To answer this question, we first need to define the terms “Cherokee” and “princess.”

Firstly, who were the Cherokees? The Cherokees were an Indian tribe (or nation) originally residing in the southeast of modern USA. The U.S. Department of the Interior defines four categories of modern Cherokees, which we will review briefly in this article.

The term “princess,” as defined by Merriam-Webster, has more than one meaning. Perhaps the most obvious is in reference to a female member of a royal family. Also, in archaic terms, a woman holding sovereign political power could be called a princess. In fact, the term can be used to refer to any woman held in special esteem, even outside of royalty or politics. For example, even in modern times, celebrities such as a music star might be dubbed “princess.” Could a similar principle have applied to a distinguished Cherokee woman?

A Brief History of the Cherokees

The Cherokees were originally one tribe (or nation) living in the southeast of modern USA. During the 1830s and 1840s many were relocated by the white settlers to the area now known as the State of Oklahoma. Some Cherokees remained in the southeast and purchased land at North Carolina. Others escaped to the Appalachian Mountains.

As mentioned earlier, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) groups living Cherokees into four categories:

(1) Those who are able to prove their Cherokee origins because they (or their ancestors) are listed on the final rolls of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (Dawes Commission Rolls); the final rolls were closed and sealed in 1907

(2) Those who are enrolled on the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina (official tribe) or are eligible to enrol due to being descended from a member of the tribe

3) Those who were listed at the time of a resolution on April 19, 1949, and certified by the Superintendent of the Five Civilized Tribes Agency; also any descendants who are eligible to enrol on the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians of Oklahoma

4) All other individuals of Cherokee ancestry

Did the Cherokees have Princesses?

Some might imagine a “Cherokee princess” as a daughter of a sovereign chief, or king.

Unlike other nations, however, the Cherokees did not have one king who reigned over them. Rather, they had multiple chiefs, each chosen by the community. So their daughters were not royal princesses as such.

Cherokee chiefs could be female. A female chief, of course, would be prominent in the community. White settlers may have assumed that she was a “princess.” But it is important to bear in mind that the title ‘chief’ was not strictly hereditary.

Other Possible Origins

In the past, it was quite common to call a beloved wife “princess.” And so if a white man married a Cherokee woman, he might call her his “Cherokee princess.” A similar practice occurred with the term “rose” (eg, “my Cherokee rose”).

Although the practice of calling one’s wife “princess” was fairly popular in general, there was an added reason if the wife was Cherokee. Racial discrimination was prevalent at the time, so a white man might try to alleviate this tension by claiming that his wife was a “princess of the Cherokees,” especially if she actually did hold a prominent position in the nation. Along similar lines, a white man could be tempted to claim that his Indian wife was Cherokee, even if she was from another tribe, just because the white settlers at the time believed that the Cherokees were more civilised than the other natives.

It is also worth considering a very different origin. In the South, the term “Cherokee princess” was sometimes used as a derogatory label for African-American women of mixed race who were light-skinned. Future generations of her family may not have understood the racist connotation, and may have assumed that their great-grandmother really was a “Cherokee princess.”

So How Do You Prove That Your Ancestor Was Cherokee?

Have you asked senior family members what they remember? Have you exhausted all available written records? Would you or a relative consider taking a DNA test?

The most accurate DNA tests for finding one’s ethnicity are the Y-DNA (male-line, father-to-son) and the mtDNA (maternal line, mother-to-daughter). Alternatively, you could try an autosomal DNA test to see your DNA results on all branches of your ancestry, however the accuracy varies between tests. Always do the research before choosing a test. Note that an ethnicity test looks at your ethnicity, not at the names and titles of specific ancestors.

So, if you know that your ancestor was in fact a prominent Cherokee woman, can we call her a “Cherokee princess”? As we saw earlier, the dictionary provides multiple meanings of the word “princess,” allowing for some flexibility here. But as the Cherokees did not have sovereign kings, the daughters of chiefs were not royal princesses.