In the Cherokee Trail of Tears (1838-1839) the American military forced all the Cherokee Indians of Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina out of their homes at gunpoint and forced them to march a thousand miles (1600 km) west to live in a wasteland in what is now called Oklahoma. Their old homeland was taken over by white people.
Because they marched through the winter and slept in the open, 4,000 died along the way, leaving 12,000 alive at the end. Some later fled to Mexico to be beyond the reach of American power.
The Cherokee were one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the American South. The other four – the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole – were all removed from their homelands during this time, the 1830s, in much the same way. It was the law: the Indian Removal Act of 1830. But some of the Seminoles, along with some Creeks and runaway blacks, fought on into the 1850s from the Florida Everglades in the Seminole Wars.
The Cherokee were civilized: they farmed the land and worked iron, they could read and write their own language, they had their own constitution and press – some were even Christians, had Anglo names and black slaves!
But instead of gaining respect from whites it only made them seem more of a threat.
In 1791 the Cherokee gave up part of their land to the American government with the promise that they could keep the rest. But then in 1802 President Jefferson broke that promise by making another one: he promised the state of Georgia that in time all the Cherokee would be removed from the state.
In 1828 gold was discovered on Cherokee land. The state of Georgia passed laws to take away their rights and their land. The Cherokee fought it all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled in their favour. But President Jackson refused to uphold the court’s decision.
In 1831 ten white missionaries who had stood up for the Cherokee were arrested, beaten and marched in chains to the country jail. The two who refused to swear loyalty to the laws of Georgia were sentenced to four years of hard labour.
In 1836 the government forced through a new treaty which gave the Cherokee two years to leave their homeland forever. It was one of the few Indian treaties that it did not break.
Ralph Waldo Emerson warned the president:
We only state the fact that a crime is projected that confounds our understandings by its magnitude … the name of this nation, hitherto the sweet omen of religion and liberty, will stink to the world.
The president was not persuaded. In 1838 when the two years were up he sent in the army to move the Cherokee by force. Some ran off into the mountains but most wound up in prison camps. From there they were sent west through the snow and sleet in wagon trains. They sang “Amazing Grace”. Warmly-dressed white people came out to watch them pass by.
– Abagond, 2010.
See also:
Horrific, wasn’t it. I wonder how many Americans now know just how horrible it all was.
I’ve heard that “reservations” were basically meant to be death camps.
I’ve also heard that when Andrew Jackson was a general, his horse’s bridle reins were made of human skin. “Indian” skin, of course.
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Hmm. So these five tribes were considered “civilized” because they integrated into the American way of life? Yet, their land was stolen from them and they were forced to leave. How nice. *sarcasm*
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The Cherokee were civilized:…some were even Christians, had Anglo names and black slaves!
Doesn’t automatically mean “civilized”. Otherwise, great post as usual, Abagond.
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^ How did I miss that? Anyway, too true, Ankhesen.
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The Cherokee were civilized:…some were even Christians, had Anglo names and black slaves!
Doesn’t automatically mean “civilized”. Otherwise, great post as usual, Abagond.
Back then it did. The were even well-known as one of the “five civilized tribes”.
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Isn’t there still a Cherokee reservation in North Carolina?
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“Isn’t there still a Cherokee reservation in North Carolina?”
Yes. They are known today as the Eastern Band of Cherokees:
http://www.cherokeesmokies.com/about_cherokee.html
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The Cherokee were not considered civilized, because they had adopted Christianity or had slaves. Civilization means technically that a group live in cities, had agriculture and weren’t nomadic; can be extended because they had a written language and a certain level of technology.
Just as the Iroquois, Mayans, Aztecs and Incas.
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Ankhesen:
From what I understand the Cherokee were considered civilized by whites because they farmed their land and were to some degree Westernized.
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Macon sez:
I’ve heard that “reservations” were basically meant to be death camps.
Depends what you mean by “death camps”.
White America certainly expected that reservations would be part of the process that made Indians disappear. They conceived of that process as a “natural” side effect of the contact between “civilization” and “savagery”, however. There were no attempts to actually, physically destroy Native Americans as an entire race, which is what the common acception of “death camps” implies.
Rezes were Indians were supposed to go until they disappeared – either via assimilation or through the “inevitable waning of the noble bu inferior race through natural selection”.
The U.S. government could have transformed rezes into death camps any time they liked by cutting off rations. Though that was often threatened, I don’t think it was actually ever implemented on a reservation-wide basis in order to kill off the tribe. Typically, it was invoked at moments when the Indians were pi$$ing Unka Sugah off for some reason.
As they still have a tendency to do nowadays, you’ll note. 😀
Regarding the Cherokees in the east, a big portion of the Lumbee in North Carolina also claim descent from them.
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Thaddeus, that sounds mighty white of you — “What matters is intentions, not racist effects.” “Let’s quibble over the meaning of words, instead of racist effects.”
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i.e., if they were and are in effect “death camps,” then who the hell cares, really, if the word has other connotations for white people?
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The word has other connotations for far more than “white people”, Macon. And its use has wider implications than you apparently imagine.
I do happen to think that intentions are indeed as important as effects because the two points coexist in a dialectic. That’s neither here nor there, however. What I object to is your apparent belief that its more important to put a correct rhetorical “spin” on history than to actually attempt to relaistically understand it.
I think that it’s important, when trying to understand human behavior, to look at what really went on, to the best of our knowledge. When you use “death camps”, to me you are ascribing a twentieth century phenomenon to the 19th. You are doing this not because it helps us to understand how genocide against native americans actually played out (and thus, presumably, work against it): you are doing this simply because “death camps” carries a lot of rhetorical weight.
I’m against dealing with history via non-realistic or poetic rhetoric, Mason, not because I attempt to “excuse” the past, but because I think it’s better to understand it than make it try to fit our preconceived notions. Presuming, of course, that we’re really trying to understand what went on and why.
I have a hard time understanding myself why Americans – of both the left and the right – seem to think that “understanding” means “inability or unwillingness to pass moral judgement”. It’s a common vice you Yanks share across all color and political spectrums – as if being on the right side of a question obviates you from having to create any reasonable understanding of it. It’s the kind of mentality that marks patriotic rhetoric regarding the war on terrorism and it also shows up here in your belief that, given that we know reservations were bad, we can call them “death camps” and have done with it.
In other words, it seems that for Americans in general, rhetoric is almost always preferrable to realism.
You think that what happened to the Indians was morally incorrect. I agree with you there. Where we split ways is with your apparent decision that “moral incorrectness” allows you to classify what happened any old way you like, and the more morally repugnant language you use the better of we are, because that way people will know that those evil white oppressors of Indians were REALLY BAD MEN.
I believe that to understand what went on, in as realistic a sense as possible, gives us BETTER tools to work against its effects and undermine a possible repetition.
Here’s where our two methodologies split into two different possible practices. You denounce reservations as “death camps” (something which very, very few Indians would do, by the way, but being as you’re white and a self-announced anti-racist, I guess you’d know better, right?) You’d be interested to note that Dillon Meyer (see Abagond’s post on the Japanese internment camps) felt the same as you on this question. He also made the rhetorical connection between “concentration camps”, “death camps” and “reservations” and used that logic, on several occasions, to fight for the breaking up of Indian tribes and forced relocation.
After all, if reservations are indeed concentration camps or death camps, then we should eliminate them and get Indians out of them as soon as possible, don’t you think?
Many tribes were taken off the federal roles because of Meyer’s “struggle against the concentration camp that is the reservation” and many hundreds of thousands of Indians really, factually suffered because of this.
Ask any Native American what they think about abolishing reservations because they’re death camps, Macon.
Now, you could say “but they were death camps back then!” Back when, Macon? Because every treaty you’d care to name shows Native Americans fighting tooth and nail to retain those “death camps” and, in fact, expand them if possible. Kind of an odd behavior for death camp inmates, don’t you think?
Macon, I realize that the U.S. doesn’t teach its citizens to think in terms of history. I realize that your education in this respect is by-and-large made up of a series of poetic myths, so I fully understand when Americans like you think that history is simply a choice between poetic myths: choosing what Native American scholars call the “century of dishonor” myth over the “manifest destiny” myth in this case.
What I’m saying is that it’s important to maintain realism in the study of history because it HELPS us to fight inhuman behavior. Calling reservations “death camps” is a position historically taken by those people who want to forcibly do away with Native American alterity: the folks who favor genocide, in other words. Your innocent belief that rhetoric trumps realism when it comes to history actually gives REAL enemies of Native Americans an important tool on this point.
“Reservations” were not “death camps”: they were first and foremost reservations and they had their own particular set of human inequities and oppressions. Placing rhetorical machinegun nests, guard towers and poison gas showers on reservations does nothing to help us understand the specificities of what went on back then and the SPECIFIC EFFECTS that they have generated in our present.
Then again, you don’t believe in Native American histories (plural), do you? As far as I can see, you subsume Indians into a general understanding of something called “people of color” which, supposedly, have a transhuman history made up of their universal opposition to the great, homogenous monolith that is supposedly white supremacy.
In practice, Macon, this results in you dealing with every anti-racist struggle as if it played out according to the rules of the twentieth century southern U.S. white supremacy.
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Wrong on so many different levels.
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Hello, Abagond. It’s been a long itme since I posted, but, here goes, and sorry if I write a too long post and bore everyone.
Abagond, one must also factor into the issue of the Red/Black alliance that existed between Native Americans and enslaved Blacks, that occurred prior to the removal of the Cherokee.
It was not just about theft of land and possessions—–the hated and feared alliance between red and black incited fear and rage into pre-Confederate whites, most notably the Seminoles and escaped Blacks.
Mixed black/red groups were especially devastated by the oncoming segregationist policies in the post-Civil War era, after the instituting of Jane Crow segregation: in bluntly stated racist terms—–any amount of black ancestry made you entirely black. There are Native American tribes that to this day which still have not received federal recognition by the BIA and are not officially classified as such (no benefits, no gaming/gambling casinos: to obtain federal recognition, a tribe must petition the United States Department of the Interior, which gives them financial benefits accorded to recognized tribes) because, in the Jim Crow era, they were seen as blacks who were trying to get out of being black by claiming to be Indians:
This group includes the Buffalo Ridge Cherokee (of Virginia) who suffered a wedge driven between them and their Red relatives and former tribal members:
http://www.aagsnc.org/columns/mar99col.htm
and the Lumbee, who are the largest Indian tribe east of the Mississippi and the ninth-largest tribe in the United States. As of late last year (I have not been keeping up on it), the Lumbee were on the verge of being granted tribal status, but————–were not accorded a gaming clause. Not sure if the bill has passed by now.)
Many of the tribes that lived in Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, over the decades before and after the Civil War, the FCT adopted modes of White culture: Sheep farming, raising cotton, tobacco and keeping slaves to accomodate themselves to Whites. In the end, they did better than Whites in their endeavor to become *civilized*.
While writing my response, Abagond, I googled the Lumbee to see how their attempt at tribal status was coming along.
Just as I figured…………………
………………BAD:
http://www.news-record.com/content/2010/05/19/article/editorial_pursuit_of_gambling_threatens_lumbees_bid_for_recognition
and here:
http://64.38.12.138/News/2006/014928.asp
The Cherokee history is more varied and complex than many people realize.
That the Cherokee were forcibly removed from their original lands only to suffer and die along the infamous Trail of Tears, then to arrive in Oklahoma————–where ther already were other FCT who were moved there as well, and where their former slaves would be living as well (after the Treaty of 1866), made for an horrifc cultural and social battleground—–a battle that exists still to this day.
One that still includes the legacy of the Dawes Roll, the Kern-Clifton Roll————-and blood quantum.
A trail of tears that still continues.
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Way to go Thad! Facing the good, bad and ugly in the truest context as it happened is everyones’ moral responsibility. Thanks for taking the time to speak up and be clear about that.
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Ann, what red/black alliance was that, precisely, among the Cherokee?
The Cherokee owned slaves and had plantations for christ’s sake. Most of them fought on the side of the south during the Civil War.
I could understand the Seminole point because, even though the Seminoles kept slaves, they didn’t engage much in chattel slavery. And I’ve already mentioned the Lumbee.
But this is the first time that I’ve heard – anywhere – of a Cherokee/black anti-racist alliance.
I’d thus be very interested if you were to post a citation regarding that. Superficially, it seems to me like an instance of modern “people of color” leveling: “White people are bad and thus red people and black people, both oppressed by white people, must have been allies at some point.”
Not much I’ve seen in Cherokee history mentions that, but then again, I’m not an expert on that topic, though I’ve read fairly widely in it. My principle source here is Scott Malcolmson’s One Drop of Blood. No mention of any alliance there and plenty of evidence to presume the opposite.
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@Thaddeus.
Yes, I am familiar with Malcolmson’s book “One Drop” Having read it, still have my own copy, and have had correspondence with David Cornsilk himself (David who is mentioned in the book “One Drop” [pgs. 120-122], and who is the son of John Cornsilk of the Cherokee fighting against racism in the Cherokee Nation: http://www.cornsilks.com/ ).
“The Cherokee owned slaves and had plantations for christ’s sake. Most of them fought on the side of the south during the Civil War.”
Correct.
Chief Stand Watie who gathered Cherokees who fought on the side of the Confederacy.
On the other hand, the Ketowah Society, who fought on the side of the Union, knowing full-well that the White Confederate South was friend to neither enslaved Blacks nor the Cherokee.
I mentioned the Lumbee because I have known of their situation for many years, just as I have the Cherokee and the other FCT. Your mentioning them reminded me of their fight for tribal recognition and that jogged my memory on how their court case was faring.
I mentioned red/black alliance concerning *some* Native Americans and I was not more specific. So, for clarification I meant some tribes—-certainly not the Cherokee.
The Seminoles—-yes.
The Pequot—–yes:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1077/is_n8_v50/ai_16898311/
……….while writing my post, I was remembering about the Pequots, who unlike the Cherokee, worked together and amassed millions that would take care of their tribal members.
Those are just a few of the alliances.
Hope that clears things up.
The FCT did just the opposite; they treated enslaved Blacks no better than the Southern Whites, and in the case of the Cherokee, re-writing their Constitution to commit revisionism of their history to edit out that their Constitution recognized and legalized enslavement of Black human beings:
Yes. The Cherokee kept Blacks as slaves as I have posted on this in numerous posts:
Even in the present 21ST Century, to the extent of disenrolling 2,600 Black Cherokee Freedmen/Women once the gaming money started to roll in:
Imagine such a thing being done to Black U.S. citizens; it would be tantamount to disenfranchising millions of Black citizens of their legal rights guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.
But, the Black Cherokee Freedmen/Women prevailed, and took their case to court:
……………..so far, the jury is still out on that one.
Oh, and on one more note, the FCT are not the only ones who have engaged in racist acts.
The Pechanga have committed racism against their own citizens:
There is much injustice in Indian Territory.
And there is nothing more stomach-turning than seeing the once oppress finally get up off the ground they have been stomped into for so long———–only to become oppressors themselves.
No surprise there.
The legacy of racist hate is rampant all across America, and racist hate knows no bounds, nor is a respector of any person.
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This was very enlightning. I’m ashamed to say that I only know bits and pieces when it comes to the history of Indians in this country, albeit what I knew was always disgusting when it came to their treatment by “whitey” Thank you for the story.
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i dont believe that the cherokee indians owned any slaves. i believe that is something white people put in history. white people probably saw them living together and working side by side. divide and conquer anyone?
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On the other hand, the Ketowah Society, who fought on the side of the Union, knowing full-well that the White Confederate South was friend to neither enslaved Blacks nor the Cherokee.
Sure. And they were a fairly small minority among Cherokee, correct?
As for the Ketowah Society’s attitudes towards blacks, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that they were any great friends of the slaves. I’ve seen a couple of documents that claim they wished to kill or expulse all mixed-blood Indians from the tribe, white or black. Even today, their blood quantum requirements are much stricter than the Cherokee at large. Seeing as how ex-slaves became Cherokee tribal members only at congressional behest after the Civil War, and seeing how, as you yourself mentioned, the Keetowah Society fought against the planters, there aren’t many Keetowahs of African-American descent.
Their struggle against Watie and the Southern-leaning Cherokee had much more to do with internal tribal politics than it did with any great alliance to the abolitionist struggle. Again, at least from what I’ve read in histories written by people, white red and black, who’ve actually delved into the primary documents of this period.
The Pequots are another kettle of fish entirely.
From what I’ve read of their tribal history, their reservation became (like many rezes) a bit of a dumping ground for the local society’s unwanted, including poor whites and blacks. These groups intermarried. There’s a certain amount of controvery regarding to what degree some sort of tribal structure actually existed in the late 1970s and early ’80s when the tribe was “reborn”. Several people have accused the modern Pequots of being a complete fabrication. I’m not sure what to believe on this point as I’ve read convincing accounts from both sides. But again, the black presence on the Pequot rez seems to come from early 20th century squatters, not some remnant Pequot/slave alliance.
i dont believe that the cherokee indians owned any slaves. i believe that is something white people put in history.
Sorry, Dude. The Cherokee had their own newspapers and legal system and constitution as far back as the late 1700s. They themselves wrote about their having slaves and owning plantations – in their own language, no less. This isn’t some white misconception.
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@ O’Dochartaigh –
Yeah the “Lumbee” are in North Carolina. I dated a Lumbee girl for a while when I was stationed at Fort Bragg. I also served with a guy in my unit whos ‘hometown’ was Raeford NC, and he was Lumbee. There is a pretty big presence there.
In this same unit, I also served with an Apache descendant and Sioux. Met a girl in another unit who was Kiowa, but I digress.
@ Abagond – good post. I was actually going to suggest a post on the Seminoles & Black Seminoles. I guess you could still do one.
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“As for the Ketowah Society’s attitudes towards blacks, I’ve seen nothing to indicate that they were any great friends of the slaves. I’ve seen a couple of documents that claim they wished to kill or expulse all mixed-blood Indians from the tribe, white or black. Even today, their blood quantum requirements are much stricter than the Cherokee at large. Seeing as how ex-slaves became Cherokee tribal members only at congressional behest after the Civil War, and seeing how, as you yourself mentioned, the Keetowah Society fought against the planters, there aren’t many Keetowahs of African-American descent.
I never stated the Ketoowahs were looking out for Blacks nor in solidarity with them. I stated a fact that the Ketoowah’s fought on the side of the Union.
Note too hard to understand that, is it Thaddeus?
“Their struggle against Watie and the Southern-leaning Cherokee had much more to do with internal tribal politics than it did with any great alliance to the abolitionist struggle. Again, at least from what I’ve read in histories written by people, white red and black, who’ve actually delved into the primary documents of this period.”
I never stated otherwise.
The schism between the Cherokee Nation and the Ketoowah Band still exists today, with each side claiming to be the more legitmate “Cherokee”.
“Ann, what red/black alliance was that, precisely, among the Cherokee?”
I did not mention a red/black alliance between the Cherokee. I stated that there were red/black alliances that the White South feared that occurred prior to Cherokee removal.
I will clarify. Prior to Cherokee removal, there were instances of red/black alliance at different times in America’s history.
In addition to the Seminoles, who along with enslaved Blacks, fought Andrew Jackson, there was the Battle of the Pee Dee Piver in South Carolina.
Here, the first stand together of red and black took place with the enslaved Blacks brought to America by the Spaniards fleeing into the Pee Dee nation’s territory, aligning with them, and driving off the Spanish. This community of red/black survived until further encroachment into their territory by more Europeans who pushed further into their territory. They survived almost a century.
http://books.google.com/books?id=brJInXUmJvoC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=pee+dee+indians+blacks+and+spaniards&source=bl&ots=650b1lGMF6&sig=x3QrUP3vAPFI8J3lcF2Muav9KIY&hl=en&ei=ST_8S66MN4raNuuL-McB&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q&f=false
Sorry for the super-long link.
Thaddeus, man, calm down, take a slow breath, breath in……………………it will be alright.
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I guess the exchange between Thaddeus and Ann explains why straight-up history doesn’t always shine the light you hope it will. Hence rhetoric. Rhetoric that might exaggerate reality, but gets the point across. And rhetoric, perhaps, that seeks to correct the official spin. Why else is America still called the land of the free and the brave when so many of its acts have involved imprisonment and cowardice? Why else is Emerson’s warning (that our treatment of the Cherokee would blacken our name) merely a historical footnote? Rhetoric isn’t truth, but it might start a conversation that leads us to it–much like the exchange between Thaddeus and Ann.
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I have no problem with rhetoric, actually. History is, after all, based on rhetoric.
My problem is when rhetoric discards realism. When one feels that one can make up any old thing at all in order to get one’s political point across.
I understand why politicians and demagouges do that, but it is personally offensive to me and I try to stay away as much as I can from such practices.
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major saddness right here…
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Lumbee true proven origins not Indigenous! Senator Mcmillan a politician in the late 1880,s first put forth the theory that The croatans(now known as lumbee) might be Indian but they were not Indian ,it was a political move to separate the newly freed black from the mixed mulatto population to form a republican voting block.from then on the Indian story was born.
In the late 20th century, genealogists Paul Heinegg and Dr. Virginia E. DeMarce performed extensive research of primary source documents, such as deeds, land records, wills and court records to develop genealogies of free people of color in the Chesapeake Bay area during the colonial years. They have been able to trace the migration of numerous primary Lumbee ancestral families from the Tidewater region of Virginia into northeastern North Carolina and then down into present-day Robeson County, North Carolina. They found that 80% of those identified as free people of color (or other) in the Federal censuses in North Carolina from 1790-1810 were descended from African Americans free in Virginia during the colonial period. From researching family histories through original documents, Heinegg and DeMarce have traced most Lumbee ancestors and have been able to construct genealogies that show the migration of people from Virginia to North Carolina. Most of those free African-American families in Virginia were descended from unions between white women (servant or free) and African men (servant, slave or free), The Lumbee are only using a Indian Identity to hide what they considered shameful long ago better to pass as Indian than Black and it worked.DNA results have backed this research up since Indian DNA is not found in your typical Lumbee,none.This explains why the Lumbee have no Indian language or customs or heritage.The average Lumbee is Zero (0) percent Indian to about 96% euro-african.You would think among 50,000 people there would be allot of Indian DNA but not so.The lumbees are good at denying african roots! check it out at wikipedia.com
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ATTENTION FORUM MEMBERS please check out this info at
WIKIPEDIA: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6356875/Lumbee/
for detailed info Wikipedia has hit it on the mark correctly!!!!!!!!
In 1885 ,Hamilton,Mcmillan a lawyer and state representative from Robeson county first proposed seeking to drive a wedge between the Lumbee descendants and Emancipated slaves who had combined to vote republican, mcmillan theorized that the lumbees were not Mulatto or Black but Indians mcmillan called them Croatans to drive a voting wedge because the freedman’s Bureau had jurisdiction over freed slaves not Indians so it was an attempt to forestall investigation by the freedman’s Bureau.The lumbee ancestors had many previous opportunities to identify themselves as Indian in court and civil records and never once did in any records!!
for the detailed report please read and form your logical conclusion great stuff !! all supported by fact.
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6356875/Lumbee/
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ATTENTION FORUM MEMBERS please check out this info at
WIKIPEDIA: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6356875/Lumbee/
for detailed info Wikipedia has hit it on the mark correctly!!!!!!!!
http://www.docstoc.com/docs/6356875/Lumbee/
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Kimo,
“The Lumbee are only using a Indian Identity to hide what they considered shameful long ago better to pass as Indian than Black and it worked.DNA results have backed this research up since Indian DNA is not found in your typical Lumbee,none.This explains why the Lumbee have no Indian language or customs or heritage.The average Lumbee is Zero (0) percent Indian to about 96% euro-african.”
Which study has them at zero percent Native? The Lumbee were around 13-15 percent Native American in the studies I’ve seen. It’s true they are more African and European than Native American, but that tilts more to the European side: they are about three times more European than African. I can link you to a fairly recent study on this, if you want.
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Larry Robert Gene Dicks, the survivor of the McDonald’s Massacre, is part Cherokee.
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I never know that Idians never had the right to do and live were they wanted to to bu t they thing that they think that people in the United States the miliatry had to be so mean and force the poor people out of htier homeland. including when the women were getting ready to have babbys they had to give birth on the road and not in a cossy bed of deer fur anf bear fur.
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I enjoyed the documentary “Black Slaves, White Masters” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a11blNxkXc&feature=related). It claims 1,600 slaves accompanied the Cherokee Indians on the Trail of Tears and approximately one-fourth of the Indians and their slaves died, but the Cherokees don’t mention the slaves in their annual pageant on the Trail of Tears. It also says freedmen migrated from the South to Indian Territory, including Cherokee territory, after the Civil War to seek a better. This is short of a black-Cherokee alliance, but it does suggest — in contrast to today — a period of significantly better treatment of the blacks by Cherokees than whites. The documentary was apparently presented in February, 1990. Is anyone aware of shortcomings in the documentary or recent developments in what’s reported?
Thadeus, I greatly enjoyed your comments on this post. I agree “…it seems that for Americans in general, rhetoric is almost always preferrable [sic] to realism.”
Ann, you said, “There is much injustice in Indian Territory.” What do you mean by “Indian Territory?” Are you referring only to territory in Oklahoma? Was Southern whites’ fear of red-black alliances disproportionate to the threat?
Natasha W and anyone who can, please cite, preferably by linking, studies of the genetic heritage of the Lumbee.
Kino, the documents you cited say they’re taken “[f]rom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia” and therefore can substantiate that “Wikipedia has hit it on the mark correctly [concerning the Lumbee].”
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I can’t count the numerous time I heard white people say that they are a quarter Cherokee. Black people do it too usually a dark skin black woman knowing that their asses as the pot and kettle.
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Good post. Cherokee example shows that even when Native Americans borrowed aspects of Western civilization, they were still a threat or undesirable. It reminds me of Black South African elites (kholwa) during the 19th century. They had Western education, some favored British imperialism (with themselves in positions of power or authority), but at the end of the day, no matter how much they adhered to ‘Western’ norms or civilization, the British screwed them over anyway. The British did the same thing to the Krio elite of Sierra Leone.
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[…] Cherokee Trail of Tears […]
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Missing from the usual Trail of Tears story is the numbers of enslaved Africans dragged along by the Cherokee, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw to Oklahoma. Those Africans would be held in bondage until after the end of the Civil War (the Cherokee, the Choctaw and the Chickasaw all fought on the side of the Confederacy). They were not free until a treaty in 1866 released captives in tribal territory.
According to one freed Afro-Native descendant:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/an-ancestry-of-african-native-americans-7986049/
“Civilized Tribes” indeed!
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@ Afrofem: There is a book on my list by Barbara Krauthamer called Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, And Citizenship In The Native American South.
Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians bought, and sold, and owned Africans and African Americans as slaves. My mind is blown.
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@ Mary Burrell
Thanks for the book reference.
The descendants of the Black freedmen and women are still getting the shaft from the Cherokee, Choctaw and Chickasaw. They have been dropped from the tribal rolls and disowned by their cousins. It is a big mess.
To the tribal governments, these blended family members don’t exist:
On some level, it is not just race and color. Access to resources (like tribal healthcare or casino money) are causing other tribes throughout the country to drop members. Fewer enrolled members mean bigger payouts to those who remain.
Money talks, broke members walk.
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@ Afrofem: Exactly, your post helps me understand what’s happening with the black people who also are apart of those Native American people. And off course like anything else in this country and around the globe black folks get the shaft.
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A lot of Black-First Nations down around this way.
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