Obama's Scottish, Cherokee ancestry has meaning

(This article originally appeared on the Joint Recon Study Group site.)

According to published reports, Barack Obama has stated that there is Native American Indian ancestry in his family tree. His background on his mother's side also reportedly includes Scottish and Irish roots.

Research into Obama's family tree on his mother's side has indicated that some of his ancestors arrived in America in the 1700s and even the 1600s.

Somewhere along the way, there was a Cherokee connection, according to Obama. He has reportedly stated that an ancestor was full-blood Cherokee.

It would not be unusual for other ancestors of Obama's here and there to also have some percentage of Cherokee genetic history, whether it be 1/4th or 1/64th. There could also be mixtures from other Indian tribes.

For those who are familiar with the history and cultural geography of what is now the mid-section of the eastern United States, this is not surprising.

THE SCOTTISH-CHEROKEE CULTURE

During the 1700s, for example, many Scottish pioneers, trappers, hunters and land-seekers made friends with the Cherokee whose homeland was then in the Appalachian Mountain region.

Romantic encounters, marriages and babies resulted.

Generally, the northernmost range of the Cherokee civilization was in the area of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. It extended south through the Appalachians to Georgia and Alabama.

By the end of the 1700s, there were already several generations of mixed Scottish-Cherokee families living in this region. Some of them had names like Little Hawk MacNeil or Angus Running Bear early in this multi-generational process of cultural transformation.

These families continued to marry and blend over the decades until some of the distinctions between Scottish and Cherokee blurred. Or, perhaps both cultures were mutually enhanced by the interaction.

As English and other colonists and settlers kept pouring into North America in the 1700s and moving west into the Appalachians, many Cherokee and other tribes of the region started feeling greater pressure.

Following the American Revolution, these pressures continued. By the early 1800s, many Cherokee were voluntarily leaving the region for Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma and other parts west.

In 1838, the infamous "Trail of Tears" occurred after Cherokee were rounded up, put into temporary detention centers, then marched to Oklahoma.

Approximately 4,000 men, women and children died in the process, primarily from disease, cold and starvation.

The Cherokee were not alone, of course. In fact, they held on to their lands longer than other tribes by taking legal actions that reached the U.S. Supreme Court.

Other tribes of the region had been removed earlier: The Choctaw in 1831, then the Seminole in 1832, followed by the Creek in 1834 and the Chickasaw in 1837.

During the 1700s and the early 1800s in the Scottish-Cherokee culture, interestingly, or tragically, some of the more well-to-do families had very large farms and held African slaves. However, generally it is believed that slaves of Scottish-Cherokee families were treated better than in the deep South, for example.

In the forced exodus on the Trail of Tears, many black slaves went west to Oklahoma. They became known as Freedmen and were granted tribal membership in the main Cherokee Tribe, though this has recently been a point of controversy among the Oklahoma Cherokee.

Although many of the mixed-blood Scottish-Cherokee went west, voluntarily or at the end of a bayonet, many stayed in the general region of their ancestral homeland and surrounding states.

Some migrated into states like Kentucky and Ohio. Obama reportedly has many distant relatives in southern Ohio. Are these from the side of the family with the Cherokee connection? It's unclear.

Those who stayed often found it advantageous to "pass as white." There were many laws on the books that formalized discrimination against Indians. Informal social discrimination was also present.

As more generations came on the scene in the late 1800s and 1900s, and American society evolved, often just word of mouth and family stories reminded children that "we have Indian blood in the family" or "we have Cherokee back in our family tree."

CHEROKEE IN OBAMA AND MANY AMERICANS

Obama's family is undoubtedly just like many, many other American families in this regard. There may simply be word of mouth about the Cherokee connection.

However, with modern genetic testing available, anyone can contact one of the many reputable genetic testing companies, send a tissue sample easily taken from the inside of the cheek and mail it in. The labs can determine some aspects of genetic history, including Native American Indian background.

Maybe Obama, like many Americans, has thought about taking one of these tests. His young daughters might find this interesting and important. "Mom and Dad, are we part-Cherokee?" This can profoundly affect how we view ourselves.

Does it matter whether grandma was full-blood or 1/64th Indian? Maybe, maybe not.

We do not fully understand how the mixtures of the components of DNA within us operate. How do the genes of hundreds of thousands of years of our ancestors' existence really affect us?

In addition to our appearance, how do these genes affect our personalities, our aptitudes and talents or the way we perceive the world? These questions have not been fully answered.

If we have some Native American Indian DNA within us, within every cell of our body, what is the impact of that on our consciousness?

Are there such things as deep DNA memories? Do events or experiences of our ancient ancestors still reside deep within us?

For Americans who might consider themselves "white," "black" or "brown" or "Asian," these may be interesting questions to ask. Like Barack Obama, we might also have some Cherokee or other American Indian tribe DNA deep within.

Some families may have stories or clues about this. Others might actually have documentation. Some families may have no idea about it and will need to start asking questions of older relatives and possibly do some research into their roots.

Being aware of this and trying to understand what meaning it might have could lead to new perspectives and new developments within our individual lives, among our families and for our nation.

NOTE TO READERS: For more information, please visit the Joint Recon Study Group site and have a look around. If you enjoyed this article, you may also want to read Many in West Virginia, Kentucky might 'kin' Obama, Obama faces Midwest hearts and minds, Obama's Iraq position, mixed ethnicity are key factors and Mixed-ethnicity Americans face challenges.