Cherokee Freedmen Discussion

[Moma_porcupine]

Hi Blackwolf

Another thing that struck me reading through those mtDNA results, is how rare it is for someone of North American descent to get a result showing an indigenous maternal line, and to report that this result proved a previously undocumented story of Native ancestry . Except for people who were seperated from their birth family, almost all the people with the indigenous haplotypes A, B, C D and some sub types of X knew exactly who this came from and had previously documented it.

Those reports of results are probably a bit skewed as many people who have a story a maternal gr gr great grandma was Indian and who got an mtDNA result showing a European maternal line , probably either don't report their test results or don't report the family story which was not confirmed by the test result.

Rattlebone i'm sorry but that DNA article you posted has so much partly correct and partly wrong information it belongs in a trash can .

One in particular showed african
ancestry of a small group that migrated to britain long ago and were
never slaves in the Y-line (patrilineal) , and in the mtdna it showed
both native american and north african ancestry

mtdna can't possibly be of both American Indian and North african orgins. Whoever wrote this article is really confused. There is some highly questionable admixture tests which show stuff like this , but mtdna doesn't mix which is why it is so reliable at showing one line .  

I started a thread on DNA and what it can and cannot tell a while back, in the link below

DNA tests 4 Ndn ancestry & some statistics
http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=1375.0

Some of the DNA admixture tests are completely bogus , but Y DNA and mt Dna are pretty reliable as long as you understand what they show and what they don't show.

Both these tests only show the origins of the maternal or paternal line . It doesn't show anything about the many many many people this one line of people married .

But taken as a whole, Y and mtDNA shows the general North American population contains very few undocumented Native people who were absorbed and assimilated into the non native population. In most areas it wasn't a gentle mixing as many people like to claim. The DNA evidence is that , sadly , it really was widespread genocide.    

Some of the posts in this thread I've been tempted to copy and paste in the thread Blackwolf began below. because I think this is an important topic- though the basic issues tend to overlap for people who think they may be descended from other tribes .

Cherokee Ancestry: Fact or Fiction?

http://www.newagefraud.org/smf/index.php?topic=2298.0

I understand what Blackwolf means about not wanting to confront people about their personal genealogy and beliefs about their ancestors, but the problem is these incorrect stories can impact a lot  of people . Someone born in 1850 has now got a lot of descendents. There is a lot of loaded issues associated with peoples strong feelings about being of Native descent, from political to emotional to Spiritual. No one deserves to believe they are of Native descent, because of a false story or a distorted historical or genealogical composition, which is being promoted by some wannabe or special interest group. No one deserves to be  encouraged to get invloved in this part of their heritage , only to find out years later they have been living a lie. I do know people that has happened to and they are sometimes  deeply messed up by this.

I really believe that even if the truth seems empty or makes us uncomfortable or sometimes the truth is we just don't know , we still have to stay commited to reality if we want to do real good in our lives and the world.

[Rattlebone]

Rattlebone i'm sorry but that DNA article you posted has so much partly correct and partly wrong information it belongs in a trash can .

One in particular showed african
ancestry of a small group that migrated to britain long ago and were
never slaves in the Y-line (patrilineal) , and in the mtdna it showed
both native american and north african ancestry

mtdna can't possibly be of both American Indian and North african orgins. Whoever wrote this article is really confused. There is some highly questionable admixture tests which show stuff like this , but mtdna doesn't mix which is why it is so reliable at showing one line .  

 I do not believe she was saying the mtDNA was of both American Indian and North African origins, but rather the person tested had both markers or whatever it is called.

 I know of white people that have had those tests and it shows of course they have markers that are usually found in European populations, but at the same time the tests also show that they markers usually found in Asia.

 Usually these tests were the ones that not only gave where ancestors were supposedly from, but did the whole % of that ancestry they supposedly had.

 Of course having just read the thread you posted a link to, it still seems to show that even though recognized tribes have high levels of a certain marker; there is still issues with those tests that would seem to say they can not yet be trusted as absolute fact yet.

 However if one must do a DNA test to prove they are Indian, then why even bother because having a certain DNA marker is not going to make you an Indian even if you do have some degree of American Indian ancestry in the past.

[Rattlebone]

 Seems we all got off topic here to some degree.

 Anyhow since the topic of wannabe's etc has came up, I will add some points to the topic.

 A number of years ago I read a native educator speaking about how there was what he called "a frontier society" in the American Southeast. He explained this by saying how Indian people (mostly mixed bloods) and whites were going back and forth from Indian communities and white communities.

 He would later say how if it had not been for the Removal Act, the American Southeast racially would possibly look more like Mexico then it does the United States today due to intermarriage.

 I do not doubt that given that if anyone has ever looked at the Dawes rolls, the amount of people way back then being put down as very low BQ's even then was pretty high. Plus given how the so called Five Civilized Tribes had adopted so much of white ways and concepts; this concept to me seems plausible.

 Now to add another equation to this issue, and that is the annoying gggg grandmother they can't prove story. There may be truth to that fiction as well. Often times a white man would marry an Indian woman, and for whatever reason, that woman would be listed as white. Trying to track down the families of these women through records will often get you results such as "mother or father unknown." So when the people descended today from those marriages do try and hunt family down, it is likely they will find nobody on top of the race of a grandparent being put down falsely.

 This issue will be exacerbated by the fact that some people in those days would put down on official papers different names as they went through life. Some times they would use traditional names, and sometimes they would use European names, and variations of those European names as well.

 So there very well be a lot of truth to their stories, and the truth may be in fact hidden on those papers and documents we all assume would be accurate, and often times are not. Good proof of that is people who by laws on the East Coast reclassifying Indian people as "other," "colored" etc, who today have descendants who can not undue the damage that has stripped them of their identity to some degree.

However, the most important thing to keep in mind, which I am sure most will agree on; having one of those unprovable ancestors does not make one an Indian even if that ancestor really does exist just as they were told.

[Don Naconna]

Look, you sent me those black on black crime statistics, what does that have to do with the Cherokee Freedmen. Are all black people the same, which is what you and any racist believes. Are black people violent and is that why the Cherokee freedmen were expelled? You just don't understand what racism is !

[BlackWolf]

While there are some cases of people who do really have Cherokee heritage and can't prove it, I'd say that the vast majority of these cases are baseless.  Its also true that for many mixed bloods, a birth certificate can't really prove anything one way or the other.  For example you might have some one with a BQ of 1/4 listed as white.  However censuses taken of the Cherokees can be more accurate.  Granted that there were most likely at least some cases of people not being reported on the Cherokee census, however the number don't add up.  Even when you take into account the Cherokees that migrated to various places in bands such as to Arkansas, Texas, etc, and consider the ones that dissapeared on the Trail of Tears, and/or stayed behind.  In another thread I listed a census of the Cherokees that stayed behind in a few states after the Trail of Tears.  Many of these people later joined up with the Eastern Band.  We're talking about handfuls of Cherokees that may have stayed behind in places like NE Alabama.

I'd say there are at least half a million people in this country who claim Cherokee heritage who are probably not of Cherokee heritage. 

Me and Paul had this conversation before and I said that people with Cherokee heritage and can't prove it would probably only number in the single digit thousands.  So then we have to ask ourselves why so many people claim Cherokee heritage if this is not the case?  This would also merit a logical answer.  This can all be explained by American Folklore and some other specific historical circumstances that happened throughout the history of this country.

[BlackWolf]

Moma Porcupine said

I understand what Blackwolf means about not wanting to confront people about their personal genealogy and beliefs about their ancestors, but the problem is these incorrect stories can impact a lot  of people . Someone born in 1850 has now got a lot of descendents. There is a lot of loaded issues associated with peoples strong feelings about being of Native descent, from political to emotional to Spiritual. No one deserves to believe they are of Native descent, because of a false story or a distorted historical or genealogical composition, which is being promoted by some wannabe or special interest group. No one deserves to be  encouraged to get invloved in this part of their heritage , only to find out years later they have been living a lie. I do know people that has happened to and they are sometimes  deeply messed up by this.

I really believe that even if the truth seems empty or makes us uncomfortable or sometimes the truth is we just don't know , we still have to stay commited to reality if we want to do real good in our lives and the world.

Your right about these stories impacting people and their lives.  Some people take their Cherokee or Indian heritage very very seriously and there is a lot of emotion behind it.  For some, this identity defines who they are and in some cases their whole live is built around it.  So it would probably be very very difficult to say the least to find out that their heritage was just a “good story”.  And like you mentioned, it could have been one of their gg Uncles who married a Cherokee or an Indian.  It would probably be a good thing for people to find out the truth sooner rather then later ...whatever that may be. 

My agenda is not to discredit people.  My only agenda is the truth.

There is also a lot at stake here for the 3 Federally Recognized Cherokee Tribes and all Indian Nations in general.  We literally have people across this country teaching our history, language and traditions.  And from what we know a lot of these people aren’t of Cherokee heritage.

But this isn’t just about the Cherokees.  While most of the fakes are claiming Cherokee heritage, many other Nations are being misrepresented.   These people are in essence representing all Indian people with their distorted history, and mockery of our ancestors.

The genealogy information ties into all off this.  Of course the information DOES have to be looked at from all angles.  The SAME goes for the information on the numbers and censuses with the Cherokees.  HOWEVER, after looking at the whole picture you sort of start to get a general idea of things, which is that THERE ARE A LOT OF PEOPLE out there with a False Identity.

[BlackWolf]

Taken from other thread
Moma porcupine said

On the mitochondrial DNA, there are a total of five different “haplotypes???(DEFINE), called A, B, C, D, and X, which are increasingly called “Native American markers,??? and are believed to be a genetic signature of the founding ancestors. As for the Y-chromosome, there are two primary lineages or “haplogroups??? (DEFINE) that are seen in modern Native American groups, called M3 and M45. Some scientists maintain that up to 95% of all Native American Y-chromosomes are from these two groups (the rest being from either Asian lineages or non-native haplogroups). It must be emphasized that none of these markers is exclusive to Native American populations; all can be found in other populations around the world. They simply occur with higher frequency in Native American populations. If you look carefully and use the zomm to blow up the colored pie shaped images showing the percentages of mtDNA in different areas of Spain , Italy , Russia , Northern Norway , Turkey , ect , it can be seen that all these areas had a percentage of the population which has the mtDNA types which are frequently referred to as "Native American" .

This map suggests a test showing an mtDNA line that is A B C D or X would not prove that this line had American Indian origins , only that this is a likely possibility if the family has a history of living in areas where intermarriage may have occurred .

The other thread is really informative Moma porcupine. Thanks for the link.   I never knew that Asian DNA and Native American DNA can have the same results or the fact that some Native American DNA markers can be found in Europe.   I always assumed that if someone tested positive for theses makers then that would at least prove their Native American DNA to a certain degree.  I know of people who have tested positive for these markers who aren’t enrolled, and they use this as their basis of proof of American Indian identity.  I can see now that this really does not prove anything.

[Rattlebone]

Look, you sent me those black on black crime statistics, what does that have to do with the Cherokee Freedmen. Are all black people the same, which is what you and any racist believes. Are black people violent and is that why the Cherokee freedmen were expelled? You just don't understand what racism is !

 Look, you were given those statistics because you kept harping on how bad the Freedmen had it, and I countered with how bad many many Indians have it, and especially women.

 It's that plain,and that simple.

  The rest of what you are saying is just putting words in my mouth, and baseless accusations that are based on my words you keep twisting.

 Why not just drop it and get to the real discussion at hand?

[dabosijigwokush]

to some one who thinks they know racialism

my one and only day in catholic school 1960
a nun cut my braids as well quote we don't allow that here
my mother said nothing, my father went to school the next day
he asked who, i pointed, he asked for the braids back
the nun placed them in my fathers hands saying we don't allow that here
with that my father decked the nun, ...we don't allow that ether
my mother would never let use get long hair after that,
i still remember that day and why my father disappeared for some time, jail
even was made to wash in class to prove that my brown did not wash off
and when i did the teacher transferred me to another teacher
told to stand in the hall when the morning prayer and pledge to flag was said
removed from powwows in towns by police because they were still afraid of use
told in restaurants that we don't have to serve your kind
called a heathen in every church i have ever been in
yet i have done no wrong, broke no ones laws, only wish to follow the teachings of my ancestors
and it still goes on in Canada and USA

[Paul123]

As it seems, you are qualified then to answer this question:
Who is a Racist?

[Don Naconna]

That's total nonsense. What do thsoe statistics have to do with the freedmen? Nothing except that the freedmen are black. Your intent was to identify the freedmen as violent and therefore after 144 years should be expelled from the CNO. What other intent could you have had. Do the statistics say anything about the freedmen, NO!

Look, you sent me those black on black crime statistics, what does that have to do with the Cherokee Freedmen. Are all black people the same, which is what you and any racist believes. Are black people violent and is that why the Cherokee freedmen were expelled? You just don't understand what racism is !

 Look, you were given those statistics because you kept harping on how bad the Freedmen had it, and I countered with how bad many many Indians have it, and especially women.

 It's that plain,and that simple.

  The rest of what you are saying is just putting words in my mouth, and baseless accusations that are based on my words you keep twisting.

 Why not just drop it and get to the real discussion at hand?

[Don Naconna]

As it seems, you are qualified then to answer this question:
Who is a Racist?

To use totally unrelated and biased data to make a racial generalisation IS racist. It sounds like Russ Limbaugh. Why not claim that Obama is a Kenyan Arab? I have seen the same type of bullshit since I was in the civil rights movement.

[Don Naconna]

I understand that you were the victim of racism, but does that justify racism against another group? My ancestors were victims of racism as were all non white people in America. That doesn't allow the victim to become a victimiser. King taught us that as victims we had to rise above the victimisers, and we did.
To say that black people are more violent than anyone else in the US and to use that as justification to deny them their civil and human rights is nothing more than racism. It is so sad that people who have been victims of white racism now emulate the people who they claim oppressed them. Is the CNO afraid that the freedmen will turn the CNO into an urban ghetto?

to some one who thinks they know racialism

my one and only day in catholic school 1960
a nun cut my braids as well quote we don't allow that here
my mother said nothing, my father went to school the next day
he asked who, i pointed, he asked for the braids back
the nun placed them in my fathers hands saying we don't allow that here
with that my father decked the nun, ...we don't allow that ether
my mother would never let use get long hair after that,
i still remember that day and why my father disappeared for some time, jail
even was made to wash in class to prove that my brown did not wash off
and when i did the teacher transferred me to another teacher
told to stand in the hall when the morning prayer and pledge to flag was said
removed from powwows in towns by police because they were still afraid of use
told in restaurants that we don't have to serve your kind
called a heathen in every church i have ever been in
yet i have done no wrong, broke no ones laws, only wish to follow the teachings of my ancestors
and it still goes on in Canada and USA

[bls926]

Don Naconna, you are sounding like a broken record. It was never Rattle's intent to say those black on black crime statistics had anything to do with the Freedmen. He has explained that to you and everyone else over and over again. Let it go.

What was your reason for saying American Indians are some of the most violent people you've ever known? What was your reason for talking about crime rates on the reservations? That's damn racist of you. Doesn't have a thing to do with the Freedmen.

Why do you keep harping on how racist the Cherokee are? Yes, at one time they did own slaves; however, it was the minority. Is everyone in the United States racist because at one time slavery was legal here? Are the people in the Caribbean and South America more racist than the people in North America? You know there were more African slaves sent to the plantations down there than up here.

Why do you keep saying the Cherokee Nation fought for the Confederacy? Just like several states, they were split in their allegiance. Some wore gray and some wore blue.

You're a history professor, you should know these things. It seems your time in the civil rights movement has colored your perceptions.

[BlackWolf]

Don Naccona said

Why not claim that Obama is a Kenyan Arab?

Is the CNO afraid that the freedmen will turn the CNO into an urban ghetto?

Don do you have a problem with Arabs?  And why are you making the comparison of Freedmen to Urban ghettos?  If Rattlebone or anyone else on these  boards SAID WHAT YOU JUST DID. you BIG HYPOCRITE you, you know for a fact that you wouldn't let them live it down.  Which is the game your trying to play with Rattlebone.