Family myth

Was great-grandmother really a Cherokee princess?

As the family tells itNo such title existed

Somewhere back on Grandma's side there was a Cherokee princess. Some versions make her the daughter of a chief; in others she married a settler and was rarely spoken of, so the details were lost. Often all that remains is her first name, a county, and a feeling in the family that this part of the story was kept quiet for a reason.

A Cherokee Nation citizen explains there were never Cherokee princesses: chiefs were chosen, not royal. A Cherokee ancestor is a real question for tribal rolls, not family memory.

There were no princesses

Orrin Lewis, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, puts it simply: there has never been such a thing as a Cherokee princess. Cherokee chiefs were not kings. They were chosen by the community, there were always several at once, such as peace chiefs and war chiefs, and a chief's daughter was closer to a mayor's or governor's daughter than to royalty. She inherited no throne.

So the word 'princess' tells you more about the people who repeated the story than about the woman herself. The rest of the story deserves a fair hearing, because the reasons it was told are real.

Why so many families tell it

Lewis offers several possible sources. Outsiders who were fascinated by royalty may have turned 'chief's daughter' or 'daughter of a prominent family' into 'princess'. A respected woman, such as a Beloved Woman honored by the council, may have been described the same way. 'Princess' was also a common term of endearment in the early 1900s, so a husband may simply have called his wife his Cherokee princess.

Some explanations are harder. A man who married a Native woman sometimes faced hostility from his family and neighbors, and calling her a princess could make the marriage easier to accept. Lewis also notes that many men described Native wives as Cherokee when they belonged to another nation, and that in parts of the South the phrase 'Indian princess' or 'Cherokee princess' was sometimes used for light-skinned women of African descent, so the ancestor may have been African American. Each of these possibilities is worth testing, and none of them is answered by the word princess.

What the records show

The Bureau of Indian Affairs describes three Cherokee tribes that enroll members today: the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians. Each decides its own membership. The Bureau keeps no database of enrolled tribal members and does no genealogy research for individuals, and it says plainly that enrollment rules are set by each tribe, not by the Bureau.

For the Cherokee Nation, citizenship rests on documents that connect a person directly to an enrolled lineal ancestor on the Dawes Rolls, the Final Rolls of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. The Dawes Commission took applications from 1898 to 1907, with a handful in 1914, and kept census cards for approved and rejected applicants alike. The cards note family members, births and deaths, and whether a person appeared on an earlier tribal roll.

Another federal record tested thousands of family stories at once. After the Court of Claims ruled for the Eastern Cherokee in 1905, Special Commissioner Guion Miller reviewed applications from people seeking a share of the award. Because there was money involved and no residency requirement, many people applied whatever their eligibility. The National Archives says the applications document over 125,000 individuals, while the court approved 30,820. Rejected applications still hold parents' and grandparents' names and places, so a great-grandparent who applied and was turned down has left you a family history in the family's own words.

The Indian Census Rolls, submitted by agents and superintendents from 1885 to 1940, list only people who kept a formal tie to a tribe under federal supervision. If your ancestor lived away from any tribe under federal supervision, she will not be on them, and that absence is information too.

How to approach the question

Start with the person, not the legend. Name the woman in the story, find her in every census and county record you can, and see what each record says about her parents and birthplace. Then look for her or her parents on the Dawes cards, the Guion Miller applications and the Indian Census Rolls. If the records point to a particular nation, contact that nation's own enrollment office, which is the only authority on its citizens. The Bureau of Indian Affairs also states that blood and DNA tests will not document descent from a specific tribe; at most, and only where the tribe accepts it, a test can show a biological relationship to a tribal member. Lewis gives one more piece of advice: when you ask Cherokee people or offices for help, leave the princess out. If the records show she was Cherokee, simply say so.

Check these records instead

Trace the woman in the story through every federal census, noting how her race and birthplace are recorded each time.
Search the Dawes Rolls and the Dawes census cards, including rejected applications, for her or her parents.
Search the Eastern Cherokee applications to the Guion Miller roll, 1906 to 1909, for any relative who applied.
Check the Indian Census Rolls, 1885 to 1940, for the reservation or agency the family is linked to.
Contact the enrollment office of the specific tribe the records point to; each tribe sets its own rules.

Record guides for this

Record guide

Dawes Rolls and enrollment records

The Dawes Rolls list people enrolled as citizens of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations from 1898 to 1914, and their cards can name parents and kin.

Record guide

Indian Census Rolls, 1885 to 1940

The Indian Census Rolls are lists that federal agents usually sent in each year from 1885 to 1940, naming the American Indians under their charge with ages and family ties.

Sources

How to cite this page

Daily Ancestor. "Was great-grandmother really a Cherokee princess?." Family myths. https://dailyancestor.com/myths/cherokee-great-grandmother. Last checked 2026-10-15.