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Memoir to Myself
It Felt Necessary and Only I Could Write it — so I Did
The existence of my Cherokee citizenship represents a cultural dilution from after the Cherokee Nation became a constitutional republic. Before then, I would get my clan identity and therefore my citizenship from my Cherokee mother or not at all.
My raising among the Creeks did not give me any feel for the Muscogee language — I actually heard Cherokee more often — but I did acquire some historical Creek heroes like Opothle Yahola (Laughing Fox), a war chief in the Seminole wars who then stood against slavery in the Civil War. More recently, both the white and Cherokee sides of my family told tales of Chitto Harjo (Crazy Snake), leader of the so-called Snake Rebellion against allotment of the Creek Reservation.
I took Harjo to be the Creek analog to Redbird Smith, who led the Cherokee resistance, and I took the Red Stick Creeks to be a Creek analog to the Nighthawk Keetoowah Society. The important thing to my growing up was to know that there was resistance to the destruction of the reservations in both tribes, the tribe of my blood and the tribe of my residence.
My early understandings may offend historians. I don’t know how many Creeks the Snakes whipped for accepting allotments and I don’t know if Redbird Smith really vandalized allotment records. The general narrative I…
