"Genetic Warfare" The Facts of Cherokees
As a Cherokee without tribal affiliation with Scottish and English ancestry as well, my "cherokeeness" is often questioned and marginalized. The discussion continues to my explanation that I should not have to choose which ancestry I prefer and that one ancestry does not negate the other. A motif in these discussions, however, is that I am not a thoroughbred Cherokee. The underlying counterargument, of course, is that the Cherokees faced one of the largest exterminations in world history, let alone in America.
Genocide is a provocative and powerful term. The Holocaust is the acceptable example for genocide. In the same century, however, the Armenians faced extermination by Turkey and the Rwandans' own civil strife involved eradication of a population. The United States' own program of eliminating a population came before all of these. The controversial element is that as a society we can recognize undeniably the Holocaust as evil, but we skirt around the Armenian tragedy, and so often ignore the reality of the Cherokee elimination. Without doubt, the Trail of Tears is one of the most famous elements of American history and appears in school textbooks, but a full examination is often neglected. Our study does not include the word "genocide," but rather we examine it as a forced march or some other tragedy that we distance ourselves from (some of us do not find this distance so easy). The propagated story does not tell how the Cherokees were eliminated not just by the forced march, but by interbreeding so that so much of the population does have "diluted" blood.
Ishaq D. Al-Sulaimani delves into this often untold account of "genetic warfare." Al-Sulaimani presents the realities of the slaughter and enslavement of the males while the women were refused tribal rights and inheritence. The schism created was not only a mixing of blood, but a clear removal from the once dominant culture. Al-Sulaimani notes that 90% of Cherokees are less than 1/4 Cherokee (even those with tribal affiliation). These powerful statistics and facts are often misunderstood or not known. The facts demonstrate the ludicracy of claims that Cherokees without tribal affiliation somehow are less Cherokee; that Cherokees that are interracial somehow have less of a right to identify with their Cherokee heritage; and that the stereotype of Cherokee culture and its ancient nation are the only model for claiming Cherokee identity.
Without staying too long on my soap box, I again have to reiterate, as in my previous entries, that nobody has a right to determine somebody else's identity. Yes many of us are white or black, but we are also Cherokee. We must continue to identify with this ancestry as 90% of us are mixed and if we lose this identity, then the US extermination of our people may yet be succesful.
Genocide is a provocative and powerful term. The Holocaust is the acceptable example for genocide. In the same century, however, the Armenians faced extermination by Turkey and the Rwandans' own civil strife involved eradication of a population. The United States' own program of eliminating a population came before all of these. The controversial element is that as a society we can recognize undeniably the Holocaust as evil, but we skirt around the Armenian tragedy, and so often ignore the reality of the Cherokee elimination. Without doubt, the Trail of Tears is one of the most famous elements of American history and appears in school textbooks, but a full examination is often neglected. Our study does not include the word "genocide," but rather we examine it as a forced march or some other tragedy that we distance ourselves from (some of us do not find this distance so easy). The propagated story does not tell how the Cherokees were eliminated not just by the forced march, but by interbreeding so that so much of the population does have "diluted" blood.
Ishaq D. Al-Sulaimani delves into this often untold account of "genetic warfare." Al-Sulaimani presents the realities of the slaughter and enslavement of the males while the women were refused tribal rights and inheritence. The schism created was not only a mixing of blood, but a clear removal from the once dominant culture. Al-Sulaimani notes that 90% of Cherokees are less than 1/4 Cherokee (even those with tribal affiliation). These powerful statistics and facts are often misunderstood or not known. The facts demonstrate the ludicracy of claims that Cherokees without tribal affiliation somehow are less Cherokee; that Cherokees that are interracial somehow have less of a right to identify with their Cherokee heritage; and that the stereotype of Cherokee culture and its ancient nation are the only model for claiming Cherokee identity.
Without staying too long on my soap box, I again have to reiterate, as in my previous entries, that nobody has a right to determine somebody else's identity. Yes many of us are white or black, but we are also Cherokee. We must continue to identify with this ancestry as 90% of us are mixed and if we lose this identity, then the US extermination of our people may yet be succesful.
Being Cherokee is a matter of citizenship, not blood. Therefore there is no such thing as a Cherokee without tribal affiliation. That would be like saying there are Germans without "the country of Germany" affiliation. You can claim whatever you want, but that does not make it true. You cannot change the history of the Cherokees.
ReplyDeleteThe issue raised is one that I often find really interesting and a great source for debate. According to U.S. law, an individual is not legally an American Indian unless he/ she is recognized by the Tribe. Recognition by tribe depends on its own governance. The Cherokee Nation, for example, requires Dawes Roll lineage. Whether I agree with this system or not is irrelevant at the moment, because a more important issue to address at the moment is the question of citizenship and race.
ReplyDeleteCitizenship and ethnicity/ race are two different notions. For example, the United States' laws and customs allow a person to racially identify as African-American without requiring an African nation to first determine the individual’s citizenship status. The fact that the individual may have never lived in Africa nor does he/she carry identification documents to prove lineage/ race, are irrelevant as self-identification suffices. The same goes for Anglo-Saxon/ whites (in this case, the nationality chosen is German).
The other interesting point, though, is that there is a distinction between Cherokee as a nation and American Indian as a race. A tribal nation is a separate concept from that of race. In this case, it is a question of heritage. An individual may be racially American Indian and have Cherokee heritage. (i.e. a white individual with German heritage but Canadian citizenship).
I will try to be more careful in making those distinctions clear in future blogs. I would, however, note that I do not believe defining the race as American Indian is appropriate as neither term "American" nor "Indian" truly reflect the peoples. Secondly, the tribes are rather unique and are not one people, but rather are many peoples with distinct customs and culture. The heritage and nationality help make that particular distinction (if provided in the right context, of course).
I also note that name is an important part of identification and incredibly powerful for legitimizing a person or group of people (think about civil union vs. marriage in the current debate on prop 8 in California).
The title of this blog plays towards this conundrum of race, heritage, nationality, and overall identification.