Tag Archives: Cherokee

Book Review: Rebecca Nagle’s ‘By the Fire We Carry’ burns bright

Posted on November 8, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Like Rebecca Nagle, I remember that Monday morning in July, 2020, glued to my laptop, waiting for news from SCOTUSblog. My first indication of the McGirt decision was a tweet from Nagle exclaiming that Gorsuch authored the decision. That was … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Another Native mass burial site hidden in plain sight

Posted on October 20, 2024 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Last week I saw one of the largest mass burial sites in the United States. It is unmarked. The location is the fields among the rolling hills and gentle pastures just south of Charleston, Tennessee. This is where 9,032 Cherokees … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

I’m not related to Pocahontas and neither are you

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Probably. Right up there next to the my-grandma-says-I’m-descended-from-a-Cherokee-princess thing is an almost-as-farfetched American white people myth: that you’re related to Pocahontas. It’s difficult to go a month in online forums about Native ancestry without someone claiming it. So it came … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

My badass great-grandmothers and the power of Native women

Posted on January 7, 2023 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Women have always occupied positions of strength and respect across Native America. For starters, most tribes were matrilineal. This generally meant that when a couple marries, the husband moved into the woman’s town and joined her family. Her brothers, the … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Pioneers were bad guys

Posted on May 29, 2022 by Stephen Carr Hampton

One thing about “the pioneers” as we call them in the US — they were essentially white renegade militias, operating outside of US law, who sought to ethnically cleanse the land for their own acquisition. And that’s the opinion of … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Reflections of a Native birder: The one Indian killer bird name I really have trouble with

Posted on June 6, 2021 by Stephen Carr Hampton

As a citizen of Cherokee Nation and a birder for nearly fifty years, I offer these thoughts on the burgeoning discussion to re-name birds that are named after people. When people say they are used to the current bird names … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 51 Comments

Erasure, white fragility, and the verbal monuments of bird names: Should we hold people in the past accountable to present-day mores?

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Stephen Carr Hampton

When addressing historic wrongs, and especially memorials that honor people that perpetrated historic wrongs, a common challenge is: Should we be holding these people accountable according to modern values and mores? There are two big problems with this question. Almost … Continue reading →

Posted in my own thoughts | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 14th District: Where the Trail of Tears began

Posted on January 30, 2021 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s 14th District in the northwest corner of Georgia lies in the center of the lands the Cherokee Nation was forced to vacate at gunpoint during the horrific ethnic cleansing known as the Trail of Tears. Greene is … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Cherokee Nation juggles tribal sovereignty with Trumpers in a red state

Posted on January 15, 2021 by Stephen Carr Hampton

In light of its newly recognized reservation, Cherokee Nation, and all of Oklahoma’s 38 tribal nations, finds themselves in the crosshairs between tribal sovereignty and Trumpism, between protecting the environment and Big Oil. In the July 2020 McGirt decision, the … Continue reading →

Posted in news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Barr schmoozes the Cherokee: bringing Covid and taking sovereignty?

Posted on October 5, 2020 by Stephen Carr Hampton

Attorney General William Barr spent most of Wednesday, September 30, at Cherokee Nation (CN). This was Day 4 after he attended the infamous Amy Coney Barrett reception at the White House, the presumed COVID super-spreader event now known as the … Continue reading →

Posted in COVID-19, news | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments