Posted on 02/06/2005 11:57:58 AM PST by KentTrappedInLiberalSeattle
Ward Churchill traces part of his American Indian lineage to Joshua Tyner, a Revolutionary War veteran from Georgia.
But Tyner listed himself on the 1820 census as "white," and historical documents report that his mother was killed and scalped by Creek Indians.
Meanwhile, genealogy records researched by the Rocky Mountain News show that even if Joshua Tyner had been a full-blooded Indian, he would have provided Churchill with only one-sixty-fourth Indian blood.
Nevertheless, the fiery Churchill - who maintains that he is at least one-sixteenth Cherokee - has fashioned a controversial career of activism and education over injustices to America's indigenous people.
And, amid the controversy over his essay saying that the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were in retribution for deadly American imperialism throughout the decades, he says he resents his background being traced like a pedigree for a dog.
"I am not accountable for making the particulars of my genealogy public knowledge or to respond to interrogation from a Cheyenne or a Chippewa or the Bureau of Indian Affairs, as far as I'm concerned," Churchill said.
He will not provide documentation of his heritage.
"I have never been confirmed as having one-quarter blood, and never said I was," Churchill said. "And even if (the critics) are absolutely right (about his lack of Indian ancestry), what does that have to do with this issue? I have never claimed to be goddamned Sitting Bull."
Officially, he maintains an associate membership, obtained in May 1994, from the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Tahlequah, Okla., two months before the band stopped issuing such memberships amid controversy over whether they were merited.
Unofficially, he says his wide acceptance for 25 years by the indigenous community as an Indian activist and advocate also demonstrates his heritage.
Churchill has claimed since high school days in Elmwood, Ill., near Peoria, that he has Indian blood, mostly from his mother's side. He claimed Tyner as an Indian and said that his grandmother, Minnie Billington, had some Creek Indian blood.
The News found no independent verification for the Billington claim. A Pope County, Ill., listing from the 1860s of able-bodied males eligible for Civil War service enlistees contains the name of Lawson Billington, the same name as Churchill's great-great-grandfather, but there was no claim that he had Indian blood.
Churchill has also claimed his father had some Indian ancestry as well, although in an interview 11 years ago, he said he didn't know much about his father's side of the family.
Churchill doesn't help out much when asked to document his lineage.
Instead, he waves it off by saying a Keetoowah researcher had documented the connection. But he hasn't provided any details.
Churchill and his allies have feuded with other Indian leaders, including Vernon Bellecourt, of the National American Indian Movement. Bellecourt, his allies and some other researchers call Churchill a white man masquerading as an Indian.
Joe Geshick, a full-blooded Ojibwe from Minneapolis who knows Bellecourt, sides with Churchill in the dispute. He said Bellecourt and his entourage don't like that they can't control Churchill or some of the other Colorado American Indian Movement leaders.
"Bellecourt just doesn't want to lose his power base," Geshick said.
But Churchill's unclear claim to Indian ancestry is a controversy that would exist with or without the feud with the Bellecourt faction, because of the lack of documentation.
To have one-sixteenth Cherokee blood, Churchill would have to have one great-great grandparent who was full-blooded, or two great-great-great grandparents, or so on, back through his lineage.
But the only ancestor Churchill has mentioned in interviews as having Indian blood - and who can be linked to him directly through his genealogy - is Joshua Tyner. Tyner was a young Revolutionary War veteran from Wilkes County, Ga.
Even if Tyner were a full-blooded Cherokee, an ancestor tree researched by Churchill's critics shows Tyner as Churchill's great-great-great-great-grandfather, seven generations removed. That would leave Churchill with only a one-sixty-fourth portion of Cherokee blood.
But there's no evidence Tyner had any Indian blood at all.
"Joshua Tyner was a white man," said Thomas Brown, a professor on the sociology faculty at Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, who researched Churchill's background as part of his attacks on Churchill's academic record.
Likewise, research by the News into Tyner family genealogy found no evidence that Joshua Tyner was an Indian. Historical accounts from Georgia, in fact, claim the Tyner family was attacked in 1788 or 1789 by Creek Indians while the father, Richard, was away in revenge for some official action a family member had taken against the Creeks. Joshua's mother, Abigail, was killed and scalped, along with several of her eight children.
Richard Tyner later remarried, to a Cherokee woman, Sookie Dougherty, the family histories relate, and had seven more children, who would all be half Indian.
But Joshua Tyner, born in 1767, was Abigail's child. From this history, Churchill could only lay claim to having a great-great-great-great-great-stepgrandmother who was Indian, and not a blood relative.
In 1806, Joshua Tyner moved to southern Tennessee, then to southern Illinois in 1816 or 1817. He died there in 1838. One genealogy says he was buried "Indian style" in the Big Muddy River.
In the 1820 census for Franklin County, Ill., Tyner told the census taker he was white. And in an affidavit in 1832 while applying for a veteran's pension for his service in the Revolutionary War, Joshua Tyner said that during the war, he had engaged in a battle in Georgia with Indians in which men on both sides were killed.
In other interviews, Churchill has hinted that he is also related to Reubin Tyner, a Cherokee whose name appears on the 1817 Cherokee emigration list. Reubin Tyner later moved to Arkansas. But Churchill has offered no verification of this.
Dibs on Albion. Ok?
I still have dibs on Scotland.
Well, I guess that's fair.
1/64th American mutt,
LNewman
Corrected, I believe I'm having a Buckhead movement. Bad math. 1682.
Would that be as in perfidious?
It's ok with me, You can have Albion.
Thanks. Watching the Ward "Cleaver" Churchill Trainwreck is as much fun as was as watching Rathergate or The Kerry Campaign post Swift Boat. It's a great time to be an American, patriot and conservative.
Then,by his standard,every abolitionist,every soldier in the Civil War,and every person,no matter their actual race,who espoused,in any way no matter how small, civil rights for blacks,is therefore black.
The same can be said for those people who are pro-Israel,though being a Jew is a religion,not a race (no matter WHAT the Nazis said!),that they are Jews.
Ward is no more an Indian than I am and as far as I know,I have no Indian ancestry whatsoever.OTOH,I have worked to help Navajo children get scholarships to excellent private schools.I bet I've done more good for Indians,than Ward Churchill!
Would this make me a black American Indian Jewess then? LOL
Ward speaks with forked tongue.
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