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The “Cherokee Princess” is a well known stock figure of settler family lore in the US (and elsewhere), a vague and mythical great-great-grandmother invoked by many non-Native people to lay ancestral claim to contemporary Indigenous belonging and resources. Indeed, the Princess has become a common joke in Indian Country, serving variously to mock white claims to self-Indigenization and, more problematically, to question the legitimacy of all Cherokee people. Yet rather than a snide aside or amusing punchline to a trivial joke, this supposed ancestor—almost always centuries distant, typically unnamed, invariably isolated from her community or choosing proximity to whiteness over Indigenous relations—is a manifestly toxic figure who embodies dangerously entrenched ideas about Indigenous identity and rights. This presentation will consider the history and function of the Cherokee Princess trope in settler genealogy and broader popular culture, as well as her danger to Cherokee sovereignty, to honest and trustworthy Indigenous-settler relations, and to the social and political wellbeing of Cherokees as well as other Indigenous peoples.
This in-person event is free and open to the public. Registration is not required.