Why Do A Lot Of People Claim To Be Mixed With Native American?

Question

This is not to piss anyone off. And I am not generalizing but a lot of blacks and whites say stuff like "I'm Cherokee on my mama's side"


I know that some people do have Native American in them but GOD how is everyone mixed with Cherokee!

AriesJWR-No, I'm not calling you a liar.

Answer 1

Maybe you're from the southeast and there were lots of Cherokees there before the trail of tears.

(I have some cousins who are Cherokee. But they're not blood relatives. And, snap, I do have some Iroquois in me somewhere...)

The typical white person in America is a mix of so many things.... actually, so is the typical Black person in America. We don't have ties anywhere but our own country anymore. Our families may have originally been German, but lived in England for generations before coming to the US. Or Ugandan, but lived in the Caribbean for generations before coming to the US.

EDIT:
You need 25% to be considered American Indian for benefits.

Answer 2

It seems this only happens when ONLINE and When they're around REAL SKINS. Any other time they live their lives as what ever they can "PASS" for, white , black, mexican, etc.

WHY cherokee, I think it's cause that's the ONLY tribe they know.

WE have a word for these people. Been givin their own tribe even. "The WannaBe tribe of Rainbow Native Americans" Their motto is "for just $19.95 you can play at being indian too

For all you others
INDIANS DO NOT COME IN PARTS.
YOU ARE OR ARE NOT INDIAN.
There is NO room for HALF MEASURES

CHER IS NOT CHEROKEE, she's Armenian. Her name is Cherilyn Sarkisian

Answer 3

The Trail of Tears....

The Cherokee were forced off their lands and sent out West. If they didn't want to go, their best bet was to marry someone who could stay.

However, most people would hide that fact instead of annoucing it because their property could still be taken from them. So in all actuality, there are probably MORE people with Native American blood than actually realize it because it has become a hidden "family secret" for that very reason.

Answer 4

Ok, have you ever heard of the Trail of Tears? Cherokee Indians were originally from the South and were forced to move from their homeland towards the Western plains where they are today.
And I don't think I need to explain why it was called the Trail of Tears but lets say a lot of death, beatings and rape was going on. I'm not trying to undermine it, but it's a very disturbing topic.

The South had a lot of slaves who- if they managed to run away, yet not make it to the north- would often intergrate with the Native American tribes in the area. They'd marry, have kids and BOOM. You've got yourself part Black/Indian kids.

There tended to be more Whites on the plains area and some of them married Indians too. They have kids and BOOM- White/Indian kids.
Also, the Cherokee nation is the largest group of Native Americans living in America (then and now) so if anyone does have Indian in them, most likely it IS Cherokee. If they don't know what the Indian actually is, most people say Cherokee off the bat cuz it's easiest and often times correct.

Answer 5

Well Miss Rose that would occur from a particular area like where I'm living in Virginia, there is Cherokee National Park, Cherokee Indian Reservation and Cherokee Pancakes. Then if I go to Delaware, there is the Delaware National Indian Park, Delaware Indian Reservation and Delaware Highball. See? The thing I don't understand is why wouldn't people be proud of such a thing.? I gave you a Star Dahling....

Answer 6

Well truth is, These tribes you're talking about were very large and did mix with many people. And those people multiplied, and those people multiplied... and so on and so forth.

I think they (we) say it because it makes us feel more exotic. Most of the time we walk around here being "just black" or "just white", when everyone else is something else lol. It's kinda boring.

Plus it helps us relate to one another in my opinion. The Native Americans were such an interesting people. For a white person to say "I've got a Cherokee great-grandmother" a black person could say "I do too!"

It's what makes us Americans in my opinion. Because of the poor Native Americans that gave up not only land but their entire lives for our so-called civilized world, we are who we are. And it's beautiful.

Answer 7

People can claim they are part Cherokee cuz they were the lightest skinned native american faction. IMO if you aren't getting money from the government, then you aren't Native American enough to brag. My father-in-law gets a check once a month from the government. He is Pomo and Wailaki, and he looks it so he has the right to claim he is Native American. I don't get why everybody claims they are 1/64th Cherokee when the other 63/64ths of you is white. That means you're white.

Answer 8

Native American's accepted others and intermarried especially in the South where the Seminoles and the Cherokee Nations are from.

It is known that many Africans intermarried with Native Americans. Less widely known is the fact that many Native Americans also owned African slaves, and fathered children with African slave women. In addition there were smaller numbers Free People of Color who lived in many of the nations and who also lived and married persons from the same nations, and whose descendants claim ancestry from the Oklahoma Black Indian people. As a result, thousands of Americans have African and Indian ancestry." The Five Civilized Tribes ( Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole owned slaves.

As for Metis thats a Canadian thing where tribal members get rights to hunt and fish. The Métis Nation consists of descendants of marriages of Woodland Cree, Ojibway, Saulteaux, and Menominee aboriginals to French Canadian.
Countless Métis over time are thought to have been absorbed and assimilated into the surrounding populations making Métis heritage (and thereby Aboriginal ancestry) more common than sometimes realized. Recent research and DNA analysis has often shown forgotten Aboriginal lineages in many people of French Canadian and Acadian descent.They are known officially by the Government of Canada as registered Indians if they are entitled to benefits under the Indian Act.

My ancestors were called St Francis or Abenaki. They lived in the area of New Hampshire, Vermont Maine and lower Canada. They were fpr the most part aligned with France against the British before the Revolutionary War and so when Geo Washington, John Stark and Major Robert Rogers at different time lead raids against the Abenaki and they retreated to Canada. If you read about the Hmong in Laos today, you can begin to understand the role the Abenaki played in US history. Since they retreated before the US was founded and the British fought them they never were defeated or had a treaty enforceable in the US. The US refused and refuses to recognize that the Abenaki were in the US preferring to believe that Abenaki somehow recognized the border of the US before it was created. In the 1920-and 1930 the US began a sterilization campaign which although it didn't specifically target Abenakis certainly swept up many of the remaining Abenakis in the US. The Abenaki left here that were not sterilized were either decended from those who retreated to Canada like my family or they hid out and denied there ancestry. I could go on but I just want you to understand we have a heritage we want to understand and honor it same as if we were Italians or Irish.

Answer 9

Plenty of love despite plenty of hate is all I have to say...


(Ok so I will add... when people came to a land already full of people, it's not surprising that many people who's families have been here a long time include some 'Native American' heritage.)

Answer 10

Pride in their heritage, perhaps? I know I'm only a quarter Italian, but when people ask what my nationality is, I am always proud to say I am Italian.

There are those who also do it for the benefits. (My boyfriend being one of them.) There is some sort of new college grant now that gives out to the tribe he is related to, and even though he is about erm....1/8 Native American, he can still get it. Hey--if the gov't is going to offer free money to those who qualify, every little bit helps!