My great great grandmother, Eva Ferguson, was with her mother, sister and father (who was a white man) when the came from NC. Her mother was Cherokee and they all came to Missouri on the Trail of Tears. Mother died on the trail, father and sister we have no idea what happened to them, but my great great grandmother was “adopted” by a family where I was born and raised in Missouri. I would love to find out if the sister went to Oklahoma??
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The Trail of Tears did not go to Missouri. This was a specific event that began in 1838 and was over by 1839. The end of the trail was Indian Territory, or what is not Oklahoma. There was only a small group of Cherokees that ever settled in extreme southeast Missouri and they moved out of the state following the New Madrid earthquakes in 1811-12. Othewise, there were no other communities to be found in that state.
However, without more information it is impossible to narrow this Eva Ferguson down, and build an accurate tree. You may want to revise this query and include information that might give researchers a starting point. This would be name of husband/children, locations they lived, birth and death dates, etc.
The Trail of Tears did go through Missouri after they crossed the Mississippi River. We have a couple of State Parks dedicated to where the tribes came through in the Cape Girardeau, MO area. Several Cherokee come back and walk that trail in the park in remembrance. This area is about an hour north of southern Missouri where I was born and raised. My grandmother was left in an orphanage when the Cherokee stopped on their way to Oklahoma. Again, all this being told to me by older family members. Evidently my grandmother didn’t speak of what really happened to her because she was a very young girl.
We don’t even know what her real name was when she was adopted and her father and sister was not around after she was dropped off at the orphanage.
I was just hoping maybe someone remembered her name or the story I was repeating.
Right, the Trail of Tears did not go TO Missouri. Part of some trails (there were a number of routes) went THROUGH that state. This occurred 1838-39. So, these elements make this scenario very specific.
The lore of Cherokees giving away their kids or folks running off and hiding in WHITE society in that state are hugely exaggarated. Sometimes, if not most of the time, it represents fabrications used to explain unclear parentage scenarios or downplaying more socially awkward arrivals of babies in White families (e.g. unmarried mothers, rape, or sometimes used as a “pass” for Black-White biracial babies).
For a little context, there were about 16,000 Cherokees that were on the Trail, with several thousand fatalities. This would drop the number of those that survived to about 12,000+.The first phase represented the classic model that most people are familiar with, where the military was involved. This was a harsh drive under gunpoint and consequently there were extremely high fatalities. But, after that first round, the Cherokees (and others familiar with the events that had occured) protested and demanded that they conduct their own removal parties. This was allowed, and most of the parties were Cherokee-conducted at that point. There were still fatalities, but it was a lot better than under direct military pressure.
Let’s say 12,000 made it alive, total. Half would be female, or 6,000. Maybe 2/3 of the parties used the northern or water routes that went through Missouri. That drops the number to 4,000. Then we have age distribution. Let’s say 3-4% were 0-5 years old (if we assume a younger child given up for adoption and looking at historic demographic trends). We are looking at a pool of potential young Cherokee girls on the trail of tears in 1838-9, going through Missourri, to be given up for adoption, somewhere around 120. That is an extremely limited pool of ancestors that could represent the family lore scenario you are describing.
So, the timeline and sheer numbers we are talking about would make this kind of situation very, very rare. It’s not impossible, of course, and perhaps happened on a limited basis. But, I’ve been doing this kind of research for decades, and I’ve never seen this kind of scenario actually verified and confirmed.
However, I always recommend that these sort of cases be DNA tested if possible. Are there direct maternal descendants of this Eve Ferguson? Without more specific info or records, it is pretty much the only option left to explore. If she was Cherokee born about mid-1830s, to a Cherokee mother, there would be only a small chance that her mtDNA would not be A,B,C,D or X2. Female descendants (along straight maternal lines) would likely share these HGs. You may want to expand your query to include more info about this Eva Ferguson.
Thanks for your reply.
After talking to my mother more and telling her what you had explained, I asked her to be more specific with the dates, it seems my great-great grandmother couldn’t have walked the trail because she was born about 1881. Even her mother wouldn’t have been born. Now her grandmother is a different story. She very well could’ve. This story has been passed down and we don’t have anyone left in the family to ask for sure. I guess we will never know the truth for sure and with my great great grandmother coming from an orphanage, I doubt if we would be able to see her file to read about her parents. Her mother, who is of Cherokee descent, we were told, died and the father left her and her sister at the orphanage in Missouri. If there are files from that time period.
Is my great great grandmother part Cherokee?? I believe she is because of the pictures I have of her. The face features have Cherokee features. But as you said, the only way we will know is with a DNA test.
This has been an interesting talk and I hope in the future we find out more. Thank you again for your time and help. That information put a smile on my aging mother to know about her family.
If it was claimed that this ancestor was a “Cherokee who came off the Trail of tears” yet the GG grandmother and even GGG grandmother in question were born decades after that event, then it would seem the lore is highly questionable at this point.
If there are darker features in an ancestors, what about allowing for the possibility for Black-White mixing and attempting to “pass?’ This was more common than any White-Cherokee mixing along the Trail of Tears in Missouri, or adopting a handful of Cherokee babies in 1838-9. In fact, it was dramatically more common, by many orders of magnitude. Yet, it was still a taboo thing. Claiming “Indian blood” was like the social safety valve that people often went to to avoid acknowledging that Black-White mixing. It was a bit more acceptable or reasonable to explain darker features, in other words.
And I’ve noticed that while White Americans are enamored with the prospect of finding Indian blood in their backgrounds, they aren’t as eager to posit a Black ancestry, nor do they persue the theory with such vigor.
Anyway, yes, a DNA test might help. But, just bear in mind the admixture tests aren’t as accurate. DNA tests are best for establishing straight mtDNA lines of descent or relatedness (if the databases are large enough and provide those details).