CHEROKEE : DAWES ROLLS : COUNT CONTROVERSIES : WHO GOT LAND

The Dawes Rolls were controversial in their time. They were a census of Native Americans. As we have seen, over time who was or was not a Cherokee, deserving of Tribal Membership, varied. At one point anyone who was Black and lived in the territory was a member of the tribe - if they were recognized or declared within 6 months. However some Cherokee had held slaves while others married Freedmen.

Excerpt page 116 - "On January 31, 1899. a vote was held to determine what to do with the proposed Dawes Commission Treaty; the conservatives lost by 2, 015 votes in their efforts to reject all agreements with the commission.  This draft agreement, though accepted by the tribe, was nonetheless rejected by Congress as insufficient.  An agreement was finally settled upon and adopted in 1902. In 1901 the Dawes Commission began working towards compiling the final tribal rolls to decide who got land allotments.  The commission ultimately broke down those residing on Cherokee land into three categories: Cherokees, whites, and freedmen. All told, the counted inhabitants of the Cherokee Nation numbered 41,824 total including 4,919 freedmen, 8703 "full blooded" and 27, 916 "mixed bloods"  There were over 1,000 freedmen who had previously been citizen 

Tribal Government ENDED.

The Cherokee (and other tribes) had their own rolls and were not in agreement with the governments, for they had expelled people or revoked tribal membership in the past, and the government tried to compare the two rolls as well.

Excerpt page 122 -

"The final Cherokee Nation rolls included 36,619 Indians, including 27,916 "mixed bloods" and 8,703 "full bloods" In addition, the commission included 286 whites and 4.919 freedman, bring the final total up to 41,824. These were made citizens of the Untieds States and (the state of) Oklahoma."

These past weeks, I've excerpted some important part of Cherokee Nation Citizenship by Aaron Kushner, a highly recommended book. There is more to the story, and if you find this of interest, please get yourself a copy or demand that your library get a copy for the shelves.

C 2026 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy 

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PHOTOS FROM WILMINGTON CEMETERY - SECOND OLDEST IN LOS ANGELES - LIST OF VETERANS OF THE CIVIL WAR

I don't believe in photographing gravestones that belong to people I'm not related to, but I did take a couple photos of MEMORIALS in this cemetery.  As stated on the previous post, there are a number of burials of military associated soldiers from multiple conflicts.

Wilmington Cemetery is said to have over 9000 burials but then most must be in unmarked graves. This list of CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS is interesting. I wonder if these are persons who died in the Civil War or who were veterans who had served and if they were all local men.  I also wonder if they ever lived at the Drum Barracks about a mile away.

I claim copyright on these photos but if you're using them for your personal Genealogy book that you're distributing to your family it's OK to use them i.e. noncommercial use.

C 2025 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy

VISITING THE SECOND OLDEST CEMETERY IN LOS ANGELES : HISTORICAL WILMINGTON CEMETERY : MY THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS AS A GENEALOGIST

I was recently able to visit the second oldest cemetery in Los Angeles, in Wilmington, California which is in the South Bay area not far from the Port of Los Angeles (which is the Ports of San Pedro and Long Beach).

WILMINGTON CEMETERY

People had begun decorating for the Day of the Dead celebration there with marigolds and other flowers and vibrant decorations. There are some fairly recent burials and a good number of them are of Hispanic people, likely Roman Catholic.  Many of these gravestones have images - be they photos or some new etching technology - of the person or the couple - who are buried.  It is my idea that some families are adding their loved ones to graves that have been in the family a while.

But more on the burials in a bit.

This is a flat gravestone cemetery and from the signage I had no idea how large it really is until I got into it. It's a square of land with some old trees not far from the railroad tracks with some of the containers that came on ships to the harbor visible.

It was established in 1857 by Phineas Banning. That means that it was in existence before Phineas Banning built his large house across the way in 1864. There are some very old burials there.

HISTORICAL MARKER DATABASE - WILMINGTON

Excerpt: It is the oldest active graveyard in Los Angeles. Pioneer families buried here include Banning, Carson, and Sepulveda. There are 37 Civil War veterans, and soldiers from the Spanish-American War and from the Normandy D-Day invasion.

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This is the cemetery used by some of the Bannings who lived in the Banning House. Which is a ten minute walk away in a beautiful well-kept park. 

The Banning family had a number of children who died as babies buried there.  And a wife who died relatively young.  A William Banning has a grave stone that states that he was born in Wilmington, Delaware in 1841 and died in Wilmington, California in 1891. Yes, Wilmington in California was named after the town in Delaware and the Bannings started out as Yankees, which might have everything to do with Phineas siding with the Union for the Civil War.

BANNING HOUSE - THE BANNING MUSEUM 

Excerpt: Phineas Banning—entrepreneur, the founder of the city of Wilmington, and “the Father of the Port of Los Angeles”—built the 23-room residence in 1864. Subsequent generations lived in it until 1925; in 1927 the residence, stagecoach barn, and the surrounding 20 acres of parkland were acquired by the City of Los Angeles.

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It also not far from the Civil War Barracks which Phineas Banning donated to the Union Army during the Civil War.  DRUM BARRACKS ORG

The Drum Barracks has an archive but my experience with that was that they would prefer you do your research elsewhere since much or all of the archive is duplicated elsewhere.  Information I sent a few years ago was also not acknowledged. 

According to one of the employees of the Wilmington Cemetery, the land there used to be water wells for the merchants during Banning's time.

I spent about an hour walking around the memorials.  It is said that there are over 9000 burials there. Certainly it did not seem so, and there were areas where there were no gravestones at all.

To my reader-genealogy researchers, please remember this is the case with many cemeteries and one should not entirely rely on grave-stone databases. If you suspect or know that an ancestor was buried in a cemetery contact that cemetery for information. It helps if you have the death certificate that states the burial took place there, or a funeral home record.

I did not take photos of any of the graves, which I think of as disrespectful.

One of the most interesting was a small slab that announced the death of a one month old Japanese or Japanese-American baby.  

There is a street in Wilmington called Opp. Opp burials included someone born in 1848 who died in 1906. I imagine they may have had some land - a farm.

There is at least one 'died in Korea' marker, some that indicate World War II took their man, and a couple that indicated that the person had served in a state militia or reserve.  Last Memorial Day (2025) a local boy scout troop provided a memorial with the names of local men who had served their country.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were no longer wars on this earth?  (As I told a good friend of mine the other day who said "that won't happen," then I would like to be reincarnated on a better planet.)

The babies and children who died long ago made me think of vaccinations and what a difference they have made. Anyone who has seen the archival documents that reveal the babies and children who died of childhood diseases, the adults who died of TB, and the townsfolk who died of various 'plague' must know that.

Besides Mexican or Hispanic burials there were also some surnames that were Germanic or Italian or English.  I don't often visit cemeteries, but I'm intrigued by the art and design of some stones and try to imagine what ornate ones must have cost when they were made. There were a good number of Masonic symbols on graves in this cemetery.

I like to find not just the oldest burials but burials of those who got a long life out of this one. Here's a little name dropping. LIPKING 1822-1909, COATES died 1914 at 71 years old, OPP 1848-1906.

I have come to hate Halloween for all the gore and horror and fright and violence it now celebrates. We actually do not need to be exposed to more violence or participate in that. I'm into the acknowledgement of those who came before us though.  This is why, though I have no Hispanic or Mexican heritage, I'm more likely to contribute to a celebration such as Day of the Dead.  

Christine

NATIVE AMERICANS and THE HOMESTEAD ACT

Though Native Americans were displaced by Homestead Act land holders and often headed back to reservations, in genealogy we are thorough and never assume, so don't assume that people of Native American heritage did not also apply for land grants or that they all lived on "Indian Reservations."

MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION : WOMEN VOTED FOR THE REVOLUTION - THEN LOST THE VOTE!

MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION   Explore how women VOTED for the American Revolution, then lost the vote... 

TERRIFIC INTERACTIVES on this and many other subjects, so you can learn more about the historyu of the United States!