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"the number of Americans who self-identify as Cherokee or mixed-race Cherokee has grown substantially over the past two decades." Assuming completely random ma

by tlb 11y ago

"the number of Americans who self-identify as Cherokee or mixed-race Cherokee has grown substantially over the past two decades." Assuming completely random mating, the ancestor count of a small group inside a large stable population should double every generation. "In 2000, the federal Census reported that 729,533 Americans self-identified as Cherokee. By 2010, that number increased, with the Census Bureau reporting that 819,105 Americans claiming at least one Cherokee ancestor." 12% in 10 years, or 33% in 25 years (a modern generation) is less than would be expected by that first-order theory.

zck 11y ago
And that's the percentage! The article is dealing with raw numbers. The US population at large grew 9.7% between 2000 and 2010 (http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text.php http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text...). So it would be expected that a given subset of that population would also increase by about that amount. A further confound is that you can not know that you had Cherokee ancestry in 2000, but discover that in the next ten years. I'd think this would be especially true during the rise of internet-based ancestry research tools.
- nickff 11y ago
  You would only expect the percentage of people with any specific ancestry to double if they never had children with people of similar extraction, and there was no immigration.
jessriedel 11y ago
Yea, this article is weird. Why would a professor lead the piece with a suggestion that a bunch of this students are deluded and then provide essentially zero evidence that this is the case?
- protomyth 11y ago
  "In the United States alone, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma estimates there are over 200 fraudulent groups claiming to be Cherokee." The author doesn't go into great detail, but it the estimate is probably correct given the statistics of the situation. The tribes have the tribal roll with the ancestry. You can do further reading on the genetic testing and people's beliefs about their ancestry.
  - jnbiche 11y ago
    Based on my experiences with non-recognized tribes of other affiliations, I'd be willing to best that a lot of those "fraudulent" groups are legitimate Native American tribes, or at the very least organized groups of people with shared Native American ancestry, but ones that are not officially recognized by the US Government. Yes, there are fake tribes that come out of the woodwork hoping to gain casino rights, but many if not most of these non-recognized groups often accused of being fraudulent have verifiable histories going back 100 or more years, and have been studied by historians and anthropologists (with publications to prove it). It's a shame that such groups are denied the recognition they deserve, even after all that has happened in this country.
    - plonh 11y ago
      It is also a shame that casino rights is the form of recognition they seek.
      - glesica 11y ago
        It's a shame that casino rights is the only meaningful form of recognition being offered...
        hugh4 11y ago
        And I think it's a shame that anyone thinks they deserve "recognition" based on who their ancestors were.
        protomyth 11y ago
        That is definitely not true. Federal recognition brings a host of abilities for a people to organize including the ability to form a government and other institutions.
      - jnbiche 11y ago
        It's a shame that there's no form of recognition that doesn't involve casino rights. In fact, there is no official "casino rights" recognition to seek, it's just an often unwanted right that comes along with federal tribal recognition. So many tribes, who want other educational and or commercial benefits that come with federal recognition (like being able to label their art/crafts "Indian-made"), or who simply want the recognition due to them for reasons of ethnic pride, have to face opposition from big casino corporations worried that some tribal leader in the future might propose a casino. There should be a form of federal recognition by BIA that doesn't involve casino rights, that's the easiest solution (although unlikely to happen for legal reasons).
- pervycreeper 11y ago
  "Gregory D. Smithers is an Associate Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University" Speaks for itself.
Turing_Machine 11y ago
Googling suggests that DNA evidence shows that about 5% of "white" Americans carry Native American genes (this varies a lot with the region -- for instance, "white" people from Louisiana are more likely to carry Native American (8%) and African American (12%) genes than in some other areas). 200 million "white" Americans x 0.05 = roughly 10 million Americans with some type of NA ancestry. Give that the Cherokee were (and are) quite a large tribe, 700,000-800,000 living descendants doesn't seem at all unreasonable. Edit: corrected to account for only the "white" population rather than the whole population.
- Niten 11y ago
  > Googling suggests that DNA evidence shows that about 5% of "white" Americans carry Native American genes I'm one of these, at least according to my Genographic Project results. Prior to getting my results, I assumed my father's family's oral tradition of a Cherokee ancestor was fiction. But maybe it's true after all.
GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago
> "Assuming completely random mating" I'm not sure this is an entirely sound hypothesis given the observable state of this country over basically its entire history.

by tlb 11y ago

zck 11y ago

And that's the percentage! The article is dealing with raw numbers. The US population at large grew 9.7% between 2000 and 2010 (http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text.php http://www.census.gov/2010census/data/apportionment-pop-text...). So it would be expected that a given subset of that population would also increase by about that amount. A further confound is that you can not know that you had Cherokee ancestry in 2000, but discover that in the next ten years. I'd think this would be especially true during the rise of internet-based ancestry research tools.

nickff 11y ago
You would only expect the percentage of people with any specific ancestry to double if they never had children with people of similar extraction, and there was no immigration.

jessriedel 11y ago

Yea, this article is weird. Why would a professor lead the piece with a suggestion that a bunch of this students are deluded and then provide essentially zero evidence that this is the case?

protomyth 11y ago
"In the United States alone, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma estimates there are over 200 fraudulent groups claiming to be Cherokee." The author doesn't go into great detail, but it the estimate is probably correct given the statistics of the situation. The tribes have the tribal roll with the ancestry. You can do further reading on the genetic testing and people's beliefs about their ancestry.
- jnbiche 11y ago
  Based on my experiences with non-recognized tribes of other affiliations, I'd be willing to best that a lot of those "fraudulent" groups are legitimate Native American tribes, or at the very least organized groups of people with shared Native American ancestry, but ones that are not officially recognized by the US Government. Yes, there are fake tribes that come out of the woodwork hoping to gain casino rights, but many if not most of these non-recognized groups often accused of being fraudulent have verifiable histories going back 100 or more years, and have been studied by historians and anthropologists (with publications to prove it). It's a shame that such groups are denied the recognition they deserve, even after all that has happened in this country.
  - plonh 11y ago
    It is also a shame that casino rights is the form of recognition they seek.
    - glesica 11y ago
      It's a shame that casino rights is the only meaningful form of recognition being offered...
      - hugh4 11y ago
        And I think it's a shame that anyone thinks they deserve "recognition" based on who their ancestors were.
      - protomyth 11y ago
        That is definitely not true. Federal recognition brings a host of abilities for a people to organize including the ability to form a government and other institutions.
    - jnbiche 11y ago
      It's a shame that there's no form of recognition that doesn't involve casino rights. In fact, there is no official "casino rights" recognition to seek, it's just an often unwanted right that comes along with federal tribal recognition. So many tribes, who want other educational and or commercial benefits that come with federal recognition (like being able to label their art/crafts "Indian-made"), or who simply want the recognition due to them for reasons of ethnic pride, have to face opposition from big casino corporations worried that some tribal leader in the future might propose a casino. There should be a form of federal recognition by BIA that doesn't involve casino rights, that's the easiest solution (although unlikely to happen for legal reasons).
pervycreeper 11y ago
"Gregory D. Smithers is an Associate Professor of History at Virginia Commonwealth University" Speaks for itself.

Turing_Machine 11y ago

Googling suggests that DNA evidence shows that about 5% of "white" Americans carry Native American genes (this varies a lot with the region -- for instance, "white" people from Louisiana are more likely to carry Native American (8%) and African American (12%) genes than in some other areas). 200 million "white" Americans x 0.05 = roughly 10 million Americans with some type of NA ancestry. Give that the Cherokee were (and are) quite a large tribe, 700,000-800,000 living descendants doesn't seem at all unreasonable. Edit: corrected to account for only the "white" population rather than the whole population.

Niten 11y ago
> Googling suggests that DNA evidence shows that about 5% of "white" Americans carry Native American genes I'm one of these, at least according to my Genographic Project results. Prior to getting my results, I assumed my father's family's oral tradition of a Cherokee ancestor was fiction. But maybe it's true after all.

GFK_of_xmaspast 11y ago

> "Assuming completely random mating" I'm not sure this is an entirely sound hypothesis given the observable state of this country over basically its entire history.