AMERICAN INDIAN GENEALOGY HELP CENTER
Understanding Cherokee Records and History
by Kathie M. Donahue, AG
Copyright 2004 - All rights reserved.
Genealogy does not exist in a vacuum. It cannot because the births, deaths, marriages and migrations of people are intimately connected with the situations in which they are placed. Case in point: Mr. & Mrs. Sam Smith's children were all born in Knoxville, Tennessee, except for two of them, who were born in Boonesville, Kentucky. Yet, all the censuses showed them as residing in Knoxville. Why? Are the birth places wrong or is there a reason for the time spent in northern Kentucky? Well, if the births were occurring between 1860 and 1870, there might have been a big reason for the change. Can you think what it might be? One of the children was born in 1862 and the other, in 1864. The reason for the move might have been because the mother and children were sent up to Boonesville to escape the ravages of the Civil War.
Cherokee genealogy, likewise, does not exist in a vacuum. We KNOW that the Cherokee were on the move during certain periods because of the Trail of Tears, treaties and other pressures and events.
There are some very important books written about the Cherokee and their history and I believe every serious Cherokee researcher should have these in his library. Following, is a list of books I feel are essential in understanding the Cherokee and how their fortunes affected the lives of the tribesmen and their mixed-blood kin.
Emmet Starr, HISTORY OF THE CHEROKEE INDIANS and Their Legends and Folk Lore; Kraus Reprint Co., Millwood, NY; 1977 (The Warden Co., OKC, OK, 1921)
Dr. Starr includes a history of the Emigrant Cherokee and genealogies of the principle families of the new Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma with interesting appendices. Available from most booksellers specializing in genealogy and Native American literature.
Foreman, Grant, THE FIVE CIVILIZED TRIBES; University of Oklahoma Press; Norman, OK.
In separate sections, the author takes up successively the adventures of the five tribes, mixing the important with the unimportant, the dramatic with the tedious...His style is by no means difficult or pretentious, and it is touched with sympathy and indignation. - NY Times
Foreman, Grant, INDIAN REMOVAL, The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians; University of Oklahoma Press; Norman, OK; 423 pages.
Originally published in 1932, on the date of the hundredth anniversary of the arrival in Oklahoma of the first Indians as a result of the US government's relocation of the Five Civilized Tribes, Indian Removal remains today the definitive book in its field.
Clarke, Mary Whatley; CHIEF BOWLES AND THE TEXAS CHEROKEES, University of Oklahoma Press; Norman, OK; 190 pages
The Chickamauga Cherokees from Running Water on the Tennessee River were continually forced to relocate. They created a home in Texas after their relation there in the early nineteenth century. When settlers tried to take away the rich Texas lands, Chief Phillip Bowles and his warriors made a final stand on the battlefield. Their stand resulted in defeat and the dispersal of the Chickamauga Cherokees to far-flung homes on reservations.
Rice, Horace E., Ed.D. THE BUFFALO RIDGE CHEROKEE: The Remnant of a Great Nation Divided; Heritage Books, Inc., Bowie, MD; 254 pages.
Dr. Rice's book sounds a loud fanfare for the existence of the Cherokee Nation in Virginia, where no Indians were thought to have existed after colonial times. The Indian people, however, were still there and survive in small communities to the present day. They just don't "look" like Indians in the written records of the state. Many of their cousins long ago, took the dusty trail into the setting sun and their records might be found among the Cherokee Nation lists. But for those left behind, except for the Eastern Cherokee of NC, there are no Indian rolls or allotments. Dr. Rice's book tells us they can be found.
Young, Mary Elizabeth; REDSKINS, FUFFLESHIRTS, AND REDNECKS, Indian Allotments in Alabama and Mississippi, 1830-1860; University of Oklahoma Press; Norman, OK; 234 pages
President Andrew Jackson wanted to secure all 25 million acres east of the Mississippi River. When the indigenous tribes balked, Jackson offered treaties that promised a farm to each Indian family in exchange for the remaining land. Mary Elizabeth Young details the repercussions of these treaties for American Indians and Anglo-Indian relations.
Cox, Brent Yanusdi; HEART OF THE EAGLE, Dragging Canoe and the Emergence of the Chickamauga Confederacy; Chenanee Publishers; Milan, TN, 1999; 163 pages plus index.
Brent Cox's book on the fortunes of Dragging Canoe and his tribe is as important as any other history of the Cherokee in that it chronicles the interactions and movements of a part of the Cherokee Nation that was not wholly a part of the Emigration. The Emigrant Cherokee of the Trail of Tears represent the majority of the names on Cherokee Rolls today, but for the disenfranchised Cherokee, books like Brent's can provide the key to other records where Indian people might also be found.
