Lucian Lamar Sneed, Ph.D.

Dr. Lamar Sneed, says he wants to set the record straight by telling it like it is.

As president of the Georgia Chapter for the Cherokee, he says his passion for justice keeps him on the front lines of defense, protecting the Cherokee Nation and their heritage in Georgia.  He says,

Georgia has a horrific history towards Native peoples.  Georgia led the fight for the removal.  Had it not been for Georgia the other states would have worked out something. But Georgia wanted it all.  When gold was first discovered in 1828, Georgia actually sent soldiers into the Cherokee country to close up the mines, the Cherokee were working.  Keep in mind, they were not savage people, they were working mines, in fact, many of the Cherokee went to work the 1839 gold rush in California. 

Sneed says the official history books of the state don’t accurately tell the true story of what happened to the Cherokee Nation in Georgia.  So that leaves local historians such as he, to tell what really happened.

Everything I’m telling you is fully documented ….archives… orders.  It was horrific act.  Not only was it an immoral act…a terrible act…but most people don’t realize, it was an illegal act.

Georgia passed one of their horrific laws that no white man could reside within the Cherokee Nation without written permission from the state of Georgia.  Well now Samuel Wooster was a Christian missionary, and he so stated, that the only permission he needed was from God Himself.  That’s who he worked for and the Cherokee people.  They invited him to be there.  He certainly didn’t need a permit from the state of Georgia to carry out his missionary activities. So he would not apply for it.

But Sneed says, Georgia would not take no for an answer and immediately sent in state militia to arrest Wooster.  He was then taken out of the jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation to Gwinnett County to await trial with his two assistants for treason. He says,   

So he was actually tried and his two assistants in Lawrenceville, Georgia and give four years at hard labor by the state of Georgia.  He served about a year and his friends included Webster and whatever intervened on his behalf to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ordered Georgia to turn him loose, it was totally an illegal act on their part, they had no jurisdiction over the Cherokee, much less, requiring Wooster to have a permit.  They ruled it totally unconstitutional and ordered Georgia to turn him loose. 

But it was not until six months after the Supreme Court ordered Wooster’s immediate release that he was set free.

It wasn’t until a later Supreme Court case in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia, that the Cherokee people were not under the jurisdiction of Georgia state laws and became a sovereign Nation.

Sneed says history reflects another poor decision being made on behalf of the United States by president Andrew Jackson. 

“And I want you to liken what I’m about to tell you to the 1960’s or the 1970’s during the civil rights act, dealing with African Americans, or any minority people, but especially black people.  Andrew Jackson sent word over to the U.S. Supreme Court, “I received your order…I’m fully aware of your decision regarding the Cherokee Nation vs. the State of Georgia, but if you’ve got an army, you send an army down to the state of Georgia and enforce the decision you just made. ‘Because I have an army of my own and I’m going to send my army down and remove the people.

 Now can you imagine the hell that would break loose in the 60’s if Johnson or any of those people had said, when the Supreme Court had ruled Brown vs. Board of Education,  …that separate but equal was un-constitutional, that a president would say, “I’m not going to.” That’s basically what he said. I’m going to do what I want to do.  So it was immoral, but totally illegal.  Contrary to the decisions of the Supreme Court.”

As the final decision of President Andrew Jackson was carried out many innocent men, women, and children from the Cherokee Nation suffered untimely deaths, between their time in the removal forts and ultimate journey across the southern “Trail of Tears” to Oklahoma.  Sneed says,

“About 20 thousand people…about 19 were removed, seven thousand died, that’s more than one-third of an entire nation was wiped out due to the brutality of the U.S. government against the Cherokee people.  Now you can multiply that, I’m speaking purely for the Cherokee people… it happen to the Creeks…it happen to Seminoles…some Choctaw’s were involved, so when you look across the board at all the southern tribes it was a horrific act.”

Also, he says, the land area that was thought to be too small to inhabit the small population of the Cherokee Nation, today, occupies even greater numbers of residents. He says,

Forsythe county is one of the fastest growing counties in the United States, we’ve got new subdivisions in this county that’s got 19 thousand people.  Just in this county!  So to say that four southern states didn’t have room for 19 thousand, when we have subdivisions that have 19 thousand in them.  And still have plenty of room to build a lot more.

History proves, Sneed says, it’s all about following the money trail.

“To show it that it’s all about money…I give lectures to grammar schools to colleges, to civil organizations… It’s amazing how ignorant the American people are in relation to Native Americans and their history and the part they have played in the history of this country and the part they are playing today.”

Sadly… Sneed says, even today most of the knowledge people have about Native Americans comes from the 1950-B western movies.   He says,

“Where wagons are going west…and all of a sudden savages on horseback are coming and attacking the wagon train and we must circle the wagons to protect the women and children against the savages…well that’s Hollywood, but that is just not the truth. They live in houses…they have bathrooms…they drive cars…they wear shoes, believe it or not…clothes…”

Although Sneed is encouraged by the number of schools that invite him to hold lectures, he says most often the majority of his time is spent dispelling the myths and stereotypes of Native Americans.  He says,

 “So there again, all the western Indians lived in T-P’s so people thought that all Indians lived in them.  See they saw one picture and they thought they knew everything that there is to know about Native Americans and their cultures, even though there were 500 different languages and probably 500 different cultures involved.

In fact, the Tee Pee was very utilitarian for Plains Indians because they were followers of the herd.  They followed the buffalo. And as the herds moved they had to have a portable house that they could break down, because they were not farmers, they were basically meat eaters.  And they lived from the hides of the buffalo, so they couldn’t have a permanent log structure like the Cherokees or the Eastern Woodland Indians could have, so that was totally unique. 

If you go into the other western tribes and the Pueblo’s of the southwestern United States, they were actually adobe type buildings because they were permanent.  Again on into the north settlement you had only the Plains Indians that had Tee Pees but nevertheless, that’s what people think.”

And he says, often what most people think about the Cherokee and other Native cultures have nothing to do with the reality of their past or current living conditions of today.

“Times move on and the Native American peoples are capable of moving on like everybody else.  We are lawyers…we are doctors…we are airline pilots…we are congressmen…you name it.  You probably got one living next door to you.  That’s the thing. But if you don’t look like one, and you don’t dress like one…and you don’t have a Tee Pee in your front yard then you must not be Indian.  So this is one of the things, I personally, as a Cherokee historian, am trying to destroy stereotypes…myths as it were.”

In 1993, the Georgia General Assembly passed a recognition bill entitled, “Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee”, Sneed says that this too, is incorrect. He says, there is no Cherokee tribe in Georgia, only a state registry of all Cherokee descendants that want to be recognized for their Native American heritage. 

“We are not going to hide from it anymore, because Georgia’s laws again, were so bad in the 1800’s that at the time…just prior to the removal, no Indians could own lands, no Indian was a competent witness against a white person in a court…and by the way, that was not removed until the 1990’s, so many people who had Cherokee Indian ancestry, denied it. Many ridiculous stories had to be made up to hide the complexion, the color of the hair, whatever…to be accepted in American society.  Because otherwise, you were…in fact, the Native Americans, as original inhabitants of this country, uniformly were not given the right to vote until 1927.   They were not even recognized as citizens of this country.”

In fact, according to Georgia law, state recognition of citizenship was not given to peoples of Native descent until 1947.  

But correcting the history books isn’t the only reason Sneed says he enjoys being a Native historian.  He says wanting to accurately preserve his Cherokee heritage is at the heart of why he continues to speak out and lecture. He says,

“I am a little over one-quarter Cherokee.  My grandmother was proud of who she was and she would tell me the stories and the histories of the peoples.  She wetted my appetite, and ever since I could read a book, I have read everything and studied everything I can…and not just about Cherokee people, but that’s who my people are, but about all Native American peoples. 

For instance, the Pueblo buildings in Chaco Canyon, some of the most magnificent pieces of architecture we have ever seen.  One building has 650 rooms. That staggers anybody’s imagination. Circular buildings, three-four-five stories, many of them had running water, inside restroom facilities…thousands of years ago and of course, we go into South America, and the Inca’s the Mayans, the Aztecs, the most beautiful cities the world has ever seen.  There architecture…in fact, Mexico City still uses water piped from the mountains, that was built by the Aztecs through culverts and they are earthquake proof.”

Sneed says, this is proof positive for him that all of civilization can learn from the Native cultures of the past and present and benefit from their accomplishments and contributions to the societies in which they live.  He says,

“The Native Americans were some of the most intelligent people… first of all; the concept of zero was invented by the Mayan Indians.  Now think about mathematics.  Without zero, you remember we went to school as children, learned the Roman numerals, and to put 100 or 300 on you had to put XX0, whatever.  But the concept of zero, where you just add a zero after one, it would be 10, and for a hundred two zeros…this was invented by the Mayans way before anybody else. They were terrific mathematicians.  They were great astrologers, all the Native American peoples were.”

But Sneed says, in order for all Native Americans to be recognized for their contributions and achievements the United States government and its states would have to admit they committed many, many wrongs. 

“Because, America was populated by a term “Manifest destiny”. And basically the interpretation of “manifest destiny” is, “if God didn’t intend it to be…we would not be able to take over this country. So it is our destiny, as given by God. That was the concept that was used in this country to be able to take over this whole country and move people.  Treat them, not even citizens, but I mean, less than savages.”

Still today, Sneed says, the poorest in the country are the American Natives.

“You don’t hear very many advocates for the Native Americans…I’m one, because, I have some blood that tells me that someone needs to reach out and tell this story.  But you don’t hear of the Jimmy Carter’s building the habitat for humanity on any Indian reservations. Only on inner cities were the votes are. Or General Motors putting in an assembly plant on a small  Indian reservation, so that they can create jobs, for Native Americans, you never hear that, because it doesn’t happen.”

Although some major non-profit organizations and corporations are not paving the way to economic growth among the Cherokee, and other Native tribes, Sneed says, there is one that is lending a helping hand by partnering with the Eastern Band of Cherokee in North Carolina. He says,

“Harrah’s is a casino operation.  There are many casino operations out there. Let me just speak for the Cherokee people, in Cherokee, N.C., “very poor”, prior to that coming in…It’s amazing how you can see how wealth affects people.  You know many Christian’s will say, that wealth is the root of all evil.  No, I don’t think so.  I think the misuse of wealth can be harmful. If money is used for a good cause…it is appropriate for the people.

It has raised the standard of living.  You see housing…private homes…better cars…more entrepreneurs…business now operating, because they get a per capita share of the earnings from the casino.  Many of those people probably have never been in that casino, but they get their per capita distribution.  So its been a boom to the Cherokee in North Carolina.”

Although the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation is seeing some benefits from local casinos and new land development, Sneed says, the Nation’s original homeland in Georgia, still has a long way to go. 

“Georgia was the heart of the Cherokee Nation prior to the removal and many thousands of descendants such as myself, still remain in the state of Georgia, but Georgia has done nothing.

Georgia has never invested a dime in buying land to preserve the Native American History.  We’ve got the Vann House in Chatsworth…that belonged to James Vann, an area chief of the Cherokee Nation, that again was bought by the local historical society and turned over to the state, so these are places to visit but they are not really for the purpose of recognizing Georgia’s Cherokee Culture.”

The proper way to recognize Georgia’s Cherokee Culture, Sneed says, would be to have a  central museum in north Georgia that would tell story of the Cherokee people and their advances.  This he says, would be a positive step in the preservation of protecting the priceless artifacts and historic sites that are disappearing with new development every day.