Why so many Americans claim Cherokee ancestry | Hacker News Reader

Why so many Americans claim Cherokee ancestry

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35 pointssamclemens48 comments

"the number of Americans who self-identify as Cherokee or mixed-race Cherokee has grown substantially over the past two decades."

Assuming completely random mating, the ancestor count of a small group inside a large stable population should double every generation.

"In 2000, the federal Census reported that 729,533 Americans self-identified as Cherokee. By 2010, that number increased, with the Census Bureau reporting that 819,105 Americans claiming at least one Cherokee ancestor."

12% in 10 years, or 33% in 25 years (a modern generation) is less than would be expected by that first-order theory.

And that's the percentage! The article is dealing with raw numbers. The US population at large grew 9.7% between 2000 and 2010 (http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text...). So it would be expected that a given subset of that population would also increase by about that amount.

A further confound is that you can not know that you had Cherokee ancestry in 2000, but discover that in the next ten years. I'd think this would be especially true during the rise of internet-based ancestry research tools.

You would only expect the percentage of people with any specific ancestry to double if they never had children with people of similar extraction, and there was no immigration.

Googling suggests that DNA evidence shows that about 5% of "white" Americans carry Native American genes (this varies a lot with the region -- for instance, "white" people from Louisiana are more likely to carry Native American (8%) and African American (12%) genes than in some other areas).

200 million "white" Americans x 0.05 = roughly 10 million Americans with some type of NA ancestry. Give that the Cherokee were (and are) quite a large tribe, 700,000-800,000 living descendants doesn't seem at all unreasonable.

Edit: corrected to account for only the "white" population rather than the whole population.

> Googling suggests that DNA evidence shows that about 5% of "white" Americans carry Native American genes

I'm one of these, at least according to my Genographic Project results.

Prior to getting my results, I assumed my father's family's oral tradition of a Cherokee ancestor was fiction. But maybe it's true after all.

Yea, this article is weird. Why would a professor lead the piece with a suggestion that a bunch of this students are deluded and then provide essentially zero evidence that this is the case?

"In the United States alone, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma estimates there are over 200 fraudulent groups claiming to be Cherokee."

The author doesn't go into great detail, but it the estimate is probably correct given the statistics of the situation. The tribes have the tribal roll with the ancestry. You can do further reading on the genetic testing and people's beliefs about their ancestry.

Based on my experiences with non-recognized tribes of other affiliations, I'd be willing to best that a lot of those "fraudulent" groups are legitimate Native American tribes, or at the very least organized groups of people with shared Native American ancestry, but ones that are not officially recognized by the US Government.

Yes, there are fake tribes that come out of the woodwork hoping to gain casino rights, but many if not most of these non-recognized groups often accused of being fraudulent have verifiable histories going back 100 or more years, and have been studied by historians and anthropologists (with publications to prove it). It's a shame that such groups are denied the recognition they deserve, even after all that has happened in this country.

It is also a shame that casino rights is the form of recognition they seek.

It's a shame that casino rights is the only meaningful form of recognition being offered...

That is definitely not true. Federal recognition brings a host of abilities for a people to organize including the ability to form a government and other institutions.

And I think it's a shame that anyone thinks they deserve "recognition" based on who their ancestors were.

It's a shame that there's no form of recognition that doesn't involve casino rights.

In fact, there is no official "casino rights" recognition to seek, it's just an often unwanted right that comes along with federal tribal recognition.

So many tribes, who want other educational and or commercial benefits that come with federal recognition (like being able to label their art/crafts "Indian-made"), or who simply want the recognition due to them for reasons of ethnic pride, have to face opposition from big casino corporations worried that some tribal leader in the future might propose a casino.

There should be a form of federal recognition by BIA that doesn't involve casino rights, that's the easiest solution (although unlikely to happen for legal reasons).

Technically there are some states that refuse to sign compacts with the tribes. It's a myth its automatic. Further, some states (e.g. North Dakota) do not allow direct payment to tribal members and require the money go to social service programs.

I am getting a bit sick of all the FUD in this area.

What? FUD? There are a few state exceptions (as there are to just about any US intersection of state and federal law) to what I wrote and you call it FUD?

The fact is, for those states that do give federally-recognized tribes casino rights (ie, most of them), there is not way for a tribe to forfeit that right.

How in the world is that a "myth" or "FUD"? Look, I can understand why you got irritated at the other statement above (of course federal recognition brings benefits other than casino rights!), but I have no idea what you would call this fact a "myth".

If you're pointing out that this would have to come from the states, and not the federal government, then it's a good point (that's what I was referring to my "legal reasons"). But why call this "FUD"?

"Gregory D. Smithers is an Associate Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University"

Speaks for itself.

> "Assuming completely random mating"

I'm not sure this is an entirely sound hypothesis given the observable state of this country over basically its entire history.

I'm from the South and hear this all the time. I have no idea how many people are actually descended from the Cherokee (they were one of the larger groups in the South). I have a different crackpot theory. Historically, admitting you were less than 100% white was a dicey proposition. Sometimes I wonder if there aren't actually a larger than obvious percentage of people who have Native ancestors, but since they were assimilated, their descendants are only dimly aware of it and use "Cherokee" as a catch-all for saying they have some Native American blood in them. I'm sure some people are getting confused or just retelling tales passed down, but the South did have a lot of Native Americans in it. Has anyone researched this?

My father (who is nominally 1/8th Cherokee; his well-remembered grandfather was half) has been working on our family's genealogy for decades. He believes that many of our ancestors not directly tied to his grandfather were partially Cherokee, and consistently under-reported. There were penalizations for various degrees of Indian blood, not just a binary thing, so this was quite common.

There were also apparently a lot of mixed-blood Cherokee/Scot or Irish ca. 1800 in southern Appalachia before Removal, and some of them were very successful. One of our ancestors, Chief Vann [1], became very wealthy though he was allegedly quite the drunken terror. He lead a sort of clan or tribe of Cherokees, mixed-bloods and some slaves that were associated with a Moravian mission/school (who took civil records that my dad has found on ancestry.com). Apparently there was a fair amount of mixing, as well as a lot if first-cousin marriages and possibly closer interbreeding that may have been a bloodline-perpetuation thing or may have been due to geographical or cultural isolation. I think the setup might actually be similar to modern small chiefdoms in Afghanistan. Vann was incidentally killed because of his bad behavior, in a way that reminds me of the fate of western Florida's Edgar J Watson [2] that Peter Matthiessen wrote so masterfully about[3].

But that's digressing a little bit...

By now, though, there has been enough dilution in my family that I don't think I would be any more than 1/8th; I think I'm probably more around 1.5/16ths. My mother's family, though having been in the Ozarks since the 1840s or so, has no indication of non-European blood.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Vann [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chokoloskee,_Florida [3]: https://www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/matthiessen-wats...

Yeah, I'm from the south and was always told some ancestor was Cherokee. Never really believed it, since it really is the sort of thing most families say. But then 23andme confirmed Native American dna as a small percentage for me. Go figure. It might all be more true than most people think.

Well, I have the opposite story. I was always told I was 1/256 Cherokee, but according to 23andme, I have no Native American ancestry -- however, I'm about .4% African. .4% is pretty close to 1/256, so I think the race of one of my ancestors was, um, edited.

I think amttc is on the right track, but needs to take it a little farther.

I have a friend with North African ancestry (mother is Spanish) and neither of her sisters show the same (all with 23andme).

At that distance, it's entirely possible you have the ancestry claimed and the ancestry discovered, but the DNA which would show it is absent for your Native American ancestry.

Good point. You're right -- it's possible. I don't think any of my other family members have gotten analyzed. That would shed more light on the situation.

Edited to add: well, look at it this way. If one were part African in Alabama in the 19th century, one would be well advised to claim to be part Cherokee, if one's coloration and features were such that one could get away with it. Given that, I think Occam's razor inclines me toward the possibility I suggested.

I'm just one data point, but I'm from South Carolina, and one side of my family had a Cherokee ancestor myth when I was growing up. And, after having my DNA tested by 23andme, I found it was exactly that: A myth. I have no Cherokee (or otherwise Native American) ancestors, despite there being a belief in my family that there was a Cherokee ancestor.

I always suspected it was bogus; I actually kinda figured it was racist white folks' way to explain away dark skin and broad noses in our family tree without acknowledging black relatives. (But, it turns out my theory was also bogus. My family tree is Scottish, Irish, English, and Dutch.)

God damn it. That guy needs to learn to spell out certain key points, when writing an article. Maybe he'll consider bouncing his material off an editor from time to time.

  I’ve long ceased questioning students about the specifics 
  of their claims. Their imagined genealogies may simply be 
  a product of family lore, or, as is occasionally the 
  case, a genuine connection to a Cherokee family and 
  community.

  ... help explain why the Cherokees occupy a prominent place 
  in our collective historical consciousness.

  ... why so many Americans hope to find a Cherokee in their family tree.

He doesn't come right out and say it, for whatever reason, but the thrust of the article is that such claims are dubious, tall tales.

He needs to add at least one sentence clarifying that he believes most, if not all such claims to be full of shit, and pants-on-head silly, or just plain college student shenanigans.

His article would further benefit from a line or three stating plainly that:

1. The Cherokee possess the most popular of all Native American tribal names. People who are lying tend to craft their lies around well-known popular things, especially when a well-known thing might be THE ONLY thing they can remember in a subject area.

2. The Cherokee nation possesses a sympathetic tale as part of the fabric of their historical background. This benefits liars, because it's more difficult to accuse lies upon a person courting sympathy. You better be sure of your accusation, or you'll seem to be a villain amongst the liar's audience.

3. The Cherokee actually DO have a REAL diaspora of actual credible descendents, larger in size than most other nations. This contributes to a knock-on effect that ties into reason number one, there are more actual Cherokees floating around, thus they are more well-known, and thus remain the go-to Indian name for people who might craft lies to embellish their heritage in casual conversation.

These are the main points I'm gathering from the author's article, although he kind of couches his words in oblique assumptions about the reader.

Maybe he's worried about catching heat over proposing these sorts of ideas.

Not saying it was a brilliant article, but I got all three points without having to read it multiple times, and I thought it was quite clear. I liked that he didn't spoon feed the reader with predigested conclusions.

I'm complaining about his beating around the bush, not a reading comprehension thing. I like to know where the author stands on the topic at the outset, otherwise the article feels dishonest.

For example:

  I think there are a lot of people lying to 
  themselves and others about their own 
  ancestry.

Compared to:

  Isn't it interesting that so many people feel 
  compelled to form opinions about how we might 
  notice that there are statistical variances,
  when comparing observable heritage, as 
  compared to reported heritage? I wonder why 
  that would be? Some might say these are 
  alleged fabrications, but then again this 
  could all be very innocent.

But that's clearly inferred by this:

    In the United States alone, the Cherokee Nation of
    Oklahoma estimates there are over 200 fraudulent
    groups claiming to be Cherokee. Visit websites
    devoted to genealogy, and one will find scores of
    Americans expressing their disappointment when DNA
    testing contradicts family legnds about great,
    great grandma being Cherokee.

So, first of all, there are groups that outright make fraudulent claims about Cherokee ancestry. Secondly, there are lots of people who have believed — and claimed — to be descendants of Cherokee who discover that they have in fact been mislead.

You could argue that he doesn't provide the evidence (who are these 200 groups, and where do we find these "scores of Americans expressing their disappointment"?), but that's par for the course in a fluffy article like this. I don't see any bushes being beaten around, however.

The problem is that by not plainly stating his position, if someone challenges it he can always fall back on, "I didn't say that" which is annoying for interlocutors. He doesn't even have to be the kind of person who would fall back on that defense, because it's so common that people are on their guard for it. It's difficult to have a quality discourse with someone that won't make their point plainly and argues mostly by implication.

My family tells a story about a distant great^n uncle of mine, who married a Cherokee woman. She had grown up without tables and chairs, as you might imagine, and was more comfortable squatting than sitting. Of course, my uncle wanted his wife to be at the dinner table with him. So he built a stool of such height that she could squat on it and be roughly eye level with her European-descendant family members sitting around the table. And they lived happily ever after.

I like to tell that story any time someone claims that technology pushes people apart rather than bringing them together.

When I worked in Singapore, our office building had only western-style toilets rather than the hole-in-the-floor type. So of course many employees had to climb up on them in order to squat.

> western-style

The holes in the ground are actually fairly common in Italy.

"Western-style" is what everyone called them when it made a difference. (In USA they're called just "toilets"; perhaps Europe is similar?) I've seen the hole-in-the-floor type in a fancy resort in Japan. Is that also the case in Italy? Keep in mind this hole still has standing water and a trap and still flushes. It shouldn't be confused with the vault style you see in more rustic locations, with or without a "toilet" seat.

And rural France.

Did Cherokee not sit on the floor?

Apparently. Squatting instead of sitting is pretty common in some cultures. In Indonesia, for example. Friends went there for three years with their young kid, who has now turned into an expert squatter.

Pencak Silat has some movements that start from a squatting position (where Japanese martial arts might have them start from a kneeling position, for example).

"Being part Cherokee in Oklahoma is like being a Cubs fan in Chicago." --Sarah Vowell

I saw a signal for some Cherokee ancestry via 23andme. My family never said anything about it. I've got ancestors from the Appalachian region so it makes some sense, and I'm inclined to trust SNP analysis more than family stories. :)

I'm a bit surprised that the benefit of claiming to be Cherokee for the sake of college applications isn't brought up. But overall, the author tries heavily to not take a stand, or insult anybody.

A well-known example of this from the recent past:

http://elizabethwarrenwiki.org/elizabeth-warren-native-ameri...

That site looks super biased, I think maybe wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Warren#Native_Americ...) or news articles would be better sources.

I wouldn't trust something specifically named "elizabethwarrenwiki" as trust worthy. But, relying on Wikipedia isn't too much better. Not for politics.

As a German: Could someone explain me, why Americans love to be "1/8th something"? There is a high chance that whenever I talk to someone, they say "Oh, yeah, I am 1/64th German!" - and if I ask them if they know the language or culture (besides Rammstein) or if they visited Germany ever, almost anyone says no.

Is it just one of these safe smalltalk topics, like sports or weather? In the future, should I be interested and ask them about it? Or just say "how nice" and move along?

I think it's innocent enough, a country with a huge amount of semi-recent (within 2-3 generations) immigrants is bound to have a lot of people with a bit of mixed heritage, a number of which will be doing a bit of searching for some kind of cultural identity. An "oh really?" and maybe a polite question about which part of Germany their family is from, if they are still in contact with their German family etc will probably suffice.

However there's little excuse for "You're Scottish? Do you know my cousin Kenneth?" to which the appropriate response is "Ohhh Kenneth ... yeah everyone knows him. He's a real jerk" :)

One theory would be race. The US is all about race. Some of it probably has to do with white guilt (white Americans killed the natives, white Americans enslaved black people, white Americans heavily discriminated against black people, brown people and yellow people). Prior to paying attention to American culture I didn't understand that for Americans "latinos" are a race and all black-ish people are "black" and that "white" people are "Caucasian".

Another would be that the US has barely any culture or history of its own. You can only go back a little more than two centuries if you want to talk about the US and only a little bit more than that if you want to talk about the Americas. Worse yet, the US is a nation of immigrants so most people's ancestry hasn't even been in the US that long.

Something that's pretty big in American culture is celebrating whatever your non-American culture is. In many cases, if people couldn't claim to be 1/8 something, they'd feel left out.

When people tell you that, they're making small talk about their family. Don't ask them about the culture they're claiming to be from, ask them about their family.

A very interesting article along the same lines:

http://thislandpress.com/2014/08/26/among-the-tribe-of-the-w...

Don't you need to be at least 1/4 (or maybe 1/16) Cherokee native American to be able to claim it?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_quantum_laws#Tribes_requ...

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