Cherokees hammer Elizabeth Warren on ancestry claim ahead of Mass. party convention

Cornell University law professor William Jacobson has claimed that genealogical records show Warren’s great-great-great-grandfather helped the US Army round up Cherokees in the South for the Trail of Tears march to reservations in the West, a charge Warren has not addressed.

Warren has maintained that she never used the designation to further her career but simply to meet others like her. But she has given conflicting answers about whether she informed Harvard about her status, first saying she didn’t know she was listed as a minority until the Boston Herald reported it, and then this week acknowledging she did talk to people at Harvard about it after she was hired. She explained the discrepancy in her answers by saying she had misunderstood an earlier question. Warren stopped being listed as Native in law directories after she received a tenured position at Harvard.

“I don’t want to mislead in any way on this,” Warren told the Boston Globe this week, although a Globe reporter summed up her answers to questions about the tribal claims as “no more enlightening” than earlier responses. Before hanging up with the Globe reporter, Warren said “nothing happened” in reference to the law school directory.

Warren also punched back at Brown’s campaign, which has fanned the controversy, saying Brown “has worked hard to make this campaign about anything else, even my heritage, and he’s not spending time on what Massachusetts voters are concerned about.”

But while Massachusetts voters are still mulling the smoldering controversy, it has frustrated, even angered, some Cherokees nationally. While familial associations and claims of Native ancestry are common, actual tribal membership entails making legitimate family links to government “rolls” that date back to the 19th century and taking part in tribal life. By all accounts, Warren didn’t participate in Native American activities in Cambridge, although she did contribute several recipes to a cookbook called “Pow Wow Chow.”

“Many Indians have asked why, if she wanted to meet people like her, didn’t she continue to list herself in these directories … attend Native functions at Harvard [or] … reach out to hundreds of Native faculty around the country,” writes Indian Country reporter Rob Capriccioso. “Warren has now also failed to connect with American Indians through the Native media – which is sounding alarm bells for Native journalists.”

Warren’s campaign declined requests from Native reporters to interview the candidate this week even as Warren talked to the Globe and appeared on MSNBC. Indian Country quoted one Warren staffer’s email, which said, “Thanks for your request(s)! I will keep you posted. Thanks for understanding. Have a wonderful weekend.”

Brown’s campaign, meanwhile, told Native reporters that the Senator had a strong record on Native affairs, including letters he had written to the Bureau of Indian Affairs over alleged unfair treatment of the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe. Brown also has supported tribal opposition to an offshore wind farm on Nantucket Sound.

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