and now, daniel blake smith recalls president andrew jackson's seizure of cherokee nation land and the cherokees' forced migration that resulted in the deaths of thousands during their journey from the southeast united states to oklahoma territory known as the trail of tears. it's about 45 minutes. ..

>> i thought what i would do this evening would be to showcase the work and hope to my reading ability to separate the very brief excerpt from the book. and hopefully you'll want to come to buy yourself. and then i will turn to general comment and then be glad to take questions. the effect, not bothering to describe, the 94 june 21, 1839, more than 100 we cherokee had met in tocaloma. it was a group of men scribble three names on the list. major ridge, john ridge and another. all three were quickly found guilty.

their crime, betraying the cherokee nation. the penalty was death. early the next morning,. [inaudible] and little rock creek near the arkansas border. certain of the justice admission they fear the retribution. and their minds finish other people not only sanction but demanded their actions. john ridge had to die. all neighbors of the party targeted the three men had sold the cherokee sacred land to cooperative with present andrew jackson to move the tried tocaloma. all the outrage, the bitter

quarrel erupted in a violent day that was nearly operatic and sweet detail. the murderous reprisals june 22, 1839, were a violent code in a haunting and powerful story of heartbreak and loss, conflict and controversy that is the trail of tears. arguably the most tragic interracial event in american history, the trail of tears has sometimes been called an american holocaust genocide. it was neither. no one wanted, let alone planned for cherokees to die. but it did dramatize on the loss of sacred land in the southeast, but also the failure of democracy and justice for an entire people. ironically the most successful civilized tribe. few stories the american press revealed in such devastating terms the consequences of unchecked greed and racial oppression. the cherokees were hardly the only indians to experience the pain and loss of forced removal.

dozens of other tribes in the united states and with similar suffering, but because of the cherokees unique accomplishments as a well-educated people, they had a written language and, thanks largely to elias boudinot and samuel wurster, set up the first indian language newspaper, the cherokee phoenix, we've come to view their anguish as emblematic for all natives or face forcible removal in the 1830s. 1827 constitution was modeled after the u.s. constitution. so in some ways the principal tragedy of the trail of tears lies in the heart wrenching treasury that the accounts of the united states. most accounts focused on is identifiable villains, victims and heroes. from the indian fighting and he checks into his land hungry southern white coconspirators, villains are easy to spot. the cherokees themselves are often depicted as hopelessly naïve in their belief that

thanks to their successful embrace of the civilized life they would be spared to the relentless determination among white leaders and settlers to take over indian lands in the southeast. center stage as the main protagonists in this traditional account is chief john ross for his lockable, tenacious struggle to save the homeland and keep the tribe together. such a narrative is accurate as far as it goes. but it doesn't go far enough. a fuller perspective on the trail of tears takes into the minds and hearts of those cherokees have fought each other just as fiercely as they took on andrew jackson of what they saw as the very soul of the cherokee people. what they were fighting over in cherokee country and beyond in the 1820s and 1830s was nothing less than what it meant to be good cherokee, a patriot, amid the critical struggle over removal. the removal crisis plunged the cherokees into profound and sometimes violent quarrel over the issue of patriotism. from the 1820s on, a series of painfully difficult questions haunted the cherokee people.

wasn't possible for cherokee to be a full session of the american nation and yet remain connected to tribal traditions ancestral land? given the obvious hunger among southern whites for indian land, should cherokees have placed their hopes on assimilation and homeland or the independence of the cherokee nation, regardless of geography? what could a patriotic cherokee decent to save his people is the only choices were clinging to a homeland the white settlers were been done over running on re-creating the nation in a distant land? if you could not say both your homeland and your people, which will mattered most, which one could you possibly surrender? and what made you the most fateful cherokee, the more loyal patriot, fighting to save your home or to save her people? those are the questions i pose in the introduction. the book goes back in time a bit to the time the washington chavez's administration and actually begins this tragic side

on a hopeful lesson. so under presidents washington and jefferson, indian policy aimed at peace and establishing a civilization program, that is remaking indians as red citizens of a white republic. hunting and for trading, the principle of the commerce push those as southeast would be replaced by a more civilized occupation of raising crops and livestock. abandonment of huge indian hunting grounds for small farming plots we free up enormous tracts of indian land, land at whites clearly coveted. washington and jefferson both contended that any life was uncivilized not because of some inherent in for your debate because it not been able to imagine a better future for themselves and their children. ignorance, not race, made them and selected but with right education and proper training that could become a respectable citizens in a fully assimilated, well not counting black slaves, american society. taken at the new national indian

policy better that federal agents were sent out to protect the indian boundaries absent trading post where in these would exchange their furs and skins for seed and those come horses and blow. justice identically missionaries in the late 1790s began arriving in armed with religious value for remaking native americans. evangelical province of baptist and methodist and presbyterian's and outfitting its goals and mission indian boys, and indian girls learn to sew, we've and could. most important missionaries hoped to introduce christianity. the telltale mark whites believed of a civilized people. thomas jefferson's indian policy viewed as help us all indians who clung to their savage ways as nomadic hunters. their game was becoming extinct and the people demoralized and department by war, liquor entities. their only hope he insisted came from selling their land, except in wi-fi and becoming acceptable

to the open farmers and u.s. citizens. this more positive and likened approach to indian white relations they have offered hope to the cherokee but it was meant to feel like their last hope. it could not have been lost on the cherokees, becoming civilized was their only alternative to destruction. it's against this ideological civilization backdrop that to the most promising young men in the cherokee nation grew to maturity. they are key features, protagonists in the book, john ridge and elias boudinot. cousins, john and elias could not a better civilized with the program is all about. boudinot's father and his white wife had left academic and revolution destroyed much of the region and moved near rome, georgia. there a long with brother major ridge declared field come to the law can come planted orchards just as the federal agents, indian agents had urged cherokee

today. life in the valley didn't differ radically from the sort of activities or families he experienced it before. the communal clan-based to jed babbin place by isolated so sufficient patriarchal households. determined to take advantage of the benefits of the civilization program, boudinot's father and wrote the six-year-old elias in a school aspirin place mission, east of present-day chats with george. a cherokee with a demeanor, elias was beginning a remarkable gift to the student meanwhile, his cousin john under the guidance of his father major ridge who by the way neither speak nor read english mood from screenplays where he quickly developed a reputation as a destitute fiscal. a light-skinned cherokee, john was a thoughtful young man with

inquiring spirit. in 1817, elias and john were invited to continue their study at a new school in cornwall connecticut. set up by the american board of commissioners. sort of a multicultural liberal new england establishment. for their experiment, the leading men of cornwall could not have hand selected better prospects. they came from homes already exposed, a strong missionary effort in any country and both boys were brilliant students bent on broadening their education. will come at cornwall they may have intended a full and complete assimilation of white culture but what they got was quite unexpected and indian disasters. while in school, the young men fell in love with two prominent local white girls and even more infamously, married them. much to the shock and anger of the entire cornwall committee. it was in anger that culminate

in a couple being burned in effigy on the town square. the outrage in cornwall over the boys interracial marriages, needless to say, served a dissolution of that any dreams of dreams of white america. boudinot humiliated encounter with white races and cornwall made a mockery of the ideas that two cultures could peaceably co-mingle. the very heart of what the school and cornwall stood for, education and christianity could foster equality between the two races now rank hollow. a few years before his this controversial marriage, john ridge had noted in a letter he wrote to james monroe, president james monroe in 1822, my father and mother of both learned of into flames but it's astonishing to see them exert all the power to other children educate just like the whites. the promise of cornwall and hopes of boudinot and rich like the effigy on the town square have now gone up in flames.

window in which john and sarah ridge and allies and harriet boudinot return him to indian country in 1825 he nonetheless immersed themselves to try to better the cherokee people. john ridge became a successful lawyer, while elias took on a lecture to work. boudinot became acquainted with the news, or to cherokee nation, samuel worcester. minister and expert linguist from vermont. worcester and boudinot begin a strong friendship that in a shared christian faith and evangelical desire to improve the cherokees. dried unremarkable billy created similar the two men had a newspaper that would be printed in both english and cherokee. it would publish laws of the cherokee nation as was spread is about its people's progress. it was called cherokee phoenix.

they set up a shop with a newspaper in the new cosmopolitan cherokee capital, december 1827. the cherokee phoenix was the first newspaper ever published by our for indians and printed at least in part in an indian language. the first issue content excellence in english and cherokee from the just completed cherokee constitution, the lord's prayer and editorial by boudinot. recognize that most whites to get all indians including cherokee as little more than savages, boudinot focus on indians capacity for progress, and justification for hopeful future. there was abundant evidence that indians with the proper advantages are as capable as improvement in mind as any other people. his optimism even as he declared it from the pages of the phoenix would soon become suspect. in fact, what put more pathetic was the great other white neighbors. when a cherokee boy discovered gold on cherokee land in the summer of 1828, excuse me come

1829, land hundred georgians invaded indian country in droves. charity bitterly complained about this intrusion onto their homeland but it can quickly obvious that the invading whites aided and abetted by a president, andrew jackson who had just been elected the year before, the president shared the convictions that indians occupied lands that properly belong to their white neighbors. these land hungry settlers were relentlessly pressured the cherokee to move out west. the pressure it's an external in, not just extra link from the federal government and from pre-georgians but also from within. by the summer of 1832 a full-blown split and emerge in indian country over what became known as the cherokee question. not only how do you respond to the obvious lack of support from the federal government, george and the continued encroachment, but how to do with the growing divisions within the nation, the cherokee nation itself? that's what the book focus on the most. on one side of the huge divide was john ross, who by the way

was only one-eighth cherokee on about his cherokee as i am and i'm one-eighth cherokee. and effect had to have his perfectly spoken english speeches all over the nation be translated by a cherokee interpreter everywhere he went. and yet he was most -- because he told them something that really matter to them and they wanted to year, which was that the cherokees muss, no matter what, remain in the homeland at all costs. they must be resisted anyone who participate in negotiating a removal treaty was in effect a traitor. an enemy to his people. the great majority of the cherokee intent on staying in homes supported his unrelenting stance of resistance to removal. a smaller but highly vocal portion of the cherokee people had come to believe that removal represent the only alternative to the nation's eventual degradation at the hands of what boudinot called an overwhelming white population who in their sovereign pleasure considered

the cherokee as their inferiors. boudinot, john and major ridge, along with several other cherokees comprised the leadership of what became known as a treaty party because of their willingness to negotiate a treaty to emigrate to new lands out west where the delete cherokee had the best bands to survive as a people. the summer of 1832, and it's going war ground in the fierce conviction of both parties swirled through cherokee nation. much of that debate at this critical moment turn on the question, what should a good patriot do for his people? chief john ross and elias boudinot as you may begin to figure answer that question in widely different contradictory ways. portraying himself as a protect the homeland, ross arguments of the treaty party where a small minority opposed to the will of the people who are attempting to sell out the second homeland without the authority to do so. boudinot fought back.

the only reason the cherokee people side with ross was not incented come because their chief i've not seen fit to speak honestly with him about the great dangers that lie ahead if they resisted removal. a large majority of the cherokee people would prefer to remove. the two state of the conditions probably made no to pepfar from being so resistant and his, he said they were the two friends at the cherokee people touched by seeking answers and a new strategy. boudinot didn't hesitate to use a as editor of the charity -- "cherokee phoenix." the phoenix could present on the position voiced by the constitution of the of the cherokee people, namely himself. clearly fearing the white political leaders might look upon the essential public coral as weakness and the struggle for

to resist welcome ross instructed boudinot in the summer of 1832 to stop publishing the phoenix news. outrage, boudinot resigned from the phoenix. to stay on he said in a final editorial, will replace tim in an unacceptable position. i do believe it to be the duty of every citizen to reflect upon the dangers of which was around, to be the darkness which seems to lie before our people, our prospects and evils of which we are threaten to take over all these matters have only a free and fun among ourselves will leave unchecked will lead to a will of the pp or boudinot left the field. ross still need a newspaper to spread his anti-removal message so he replaced boudinot with his brother-in-law, elijah hicks. hicks wasted no time to find his predecessor probably announcing that boudinot's resignation represented a loss that was but a drop but a drop in the bucket. after all, boudinot had become detached from the nation and was

now no more a patriot. there's nothing in my letter of resignation, boudinot buyback in which show the want of patriotic motives. in one word i may say that my patriotism consists in the love of the country and the love of the people. these are intimately connected yet they are not altogether inseparable. his position could not have been more pointed the cherokee people are facing a devastating loss, but to really get with a good spot as a people than stubbornly resist the inevitable and lose both their land and their soul. our land or a large portion of it were about to be seized and taken. now as a friend of my people i cannot say peace when there is no piece but i cannot ease their minds beating expectation of a call when it was already tossed and threatened to be shattered to pieces by an approaching tempest, or as his friend john ridge put it, if a man sees a cloud charged with rain, thunder and strong, and urged the people

to take care, is that man to be hated or respected? the way boudinot saw, the cherokees facing grim decision at, three choices. stay and fight for the land and against overwhelming odds, submit to an oppressive white population and suffer a moral death, or avoid the first two by removal. but with a majority charities remain strongly attached to the homeland boudinot and said he was fighting an uphill battle and facing a harsh reality. and for boudinot that really pointed to the question, it was destined for destruction. although we love the land of our fathers he argued we consider a lot of the exiled in measurement more be preferred and efficient to oppressive laws and inedible degradation of the cherokee people. boudinot challenge then to ross ran deeper than simply speculate on the likely outcome of removal, an ardent christian, boudinot convictions about the date of the work link to highly moral values.

since leaving cornwall, boudinot had been consumer the idea idea that the cherokee sought advancement, not homage to progress but a spiritual and moral improvement as well. so you especially urge that ross seemed to suggest the cherokee lived in some kind of prosperity, and some of the treaty advocates were now ruining that world. most charities were suffering from everything from alcoholism to poverty the spiritual and moral despair. if ross and his supporters would also face the truth about the condition of the cherokee they would discover and people desperately in need of a new start. look at the entire population as it now is an say, can you see any indication of a progressing improvement? anything that can encourage a philanthropist?

the cherokee people left surrounded by the white culture confirmed a future full of degradation and immorality. you will find an argument every shop in the country and you'll find it's goal of thoughts in the bloody tragedies that are occurring in the many convictions executions for murders and in the cheers and groans of the winners and fathers, homeless, naked and ugly. genuine patriot speaks to save peoples will come not simply its lamp and so prim and the ridges that met recently out west with the cherokee people could reconstitute themselves in peace as a virtuous prosperous nation. ironically as sort of a side note, in choosing removal of boudinot and ridge put distance between themselves and their missionary friends who had done so much for the cherokee cause. samuel worcester, perhaps boudinot's closest white friend complete like john ross at the 1835 treaty that boudinot and

the treaty party put together was a mistake and that sonny was at best disguising the other missionaries also criticized boudinot for his position on the treaty as once they arrive in oakland in 1839, pleaded with him to apologize for his error in abdicating removal. if boudinot and the ridges relives he pursued a patriot call for removal out west when they believed moral could be accomplished, ross and the cherokee people focused exclusively on protecting the homeland as the critical work of the true picture. he when he was not attacking the treaty party, ross tirelessly fought to find a way for people to remain in their homes, to publicize the unfair fight of the cherokee and in the end, negotiate better financial settlements for the removal once it actually happened. keeping his people united in together, under his own leadership, became ross' unwavering goal. and intake of the treaty party ross would point to the vast

majority of cherokee who support him in resisting movement. he spoke for the many traditions among his for 20 said removal would care the cherokee people from the ancient and intimate connections to ancestral mountains, streams. a loyal cherokee would never trade away homeland without tribal approval. but this he proclaimed was precisely what the new signers had done. ross understood and respected traditional cherokee that refused to pressure them to change their beliefs and ways of life. where boudinot sought removal as salvation, ross you did as destroying a distinctive traditional cherokee identity. as i said come is to most charities didn't rally behind boudinot and the rest of the treaty party. on the piece of removal the cherokee nation continued to consist of traditionalists who embraced government. agriculture. and remain suspicious of missionaries christianity, not to mention the white man's civilization.

the treaty parties and contrasting vision and justice farmers living in nuclear family, formally educated, dedicated to the principles of christian faith and republican government. on a small portion of such a world in fact have developed in cherokee country by the 1830s. giving rise to the notion that men like boudinot and ridge were tragic figures who surrendered their lives on half of an imaginary nation that did not yet exist. these clashing notions of patriotism in for much of the workforce and a mobile crisis represent fundamentally colliding visions over the future of the cherokee people. ross and his supporters take up against an oppressive federal government allied with all the greedy white settlers in the south was necessarily tied to saving the homeland and preserving the traditional life. but for boudinot in his friend such a perspective was in a sound and prosperous state before the crisis of removal.

what distinguished the vision of the treaty party from ross' party was not so good a choice of saving people over the land but on the focus as well as to what exactly needed saving. the treaty party sought a disturbing moral decline, ross and his friends saw comfort and security in maintaining the sacred ties cherokee traditions, to the mountains and streams of the homeland, removal would eradicate. are ross, a good offense with cherokee was summoned to protect the hoping because without such a physical touchdown to tribal identity, the cherokee people would be destroyed. however, ross and his enhanced affinities meaningful admitting very meaningful connections to the land, they paid far less attention to what would happen to the cherokee people if they were too successful resist removal and remain in east. overrun by white settlers and forced to live at subjects, in a lot of georgia, north korea and tennessee, cherokee switzerland their identity amid assimilation into the white dominated

society. and to boudinot such it was as he put it too revolting to think of. in that sense the treaty party, especially boudinot and john ridge, work on important attention to race and the need for a completely independent cherokee nation. remain in the homeland where cherokees would soon be inundated by a demonstrably corrupt and racist white world, only riveted chains and fashioned the medicals of the servitude and degradation. such a vision force people to future he believes led in every way towards becoming extinct can emerge in another race, more noble. may god preserve us in such a destiny. it was of course the tenacity of the treaty party that shaped the destiny of the cherokee nation in the struggle of removal. boudinot and the ridges had no way of knowing that remote would lead to a trail of tears that would cost 4000 lives and enormous something. what they did know was georgian settlers were invading their

country, a 15 people from their homes, stealing property and violently attacking anyone who resisted. removal offered an alternative to these degradation. but also produce the misery and death of the trail of tears, which would linger for generations as we have seen, elias boudinot, major ridge pay the ultimate price for the choice to move. that choice was affirmatively held vision that in the in the moral as was physical condition of the people mattered more than preserving their peoples country. for his part, ross lost the battle over removal but his unflinching commitment to keeping his people together as a unified and sovereign nation still remains a powerful legacy of this defining moment in the cherokee and american past. for the nation at large, the truth years offered a devastating commentary not only on white greed and power, but also on the increasingly racial is when of jacksonian america. by the 1830s only white americans, especially in the

south, could lay claim to citizenship and racial entitlement. property owning a well-educated and women of good character, the longer constitute decisions proof of worthiness from participation in the public realm. what had to be white. indeed with both african-americans and native americans, andrew jackson and the southern supporters practice a form of racial exclusion that hinged on the belief and that permit inferiority of all nonwhites, black and indians. .. >> whatever you'd like, by all means. yes.

>> [inaudible] a paper written by rob neufeld said jackson adopted an indian boy who was found on his mother's dead body. they took him to hermitage and confined him there, and when he died he mourned his loss. now, how did andrew jackson feel about this child? >> that's a very -- i use that same anecdote to make a point i think is the most persuasive one. i don't know what that writer had in mind, but this was his adopted son who he, it is fair to say that he protected him and

treated him kindly. but i think if you look at the way he was treated in the house, it was exactly like a pet. a loved and honored pet, but a pet nonetheless. and tourists would come by and look at him. it probably suggests that -- i'm getting too psychoanalytic here, that jackson had some mixed feelings, he considered indian people not bad people, but clearly not developed enough, and they needed somebody to sort of watch over there them, a paternalistic kind of presence which is, of course, what he did for the entire end peoples -- indian people in the country. the paternalism that all the southeast indians had to undergo could have been seen in microcosm in the way he treated that little boy. he kept talking about, oh, when you go out west, white culture, people in white culture won't be around you, and you'll be safe to practice your own tribal ways

and so forth leaving aside the fact that we want your lands because they're worth a lot of money, and we've got settlers who are going to make some big bucks off them, get out. so there's a lot of mixed messages, most of them leading to a paternalistic point of view. so that is a very interesting story about jackson's adoption of this little boy, but it was an adoption that did not mean for a minute that he had decided that indian people were equals of whites. sad to report, at least in my view. yeah. >> boudinot and john cross and -- [inaudible] what happened to them once the -- [inaudible] >> his first, well with, butte know's -- boudinot's wife died about a year before they went off on the trail of tears. and he remarried another missionary woman, and she went

on to push for revenge in her husband's death. so harriet, the new england woman, had died the year before. nancy ridge went out -- excuse me, sarah ridge went on out to oklahoma, worked in the family general store, kept a pretty low profile, moved over into arkansas and privately grieved what happened. there were a lot of retribution activities and murderous reprisals on both sides after this because as you might be surprised to learn, john raz did not -- ross did not make a big effort to have these people arrested who had executed them. that whole phrase is kind of interesting. i've had historians call with the second word in my book which is "assassins." they were there to execute the law which said that if you sell tribal lands without tribal approval, then you deserve to be executed. and that was in tribal law, that was kind of a blood revenge that

they were posed to put behind -- supposed to put behind them. so i made a decision this was an assassination, not an execution. sometimes the language get caught up in historians' arguments about, wait a minute, is it true they deserved to die, and by the letter of the clan law that they had set up, yes. uh-huh? >> there seems to be a sense that with the rise of ca sea -- casinos owned by native americans, justice is being served a little bit in that the tribes are getting back what was taken from them. how much truth is there in that and, in fact, do the tribes control the casino operation, or are they being controlled? >> they mostly control it, and it is a source of huge income to a lot of nations. so much so that that effects decisions they make about who belongs in their, who are true

members of their nation. you have to be a certain blood quantum, and if you can't prove it, then you're not, you don't have a right to a payoff as part of the proceeds from the casinos. and that makes pretty interesting political problem. who do you define as a member of, say, the cherokee tribe or the crete nation, whatever. i think it's a sign which native peoples have set aside -- i'm not a scholar of casino ownership and all the rest, i'm really an earlier historian -- but that doesn't strike me, there may be a bit of financial revenge on the part of native peoples. i don't know if it's intentional, but it's kind of fortunate that they have this opportunity, but it doesn't seem like -- it's so far from the closeness to nature and people who worked the land and hunted it for balance and now to be

working casinos seems like a weird, you know, 20th century payoff for the degradation they suffered. >> -- [inaudible] the 99% are still looking for someplace to occupy. >> well, i think the cherokees know, they should have a protest called occupy america because they were the ones here first, you know. but that's, they've long since been viewed as forgotten people. not really part of the conversation about race when you think about it. in fact, it came up in the news, the cherokees did recently, electing a new tribal chief they got into this issue of disenrolling the descendants of african slaves. 10% of the people on the trail of tears were african slaves and freed blacks, combination. and a good part of -- there was a republican leadership, i think, among the cherokee people that felt like we want to narrow

our membership. these are not really part of the cherokee nation, so they proceeded to disenroll them which caused a big furor, and the guy who took that petition, chad smith, lost in the most recent election. we'll see whether the new chief takes a broader view because historically speaking, as a historian it is really perverse to eliminate the descendants of the freed men as no longer members of the cherokee nation. nobody is immune over this struggle of what is race and what does it mean to us today. it's constantly fought over even by the cherokees. >> i believe the eastern band, i don't know this for certain, but i believe their quantum's only one-eighth, so you can be seven-eighths white like john ross and be considered an indian. so why does the one-eighth get

the benefits same as the seven-eighths? >> they want to be as inclusive as they can but also keeping the wannabes off the list, and a lot of people say my great, great grandmother was definitely a cherokee, and now it's become very difficult to approve certification, and it's become kind of a cottage industry to figure that out. because it does lead to financial payoffs, again, from the casino proceeds. it's not just a walking around that says, hey, i've got a card that says i'm a cherokee, hey, i'm getting so much every year from the casinos, and sometimes that can be considerable. yeah. >> are the tribal lands in the united states their own separate nations from the american nation and, you know, when the federal government communicateses with tribal government, it has to be on a government to government

basis, so since it's two governments communicating together, are citizens of the tribal lands, are they all americans per se? or are they citizens of the tribal nation? do they have american rights and, also, native rights? how does their citizenship work? >> they're american citizens, but they are also members of their own nation and, therefore, they trade only with the federal government, not the states. so the bia, bureau of indian affairs, is who they deal with in the government as befits people who are a sovereign nation, and this was one of the things going on on the trail of tears that ross was pleading for, let us stay here as an independent, sovereign nation, and we'll somehow get along. just honor our tribal laws and our independence and sovereignty. well, they weren't about to do that because they were going to take over their land. how disrespectful can you be right off the bat as that represented? so, no, that's why, you know,

the cherokees like all other indian nations deal with the federal government. >> the american indian didn't become a u.s. citizen until about 1920. >> yeah, it was in '20s. there are u.s. citizens who also are members of an independent nation. >> well, speaking of sovereign nation issues, did they try to get their own pass ports or travel under the citizenship of their tribe or -- [inaudible] >> i think it's a u.s. passport, pure and simple. yeah, it's a dual citizenship thing. what trumps it is travel, you're talking about a u.s. passport. >> yeah. but wouldn't they get a cherokee passport -- >> not if they want to travel internationally, that wouldn't work. i don't think you could go to the tsa or whatever and say i'm a member of the cherokee nation. you have to have a u.s. passport. and they would have one if they wanted it. >> yeah, but -- [inaudible] cherokee nation's a sovereign

tribe or a sovereign nation, or is -- >> if they do recognize it, it is not any kind of legal entity. no indian nation is making independent deals with the government of germany, let's say, that supersedes what u.s. law is. no, no, no. no, it's become an internal operation to honor the fact that, okay, the the bad news is we're out here on reservations that you made us get to, the better news is we're still an independent, sovereign nation. because we were here first, and we are a southern nation. it's kind of standoff, but it's what we've made of it. >> [inaudible] >> yeah. >> speaking of the terminology, i wondered if you have some either philosophical hunches or guidelines with the word "patriot" because it's used with so many groups of people, and it means so many things. and certainly in the case of the people who were here first, they

seem to have a very important meeting. i'm just wondering how we can learn how to understand to use that word. >> part of what i was trying to do was broaden the meaning of what patriotism meant. it's not just something that we've decided is white protestants, you know, on july the 4th. patriotism means a love of your people and the land and sometimes the fissures that occur between those things. so i think it's entirely appropriate to use it here so that people will understand, wait a minute, they have a right to think of themselves as good or bad patriots. quite apart from what we might think because i'm sure most americans, white americans at this time thought that they would be crazy to think of them as patriotic americans unless they became assimilated red is citizens of the u.s. republic which much of them were not intent on doing. but the word doesn't have america written on it, it's

patriotism. it means love of country and love of our yo own people and culture, and i think it's perfectly appropriated, and i'm hoping that people will see that as an instructive part of the book and useful way of making a distinction that they hadn't thought of before. because usually the story's just played out in terms of andrew jackson, bad guy, and these poor helpless, basically passive indians taken out, forced out west, isn't that sad, end of story. when really there was a whole lot of turmoil going on, and the cherokees were actually active participants in not wanting this, but in trying to deal with it, trying to fight literally tooth and nail to figure out what was the best way to handle it. yeah. >> what do you see in the future, say 25, 50 years from now with the cherokee people? >> oh, they're very resilient. they're going to -- i'm one-eighth cherokee myself although not getting casino proceeds -- [laughter] there are -- >> [inaudible]

>> yeah. they are one of the most adaptable nations ever, and they have gone through a lot. and even the eastern band and western band see themself as a united people guided only -- divided only by land. there's 70,000 in the cherokee nation in northeast oklahoma, 300,000 worldwide that lay claim to it and apparently have documentation to prove to it. so they are survivors, if nothing else. i have no doubt they're going to remain an active part of the american political scene. whether or not we come around to treating them more equally is a different matter. well, thank all of you for coming tonight on this rainy evening. i appreciate it, and if you get a chance to answer questions and talk about a subject i care a lot a. thank you. -- a lot about. thank you. [applause] >> for more information visit the author's web site, danielblakesmith.com.

here's a look at some books that are being published this week.

>> look for these titles in bookstores this coming week and watch for the authors in the near future on booktv. >> what do i mean by crony capitalism and how's it different from free market captain limit? -- capitalism? let me sort of describe it by just giving a couple of archetype examples. free market capitalism would be steve jobs, the late founder of apple computer. of he joined what the occupy wall street crowd would call the 1 president by doing what? by creating products and services that people wanted to buy. he became very wealthy. that is an example, in my mind, of free market capitalism. steve jobs did not have really hardly any lobbyists, he was not active politically. it was a voluntary purchase that people made of his goods and products that made him a very

wealthy man. the crony capitalist, on the other hand, is less interested in that voluntary exchange. what matters to them is not creating innovative products or services, but having political connections which allows them to get government contracts, which allows them to get set-asides in the tax codes, guaranteed government loans, guaranteed government grants and access to inside information that's going to help them on investment decisions. so these, i think, are the two sort of archetypes that exist in america today, and my fear and concern is that we are increasingly moving in the direction of the crony capitalism and away from the free market capitalist as steve jobs being an example. let me talk about this phenomenon, crony capitalism, as sort of a couple of different areas. first, the people on the inside of the system which are the politicians and how they extract their wealth through this crony capitalism. then i want to talk about the people on the outside that are politically connected and how

they are able to effectively milk the system and use their crony connections to enrich themselves at our expense. and then finally, i'm going to talk about what are some possible solutions and, you know, does this really matter? i mean, we've with always had, you know, politicians that have, you know, taken money under the table and have gotten rich, and we've always had, uni, the railroad -- you know, the railroad barons of the 19th century. shouldn't we really care about this, and i think you can probably guess given the fact that i wrote a book about it that my answer is absolutely, yes. i think this is the profound issue we face in america in the 21st century. so let's talk about politicians first. america is supposed to be governed by, um, self-governance, the notion that we send individuals to washington who are supposed to represent ourselves, and it is supposed to be in some form a citizen legislature. well, about 60, 70 years ago that sort of changed, and we have a situation now where elected officials cannot only

come and perform public service, but they come and perform public service rell ltively middle class, and they leave very, very wealthy. let me give you two recent examples, um, from people, one from each party because this is a bipartisan issue. i think this is a problem of human nature, not of one political party or the other. the first one would be nancy pelosi, speaker of the house from san francisco. when she first came into congress in 1987, her net worth was around $3 million. in the 20 years she had served in congress after that, her net worth has gone up 876% which means if you do it on a compounded basis, you're averaging about 24% return on your investment every year. i think george soros or warren buffett or certainly me would kill for that kind of return on investment. so a dramatic increase in wealth, and i'm going to argue that at least part of that, a large part of that, is connected to her political position. what about a republican?

well, the speaker of the house immediately before her was dennis hastert from illinois. dennis hastert when he became speaker in the late 1990s had a net worth around $300,000. when he left as speaker less than a decade later, it was in the millions, it could potentially have been as high as $11 million. he didn't inherit money, he didn't win the lotto. it's a function of him leveraging his position in order to enrich himself. those are two individuals, but there are multiple others that i talk about in the book. i name people from both political parties, and this information comes from their public financial dischose yours -- disclosures and comparing their cactivitys -- activities with what they're working on in terms of legislation, what access they might have to sensitive information. so how does this work, how is it that elected officials are able to leverage their position and make money? well, the first example i would give is the ipo which i would consider simply a form of

legalized bribery. and let me just give you an example of this. let's say john is in the united states senate, and i come into his office, and i need a favor. and i say, john, i need a favor, here's a shoe box with $10,000 cash. i appreciate your help. what's going to happen? well, if we get caught, we're going to go to jail. that's bribery. i'm giving him cash in exchange for a good. that doesn't happen so much in washington anymore. you hear about the occasional gentlemen like congressman jefferson who put $90,000 in his freezer, but that's the exception to the rule and, frankly, that form of illegal graft is really small potatoes. you can make a lot more money if you play it right engaging what i consider legal graft. so now let's assume i go into senator john's office, but instead of bringing a shoe box of cash i say, john, i need a favor, i'm concerned about a piece of legislation. and, you know, by the way, i'm involved with this company, and i'm going to give you access to

initial public offering shares of stock, and you're going to be able to buy these at $20 a share, and then the next day when they go public, they're going to sell for at least $50 a share, and you can turn around and sell them the next day, and you can make $100,000. that's perfectly legal, and that scenario goes on quite frequently in washington d.c. and here's the challenging part. when congressmen and senators engage in initial public offering purchases of stock, they don't have to disclose it as such. they simply list it as another stock transaction. so when you're going through financial disclosure forms, the only way you can find out whether they received these secret ipo shares is by literally looking at the date of their purchase and seeing if that was before it was publicly available to the rest of us. this is what happened in the case of the nancy pelosi ipo that i talk about in my book and that you may recall was the subject of a "60 minutes" episode a couple of weeks ago. literally, the pelosis -- nancy

pelosi and her husband -- were given access to 5,000 shares of stock in visa, the credit card company. they were able to buy those at $44 a share. the next day when they went public, they immediately sold at $66 a share, and then within a matter of weeks it was over $90 a share. so literally there was a net gain of $100,000 in their visa ipo stock in one day. now, was there a quid pro quo? i don't know. what's curious, though, is pelosi received access to those shares which are enormously difficult for anybody to get at the same time they received access to those, visa had two pieces of legislation that they were profoundly concerned about on capitol hill. the important thing to remember with visa is visa is not a credit card issuer, they are a credit card company. they make their money from that 3% that the restaurants or the grocery store that you use a card at, it's called a merchant swipe fee, and it's about 3%.

that's how visa makes their money. they don't make their money on interest rates or anything else. well, these two pieces of legislation dealt specifically with this issue of the swipe fees. one of those came out of committee with strong bipartisan support, but it never received a vote on the house floor. nancy pelosi never allowed it to. the same thing happened the following year. so for literally two years nancy pelosi took the position that she was not going to support or get behind swipe fee reform. is that related to the visa ipo? i don't know. but think about it this way for a minute. what if somebody from visa had brought her $50,000 in cash. would there be any doubt in your mind that there was a quid pro quo? i don't think so. but because it's done through this legal mechanism of what i call legal graft, um, this practice happens quite frequently. how widespread is it? i don't know. i do know in congressman pelosi's case that there were at least eight to ten ipos that she and her husband have

participated in over the years, often times getting access to stock, seeing the value double overnight and then selling it the next day. so i've talked a little bit about the ipo method. let's talk a little bit about inside information. i think we can all recognize that after -- over the last 40 years the size of government has gotten much bigger and a lot more intrusive whether it's the bailout in 2008, whether it's the growth of government in the health care sector, clearly government has become much more involved in markets and in the economy. and what that means, of course, is that you have a situation where government moves marks. -- markets. and if you have access to information in the position of power, you can trade on that information and do very, very well. let me give you just sort of a couple of examples really briefly of what i mean. again, i'll give you one example of a republican and one example of a democrat. first example is the financial crisis, the beginnings of it in september of 2008.

there were a series of meetings that were held in washington, d.c., one on september 16th and one on september 18th in which ben bernanke, the fed chairman, and hank paulson, the treasury secretary, sit down with senior members of congress and discuss with them the true gravity of the situation. now, keep in mind this is mid september. the dow jones industrial average is still at 11,400. people are nervous, but panic has not set in. we know from hank paulson's memoirs that he asked and members of congress who were at that meeting had to leave their blackberries and cell phones at the door, it was highly sensitive, and we know based on paulson's account that they informed members of congress that this was a potentially cataclysmic financial crisis, that the dow jones industrial average was going to go down at least 20% and that we were looking at potential catastrophe in terms of the economy. according to paulson, the

congressmen who were at this meeting were ash schoen-faced and stunned, those were his words, at what they were hearing. after that september 18th meeting, ten people who were at that meeting -- members of congress -- went out and sold a bunch of stock the next day. congressman from virginia moran sold stock from 90 different companies, other members of congress who dumped shares in the financial sector and ended up buying shares in other companies that did very, very well. there was also a gentleman at that meeting named spencer bachus. he left that meeting, and the next morning bought something called proshares ultra short qqq. now, what on earth is that? okay, i'm not a financial guy can. that is a options trade that is a leveraged buy that you're shorting the markets. you're betting the market -- or in this case knowing -- that the market is going to go down. he literally made that trade the next morning. and he made $10,000 while putting a couple thousand

dollars at risk. in bachus' case as he was having these series of meetings, as he was writing t.a.r.p. legislation, as he was the ranking republican on the house financial service committee, he literally engaged in 40 options trades that seemed to be particularly well timed, and he made a lot of money. his insistence is that he does not trade on inside information, but to my mind if this were a corporate executive rather than a member of congress, the the sec would take a huge interest in this. >> you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. next on booktv, paul barrett reports on the creation and ubiquitous use of the glock pistol now used by two-thirds of american police departments. it's about an hour.