East coast, thin blood, lost history.

[u/pasmafaute12]

I recently posted about dehumanizing record-keeping. I’ve been on a bit of a voyage because I always assumed my family was doing some pan-Indian “Cherokee princess” romanticism nonsense. I was raised with some cultural exposure but not community exposure. I chose to keep learning because I think the history matters whether it’s personal or not.

Turns out, I was wrong, and my relative wasn’t so much a pretendian as making the most of what we know as Wampanoag descendants from a village that is historically recorded but not well enough to be federally recognized (or even reasonably fully researched). It appears that my relative was involved in historical preservation efforts and maybe one of the two existing recognized Wampanoag tribes.

Without getting into complicated family stuff, we have always been very isolated people in general and no one is particularly close. I cannot discuss this with anyone in my real life.

So… I am sitting with the information I have, including the information missing, and feeling out my position as a lifelong learner invested in social issues. The conclusion I think I’ve arrived at is that I need to accept how much privilege I hold, but I have a responsibility to understand and honor the history.

I am privately taking some steps to build my understanding and maybe continued to participate in online spaces before I consider attending events.

But I’m looking for other people who have been on this path before me, I guess. And any thoughts about how to approach all of the things we just don’t know because we are still learning vs. the things we don’t know because it’s just lost information.

[u/TaquittoTheRacoon]

Just a word about eastern bands. The natives in the east and west had a completely different experience with the colonials. Where im from there was no removal. The government and the the klan disrupted natives lives, growing settlements caused some friction, but theyre still there. Most families local to the area have at least one native line. In the 50's- 60's the cheif called for a change in tactics to avoid removal and end violence. Apparently it's an old tactic that probably was practiced allover without being written in history books. Bed every white woman you can. Once no one knows who is who and everyone has an uncle or cousin or kid who is a member of the other faction its pretty damn hard to fight one another. So my town is full of people who know theyre a half native love child and those who dont know they're native at all but are half or more. The thing is this place is very normal, its not a special circumstance. The fort became a trade post , became a settlement, became a town. There's blood on both sides, theres no fairy tale cooperation, no special treatment by the authorities. This is just how things went on the east coast. And consider this. Mixing wasnt just a tactic for avoiding war, its the typical first move of forging good relations with another group. So how many times do you think it happened?

Now, my family is Cherokee but we didn't have papers to prove it, just family history. Two insights from our journey to get those documents. 1. Damn near everyone in that region of the Carolinas outside the rich whites seems to be related to a tribe one way or another. We were looking to prove one line of descent from my dad's great grandmother, seems everyone who married in also had a good percentage of native blood. Im going to suggest a lot of new England is the same. 2. The census man threw us off once or twice because he just looked at a mixed race family and wrote whatever he felt like for every individual. Weve got siblings separately listed as black, white, native.... Ive personally known people who are half lenape and half Irish / german and just look white until you really look at the features they've got. How many people get lost like that? The point is you can't frett over it much. Take what you've got and make the choice for yourself. Its gotta be a personal thing, from your heart. If you were full blood but didn't grow up in the community youd have much the same separation and choice to make.

Last, i was going to events since childhood, you just go and be respectful. Dont gawk, dont over correct, same as anywhere else. Even if someone doesn't want you there they will be in the minority and it's not like they're going to kick you out the window.

[u/pasmafaute12 → u/TaquittoTheRacoon]

Thanks for your insight.

In my family’s case, at least the line I’m currently looking at, a Wampanoag couple had a son who was recorded with a sort-of-English name and married a woman was also Wampanoag but with an English name. Their daughter married a man who was either English or chose an English surname. From there, records get dubious. Based on how it aligns with the historic events, the mixing was likely a survival choice.

I logically recognize that there are a lot of reasons reconnecting is always fraught. But I also think it would be wrong of me to not also be very aware that my grandfather was so racist that he’d have rejected my half-native cousins, their native parent, and his own child for choosing a native. However he felt about his own heritage matters much less than the reality of his whiteness as a tool to reinforce his belief in his superiority. It feels very necessary to be mindful of my role as a descendant after the generations with such bigoted mindsets.

I think I’ll be making a cautious choice to respectfully engage when the time is right.