Conclusion

IDENTITY AND IDEOLOGY

Ashley Montagu

Statement on Race

For a thousand years, a self-understanding forged in the depths of Cherokee culture, history, and religion presented an ideal of Cherokee identity that provided a cohesive unity for an often loosely associated confederation of communities. With the arrival of European colonists on the Southeastern frontier and their corresponding effort to bring "civilization" to the people of the Cherokee Nation, a competing ideology arose within the Cherokee that presented a different ideal as to what it mean to be a Cherokee. From the beginning of the "civilization" program in 1789 even unto the modern era, the struggle to define what it means to be a "Cherokee" has been at the center of an ongoing and often tumultuous conflict of ideals and ideology.

Prior to their contact with the forces of civilization, the Cherokee people defined themselves in accordance with the ancient traditions that provided the structure for their community and meaning for their existence. They were born of a mother into her clan and this system of kinship created bonds of identity that transcended the particularities of time and place. The clan structure shaped self-identity and social roles among its members and further provided a means of identity and organized relationships within the larger community. The clan leadership provided the members of the governance structure of the local community, the council, and these local councils were organized into a loose confederation of bodies that came to be known as the Cherokee Nation.

Thus, the web of identity for Cherokee society prior to contact with European civilization was a system of interdependent relationships. The center of Cherokee existence was harmony -- balance and order created from an interconnected network of mutuality. An appreciation for the dignity of the contribution of each participant promoted a cohesive social system, an inclusive political structure, an egalitarian economic commonwealth, and an environmentally sound interaction with nature that were all critical components of this worldview. Identity came from knowing one's place in this network of dynamically interconnected relationships and understanding one's role and contributions to the enhancement and advancement of the cycle of existence.

Central to the perpetuation of order is adaptation and forgiveness. Traditional society believes that revelation as well as "truth" is a very specific phenomenon; different understandings are given to different people and each contribute to the synthetic comprehension that makes up reality in traditional society. As "objectivity" comes from "intersubjectivity," there is a great tolerance for diversity of opinion:

The recognition of the contingent nature of "truth" in traditional religion promoted a spirit of reconciliation and forgiveness in Cherokee society. The nation depended upon the ethic of tolerance and forgiveness in order to preserve the harmony that was central to the preservation of traditional society.

The interconnected network of mutuality, the interdependent nature of personal and social relationships, an appreciation of the value of particularistic revelation, the promotion of a commonwealth of mutual support, and the recognition of the need of harmonious intercourse all worked to promote a collective understanding of what it meant to be a Cherokee. At the root of this collective identity was a common culture based in a shared worldview that centered upon the land, the family, language, religion, community, and ultimately Ani-Kituhwagi - the Cherokee people. At the dawn of "civilization," to be a "Cherokee" was to be one whose identity rested in their ties to the land, the clan, the language, the traditions, and the unity of the Cherokee people. In the holistic worldview of the Cherokee people, the term Ani-Kituhwagi is more than just a political or national identity; it is also a sacred one.

With the coming of the United States came a need to solve the "Indian problem." George Washington's "civilization" program stated "missionaries of excellent moral character should be appointed to reside in their nation who should be well supplied with all the implements of husbandry and the necessary stock for a model farm."² The use of African bondsmen to develop large agricultural plantations was part and parcel of the "civilization" program. These farms soon grew into plantations, small communities grew into towns. As the program of civilization pursued its goals, slavery spread among the Cherokee. Intermarriage among the Cherokee and the whites who served among them increased; mixed-blood natives spoke English and began to adopt the social and cultural patterns of the enveloping culture. Gradually the Cherokee developed a landed elite and a mercantile class that formed a bourgeois element, which became dominant in national affairs. It was among this group of the rich and powerful, the assimilated "progressives" of the Cherokee Nation, that slavery became most accepted.

Within fifty years of the introduction of the government's program to "civilize" the Cherokee Nation in the latter half of the eighteenth century, the nation was thrown terribly out of balance. Where once there had been harmony, there was now discord. Where once there was equality, now there was social, political, economic, and racial hierarchy. The commonwealth had fallen victim to rabid individualism and collective responsibility was eclipsed by personal aspiration; this was nowhere more apparent than in the crisis that led up to the loss of the Civil War. At the cross of the ideology of "civilization," the very nature of Cherokee identity would be sacrificed.

The people were divided, fractured within and among themselves. "Civilization" brought with it a terrible legacy. By the middle of the nineteenth century, much of that what had epitomized Cherokee culture and tradition had become eclipsed by the onslaught of Christian religion and mercantile capitalism. A profoundly different self-understanding was being developed in the Cherokee Nation as to what it meant to be a "Cherokee"; as the people who adopted the principles of "civilization" moved into the forefront of Cherokee society, they attempted to define Cherokee identity in terms of the people they sought to emulate. As the people of the United States of America came to define themselves, they increasingly did so in terms of opposition to its internal "other." Increasingly, survival for the Cherokee elite meant becoming an American; for them, increasingly also, becoming an American meant ceasing to be Cherokee.

A nation divided could not long endure. Ultimately, just as with the United States, it was the issue of slavery that ripped the Cherokee Nation into two divided and warring camps. Though the fracture had existed long before the ante-bellum crisis over slavery, it took the additional pressure over abolitionism to open the fracture into a fissure. Nothing came to epitomize the difference between those who sought "civilization" and those who sought resistance to the white man's ways than the issue of slavery:

"Civilization" had forced some people in the Cherokee Nation to give up their cultural identity just as they had given up their land. Believing themselves to be in a subordinate position to the "superior" people, they fell into a posture of subservience, and wished nothing than to become like those who attempted to dominate them. The Keetoowah Society was possessed of a different vision of what it meant to be a "Cherokee"-- one that stressed the importance of the "old way" in the preservation of the integrity of the individual Cherokee as well as the unity and sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation. National unity depended upon the definition of a true "Cherokee" as one bound to a traditional culture and tied to the community by the power of the "Kituwah spirit." The "Kituwah spirit" was a way to transcend the differences between political parties, religious beliefs, skin color, and even clan affiliations; it allowed for the synthesis of the Cherokee people into a total community who though different, lived as one.

Three religious forces that seemed to share a common vision of Cherokee identity shaped this movement and helped it find expression in the political and social affairs of the Cherokee Nation. At the core of the Keetoowah movement was traditional religion and the ancient ideals, spirituality, and ceremonies of the "old way" -- nationalism, the harmony ethic, the network of dynamic interrelationships, reconciliatory forgiveness, and the syncretic holism of common rituals. The Baptist churches, shaped within the cultural nexus of the "beloved community" of the Aframerindian church, shared many of these ideals but also provided an "approved" public identity, leadership development mechanisms, community forum, extranational support system, and grassroots organizing effort for the "secret society." The Freemasonic brotherhood also shared these ideals but it also provided a model for the internal and external structure, an organizational framework, a method for conducting lodge ritual and business, and a system of signs and tokens for recognition of "members." In accordance with traditional Cherokee belief systems, the Keetoowah Society was a harmonious fusion of interrelated parts.

It was this inclusive vision of a Cherokee identity that transcends skin color, religion, creed, or national origin that allowed the Keetoowah to emerge victorious from the "fratricidal war" that ripped apart the Cherokee Nation in the middle of the nineteenth century. Facing overwhelming odds and an armed force bent upon its destruction, the Keetoowah had little choice but to feign acquiescence and accommodation in order to preserve the unity of the Cherokee Nation. However, when it came to the point of killing those very same people to whom they had sworn allegiance to, the Keetoowah Society switched sides and expressed their commitment to those that shared the "old way" and sought to maintain the cultural integrity and political sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation.

Yet in the end, it was their commitment to the "old way" that allowed the Keetoowah Society to emerge victorious from the bloody Civil War that laid such waste to the Cherokee Nation. When the Keetoowah issued a statement on February 17, 1863 abolishing slavery and granting citizenship to black Cherokees,⁴ it set in motion the forces that would turn the tide of the war. The combined forces of the "rainbow army" were an overwhelming force in the Indian Territory and carried the day in battle after battle. When all the battles were finally over and victory had been totally secured, "the people" set about to bring peace to the troubled land by restoring order and reestablishing the government that for many had been in absence for so many years. Central to this process would be the harmony ethic and the spirit of reconciliation that were so central to the "old way" as it found expression in the unifying efforts of the "Kituwah spirit." National unity, so elusive in the Cherokee Nation, seemed at last at hand.

Knowing that if they were to restore order and balance to the Cherokee Nation, the Keetoowah would have to attempt to seal the breach that divided the people and prevented unity; they knew that they would have to call upon that traditional ethic so quintessentially Cherokee, e.g., the "disposition to forget the past and unite as one people."⁵ In the worldview of the traditional Cherokee where polarity was understood as completion rather than opposition⁶ and where the guiding principle is to "be where we are and go on,"⁷ the only future lies with reconciliation. Ultimately they knew that even among the progressive Cherokee where "civilization" had made such inroads, they were still, in their hearts, still Cherokee. Though the "progressive" Cherokee might think themselves different from the "fullblood," to those in positions of power in Washington, there was little difference as "the only good indians I ever saw were dead."⁸ The only future lay in a unified nation and a collective identity.

In the end, it could be no other way. The alien ideology that entered the Cherokee Nation as a result of the "civilization" program of the late eighteenth century could not succeed in defeating traditional values. Whereas progressive values are dualistic and oppositional, traditional values are holistic and inclusive; progressive values are hierarchical and demand accommodation, traditional values are relational and integrative; traditional values promote community and mutual benefit, progressive values are individualistic and egocentric. Though progressive values might have attained power and position, they could not have endured in the Cherokee Nation because they are so diametrically opposed to the Cherokee way of life. That they existed at all among the Cherokee people speaks to an appreciation of the value of the critical ethic of harmony critical to the preservation of traditional society. And perhaps, "civilization" among the Cherokee might have been more successful among "the people" if, as Vine DeLoria notes,⁹ its advocate's actions would have spoken louder than their words:

Epilogue

The suit on behalf of Bernice Riggs, a descendent of Cherokee Freedmen, sought the restoration of the terms of an 1866 treaty allowing descendants of former slaves in the Cherokee Nation to be treated as Cherokee citizens entitled to all the rights and privileges of such including voting in National elections.¹¹ During the preparation of this text, I was contacted by Vanetta Watie -- a black descendant of Stand Watie -- who being frustrated in her attempts in researching her genealogy asked me "I don't understand what we've done to them? Why don't they want us (descendants of Freedmen) in their Tribe?"¹² She also asked why is it that the lawsuit filed on behalf of the Cherokee Freedmen had not been ruled upon by the Cherokee Judicial Appeals Tribunal. Unfortunately, I could not answer her questions. Admittedly, the answers are not easy to find.

Yet, somehow we must find the answers. It has been nearly one hundred fifty years since the Treaty of 1866 declared that "All freedmen, as well as all free colored persons...shall have all the rights of native Cherokees."¹³ Does the fact that these rights and privileges have yet to be granted speak to the enduring legacy of "civilization" among the Cherokee? Is the continued exclusion of these black Cherokee from citizenship in the Cherokee Nation an indictment of the Nation for having fallen short of the very values of the "old way" that have formed the central focus of this work? Until the rights of these freedmen and all free colored persons and their descendants in the Cherokee Nation have been ultimately and finally secured, then this story -- epic as it is -- is yet unfinished.

Across the years, the voices of the ancestors speak to the present. They call upon us to remember their struggle and their sacrifice and urge us to honor their commitment by fulfilling our responsibility to them that they would not have died in vain. Finally, as those Cherokee voices in 1866 spoke to the federal government of their having done their duty, the voices of those black Cherokee who fell among the eight hundred warriors speak to the current government of its duty. It is a call to responsibility that we must not ignore: