LETTERS: A PROUD CHEROKEE HISTORY

To the editor:

It is sad to see how little most people really do know about Indian history today. Most of what people seem to know is a tiny bit of the story.

A caller recently phoned the Speak Out column in the Southeast Missourian. This person claimed that there were no Cherokee Indians living in Missouri when Louis Lorimier began building the area of present Cape Girardeau in 1806. This is not true. There have been Cherokees in Missouri since before 1721. At that time, many Cherokees began moving west of the Mississippi and settled in what is now Southeast Missouri and northeastern Arkansas. Our kinsmen in the east referred to us as "the lost Cherokees." Our "lost Cherokee" forefathers multiplied so that on the 1980 census over 12,000 people identified themselves as Cherokee in Missouri and Arkansas. We estimate that we have over 200,000 Northern Cherokee kinsmen today.

Most Missourians believe that the Cherokee did not move into this area until 1819. But John Ross wrote of our nation 20 years before the Trail of Tears in a letter to President James Monroe. Ross later became chief of the old Cherokee Nation in the Southeast.

And it should be mentioned that the United States government recognized the Northern Cherokee in the early 1800s. One evidence of this is that Indian agent Samuel Treat was assigned to the Cherokee people. Treat was succeeded in 1813 by William L. Lovely. But then in 1817 these Indian agents were assigned to the new reservation, and the United States government evidently chose to ignore and forget my people.

The history is there. But unfortunately most Missourians have never heard the whole story because it is not taught. Why is it not taught? Some of the blame falls on the state itself. Four years after statehood, Missouri passed legislation which in effect outlawed American Indians from living in this state until around 1902. However many Indians did live in Missouri. But rather than be forced to a Oklahoma reservation, many Cherokee chose to conceal their identity and heritage. Most Cherokee who continued to reside in Missouri had to maintain their Cherokee affairs in secret. And much suffering occurred during the many years this law stayed on the books.

Today the Northern Cherokee Nation is the only official Indian nation in Missouri. And Missouri now recognizes that the Northern Cherokee Nation has continued a form of tribal government for at least the passed 222 years. Gov. Mel Carnahan presented our chief, Beverly Baker Northup, a proclamation on June 22, 1996. There was another governor's proclamation in 1983 from Christopher Bond. The Northern Cherokee Nation has also received a resolution from the Missouri House of Representatives, and a 1997 proclamation from Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

So today my people no longer have to hide. We remain proud of our Cherokee heritage, and we will not permit anyone to deny us our birthright, even though many have tried to destroy the Cherokee spirit.

Who will hear our story? Who will tell of the Trail of Tears? And who will tell the history of the Ani-yun-waiya, the Principal People, the Cherokees. The history books that today's children study in school do not tell the true story of my people. It is up to us. the Cherokee. We as a tribal nation must stand up and tell our story. We cannot allow it to fade with the past. The true history must be told. And it must be learned.

Timexx Rainwalker Seabaugh, Tribal Council Member

Southeast Missouri District

Northern Cherokee Nation

Cape Girardeau