CHEROKEES and THE CIVIL WAR : FULL BLOODED PRIDE MEANT TO BE OPPOSED TO WHITE SOCIETY : CHEROKEE AFFILIATE WITH CONFEDERACY : TRIBAL MEMBERSHIP CHANGES : TREATY OF 1866

Previously, the Cherokee, Creek, and Osage Nations who had suffered removal (Trail of Tears) from their territories and were now forced to live together  and signed a compact which was intended to establish unity - peaceful relationships and secure the general welfare. It was signed on November 2, 1843. The idea was to protect themselves from the United States.

Excerpt page 80 -

"Notably, Article I, Section 9, provided that "any citizen of one Nation may be admitted to citizenship in any other Nation, party hereto, by consent of the proper authorities of such Nation."

Excerpt page 81 -

"Throughout the 1840's and 1850's, as Cherokees settled into their new territory, the Nation found itself changing demographically... to be "full blooded" meant something more than racial pride; "it indicated a distinct social, political, and economic attitude" opposed to the impositions and relishes of white civilization. Traditionalists generally did not own slaves and largely disliked the practice... The tension (between Cherokee slave owners who were usually partly Caucasian and these Traditionalists) came to a boil by the time the Confederates asked the Cherokee Nation to join the Southern cause..."

The social divisions between Cherokee meant that there were different attitudes about joining up to fight in the Civil War, and because the Cherokee overall were cooperative, pressure was put up on them to do so, for the Confederacy, as the South was their original territory. Abolitionist Christian missionaries were also speaking out in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama - wherever they had churches.

Excerpt page 83 - 

"In May 1861, "Confederate forces annexed the Indian Territory as a military district" and by October of that year, Albert Pike, Confederate liaison to Indian Territory, had convinced each of the Five Tribes (ie. The Five Civilized tribes - Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole nations) to join the Confederacy.

The Treaty of 1866 came after the participation in the Civil War proved to damage the Cherokee Nation significantly.  As Union troops came through, many defected to the Union side, but the conflict included political divisions within the tribe as well as the consequences of violence.

This Treaty redefined membership and there were significant changes in who could become a member of the tribe - or remain a member, and it emphasized blood. This means that increasingly blood quotients were aligned with political viewpoints.

Excerpt page 83 - 84

... "The new Treaty defined citizenship of the Cherokee Nation as belonging to all native-born Cherokees, all Indians and whites legally adopted by members, all freedmen liberated by acts of their masters, and all free Black persons residing therein."

It's stated by the author, Aaron Kushner, that this Treaty has had ramifications to this day on who is or is not a member of the tribe.

If you are tracing your Native American heritage, please check the changes in such rules or laws as you go back documenting your ancestors, and by tribe. In the case of Cherokee, or perhaps the other nations who potentially agreed to unification in 18 43, who was where in 1866? (Check all Federal and State census...) The Treaty also put into place a time limit or line for those who fit these definitions within 6 months of the Treaty. Because both removal from native lands to new territories and the Civil War, people were displaced, fighting, or traveling, hiding, or had other reasons why they might not have been able to declare themselves or be recognized within those 6 months. 

In the genealogy I mentioned researching in my first post of this series, I found that my client had reason to think that at least some of his relatives (if not his direct line) married into Native American tribes. He also might have had melungeon relatives. Though in the South, he stated that his family had never had slaves and did not believe in slavery. The families he was closely related to did not show up on slave schedules as slave owners.  However a potential branch of the family in the deep south did own slaves. I found that one side of his family did fight for the Union, signing up in other states,  but also that there were Confederate highway robbers among his relatives. Relatives on both sides had married Native Americans. At least one unrelated Native American in their agricultural community - a neighbor so to speak - had owned a good number of slaves. Presently this client likely has relatives who are members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee whose DNA test would show them to have Scottish - Anglo - possibly French Huguenot ancestors. These Cherokee in general were not marched as they remained in North Carolina, in the mountains, married with Europeans.

If you are seeking tribal membership, whatever the tribe, it is my strong suggestion that you continue documenting from the present to the past. Document entire families with birth, marriage, and death records, not just direct ancestry, find anything you can, because you may have success that way showing the lineage going back past the Treaty of 1866.

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RUMORS OF JEWISHNESS - GENEALOGY RESEARCH MAY PROVE IT TRUE or NOT

Rumors of Jewishness?  Maybe you're pretty sure this cannot be true because you were not raised in Judaism and you don't know of a living relative who is. 


Some time ago I met a woman who told me a heartbreaking story.  She had become ill.  She had two children.  Her marriage wasn't working out.  She was forced to put her children in foster care.  She was telling me this because she wanted me to know that she had been diagnosed and if she ever collapsed onto the floor, I should not hesitate to call 911.  She said if she collapsed there was a very limited period of time in which she could be saved.  Eventually, her children were adopted.  She felt bad about this but had no choice. Her illness had remained both documented and a mystery for two long for her to get well enough to care for them.  She had endured a lot of medical tests, a lot of questions, long term hospitalization and nursing care.  And she was in her twenties!   She explained to me that she had been raised Presbyterian.  Her aunt was a major donor to a wealthy Presbyterian church.  It wasn't until she was near death that this aunt showed up at the hospital and revealed to the doctors that actually their family was Jewish.  This was the clue that lead them to a diagnosis.  She could have died!  When I looked at this women I never thought, "Oh she looks Jewish!"


There is a special kind of genealogy myopia that happens when an American is looking to prove or disprove rumors of Jewishness in the family.  That is that Americans tend to think that Jews have "Jewish surnames."  That they mean is commonly known names, like Cohen or Levi, or the German Jewish names, like Rothschild!  But, in fact, Jewish people have changed their names to fit the culture they are living in, or shortened them, or made them into an English equivalent, like an associate I had whose family turned Zukor to Sugar.

So don't get hung up on the surname.  Or the given name.


As for given names, as I understand it, observant Jews have their special Jewish names, but their legal names may or may not seem Jewish.  Again we need to be careful not to assume that names like Rebecca or Noah, mean the person is Jewish.  In fact, names that appear in the Bible - New and Old Testament - have long been used by Christians and Jews alike.  For instance, Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, are names rooted in Hebrew.   Any name of an apostle of Jesus Christ, including John and Phillip and Peter, could be Jewish. 


At one point I was researching a family in the south who seemed to have one possibly given name that could be Jewish in every family.  There was a Sarah among women called Dixie on the census.  They had Jewish rumors, but I went back generations and never found anyone buried in a Jewish cemetery, or any other evidence.  Some of the surnames in this family fit into some of those considered to be Melungion.  Some of the given names were those of Greek or Roman gods.  Of course, there's the question of How Jewish?  Seems to me that for some people, ten generations ago is as good as now, for others, not so much.


There are families who kept their conversions a secret, or who are many generations away from a single, clearly Jewish ancestor.  So what a researcher needs to do is start looking at burials.  There used to be rather strict rules about who gets buried in a cemetery, and looking at burials, as well as death certificates, is a good clue.  You might want to look at obituaries.  Mention of a temple or rabbi officiating is a clue.  Likewise, marriages, and birth records reveal those who were recognized to be Jewish at birth or united in marriage in Jewish tradition.  There are also so many converts to Judaism,  Ivanka Trump being a noteworthy individual who did so before marrying her husband, Jared Kushner.  As I understand it, in America there are a great many marriages between Jewish and Not Jewish individuals.


Today there are many secular or non-practicing Jews, people who do not belong to a temple, follow special dietary laws, or respect the tradition of Sabbath.  So DNA testing may help you get to meet some Jewish relations, or you may just have to realize that being Jewish is also sometimes a choice.


Check with your local Jewish Genealogy Society for information that may be more particular to your quest!


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GAVIN MENZIES : WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA? ANCESTRY WORSHIP BOOK REVIEW: DNA EVIDENCE OF NATIVE AMERICAN ASIAN ANCESTRY

GAVIN MENZIES - OFFICIAL SITE WITH LINKS TO ALL HIS WORKS

Gavin Menzies has written previous books, including the bestselling "1421  - How the Chinese discovered America."  He's considered controversial because of his theories - which he has enhanced with world travel and meeting with experts in many fields - importantly finding pre 1492 maps.  He currently bucks against academia and established theories of science.  For instance he is opposed to the Bering Straight - land bridge theory of how Native American people crossed into the Americas and is in favor of sea travel.  (Sea travel by the way figures in many tribal stories of how they got here.  I recall in one of my anthropology classes the Native American students got angry with the professor and marched out!)

Reading his "Who Discovered America" closely, there are a few assertions that I disagree with, but since DNA science is an essential part of proofing his theories that people were either shipwrecked or traveled the natural currents of the oceans to travel around the continents, I'm intrigued and open minded.

Page 245 ..."The currents in the North Pacific flow in a great lip, carrying boats north from China, past Japan, then swinging east past the Aleutian and Kuril Islands to Alaska, then south along the American coast to Central America.  So sea travelers from Asia to North and Central America have a free ride and food along the way and can sail so they are only out of sight of land for three days. This great clockwise, nearly rectangular, flow of water takes place all year round... It appears certain that man reached the Americas by sea at least forty thousand years ago..."

Does being controversial mean he's all wrong?

No, it doesn't. 

Over many works, he does have his fans.  For instance the New York Times magazine called his ideas revolutionary.  The New York Daily News called him a historical detective.  Like Jared Diamond, who is a professor in another field but writes his theories about man's evolution of culture and society such as "Guns, Germs, and Steel,"  or Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman, another professor in a field outside genealogy, but who is combining genealogy and DNA studies of the  Melungeons, which suggests that they were Sephardic Jews, there is room for alternative theories.  There is room for those who are writing outside their specialty fields or who are simply smart and not educated formally.  At one time the World was thought to be flat and anyone who thought otherwise was considered a heretic. (And I suspect that some day science will catch up with reincarnation theories too.)

JARED DIAMOND OFFICIAL SITE

Pages 185-186 - Overview: Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson in a chapter on North Carolina and the Virginias, is about some of the same territory that Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman's researching.  He writes about a researcher named Jerry Warsing who is following a disease called Machado-Joseph as evidence of Chinese mariners in North America decades before Christopher Columbus.  The Melungoens of West Virginia have a high incidence of this disease which is prevalent in Yunnan Province, China as well as in the Aborigines of Australia and in Yemen.  The theory has been that the Portuguese spread this disease but Waring now believes it was the same huge Chinese fleets that Menzies wrote about in previous books who took the disease around the world.

He focused on the Native American tribe called the Mingo whose DNA has a high admixture of East Asian genes. The Mingos themselves said they were not Indian people but descendants of shipwrecked sailors.

Page 186  - Excerpt:

..."Further investigations led Warsing to the eventual conclusion that a fleet of some two hundred ships under the command of Zheng He had been wrecked in about 1432 on the coast between modern Southport, North Carolina, and the Norfolk, Virgina.  Confronted with the marshy inhospitable coast, they marched inland up the Cape Fear and Roanoke rivers and settled in the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains between Salem and Asheville, North Carolina.  Some of them also settled in route in West Virginia, where they left a proliferation of stone buildings -  Warhing believed that they also left a selection of Chinese plants, pallowwaddy and rice, along the way.  He believes their survivors are among the tribes of the Ming Ho (Mingo), Wyo Ming,  Lyco Ming, Shawnee (name corrupted from Oceanye Ho), and Melungeons."

WHO DISCOVERED AMERICA
The Untold History of the Peopling of the Americas
by Gavin Menzies and Ian Hudson
is published by William Morrow - An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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COMING UP - ABRAHAM LINCOLN!

Living in Southern California where a large part of the economy is based in movie making, I've been seeing advertisements on bus stops and all around for the movie that's just coming out in which the actor Daniel Day Lewis acts as Abraham Lincoln and Sally Fields acts as Mary Todd Lincoln.  In this company town there is Oscar Buzz about the film.  The screenplay by Tony Kushner is said to be excellent and well, this may be one of those rare films that has earned its right to call itself an "event."

LINCOLN the movie official site link

We Americans seem to have an ongoing fascination for Abraham Lincoln as a character and as someone who had an impactful role in History, and like the story about the sinking of the Titanic, there have been a number of films over the years in which various actors, directors, and screen writers have had their chance to put forth their Point of View.

You may also consider President Lincoln to be a fascinating GENEALOGY CASE STUDY!

I'll be posting on Lincoln, American History and Genealogy, and Slavery from now through February, which is African American Month, along with my holiday posts!  I know that many of you genealogy researchers find the months of November and December to be down time when it comes to research but what's great abouty using Blogger is that the posts remain to be found at any time in the future as well.

WHEN SCOTLAND WAS JEWISH by DONALD YATES and ELIZABETH CALDWELL HIRSCHMAN

WHEN SCOTLAND WAS JEWISH

by Donald Yates and Elizabeth Caldwell Hirschman

DNA Evidence, Archeology, Analysis of Migrations, and Public and Family Records Show Twelfth Century Semitic Roots.

McFarland and Company Publishers -Jefferson, North Carolina and London

Fascinating! The DNA evidence may be the clincher to a controversial theory that the authors intend to prove to their best ability, that common assumptions about Scotland and the Scottish are erroneous, and that many people of Jewish ancestry came to prominence, developing the culture of the country. Bagpipes were a Middle Eastern instrument first, for instance.

The population of developing Scotland was heavily influenced by an influx of Sephardic Jews from the 12th century on, and many of the famous CLANS and SEPTS have this root heritage.

Covered here are Campbell, Forbes, Fraser, and several other surnames thought commonly to be genetically Scottish. The evidence begins with portraits from the National Gallery showing the portraits of early famous aristocrats sporting head-wear and faces that are considered to be Semitic. It moves onto the DNA testing of representatives of these surnames from around the world.

Did Presbyterianism have had its roots in Proto-Jewish communities that practiced a Torah aware version of Christianity as a kind of cover for Judaism? These researchers think so. Yates and Hirschman also dip in to the whole Knights Templar, Freemasons, and Cabala controversy which of late seems to also wind up in Scotland.

These researchers started out a few years ago with their pioneering research into the Melungeons of the South-eastern United States, a heritage they both share, and also believe to have begun in Iberian - Mediterranean Sephardic-Jewish and Arabian populations.

C 2009 Ancestry Worship - Genealogy