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jan oliver: My results look very much like yours. My family are Griffin and Gibsons originally from Virginia ...ended up in Texas. Thanks for sharing.
farrell duttom: i'm related to the flannagansin northwest alabama . johngot here in about 1780 or 1790 . he married a indianwoman . according to familyhistory,they intermarried with the borden family,whointermarried with the duttons. instead of indian weyoung were told we wereblack dutch .
captainelectric1: this is a great blog,very interesting to me. i am black dutch my paternal grandmother told me the story of her people when i was a teenager.she said they were indian(she whipered indian). she told me it was my head that reminded her of her people, i have the melungeon bump on my head, of corse she had no knowing of melungeon, they came from knox and blont co's.tn. their surname was flanagan and i am researching my family tree. any help would be grateful. her fathers name was Moses Flanagan,grand

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Tuesday, August 18th 2009

8:02 AM

Native American and Identity

 

My kids, Erin and Kristen are Cherokee through me and their mother.

Their mom is part Cherokee, part Roma, part Anglo and part Hispanic.

Photobucket  Many of my daughters cousins are models who resemble Q’orianka Kilcher who played Pocohantas in the movie New World.  They have very Native features with Asian eyes.  The mixture is Lipan Apache/Payaya with Spanish

However, we are not Cherokee, not in the sense of being a “Citizen” of the Cherokee Nation. The youngest is into science and the oldest is heavy into tribal cultures and religion. When someone ask them their heritage or ethnic background they simply say “We are mixed”.

My kids have a lot of Native American blood running through their veins. In fact, they have more than a lot of tribal enrolled members of the Cherokee Nation today.

Their Great Gradmother Sarah is half Cherokee and their Grandpa David is one quarter and looks it. Their Grandmother Judy is of Hispanic, Roma Gypsy, French and Lipan Apache/Payaya Native American.  Their mom, looks and is, Cherokee.

Photobucket  My youngest Erin Alyssa

Like all mixed families, some of their family is dark and some are light. Some embrace the Cherokee and Native American culture, some do not. That is how mixed families go, identity becomes personal and complex and it is the same way for my kids.

The Anglo community has lost a lot of their culture and identity. They are trying to replace that with being Native American. That is because deep down they know they have been “hoodwinked” into this “me” culture and this consumerism materialistic culture to make the American machine “go“ for the sake of money, wealth and power.

Because of it, we have lost a lot of our traditions.

Kristen  Kristen, oldest daughter, is into tribal cultures and religion

The Black Dutch term, used by many of our ancestors, is a sliver of that tradition.  Being Black Dutch is more than being of mixed ancestry.

Now, John Mowery, a ancestor, was Cherokee by blood, and so was his sister Mary Elizabeth Mowery Archer. 

However, the Cherokee Nation rejected them.  

The "Nation" rejected a lot of these folks because they did not live in Indian territory. John filed a application with the Cherokee Nation in 1896 but was rejected.

So why would I want to join a tribe that rejected my ancestors?

Total Records: 1 
Surname   Given   Middle   Tribe   Number  
Mowery John W CHER 3414
8/18/2009 Page 1 of 1

Total Records: 1

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/commissionresults.php?s_surname=Mowery&s_given=John&s_middle=

 

No offense to the Cherokee Nation, but no thank you.

Being Native American is about culture and identity. My identity is that of the Black Dutch and being a Mestee, a Mestizo, of mostly Anglo American descent, even though I have Native American through the Archers, Giddens, Mowerys and Millers, I am of mostly Welsh, French, English, Swiss German and Mestizo ancestry (and that mysterious Portuguese stuff of the Melungeons which is not that mysterious).

I am not however, a member of a Native American tribe nor am I Native American, even though, I have the ancestry, proven through records and my Mestizo DNA results

Photobucket 

The Miller Family, Ethel and my Great Grandmother Christine

If I choose to engage in any part of the Native American culture it was because I was invited to do so. Me and my ex wife were friends with a Chickasaw family for years in Texas and went to Pow Wows with them as a example. I learned the Native flute from a Apache man and I enjoy it, but that does not make me Native American.

We, as Mestee and Mestizos need to respect the Native American tribes and their culture by not trying to be something we are not, and at the same time we need to respect and honor our own Native American and Mestizo heritage by being what we are.....

Black Dutch and proud of it.
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