Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[Habbaku]

My ancestors mostly come over with this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Cullmann :pickelhaube:

Another example of someone who should have picked up arms and ... oh, wait.

[Tamas]

There was a Polish community of 250k people left in the UK after WW2. They went native incredibly quickly. As a schoolkid I would meet children that seemed completely native but with difficult surnames; one might notice some differences on visiting their homes. The last traces, for all practical purposes, disappeared sometime in the 1990s..........just before the new Poles started turning up. In Preston we had to do without a Polish deli for just over five years.

I wonder how long the communities from further away will take. But I also think it's not simply a matter of the big blob absorbing the small one. If the size different is big enough than I guess, but also then it is not absolutely 100%*. In Britain one obvious fusion is at the weakest point of British culture I guess: food

*: where I am from there was a lot of German communities. I knew a guy about 10 years my senior whose mother was shunned in her little German mountain village (almost smack middle of Hungary) because she got together with a non-German (the guy's father). The guy left and the two of them lived like semi-pariah.  Anyways, in everyday speech of my father and grandfahters' generation there was a lot of German words used as slang. But somebody from other parts of the country would be using quite different, non-German slang.

BTW, funnily enough I think if the Brexit Leavers get what they think they want, it will be a sort of recreation of the Empire, but in an inverse way: more immigration from India and Pakistan will be required as Europeans will be shunned out for political reasons, and this will further tilt the two cultures closer together in a generation or two. Which I think could become quite beneficial economically, but perhaps not the exact way those people have in mind.

[Habbaku]

If we go back 14 generations then we each have 16k ancestors in that cohort; with some ancestors appearing more than once of course. Time to stake your claims to be native Americans and get some of that casino loot 

While I have taken no DNA tests I have zero evidence I am descended from any native Americans. That ancestry is actually relatively rare over here.

My DNA says no.  So no wampum for me

Ditto. People on my father's side lie about having a Cherokee ancestor, but the DNA test says not a single American Indian trace. It's all exactly what we thought it was from actual documents: Germans and Italians.

[Oexmelin]

"Cherokee princess" trope is a common one in American history, taking root in the late 19th century - early 20th c., used to cement ties to the land, to America, precisely at a moment when Indian Wars were dying down (and thus, when Indians were no longer a political threat). Cherokees were a safe choice for the myth, because they were considered both "civilized", noble, and had a history of intensive relations with Euro-Americans.

[Valmy]

"Cherokee princess" trope is a common one in American history, taking root in the late 19th century - early 20th c., used to cement ties to the land, to America, precisely at a moment when Indian Wars were dying down (and thus, when Indians were no longer a political threat). Cherokees were a safe choice for the myth, because they were considered both "civilized", noble, and had a history of intensive relations with Euro-Americans.

Or just that Cherokees are a nation that people have heard of.

What political threat did they pose prior to the late 19th century? I mean I get that they were physically scary to frontier communities but they were politically pretty vulnerable.

[Barrister]

"Cherokee princess" trope is a common one in American history, taking root in the late 19th century - early 20th c., used to cement ties to the land, to America, precisely at a moment when Indian Wars were dying down (and thus, when Indians were no longer a political threat). Cherokees were a safe choice for the myth, because they were considered both "civilized", noble, and had a history of intensive relations with Euro-Americans.

In Edmonton, where First Nations people aren't mythologized, but rather people you can meet walking down the street, and generally seen as a disadvantaged group in general (plus some vestiges of racism) it's really unlikely one would invent a claim to be part First Nations.

Not that there hasn't been a lot of intermarriage!  But due to what is essentially a version of "one drop" reasoning if you can prove First Nations heritage you're entitled to be a Status Indian.

[viper37]

"Cherokee princess" trope is a common one in American history, taking root in the late 19th century - early 20th c., used to cement ties to the land, to America, precisely at a moment when Indian Wars were dying down (and thus, when Indians were no longer a political threat). Cherokees were a safe choice for the myth, because they were considered both "civilized", noble, and had a history of intensive relations with Euro-Americans.

Or just that Cherokees are a nation that people have heard of.

What political threat did they pose prior to the late 19th century? I mean I get that they were physically scary to frontier communities but they were politically pretty vulnerable.

You shouldn't see it only as Cherokee, but rather American Indians in general.  They still represented a political threat after the US civil war, up 'til late in the century. 

As their importance dwindle, and to claim "I am entitles to this land as much as them", what Oex says is it became a popular myth.

Quebec has its own version too, with "we all have indian blood".  That's only partly true for far away communities, and even then, not that much.  Not that it's significant in any way, genetically speaking.  You don't become a great beaver hunter just because of your genes

[viper37]

Not that there hasn't been a lot of intermarriage!  But due to what is essentially a version of "one drop" reasoning if you can prove First Nations heritage you're entitled to be a Status Indian.

hmm, it's more complicated than that, afaik.

And it depends on the tribes. For Hurons (Wyandot/Wendat) and Iroquois (Mohawks), you need to prove your mother or grandmother lived on the reservation to be considered First Nation by the tribe. 
That's what I was told this summer at the Huron musuem.

If they don't approve of you, you don't get First Nations status afaik, because it only applies to people living or working on reservations.  I had to check for an employee last year, he wanted to be exempted from income taxes.

It's probably to avoid the "I have one drop of indian blood, please exempt me from all taxes".

I don't think the one drop rule is used at all by tribes to determine First Nation ancestry.  But maybe it's different for nomadic tribes out west.  Afaik, in the US, Cherokees do not recognized the validity of DNA tests to prove ancestry. And they're not precise enough to differentiate a Choctaw from an Inca.  So, pointless to determine which tribe you belong to.

[Oexmelin]

Or just that Cherokees are a nation that people have heard of.

What political threat did they pose prior to the late 19th century? I mean I get that they were physically scary to frontier communities but they were politically pretty vulnerable.

And people heard of the Apache, the Sioux, the Iroquois, the Shawnees, the Navajo... But you don't hear the trope of the Navajo princess, or the Iroquois princess. "Cherokee princess" gained a  historical specificity that others didn't.

As for their threat, yes, Indigenous people did pose a threat until late. I used political to underline that it featured organized violence between Indigenous and American polities - it wasn't just frontier chaos, and how it unfolded determined the political history of the North American West. 

[PDH]

White people spent a long time trying to make sure the Indians disappeared, then they started to pretend they were Indian

[Maximus]

And people heard of the Apache, the Sioux, the Iroquois, the Shawnees, the Navajo... But you don't hear the trope of the Navajo princess, or the Iroquois princess. "Cherokee princess" gained a  historical specificity that others didn't.

As for their threat, yes, Indigenous people did pose a threat until late. I used political to underline that it featured organized violence between Indigenous and American polities - it wasn't just frontier chaos, and how it unfolded determined the political history of the North American West.

Blackfoot is also very common for whatever reason.

[Valmy]

Or just that Cherokees are a nation that people have heard of.

What political threat did they pose prior to the late 19th century? I mean I get that they were physically scary to frontier communities but they were politically pretty vulnerable.

And people heard of the Apache, the Sioux, the Iroquois, the Shawnees, the Navajo... But you don't hear the trope of the Navajo princess, or the Iroquois princess. "Cherokee princess" gained a  historical specificity that others didn't.

Have they? That implies a knowledge of what each tribe was specifically known for that I seriously doubt most people claiming Cherokee ancestry have.

As for their threat, yes, Indigenous people did pose a threat until late. I used political to underline that it featured organized violence between Indigenous and American polities - it wasn't just frontier chaos, and how it unfolded determined the political history of the North American West.

I mean the native nations were heavily outnumbered and divided both geographically and politically. So I guess I took a 'political threat' to mean like a threat to the United States but now it seems to be going in some technical definition I don't understand. So organized violence is the political threat here?

[Valmy]

White people spent a long time trying to make sure the Indians disappeared, then they started to pretend they were Indian

Well not this white person. I need to see some evidence.

[Admiral Yi]

Have they? That implies a knowledge of what each tribe was specifically known for that I seriously doubt most people claiming Cherokee ancestry have.

Tribes that have a weapon named after them (like the Apache gunship) or a college team definitely are known.

[dps]

I don't really know about my father's family, or my maternal grandfather's family, but my mom had a cousin who trace had traced my maternal grandmother's family back to England in the 1540s.  My several-times-great-grandfather had moved to Virginia in the 1640 or so.  The guy from the 1540s was apparently the son of people who had moved to England from France (or perhaps had moved there from France himself).  So the family actually has a much longer history in the US than in England.

I don't claim any Indian ancestors, but one of my mom's brother married a woman who claimed that her grandmother was full-blooded Cherokee.  Unlike a lot of people who claim Indian heritage, my aunt looks the part--dark complexion, straight black hair, brown eyes--and she's from the right place--eastern Tennessee.