Most histories of the Cherokee nation focus on its encounters with Europeans, its conflicts with the U. S. government and its expulsion from its lands during the Trail of Tears. This work, however, traces the origins of the Cherokee people to the third century B.C.E. and follows their migrations through the Americas to their homeland in the lower Appalachian Mountains. Using a combination of DNA analysis, historical research and classical philology, it uncovers the Jewish and EasTen years in the making, this new history of the Cherokee Indians will make you rethink everything you thought you “knew” about them. Order your copy today!
“Donald Yates burst onto the scene clarifying Melungeons and went on to explain many more peoples and their history via pioneering researches in DNA. Oklahomans have long recognized the passion for excellence of gifted Cherokee. As an Oklahoman I fully acknowledge that tradition and as a North Carolinian have been dismayed that this state does not equally celebrate it, as inevitably it will. Yates’ momentous book surely will have numerous noteworthy successors. I certainly endorse his work, on which future progress in understanding America’s complex ethnic history heavily depends.”
–Cyclone Covey, Professor Emeritus, Department of History, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C.tern Mediterranean ancestry of the Cherokee and reveals that they originally spoke Greek before adopting the Iroquoian language of their Haudenosaunee allies while the two nations dwelt together in the Ohio Valley.
Listen to the audiobook narrated by Jack Chekijian.
Richard Mack Bettis was born in Oklahoma near the Spiro Mounds Complex, one of the largest and most significant archeological sites in the Mississippi valley. Both his mother and father were one-quarter blood quantum Cherokees from Indian Territory. He earned a J.D. degree from Oklahoma City University Law School and has lived in Tulsa on the borderline of the former Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma since 1955. As an administrative lawyer he served as labor relations officer, EEO investigator for the Interior Department and member of the Oklahoma State Board of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. The governor appointed Bettis one of the original members of the Oklahoma State Indian Historical Society. He was also elected member of the City-County Indian Affairs Commission. As a prominent voice in Indian cultural and legal affairs, Bettis has known many of the leaders of Cherokee government, including chiefs W. W. Keeler, Ross Swimmer and Wilma Mankiller. Bettis wrote the introduction to Charles C. Royce’s The Cherokee Nation of Indians and James Mooney’s Historical Sketch of the Cherokee, important Cherokee histories published in the Native American Library of the Smithsonian Institution under the editorial direction of Herman J. Viola of the National Anthropological Archives in 1975.
Donald N. Yates
Price: $45.00
Paperback: 217 pages
Publisher: McFarland & Company (July 11, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0786469560
ISBN-13: 978-0786469567
Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 0.8 x 10.2 inches
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From Western Words: New Book Releases from July 31, 2012
Almost everything we know, or are taught, of Native American culture dates from the time when the first European explorers and settlers arrived in the new world. But how many books begin their research in the third century B.C.E., with a claim that the original language of the Cherokee was Greek? Genealogist Donald Yates traces the origins of the Cherokee to an era when their ancestry was formed from Jewish and Eastern Mediterranean roots. For ancient history buffs, it’s a fascinating story. Published July 11, 2012
Engrossing Speculations and Well-Researched History
Donald Yates’ array of hints, clues, and evidence for Mediterranean and Middle Eastern settlement in the Americas many centuries before Columbus is quite engrossing. Some scenarios he proposes appear more than possible to me. In keeping with the saying that the victors write the history, the version of American history we’re taught as children — of an empty wilderness awaiting discovery and settlement by the British — seems yet another example of the British erasure of any populations that might have registered a prior claim to that territory. Yates writes with eloquence and erudition, and his well-researched speculations about the origins of the “civilized tribes” of the southeastern United States will intrigue readers who love ancient history or Native American lore. –Booklover
