Harvard’s most infamous blond-haired, blue-eyed “Native American” faculty member has long claimed to have Cherokee ancestry. Those claims have been revealed as false. Ironically, it seems that one of her ancestors actually rounded up the Cherokee and forced them on the Trail of Tears death march:
The most stunning discovery about the life of O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is that her husband, Ms. Warren’s great-great-great grandfather, was apparently a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes in the Southeastern United States and herded them into government-built stockades in what was then called Ross’s Landing (now Chattanooga), Tennessee — the point of origin for the horrific Trail of Tears.
Click here to read more about this far less heralded aspect of her family history.
Warren shouldn’t be held morally responsible for her ancestor’s actions, of course. But she should be held responsible for misleading Harvard University and the people of Massachusetts.