Federally Recognized Indians, Descendants, Wannabees and Exploiters

[BlackWolf]

These terms and issues have been brought up a lot in various forums. (Federally Recognized Indians, Descendants, Wannabees,and Exploiters)

Moma Porcupine  says this in the thread Morning Star Shawnee and Chaliawa Nation

Maybe this is an idea that should be discussed, but I guess I get annoyed when it gets brought up in a thread discussing bogus groups claiming to be tribes. If a dialog about the possibilities of integrating distant descendants is going to happen , it seems it would be respectful to bring this up as a separate discussion, and if federally recognized people don't want to participate, that is their choice.

I can’t speak for people who claim other Tribes, but in regards to people who claim Cherokee Heritage and can’t prove it, I’ll just go ahead and say it.  The vast majority of these people ARE NOT OF CHEROKEE HERITAGE.  I say this because many people just automatically accept the fact that they are of Cherokee heritage.  This is one of the main reasons I have a hard time accepting these people, and the possibility of “integrating distant descendants” with vague stories.  I constantly here people like E.P. Grondine, and others trying to defend theses people/and or themselves.  I will also say that I agree that a Federal Card doesn’t make one an Indian, and that there are clear cases of people who ARE Cherokee who don’t qualify for enrollment in one of the 3 Federally Recognized Tribes, as I am sure there are similar cases with other Tribes. However, for a variety of complex reasons I may go into later, most of these so called undocumented Cherokees are not Cherokee at all.  A fact that seems to be overlooked all the time.     

[E.P. Grondine]

These terms and issues have been brought up a lot in various forums. (Federally Recognized Indians, Descendants, Wannabees,and Exploiters)

Moma Porcupine  says this in the thread Morning Star Shawnee and Chaliawa Nation

Maybe this is an idea that should be discussed, but I guess I get annoyed when it gets brought up in a thread discussing bogus groups claiming to be tribes. If a dialog about the possibilities of integrating distant descendants is going to happen , it seems it would be respectful to bring this up as a separate discussion, and if federally recognized people don't want to participate, that is their choice.

The problem as I see it is that you have PODIA with no place to go. The fraudsters prey on them. So as long as that situation continues, take down one fraud, and another will pop up. There is no need to participate, its just that that seems to be the pattern that I am seeing here.

I will also say that I agree that a Federal Card doesn’t make one an Indian, and that there are clear cases of people who ARE Cherokee who don’t qualify for enrollment in one of the 3 Federally Recognized Tribes, as I am sure there are similar cases with other Tribes.

Whenever I meet a descendant of Pocahontas, I suggest to them that they will enjoy a visit to the Pamunkey reservation. [JOKE]

But the people I am talking about are the other folks you mention. And yes, there are similar cases with other Tribes.

[taraverti]

Moved from the other thread.

I just have a few questions, and a few observations. IF the Eastern, Loyal and Absentee had of figured out what to do then Jerry Pope never would have been able to pull off his fraud. And these current groups may not have shown up.

And IF the CNO figured out what to do, then others like him would not continue to pop up on the Cherokee side.

This may sound strange to you, but I have always wondered why the Cherokee don't just keep their lands in Oklahoma for the property, but return to their original lands in the East. This goes for other peoples as well.

And I'd like to add that there's a difference between recognising a hole that PODIA are falling into and 1. speculating as to if the Federally recognised tribes might be able to do something about it VS. 2. thinking that they are RESPONSIBLE to do something about it or EXPECTING anything from them.

Clearly they are not obligated to do anything, nor do they owe PODIA anything. But it might be in their best interests to do something, if it cut some of these fakes off at the knees.

Cherokee Nation is already doing this with their satelite communities.

[taraverti]

Blackwolf, I have a question, if you don't mind.

If these folks behaved themselves, ie, did not "play Indian", screw up the culture, put on airs, but instead were respectful and listened and put the community above their own needs, and supported the real soveriegnty of the three Federally recognised tribes, would you feel the same way?



 

[BlackWolf]

And I'd like to add that there's a difference between recognising a hole that PODIA are falling into

Again, I think this term is misleading "PODIA" for the above mentioned reasons.  I prefer the term "people who claim Cherokee" ancestry in regards to those claiming to be Cherokee and can't prove it. Its more accurate and its a neutral word. 

 

Blackwolf, I have a question, if you don't mind.

If these folks behaved themselves, ie, did not "play Indian", screw up the culture, put on airs, but instead were respectful and listened and put the community above their own needs, and supported the real soveriegnty of the three Federally recognised tribes, would you feel the same way?

I think anyone regardless of race or Indian Status that wants to learn in a respecful manner would be welcome and accepted.  As to whether or not they would be accepted as "Cherokees" is a complety different story.

[LittleOldMan]

I have questions please.  I have been involved with Indian issues for a couple of decades now.  I do not remember that the issue of State recognized tribes ever came up until two or three years ago.  What has caused this.  Is it that the culture will be diluted or corrupted.  Is it that the available Federal or State monies may be siphoned off by other than Fed Indians. Or is it a combination of the two.  How does art or craft labeled as Native American made figure into the mix.  Thank you for your responses in advance with respect to all "LittleOldMan"

[taraverti]

And I'd like to add that there's a difference between recognising a hole that PODIA are falling into

Again, I think this term is misleading "PODIA" for the above mentioned reasons.  I prefer the term "people who claim Cherokee" ancestry in regards to those claiming to be Cherokee and can't prove it. Its more accurate and its a neutral word. 



I think anyone regardless of race or Indian Status that wants to learn in a respecful manner would be welcome and accepted.  As to whether or not they would be accepted as "Cherokees" is a complety different story.

I use PODIA because it seems to be the term used here. I just say about myself that I have Cherokee ancestry. I am clear that I do not claim to BE Cherokee, or Indian.  I personally think that is insulting to real Cherokee and Indians. AND yes it's important to me, and I do feel an urge to make a positive difference. I want to support the soveriegnty and well being of Cherokee people and Indian people in general.

I really am more of a POMA - Person of mixed ancestry. 

[BlackWolf]

Is it that the culture will be diluted or corrupted.

It causes confusion in the eyes of the public of what is and is not authenthic culture.

Is it that the available Federal or State monies may be siphoned off by other than Fed Indians.

Yes, and it has already happened numerous times. 

How does art or craft labeled as Native American made figure into the mix.

The Indiain Arts and Crarts Act of 1990 needs to be changed.  You have a situation now where you have members of bogus State Recognized Cherokee Tribes selling their craft work as authentic Cherokee.  And as I said before, most of these people aren't Cherokee by neither blood, nor culture. The ironic thing, is that you probably even have the descendents of "white intruders on Cherokee land" with no Cherokee blood, profiting from the Cherokee name.

[LittleOldMan]

That's what I thought.  Culture ,money, and art.  But why is it that  it has only relatively recently seems to be an issue or did I just not notice it?  "LOM"

[Moma_porcupine]

Blackwolf, thanks for starting this thread.

I don't mean to interupt LittleOldMans inquiries, but on the topic of the general legitimacy of most of these claims , I guess there is 2 things that makes me wonder ...

The first is that if people are in fact descendents , and their ancestry is recent enough to have had a real effect on their families, it seems like these people would usually be able to find relatives within a federally recognized Native community.

That would seem to be the best way to make a connection.
 
I guess it is different in different places, but the other thing that makes me wonder is I have always found Native people to be so open and welcoming my main concern has been seeing this taken advantage of, and not that anyone is being unfairly left out. I have seen some hesitancy towards people making doubtful claims , but unless there is something outrageously overblown or impossible in these claims , as far as i have seen , the uncertainty about these people has always appeared to be expressed respectfully , and is nothing more than a degree of  healthy skepitsm.

And there does seem to be a good reason for keeping people who have an exagerated sense of entitlement at a distance. I really doubt that supporting these already obnoxious people would help them to be more realistic or respectful of a tribes boundaries.

I can also understand why the tribes that have managed to survive are hesitant to formally include descendents - even when they appear to be concerned for the welfare of the tribe.

One of the things I have repeatedly seen get acted out on this message board is how people get involved seeming to care about the issues, but it quickly becomes obvious what they really care about is promoting themselves and a political agenda which serves distant descendents or people making bogus claims to be NDN. Just in discussions in cyberspace that can be annoying , but in a serious real life struggle, with friends like that - who needs enemies... 

If in some areas people are noticing tribal people are becoming less welcoming to distant relatives , I would guess that having to deal with more and more people like this would be a contributing factor.
 
There was a time when I also believed there was probably a lot of familes that had hidden their Native ancestry, and descendents of these families now were having a hard time proving this. Recent DNA studies have caused me to rethink this...

mtDNA only shows the origins of a persons matrilineal line ( the female version of the patrilineal line that passes on the surname ). While this doesn't prove or disprove the entire ancestry of any ancestor, it does provide a small window to objectively examine the general nature of these claims, and people with a story that great grandma was an Indian vastly outnumber people who's mtDNA shows great grandma's matrilineal line originated on this continent.

In the link below is several pages of people reporting the origins of their matrilineal line as shown by DNA testing, and what they had previously heard about their matrilineal line.
 
http://www.kerchner.com/cgi-kerchner/mtdna.cgi

I am not including people in South America , in what I am saying here, as this population has a generally large amount of Native descent.

Just on this first page , 12 of the people of North American descent who reported being told their matrilineal line was American Indian  , also reported finding this line originated in Europe.

This compares to at most 1 or 2 people who confirmed an indigenous matrilineal line which was not already well documented.

I have seen this pattern repeat in other reports of DNA results, and I would guess that these reported results don't include a lot of people who believed they had an indigenous matrilineal line and who got European results- as some of these people would probably not want to admit the family story wasn't true .

What is really striking, is although there is a few people who found a previously unheard of African matrilineal line, I have yet to see one person who was not adopted , report a previously unheard of indigenous matrilineal line!!!!

If even a small percentage of the stories about people hiding their Native ancestry were true, I would expect a substanial number of people to be reporting their matrilineal line was unexpectedly found to originate on this continent. People reporting finding a hidden Native ancestor are pretty much non existent.

To put this another way, if a family had a story one of their ancestors in a small town of 10 families, was a large family surnamed Jack, normally there would be quite a few families in the small town who would inherit this surname. 

Because the large majority of stories are not supported by DNA evidence, I think Black Wolf's skepism about many of these claims is justified and reasonable.  So between this and people who are descendents with exagerated sense of entitlement , I can see where integrating these people would be a real  problem.

[BlackWolf]

Moma_porcupine,

You hit it right on the nail. You pretty much summed it up.   I don't know the exact numbers of people who claim Cherokee heritage, but it’s probably close to a million, (maybe more).  I think one of the censuses alone some years back showed it was over 500,000.  And that’s just those reporting it on the census.  If anyone here has been in the Southeast, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, etc., then they would know that there are literally places you can go, where at least half of the population (excluding immigrants) says that they are part Cherokee.  People can test this themselves if they are ever in the South East.  And it may not be as pronounced as it is in the South East, but you can go virtually anywhere in this country and find people who claim Cherokee ancestry.  So, you have about 320,000 enrolled Cherokees give or take a few.  (And keep in mind that the Cherokee Nation does not have a minimum BQ requirement).  And, of the rest that claim Cherokee heritage and can’t prove it, only a small percentage would actually have Cherokee heritage, and there are many complicated reasons for this.

I’m not going to say that these people are lying.  (Although some are)  For the most part, these people truly believe it.  And if my grandma told me that I was of a certain heritage, then I’m sure I’m not going to question it either. 

Back in the 1800’s, and early 1900’s, the term “Cherokee” was actually just a generic term for Indian.  Not only was it a generic term for Indian, but it was also a generic term for people of”black African American” and “white ancestry”.  (Mulattos).  The term “Blackfoot/Cherokee” is just one example of this.  This may explain some people’s stories of grandparents with dark skin.


Moma_Porcupine said

What is really striking, is although there is a few people who found a previously unheard of African matrilineal line, I have yet to see one person who was not adopted , report a previously unheard of indigenous matrilineal line!!!!

To complicate matters even worse, whites who had maybe just the slightest contact with Cherokees back in the 1800’s, now have ancestors who today claim Cherokee ancestry.  (Their ancestor for example may have been a “white trader” who lived on or near Cherokee territory” Also keep in mind that for the most part, the Cherokees integrated the whites, and not the other way around.  That’s why on the Dawes Roll, you have Cherokees with BQ’s of 1/32.  It was mostly white men at the time that had relations with Cherokee women as opposed to “Cherokee men” with “white women”.  It was more socially acceptable by whites for their men to take Indian women than for “white women” to take Indian men.  This has a lot to do with the racism of the time.  And, at the same time, Cherokee society was based on the clan system which was passed on through the woman.  So the children in the 1700’s and 1800’s, regardless of physical appearance or having a white father, would be (in most cases) raised as Cherokees and not as whites. This is just a general statement, as no one can say that there were not cases of mixed bloods who did integrate into the surrounding population, nor that there was the occasional case of the white women marrying the Cherokee man as there probably were some, but it was only a small minority at the time.   

There has been talk before on this site about the Dawes Rolls.  There were about 100,000 that were enrolled in Dawes.  What’s less know, is that there were about 300,000 who tried to get on the rolls but where denied. The reason for this was because they wanted allotments.  So, it would be highly unlikely that Cherokees by blood in Oklahoma would elect not to sign up for Dawes.  Yet, I hear all the time, from people in Oklahoma or that have family from Oklahoma and the surrounding states, that their ancestors ”didn’t sign the rolls” or “hid out”, etc.  I’m not saying that there were not cases like this; just that it was a very, very small minority of people.  So you have a situation today, where the descendents of “white intruders” who tried to get on Dawes, but were denied because they WHERE NOT Cherokee and COULD NOT PROVE that they were Cherokee, now claim to be undocumented Cherokees.  If you really dig deep enough into this whole issue, then you can see why it’s such an emotionally charged issue for some Cherokees.  Especially for those that know the history.  So for those that only see this as an issue of “distant descendents” who are not recognized are really missing seeing the “BIG PICTURE”

[taraverti]

Thanks for taking the time to explain this, Blackwolf.  It helps me to understand better.

[E.P. Grondine]

And I'd like to add that there's a difference between recognizing a hole that PODIA are falling into and 1. speculating as to if the Federally recognized tribes might be able to do something about it VS. 2. thinking that they are RESPONSIBLE to do something about it or EXPECTING anything from them.

Clearly they are not obligated to do anything, nor do they owe PODIA anything. But it might be in their best interests to do something, if it cut some of these fakes off at the knees.

Cherokee Nation is already doing this with their satellite communities.

Agree completely. I understand the Nations have important business and very pressing concerns, but perhaps by discussing this particular problem some solutions to those other problems may be found or helped along as well.

Thanks for the information on the Cherokee effort. 

[E.P. Grondine]

I have questions please.  I have been involved with Indian issues for a couple of decades now.  I do not remember that the issue of State recognized tribes ever came up until two or three years ago.  What has caused this.  Is it that the culture will be diluted or corrupted.  Is it that the available Federal or State monies may be siphoned off by other than Fed Indians. Or is it a combination of the two.  How does art or craft labeled as Native American made figure into the mix.  Thank you for your responses in advance with respect to all "LittleOldMan"

Little Old Man, I think its casinos.

[Paul123]

ahh, a thread right up my alley...

Without quoting the many things said above that I would like to reply to, I would never the less like to make a few comments. (I will try to restrain myself) ha,ha

There was some talk about descendants of intruders claiming to be Cherokee. Well they were Cherokee. Their father may have been the intruder (trader) but their mother Was and the children and their descendants Are Cherokee. To paint them as anything else is disrespectful.

The Cherokee people had been hit with about a 50% death rate due to disease. They made a deliberate decision to inter-bread with the Whites. And of course that was and is their right. The children were raised by the Tribe and in most cases the father was accepted as well. Unless there was a divorce (very popular). Never the less, no one thought for one second that these offspring were not Cherokee. So why is in question now?

I have had some brief discussions regarding this very thread's issue with some members of the CNO who are at high levels of the government. They are of course firm about their not about to spend their time or resources to prove or dis-prove any claims of heritage of these 500,000 above mentioned people that claim Cherokee ancestry. However,,, With that being said they do see a need to reach out to their members who live at large. This is the reason for the establishment of the satellite communities. These Communities can and do accept for membership people that claim Cherokee ancestry. There has to be at least 60% CNO citizens and membership is not in any way to be confused with citizenship. After a 6 month probation period and a small annual membership dues anyone that thinks they have fallen through the cracks in the floor can find a way to be accepted by the Cherokee community. Acceptance as such is after all what this group needs, and by most standards from way back then and of modern times is what makes one a Cherokee.  

The satellite communities can provide one with anything that a fake tribe could but with one major exception,,, the info that will be taught is not altered and the feeling of belonging should be stronger. It would remove all doubts of being bogus. If one has established their self in one of these communities I don't think for a second that anyone would see them any different than they would a citizen of the CNO.

  I personally think that if these satellite communities take hold and fill the void mentioned by others in this thread that the truly fake tribes will flounder or fizzle. Sure the freedom of religion act will allow another group to pop up but they would be easy to see them for what they are.

And of course I would like to mention the difference between them (fake tribes)  and the few real Tribes that have fallen through the cracks in the BIA's floor. There are Counsel members in the CNO that didn't vote for the inclusion of some of these Tribes in the "Joint Resolution".
(i.e. the Lumbees) and I'm sure there are a dozen or so of these such Tribes. I know that I am not the only one that thinks that the Task Force should spend their time going after the true Fakes and not to just toss every tribe into the bad apple barrel.  

In the wake of the people that died in a fake sweat lodge I think that it is very important to go after the fake tribes from a cultural aspect and not to give the impression that it has anything to do with money. after all the BIA says that any money that a State tribe gets is "left over" money that the Fed. Tribe would not have gotten anyway.