![]() It was in the 1840s or 50s, as the federal challenge to Southern slavery was growing stronger and Civil War loomed on the horizon, that Southerners first started to claim “Cherokee blood.” In the decades prior to the Trail of Tears, Cherokee intermarriage with white settlers had dropped off, as white Southern public opinion had turned against Cherokees. Second, let’s look at when white people started to claim Native American heritage in the Southeast. And he’s like, ‘As a Cherokee, I really don’t think you want to do this.’ And I’m like, ‘Dad, I’m not that Cherokee.’” - Miley Cyrus, 2008. “I’ve begged my dad for the Mercedes G-Wagen, but he was like, ‘Miley, isn’t there enough pollution in the air?’ We’re Cherokee, that’s our background. Miley Cyrus shows off her dreamcatcher tattoo Still, the number of people claiming Cherokee heritage far outstrips the number of possible descendants from these intermarriages. That makes these claims somewhat plausible, because early on Cherokee people did intermarry with white settlers at an uncommonly high rate compared to other Native American tribes. and the 1838–9 forced relocation known as the Trail of Tears. White people claiming Cherokee heritage are especially common in the Southeast United States, where the Cherokee lived between 1000 A.D. Their families are from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee/Kentucky, and Arkansas again, respectively. įirst, let’s look at who claims to be Cherokee: Elizabeth Warren, Johnny Cash, Johnny Depp, Miley Cyrus, and Bill Clinton for starters. “My grandmother was one-quarter Cherokee.” - Bill Clinton to Sherman Alexie, 1998. The answer is paradoxical: it’s a way of communicating authentic white Southern identity. But the interesting thing is not why Warren’s clung to her family lore for so long, it’s why so many white people in America claim Cherokee heritage to begin with. There is a distinction, of course, between actual, provable citizenship of the Cherokee Nation, and purported heritage. ![]() In defending her claim, she says only, “This is what my brothers and I were told by my mom and my dad, my mammaw and my pappaw.” Many people’s grandparents have told them the same thing. government records and the multiple existing sets of very thorough tribal kinship records, if you have Cherokee ancestry, there’s bound to be documentation somewhere.Įlizabeth Warren can’t provide that documentation. “We probably come in third after royalty and Mormons.” Between U.S. “If you meet somebody who you wouldn’t necessarily think they’re Native, but they say they’re Native, chances are they’ll tell you they’re Cherokee.”īut “Cherokees are among the best documented people in the world,” says David Cornsilk, a researcher of Cherokee genealogy. “There’s a running joke in Indian country,” said a spokesperson for the Cherokee Nation in 2012. Elizabeth Warren claims she’s part Cherokee - and she’s not alone. ![]()
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