Holding Our Ground Panel #5: Conversation with Cherokee Scholars on Sovereignty & Identity

We can celebrate our native culture without claiming identity unless we know our clan names. Particularly among Tsalagi. It’s a clear, time tested boundary.

Why is there such a deafening silence regarding the descendants of enslaved Indigenous people? We have vast amounts of oral history and documentation detailing inter-tribal warfare and the sale of entire groups into slavery, yet the role of federally recognized tribes in this history is almost never a major factor in these discussions. This erasure is a way to silence the topic and continue a legacy of slavery by treating it as a non-issue. There are 40 million people who descend from the enslaved, many of whom have no way to identify their ancestors past a certain point, and it’s a historical fact that the majority of those enslaved in the early colonial era were not all from Africa. Tribes with "negro" features were wholesale removed from records, leading to the painful question: where are our tribes? We need to have the hard conversation about nations like the Choctaw and Cherokee profiting from the sale of other Indigenous people. While these talks often target white professionals, the lack of acknowledgement regarding the reality of slavery makes the entire dialogue feel tone-deaf to the very people seeking genuine healing and mending.

1:16:03 – This question is also important because I notice this too from legit tribal Natives who protect hijackers. I call these Natives "Kumbaya Natives". They are Natives who are all about harmony, peace, diversity, interracial acceptance, all about FEEL GOOD perspective. Nothing bad about that BUT…. Natives have some REAL issues to face and topics to discuss and thats pretendianism from white and black people. I notice Natives will protect Black people more and act like they aren't doing anything when clearly they are hijacking and stealing Indigenous culture and twisting Indigenous history. Natives who protect hijackers are oblivious or blind to see the reality of this current issue and they don't want to talk about it or look into it because it will force them outside of their "Kumbaya" bubble.
Natives still think only White people are hijacking our culture but will ignore the black community who does it also. ….and we Natives get shamed for talking against the black community.

The shaming usually comes from Half Natives, people with less than 20% Native DNA and biracial mixed people. These mxied people will shame us REAL LEGIT Natives who want to protect our history, cultures and tribes because they want all tribes to operate and accept mixed people because society accepts it too. Natives who protect hijackers aren't aware about all this.

Michael skipped over the fact that some Cherokees fought with the Confederacy which could be why white southerners identified with them.