Why So Few Cherokee Descendants Connect, and How We Can Change That

This Saturday, October 17, I'm honored to speak, in person and by livestream, at the meeting of the Goingsnake Historical District Association in Westville, Oklahoma. This nonprofit works to preserve Cherokee history and genealogy, especially that of the old Goingsnake District.

Their streaming audience is significant. Still, it's tiny next to the number of citizens in the Cherokee Nation and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. That raises a question that has troubled me for a long time: why do so few people of Cherokee descent in the United States try to learn their ancestral language, culture, and history?

A Closer Look at "Little Interest"

My website traffic shows a pattern. Interest centers on a dedicated core in northeastern Oklahoma and western North Carolina. Around that core is a much larger group of citizens with looser ties. I've come to see that my impression of "little interest" came mostly from one mistake: I assumed everyone with Dawes ancestry grew up inside Cherokee community life.

Many of these people do try hard to connect. Interest is lowest where people face barriers, distance, or a history of being shut out.

Freedmen descendants are the strongest evidence against the idea that people don't care. They fought in court for decades. After the 2017 ruling, more than 15,000 had enrolled by early 2024. Where distance remains, it often comes from being excluded from 1983 to 2017, including a 2007 vote that removed about 2,800 Freedmen. It also comes from a painful truth: Cherokees once enslaved their ancestors. People are understandably slow to embrace a community that only recently welcomed them back.

Dawes descendants raised outside Cherokee life are often four or five generations removed. During the Jim Crow era, many families hid or downplayed their Indian identity to get by. What reached the grandchildren was a citizenship card, not the culture behind it.

Eastern Cherokee descendants who can't meet the Eastern Band's one-sixteenth blood-quantum requirement can't enroll at all. People turned away at the door often stop knocking.

Texas Cherokee descendants trace their roots to Chief Bowles' people, who were driven out of Texas in 1839 and scattered to Indian Territory, Arkansas, and Mexico. Many of their descendants aren't on the Dawes Rolls. Some groups keep the memory alive, such as the society that cares for the Neches battlefield. Without federal recognition, though, their identity often survives only in family stories.

Most of these people aren't uninterested. They were never invited, never saw this history taught in school, and never had anyone connect their own family to the larger story.

What Sparks Interest

Start with an ancestor. That's how it began for me. A named person, a Dawes card, a town, an event. A family's own story draws people in far better than a general appeal to "heritage."

Give each group its own way in. For Freedmen descendants, tell the history of slavery and belonging honestly. For Texas descendants, tell the story of Chief Bowles and the 1839 expulsion. For scattered Dawes families, explain Removal, allotment, and why their family drifted away.

Build on community. The Cherokee Nation supports 26 official at-large communities. These groups offer fellowship, language classes, and history talks.

Make it easy to begin. Free apps, online language groups, and short videos let people start learning without moving to Tahlequah.

Reach children through their parents. When a parent gets curious, the kids usually follow.

What I Can Do

I'm in a good position to help here in Grapevine, Texas. More than 5,000 Cherokee Nation citizens live in the Dallas–Fort Worth area. Two official at-large groups serve them: Cherokee Gadugi Texas in Tarrant County and the Cherokee Community of North Texas in Dallas County.

My presentation, Bondage to Belonging, and the Cherokee Trilogy speak directly to these audiences. If your group would like to host a talk, I'd be glad to hear from you.