# White Americans with Native blood **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 23, 2014, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409 "2014-06-23T03:05:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Fishtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed655f/32.png) [@Fishtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fishtar)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/21 "2014-06-23T15:30:16Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I think it’s likely that this ‘story’ of native American ancestry was invented by ancestors who were afraid of the social implications of being part black to explain their darker skin tone. That there, makes much sense to me. " of course I am not black, I just look a little dark because my Grandmother was half Cherokee…" Color line crossed. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/22 "2014-06-23T15:32:22Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > When I was a kid and played Cowboys and Indians, I often chose the role of Indian. Please come and pick up your check. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/23 "2014-06-23T15:37:09Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > I don’t know about a genetic study, but don’t people have to prove lineage in order to be considered part of any certain tribe? There’s a difference between having lineage and being part of a tribe. And unless it’s in the direct paternal line (Y-chromosome) or direct maternal line (mtDNA), how would genetic testing prove anything? Can they do more now? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/24 "2014-06-23T15:52:20Z")
> [@Fishtar](#): > > I am always suspicious when anybody says they are part Cherokee. Because so many people say they are part Cherokee. Makes me think people just like to say Cherokee. I think that goes back to the Cherokee being considered one of the “Five Civilized Tribes”. Basically “nice Indians”. A certain slice of people claimed Native blood because it accounted for a dark complexion passed on by African genes. While it wasn’t great being Native it was often better than being Black, so if you couldn’t pass for White passing for Native might be an option. Then there are people like my spouse who can provide names, photos, and Census evidence of their Native heritage. In other words, he can prove it even without genetic tests. He almost never claims it, though, and usually describes himself as “white”. One caution about those genetic tests - they rely on averages and statistics, they are not definitive. Because of the way inheritance works it is possible to be an actual, provable descendant of group X yet not possess any of the typical markers for group X. That usually takes several generations to happen, but when you’re talking about ancestry it not only can happen it probably does on a regular basis. It is also possible for some of a group of full siblings to carry such a marker and the other sub-group of those sibling to not carry it. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/25 "2014-06-23T15:58:14Z")
> [@Becky2844](#): > > I don’t know about a genetic study, but don’t people have to prove lineage in order to be considered part of any certain tribe? Some tribes will consider spouses and adopted children to be tribal members regardless of ancestry. Some tribes viewed membership much like we view citizenship in many modern nations, so one could, for example, become a member of the Cherokee nation without needing to marry into the tribe or be a blood relation (after the Civil War the black slaves of the Cherokee became members of the Cherokee Nation, for example). Some groups recognize ONLY matrilineal descent, if your mother is a group member so are you, but even if you can prove your father was a group member the group doesn’t consider you a member. Every different group sets its own rules. Also, I should probably throw in that there is more than one group of Cherokee. There is the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band Cherokee (the latter is where my spouse traces his relations). CN has much more liberal membership rules than EBC. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/26 "2014-06-23T16:01:52Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > I think it’s likely that this ‘story’ of native American ancestry was invented by ancestors who were afraid of the social implications of being part black to explain their darker skin tone. That meme is mocked by the African-American Mardi Gras “Indians” in New Orleans. > [@Dr.Drake](#): > > There’s a difference between having lineage and being part of a tribe. Yes, tribe membership is a legal status, based on the tribe’s rules for defining its own members. For the “Five Civilized Tribes”, that means showing descent from a Dawes Rolls enrollee, plus a federal Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood that meets the tribe’s minimum. There are many people who would qualify if the necessary ancestor had enrolled, but many did not, either out of a suspicion that the government would use the rolls simply to screw them again somehow, or because they were sick of all the shit, could pass for white, and chose to try, or for other reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/27 "2014-06-23T16:06:23Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > I’m supposed to be 1/16th Native American Same here. Chinook Nation or Flathead Nation, unclear which. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/28 "2014-06-23T16:18:23Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > We know that many whites claim to have native, especially Cherokee, ancestry. Do you think these are usually founded in reality? Would a genetic study of white Americans reveal a significant amount of admixture among people whose families have been here since colonial times? I used to have a job helping people do genealogical research and whenever they told me about Indian ancestors I learned to say “Sometimes that’s hard to prove on paper.” And the claim was almost always Cherokee and most of the time we couldn’t find any connections on paper. I did have one African American guy doing research and his history sounded pretty fantastic. He claimed his grandfather was a buffalo soldier who lived to be about 100 years old and that he thought his grandmother was Arapaho. After telling him “Sometimes that’s hard to prove on paper” we ended up proving it on paper. It turns out his grandfather _was_ a buffalo soldier who lived about a century and his grandmother _was_ an Arapaho Indian. As for how many of us actually have any Native American blood coursing through our veins, well, in my experience most people who think they have NA ancestors really don’t. Er, or, if they do, it’s hard to prove on paper. (I mentioned that, right?) But, as **ElvisL1ves** points out, there were Native Americans who, for whatever reason, didn’t make it onto any of the rolls. So a lack of a paper trail doesn’t necessarily equate to a lack of a genetic trail. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/29 "2014-06-23T16:53:14Z")
Well, heck… we did genealogies back to the time of Cromwell and didn’t find anything but English, German, Irish and Danish. Now I want to get tested and see if something slipped in there… ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/30 "2014-06-23T16:54:59Z")
A written genealogy isn’t necessarily accurate, anyway - one of your grandfathers might actually be the son of the milkman, for instance. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Drake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ad7895/32.png) [@Dr.Drake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Drake)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/31 "2014-06-23T16:59:29Z")
> [@Ethilrist](#): > > Well, heck… we did genealogies back to the time of Cromwell and didn’t find anything but English, German, Irish and Danish. Now I want to get tested and see if something slipped in there… I seriously doubt if anyone can trace all lines back to the seventeenth century. Women are especially hard to trace. Sure, your seven-times great-grandmother Mary was probably English, but she might have been anything on the frontier, and there’d be no way to establish it. Further, there might be a vested interest in presuming that she was whatever her husband was. ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/32 "2014-06-23T17:08:33Z")
Both my parents have Native American ancestors, based on genealogical research. Neither of their families had any oral history of native ancestry, it came out from the research. I expect many Americans whose families have been in North America for many generations have Native ancestors and don’t realize it. Documentation is sparse and families often downplayed it. On my dad’s side, a German man in the early 1800s married an Indian woman from one of the Christianized Indian villages in central Ohio. Assuming she was full-blooded Indian, my dad was 1/16th Indian. He had the high cheekbones and black hair to match, but he and his parents had no idea. That Indian woman probably has several hundred descendants who mostly have no idea of that ancestor. My mom has a Dutch ancestor who married an Indian woman in New Netherlands in the mid 1600s. That makes my mom about 1/512 Indian. Yeah, that’s effectively nothing, but she is descended from Native Americans. I expect that Indian woman has many thousands of descendants today (that lineage crossed with the prominent Pell lineage, which is why we have reliable records that for back). So while many Americans may ignorantly claim to have Native ancestors, it’s quite possible they actually do, if their ancestors have been living in North America for two hundred years or longer. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/33 "2014-06-23T18:00:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > A written genealogy isn’t necessarily accurate, anyway - one of your grandfathers might actually be the son of the milkman, for instance. 😉 That is a good point. My great great grandfather seems to appear out of nowhere, and we are unable to find any records on him except his death and grave. Could be that his birth was on a frontier farm (Wisconsin, early 1800’s) and/or that those records were lost along the way. Or as I joked, he could have been wanted criminal William Smith, ran away to the frontier and changed his name. So his connection to the larger family going farther back is suspect. But it was his wife who was the Native American, so we know that much is true. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/34 "2014-06-23T18:06:02Z")
> [@protoboard](#): > > We know that many whites claim to have native, especially Cherokee, ancestry. Do you think these are usually founded in reality? I have no way to know. I’m sure there are a lot of unverifiable claims out there and some are probably false, but I also don’t feel any particular need to attack anybody as a liar. ---
**Author:** ![carlotta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@carlotta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlotta)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/35 "2014-06-23T18:37:50Z")
My husband is 1/4 Mohawk. His mother grew up on a Mohawk reservation in upstate New York and he has a Mohawk tribal identity card. If you didn’t know he was part Indian he would almost certainly show up on your radar as white (though every so often he will ping someone’s Hispanic-o-meter). My 1/8 Indian children look completely white, though my oldest tans easily and deeply (which looks amazing with his green eyes). so even people with a pretty good chunk of Indian can look pretty white, so I don’t know why there wouldn’t be plenty of white people who do have some Native Americn ancestry. This bit is completely from my husband, I have not fact-checked it: My husband says the Cherokees had a deliberate policy of marrying whites…this was a strategy to handle all the incoming white people, maybe they won’t be such dicks if we are all family. If this is true then all the white people claiming Cherokee ancestry makes a lot of sense, that would be the natural outcome of such a policy. ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2014, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/36 "2014-06-23T18:41:36Z")
I don’t know if “nice” was the Cherokees’ keyword, but the point is they ran their own civilization right alongside white people’s civilization from around the time of American independence until the Trail of Tears removals. The Cherokees picked up modern ways and intermarried with black and white people plenty because there was plenty of opportunity to do so, given generations of peaceably living side by side. Reciprocally, black and white people had the opportunity to learn Indian ways too—particularly concerning medicinal plants. There are so many native American plants in the \*Pharmacopoeia \*by the mid-19th century—how did the white men who compiled that knowledge come by it? Had to have been from ethnobotany studies taught by Indians who already knew the native medicinal plants. But white people and Indians fought so much, chances for cultural transmission were small—except: the flourishing of the Cherokee Nation on their original land in the Appalachians in the late 18th and early 19th centuries provided a peacetime crossroads of cultures for generations. As for black Cherokee heritage, that is a contested legal issue. The Cherokees held African slaves and, even after they’d been removed to Oklahoma, many of them supported the Confederacy. When the Dawes Rolls were compiled decades after the Civil War, the free black Cherokees were included under a racially segregated category called Freedmen. Controversy arose when the tribal government decided to disenfranchise and strip the citizenship from the descendants of the Dawes-enrolled Cherokee Freedmen. ---
**Author:** ![protoboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/fbc32d/32.png) [@protoboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/protoboard)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/37 "2014-06-30T22:48:37Z")
Would someone who is 1/16 or 1/32 Native be considered “mixed race” in any meaningful way? My younger half siblings apparently have a small amount of native ancestry yet they look no less pale than me and my full siblings do. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/38 "2014-07-01T02:52:20Z")
American English only ever had a disctinct term for someone 7/8 white and 1/8 something else: octroon (pretty much referred to being 1/8 African-American). Beyond that people didn’t make distinctions although the “one drop” rule meant such a person would still be considered “colored” by many. As a practical matter, people with non-white ancestry more dilute than octroon would almost certainly pass as white. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/39 "2014-07-01T03:19:02Z")
> [@Fishtar](#): > > That there, makes much sense to me. " of course I am not black, I just look a little dark because my Grandmother was half Cherokee…" Color line crossed. They may have had a good reason for that. The way miscegenation laws were written in some states, white people could not marry people who were even part black, but they could marry native Americans. If you had one black grandparent, and couldn’t quite pass as white, but could pass as part “Cherokee,” or whatever-- a lot of people at City Hall probably didn’t know enough to ask for tribal identity cards-- you could get a marriage license with a white person. It may also have been a way to cover up illegitimacy, back when people who were known to be illegitimate couldn’t get certain jobs, could get denied entrance into universities, etc.-- if you were born in a state with strict miscegenation laws, and you clearly weren’t of 100% European descent, you might lie and say you were Italian and Native American, so people would assume your parents were married, instead of figuring out they legally couldn’t be, if you said you were German and Black. BTW: I think it’s a crime that people were pushed into a corner like that by laws that were finally struck down as unconstitutional, and I understand why people would choose to lie in those circumstances, and I wouldn’t hold it against anyone who did it. YMMV, especially if it’s your own background that is in question. I pretty much know my ancestry; I’m not Native American at all, so I don’t have a horse in this race. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2014, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409/40 "2014-07-02T21:36:35Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > I blame Cher. So…you and your side were against her from the day she was born?? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/white-americans-with-native-blood/691409.md?page=3)