When I was growing up my mom told me my dad’s mother (Evelyn Horn) was full-blooded Cherokee, so I was 1/4. I had no reason to doubt it. We all lived with Grandma for awhile when I was a baby, so Mom knew the family story first-hand. When I was 15, I met my dad. He had a very different story: his mother was half (or quarter) Shoshoni and half Lakota. Then, I quickly found out other relatives had other stories. Lots of debate, discussion, and confusion over it. Depending who I talked to we were really Cherokee, really Shoshoni, really Lakota, or really Pawnee.
What happened to create so much confusion? I’ve poked and prodded and questioned now for more than 50 years. I’m pretty sure I know the answer. It’s not going to please anyone.
The short answer is Grandma’s grandmother (Rachel Roberson) was adopted from an unknown mixed race family on the Nemaha Half Breed Reservation in southeastern Nebraska, just across the Missouri River from Rock Port, Missouri, where her adoptive parents lived. That is, Rachel was a daughter or granddaughter of a French fur trapper and a woman of one of the various Nemaha tribes (Oto, Missosuri, Iowa, Omaha, Yankton, and Santee). There’s no way to know which tribe and no way to calculate her blood quantum. She might not have known herself. Thus the confusion among her descendants.
I’m also leaving open another possibility. The northern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail was at nearby Independence, Missouri. Almost any tribe of western Indian could have been present there, but primarily the tribes along the trail: the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, Arapaho, Osage, Kansas (Kaw), Pawnee, Jicarilla Apache, Ute, and Pueblo Indians.
My dad was a colorful character, a huge fan of Western history in general and a living history re-enactor of the fur trapping period of the Old West. He had many colorful stories and tall tales. I learned over time he didn’t make up stories out of the whole cloth. Rather, he tended to embroider the facts as he knew them to “improve the story.”
Dad invested heavily in his Indian identity. In the early 1970s he was a protégé of Pete Catches (Petaga Yuha Mani), a Lakota holy man (wicasa wakan). Dad and “Uncle Pete” became blood brothers (hunka),[1] Dad received the Lakota nameTate Wakpa Wanbli (Wind River Eagle), and eventually became a medicine man (pejuta wicasa) in 1982.[2]
In the late 1970s my dad was working on getting a Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (CDIB). He got it, he said, and enrolled as a member at Pine Ridge. I haven’t been able to verify that. No one in the family remembers, not even my (former) step-mother Carolyn. For privacy reasons, the Bureau of Indian Affairs won’t give me any information. And, Pine Ridge won’t give me any information unlesss I can tell them my dad’s CDIB number. Stalemate.
In 1973 my dad sent me some genealogy information. Nicely drawn charts and notes he made when talking to Grandma. In this version, Grandma’s dad was Shoshoni and her mom was Lakota. I don’t think so. The family stories seem to agree Grandma had one Indian grandmother. That is, she was 1/4 not full Indian.
Which Ancestor?
I don’t doubt we have Indian ancestry. The family stories from cousins and distant cousins on my grandmother’s side all agree on that. The physical appearance of the earlier generations supports the tradition (straight black hair, sometimes blue-black, high cheekbones, and darker skin). Further, my grandfather’s second wife disliked his children by his first wife (Grandma), calling them “dirty half-breeds.” And finally, the DNA results of the my dad’s generation support some percentage of Indian ancestry four or five generations back.
It’s the details my relatives disagree about. There are two overlapping problems here: which ancestor or ancestors were Indian, and to what tribe or tribes did they belong?
There are two different ideas going around. Some of us think our Indian heritage comes from Grandma’s father George Horn, and some of us think it comes from Grandma’s mother, Myrtle Quillen.
I think the names might have something to do with the confusion. Grandma’s parents were George Rufus Redmond Horn (1876-1969) and Myrtle Louise Quillen (1885-1956). Her four grandparents were William Steven Horne (1831-1896), Rachel Jane Roberson (1847-1932), James Robert Quillen (1853-1940), and Clara Easle Weight (1869-1940). Some of these names can be easily twisted to imply some kind of Indian-ness. Clara Weight is a good example. Her name was Clara Easle Weight or Clara Etta Weight. My dad turned her into “Clara Eagle Waits.” And he turned his grandfather George Rufus Redmond Horn into “George Rufus Redman Horn.
We can rule out the family of James and Clara (Weight) Quillen. They can be easily traced in the records back to Pennsylvania. Clara’s ancestors were German-American. Pictures of her show it. Not even remotely Indian. Moreover, except for our branch, none of our Quillen cousins have any tradition of Indian ancestry, nor do their DNA results show any signs of it.
It seems fairly certain our Indian ancestry, and the stories around it, came from Rachel (Roberson) Horne (1847-1932). It’s her descendants who have the tradition of Indian ancestry and who squabble about it. Even so, we know from DNA testing Rachel was not full Indian. The mtDNA of her maternal line descendants shows she belonged to haplogroup J1cb, a European group.
My half-sister Nevada wasn’t quite sure who Grandma’s Indian ancestor might have been; only that one of Grandma’s grandmothers was Indian. Nevada thought it was more likely that it was Myrtle’s mother (Clara Weight). At Uncle Warren’s 1993 anniversary celebration, Aunt Fern told me that she thought the Indian blood was from Grandma’s mother and was surprised to hear I thought it came from Grandma’s father.
Rachel’s life is interesting. She was the only child of Rufus Morgan Roberson (1811-1897) and his wife Elizabeth Lomax (1814-1895), early settlers of Platte County, Missouri. Rufus might have belonged to a family of Melungeon Robinsons in Lee County, Virginia, perhaps a grandson of Charity (Kennedy) Robinson, who was mixed race. And, Elizabeth Lomax’s mother Betty Jane is commonly thought to have been Cherokee, or something similar, maybe Choctaw. One researcher suggested to me many years ago she might have been an Indian bride her husband brought back after he did a stint as a teamster on the Santa Fe Trail.
However, it seems Rachel was not the biological daughter of her parents. Family tradition said she was sold by her parents. The Robersons bought her as a baby.[3] Circumstantial evidence supports the tradition. The Robersons seems to have been a childless couple, unable to have children. The Robersons had a slave Hannah, who was the same age as Rachel. When Hannah died at age 12, the Robersons buried her in the family plot. That would have been highly unusual. It suggests she was treated as family, perhaps as a companion to Rachel, rather than as a laborer. I think the relationship with Hannah makes it more likely the Robersons also purchased Rachel.
And, if the Robersons purchased Rachel, it seems very likely she was not White. In fact, there would be a fairly good chance she came from an Indian family across the river on the Half Breed Reservation. This would make both family stories true. Rachel could have been the adopted daughter of a Cherokee family, and at the same time a biological daughter of one of the Nemaha tribes.
Which Tribe?
Cherokee?
Grandma thought her family was Cherokee. I asked her about it one year at Pow Wow in Denver. She said she always thought they Pawnee. Her parents lived in a part of Nebraska where that would have made sense. But, she found out the Cherokees owned slaves. Her ancestors back in Missouri owned slaves before the Civil War, so she decided her family must be Cherokee. My cousin Melody tells me she heard from Grandma our Indian ancestry is Cherokee.
I don’t think they were Cherokee, although Rachel’s (adoptive) parents might have had some Cherokee ancestry (see above). That relationship might have complicated the family tradition and might explain why some descendants believe in a Cherokee origin.
I think one of the strongest arguments against our Cherokee ancestry is that William and Rachel Horne lived in Oklahoma during the Dawes Roll registration craze. They were dirt poor but never applied.
Another cousin, Marvin, a grandson of my grandmother’s sister Edna, doesn’t see any reason for dispute and no reason to keep looking. In his world, our ancestors were Cherokee, they came on the Trail of Tears in 1838-39, no more discussion, end of subject. Marvin seems to accept the idea our Indian ancestry traces back to the Robersons but overlooks the fact they came to Platte County, Missouri about the same time as the Trail of Tears but nowhere close to it. Couldn’t have been the Hornes. They were still in Georgia for another 25 years.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that one of my cousins (Cheryl) applied and was accepted a Cherokee citizen. I don’t know if that’s true, but if so it’s a mistake. Our ancestor William Steven Horne is easy to confuse with the prominent Cherokee Horn family descended from Rev. Jeremiah Horn, a white man who married into the Hicks family.
Shoshoni?
My half sister Nevada said from talking to Dad, she believed our Indian blood is Shoshoni. That’s what she heard all the time she was growing up. In the promotional literature for his career as an artist, my dad often said his grandfather was “full-blood Shoshoni.” In private conversations with me, Dad sometimes pulled back to “one-half Shoshoni.” This suggests to me he thought Rachel (Roberson) Horn was Shoshoni. I think this likely to have been his original story. He might have chosen Shoshoni from among the competing traditions specifically because the Shoshoni were indigenous to Wyoming.
When my dad received his Lakota name from Uncle Pete, it was “Wind River Eagle.” Almost certainly an allusion to the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, a joint reservation of the Eastern Shoshoni and Northern Arapahoe. The family story is this name was Uncle Pete’s inspiration and gift. However, my mother remembered him using that name when they were married back in the 1950s, long before he met Uncle Pete. I think we can safely say Uncle Pete gave Dad the name he wanted.
Lakota?
I’m not sure when my dad came up with the idea we might also be part Lakota. I suspect it migh have been a late development, based on his association with Pete Catches. Initially, my dad attributed our Lakota ancestry to the Quillens. I wasted quite a bit of time as a teenage genealogist trying to figure out how James Quillen from Pittsburgh might have been a Lakota child sent to boarding school in Pennsylvania. Later, he seems to have shifted the story to Rachel Roberson.
My dad had the idea we are somehow biologically related to Uncle Pete. When I asked, Dad didn’t remember the details. He implied his hunka relationship with Pete was much more important and meaningful than any blood relationship.
After Dad died, I found a clipping among his photos. It shows an Indian boy in fancy dance costume. On the back, my dad had written “This is Rachel Horn’s sister’s grandson.” I can’t be sure, but I think the clipping must have come from an old magazine, maybe Life or Look. And, I think the boy in the picture is likely to be Uncle Pete’s son, Peter Catches, Jr. If so, my dad’s claim seems to have been that Rachel (Roberson) Horn had a sister (who is otherwise unknown) who married into the Catches family. I don’t think the dating would work for Pete Jr. (1955-2018) to be literally a grandson of that unknown sister. Peter’s grandmother’s were born in 1868 and 1918 compared to Rachel in 1847. We’d need to go back at least one more generation.
I’ve played with the idea the the unknown sister might have been White Woman, the wife of James Catches (1860-?), but that would make her a great aunt by marriage (at best).
Conclusion
I’ve presented a lot of confusing family information and lore here, but I hope it’s enough for future researchers to get the lay of the land. Everything points to my grandmother’ father George Horn as the source of her Indian ancestry, and I think I’ve shown it was probably through his mother, Rachel (Roberson) Horne, although some relatives believe it was through both her parents. Grandma was probably conventionally thought to be 1/4 Indian, not full, and that seems to have been her own understanding of it.
As I said in the beginning, I don’t think anyone will be happy with my analysis and conclusions, but I offer this information for the benefit of future researchers, in the hope one day they’ll be able to take it further than I have.
A Note on Terminology
I use the word Indian rather than the now fashionable term Native American. Why is that? It’s because that’s the term my Indian friends and relatives use. They’re not as bothered by political correctness. Yes, the word Indian oringates from a mistake made by Ol’ Chris Columbus. But it’s clear. On the other hand, using the term Native American just drags everyone into a brawl about whether everyone born on this continent counts as a “native.” To my way of thinking, one is clear and concise. The other is overly broad.
Notes
- “Blood brother” is not a good translation of hunka. I use it here for clarity and convenience. A closer translation might be “they made themselves relatives.”
- I later had my own initiation ceremony and received the name Kangi Okiye (“Ravens Help Him” or more loosely “Helped By Ravens” or “Ravens Help”). My dad was a bit disappointed. He wanted it to be “Eagle (something).”
- I’ve joked from time to time we don’t actually know from the tradition her Roberson parents didn’t sell Rachel to the disabled Union veteran William Horne because he couldn’t get a wife any other way. I report this joke of mine only so someone in the future doesn’t come back with this as an authoritative traditon, citing me as a source.
More Information
- Cal Community Content Channel. From Blood to DNA, From “Tribe” to “Race”: Science, Whiteness & Property, YouTube video, November 4, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXScGwnX-1A.
- Dina Gilio-Whitaker. Who Gets to Be Indian: Ethnic Fraud, Disenrollment, and Other Difficult Conversations about Native American Identity. Beacon Press, 2025.
- Smithsonian Channel, Quantum Leap: Does “Indian Blood” Still Matter?, YouTube video, September 16, 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgJJzTFwdfA.
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Revised Sept. 6, 2026