Are You Part Cherokee?
How many times have I heard someone say that they are part Indian, and how many times does the tribe mentioned turn out to be Cherokee? I’m not referring just to personal experience, but also to people and characters heard on radio and television. Whenever someone makes a statement like that to me, and then confesses that they don’t know any other details, it makes me smile.
It’s not that I doubt their sincerity. It’s just that family stories like that seem so commonplace now, as ethnic diversity becomes more accepted. But why does the name Cherokee come up so often? Perhaps it has something to do with modern media: going back to TV Daniel Boone’s sidekick, Mingo, the friendly Cherokee, and the pop song, Cherokee People, and the popular Jeep Cherokee, and the Target department store’s Cherokee brand of clothing, and even Cherokee Electronics, not to mention celebrities associated with Cherokee ancestry.
The list of celebrities who are claimed, either by themselves or by their fans, to have Cherokee blood is quite long. From Ava Gardner to Burt Reynolds to Val Kilmer, from Loretta Lynn to Tina Turner to Tori Amos, from James Earl Jones to Chuck Norris to Johnny Depp. Perhaps the most famous Cherokee is Cher, who admits to having 1/16th Cherokee blood on her mother’s side, which means that one of her great-great-grandparents was Cherokee, although some fan sites list her as much as 1/2 Cherokee, probably resulting from her hit song, Half Breed. Her dark features apparently are inherited from her Armenian father.
Again, it’s not that I doubt the person’s family story of Indian blood. I just wonder, since so much of the story has been lost, how much of the story has been enhanced? Without any other details of their ancestry, it would just sound more credible if the person could name a tribe other than the default Cherokee. Certainly the Cherokee have always been a large group, and today have the largest membership of any tribe. (The whole concept of being part Indian, based on blood quanta, is certainly open for debate, but it is beyond the scope of this discussion.) Regardless, it’s amazing how often the Cherokee name comes up in family folklore, and even more amazing when the unknown ancestor is described as a chief or princess.
I suppose a person who states the ethnic origin of one of their ancestors is trying to establish some connection, either to that heritage, or to those who share it. But if they have never experienced that heritage, what possible connection can they have? Imagine if you had a visitor from Scotland, and you casually mentioned that one of your ancestors was a Scottish Duke or Earl. His response would probably be, “Oh, really, which one?” to which you could only shrug.
My maternal ancestors came from Germany, Switzerland, and the British Isles in the 18th Century, but I feel no particular connection to any of those countries, other than the traditions of the Pennsylvania Dutch in which I was raised. Certainly we were always aware of our Indian heritage. Of course my father looks more Indian than my siblings and I, and everyone in school, church, etc. knew it. We experienced our heritage first-hand whenever we visited family in Oklahoma, attending pow wow, attending tribal funerals, visiting the graves of our ancestors in the tribal cemetery, and participating in other traditional ceremony with our cousins. But I do not claim to be Indian, in the same sense as my father and his siblings, who grew up on the reservation among the tribe.
Update: Over the years I have received periodic emails from people who object to what they perceive as a disparaging attitude of this article. Please read my related articles:
More information on the Web
For anyone serious about pursuing their Cherokee genealogy, there are lots of helpful sites on the Web. Just go to your favorite search engine and type in “Cherokee genealogy“. Here are a few sites that give advice on how to proceed:
- A Cherokee Indian Woman. One person’s success story of documenting her Cherokee ancestry.
- Beginning your Cherokee Research by Jerry Wright Jordan.
- The Cherokee Messenger, from the Cherokee Cultural Society of Houston.
- Tracing Your Native Ancestry, an article I wrote for this website, offering some direction, but little help.
8 Comments »
Bad Pony Medicine said :
April 13, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I understand both sides of the “I’m Cherokee” issue. I myself am part Cherokee, and in the process of tracing it down (thankyou for the links to resources), but I’ve also found evidence of Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and we’ve known of the Powhattan for a very long time (Descendant of Pocahontas, so my family ADMITS to that Indian blood, because she was a ‘good Indian’…gawd….) But I’ve also dealt with a lot of the ‘My Gramma was a Cherokee princess’, and they’re dead serious. You can’t convince them the monarchy didn’t exist. Since I’m mostly white, I just tell people I’m part white, but I can’t prove it. They don’t get it. Big surprise. I think blood quantums are many things — a measure of how ‘guilty’ or ‘threatened’ people feel they need to be around us. “Oh, you’re only 1/8th, that’s not MUCH “…so they continue to tell racist jokes, etc. The higher your blood quantum, the uneasier they are about telling those jokes. Well, I take my Native Blood very serious. I’m an activist, etc. Most people who only know me from the ‘net’ wouldn’t think I was anything but fullblood. But as the elders have told me, it’s not so much a matter of blood quantum, but what is in your heart. Either that, or they say, “You’re part Indian? Which part?”
Sandra Keske said :
November 12, 2007 at 3:44 pm
I want to let you know how much I’ve enjoyed your Blog. Why? Let me tell you. . . All my life I was told that my ggrandmother was a “Cherokee Princess”! Her mother died when she was 12, but evidently had “long black hair”. When my g-mother died, my mother recorded her death certificate as “Cherokee”. I had always been intrigued and planned to do some research to make an authentic connection.
I began attending pow wow’s and purchased many books - on all different nations. I must confess, I had a bit of pride there. I fell in love.
After many years of research, I finally found my g-mothers’ relatives on her mothers side. Guess what . . . no evidence of native american any where!
I no longer make the claim of being part Cherokee, but I have taken the nations into my heart - and greive for what was lost - wishing someway it would be recovered. I still attend pow wow’s and continue to read books and encourage my “cub scouts” to respect the first peoples of our nation.
Just the idea of being “Part Cherokee” encouraged a lot of research and I attained a lot of knowledge which I wouldn’t have if I had not had that sparkle to consider.
Just wanted to share that with you.
Sandi K.
Edgar WhiteWolf said :
May 25, 2008 at 4:55 pm
I am 1/4 Cherokee on my mothers side. 1/4 Choctaw on my Grandfathers side and Creek on my fathers side. All my family was dark with either dark brown or black hair. I was not that fortunate. I was always told by my mother that we were Indian and when I was young I use to go to the movies and see the Indians on the screen. Dark, bare chested, long black hair. This is what I thought we were. Then one day my mother showed me pictures of some of our elders, most who had passed away. I was shocked. In stead of what I visioned my people to look like, they didn’t. The old pictures showed people wearing turbans and old centurion coats, smoking long stemmed pipes. Or the newer fotos who showed what looked like just farmers, in the fields or by log cabins or wood homes. Not what I had envisioned.
As I became older and more taught I learned much more about my people. Over the years I have also, as stated in here that all the wannabes were mostly all Cherokee. I ask…WHY? If I was not an Indian but wanted to tell everyone I was…why not choose Apache, Commanche, Sue, and thing you saw on tv or in the movies…not Cherokee.
I don’t have the answer for that but what I do know is that the Cherokee people are the first Indian people who had contact with the Europeans. As time went by we started inter marriages. Our blood line thinned by this and as years passed a lot of our ancestors became lighter than other Natives who had yet to see the white people.
Our plight in the 1880’s were no different than any other tribes across the US when Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. Our benefit was that many of our people escaped the Trail of Tears and went into the Smokey Mountains and lived their among the mountain people The mountain people accepted accepted our people and because of complexion, we blended well.
However, they were still Indian. So most changed their names and destroyed any written record of being Indian. That was great for them, but it lost a lot of family history. So today, what our ancestors did to protect themselves from being caught by the military, has caused our people today, not to be able to track their heritage. Instead, their heritage at some point hits a brick wall and there it is lost. A very good indication that those people are in fact Cherokee or some tribe. Myself, it has taken me 50 years to be able to find relatives or ancestors before my mother was born. She was born but I couldn’t find her parents anywhere. But because of the computer, I have found her and her sister on the Baker Rolls. I finally found my great grandfather on the Keetowah rolls. So finialy today, I can truthfully say, I am Cherokee…before I pass on to my ancestors.
So I say that those who heard you are Cherokee, keep looking, you might find something. But don’t be overly disappointed if you don’t find a thing.
Now as the writer said, there was not real Cherokee Princesses. However I did find that the word princess was used widely by parents, grand parents and the daughters. So hearing that your grandmother was a Cherokee princess, maybe does not mean they were royalty, but a princess to someone.
Remember that the belief of the Cherokee is that even if you have but one drop of Cherokee blood, as long as you know you are Cherokee and your heart beats Cherokee and you walk the path…then you are Cherokee.
Wado,
Edgar WhiteWolf
Chief
Lone Wolf Band of Cherokee Indians
Aaron Schnelle said :
June 30, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Hi my name is Aaron and I am trying to figure out my indian back ground wich is aparently cheroke according to my dad. he told me great grandma was full blooded cherokee from north carolina . Her name doesnt sound cherokee but i under stand that was back when the natives where tryingto cover there tracks and took on the white mans name any help you can give would be greatly aprtiated, by the way her name was Myrtle O Feibushe.
Thank you
Jackie Chaulk said :
July 24, 2008 at 12:14 am
Interesting debate. I’m not part Cherokee but my father is half Inuit and my mother is half Chippewa. What a mudblood I am. I grew up where my father is from but when his father died and his mother remarried another white man the family became disconnected from it’s Inuit side. Then they moved away. My father moved back with my mother and I. Going to school, I always knew that I was related to this one or that but for whatever reason, was shunned.
As for my mother, she was illegitimate. Mother white, father Chippewa from Saugeen reserve in Ontario.
I am dark and look native. The kids in school made fun of me and called me a wagon burner. I know where I come from and have a deep longing to reconnect to my roots but am not welcome on either side. This is how cultures become lost. Slowly, one person at a time. It makes me sad when I think about it.
Jackie aka Sweetgrass
Ashleigh said :
August 22, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I love this article…to an extent. I am part Cherokee(Tsalagi) on my father’s side. His grandmother was Cherokee from NC. I have a picture of her to prove it, and clearly she is a Native. It shows in all of our features as well. My mother’s grandmother was Tsalagi as well. Now when I was in school, the usual reaction to my appearance was that I had “pretty hair” “you must have indian in your family”. When I explained that I did, there it came. I am part Cherokee too. As well, I did not know what to think, and most times I would laugh. I could approach you with the same statement. Now if you asked me any history, I do not know. My mother’s side of the family has all passed, she only has in her generation one half-brother left. On my father’s side, it hard to even get my grandmother to talk, and all I can get is his grandmother’s name. I do not know how much blood quantum I have, but I know what I am, and to me, that is most important. Now again, if I was to approach you with this, would you believe me? That is where it is not so amusing to read this. I have no idea how to become or if I can even register. I would love to, especially to reconnect what has been lost. To answer, Cherokee is used, because it is one of the more well known tribes. Navajo, Sioux, Hopi, Choctaw, Iroquois, are not known to those who are not really familiar with Native history or culture.
Wado,
Ashleigh
BrokenClaw said :
August 24, 2008 at 11:36 am
Ashleigh, but you see, you DO know your Cherokee ancestors. My only suggestion to you would be, when talking to an interested person, instead of just saying “My grandmother is/was Cherokee”, you should say something like “My [great-] grandmother, [give her name], was a Cherokee from [name the town or county] of North Carolina.” Even though the names and places don’t mean anything to the listener, just giving those simple facts personalizes your story and makes it different from the generic grandmother story.
Naming your ancestors honors your ancestors. It is something that differentiates native Americans from white Americans. For instance, if you read a feature article about a native American, for example about a particular honor or achievement in school, or even an obituary, they often name their grandparents and sometimes even one or more of their great-grandparents. Personal websites of young native Americans, too, often honor the names of their grandparents.
Now, if you know the names of your ancestors, especially maiden names, and know when and where they lived, it’s likely you could find them on federal censuses and, if they lived in a tribal community, on tribal censuses.
With regard to identifying other tribes, the point is to identify the correct tribe. My ancestors come from the Otoe, Missouria, and Munsee tribes, which most people have never heard of. But when they ask, I use it as an opportunity to educate the listener.
dlawahgigehstayohed said :
August 28, 2008 at 1:42 pm
it always amuses me to hear “in my heart”. to me,thats like “in my heart,i know i have the winning lottery ticket”.you either are or you’re not. you can go to tahlequah to cherokee nation capitol and not know who is really cherokee. a card does not make you one. speaking the language doesnt make you one. learning from books doesnt make you one. books have always been suspect anyway,especially mooney. theres a lot to be said of the oral histories. guess you have to live it.
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