The Cherokees, by similarity of language, have been determined to be a branch of the great Iroquoian family of Indians. They are believed to have emigrated to the Southern Appalachians about the Thirteenth Century. They found the country occupied by various branches of the Muscogee or Creek people, who inhabited the Tennessee River valley to upper East Tennessee and North Carolina; and the headwaters of Tugaloo and Chattahoochie Rivers in Georgia and South Carolina.The Muscogee or Creek Indians are believed to have emigrated from Mexico to the mouth of the Mississippi about the year 1200 AD. The word Muscogee means Mexco-ulgae, Mexican People.Intermittent warfare, lasting through several centuries, was waged for possession of the mountainous country. Eventually, the Creeks, Kusatees, and Uchees, all of Muscogee blood, were forced to the southward. The Shawnees, who occupied Middle Tennessee, were forced northward into Ohio. The Cherokees, by right of conquest, claimed all the mountainous section now embraced in East Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and North Georgia. They claimed in addition as their hunting grounds, Middle Tennessee and Kentucky. De Soto, who traversed the Cherokee country in 1540, found them in substantially the same location as during the English period of settlement. The Cherokees had dealings with Virginia as early as 1689. Their principal affairs, however, were handled by the English through the Colony of South Carolina, and it is from the South Carolina records that we get the first mention of Cherokee chiefs. De Soto visited numerous Cherokee towns, but failed in every instance to mention the name of the chief. The original Cherokee settlement was the old town Kituwah, at the junction of Ocona Lufty and Tuckasegee Rivers. The tribe was from the earliest times divided into seven clans, and a few of the town-names indicate that each clan may have originally occupied a separate village. The seven clans were, Ani-gatugewa, Kituwah People; Ani-kawi, Deer People; Ani-waya, Wolf People; Ani-Sahani, Blue Paint People; Ani-wadi, Red Paint People; Ani-Tsiskwa, Bird People; and Ani-Gilahi, Long Hair People.

Large Size 8 1/2" X 11" Softback Genealogy Book with photos 889 pages - When I was about 5 years old and could stand on my tip toes and see what was on the table cloth, my paternal grandmother Virgie would show me photos of my Morgan and Shaver ancestors. She showed me at an early age how I was related to a Native American Iroquoian Cherokee man named Chief Black Hawk, who had a daughter that married a German man named Capt. Windle Miller. She further stated that she had an official document that proved that we were related to this Cherokee Indian. So, being interested, I asked her where is this official document? She told me she looked for it, but it must be lost. Next time I saw her she stated that she loaned it to a distant cousin Lamont Shaver and he never returned it. I new that my grandmother would never lie to me and spent many years researching this Chief Black Hawk. After many years of research and gathering data, I have put together a case for Cherokee Chief Black Hawk being a real person. The evidence I gathered showed that many different areas of proof of his existence. The evidence of Native American family traits were always seen in my own family and distant relatives, all related through the same lineage. I found an old news paper article in the Stanly County News & Press. Several Revolutionary War pension application accounts. Old Land Surveys and Old Land Plat Deeds. The discovery of his daughter's gravesite. And finally the 17 ancestors who all applied to enroll into the Cherokee tribe through the Dawes Rolls of 1896. Clearly, this evidence shows without a doubt that Chief Black Hawk and his daughter Naktika Red Fern or her white name 'Elizabeth Redfern' Miller Davis did exist. This book is the result of putting all that evidence together for my relatives to see and study. As you will see, my long journey into getting to the truth has not been in vain. I know you will enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed putting it together.

The Cherokees, by similarity of language, have been determined to be a branch of the great Iroquoian family of Indians. They are believed to have emigrated to the Southern Appalachians about the Thirteenth Century. They found the country occupied by various branches of the Muscogee or Creek people, who inhabited the Tennessee River valley to upper East Tennessee and North Carolina; and the headwaters of Tugaloo and Chattahoochie Rivers in Georgia and South Carolina.The Muscogee or Creek Indians are believed to have emigrated from Mexico to the mouth of the Mississippi about the year 1200 AD. The word Muscogee means Mexco-ulgae, Mexican People.Intermittent warfare, lasting through several centuries, was waged for possession of the mountainous country. Eventually, the Creeks, Kusatees, and Uchees, all of Muscogee blood, were forced to the southward. The Shawnees, who occupied Middle Tennessee, were forced northward into Ohio. The Cherokees, by right of conquest, claimed all the mountainous section now embraced in East Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and North Georgia. They claimed in addition as their hunting grounds, Middle Tennessee and Kentucky. De Soto, who traversed the Cherokee country in 1540, found them in substantially the same location as during the English period of settlement. The Cherokees had dealings with Virginia as early as 1689. Their principal affairs, however, were handled by the English through the Colony of South Carolina, and it is from the South Carolina records that we get the first mention of Cherokee chiefs. De Soto visited numerous Cherokee towns, but failed in every instance to mention the name of the chief. The original Cherokee settlement was the old town Kituwah, at the junction of Ocona Lufty and Tuckasegee Rivers. The tribe was from the earliest times divided into seven clans, and a few of the town-names indicate that each clan may have originally occupied a separate village. The seven clans were, Ani-gatugewa, Kituwah People; Ani-kawi, Deer People; Ani-waya, Wolf People; Ani-Sahani, Blue Paint People; Ani-wadi, Red Paint People; Ani-Tsiskwa, Bird People; and Ani-Gilahi, Long Hair People.

In 1963, the story goes, the last of the Nottoway Indians died. A fierce tribe of the Iroquois nation had dwindled over 350 years to one old man, illiterate, who worked as a farmhand and rode a bicycle into town for beer. William Lamb is buried near the farm where he lived and worked, on lands once granted to the Nottoway Indians by the crown of England, to be theirs forever. But the monarch overlooked one thing: The land already belonged to the Indians, had belonged to them for thousands of years, since the ancestors of the clan mothers camped on Stony Creek. They were Indian lands before John Smith set up fort, before Pocahontas met John Rolfe, before the Tuscarora War and the American Revolution and the Civil War and Virginia's Racial Integrity Act of 1924. And one more thing. William Lamb wasn't the last of the Nottoway. The blood that is thicker than Nottoway River water has summoned the descendants. They seek to recover a past that was for so many years denied them. They call themselves in Iroquoian the Cheroenhaka, the "People at the Fork of the Stream." They are scattered over at least seven states and Canada. They are coming home, to Southampton County. But like any journey worth taking, it isn't easy.

Most claims of Native American ancestry rest on the mother's ethnicity. This can be verified by a DNA test determining what type of mitochondrial DNA she passed to you. A hundred participants in DNA Consultants multi-phase Cherokee DNA Study did just that. What they had in common is they were previously rejected--by commercial firms, genealogy groups, government agencies and tribes. Their mitochondrial DNA was not classified as Native American. These are the "anomalous" Cherokee. Share the journeys of discovery and self-awareness of these passionate volunteers who defied the experts and are helping write a new chapter in the Peopling of the Americas. "The Yateses' DNA findings are revolutionary." --Stephen C. Jett, Atlantic Ocean Crossings. "Monumental."--Richard L. Thornton, Apalache Foundation.

Black Hawk was born at the Sac village on Rock river in 1767, the son of Py-e-sa. His great grandfather, Na-nà-ma-kee, was born in the vincinity of Montreal. He tells of traditions of his nation, Indian wars in which he particpated, manners and customs of his tribe, removal from his village in 1831, an account of the Black Hawk War, travels through the United States, etc.

Includes treaties, genealogy of the tribe, and brief biographical sketches of individuals.