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The Cherokee Myth
by John Law
First broadcasted February 2, 2007
by John Law
First broadcasted February 2, 2007
Good evening this is John Law on Stormfront's White Hot Radio.
I wonder how many of our American listeners tonight think that they have, or claim to have, a little bit of Cherokee in them. That is, after all, a fairly common myth among White Americans. It's almost always Cherokee too, although very rarely it'll be some other tribe that's considered cool, like Souix or Apache but you almost never hear someone claim to be descended from a Blackfoot, Flathead, Kickapoo or Pamunkey Princess. Which I suppose is understandable, I mean, really, who would admit to being the descendant of a Pamunkey Princess?
You know, there was nothing obviously special about the Cherokees at the time of their first contact with Europeans. They subsisted on cultivated corn, beans and squash supplemented heavily by hunting and gathering which was a lifestyle that was indistinguishable from the vast majority of Eastern Woodland Indians. They weren't especially numerous either. It's estimated that in 1674 there were about 50,000 Cherokee. A series of smallpox epidemics spread out over the next 80 years killed about half of them so that by 1753 there were only about 25,000 of them left. At this point in their history they did exhibit superiority and distinguished themselves from their neighbors by successfully adopting the white man's ways. In 1821 a half-breed, Sequoyah, also known as George Gist, invented an alphabet for the Cherokee language and in a matter of only a few years practically the entire tribe was literate. They soon developed a written Constitution and Laws, adopted Christianity, owned black slaves and became quite civilized and prosperous. Their numbers, however, remained stable at about 25,000 until their forced removal to Oklahoma, in the famous Trail of Tears in the 1830's at which time they lost another 25% of their population leaving only about 20,000 survivors. Now, you do the math. 20,000 Cherokee in the mid 19th century, a time in our history when it was extremely socially unacceptable to race mix, left how many descendents? Not that many. According to the 1990 US Census 308,000 people self identified themselves as Cherokee with only 15,000 claiming to be full blooded. Using the larger number that's slightly more than 1/10th of 1% of the total population of the United States.
So, this having little bit of Cherokee myth is a uniquely American phenomenon resulting from the portrayal of Native Americans as the Noble Red Man. This probably started as early as James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, The Last of the Mohicans and Deerslayer, etc. Pulp fiction dime novels in the late 19th and early 20th centuries further embellished the imaginary literary image of the mythological Indian. Then Hollywood and the usual suspects got into the act. Movies like Little Big Man, Dances With Wolves and Pocahontas leave little doubt that the Indians were peace loving, deeply spiritual, noble creatures while it was the evil Whites who were the brutal blood-thirsty savages. Propaganda works. Fifty years ago having Native American ancestry would have been an embarrassing skeleton that most Whites would have left securely locked in the closet. Today it's considered fashionable and desirable, so much so that many people, without any basis in fact or reality, go along with the crowd and casually claim to have a Cherokee Princess hiding in their genetic woodpile somewhere. It's wishful thinking though, a fantasy, the American version of claiming descent from royalty.
We know what the sanitized Hollywood version is but what were the North American Indians really like when the Europeans first encountered them? Well, here's what one first hand observer had to say about them.This is from "The Noble Red Man" by Mark Twain.
And I quote,
Quote:
| All history and honest observation will show that the Red Man is a skulking coward and a windy braggart, who strikes without warning -- usually from an ambush or under cover of night, and nearly always bringing a force of about five or six to one against his enemy; kills helpless women and little children, and massacres the men in their beds; and then brags about it as long as he lives, and his son and his grandson and great-grandson after him glorify it among the "heroic deeds of their ancestors." When the Red Man declares war, the first intimation his friend the white man whom he supped with at twilight has of it, is when the war-whoop rings in his ears and the tomahawk sinks into his brain. He is ignoble -- base and treacherous, and hateful in every way. Not even imminent death can startle him into a spasm of virtue. The ruling trait of all savages is a greedy and consuming selfishness, and in our Noble Red Man it is found in its amplest development. His heart is a cesspool of falsehood, of treachery, and of low and devilish instincts. With him, gratitude is an unknown emotion; and when one does him a kindness, it is safest to keep the face toward him, lest the reward be an arrow in the back. To accept of a favor from him is to assume a debt which you can never repay to his satisfaction, though you bankrupt yourself trying. He is the scum of the earth! Such is the genuine Noble Aborigine. I did not get him from books, but from personal observation. |
End quote.
There you have it folks. Having a little bit of Indian in you is nothing to be proud of.
This is John Law on Stormfront's White Hot Radio and that's how I see it. Thanks for listening this evening.
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