a response from a Wampanoag about the Brown/Warren Indian ancestry controversy

[flyingfysh]

Read the story at http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120927/OPINION/209270306

"A Cherokee princess in every family"

The writer believes Elizabeth Warren, and explains why:

"The Indian Removal Act of 1830 is one of the ugliest stains on American history. President Andrew Jackson sent five tribes packing across the Mississippi, the Cherokee among them, ignoring treaties, a Supreme Court ruling and any sense of human decency to make way for settlement. Many resisted, resulting in thousands of disenfranchised tribal people no longer tethered to a land base or cultural community."

"With only a legacy of what was once a great and honorable nation, we should not be surprised that people like the Warrens can't find their Cherokee roots on ancestry.com. Neither will genealogists hired by Brown's campaign for the latest negative ad questioning Warren's heritage instead of addressing how we preserve Social Security, affordable health care and education, create jobs and lower the deficit."

"Now it seems Brown's campaign has gotten so slap-happy with this issue it's lost all sense of reason and regard for Indian sensibilities and has been videotaped chanting and whooping in obvious mockery of our culture in an attempt to poke fun at Warren. While Brown feels no urgency to apologize for that action, his deputy chief and high-level campaign staff are among those on video lampooning our heritage."

"On the flip side, all Brown's Warren-bashing has finally gotten Warren to explain herself in very real terms and claim her heritage as it was handed to her, in the form of an oral history very likely as valid any written one. While this family legend does not carry the entitlement that goes along with having ancestors who endured the Trail of Tears, there are many like her who have had these stories passed down from one generation to the next."

[DURHAM D]

1. This

"there are many like her who have had these stories passed down from one generation to the next."

[William Seger]

5. I have

According to my family's oral history, I'm 1/32nd Cherokee myself, but I seriously doubt I could prove it.

[DURHAM D]

6. I know from personal experience that

the Oklahoma records are really a mess.

[William Seger]

7. I've found very little about my grandfather and nothing about my great-grandfather

... because county records were destroyed in a fire.

[flyingfysh]

11. I've been researching my great-grandfather in the Oklahoma Dawes Roll records

I tried to find out more about his first marriage and when he and his first wife separated. I can find the Dawes card with no trouble, but the packet of documents that goes along with that card is - missing! The Choctaw Nation does not have it, and the National Archives office in Fort Worth does not have it. I suspect I would have been able to find more stories about my great-grandfather there. He appears to have an interesting history. There may be records of the divorce (probably in 1893) in records of some Oklahoma county, but I have no idea which one.

[SDjack]

26. My grandfather Durham told me that his grandfather

joined the Cherokee expulsion ("Trail of Tears&quot as a missionary in Georgia. He made the journey to Oklahoma and lived the rest of life with the Cherokees. I was told that I have Cherokee heritage, but got no details. This year, I met another Durham (in GA) who has a similar oral history. Neither of us can find any family records, and we agree that Andrew Jackson was an evil SOB.

[Warpy]

8. That's about how Mohawk I am

and there's no way I'd even bother to try to prove it. It was too remote for them to claim me if they wanted to and besides, I'm culturally Irish.

I just know who I am, even if the provincial little middle school pinheads like Brown will never get it.

[Blue_In_AK]

24. Me, too.

I've been hearing about Native American ancestry on my grandma's side, as well, for many years. No proof other than the fact that my uncles and a couple of my aunts were quite dark-skinned and I tan easily. That's good enough for me.

[littlemissmartypants]

56. Having

blonde hair and brown eyes is also a clue. What did you have to look up the tribe? Or the ear thing?

[nolabear]

2. Including me. I believe her. And whether I do or not makes no difference. She knows her heart.

Scott Brown is not only impugning her honesty and her heritage, he's spitting on her and her family's heart and pride and sense of who they are. He's trying to destroy something that's basic to humanity, a sense of a past and connection to life itself. No one should ever do that to another human being. In particular no one who is trying to convince other human beings that he will be good for them.

[spooky3]

4. Agree. And I have a similar story to hers--I have a letter from my late grandmother

describing my grandfather's "Indian blood" and I have one other letter with a similar tale. Having researched several lines of the family tree(s), and amazed at what people have put on the web in the past ten years, and having sorted out many other mysteries or conflicting info, I was hoping that I would be able to confirm or disconfirm this. But so far, I haven't been able to do either.

Several of the branches of the family have been here since the 1600s. I would imagine that many, many people with similar histories have similar family lore.

I do believe it would have been better had she confronted this earlier, and that it is POSSIBLE (not that it did happen) that unbeknownst to Warren, her listing in the directory may have helped her get at least one prior job. But what difference does that make? She did nothing wrong, and she's proven herself to be outstanding as a professor, and so that should show that the people doing the hiring made a good decision, shouldn't it? What relevance does it have for this campaign? How does this bear on the important issues?

Brown is desperate and despicable.

[nolabear]

13. Mine's quite well documented but you know how people are. They believe what they want or need to.

[1monster]

20. Including my son, who is 1/16 Comanchee, but I'll never be able to prove it. His grandmother

really looked her Native American heritage, and so does my huband. But my son's N.A. genes have been overwhelmed by his Irish genes. His skin is very pale and his eyes are gray...

[Cha]

27. It is my understanding that Scott has been Lying that she

profited from listing her Native American Heritage..and Elizabeth explained in her Ad that she never has.

As well as acting like a racist bigot Brown has Lied about her.

Will he bring it up Again in the next debate or be ready to talk about the Issues Important to Massachusetts Voters..and the whole country's actually. Like Global Climate Change.

I can still see his face talking trash about Elizabeth because he can't stand on his record in Mass.

[abumbyanyothername]

3. My First Americans heritage

My paternal grandfather was 1/2 native and the geneology records provide zero information about his mother. I am, therefore, at least 1/8 native. (On my mom's side the flow is decidedly German American with some Englishness mixed in.)

My sister's dentist told her she was native without having had her volunteer any information at all based on her teeth.

[Mopar151]

10. I'm told ear wax is an indicator, as well n/.t

[calimary]

31. Really? Man, I've always had that problem.

Hmmm... when one is adopted, this kind of thing becomes ever more intriguing.

[kestrel91316]

37. Well that's interesting. I go through mountains of q-tips.

[HiPointDem]

39. Not exactly. More of 'asianess' in a very broad sense.

There are two distinct genetically determined types of earwax: the wet type, which is dominant, and the dry type, which is recessive. While Asians and Native Americans are more likely to have the dry type of cerumen (gray and flaky), African and European people are more likely to have the wet type (honey-brown to dark-brown and moist). Cerumen type has been used by anthropologists to track human migratory patterns, such as those of the Inuit. In Japan, wet-type earwax is more prevalent among the Ainu, in contrast to country's Yamato majority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earwax

[DiverDave]

41. This sounds like a onion piece

freaking EAR WAX???

[RoccoR5955]

52. the honey brown

is tastier.
The grey is not as sweet, and tastes more like wax. the more honey brown it is.

Forgive me, but my chimp took hold of the laptop. The comment is none the less interesting, so I'll let it stand. Ronnie the chimp likes to pick ears, so he knows.

[aquart]

14. Shovel incisors. There's a distinctive shape.

Unless you're Swedish. They have them, too.

http://www.sharonlbegley.com/three-is-not-enough

[abumbyanyothername]

17. My daughter

will catch them from both sides then.

Somewhat Swedish on her mom's side.

[Blue_In_AK]

32. I have those.

I thought that's how everyone's teeth looked. Who knew?

[FirstLight]

33. that's a great read

thanks for sharing!

[HiPointDem]

38. Common, but not universal, in NA & Asian populations. Rare, but not non-existent, in others.

Last edited Mon Oct 1, 2012, 04:31 AM - Edit history (4)

According to this dental reference work:

http://books.google.com/books?id=HuRcAyXWJxIC&pg=PA185&lpg=PA185&dq=tooth+shoveling+europe+frequency&source=bl&ots=fZsBorCLZw&sig=XK5k9ar8bITExiOh3jBgfpWHAmo&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DUNpUPmbKcisiALBgYHICg&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&q=tooth%20shoveling%20europe%20frequency&f=false

various studies have found mean frequency of shoveling of 3% for slavs, 7.6% for western europeans, 8.4% for finno-permic language cluster, 12.8% for indo-iranians, 47-53% for two central russian ethnic groups, 30-40% for polynesians, micronesians, & southeast asians, 5-6% for australia, melanesia, new guinea, 14.9% for khoisan of africa, 11% for south africa, etc.

china, japan, aleut-eskimo, n & s. american NA, Mongolian Altaic, = 70-85%.
(there's also significant variation between tribes where native american populations are concerned.)

altaic people of siberia = 60%, altaic people of turkey = 36%. Ainu of japan 22%.

also, shoveling not an all or nothing proposition. they break it into grades & patterns which are themselves more frequent in some groups than others. There's also double-shoveling, most frequent in american indians, 55-70%.

[littlemissmartypants]

58. kewl

.

[diane in sf]

43. Probably because the Swedes have some Sami (Mongolian) heritage. Same for some Norwegians

[MysticLynx]

53. Sami

and some of the Siberian nations, are by some considered Pan-Indian, as there are a lot of similarities, genetically and culturally, and of course we have all heard of the legends of the 'land bridge' that some believe links the two races together from way way back. First I have heard about the teeth, have heard the stories of bone density though, supposedly Amer-Indians, Pan American Indians have a higher bone density, as far as I KNOW (which does not meant it is an absolute fact just an opinion based on personal experience) there is no conclusive evidence of such claims.

[aquart]

65. Cool.

People were a lot busier with each other way back when than we like to think. I would love to have money to track my DNA. Just to get an idea of that long sweeping journey to today.

[Erose999]

49. Hmm I have shovel-teeth. I'm pretty much as white as you can get, but according to my father

either my great grandma or my great great grandma was full blooded Cherokee. Its all documented in a genealogy, but our distant cousins have it and I've only had a chance to glance at it briefly.

Irish and German are our dominant traits though. I will spontaneously combust in direct sunlight.

[littlemissmartypants]

57. shovel shaped incisor, going to check....

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Shovel+incisors&view=detail&id=AD251E16D002C1EEE3AC8230C70B5A45339EB66C

[defacto7]

50. I've had several haematologists

ask me if I had Native American ancestry because of the veins in my arms. I never made reference to fact that I did, Cherokee on both sides and Blackfoot on one.

[HopeHoops]

9. I've got two full NA in my ancestry and show it. She doesn't. But fuck the detractors.

Mine are both Susquehannan. My mom shows it. My youngest daughter shows it. I show it. Nobody else does. It can be there and not be evident. Mine date back to the late 17th century. I've got her beat there, but it's nothing to sneeze at. Brown needs to put up or shut up on the issue. Yes, I'm proud of my heritage, and it pre-dates most of the anti-immigrant asswipes. They don't have a clue what they're talking about. I do. Warren does. We're proud of our heritage and rightfully so. We're more "American" than most of the GOP asswipes.

He needs to shut the fuck up on that issue and explain how a "honky" (yes, I know that's pejorative) can claim a woman with native heritage should be an outcast because she's got more native blood (like entirely) than he does. I take this personally. Okay, yes, I'm pissed off about it. He needs to be run out of town on a horse that hates white men (note: I'm technically a "white man", but I do change race every spring).

I'm admittedly biased, but when someone uses the race card, I get pissed. "All men are created equal" (well, other than women, injins and blacks at the time that was written, but still).

[aquart]

19. In his weird, confused mind, we're supposed to be upset

Because Warren falsely claimed minority status and MAYBE got some goodies because of it. Because he knows she's no redskin.

Sigh. Poor smug asshole. It wasn't supposed to come out as an NA condemnation. BUT IT DID. Because he knows nothing of the journey that made so many families just like Elizabeth's. He ended up touching a nerve he never knew existed.

[littlemissmartypants]

59. I made this.

[jberryhill]

12. Same here...

...the narrative of "white people coming and killing off the Indians" isn't as neat as all that. Among the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and other tribes, there had been a lot of intermarriage for generations up to 1830. As you say, some went, some didn't, and some family histories are kind of murky on that point.

[AnnieK401]

48. Exactly! This was an issue in my family.

Both sides of my family have deep roots in Georgia and this was an issue in my family. On my mother's side it was acknowledged that my great-grandfather was part Cherokee. My mother became an amateur genealogist and claimed that my father's grandmother was also part NA (Creek). One of his sister's denied this. His side of the family ignored the fact that it was illegal for Natives to live in GA during part of the time that she was alive. However, my mother was able to prove enough Creek ancestry to get my Dad, sister, and I accepted into the Lower Creek Muscogee Tribe, although at the time I have to admit I did not take it seriously - but I still have the card that id's us as tribe members. She also got me a scholarship through the Indian Health Service for my last 2 yrs. of college. I had to apply to every reservation that might have needed me once I graduated, and would have had to go to work on one as payback, but none of them called me. I do not feel guilty in the least. And yes, my mother always said that there was a lot of intermarriage. I believe there are lot of people out with native blood who don't even know. I heard that there is a company that can do a DNA test to check for a Native marker, but I don't know if it's legitimate.

[jberryhill]

64. You and I may be related

Pretty much the same story here.

There were a lot of Creeks who were disenrolled.

[AnnieK401]

67. Interesting.

[underthematrix]

15. I believe Elizabeth Warren and off you this

http://history.ncsu.edu/projects/cwnc/items/show/366. Yep that's a pic of Plessy.

[aquart]

23. Page not found?

[caraher]

25. Try this

http://history.ncsu.edu/projects/cwnc/items/show/366

There was a stray period in the other link.

[Tennessee Gal]

16. Scott Brown is making an ass of himself.

That is what Republicans do so well.

[loli phabay]

18. no idea how you even go about proving stuff like this, all i know for sure is i have no NA blood

i couldnt tell whether someone has or not by looks or inclination.

[lunatica]

21. Brown is inferring strongly that American Indians have an advantage over white men like him

He's accusing Elizabeth Warren of getting all kinds of percs for 'claiming' Indian ancestry.

How lucky for the Indians that they have it so good.

[MrMickeysMom]

29. Indeed...

We should have an icon that shows nail being hit on head as you just did, lunatica!

Keep going, Republicans.... show us how you really feel about the others who have it so good...

[lolly]

22. It's just a Mean Kids thing

Like junior high school bullies, they find one thing that they can latch onto, and make a kid's life miserable for a few years. It's the same mentality, and the same process that came up with the purple bandaid campaign against Kerry.

As for her heritage--well, one of my great aunts once came upon information that suggested my great-great grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. It was news to my mom, but she thought it was interesting.

I can see how I might have mentioned that I was 1/16 Cherokee on a college admissions forms at that time and that age; I wouldn't bother with it now. And it never seemed to have gained her any advantage.

But hey, if that's all the mean kids and bullies have to do with their time--let's hope the voters of Massachusetts are all past the junior high stage of development.

[lobodons]

28. puncky nose and high cheek bones

Um, Warren has both of them. Enough for me.

[Brickbat]

30. Another reason so many people have "Cherokee princesses" in their background is it was a little more

socially acceptable for many people to claim that instead of black ancestry.

[MysticLynx]

54. Not so sure about that

It may have happened to African Americans and I have never heard of it, but I know if it was suspected that you had ANY Amer-Indian blood your children could and would just dis-appear in the middle of the night. They were loaded up on trains by the government and sent to ' schools' and/or out west were the families needed 'cheap labor' for the family farm so they would be adopted out to 'good Christians' to 'save them' from their heathen ways-

[Shanti Mama]

34. Great opinion piece.

Makes a lot of sense to me.
Let's ask Brown to prove god exists.

[Thinkingabout]

35. Do you think Brown thinks Warren should look like the Indian women in the movies?

He probably does. Many of us has native American in their blood lines and for many years it was something to be proud of and the way Brown is responding is one of the reasons it was not talked about.

[kestrel91316]

36. I am pretty much as WASP as WASP can get, but even in my family,

on my mom's side, there are persistent rumors about one of my great-great-grandmothers having some NA heritage. Neither I nor another genealogist in our family can find any actual evidence of this, and a photograph of her shows she had blue eyes (if they are light enough you can tell in those old photos). Another very distant cousin had also heard the rumor about this particular ancestor, and I am wondering if there might not be a little truth to it. Where there is spotty smoke like this there is occasionally fire.

Like Elizabeth Warren's father's family, her family came from western NY through Ohio and Illinois before winding up in WI and then KS/NE. I just don't know.

It's interesting. And that's the branch of the family I got my nose from - which on a dark-haired person might look somewhat NAish.

[loli phabay]

40. without knowing anything about this, but di NA keep records of stuff you can look at or is a lot of

it guesswork and oral tradition, just wondering how you could prove definetively you have the blood and is there some sort of official recognition. I did see on one thread once something about a certificate that you could get but im not sure about this stuff. thanks

[kestrel91316]

44. Sometimes you can find people in US census records when they bothered to count NAs, but the names

are often problematic. Lots of "Indian Joes" on census.

In my case, the genealogical trail peters out in the early 1800s so it's anybody's guess.

[AsahinaKimi]

42. Brown's digusting comments

earned Elizabeth Warren a donation from me.

http://elizabethwarren.com/

[littlemissmartypants]

45. Pottawatomie here

and I found the earwax reference!!

The dimorphism of cerumen was first discovered by Kishi in 1907. There are two types of cerumen which differ in colour and consistency: the flocky and gray dry cerumen and the sticky yellow to brown wet cerumen. The comprehensive review of the frequency of the different cerumen types and their geographical distribution result in evidence for the dry type as a distinguishing feature of the mongoloid peoples (including the American Indians). The frequency of the wet cerumen prevails significantly in the Negroid (Congoid) and the Europoid (Caucasoid) population. Intermediate incidence data are due to racial intermixture.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7888024

[Blue_In_AK]

47. I had to look that up, too.

It seems I have the shovel incisors and the dry ear wax. Maybe the rumors about my grandmother's NA heritage are true.

[allan01]

51. re:a response from a Wampanoag about the Brown/Warren Indian ancestry controversy

how does that solve the states budget . meh

note : i wish ms warren well

[McCamy Taylor]

55. Almost everyone I know is part Native. How does Brown think this will help him?

[littlemissmartypants]

60. Ifound them! Shovel incisors!!

Too bad they are so small, could use a good shovel to dig a grave for the Brown campaign. Funny...his last name is a color. This is the best post I have read in a while. The story of the Wampanoag is fantastic. There is an excellent documentary that I saw recently that is worth a look called WE STILL LIVE HERE ON THE iNdependent Lens on PBS

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/we-still-live-here/

&feature=player_embedded

http://www.persistenceofvision.org/2011/11/we-still-live-here-breathing-life-into-a-culture/

Thank you so much for posting this and stimulation an amazing discussion and trip of discovery where we could celebrate what unites us.

[locks]

61. Wampanoag language

Last night PBS TV in Denver (KDVR Channel 12) showed a beautiful Independent Lens documentary
titled "We Still Live Here--as Nutayunea". The Wampanoag in Massachusetts were treated badly and even enslaved by the New Englanders. Their famous linguist Jessie Little Doe Baird started in 1993 to help them revive their native language more than a century and seven generations after the last native speaker died. They started with the children and the whole tribe is learning to converse in the language of their ancestors and loving it. Interesting that the children and their families look like "Americans", that is they range from looking "Scandinavian" to "African-American", and every characteristic in between. They might like to make Elizabeth Warren a "relative" who we know will represent them and their interests when she is in the Senate.

[littlemissmartypants]

63. That is ok...

couldn't you just watch it again and again? So well done!!

[locks]

62. Didn't mean to post the same info!

Sorry, littlemiss, I didn't see your great post when I wrote mine. Anyway, thanks to all of you who have added to this good discussion.

[boppers]

66. I, too, have more oral history than a DNA record.

Time to ask these assholes to prove if somebody is "Jewish".

It's the same racism that they are attacking with, so, let them have the rope.