Who wrote "The Education of Little Tree"?
DiscussionsIndigenous Peoples
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1Muscogulus
The Education of Little Tree, a heartwarming memoir of a Cherokee boyhood, has been making news this month. Two U.S. public-radio programs, Radio Diaries and This American Life have looked at the life of the pseudonymous author, Forrest Carter.
Certain facts are not in dispute. One is that Carter was not Cherokee — not even close — and the memoir of his childhood is fiction.
Another, lesser known fact: The "Cherokee" words in the book are all nonsense, made up by Carter.
And finally: Forrest Carter was really Asa Carter, a notorious Alabamian who used to write speeches for reactionary governor George C. Wallace, including his famous pledge for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever."
So here's the question: Did Asa Carter change his mind? Are the sweet-natured homilies in Little Tree evidence of a transformed heart? Or was Little Tree written by an unrepentant bigot?
The story I heard (on This American Life, linked here) had little to say about an issue that matters to indigenous people: the appropriation of (in this case) Cherokee identity by a white man, while manufacturing bits of Cherokee "culture" to suit his own purposes. It's an offense that appears obvious and serious to most Indians but makes no impression on most white Americans.
I suspect that this disconnect is related to the one about the Washington D.C. football franchise.
Anyway I recommend the radio story and am curious about the group's views on Little Tree and its author.
Certain facts are not in dispute. One is that Carter was not Cherokee — not even close — and the memoir of his childhood is fiction.
Another, lesser known fact: The "Cherokee" words in the book are all nonsense, made up by Carter.
And finally: Forrest Carter was really Asa Carter, a notorious Alabamian who used to write speeches for reactionary governor George C. Wallace, including his famous pledge for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever."
So here's the question: Did Asa Carter change his mind? Are the sweet-natured homilies in Little Tree evidence of a transformed heart? Or was Little Tree written by an unrepentant bigot?
The story I heard (on This American Life, linked here) had little to say about an issue that matters to indigenous people: the appropriation of (in this case) Cherokee identity by a white man, while manufacturing bits of Cherokee "culture" to suit his own purposes. It's an offense that appears obvious and serious to most Indians but makes no impression on most white Americans.
I suspect that this disconnect is related to the one about the Washington D.C. football franchise.
Anyway I recommend the radio story and am curious about the group's views on Little Tree and its author.
2TLCrawford
Whenever I hear someone claim relationship to Native Americans I remember that in genealogy it has long been understood that many "white" Americans claim Indian ancestry to hide African ancestry. My great grandmother lived until I was 11, I was told she was half American Indian and, even though at age 4 on a trip to the NC Cherokee reservation I ran to an elderly woman sitting in a rocking chair and tried to climb in her lap calling her "Grandma", I have come to question the purity of that claim.
3Muscogulus
Do you have a written source for the point about using Indian ancestry to hide African ancestry? Or is it only passed along verbally? I ask because it might be useful to have a source to cite.
I consider genealogy a Good Thing, but am aware that the strong drive to document ancestors among white people in my native region has been all about demonstrating so-called racial purity. I've heard anecdotes of a family genealogist telling tales of black forebears with great relish but refusing to set these down in their notes or to include them in the family tree.
The only academic study I'm personally aware of on this topic is also about Indians: Black, white, and Indian, by Claudio Saunt, about the Grayson/Grierson family of Creek, African, and Euro descent. One Grayson line, purged on paper of all Africanness, produced a Confederate officer (George Washington Grayson) who was also an important informant of early ethnographers like Albert S. Gatschet.
I consider genealogy a Good Thing, but am aware that the strong drive to document ancestors among white people in my native region has been all about demonstrating so-called racial purity. I've heard anecdotes of a family genealogist telling tales of black forebears with great relish but refusing to set these down in their notes or to include them in the family tree.
The only academic study I'm personally aware of on this topic is also about Indians: Black, white, and Indian, by Claudio Saunt, about the Grayson/Grierson family of Creek, African, and Euro descent. One Grayson line, purged on paper of all Africanness, produced a Confederate officer (George Washington Grayson) who was also an important informant of early ethnographers like Albert S. Gatschet.
4TLCrawford
If I recall correctly both Finding Your Roots and How to Trace Your Family Tree warn against taking family traditions on this topic at face value for exactly the reason you cite, American racism. As a small child I mistook an elderly Cherokee woman for my great-grandmother but I will be the first to say that she would not have looked out of place at an AME church dinner. (best food ever by the way) She lived to 94, I was 11 and remember her well and have photos of her. I want to look at my dad's maternal line DNA but, lets just say he joined the GOP when Reagan was race-baiting and leave it at that.
My great grandmother Hunter was born in Traveler's Rest Kentucky, a small hamlet about ten miles back in the hills of of the Wilderness Highway. When I asked myself what traveler chooses to rest ten miles back in the mountains from the highway I came up with two answers, escaping slaves and American Indians avoiding resettlement. Her grandparents came to the area in the 1830s.
Black Indians looks at people with African ancestry who lived with American Indians but I have not read it yet.
My great grandmother Hunter was born in Traveler's Rest Kentucky, a small hamlet about ten miles back in the hills of of the Wilderness Highway. When I asked myself what traveler chooses to rest ten miles back in the mountains from the highway I came up with two answers, escaping slaves and American Indians avoiding resettlement. Her grandparents came to the area in the 1830s.
Black Indians looks at people with African ancestry who lived with American Indians but I have not read it yet.
