For over a quarter of a century, Elizabeth Warren has described herself as a Native American. When recently asked to provide evidence of her ancestry, she pointed to an unsubstantiated claim on an 1894 Oklahoma Territory marriage license application by her great-great grand uncle William J. Crawford that his mother, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, Ms. Warren’s great-great-great grandmother, was a Cherokee.
After researching her story, it is obvious that her “family lore” is just fiction.
As I pointed out in my article here on
Sunday, no evidence supports this claim. O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford had
no Cherokee heritage, was listed as “white” in the Census of 1860, and
was most likely half Swedish and half English, Scottish, or German, or
some combination thereof. (Note, the actual 1894 marriage license makes
no claim of Cherokee ancestry.)
But the most stunning discovery about
the life of O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is that her husband, Ms. Warren’s
great-great-great grandfather, was apparently a member of the Tennessee
Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes in the
Southeastern United States and herded them into government-built
stockades in what was then called Ross’s Landing (now Chattanooga),
Tennessee–the point of origin for the horrific Trail of Tears, which
began in January, 1837.
This new information about Ms. Warren’s true heritage came as a
direct result of a lead provided to me by William Jacobson over at Legal Insurrection, who in turn had received the information from one of his readers. Jacobson, who has questioned Warren’s explanation for her law faculty listing, calls this discovery “the ultimate and cruelest irony” of the Warren Cherokee saga.
Jonathan Crawford, O.C. Sarah Smith
Crawford’s husband and apparently Ms. Warren’s great-great-great
grandfather, served in the East Tennessee Mounted Infantry Volunteer
Militia commanded by Brigadier General R. G. Dunlap from late 1835 to
late 1836. While under Dunlap’s command he was a member of Major William
Lauderdale’s Battalion, and Captain Richard E. Waterhouse’s Company.
These were the troops responsible for
removing Cherokee families from homes they had lived in for generations
in the three states that the Cherokee Nations had considered their
homelands for centuries: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
While these involuntary home removals
were not characterized by widespread violence, the newly displaced
Cherokee mothers, fathers, and children found an oppressive and
sometimes brutal welcome when they finally arrived at the hastily
constructed containment areas. An estimated 4,000 Cherokees were
warehoused in Ross’s Landing stockades for months awaiting supplies and
additional armed guards the Federal Government believed necessary to
relocate them on foot to Oklahoma.
Jonathan Crawford most likely did not
join the regular Army troops who “escorted” these Cherokees along the
Trail of Tears. He did, however, serve once more with Major William
Lauderdale’s re-formed Batallion of Tennessee Mounted Infantry Volunteer
Militia. This group fought the Seminole Indians in Florida during the
Second Seminole War. Crawford arrived in Florida in November, 1837, and
served there for six months until his unit was disbanded in Baton Rouge,
Louisiana the following May. (Note: It was not uncommon in those days
for militia formed to serve for a limited period of time under specific
commanders would reform later under the same commanders.)
Jonathan Crawford’s service as a Private
in Captain Richard E. Waterhouse’s Company of Major William
Lauderdale’s Battalion of Mounted Infantry in Brigadier General R. G.
Dunlap’s East Tennessee Mounted Infantry Volunteers is confirmed by
his appearance in the muster roll of the Brigade, taken around June of
1836. (Note that this transcription of the muster roll incorrectly lists
the date as 1832.)
His service a year later (1837) in Major
William Lauderdale’s Tennessee Volunteer Mounted Infantry (Five
companies of volunteers, one of which was led by Captain Richard E.
Waterhouse) is confirmed by his widow O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford’s
1851 pension application before the Bledsoe County, Tennessee
commissioners
Meanwhile, William J. Crawford
(Elizabeth Warren’s great-great grandfather who would, fifty-seven years
later, falsely claim that his mother was Cherokee in that now-infamous
1894 Oklahoma Territory marriage license application) was born in
Bledsoe County, Tennessee in 1837. This was just a few months after his
father apparently helped remove thousands of Cherokees from their homes
and a few months before his father went off to fight Seminole Indians in
Florida.
His father, Jonathan Crawford, Elizabeth
Warren’s great-great-great grandfather, died in Jackson County,
Tennessee in 1841. His mother, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, died sometime
between 1860 and 1870 – most likely in Bledsoe County, Tennessee.
Neither O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, Jonathan Crawford, nor any of
their seven other children, apparently ever claimed that O.C. Sarah
Smith Crawford had Cherokee heritage. As recently as two weeks ago, Ms. Warren publicly claimed to have Native American ancestry. In Dorchester, Massachusetts on April 27 at the Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen Apprentice Training Center she stated, “I am very proud of my Native American heritage.” Yet, decades after she first made this same claim, it now appears that it is without any foundation.
It is time for Ms. Warren to publicly
acknowledge the truth of her ancestry. It is time for her to admit that
she has no Native American heritage that she can prove; and it is time
for her to acknowledge instead, that she is likely a direct descendant
of a Tennessee Militiaman who apparently rounded up the ancestors of
those who truly have Cherokee heritage, the first step in their forced
removal from the Southeastern United States to Oklahoma over the long
and tragic Trail of Tears.
Michael Patrick Leahy--------------------
The Cherokee Nation issued a statement Monday declaring Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) DNA test results “inappropriate” and a “mockery.”
On Monday, Warren released her DNA test results to the far-left Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey, who has already had to issue two humiliating corrections. Hoping to spin the results in the best way possible, Linskey botched the math on the DNA findings, naturally, in Warren’s favor.
The truth is that even if you believe the results, Warren might have anywhere from 1/64 to 1/1024 Native heritage, which means she has as much Native heritage as the average white American, which means her claim to be a Cherokee has been debunked by her own DNA test.
The Cherokee Nation is having none of it. In a blistering statement, Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin, Jr. writes, “A DNA test is useless to determine tribal citizenship. Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America.”
This is an important fact and especially true of Warren’s DNA test, which did not include any American Indian DNA whatsoever to compare her results with.
Buried in the Boston Globe story is this bombshell: “To make up for the dearth of Native American DNA, Bustamante used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Colombia to stand in for Native American.”
In other words, all Warren’s DNA test really proves is that she might be 1/64 to 1/1024 Mexican, Peruvian, or Colombian.
What’s more, while some tribes are willing to accept 1/16 ancestry, they are not willing to do so through unreliable DNA tests. What they want to see is actual genealogy, and the truth is that Warren has no documentation to prove that her family has ever had an American Indian in her family. Warren points to her great-great-great grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, as part Cherokee, but all the documentation of the time lists her as “white.”
Hoskin continues: “Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation.”
The Nation is especially angry over Warren using an “inappropriate” DNA test to “claim any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation.”
Doing so is “inappropriate and wrong,” he writes adding, “It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, who ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is prove.”
Hoskin closes with, “Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”
Thus far, every element of Warren’s claim to be part American Indian has been debunked. She continues to stand by her story about her mother and father being forced to elope due to discrimination against her mother’s Indian heritage. The only problem with that claim is that contemporaneous news reports and documents, including a wedding license, appear to show that her parents had a church wedding in 1932 — which would mean there was no dramatic elopement.
Between 1987 and 1995, Warren identified herself as “Native American” while she was teaching law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Harvard.
The DNA test proves she had no basis to make such a claim.
In fact, her DNA test proves Warren is every bit as European as the average white American.
Warren was goaded by President Trump into taking the DNA test. The president frequently mocks her false claim to Indian ancestry. Upon the release of the results Monday morning, both Warren and the Boston Globe were trying to claim she had been vindicated. Warren and her media allies are obviously hoping to neutralize this issue as she considers challenging Trump for the presidency in 2020.
Unfortunately for Warren, though, two massive corrections and one press release from the Cherokee Nation later, it would appear as though she is not only further exposed on this issue, but her bungling of the rollout will have many questioning if she has the judgment and poise to take on a presidential campaign.
John Nolte
