Some years ago, in search of clues about why Ross, the Cherokee chief and anti-intermarriage advocate, had decided to marry white women, I visited the Gilcrease Museum archives in Oklahoma. In the archival reading room, I untied a white ribbon and opened the john Ross Paper’s manila folder 5326.290. Inside, protected by old paper inscribed with indian ink, were the corpses of flowers.
A spray of fine twigs and a bud had been tied up with string. Powder dry, faint imaginings of color tinged the otherwise sepia remains. Maybe the stems were once a sprig of cedar, or lavender the bud was crushed almost flat-a ghost of a red rose.
Then I read the paper’s notation: “Presented to Mrs Maty B. Ross By Mrs Madison the window of Ex President [james] Madison.
Was marriage across cultural boundaries good or bad for these new nation? On the one hand, unios across colonzing boundaries ware widely viewed as being against the tide of progress toward “modern white nations. ”and yet. Some prominent figures, such as Dolley Madison , and her close friend the fomer President Thomas Jefferson, envisioned a different future. They believed intermarriage between Indians and whites could be advantageous for the young nation. (However,they were thinking about white men marrying Native American women, not white women with Native American man.)