dapper in a white button down shirt and suit pants. His hair is slicked back and a cigarette dangles from his full lips. He is flanked by 3 very attractive white women, one of whom later became my great grandmother. She was a stage actress, well known in her day.

In the south, there is less stigma associated with Native Americans than with any other minority group. People are generally very proud of their Native American ancestry. A woman in my great grandmother's day would not have been shunned for marrying a Cherokee Indian the way she would have been shunned for marrying a black or Mexican. Therefore, intermarriage was more likely to occur with Native Americans.

Doing research, I found both Cherokee and Creek lineage. I had not even heard of the Creek tribe before I starting looking for my ggg-grandparents.

I've heard that it's because Cherokee women were considered attractive, and that people thought that tribe had the big brains, but I don't really know.

But I AM part Cherokee, and all I have to do is look in the mirror and know my father wasn't lying about his grandmother. I've got that Cherokee nose, you can't mistake it, and I don't consider it especially attractive, but I would never do anything to it, either. :)

Black folks claiming Cherokee blood is so prevalent I've heard comedians crack wise about it. My theory is that part of it is tied in with that "good" hair nonsense. Some of the older folks in the church I grew up in would claim Cherokee blood as a way to explain the "good hair" in their family.

Full disclosure: I'm black and I have Creek ancestry on my father's side as well as Roma (Romanichal)...I have a VERY bizarre family tree.

Yeah, I've heard that too, although any native blood is going to straighten your hair! Honestly, I wish I heard I had some other tribal blood than Cherokee, just to be different, lol.

I'm pretty much a mutt, and biracial, I would love to do that DNA thing to find out if I'm even more of a mutt than I already know! Strangely, given the quirks of genetics, I look exactly like a lot of Egyptians, lol. I learned this from a Palestian guy I knew who always called me "the Egyptian" and only when I studied what they looked like did I get his meaning. A lot of those women look like they could be my sister! Genetics is a funny thing.

The African, German, Cherokee, Polish, Ukrainian who looks (but doesn't walk like) an Egyptian.

I remember, I was at the library one day and this older Arab man asked me where I was from. He swore up and down I must have been Egyptian. He said it was my bone structure and my eyes (I have big almond shaped eyes).

Funny how these things work. :)

When I knew this guy wasn't pulling my leg, which is what I had thought until then. It was about these desperately poor Egyptians, who were literally living off of garbage dumps, very depressing. But what struck me was how much the women looked exactly like myself, from the bone structure to the skin color and right down to my Cherokee nose! I also have "almond eyes", they are deep set, although not as deep set as my father. I have high cheekbones from both sides, but my face has never been bony or angular. Which is how these women looked. It was freaky.

So, we can both pass ourselves off as natives in Egypt, should the need ever occur. Well, until I open my mouth, lol.

the rest European. But I'll be damned if someone doesn't ask me at least once a month if I'm Indian.

I got the cheekbones and the dark coloring. :)

who was Menominee. I'm 1/8 Native, my cousin only 1/16, but the spitting likeness of our Indian gggrandmother!

where they did DNA tests on a number of prominent African Americans. Oprah (one of the testees) said that when she was a kid that was a big thing to claim indian or cherokee heritage. It turns out the DNA tests proved it. Two sisters (friend of mine) who are black and from Tuscaloosa AL have obvious Cherokee ancestry. There mother was dark skinned and father at least 1/4 indian. One sister is dark with high high cheekbones and nose. The other is fair skinned.

A few on that same show that were convinced that they had Native blood and did not, though. I found it funny that Oprah was certain she had no white blood at all, and was correct!

It's only $100 bucks to find out for sure, I'm gonna save my pennies!

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/participate.html

$100 is not too much.

even my seneca friend says that cherokee are known for their brains

my ex's nose is rather "distinctive" (i'm not going any further than that, lol!)

Very small part, though, and deadly ordinary. No royalty.

When I lived in NC, I found there were a lot of brown kids who claimed to be part Cherokee. What happened was that the Cherokees adapted quite quickly to the white folks' ways and were only run out of the state when they outdid a lot of those whitefolks. Some of them hid out until the fuss was over and went on to intermarry. A lot. Interestingly enough, they all went to segregated "white" schools, which shows you where racial segregation was really at.

I've since met a lot of their Oklahoma cousins and found that a lot of the cultural stuff was true for both groups.

When somebody claims Cherokee ancestry, I believe them, in other words. I have no reason not to since I'm not administering tribal funds or anything else that relies on blood quantum.

The Cherokee had originally lived in what is today Georgia. In the early 19th century they were forcibly removed to Oklahoma ("The Trail of Tears"). Once in Oklahoma, for whatever reason, they apparently started mingling lustily with the honkies. My ancestors are mostly Okie white-trash, and we've got fractions of Cherokee at every turn. In some of the older folks, it's very obvious in their features.

tribe was very large and a portion of them were able to escape the Trail of Tears and stayed hidden in the Appalachian Mountains. That is where my small drop of Cherokee came from. My great-grandmother was part of the Morth Carolina tribe and she married my great-grandfather, who was then immediately disowned by his wealthy family in Greensboro, NC.

I live in G'boro; and have a picture of my great grandmother (mother's side; from sanhills area) who was full-blooded Cherokee. Funny...but not suprising.

I believe to be African American.


Getting the DNA test ASAP, I find it fascinating!

along the Trail of Tears and spread out over America. At least that is what I think. The Cherokee Nation was a very large tribe at that time. They were Americanized by the whites and therefore more amenable to inter-relationships. (sp) Don't know if thats a word. Just my thoughts anyway.

and it was Federal policy at one time. Prior to that time, the policy was that of "extermination".

It amazes me how little people in the USA know about the Native Americans and their history. It is a horrible history filled with death and destruction and genocide as a policy after the white man came.

And you wonder why there are so many people that are part Indian? That is because they don't even know it in many cases and might find out years later or have kept it a secret out of shame, yes shame or perhaps the real word should be fear.

Many Indian people ID'd themselves as being "white" even though they were likely 1/2 bloods or more in many cases to protect themselves and their children. Sad situation at best.

:dem: :kick:

that her mother was half Blackfoot, she never told anyone until she thought she was on her deathbed at 70. After she recovered, she denied ever saying it.
We had always suspected, so many of us look Indian. Makes me so sad that she was taught that it was bad. :(

and she is ashamed. :( She is about 1/2 blood Cherokee/Choctaw, her family coming from Tennessee/Arkansas. I've tried to get what info. I can from her but she says she knows nothing about the history of the family and that she'd asked her uncle what did he know and he said he knew nothing about any of them.

They lived in horrible poverty, most of them in Tennessee and Oklahoma, this much I do know.

There was talk of some of their female relations being abducted from reservations in Oklahoma and taken in concubine. They quickly killed these stories and went on to live as if they were "white". They went on to have children and the one still living has grandchildren that look like full-blooded Indians.

She is a smart woman and has keen insight. It is sad she cannot find pride in her identity. I told her this in fact. So, on the census records it always says race "W" for white. uh huh.

:kick:

As so many tribes were wiped out, the survivors would join another band, often a totally different tribe.

I don't know if there are more people who identify themselves as Cherokee but I can speak to why we don't identify our selves as "part native american" For me to identify myself as part native american would be like someone identifying themselves as part african or part european. And we are not tribes, we are nations.

Most people are mixed in some sort. My Great Grandfather was a Cherokee and my Great Grandmother was a freed slave. I have Irish, English, German, and Swiss in me.

it's in the family records

before the Cherokee were forcibly removed from the east coast to Oklahoma. There were some Cherokee who avoided removal by fleeing into the North Carolina mountains or because they were married to whites. I read where one white settler hid his Cherokee wife and another married a Cherokee woman when the Trail of Tears went through his state.
It's a case of being in close contact with the Cherokees longer than with other Native-Americans. Same goes for African-Americans, many whites have African-American ancestry because we've been in close contact with each other
for over 100 years. Of course, intermarriage did'nt stop in Oklahoma either. Will Rogers is proof of that.

I'm adopted, but found out that my biological father was three quarters Indian.

long before the forced removal of the Cherokees (and Creeks too I think) from Georgia and North Carolina and the other Inland South areas. I suppose there may have been lots of time and opportunity for folks to have gotten together. Also, the NC Cherokee band hid and remained behind in the mountains of Western NC where they still live today on the beautiful Cherokee Nation reservation land and in other Southeastern areas. So, many people are descended from the large number of Cherokee people who still live in NC and the Southeast today.

I visited a very elderly great-aunt before she died and asked about family history. I had heard the "Cherokee" claim my whole life and she confirmed it. However, it wasn't a point of pride for her or her parents, it was something that was whispered about.

or Blackfeet ggrandma, somewhere in the Ozarks.

The best-looking people I have ever seen in my life were all or part Cherokee. As DNA goes, Cherokee DNA is caviar.

Amazing bones.

Heh.

Personally, I think people who are African, German, Cherokee, Polish, Ukrainians are the best lookin', but I could be biased. :)

I'm a little bit Cherokee, also. As mentioned in previous posts, the Cherokee were thought to be the most "attractive" Indian tribe, which means they look the most like the white man.....

as do I, in my more narcissistic moments. Okay, it's more than moments..

:shrug:

Number of white/Seneca I've met unrelated to me: One in my entire life.

He has high cheekbones and epicanthic folds, too.

Funny to see another Iowan discussing Muskogee. :) Those were my stompin' grounds before I married a corn boy.

We go every 4th of July and next week is the Azalea Festival. I'm looking froward to some serious chili eating.

I remember discussing family roots when in high school and virtually every person who claimed partial Native American heritage noted Cherokee.

I always figured it was because the Cherokee are brilliant and gorgeous.

I'm part Shawnee. You'd never guess with my round Irish face and blue eyes. I'll tell you though, I have some cousins who have more Shawnee blood than Irish, and they are drop-dead gorgeous! I'm just round-faced, cabbage-headed Irish in looks:) Oh well:)

My great grandmother used to say that our people met our people at Plymouth Rock:)

She was 6'2" and blonde, but 1/4 cherokee (1/2 irish, and 1/4 german) I'm 100% scottish born and brought up in Edinburgh. If we had stayed together and had kids... those would be some seriously drunk people with our combined ancestry.

... because there were a lot of Cherokees.

My great grandmother was full blood Cherokee, and my great grandfather from Czeckoslovakia married her in central Texas. There were a lot of similar situations, lots of European immigrant men took Cherokee wives in Texas and Oklahoma.

My grandmother looked native American, my mother has some features and I look like an anglo white, as my father's side of the family was.

It all depends what part of the country you're from. Around Cincinnati, Cherokee is a common heritage among Appalachian people. It probably is pretty common in most of the midwest due to Appalachian migration.

I think it's cool when people state opinions openly and honestly. If you think people are lying about their heritage then state it, don't imply it. It makes you sound like a Republican when you beat around the bush.

:eyes:

Because I brought up this thread, because I thought it would be interesting to know why many people who are white that claim partial Native American ancestry have Cherokee as the most common. THis thread is kind of like the one asking whether or not you have Irish ancestry.

And I'd be one of the first to say if it did.

And no one would blink had you asked if we were Irish.

I'm sorry, I've just spent the last couple of days being a lady of mostly Irish decent attempting to support my dear friends the Mexicans. And my one thought is that we need to love our diversity but let go of the labels. This "snippy" shit just irks me to no end.

Since there are so many tribes indigenous to various parts of the country.
Each one is a different nationality.
It isn't any different to say you are Sioux, Choctaw, or Cherokee than it is to say that you are German, French, or Italian.

no pun intended?

Cherokee is a common heritage among Appalachian people. But in the more northern part of the Appalachians you also find a lot of Shawnee.

family, but about 8 generations back so it's a very small part of my heritage. Since that side of the family settled in Oklahoma, it's entirely possible, but there is no proof that I know of. My dad did have some of the characteristic facial features, however, such as high cheek bones, shape of nose and scarcity of facial hair.

this was the guy we affectionately named "the Little Dunce" after he tried to get the art director to run errands for him on her lunch hour, and she (a full four inches taller than he) replied, "No! I'm not gonna do it, you little dunce!"

She kept her job. He kept the name "the Little Dunce". Then when the Cherokee thing came out, it was just a hop, skip and a jump to "Dunces with Wolves"... :evilgrin:

Vine Deloria Jr's 1969 manifesto, explains this on pages 3-4:

"During my three years as Executive Director of the National Congress of American Indians it was a rare day when some white didn't visit my office and proudly proclaim that he or she was of Indian descent.

"Cherokee was the most popular tribe of their choice and many people placed the Cherokee anywhere from Maine to Washington State. Mohawk, Sioux, and Chippewa were next in popularity. Occasionally I would be told about some mythical tribe from lower Pennsylvania, Virginia, or Massachusetts which had spawned the white standing before me.

"At times I became quite defensive about being a Sious when these white people had a pedigree that was so much more respectable than mine. But eventually I came to understand their need to identify as partially Indian and did not resent them. I would confirm their wildest stories about their Indian ancestory and would add a few tales of my own hoping that they would be able to accept themselves someday and leave us alone.

"Whites claiming Indian blood generally tend to reinforce mythical beliefs about Indians. All but one person I met who claimed Indian blood claimed it on their grandmother's side. I once did a projection backward and discovered that evidently most tribes were entirely female for the first three hundred years of white occupation. No one, it seemed, wanted to claim a male Indian as a forebear."

In fact, the group with most Cherokee blood is African-Americans. Like the Shinnecock, they took in numerous escaped slaves. Cherokee are Iroquoian peoples, related to the Haudenosaunee, or Six Nations Confederacy.

Years ago, Chief Paul Waterman and I were speaking at a college, and a student asked why so many white folk believe they are part Indian. "Because my grandfathers were just like me, " Paul replied.

Everyone was tribal in the not too distant past. Traditional Irish culture is not that different, for example, than Iroquois, as far as things from family patterns to belief systems.

See my post below.

:thumbsup:

He was brilliant.

on an reverse migration, on American Indian origins for humankind? In other words, he proponed that humanity's cradle was actually North and South America, not Africa.

It was an interesting read, theoretically, although I don't think it is correct. That's what I loved about him...not afraid to challenge the status quo, or the scientific and historic paradigms.

:hi:

If memory serves me correctly, he used "Low Bridge, Everybody Cross" as the part of "Red Earth, White Lies." In his 1997 book, he also included "Mythical Pleistocene Hit Men," which is an absolutely accurate dismissal of the weak theories about paleo-era Indians wiping out large game in North America.

"... not afraid to challenge..." Ha! He did it with style. Very often tongue-in-cheek, and many non-Indians never knew how to take him.

How many Native American men were married to white women? Sexism and racism came into play in creating our mixed ancestry, as well as sexual assault. My great-grandmother was referred to as the "half-breed" my "peculiar" great-grandfather married.

Edited to add: Obviously, this means I also had a Native American great-great-great-grandfather...but no one has any information about the fathers of these "assimilated" women, and so it is the great-grandmother and no one before her to whom I can point with certainty as my ancestor.

"God Is Red" is also a great read.

Cherokees were the most populous continuously-existing tribe near the Eastern seaboard and into the interior, with which Europeans had contact. When new European immigrants arrived, they had contact with Cherokees. When European colonists migrated west, they had contact with Cherokees.

This phenomenon of white people claiming Indian ancestry only began in earnest in the 1960s, with the advent of AIM and other Indian-rights groups. In the 60s, it became "cool" to have Indian heritage. You can see just how cool it became, by looking at census reports--the 1970 census shows an explosion in the number of people claiming indian ancestry--and it isn't from biological reproduction; rather, it's from many more people wanting to "connect" with their American Indian roots, because only after the 1960s did society see "being Indian" as something in which to pride one's self.

You can see this very thing here at DU.

(BTW, I have Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek heritage. All are relatively new creations--the tribes, I mean--because most only came into existence after initial contact with whites, and as a way to sustain breeding numbers and to establish common protection--through confederations...and that's what most of the Southeastern "tribes" are--they are confederations of smaller, independent groups.)

and by that time I thought I'd heard all the family 'stories',
but the first I'd ever heard about the FILs Cherokee grandmother was just a few years ago
when my MIL was gung-ho over genealogy.
I had never heard any of the older adults mention her at all.
I think there is still that stigma or shame in my FILs mind,
'cause he really doesn't want my MIL to research it any further. :(

Your comment about the census explosion reminded me of something that happened way back when I was in fourth grade. I'd recently learned that my maternal grandfather was almost 1/2 Choctaw, and I was absolutely fascinated by this. We moved to a new area that year (air force brat), and on my student info sheets, where it asked you to check race, I naturally checked "American Indian," because of what I'd learned about my grandfather. Now, keep in mind that schools get a larger chunk of federal funding for every native American student. It took my poor mom WEEKS to get the school to believe that we weren't fresh off the res. I think she's still a little irritated with me over that. :7

my great, great grandmother was Monacan.

Maybe the Cherokee are just friendlier??? :-)

the Cherokee went through - they were in the Carolinas and got chased into Georgia and then they were force marched across the country on the Trail of Tears.

Western Indians (Arizona and California) get very snippy when white looking folk claim to be Indian and sarcastically ask if it is Cherokee.

I am Iroquois (Mohawk) on my Dad's side.

Tri racial White,Native American and touch of black...From the Appalachians. I live in Maryland.The Melungeon people in the earlier days were VERY liberal and democratic.The Change that turned the south right wing looks like something akin to church based brainwashing it changed things over the course of 15 years until the mountain people cannot tell the carpetbaggers are fleecing them again through the pulpit.It's sad..My folks say they are"black irish". Which basically is a euphemism that means we are mixed race.
Back in the days around the trail of tears my ancestors were partly responsible for hiding indians in caves and shelters so they were not forced to go and soon after some indians married into white families.To escape the insane ethnic cleansing from the upper classes. The white racist thugs seemed to HATE mixed race people alot. And they would kill them.So the Cherokee who sometimes can look pretty white blended in well with white looking melungeons and accepting whites.It was a survival tactic and sometimes I do not doubt love was involved too..

My ancestor John Petty was some civil war hero dude. He had a Cherokee wife who failed to turn in her roll papers out of fear I guess since she was married to a white war hero of sorts.I dunno.Legend says my ancestors were excluded from the rolls because they hid Cherokees away from the soldiers hell bent on evicting them .And the US govt had an axe to grind over it.I don't know what is truth and what is legend.Were there a "whitetop" band of cherokee that my ggggg whatever Grandfather was involved in?.On my father's side the indian and black is even more prominent.( but they never are honest about the extent of it because old prejudices and fears die hard I guess) Yet I am mixed in myself,so I don't relate to white culture,I feel awkward in Native american culture,and I feel out of place in black culture although I look really white and all three cultures when I associate in them say to me I get along fine. Go figure.I'm a mixed breed.

who was a NC melungeon as well. My Nana (grandmother) married my PawPaw who was a red haired, freckled, blue eyed Scots-English-Irish man. They had two little red haired, freckled, blue eyed kids who looked nothing like Nana! My mom's family said that Nana, my MaMaw (great-grandmother) and her father PawPaw Johnson were "Black Irish." They were all dark haired with hazel eyes and beautiful olive skin and very striking bone structure. My sister got the olive skin and hazel eyes. I didn't.

that heather locklear was part-melungeon (father's side). you'd never be able to tell either.

http://www.thepeoplespaths.net/articles/BurningPhoenix.htm


He is gone now, but I'll never forget him. He had a profound interest in parapsychology, that is how we met. He worked for many years for the Association on American Indian Affairs and did legal work for many Indian Nations.

I wish he were here. I know he could answer our questions fully and with a style and grace... well, he was special, that's for sure.

Google his name and you will find many interesting things.

my grandmother's mother, who was 1/2 indian, was adopted and her orphanage was burned down. end of line, so all we can say is probably souix, or in that area. chippewa? maybe through DNA now we can test? how many get the tribes wrong. of course i shouldn't pick and choose as i have total muttness.

I bet it's expensive, but it would sure be cool to find out exactly what makes us up!

don't know what the answer to your question is. I do know that my father did some research and it was a Cherokee Chief who fell in love with a white woman or married her or something? I always thought it was some white male who had his way with an Indian maiden, but no...interesting eh.

Little known fact.

I have to remember that line! :D

So there!:evilgrin:

This also,most likely, happened in TN. VA and other states in the appalachian region. The rest walked the Trail of Tears.

I have Cherokee ancestry in both my maternal and paternal lineage. I have this great picture of my paternal g.g.grandmother with my grandmother, one of my uncles as a boy and my g.grandfather. My g.g. was a full blood.

If I had done the family tree and documented it, I could have probably joined the tribe. But they don't take you after you turn 21. So you have to be motivated to claim it from an early age.

Also part French, part Scottish, part Irish, part English, part Spanish.

our family came from Oklahoma. My grandmother (who was born in OK) looks 100% native while her mother looks 100% anglo. Sadly, we have no idea who my grandma's father was because her Mom died in the flu epidemic of 1917 when Nana was just a little girl.

Cherokee made the most sense, but we really don't know.

The Delaware and other eastern seaboard tribes were also sent there, and I believe that the Kiowa were indigenous to the area.

Sure, we had a few wars with the eastern tribes, and it's easy to say that we weren't always fair with them, but prior to Andrew Jackson there was still a notion that Native American tribes were nations and that their people were actually people. For the most part, the wars were limited to those against tribes that refused to negotiate with us, or those that were openly hostile immediately upon contact.

Still, the more "civilized" northern part of the country was primarily populated by people of English descent who saw themselves as being better than the Native Americans. They tended to be wealthier (even the remote farmers) and strongly discouraged association between the whites and the Indians.

In the south, settlers tended to be of either German or French ancestry (though many of the landowners and successful merchants were still of English descent), were generally less educated, and were more open to trade and association with the tribes. Cherokee women were considered beautiful by the immigrants, and since they were generally held to be equals socially there was a LOT of intermarriage.

It's tragic, but most Americans didn't start to see Natives as "subhuman heathens" until after Andrew Jackson came to power. Jackson had a personal hatred for the Natives and implemented policies that ejected them from their lands and stripped them of all rights. People who had previously been friendly were now seen as enemies, and intermarriages that would have been acceptable even a decade previously became unthinkable. It was an example of group-think at its worst.

Fifty years of various wars after the Trail of Tears also had the effect of killing off a very large number of Cherokee men. Cherokee women, looking for husbands, were very open to the idea of marrying whites when the settlers began approaching the Oklahoma territories in the mid 1800's. Given the choice of marrying a white man or remaining a childless maid their entire lives (a serious dishonor in many old Native American cultures), many left the tribe and married settlers (this is true of many tribes, not just the Cherokee).

Over the past 100 years, there has been a considerable amount of additional intermarriage as some of the racism began to fade. My 100% Osage mother in law was an AIM activist in the 1960's when she met my father in law at a protest (he's 100% pure German stock). They fell in love, and a few years later gave birth to my beautiful...and half native...wife. She fell for me (a northern European mutt by any measure), and our kids are 1/4 native. It's just a personal example, but it's a demonstration of how this sort of thing comes about.

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in me. My identity would be Menominee, NOT the tax code descriptive.

And one of the ones that chimed in on the nationality thread.

In my case, my Irish relatives settled in the Appalachia region - north east Tennessee to be exact. It is not uncommon at all in this region to have Cherokee/Irish ancestry. This region was the original home to many Cherokee people, and still is. My ancestors were dirt poor.

although some started in Virginia and North Carolina. I don't know if the Cherokee ancestor(s) joined the family in N.C. or Tennessee. (I think Tennessee.) Having Cherokee blood wasn't something the old folks bragged about.

I'll have to ask my uncle if he knows what tribe.

the area where many of the scotch-irish washed up was on or near cherokee territory, the cherokee were one of the most advanced and yet welcoming of the nations, at least up until that whole embarrassing removal thing

in my family i am sorry to say that in addition to having cherokee ancestors i have another scotch-irish ancestor who was one of the white soldiers who helped remove many of the cherokee to oklahoma on the trail of tears


in any case, the scotch-irish are great wanderers and were prominent also in settling the west, many scotch-irish-cherokee may have drifted out west and today you wouldn't even know your heritage unless you did your "roots"

Wrapped in sausage and deep fried. Ah yes, the Scottish diet. Weeds out the weak.

and NOBODY wants that.

I used to swear I'd never eat haggis just because of how it's prepared, but then finally had some at a Burn's Night dinner and thought it wasn't too bad at all.

On the other hand, I don't ever think to myself "you know what, I could really go for some haggis right about now."

See! Ya can NOT not talk about haggis!

So how much scotch had you had before you ate it?

My mother liked it. She said, "It is probably what cat food tastes like." She actually DID hanker for it sometimes.

She liked it so well, that she wanted to make some, but found out that some of the ingredients were not easy to find in California, most notably "sheep's lights". She researched to see what that was, and it turned out to be sheep lungs. After that, she gave up on the idea of making it.

Don't know why though.

I don't actually drink scotch, but as I recall they poured scotch over the haggis and lit it. There's a whole ceremony involved, with the haggis first being brought out on a platter, accompanied by a bagpiper. The the host "addresses the haggis" by reciting the Robert Burns poem "To a Haggis":

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great Chieftain of the Puddin-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Peinch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy of a grace
As lang's me arm.

The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.

His knife see Rustic-labour dight,
An cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reeking rich!

Then, horn for horn they stretch an' strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
Till a' their weel-swalled kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hurns.

<... loads more verses in here - seems to take ages, followed by the final verse>

Ye powers wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o'fare
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye qish her gratefu' prayer,
Gie her a Haggis!

Then everyone toasts the haggis and it's finally served. In my case, I guess I was so grateful to finally get some food that anything would've tasted good.

you know where the cowboys learned to tell "tall tales", don'tcha? Tall tales is a polite expression for sittin' around the campfire telling the most ridiculous lies ya can think up.

The pouring of scotch on the haggis is a joke. Think of this: If you are traveling barefoot over the mountains, away from home for days in a snowy, gloomy winter, bare-legged (etc.!) to watch the sheep, with a lunch of sheeps' guts & oats, and a bit o' scotch whiskey. Are you going to pour the scotch on the haggis and light it, or are ya gonna drink it? If you are a scot, you drink it and then lie about it, saying you poured it on the haggis and lit it, then laugh with your pals about the fun of the lie. If ya don't tell the lie story, then it isn't any fun.

I was a haggis toss competitor, as was my mother. She yelled, "Oh, Honey, LUNCH!' and hurled a haggis at some poor fella in a kilt. I yelled my Scottish clan motto, "Cave Adsum!" (Beware, I am present). Flying haggis is an amazing thing to see. I disturbs everyone.

Fact is, haggis isn't that much differnt from any culture's sausage, except they are usually about 6" in diameter and smell like... well, catfood. Meat and oats. But they have sustained people through hard work, hard times and hard battles.

"Gie her a Haggis!" (along with a greet huge pote o' single malt!)

not so hostile to whites most of the time according to history.

The Cherokee Nation, largest of the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast, is a people of Iroquoian lineage. The Cherokee, who called themselves "Ani'-Yun' wiya" or "Principal People", migrated to the Southeast from the Great Lakes Region. They commanded more than 40,000 square miles in the southern Appalachians by 1650 with a population estimated at 22,500.
Similar to other Native Americans of the Southeast, their nation was a confederacy of towns, each subordinate to supreme chiefs. When encountered by Europeans, they were an agrarian people who lived in log homes (not tee pees) and observed sacred religious practices.

During the American Revolution the Cherokees, as well as the Creek and Choctaw, supported the British and made several attacks on forts and settlements in the frontier.

After 1800 the Cherokees profoundly assimilated White culture. They adopted a government patterned after the United States, wore European-style dress, and followed the white man's farming and home-building methods. Ironically, the Cherokees fought with Andrew Jackson in the Creek War (1813-14).


http://ngeorgia.com/history/cherokee.html

Maps of how the Cherokee spread across the country and ended up in many states.

http://cherokeehistory.com/map1.html


To answer the OP. I have documents, letters, pictures and spent well over a year tracing my father's family history. My full blood Cherokee ancestors are buried about 15 miles from where I live now. My Father's people were Irish and married Cherokee women. (documented) My Mother's family has Cherokee on both sides, but I have not found all the documentation, yet.
I have a tin plate picture of my 3rd Cherokee Grandmother and I look very much like her. Only one or two in the last couple of generations of our family have Native American/Cherokee features.
I had heard the stories since I was a child and wanted to find out if my family lived with and married Cherokee in Georgia and then migrated to Alabama during the Indian Removal Act. Some did and some walked the Trail of Tears......just curious about my heritage.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

In an otherwise flame-free thread?

Sure, there were many accommodationist Cherokees, but a huge segment of Cherokee population was traditionalist, too.

the OP was asking a legit question, and this borders on gutter talk unless I missed the point of your post/joke.

That's like what they say about some blacks and oreo cookies.

And is just as insulting.

......they were moved to the South to a reservation in Alabama. That's where my Cherokee grandmothers wed my their husbands. Later they were moved to a Oklahoma Reservation. The Cherokee Indian tribe is the second largest American Indian tribe in the U.S. Because of their numbers and the fact they they moved from one place to another is why so many married anglos in their area.

PS: Most of the American Indians I am friends with do not like "Native American". Many of them feel this is just another Anglo coined name. They prefer "American Indian".

You'll have a hard time buying claims of "part Cherokee" afterward, I guarantee.

heritages, and that includes African American, American Indian, and European.

I don't doubt that many people who claim Indian heritage do have it. What I find funny is that many of the people who claim to be "part Cherokee" don't also claim to be "part African," especially since the changes are identically as great, if not better, that if one has American Indian heritage, one probably also has African heritage.

We aren't called the melting pot for no reason--and it's just as so, genetically speaking.

kind, you can really see it in my uncle and his mother my Grandmother because one of her parents or grandparents was the source.

Good thread/question BTW

was part Cherokee, and most of my aunts and uncles on that side (there were 8 of them) look very Native American, dark-skinned, dark-eyed and brunette. She came from Southern Ohio, which I understand to be Cherokee territory .... so that's all I can tell you about that.

or so he was told.

Cherokee apparently were attractive people to whites, and whites to them.

I'm part Cherokee.

I don't look Cherokee, but then, the only Cherokees I know that "look" like they are native American at all live in the hills near where I live and some of them only speak Cherokee.

But even they have facial features that are more similar to White Caucasian than other native American tribes might be. (I know that sounds stereotypical and it may be)

we have none. i have had my father tell him we have no indian. to this day he insists we have Cherokee and he tells his children this. now, he is a bigot, so i ask why it is ok to have Cherokee, but not ok to have black (hubby family), mexican (my moms sisters family), but it is ok to have Cherokee.

i guess it is the cool thing to have

history teacher said the Cherokees were very "prolific", I guess they really got around. I'm another one who is part Native American which happens to be Cherokee.

I thought being "white" meant you had no brown ancestry whatsoever? This is all new to me. Doesn't really matter either way.

it doesn't work like that :eyes:

and won.

So Cherokee were documented -- so when doing Genealogy it is not uncommon for many of us to trace our ancestors due records of payments.

Also, it wasn't uncommon for Indians to cross over to the white culture in order to survive.

It is only recently that it has become "cool" to have Indian ancestors to the extent that some will make up Indian ancestors.

One cannot choose ones ancestors -- my grandmother was appalled that her son traced her paternal grandmother's family to Oklahoma -- yep Cherokee. She knew about this part of her family tree -- because I have discovered that three of her siblings were born in Oklahoma (1919 census), but she never acknowledged her Indian ancestors.

Also Cherokee were an eastern tribe and there is a longer history of intermarriage.

the lands and travels of my peeps


Comanche named "Bow and Quiver"
painted in 1832
by George Catlin


Comanche village
painted in 1834
by George Catlin


I am predominantly anglo, but my grandfather looked like a Comanche, absolutely. He was one-half Comanche, born in the last half of the 19th century in west Texas.

Quanah Parker was a childhood hero of mine.

There's really no mystery to it.

I think a lot of people don't really know anything about their heritage and think that there is something ennobling about saying they are part Native American so they lie about it. Since many of these people don't know hardly any tribes besides the most well known ones, Cherokee becomes an obvious choice.

According to my Grandmother I an supposedly 1/16th Blackfoot. I'm not sure I believe it though. I've met a lot of my older relatives from that side and they are WAY too racist to get into some inter-racial loving.

I believe her because she had no reason to lie. I have know other Native American mixes, though. My mom's cousin married a Choctaw woman, so I have Choctaw relatives (all three of them are gorgeous women.) My sister's first husband had a Shoshone grandfather. I once dated a boy with a Virginia area Native American grandfather, but he wasn't sure from which tribe.

it was just the high population of them and where colonisation took place.
i mean the other tribes on the coast werent as friendly to settlers were they ?
my understanding is i have both Cherokee and Chickasaw in my bloodline *shrugs*
my grandmother did alot of research into our family tree, so im assuming shes correct about it. shes passed on or id ask her again.

plus id like to say that i think alot of people would like to believe they are part native american so they dont feel as bad about what happened.

I've met loads of people in the south who claim to be part Cherokee but if pressed on the issue will only say they were told by someone in their family that they were, but they don't know exactly who it was, or when. My mother lived near the Cherokee reservation in NC for a long time and we knew some Indians there. It used to piss them off mightily that so many people claimed to be part Cherokee but couldn't prove it and had no idea of who their Cherokee ancestors/relatives were, or even if they really existed at all.

There are a lot of "wannabe" Cherokees around.

My husband's grandfather (long gone) was 1/2 Cherokee from Oklahoma. We took it with a gigantic grain of salt, except that I think it's true just because the 'white' grandmother always tried to deny it before always very reluctantly admitting it. She disliked admitting it because her background/generation thought it was not something to be proud of, to have married an 'Indian', rather something to hide or be ashamed of. She was from a dirt-poor Okie background and traveled from OK to Texas in a wagon in this century. her 'people' felt ashamed to admit the marriage. It's a cultural thing I seldom see admitted these days. Today, we think it is wonderful to have this heritage, but at the time, there was plenty of prejudice. Marriages were very common, but they would pretend 'whiteness' of the children.

It has been sad to us, as we would be interested to trace the family, but we could not find out much from her, as she hated to speak of what she ragarded as a shame. The old photos leave no doubt that he was a Native American. She said Cherokee, but I have always wondered if that was a kind of 'generic' word used by whites in Oklahoma.

I have thought about trying to seek records, but I have heard that records of 'Indians' in Oklahoma were not well kept, and I only know his name, no dates or locations at all.

But if the tale of beautiful facial bones is true, our daughter of 1/16th is proof. She sure didn't get her beauty from my Swiss side!

I might be able to help you with records. One of my ancestors is on the Cherokee roll in NC (and I have the cheekbones too, but with auburn hair and blue eyes, of all things!) and I've got lots of lists of names from government rolls from NC and OK. It's a longshot, but I'd be glad to have a look for a particular year or years if you'd like and if I have a list for that year, I could send the entire thing to you and you could look for your ancestor by name.

Thanks! I don't have any years, could guess at a broad timeframe. I do have the name (a simple one), and wonder if it is common or not, or even likely to be Cherokee or not. At least I might learn how to look.

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/reservation.php

Good luck!

is that we are on the Trail of Tears. This was once their land, and they often married whites or were made slaves and bore mixed offspring.

A lot of the Cherokee hid out here, or were able to hold on to property somehow, and in the area where I specifically live, I would estimate the population is at least 75% able to claim some Cherokee relative. That may be too low a figure.

In a nearby town, Jasper, TN, the Cherokee played a large role. Look up "Betsy Pack."

The Cherokee were not the only natives in this area, nor were they the first here by many accounts, but their influence is significant because the land they lived on encompassed a large area, they had their own alphabet, many became Christians and they intermarried.

The history is facinating and worth resarching if you want to know more.

I have to say, I only know about the Cherokee in my area of TN and in North Georgia. There are also Cherokee in NC, Oklahoma, and every state in between.

intermarriage or other....we do know my Mother's Cherokee ancestors lived in Tennessee before coming to Alabama. There are no records that I can find...my Grandmother knew the details of being moved as a child and knew my Grandfathers family had come from there, too.

I have a box of old papers & documents on my Father's side from the "Georgia" migration here.

I don't find it unusual at all that so many people in different states have Cherokee or mixed Native, European or other blood.

American history reveals very simply how this has happened across most of the country.

Someone mentioned why no Seminole or a couple of other tribes. From what I understand about the Southeast, the Seminole were in Florida and saw what was happening to tribes in the other states. They resisted, fought back and retreated somewhat further into Florida and did not take to assimilation or extradition from their land during the era that most were moved out or pushed out of other states. I haven't studied this in depth, just information picked up in reading.
They did mix in some instances. I believe Burt Reynolds is part Seminole.

Thanks,BHG. Your post is food for thought regarding my family from Tennessee since we have no records.

So many people in TN are relatives of those tenacious holdouts :)

My family is Upstate NY stock: Italian, Dutch, Scotch, French and Iroquois ( though no one knows the specific tribe cuz the family was ashamed in past generations. I've heard Tuscarora, Mohawk and also the protected Delaware but I'll probably never know for certain.)

Most Americans whose families have been here a while have a tinge of Indian blood, I believe, whether black, hispanic or caucasian in appearance, simply because of intermarriage among the many people here. I used to wonder about all the Cherokee blood claimed til I moved here and found out a bit more about the history.

It's hard to track down the records on native ancestors. I wish you luck in your search, Alamom :hi:

partly because it's particularly common for historical reasons (size and geographic spread of nation, tendency to intermarry, etc.) and partly because it's a good guess for people over a large section of the country who know they have Native American ancestry, but don't know which nation(s) their ancestors belonged to.

The older women in my dad's family claim Native American ancestry, but don't pretend to know much about it. My great-grandmother remember an elderly grandmother of hers that was Native American. My grandmother also claims that her mother-in-law and the other women of my grandfather's family also remembered an elderly Native American grandmother (the women of my grandfather's family aren't around anymore to ask). My dad's ancestors were poor sharecroppers in rural Tennessee for generations, so there aren't really any records and most of the family pictures have been lost. If my grandmothers are right, and if I understood the genealogical placement of these grandmothers, then I'm about 1/64th Native American.

It's funny, but the subject probably never would have even come up except for the fact that I apparently look part Native American, at least to some people. My dad didn't even know about it. My grandmother told me about it when I was young because she had had several friends and coworkers say, "She must be part Indian!" when they saw my photograph. People ask me about it every once in a while, usually when I'm tan (pretty unusual, since I live in Seattle ;)).

I think it's silly when people get mad at "whites" for claiming some small piece of Native American ancestry. It's one thing if they're trying to get minority scholarships or something like that, but if, in a discussion about ancestry, someone mentions Cherokee or any other Native American nation, why ridicule the claim? It could easily be true, even if the person is blond, blue-eyed, and pale. One of my ex-boyfriends was 1/4 Cherokee and you would never have known it. If we had stood next to each other and asked passersby to guess which one of us had a Cherokee grandfather, I would be willing to bet that most people would have guessed me.

not specifically regarding Cherokee, because I've been told our blood may be Cherokee or Blackfeet, so I don't know for certain, but I claim my Native American ancestry because I'm proud of it. I am reasonably certain it is true even though much of the information is anecdotal; I do have a picture of my great-grandmother who is quite clearly NA, but of course her tribal affiliation is not tattooed on her forehead.

At any rate, when I first heard about it, it was a "dirty secret" in our family that my grandmother vehemently denied, but that my older aunts and uncles said they were certain was true. It was the shame and racism surrounding the disclosure that made me want to proudly proclaim that it was part of my heritage. They may have made the claim of Cherokee out of ignorance of the actual tribe and only recognizing that name; who knows?

I'd love to find out for certain, so I can learn the history of the actual tribe in my ancestry, and so that I can have proof to counter claims of being "just another white person lying to be fashionable." While the stories we've heard passed down may be distorted or made up by someone further up the line, I think there are few people who are actually lying when they make this claim.

part Cherokee. You wouldn't think it to look at him...his skin as pale as skin gets (although he tans) I think you would have to do lineage histories. Perhaps white man found Cherokee maidens to be beautiful...who knows?

If all of the people who claimed to be at Lambeau field the day the Ice Bowl was played were actually there, 4 million people were in the stands that day.

I started tracing my lineage a few months ago. One of the reasons so many identify with the Cherokee may simply have to do with the availability of genealogical records. There are very few federally recognized tribes east of the Mississippi. The native americans who chose to not relocate to Oklahoma sacrificed their federally recognized tribal affiliation and became U.S. citizens by default. Consequently, a LOT of tribal descendants are incapable of having their heritage federally recognized.

There are, however, quite a few state recognized tribes which don't restrict lineage requirements to the Dawes Roll. Lineage has to be established, but your ancestors didn't have to reside on the reservation in Oklahoma in c. 1906. To make a long story short, for whatever reason, a plurality of the state recognized tribes are Cherokee. I could easily be wrong, but my guess is that it's easier to trace Cherokee lineage because there are simply more centralized repositiories containing that kind of information.

-fl

Ape!

Edit...Fuckawe? As in...Where the F??K are we?

If you could of seen my Grandparents...

Grandfather-red hair, all freckles, white white white and my Grandmother all 4'9", 275 pounds, dark hair, dark skin, and dark blue eyes..... She was Cherokee

They were quite a pair.....

I too would like to know more. It's not much of a connection, proportion-wise, but I'm proud of it. There is also supposed to be a little "Cree" or "Creek" (yes, I know they're different) and the ancient people in my family who would know more died long, long ago.

That's why I'm lighter than the average brotha..."

-Ice Cube

Does that count?

My great great great great grandmother was "stolen" and returned later, infant in tow. That baby was my great great great grandmother, named Missouri Belle, and fostered all over hell. Her mother's brother's side of the family gave her their last name as her maiden name, and she married my great great great grandfather, first name Andrew, middle name Jackson.

Now, this is only the hand me down story, however, pictures of her indicate her native american heritage clearly. And the family story was always that it was sort of shameful for her mother, however, since they are all Scots, it is why they kept the child instead of leaving it to die on the hill. The Scots and the Indians pretty much got along okey dokey, and of course, it was no big deal for a Scotsman to cavort with a native female...it was something all together different for a Scotswoman to cavort, through her own choice or through rape...it did not matter, it brought shame to the family...but, they let the baby live..and so, through that, was I able to be a part of this world too.

Now, let me tell you about my grandfather Andrew's brother, Oliver, whose body was stolen from the morgue and never found....rumor (and stories) have it that he was the local "moneylender" (loan shark) and when he died, it was about at the height of the cadaver craze. We suspect someone got back at him by stealing his body and selling it for profit to recover...ahem...some of their losses to him over the years.

Oh, and the lose of HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of acres in Ross County, Ohio on the final turn of cards in a card game..oh YES that happened!

I love family stories.

black people say the same thing to about being cherokee. both of my exes (black and white) had cherokee ancestry, but my white ex had choctaw too.

It's also really insulting to those uf us who actually ARE significantly NA.

So there wasn't much left to be with but whites.

but I do know I have Cherokee blood, and a hard photo of my great-grandparents. My great-grandmother was full blooded and looked it, my great-grandfather was half, they both grew up on the reservation. I think, and this is just an opinion, but some people claim to have indian (not just cherokee) simply to give a sense of legitimate claim to American Heritage, kinda sad but believable.

...too ignorant to learn their real history, just easier to claim Cherokee - even in the Great Lakes region...it's always some whitey saying, "I'm part Cherokee - and Indian mascots don't offend me."

I'm part (I think a quarter, but don't quote me) native american, but no clue what tribe. Two out of my last four exes were a quarter cherokee too though. :) One you'd never guess, blonde hair, blue eyes. The other one you'd think was half by looking at her though. Eh, genetics are funny things.

:D