For a comprehensive and contemporary overview of Cherokee History, check out the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma web site and see where the 32 hour+ history course is being offered and enroll. For ten bucks a person gets lectures with lots of audio visuals and a 2 1/4 inch thick "book" made of copies of original documents. Cherokee Nation subsidizes this course and it is offered in cities from the East Coast to the West Coasts. When I attended the course in Washington DC there were people who had traveled there from Indiana and New York City. The compilation of documents is only available to enrollees in the course. It is a course that all employees of the Cherokee Nation must take. The lecturer is really good and she encourages lots of discussion so that myths and misinformation about the tribe can be dispelled. No exams just lively discussions and presentations. There are stories (myths in some cases) about trying to disguise or hide Indian heritage. In some parts of the country attitudes on part of the whites are conducive to keeping silent about Indian heritage. Once when I was in South Dakota I was told never to mention I was of Indian descent. The people in that town even required Indians to be buried in a separate cemetery. Hopefully it is still not that way today. The historical rolls that were taken at various times in the Cherokee Nation's history introduced to white society the idea of recording amount of Indian "blood", I.e. 1/4, 1/2, full. which in later times became standard procedure to determine "Indianness". This is because the white belief was that "blood" carried the ability of people to handle their affairs. Blue bloods, good blood, bad blood are terms which reflect this period of white thought. After all, this was before people knew about genes creating physical/mental characteristics and the society believed you "inherited" your abilities thru the blood. Those Indians with less "Indian blood" and more white blood were more "civilized." If a person had more Indian blood, then they were less civilized. The Indians didn't care about this categorization because they recognized tribal affiliation on the basis of other traits or actions. So within the "Cherokee" population at the time of removal there were Catawbas, Creeks, and Chickasaws but they were considered to be citizens and only the whites insisted on noting the origins of these families. If a person and/or family was considered by the tribe as tribal members, then they were Cherokee and subject to tribal authority and laws. The Cherokees being agricultural had black slaves who were not considered members. When John Ross and family were removed they carried with them on the steam ship, 22+ slaves but one Cherokee plantation owner in Georgia had over 100. On the Henderson Roll (Removal Roll), the number of slaves possessed by a family appears. Traders with the Indians had to be licensed by the colonial governments. So a person could not be legally involved with the Indians unless they were permitted. Of course there were renegades who tried to horn in on this but generally these people were quickly rooted out by the colonial authorities. After all, part of the resources of the colony was that that provided by the Indian trade and that required supervision with authorized traders. Rules established trade standards about values, weights and measures our word "buck" for a dollar comes from the value of one deer skin (buck). The native resources involved in the trade had to be taken to shipping ports and loaded on to ships and the colonial authorities were there to record the number of skins, etc that were part of that trading process as well. Indian citizens were free to move about and some did leave the tribe and dropped their citizenship. For these people, there would be no documentation to show their original tribal membership. While stories about ancestry might be handed down within their descendents, there would be no way of proving their biological heritage. Family myths about ancestry abound but careful genealogical research is required to determine the documented truth. There is a large number of people in the Southeastern United States that believe they are descended from a "tribe" call the Blackfeet" or "Blackfoot." Such a tribe never lived in the southeastern US. There is a "Blackfoot" Tribe on the Idaho Canadian border but they never occupied the Southeastern U.S. When I once pointed out this to an individual who said she was "Blackfoot" from Georgia, her reply, "I don't care what you say, my daddy says that is our ancestry and he does not lie." Family myths and stories die hard. ----- Original Message ----- From: HealTheCircle@aol.com<mailto:HealTheCircle@aol.com> To: indian-territory-roots@rootsweb.com<mailto:indian-territory-roots@rootsweb.com> Sent: Thursday, August 31, 2006 10:01 AM Subject: Re: [INDIAN-TERRITORY-ROOTS] Hello everyone What's rather interesting about the Cherokee, is that at one time, they WERE part of the Iroquois Confederacy (6 Eastern Tribes). I would guess...this was earlier than the 1770's. This was when the Chickamaugan Cherokee withdrew from the other Cherokee, because of their ceding of land to the whites. So...the ceding of land, and intermarriages had already begun by that time. Fron what I can tell, the early settlers, were folks who worked in fur trade...which brought them in very close contact with the natives in the area where the Cherokee lived. The first settlers lived with the native people, married into the tribe, and were considered part of the tribe. I would also read James Mooney's book...about the Cherokee previous to the intermarrying with the white culture. I think the name of the book is "History, Myths, and Secret Formulas of the Cherokee." One other point I'd like to make...which I am willing to hear other perceptions on...is that in the 1830's when the removal began (referred to as the Trail of Tears)....some native families who were involved in that (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Creek), instructed their children to not admit native blood, to escape the removal. There is talk of admitting "black dutch", "black irish", or sometimes "italian" or "greek" instead of native. This is understandable if you view the horror, loss of life, etc., that this removal perpetrated. There are museums at the Western and Eastern Cherokee Nations that depict this removal. Also, previous to this in about 1817, there was a "Massacre of 100 Women and Children", of the Chickamaugan Cherokee, not far from Ross's Landing, in what is now Chattanooga, TN. on their way to safety. The instruction by their Chief was to save the rest of the children, by sending them off with others, non native, to be raised as other than native (my history....on my Mitchell family). My family found them at a campground in what is now the Chattanooga area, and took them West with them to Henryville, TN....as their children. There they intermarried with other families who also had native in their background. From there they traveled to AR. So....it is possible that people, with native blood, could have ended up, in areas that were not designated, as the areas in which those tribes lived (as a tribe). These brief descriptions of history (of which I am a novice) only were cited to show that there events previous to the birth times of her people, that could have brought a person who was not a "fullblood" into an area.....but the native blood would still have been present, even if there was intermarriage. jes ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to INDIAN-TERRITORY-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com<mailto:INDIAN-TERRITORY-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com> with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message