When you calm down, you might rethink this.
I’ve had some of the same anger as you.
But, after a lot of thought on the subject, I have made me consider, perhaps correctly or incorrectly, the way the system has developed given events in history.
My attempt at proving Choctaw lineage may fail miserably. But, this is the system. And, it’s what we have to work with.
The reservation is still in the US. There are regulations, guidelines, paperwork, etc. no matter whether we like it or not.
I’m also guessing that they are probably operating under the assumption that the vast majority of documentable Choctaw have been accounted for.
As to whether or not we like the system that set forth via relocation, the Trail of Tears and the Dawes Commission, we can’t undo the past.
I have a lot more thoughts on the subject. I don’t know what to tell you you can do about your anger.
Plus, many families make up a tribe. There’s no way you are going to like them all. There are people who don’t even like some of their own family members. You can’t win them all, so I’ve heard.
The Tribal Membership office almost has the feeling of good, enthusiastic, cheery, young cop/bad, burnt out, grumpy, old cop. ;-) Not that I’m an agist or anything.
But, don’t start hating yourself. There are plenty of other people that will do it for you.
Maybe, they should rename the Genealogy Forum to the Lost & Found Forum. :-)
Also, one more interesint thing, I seemed to notice. On the two cards associated with the two branches of my family only about one in six-ten of the children of the parents listed made it to the reservation. I don’t know what happened to make this the situation, but a good number of our families did not make it to Oklahoma. I don’t know if some of tried to escape the removal.
But, what strikes me as even more strange is that most the people that I met that are part Native are Cherokee, almost exclusively always. Everyone is a Cherokee. Where are the Choctaw? What happened to all of the other children of the parents listed on the enrollment cards?
Why was it that one child made it? This has struck me as an extremely curious point.
I wish my father was here to tell the story, but I’ll have to try myself.
As the story goes, my gggrandfather, John Lee, 1/8 Choctaw, from what I see, was smuggled from MS to TX between to matresses by slaves. Now, given the approximate date of his arrival in TX, he was probably smuggled by freedmen.
The story goes on that Robert E. Lee was his first cousin. However, my genealogical research shows he had a brother Robert E. Lee, not the Civil War General. Given the difference in generations if related to the Civil War Robert E. Lee the relation would more like have to be 2nd or 3rd cousins. However, that has not been a focal point of my research.
So had it not been the help of the freedmen and some perserverance of my ancestors, I wouldn’t be here.
Anyway, that’s how I was told the story.
Now, I don’t know why he was smuggled between two matresses. That I was never told.
James Norman Davison
MMW
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