The Spirit Lives On

Keeping the Cherokee Nation alive is work of tradition.

“The Mexican constitution has always been tolerant of different races, and on August 4, 2001 they changed it so that now the indigenous people in Mexico can have their own land.”
Charles Layton Rogers

To meet the Rogers family, few would think they are anything other than average Anglo Saxons.

However, as they would be more than happy to tell visitors, they are proud members of the Cherokee Nation of Mexico.

Charles Dayton Rogers is a licensed oncologist in Mexico, but he is also the chief of CNM under the Cherokee name Johlothi, or “kingfisher.”

Both he and his wife Sharon, whose Indian name is Kamma (“Butterfly”) - have Cherokee ancestry. They felt the best way to acknowledge their shared past was to help validate their ancestors.

CHEROKEE NATION OF MEXICO

“I had always known that my mother’s family had been part Cherokee on both her father and her mother’s side, and Charles had known that his family was Cherokee,” Sharon said.

“We’ve always known it because it was told in our family,” Rogers said.

“That’s what started us off on the whole quest,” Sharon said.

Rogers began by uncovering the identity of his great grandmother, Mary Price; a Cherokee woman who married an Anglo man named Charlie Layton in 1888.

He then went on to look for the burial place of Sequoyah, the man responsible for creating a written form of the Cherokee language.

“No one knew exactly where it was,” Sharon said. “It took him a long time, about two years of dead ends and false starts before he happened upon it.”

After two and a half years of searching for the tomb, the Rogers family found a family in Zaragosa, Mexico, in the state of Coahuila, After meeting them, the family in Mexico invited the Rogers family to a cave where their son made an important discovery.

The 14 year old George Charles Sherson Rogers, now baring the child name of Soloile (“Squirrel”) discovered some distinctive markings that are believed to have been made by Sequoyah or one of Sequoyah’s descendents.

Rogers petitioned the Mexican government for recognition of the descendents of the Cherokee who came to Mexico as an official nation.

“The Mexican constitution has always been tolerant of different races, and on August 4, 2001 they changed it so that now the indigenous people in Mexico can have their own land,” Roger s said. “They can have their own form of government, but they can’t raise an army or anything ridiculous like that.”

Coahuila Governor Enrique Martinez y Martinez and Mexican President Vincent Fox had Rogers‘ claims investigated, and after consideration, agreed to the request.

With Mexico’s recognition, Rogers helped officially form CNM with other descendents and is now chief of that group.

He said that historically, Mexican acceptance is very important to the Cherokee.

CHEROKEE HISTORY

While the history of the Cherokee people goes back many centuries, Roger s traces the history of the Cherokee in Mexico to 1818.

He explained that 850 Cherokee came to Mexico at that time to negotiate for peace and rights to their own land. At the same time, the Mexican war for independence was raging and Steven F. Austin was petitioning on behalf of the Anglo settlers in Texas.

“The Mexican Government allotted the Cherokees 600,000 acres,” Rogers said.

Three years after the Texas Revolution, the government attempted to relocate the Cherokee. Leading the Cherokee was Chief Bowls, who presented papers showing the deed recognized by Mexico and a letter from the attorney general of the Republic of Texas stating that .it would be unlawful to take Cherokee land.

“The military went out there and said ‘you have to go.’” Rogers explained. “When the Cherokee said ‘no’ the military started killing them.”

He said the surviving Cherokee scattered. Some joined with other Indian groups in the Trail of Tears, and others sought freedom in Mexico where they joined the fight against the United States.

The Cherokee in Mexico were granted political amnesty and were allowed to settle near what is today Zaragosa, Mexico.

Sequoyah was sent to retrieve the lost Cherokee, Rogers claims, but rather than send them home, Sequoyah told the Cherokee to remain in Mexico as free men.

He added that when Sequoyah fell ill on his return to the United States, he took refuge in the cave near Zaragosa that became his tomb.

Julia Coates, a history instructor with the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma agrees with much of Rogers’ interpretation of history, but said. that the final fate of Sequoyah described by Rogers is not fully recognized by historians.

“There are people who claim to have found his burial place ... but it‘s never been verified,” Coates said.

She noted that Deputy Chief Hastings Shade, the Cherokee Nation equivalent of a vice president and a descendent of Sequoyah, once traveled to one such site, but .failed to find confirmation.

“Oral tradition is hard to document or correct,” Coates said.

CHEROKEE RELATIONS

While CNM was officially recognized by the government of Mexico in August 2001, the U.S. government and nations recognized by the government are hesitant to recognize CNM. “There have been a lot of groups and communities that have left the Cherokee nation over the centuries but they have never claimed to be new governments,” Coates said. “There are, at last count, somewhere between 200 and 250 organizations of various kinds who claim Cherokee heritage.”

She said that some groups are seeking federal recognition so they can take advantage of the benefits and resources of the government, something that is very hard to achieve.

Currently CNM has approximately 250 members and owns 150 acres of land. Rogers noted, however, that CNM recognizes 1,000’s of other Cherokee that are unrecognized in the United States and that CNM is looking into possibly purchasing another 10,000 acres in the Sierra Madre region of Mexico.

“There are hundreds of other groups of people that may have Cherokee ancestry that get together as groups, but there is a very significant difference between a group and a nation”, said Mike Miller, communications coordinator for CNO.

“The people that gave us the .right to use that name were the Mexicans,” Rogers said. “In Mexico, if you are a nation you are not every past being governed by the Mexican constitution ... but we are exempt from taxes and we can run our own domestic government as we choose.”

One thing both Cherokee nations can agree on is the concept of tolerance. “The traditional Cherokees took in all kinds of people from any group of tribe and considered them the same as Cherokee” Rogers said. “That’s what made them such a powerful nation, they accepted them not only by their blood, but by their heart.”

“If you feel in your heart that your grand mother told you that you were Cherokee, that is good enough for us,” Sharon said of CNM. “I’m not disputing anybody’s grandmother.”

“The (Cherokee) republic of the 1800’s was a multi-cultural, multi-racial republic,” Coates said. “We had intermarried whites, after the Civil War we had freedmen and we had members of other tribes that were members of the Cherokee Nation.” “The Cherokee Nation is willing to accept people’s claims to Cherokee ancestry without digging into each person’s family tree,” Miller said. “But the line that we draw there is: does any group of people with common ancestry have a right to have a government and a nation. ... Somehow with Indian groups that line gets blurred.”

Coates said that Cherokees that lived outside of the traditional boundaries designated by the government, such as lands in Mexico, are not recognized as Cherokee citizens even though they are ethnically Cherokee.

“I think that Dr. Rogers is a good man, having met him, and I don’t doubt his sincerity, but on philosophical reasons we disagree on how one gets proclaimed a nation,” Miller said.

“The Cherokee Nation has always been an inclusive nation, but there are some solid differences between the Cherokee Nation of Mexico and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma,” he added.

“The Cherokee Nation is a governmental entity that has dealt with the United States and Great Britain back to 1821, and that today still has governmental and historical rights.”

“We’re recognized by the republic of Mexico and that is okay by us,” Rogers said.