Criteria

Most tribes required 25 percent or 1/4. Documentations of your family lines helps too and meeting with the Council of whatever tribe thry come from. Contact them. To give you an example, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians require a minimum of 1/16 degree of Cherokee blood for tribal enrollment, while the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Higher Education Grant expects you to have the minimum of 1/4 Native American blood percentages. Hope that helps.

I knew that I was more wondering what this project required. One of my best friends is 100%. I’m working on the profile for the actor James Garner. His mother was half so I was wondering whether he could be included. He named his production production company Cherokee productions. Embraced his ancestry. Based on your answer I will assume it’s OK to include him.

Well if only 1/16 degree is required for Tribal Enrollment, I think you are more than okay including it under this project. =) I thought you were trying for yourself. I saw what degree of cousins we are and that you are related to the same Montgomery line,which had a Cherokee Ancestor. Not sure though if she is your Grandmother also.

James Garner was not Cherokee, he was just someone from Oklahoma.

He was Cherokee his mother was half Cherokee. I did not say that because he was from Oklahoma.

https://www.indianz.com/News/2014/07/21/james-garner-actor-with-che...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.aaanativearts.com/james-gardner-wa...

It wasn’t hidden public record I knew about it when I was a kid watching the Rockford files.

Thank you Annber

James Garner had no Cherokee ancestors. What you are finding on the Internet is junk. His father was from Arkansas. His mother's parents were from Arkansas and Texas. Not Cherokee. They were among the tens of thousands of white people who moved to Oklahoma around statehood hoping to get free land.

Im not sure why your angrily reiterating information I already informed Im aware of.
We all know to well any one with colonial ancestry thinks they have native American DNA.
The rumor is in my family. Its just not Cherokee.

In response to your con remark against the possibility in regards to the subject that OK. was an idea destination for settlers and that Garner's excuse for his claim, I
give you pro that Oklahoma was the principle area where the trail of tears ended.
Ergo your argument for has a solid response against.

Next I will add the Cherokee were not native to Oklahoma.
The Southern Appalachian Mountain range and the Cumberland Basin were.
In fact it is in Arkansas and Tennesse that lay most claim to this heritage and a
more logical area as well as other southeastern states to claim the origin than Oklahoma.

The claim is his mother was half and her father was full. Thomas Meeks his grandfather was from Georgia not Oklahoma. Not all Cherokee were removed from the east coast. Once again the possibilities show no constraints.

There are many in the Meek(s) family that believe they are part Cherokee.

There is a Meeks included in the 1928 BakerRoll and Records Report of the Eastern Cherokee.

What I have just presented to you is not internet junk.
There were information venues prior to the internet.

It was Garner's own claim, who you seem to more about his families background than he did, and was common knowledge and information in the 70s before there was an internet.
He was seen by many making the claim on something called a television.
This was a wondrous contrivance that existed before there was an internet, you may see them around still in more primitive environs.

There was a native american news organization that did not bend over backwards like you are to claim proof positive its not true. They reported Garner said his mother was half and her father full but her father but were uncertain if her father was enrolled in the Cherokee nation.
Garner's mother certainly looks as tho she could be.

The possibility is far less far fetched than you're dramatically making it out not to be.

For know ill leave it off, not because of not having solid proof but because i don't want you to have a stroke.

I am a citizen of Cherokee Nation and have been working with Cherokee genealogy for almost 40 years.
James Garner's parents were not Cherokee. Here is James' mother, Mildred Meek with her parents in the 1910 census:
Mildred Meek
Age in 1910: 3
Birth Date: 1907
Birthplace: Oklahoma
Home in 1910: Shawnee Ward 6, Pottawatomie, Oklahoma<<< not in Cherokee area
Race: White <<< there was a separate category for Indians in 1910
Gender: Female
Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Marital Status: Single
Father's Name: Chas Meek
Father's Birthplace: Arkansas <<< not in Oklahoma
Mother's Name: Abbie Meek
Mother's Birthplace: Texas <<< not in Oklahoma

Household Members Age Relationship
Chas Meek 31 Head
Abbie Meek 26 Wife
Mildred Meek 3 Daughter

Charles Meek's parents were from Georgia, they married there then
moved to Arkansas .His mother was Delilah Bailey.
There is no one named Meeks or Bailey on the 1835 Cherokee census or on the 1851/52
Siler and Chapman rolls.

Abbie Womack and Charles Meek were married in 1905. Abbie's mother was
born in Texas, Her father was born in Arkansas, his parents in Mississippi.
Her mother's father was from Germany. Her mother's mother was Mary Riggs
from Tennessee. She also appears on no Cherokee records.

Wow! That is just plain weird! Why did you play that manipulative deceptive game?

You are the first person of native american heritage that i have encountered who didn't come right out off the bat and say they were instead of hiding it.

I didn't refer to anyone but Meek so im not sure why you keep including unneeded info.
It just muddies the debate. Focus.

It wouldn't be unusual to hide the facts of ones ethnicity at that time and you know it was done by many.

I still have relative rebuttals to give but im tired of this.

someone who is as deceptive as you i could never believe a word they say

Sorry, but James Garner is just one of the seemingly-endless list of celebrities who claim a Cherokee ancestor they never had. No one in his family was Cherokee, plain and simple. There was no reason for anyone in Oklahoma to hide their ethnicity in the early 1900’s, they were getting land and other payments. Even Cherokee people who were opposed to land allotment were entered on the Dawes Roll by others. Tens of thousands of non-Indians tried to get in on what they saw as a windfall, leading to lots of Cherokee or Indian-in-the-family stories.

James Garner was one of my favorite actors. If he had any Cherokee connection the Nation would have publicized it for him.

You people don't read before you post your opinions! The man said (THAT GARNER WAS NOT NATIVE!) The discussion was about research. Not that Garner was or was not Native.

These stories just take a life of their own and no one ever bothers to check the facts.

In 1817, the government negotiated a treaty with the Cherokees, by whose terms the Cherokees were to surrender lands in Tennessee and Georgia for lands in Arkansas.

The lands in Arkansas were north of the Arkansas river and west of a line drawn from Point Remu (Remove) to the White River above Batesville.

The government was to remove all settlers from this vast tract, excepting John P. Lovely. Now John B. Dardenne did not live within limits and was not removed. He owned land within it, however, but because of the non-issuance of the patent, there was no record of title, and therefore no exception in the treaty.

The Cherokees owned his lands and there was no relief save by an act of Congress. The
Committee on Public Lands in their report said that Dardenne was entitled to relief, and that he was willing to take satisfaction in one of three ways: (1) To be given his identical lands in the Cherokee reservation: (2) To be given $10,000 in money: (3) To be permitted to take up an equal quantity of unoccupied land anywhere in Lawrence land district. The committee reported in favor of the latter proposition.

Reverend Cephas Washburn, a Congregational minister of New England, was sent by the Board of Missions of the United Stales to Arkansas in 1821 to open a mission school among the Cherokee Indians. A place for the mission was selected at a point on the Illinois bayou, which, in honor of Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, was named Dwight, and is now known to all the people of the State as Old Dwight, and is in the present Pope County...He went on up the river and opened a school which was of distinct advantage to the Cherokees, who
were already the most advanced Indian nation of the country. That school was continued at Dwight until after the removal of the Cherokees to the Indian Territory. Under the same management it was continued for several years afterwards for the white people, and many of the most distinguished men of the Arkansas valley in early days were educated at that place ...Cephas Washburn's name in the Cherokee language was "Ookuquahtuh," but none but the Cherokees ever used it. Reverend Cephas Washburn was an Indian Educator in Arkansas and the Indian Territory from 1821 to 1847.

Rev. Cephas Washburn

Edward Payson Washburn was born at Dwight Mission in the Cherokee nation, November 17, 1831, and died at Little Rock March 26, 1860. He and his father both died at the house of Doctor R. L. Dodge, in the same year, and both are buried in Mt. Holly cemetery.

Edward Payson Washburn

At Point Remove lived Mr. Ellis and fourteen other families. On Petit Jean were Messrs. Tucker and Major Welborn. At the Galley was a Cherokee village at which Jolly, the chief, had a residence.

Ahuludegi ‘John’ Jolly, Principal Chief of the western Cherokee (AR)

Ahuludegi ‘John’ Jolly, Principal Chief of the western Cherokee (AR)

Tahlonteskee, Principal Chief of the first Cherokee Nation (West)

Between this and the Dardanelle hills lived many half-breeds, with Mr. Raphael, the storekeeper, and at Spadra Bluff lived Mr. Rollin, the United States Indian agent. In the neighborhood lived Mr. Webber, a half-breed, and John Rogers, a respectable and civilized Cherokee.

All this country on the north side of the Arkansas river from Point Remove to the mouth of Frog bayou belonged to the Cherokees, and the government maintained an Indian agency at various places along the river from Old Norristown to Spadra Bluff.

Arkansas had but one tribe of Indians—the Cherokees—actually within its borders, but these
Cherokees were bound to the government by many treaties. The agents connected with this tribe in Arkansas during its occupancy of the soil were Mr. Rollin, Matthew Lyon, David Brearly, Edward W. DuVal and Wharton Rector.

For a year [Col. David Brearly's] mercantile enterprise at Arkansas Post prospered beyond precedent and upon the death of Lyon, President Monroe offered him the Indian Agency to the Cherokees.

Col. David Brearley

On the condition that he might continue his mercantile business he accepted and in 1822 he removed to Dardanelle, where the new Indian agency had been located. Here he made money and at the same time performed his duties as Indian agent to the entire satisfaction of the government. The Indians had the highest regard for Colonel Brearly, which paved the way for his future greatness in a wider field. He held this place until the 1st of January, 1824...

The Dardanelle Settlement was mentioned by Nuttal in 1819, and dated back, possibly, to 1817. Its most ancient settler is unknown. On the other side of the river a little lower down was the Cherokee village, the Galley. Old Dwight Mission was established in 1821 on the Illinois Bayou, where it remained until the Cherokees were removed to the West.

On November 2, 1829, Pope County was carved out of this old Indian region, the oldest county made from Cherokee soil.

With the beginning of county government and the removal of the Cherokees, settlements went on rapidly.

The entire region from the Cherokee boundary line east to the White river and north to Batesville or Napoleon was surveyed, as was all the region on Spring river, Eleven Points and Thomas Fork, tributaries of the Black, and fifteen townships on Strawberry. This map was prepared for office use in 1820 and published in Watson's collection in 1825. It is the oldest map made from record evidence, and is therefore immensely valuable.

In 1825, E. Brown and E. Barcroft published a map of Missouri, Illinois, and the territory of Arkansas from surveys in the surveyor general's office. This map shows Crittenden,
Lawrence. Independence, Phillips, Arkansas, Pulaski, Izard, Crawford, Miller, Hempstead, Conway, Clark, and Chicot counties.

Crawford County began in the southeast corner of township three, south, range seventeen west, and ran due west to a line north and south six miles west of Cantonment Towson, thence north to the Missouri line, thence east to the White river, where the western Cherokee boundary line strikes that river; thence southwest along the western Cherokee line to a point six miles west of Fort Smith on the Arkansas river; thence down the Arkansas to the eastern Cherokee line; thence due south to the beginning. It covered fully one-fourth of the territory and a strip forty miles wide in Oklahoma as we know it.

...C. F. Weiland's German Atlas of America, 1824, spells Missouri "Missuri," and Arkansas with a final "s." It makes Crawford County take in all of the Cherokee Reservation. The county site of Miller is put down as Pecan Point and Clark County has no county site. In all other respects it agrees with Finley's map.

In what a most romantic field was Hix's Ferry placed! In the land of the Osages then, afterwards the land of the Cherokees...All through the region are mounds...in dignified attestation of the earlier Indian habitat. All around Cherokee bay are Indian relics of profound historic character...

The Choctaws were moved to the West without a particle of friction, and south Arkansas was entirely clear of Indians. Izard then took up the Cherokee question and during four years laid down plans which eventually removed every Indian from the State.

Conway County was named after Henry W. Conway, the second delegate to Congress from Arkansas territory, and was formed out of Pulaski in October, 1825. It was originally much larger than its present boundaries indicate. A large part of the Cherokee Indian purchase was added in 1828, while large subtractions were made and given to Pope and White in 1853.

In 1819 Nuttal found settlements on both sides of the Arkansas river in the neighborhood of what is now Dardanelle. The whites lived on the south side of the river and the Indians on the north. There was quite a large village located on the north side made up of Indians exclusively which was called The Galley.

The chief of the Cherokees was named Jolly, a half breed of respectable talents, who had made quite a reputation in Tennessee and Mississippi. The Indian agent at that time was Mr. Rollin, who lived at times at The Galley, and at other times at Dardanelle and at other points on the river.

Quite a friction was engendered between Duval and Governor Izard as to the management of Indian affairs, the rendering of accounts and other minor items, but the friendship of these gentlemen was never impaired.

There was a half breed Indian storekeeper at The Galley in 1819, and another half breed, Walter Weber, lived at the foot of the Dardanelle Hills. At The Galley lived John Rogers, one of the most respectable of the civilized Cherokees, and one to whom that nation is much indebted for its development and growth.

The first county seat of St. Francis County was called Franklin, and was located at a point which before that had been known as the "old Cherokee village." It was near the United States road from Memphis to Little Rock, and two miles from the St. Francis river.

Henry L. Biscoe was appointed clerk of the Circuit Court of Clark County in 1820, which position he held until 1823 when he was appointed assistant United States Marshal. The town of Biscoeville was named for him in 1821.

One of the most picturesque and dangerous expeditions ever undertaken by an Arkansas official was one cast upon him while assistant marshal and which involved the arrest of a half-breed Indian, Tom Graves, who had violated the national law in Clark County and fled to the Indian reservation in the West.

Believing that the Cherokees had grown contemptuous of the white courage, and that, if the law
of the whites was to be vindicated, and the rule of the whites perpetuated, Biscoe held that a supreme example was necessary to impress the natives and prevent the recurrence of similar
crimes, and that this half-breed should be brought back to Clark County and made to suffer the consequences of his acts. Biscoe prevailed and the old rule of "good riddance" as applied
to a refugee was set aside and pursuit ordered...At Fort Smith he heard that his man was over in the Cherokee country to the east, as the Cherokees then inhabited nearly all of north Arkansas.

Henry Lawson Biscoe

When Schoolcraft and Drummond passed down the White river in 1818, they stopped and stayed all night at the Widow Lafferty's house, which they stated was thirty miles below Williams' and five miles above a Mr. Jones on the same river. Her farm was said to be on the right banks of the river, where she had been living for many years. Schoolcraft found Mrs.
Lafferty very much excited, as were all her neighbors on that side of the river. She with others had improved farms, farms upon which they had lived for a long time, but which under the treaty made with the Cherokees they were to be forced to relinquish. Mrs. Lafferty was making arrangements then to move across the river to another farm which belonged to her deceased husband, now in Izard County, and upon which she died in 1832.

John Lafferty

Sarah Williams

She may have been a daughter of Isaac Lindsey, the first regularly appointed justice of the peace in the Davidson district in 1783, being one of the guard of honor, who were given lands in 1782 without price. There were six hundred and forty of this grand guard, and John Lafferty himself may have been one, but unfortunately the complete roll is not recorded.

This Isaac Lindsey was made ranger in 1786 and was a noted pioneer character. Whether John Lafferty married his daughter, or the daughter of Benjamin Lindsey, who was scalped in 1784, may never be known, but it is certain that he married a sister or cousin of Caleb and of old Eli Lindsey, the pioneer Methodist preacher of Arkansas on the Strawberry, the Current, the Black and the White [Rivers] in late 1785.

___________________________________

All quoted from the open access history/genealogy text, "Pioneers and Makers of Arkansas, Volume 1". I should provide a better link, since this copy is extremely glitchy (worst I've ever seen, with multiple repeats of several pages). But it's all I have for now.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Pioneers_and_Makers_of_Arkansa...

The purpose of this lengthy post is just to show that there was a very powerful Cherokee presence in northern Arkansas during the first half of the 19th century. And I feel quite certain that even after their removal to Oklahoma, a significant remnant was left behind.

The quote/unquote "civilized" Cherokees engaged in farming and commerce, lived in nice homes, were well educated, and some were as well-to-do financially as the wealthier European settlers. Many of these also to some extent adopted European religion, customs, and manners, and certainly intermarried with white settlers. For every famous example of such mixed marriages, there were many others which were never documented.

James Garner

https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_History_of_Arkansas/4D4VAA...

This school textbook on the subject of Arkansas state history has a very good map showing the Cherokee territory within the state.

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002029469229&amp;view...

Hopefully a better copy of the first source.

The Cherokee were forced out of Arkansas in 1827 and went to what is now Oklahoma.

Cherokee Genealogy with Roy Hamilton (Bird Clan) -- Genealogist Roy Hamilton, citizen of the Cherokee Nation, addresses Cherokee family genealogy and the differences between being a Cherokee citizen and being Cherokee by ancestry.

Interestingly, Mr. Hamilton acknowledges that some Cherokees remained behind following the removal. They automatically lost their tribal citizenship by doing so. But they never 'lost' their identity or their ancestry.

He starts off by explaining that in order to be considered "Cherokee" one only had to belong to one of the clans and speak the native language. Citizenship. If they left the reservation for more than six months, they could lose their tribal citizenship.

But genealogy is about family (bloodlines, DNA, etc.), not citizenship (although citizenship and cultural / ethnic origins is typically acknowledged, for most people).

Those Cherokees who remained behind in Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee (or anywhere, really) -- gave up their legal status as tribal citizens. Most of them (especially adult males and heads of households) also gave up their status as US citizens, to be reclassified officially (i.e. on paper) as "free persons of color". However, Cherokee women who intermarried were more likely to have been officially classified as white, black, or mulatto (anything but "Indian" or "free persons of color")...Yet their family culture and memories persisted within their DNA, nevertheless.

CITIZENSHIP

-- Any Cherokee who remained in the East were no longer considered citizens of the Cherokee Nation but would become citizens of the United States.

[Note that Mr. Hamilton does not state that they ceased being "Cherokee" by blood -- only by citizenship.]

-- Most federal and state records such as birth, death, marriage, and census records had no designation for "Cherokee", "Native American", or "Indian" as a race.

[Cherokees were systematically re-classified racially, on paper in official records.]

-- Only until the US Censuses of 1870 or 1880 was there a designation for "Indian" under "race". [However, m]ost of these censuses DO NOT LIST ANYONE AS "I" FOR "INDIAN". 99% of [Cherokees are] listed as "W", "B", "M", or "Ch" (Chinese).

-- Those [Cherokees] who lived in other states outside the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory were listed as "W". !!!!!!!!

(Mr. Hamilton, thank you for sharing your knowlege of Cherokee genealogy and being so forthright and honest with us about it.)

https://youtu.be/9OXVvHkwtKc?t=1062

Just like some Cherokee remained in Appalachia some remained wherever they had been.

Yes, about 1500 Cherokee remained in the East at Removal, 2/3 in North Carolina. They are documented on the 1848 Mullay Roll (North Carolina only) and the 1851/52 Siler/Chapman rolls (no residence requirement, people were in Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina, and one family was in Kentucky).

Never mind