Blood types of the Cherokee Indians

This is a report and interpretation of the inherited blood types in the eastern band of Cherokee Indians residing on their reservation in the western part of North Carolina. Its significance rests on the fact that few studies are available of American Indians from the southeastern part of the United States. The Cherokee, an Iroquois-speaking tribe, once occupied land in what is now eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia and Alabama, and the western Carolinas. Increasing pressure from the white colonists created friction, with gradual diminution of Indian territory. At the time of first contact with English settlers in the mid-seventeenth century, they numbered 22,000 (Swanton, '46). The census report for 1835 lists 16,542 Cherokee Indians, plus 1592 Negro slaves, and 201 Whites who had intermarried with the Indians (Rights, '57). In 1838 most of the tribe were forcibly removed to Oklahoma. Several hundred who hid in the hills escaped deportation and became the ancestors of the present-day Indians on the North Carolina reservation. The 1960 population was 4,494 which includes all persons 1/32 Indian or more (Sneed, '61). A study of the physical anthropology of the Eastern Cherokee, made by Kelly in 1928 (Gilbert, '43), describes both dolichoand brachycephalic skulls, stature as middle to tall, body build as thin, delicate, and slender in both sexes, and complexion as light for Indians. Admixture with Scotch, Scotch-Irish, English, and Germans is reported, but Negro admixture was considered negligible among this eastern band of Cherokees. Only the ABO blood groups have been reported on the eastern Cherokee (Snyder, '26). Of 250, 74.4% were in group 0, 16.0% A, 7.2% B, and 2.4% AB. Among 110 considered full-blooded, 93.6% were group 0.