The Cherokee Nation celebrates its 74th Cherokee National Holiday on Labor Day
Kevin Freeman: Ahoy, mates. Welcome aboard another voyage of Pirate Money Radio, the show that sails against the storms of fiat tyranny, cultural confusion and counterfeit ideas to chart a course toward liberty, security and values built on biblical truth. I'm your captain, Kevan Freeman, coming to you from the heart of Texas and joined today by my daughter on her first time as co host, Madison Freeman. Welcome, Madison. Thank you. I'm honored to be here.
Hey.
Kevin Freeman: This episode's aiming right in the middle of the 74th Cherokee National Holiday in Tahlequah. Every Labor Day weekend, the Cherokee Nation gathers to celebrate the signing of the 1839 Constitution, the document that rebuilt their government after the forced removal known as the Trail of Tears. That holiday is not nostalgia. It's a declaration of survival and ordered liberty and surprising to many as distinctly Christian roots. Madison, we were just there. This is personal, right?
Madison Freeman: Mm, We were just there. We were just at the hospital. Beautiful hospital. beautiful nation. They've done a lot of great things over there.
Kevin Freeman: Well, we were there with Marnie, your mom, my darling wife, the love of my life. And we walked the streets, we met warm and gracious people. We watched a family member receive care at a beautiful $470 million W.W. hastings Hospital that opened just in July. It's brand new, state of the art Cherokee Nation's building a world class health system while pressing for the full measure of promises made long ago. We know after the Trail of Tears, the survivors arrived in Indian territory and reunited with the old settlers who had come earlier. And Madison, we've had two family lines. One that came early and one that came on the Trail of tears. And in July 1839, they passed the act of Union. On September 6, 1839, they adopted a new constitution modeled closely after their earlier 1827 document and based on the US Constitution. And they established the capital at Tahlequah, divided the land into districts, rebuilt schools, courts and a national government. That's the government still operating today. And that's the one we're celebrating at National Holiday.
Madison Freeman: Yes.
Kevin Freeman: All right. The spiritual foundation is found in a book, well, several books. The history of the Cherokee Indians and their legends and folklore. And it's also found, and I've got one copy here, which was what is is out of the Fire Flame by James Adair. Madison, you've heard this your whole life. The Cherokee Nation religion actually mirrors M and parallels The Christian religion, I think
Madison Freeman: a lot of people assume, because it's a Native American tribe, that it's, a lot of worshiping the sun God and the moon God and the river and all those things. But really, it closely mirrors Christianity the more you look into it.
Kevin Freeman: Oh, yeah. So here's a quote. When the early missionaries came among the Cherokees, they were astonished at the similarity of the religious tradition of the Cherokees to biblical accounts. that while the greater part had been idolatrous, so a number of churches were worshiping sun, moon, stars and other gods. Small portion denied that system and taught that there were three beings above, three beings who created all things and will judge all men. The three beings were said to be unanimous in thought and action and always will be the only objects to which worship and prayer should be dedicated. And they said the three were really one. Yehawah, his son and a great spirit. Have you got that quote from Emmett?
Madison Freeman: Yeah. Emmett Starr goes on to say, they claimed that Yehawa was the name of a great king. He was a man and yet a spirit so very similar to Christianity, a great and glorious being. His name was never to be spoken in common talk. The great king commanded them to rest every seventh day, so a Sabbath day. They were told not to work on this day and that they should devote it to talking about God. God made the first man of red clay, and he was Indian, and he made woman of one of his ribs. So very parallel to Adam and Eve. They had preachers and prophets who taught the people to obey God and their parents. And they warned the people of the approaching flood, but said that the world would only be destroyed by water once, and then it would later be destroyed by fire.
Kevin Freeman: That's almost verbatim from the book of Genesis. Yes, and it's Yehawah created the heavens and the earth in seven days. He rested on the seventh day. Actually, he created in six, rest on the seventh. All right, so I'm going to quote Star a little bit more. A little before the flood. Then he warns of a flood God, sent a messenger from above to warn the people of the flood unless they turn from their wickedness. He then told a man to make a house that would swim, which is interesting, Cherokee, a house that would swim, but sounds like.
Madison Freeman: Sounds like a boat.
Kevin Freeman: Sounds like an ork. Right. and then to take his family and some of the different kinds of animals. Two of each kind of animal. The rain commenced and continued for 40 days and 40 nights. I'm just quoting from the Cherokee, readings While the water at the same time gushed out of the ground as it did come from out of the clouds. That's again just like the biblical account.
Madison Freeman: Starr goes on to say the Cherokees detail to the missionaries parallels to practically every one of the stories of the Bible. They called Abraham Akwahame, Moses was called Wasi. These accounts were so circumstantial that many investigators were led to believe that the Cherokees were actually of Semitic origin.
Kevin Freeman: You mean they thought they were Jewish?
Madison Freeman: On account of the fact that the Cherokees thought that the missionaries were bringing them back to their old religion. It was relatively easy to convert them from a tribe of savages to a Christian nation within the comparatively short period of 30 years.
Kevin Freeman: Wow.
The Cherokee were considered among the most civilized Native American tribes
All right, so I've got this James Adair book here. He wrote as an eyewitness traitor in the 1700s. He observed this reality. He lived with Indians for 30 years and published his book in 1775. He recorded that the Cherokee paid religious devotion to Yohi Wah. Now the Emmet Starr says Yehowah but you can see the similarity. The great Beneficent Supreme Holy Spirit of Fire. And that their ceremonies were more closely following the Mosaic tradition than pagan imitation. They had no idols. They had a strong sense of theocracy under one true and living God manifest in three deities. So that really does sound like the Bible account, doesn't it?
Madison Freeman: It does. Which is very interesting because again that's very different from most other Native American tribes.
Kevin Freeman: It is and I'm pleased with that. And Cherokee Nation became one of the, they will call one of the five civilized tribes. And a big reason for that was they picked up agrarian practice. They adopted the Christian religion very easily. They would do trading practices. They Alphabet and written language syllabary from Sequoia. I mean there are a whole lot of reasons that the Cherokee people were considered to be among the most civilized.
Madison Freeman: Right?
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. But one thing that happened, they came as you know, Madison, they came from Georgia and Tennessee and North Carolina. But they discovered gold which ties one of our pirate money radio tie ins is they discovered gold in Georgia. Then all of a sudden these very civilized Cherokee need to be rem going to talk about that. but the Cherokee national holiday commemorates the constitution that they formed after a Trail of Tears. Now you recently and I dove into this issue of the Trail of Tears. Tell us about that.
Madison Freeman: mainly we were just talking about how there's a lot of different things going around especially on the Internet, YouTube videos and such, talking about how the Trail of Tears might not have actually been as bad as people are making out to be. but if we go into the research further, it really was horrific.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. Now I get it. There is this idea that everybody's a victim and there's this victimhood status. And so, wow, what was bad? Well, I had ancestors who were slaves. Well, you were a victim and that really was bad. And it does impact your life. But we had ancestors that were forced on a Trail of Tears. And now there are people, ah, even in the conservative side of things who are trying to say, well, that didn't really happen like that. No, nobody was really. It wasn't a trailer. They didn't even make the term up. and we're going to cover that because you and I, we did the deep dive research.
Madison Freeman: We did.
Kevin Freeman: We spent the entire way back from, Tahlequah looking it up and studying it. I've got books all over this table, that date back to that time period, that now, sorry people. We've had some horrific things happen in American history. That was one of them. But it doesn't change the fact that I think America is still the greatest nation on Earth and probably has the best history because we've gone back and repaired a lot of bad things.
Madison Freeman: Yeah.
Kevin Freeman: So anyway, all right, we believe in America. We believe in liberty and patriotism and all of that. And we also believe in aligning your money with your values. And there are only three things you can do with your money. You can give it, you can spend it, you can, you can invest it. Here at Pirate Money Radio, we work to explain solutions, support all three areas in a way to promote liberty, security and values. Patriot Mobile, it's a mobile phone company. They support the Pirate Money radio program. Patriot Mobile uses US carriers including AT&T, Verizon and T Mobile and operates on both Apple and Android phones. More information about the economic war room and Patriot Mobile is [email protected] AFR that's PirateMoneyRadio.com AFR and I've got Madison joining me in studio as co host. And Madison, I really got, to give you and your sister, a lot of credit for bringing up a lot of our native heritage. You did that as a school project, right?
Madison Freeman: I remember we had to do a school project and it basically was like, how did your family get over through Ellis Island? And I had to go to my teacher and be like, oh, well, I don't know any of my family that came over from Ellis island, so we had to do a modified project for that.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, it's. It's the old Will Rogers line. My family didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were here to meet the boat.
Madison Freeman: Yep.
Kevin Freeman: And that is what we'll be talking about when we come back after this break. We'll be right back.
Madison Freeman traced her Cherokee family lineage for school
Mike Carter: Welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: I'm talking with Marnie's and my firstborn daughter, Madison. And Madison, we love you so much. We're so proud of you. and we were together recently in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and just enjoying and seeing some of the great things the Cherokee Nation is building and doing. That is the home of the Cherokee Nation. That's where, after the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee resettled in what is now Oklahoma. And, Madison, you did an incredible project. we talked about it right before the break of tracing our family lineage. And I've got. Can you see that up here on the screen? I've got it up on the screen. Tell us a little bit, about that lineage. let's go. Starting with my paternal grandmother, my dad's grandma, with Lebel Prather. I met her as a little kid. She passed away in 1969. Sweet, lady. She spoke Cherokee. tell us a little bit about, Lee Belle Prather.
Madison Freeman: so this was a project that I had to do for school because we had no, as far as I could tell, no ancestors who came through Ellis Island. so I did a lot of research through one line. There's probably multiple lines on your dad's side of Cherokee, but this is the one that I found the most. Lee Bell Prather. Her mom was Francis McGee. and Francis's father was Thomas Jefferson Okiltaw McGee, who was a Cherokee citizen. He served as a clerk and a judge in the Delaware District. And because he looked Indian and he had a Cherokee mom, he was taught Cherokee as a child, while his siblings, who looked white, were taught English. and his mother was Judith Cochran, who was born in 1818 in Georgia. And her and her mom actually came down the Trail of Tears. So we have ancestors who came down the Trail of Tears. And this line runs all the way down to you, to your dad, to me. And that is the line that I was able to track the most Cherokee from.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. No. And, Judith Cochran is a direct descendant of two that were born, in the 1700s. Cloud and butterfly was their name. And that's about all very Cherokee names. Yeah. English translation, but yes. All right. But you can also go back to Charles Rogers, and you studied that one in detail. We've got a book here about Sam Houston. Ah. With the Cherokee. Tell a little of that story.
Madison Freeman: Charles Rogers was actually half brother to Tiana Rogers, who was Sam Houston's Cherokee wife, who he left behind when he went to go fight for Texas. and she did not go with him, but he is also the brother of one of the chiefs, who was a chief before the Trail of Tears and then once the Trail of Tears occurred, Jon Ross became chief.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. Well, you look at my grandfather that you never had a chance to know. He died before you were born. Ralph Emerson Freeman served in World War II. He passed away when I was in college. He looked very Indian and he looked very much like he was a contemporary of Will Rogers, as you mentioned. And his mother, Leigh Bell Prather, she looked, she was my great grandmother. She was very much Cherokee, looked in sound and everything else. but this is, you know, I'm kind of a mutt in the Cherokee because my mom was not Cherokee. And it's a, it's a, it's a very matriarchal society.
Madison Freeman: So really the mom is who you inherit your Cherokee from, so to speak. and you don't marry inside your own clan. You're disciplined by your mom's side. Very matriarchal.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, I remember my mom, who's Irish. The discipline would come through her father. She married my dad, who was Cherokee. He would not discipline us very often, if at all. And she didn't understand that. But in the Cherokee tradition, it would be, literally your uncle. Because your dad is not in the same clan you're in. You're born into your mom's clan. And so the women, wouldn't do the discipline, but it also wouldn't be the father, it would be the brother of the mother. The discipline to protect the family name because the dad didn't care. You're not in his clan, you're not embarrassing his clan. So that's kind of how it comes. My grandmother, though, she didn't want to admit it, her family didn't want to admit it. But I trace back, she came very Cherokee, and she was hiding from her Cherokee roots. In fact, her family said, oh, Catherine, you don't want to marry that old Indian, do you? Because it was an embarrassment to the family. There's a whole lot of history going on in our family. you know, my dad was a big fan of the Killers of the Flower Moon book because he knew a lot of the people that were involved in what happened there.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: Anyway, all right, we're going to talk a little bit more about the Cherokee, the civilized tribe, currency, evolution and the Trail of Tears. And we'll be covering all of that when we come back right after this break.
Mike Carter: We'll be right back. M Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security and values. Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: And, I'm having a great conversation with Madison and so glad you're here. And we're talking about the Cherokee people, which is our heritage and we're very proud of our heritage. We're celebrating. right as this program airs, we'll be right in the middle of Cherokee national holiday. And for you Texans, and we are definitely Texans. Madison, you were born here in Texas. you need to know and understand that Sam Houston was adopted into the Cherokee tribe. He married a sixth great aunt of mine, Tiana Rogers, who's buried in Oklahoma. And she said, sam, I've been moved already from Georgia to Oklahoma. I'm not moving for. Actually, I think she started in Tennessee, but I'm not moving to Texas. but the Cherokee, they were very civilized people and they were called a civilized tribe. They had a written language, a constitutional government. They had schools, newspapers, and modern clothing. And I've got a pirate money connection. In the 1700s, the deerskin trade was the foundational commercial economy. Goods were priced in the number of processed hides. A hunter might take 30 buckskins for a single rifle. The high volume trade in made male bucks and female does is highly credited as the origin of the American slang terms bucks. I got a bunch of bucks in my pocket. Or dough. I got some dough for money.
Madison Freeman: That's so interesting. I had no idea.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no. And that's Cherokee Nation. They adopted that. But you know what? They also adopted US money, particularly gold, silver and paper currency, to operate their national schools, courts and international businesses. But then the government broke its word. It forced them out of their ancestral homelands. the treaty of New eshota offered them $5 million for roughly 7 to 7.8 million acres. And that's not a whole lot of money. Just the hospital we were in is how much? 470 million.
Madison Freeman: 470 million.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. So they moved from deer skins to gold and silver to paper. But they paid a terrible price when those promises failed.
Madison Freeman: Right, right. Yeah. I mean, always moving from, you know, gold and silver to fiat money is never a good option.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, It's a government breaking its promise is what it essentially is. And if you're a part of the current fiat system, the government has broken its promises to you. Now, a lot of people will say, oh, they paid them, you know, what was it that they paid? 7.5 million dollars for 7 to 7.8 million acres of land. That's a pretty good deal. I'd find $5 million to buy that land. That was some of the best farmland. It had gold on it. It was highly developed, highly civilized. It had been tamed. It wasn't frontier land.
Madison Freeman: $5 million for that is nothing.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, it is nothing. And the number of bucks that it would take it. Going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the Trail of Tears. And sadly, you know, Matt Walsh, in his Real History series, came out and tried to debunk the Trail of Tears. We're going to rebunk it.
Madison Freeman: Yeah.
Kevin Freeman: I don't know.
Madison Freeman: I don't know what it is after it's been debunked and debunked again. I don't know how that works.
Kevin Freeman: You debunked.
Madison Freeman: It's like an Uno reverse card. Yes, we're going to do that.
Kevin Freeman: We're going to rebunk it. I'm going to go with that.
Madison Freeman: Okay.
Kevin Freeman: All right.
Glint offers an alternative way to store and use gold and silver
But we're talking about, money and how $5 million in 1835, they thought that was sufficient to pay for 7.8 million acres. Part of that is they were underpaying. Part of it is money has really lost its value. Support for this program comes from Glint. That's a financial technology service offering a debit card and a mobile app that enables users to access gold holdings, their own gold holdings, for everyday purchases. With Glint, users maintain ownership of allocated physical gold, which is stored in a managed vault. At the time of a transaction, gold is sold in real time to cover the purchase amount in local currency. Glint offers an alternative way to store and use the value of gold and silver. Combining that with modern payment infrastructure, Glint clients can monitor their goal balance, view transaction history, and manage their account through the Glint app, available on major mobile platforms. More details about how vaulted physical gold can be used as money are [email protected] Goldpool Gold 247. Again, that's glintpay.com Gold247 Glint. Providing access to gold for modern spending sure makes it easier than having to go out and shoot Bambi to have some dough. Or Bambi's Daddy to get some bucks, Right?
Madison Freeman: Yes. A much easier option is Glint.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. And it is a way to preserve your purchasing power. And frankly, if the, Cherokee had taken that $5 million in gold instead of US paper currency, it would be worth quite a bit today. $5 million in gold from 1835 today. We'll have to look that up over the break, but that is. That. That's a big deal. We're Pirate Money Radio talking with Madison Freeman about the Cherokee people, and we're going to cover that and the Trail of Tears when we come back.
Kevin Freeman: Matt Walsh says Trail of Tears is widely exaggerated
Mike Carter: Welcome to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman, helping you unpack the economic headlines and providing real money solutions.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, we're talking about a, real history series that's out. Matt Walsh, who's done some incredible work. I really have to appreciate what is a Woman and the documentary. He's done some incredible work, but I think it's a swing and a miss on this one. he says that the Trail of Tears is widely exaggerated, that the term is a modern invention, that the removal was essentially a legitimate real estate transaction. And, Madison, I want to walk through that point by point. And right before the break, we learned that they gave them $5 million for 7.8 million acres of land in Georgia, where they found gold on it. Well, if they bought gold with that, if they'd used that $5 million in held gold, according to ChatGPT, $5 million worth of gold in 1830s would be worth over a billion. $1.06 billion today. So that's better.
Madison Freeman: It's better than 5 million, which is essentially a penny for, that land.
Kevin Freeman: But I bet that if they. The gold they already had on the land, it was worth even more than that, probably, if we added that up. All right, let's walk through this whole notion of Matt Walsh. What was the first claim, that he made in his real history?
Madison Freeman: The first thing that he said was that the term Trail of Tears was essentially a modern invention used by WOKE activists to make a point that everyone's a victim.
Kevin Freeman: That's not what we found when we looked it up. What did we find?
Madison Freeman: we found that it was actually a Choctaw chief, who described the forced march, the forced removal of the Choctaw as the Trail of Tears and Death when he was quoted in an Arkansas newspaper. So it was a contemporaneous.
Kevin Freeman: Yes, a Trail of Tears and death. So actually, they didn't sensationalize it up. They actually toned it down.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: Trail of Tears and Death. The Cherokee called it nuna. Let me see. Nung he do. Hi. Ja da va. That is the place where they cried. That's what it translates to. And that was called at the time. That's what it was called.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: So that. I'm sorry, swing and a miss. Matt there really was called the Trail of Tears. Now, what was the second, thing that we found?
Madison Freeman: the second thing that he basically said is that the eyewitnesses over exaggerated. So people, I guess, were recorded later as saying, well, we're not sure about the number of deaths. You know, that was me just trying to figure it out, but I'm not sure. And so he was basically saying that everything that we know about the Trail of Tears was probably over exaggerated, but
Kevin Freeman: there was an eyewitness there that most conservative historians accept. Tell us about that.
Madison Freeman: So Alexis Tocqueville was there, which he is very highly respected among the conservative circle. he was at Mississippi in December of 1831, and he watched Choctaw families cross in freezing weather, wounded, sick, newborns and elderly. And he wrote that it was impossible to conceive the frightful evils that attend these forced migrations. He was a neutral foreign observer, so he didn't really have any modern political agenda. Again, he's respected by most conservatives.
Kevin Freeman: We quote from his book all the time. Democracy in America. You'll see presidents have quoted through the centuries. Democracy in America. He highly respected, not part of American culture, French observer. And he was a lover of America. He wasn't trying to tear America down. But he noted that these were frightful evils. It was a forced march. It was not a real estate transaction. Now, the third argument that Matt Walsh has. What was that?
Madison Freeman: the third argument he had was that the death toll was over exaggerated. I guess there was one historian that came out later and said, well, I was just trying to guesstimate. And so I don't really know how many people died. And so Matt Walsh took that and basically said, well, the death toll is probably exaggerated.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. okay, so Walsh, I remember getting upset about this when we were driving home because we heard Matt and He says, only 700 maximum deaths. It's maybe 10% of the historical record. Well, that offended me. 700 deaths is a lot. Even if we took it the number,
Madison Freeman: it's still a huge number.
Kevin Freeman: It is still a huge number. And then he said, Only 4, 400 died on the well documented military detachments. Now I've got the book on the Trail of Tears. And I was looking at the 400 who died. Number one. 400 is 400. That's a lot of people. but when they actually added up, they have very good numbers that the military detachments had of how many people traveled with them, how many people entered, how many people ran away, and how many people died. And he's right. About 4400 people died on the actual trail. What he's missing is those that died in the stockades, those that died in the arrival camps. And his restricted calculation ignores a lot of death that happened outside of what the military wrote down.
Madison Freeman: Right. Because you had people who died before the trail. You had the people who died because
Kevin Freeman: they were in the internment campsite, you
Madison Freeman: had people who died on the trail, and then you had people who died when they got there because of all the horrible things that they had been through.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. So the number is probably. Historians, almost all agree that the number is closer to 4,000 people dying out of 15,000 people who traveled, which
Madison Freeman: is a staggering number.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, we were concerned. I remember during, the pandemic, they said, what if 1% of the population died? 1% would be horrifying, and we're glad that that didn't happen. But 4,000 out of 15,000 is more than a quarter.
Kevin Freeman: One out of four people that I think qualifies as a term a Trail of Tears and death.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: All right, so what was the fourth argument that he made?
Madison Freeman: the fourth argument that he made was that the treaty was basically, like you said, a real estate transaction. Everybody was cooperating with one another. The government paid them fairly, all, these things.
Kevin Freeman: Yes. But the Treaty of NewSong Echota was signed by a tiny, unauthorized faction, the Treaty Party, representing less than 5% of the nation. The principal chief at the time, Jon Ross, gathered 15,000 signatures, 90% of the people, and they declared it fraudulent. The Senate still ratified it by one vote. And under Cherokee law, signing away the national lands without national council authority was a capital offense. That means you could be put to death for it. This wasn't a fair contract. Can you imagine somebody in your neighborhood, and you live in a subdivision, goes in and signs a deal with an oil company that gives the entire neighborhood over to them, strikes the price and you're stuck with it? That wouldn't feel very good.
Madison Freeman: And again, it was $5 million. That's basically nothing.
Kevin Freeman: It is basically nothing for the amount. 7.8 million acres. Even the Supreme Court said it wasn't fair.
Madison Freeman: Right, right. In Worcester versus Georgia, the Chief justice of the Supreme Court, who was Jon Marshall, ruled that The Cherokee Nation was a distinct political community. That Georgia law had no force inside the Cherokee territory. But President Andrew Jackson simply refused to enforce this decision. And that's probably why so many Cherokees wouldn't carry $20 bills.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, in Oklahoma, that was a common thing. I hate the $20 bill. They'd like to. Fives, tens, fifties, hundreds. They hated the 20. They didn't. He was the president who shall not be named. What was his famous quote that he said?
Madison Freeman: he said that Jon Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.
Kevin Freeman: Yep. Jon Marshall made his decision that. All right, so we have a lot of reasons to debunk Matt Walsh. he may have done great work in other areas. This whole idea, though, that they paid $5 million, he said, well, that's fair, considering what they paid for the Louisiana Purchase and for Alaska and all that. No, that's garbage. Because the land that Cherokee had was fully cultivated, fully developed, had gold on it, had been already found. Anybody would have paid $5 million for that property. That was an unfair thing. And then Madison, the fifth rebuttal is what he.
Madison Freeman: we're talking about the soldier's testimonies. He basically was saying that they're inaccurate, and that, you know, we can't trust those.
Kevin Freeman: Well, the soldiers testimony, I think that's contemporaneous. They had no reason to sympathize with the Cherokee over the United States. So. Nice try downplaying this. Matt Walsh, I think you missed it. Do you agree?
Madison Freeman: I think he missed it, too. And again, like, I understand the point he was trying to make, that we shouldn't all be victims or feel like victims all the time. I certainly don't feel like a victim from all of this, but I still think that we should acknowledge the evils that happened in order to not repeat history. That's our goal, you know, to keep moving forward.
Kevin Freeman: One of the other things that really bothered me was that he lumped all Native Americans in together, the Plains Indians, these five civilized tribes and all together, and said, you know, but they deserved it because they were so warlike. And so they did that to other people. Deserve to have it done unto them. I. I think that's a very weak argument.
Madison Freeman: I think it is, too, considering that, you know, like we talked about earlier, the Cherokee, they had a written language. They had a constitutional government. Most of them at that point were Christians. They were just living their life and just, you know, not doing anything, really. They weren't really warlike at that time.
Kevin Freeman: So we agree. We like Matt Walsh's commentaries, especially as he defends the existence of women as a biological fact, which is a good thing. That is. He does that. But sadly, Matt, I think you missed it on this one. Go back and do your homework. the Trail of Tears is a real thing. It's tragedy, and it really is problematic American history, but it doesn't mean America's bad, America's good. And all of my ancestors and all the Cherokee I know, they love America. We are proud to be a part of the American story. All right, we'll cover this and more when we come back after this break.
Madison Freeman talks about her Cherokee heritage on Pirate Money Radio
Mike Carter: welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman, and I'm
Kevin Freeman: joined by Madison Freeman, and we're talking about our mutual Cherokee heritage. We've recently visited Tahlequah, Oklahoma, which is, as this is airing, we'll be celebrating Cherokee National Holiday. and they've done it consistently for as long as I've been alive. And I'm so proud of our Cherokee heritage. I've got a picture here. I'm going to show it to you. This is my dad with. This is Jimmy Rogers, Will Rogers youngest son. And Jimmy, Will died the year my dad was born. And Jimmy is, You know, I never believed my dad. He told me, oh, yeah, we're related to Will Rogers. Until he took me over and introduced him. And Jimmie Rogers said, cousin Kari, and I was like, oh, my gosh, we are. So it all comes from my grandfather. He was born in Oklahoma in 1908. He was listed as an Indian on the 1920 census, but on the 1930 census, he listed himself as white. And I never understood why until I read the book the Killers of the Flower Moon.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, basically, you wanted to be white, and if you weren't white, you were gonna get assigned a caretaker for you, and. Which is just a fancy term of I'm gonna live on your land and take all your goods. And, you know, it's what live your life, basically.
Kevin Freeman: And that's if you were allowed to live. A lot of native people were killed in the 1920s in Oklahoma to steal their property, to steal their Indian citizenship or their head rights and all that. And my grandpa did not necessarily become a citizen of the United States, even though he was born in Oklahoma as a state. Oklahoma has been made a state in 1907. He wasn't declared a citizen until 1924, when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act. So don't tell me that somebody that happens to fly here on a tourist visa and have a baby that Baby is automatically a US Citizen. That wasn't true for my grandfather, who was born here in the great state of Oklahoma. Now, the history of the family is we've got a lot of Cherokee throughout it. But Madison, your mom, she's got some Cherokee, too. We just can't document it.
Madison Freeman: We can't document it because, like we talked about, you didn't want to be Cherokee or any Native American at that time. It was not a good time to be Native American. So they probably said they were white, and that's why we can't prove it.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no. And that is true for a lot of people. So actually, I have a little bit of sympathy for Elisabeth Warren, and she grew up in Oklahoma. A lot of people have Indian, lore in their family. And a lot of people. Well, my grandma had high cheekbones, and so she must be Cherokee. And they always say the same thing. Some of it may be true, some of it could be true, and some of it may just be made up. All right, so my grandfather, was definitely both sides, of, my grandfather and grandmother. There's some evidence of Cherokee citizenship, but we have documentation.
Madison Freeman: Correct.
Kevin Freeman: On Granddad's side. And that's what it takes. So, Madison, what's it like to be a Cherokee? What did you have to do to go through to become a Cherokee citizen?
Madison Freeman: So you have to be on the Dawes rolls, which basically means you have an ancestor who registered on the rolls when the census was passed. Cherokee are a little bit different than some Native American tribes. They don't do it by blood quantum. So as long as you have a ancestor on the rolls, you can register as a citizen, get your tribal id, you can vote in every election, and you're good to go.
Kevin Freeman: And you can go to the Cherokee
Madison Freeman: hospital if you need care, healthcare over there.
Kevin Freeman: And so I want to thank, dear friend Johnny Jack Kidwell, who is the at large counselor and the current speaker of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council. I mean, it's like, he's like the Mike Johnson who's Speaker of the House. He's the Mike Johnson of the Cherokee Nation, and he served in the Coast Guard. He's an American hero, veteran, dear friend, and he's currently the speaker of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council. I served as the speaker of the Cherokee community of North Texas, and I'm now chair emeritus, I think is the official term. It used to be speaker emeritus, but we've changed it to chair emeritus, so we should encourage every family. Do you agree?
Madison Freeman: Yeah. If you can find your ancestor on the rolls. You should definitely look into getting a tribal id. You find a nice community of Cherokee. It's super fun to learn about all the history you get. Health care, as we mentioned, if you drive to a Native health center, it's a great thing.
Kevin Freeman: There are a lot of benefits, and we get together and we share family stories. We started a Victory Garden, which we covered last week. Mike Carter and I talked about the Victory Gardens last week. and it really is a way to celebrate your heritage. But, you know, we're all proud to be Americans, and most importantly, we're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Cherokee have a history of that, too, which is awesome. So this is an opportunity for you to explore your heritage a little bit like Madison and I have done recently. If you've got Native American, write to [email protected] AFR PirateMoneyRadio.com we'll come back and we'll have a little more discussion of the Christian tie in.
Mike Carter: Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security, and values.
Kevin Freeman talks with Madison Freeman about Cherokee heritage and American history
Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: Madison Freeman, has joined me and Madison. We've had a great conversation walking through our family history, walking through the Cherokee debunking. The debunking, of the Trail of Tears. You know, America's got a lot of things in our past that, some of which we can be extraordinarily proud of and some of which we can learn from. But the good news is, we're all Americans now. It doesn't matter if you're Cherokee or if you're Choctaw or if you're Comanche or if you're, from China or if you're from South America or Africa or. It doesn't matter. We're all Americans now. And that's the exciting thing, I think.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, no, it's a. It's a beautiful thing. And even though we've had some hardships as the Cherokee Nation, I think it made a beautiful story. And I think we're all proud to be Americans.
Kevin Freeman: Every family's had some hardship somewhere. You look back and I'm so grateful, Madison, for, our ancestors who came before and they shared the gospel of Jesus with us. The Cherokee adopted Christianity. That's a big thing.
Madison Freeman: It is.
Kevin Freeman: So it's a deeper point. both Emmett Starr and James Adair wrote about this in books. One wrote in the 1700s, the other wrote in the early 20th century. they tell us of people whose Older religious memory contains striking parallels to the biblical account. Three beings above who were really one who created all things. Yehuah, his son, the Great Spirit. You've heard the Great Spirit that's referencing the Holy Spirit. It's amazing. These are stories mirrored Abraham and Moses, a, sacred fire, rejection of idols by a significant portion of the tribe. And when the gospel came, they recognized it as a recovery of what their father fathers had once known. The same God who kept a remnant through the Trail of Tears is the God who calls us today to honest weights and measures to keep our word, to rebuild what has been broken. And the Cherokee Constitution of 1839 celebrated on Cherokee national holiday was an act of ordered liberty. Under that God, our call is the same. Tell the truth, keep our covenants and steward what has been entrusted to us.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, it's amazing to see all of the parallels. I mean I studied theology at Liberty and the parallels between the Cherokee historical account of what they believe is God and the Son and Holy Spirit compared to Christianity is just striking.
Kevin Freeman: And you know, it's better theology in the old Cherokee documents, even if they have the names a little off. Yehoah and his Son and the Great Spirit. It's better theology than you find in a lot of Christian churches today.
Madison Freeman: I think for sure. You go to any woke activist church and it's not going to be similar to the Cherokee telling of the story of the world at all.
Kevin Freeman: You know, and the idea of the Cherokee story, you'll be Earth is known as Turtle island and it rides on the back of turtles is kind of what the old, Cherokee idea was. But when it was created, they say it was created by this three being God. That's the Trinity. Is that found in any other religion other than Christianity?
Madison Freeman: Not that I am aware of or have studied, no.
Kevin Freeman: You've studied a lot of alternative religions, haven't you?
Madison Freeman: I have and I have yet to find another one that talks about a three person in one being.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, I've got a Cherokee actually Native American NewSong Testament here and they're translating it. And when we were in Tahlequah, we saw Bibles and hymnals that were in Cherokee. I wish that my great grandmother taught my father some Cherokee and he could count to five and I'll probably butcher it.
Madison Freeman: Terrible.
Kevin Freeman: But it was saagwa taali, joi nunqui whiskey. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in Cherokee and wado we know which is thank you. And ocio and osio.
Madison Freeman: Hello.
Kevin Freeman: Yes. Which is hello. So. So we've Got a fun historical family heritage to enjoy. And I'm really excited because, Madison, you and your sister brought a lot of this out because she just wanted to dive deep into it.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, no, it was really fun learning about that in school. And I remember talking to your dad about it. He was so proud. It was his favorite thing to talk about his Cherokee history. He loves anything Cherokee. and so we're just proud of it. We're proud of our heritage.
Kevin Freeman: He's been gone almost three years now, but I gave him a copy of this book, the History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folklore. And I remember him flipping through it and he'd say things like, oh, that old boy, your grandpa used to go fishing with him. Oh, my grandmother, she loved that.
Mike Carter: Oh.
Kevin Freeman: and two of our family lines are prominently featured in this book. It's just. It's been an amazing, amazing time. All right, if you want to go deeper, visit piratemoneyradio.com I've had fun. Madison, we need to have you back again. If you're watching on Real Life Network, until next time, stay faithful, stay free. But if you're listening by podcast or on afr, stay tuned.
Mike Carter: Foreign.
Kevin and Madison Freeman discuss American history on Pirate Money Radio
Welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: I'm joined by beautiful daughter Madison. You've grown up so beautifully. I'm proud of you. You got your. Your degree from Liberty University and you're working with us in social media. I'm just so glad you're part of our team. Do you have any final thoughts from this episode?
Madison Freeman: I think that Truth Matters would be the first thing I would say. even the hard parts of our American history, we debunked Matt Walsh, which I understand the point he was trying to make, but I also think it's important to acknowledge the truth of our past so we don't repeat it.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no. And this was unfair. It was unfair what happened to the Cherokee. But I'll tell you, if you're of Italian descent, unfair, things have happened. If you're of African descent, definitely unfair things have likely happened in your family and to your family. but there is another greater truth, and that is that the gospel overcomes all of that. Right.
Madison Freeman: Hm.
Kevin Freeman: The Christian life is a better life. And we may be Cherokee in our heritage. we have friends who happen to be Irish or English or South African or African or Italian or Chinese. We've got friends. That's the beauty of America. And it's the beauty of the body of Christ, right?
Madison Freeman: It is. There's Something beautiful in all of the diversity, but also the unity within the diversity because we're all believers and children of God.
Kevin Freeman: And I think that's an important lesson for us to learn today. We could focus exclusively. I'm Native American, you owe me reparations. That's not the message of the gospel. In fact, all of that identity is hidden in Jesus Christ.
Madison Freeman: Correct.
Kevin Freeman: And so we've got to, philosophically, spiritually, emotionally, we've got to realize, yeah, we have a heritage and it's fun to celebrate it. And it's sad to learn, like the killers of the flower moon, that people were murdered to steal from them. But, it's also beautiful in that in Christ we can all come together.
Madison Freeman: Yeah. And I think the beauty of the American story is how much we've corrected things. I think America is one of the only nations that has taken the horrible things and done something about it which a lot of people today don't recognize.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, it's great to have friends from all backgrounds, all walks all over the world. I remember Dr. Ben Carson has been sitting where you are seated right now. And he tells his story and his truth and we all have that. But then he always comes back to, I love the Lord Jesus, I'm a believer and I love America. And he's American. He went from abject poverty to ah, to the top 1/10 of 1% in one lifetime through hard work and the blessings of God.
Kevin Freeman: So that's our message. If this episode has stirred something and you write to [email protected] so I want to close with prayer. Father, we thank you for the resilience of the Cherokee people. For the privilege of remembering their story. We thank you that you prepared our hearts through ancient traditions that are pointed to your truth. Heal the wounds of broken promises, give wisdom to our leaders, protect our veterans, strengthen families and restore a love of truth and honest healing in America. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for your purposes among the nations. In Jesus name, amen. You can find Pirate Money Radio on all major podcast platforms [email protected] this is Kevan and Madison Freeman and we're here at Pirate Money Radio.
The Cherokee Nation celebrates its 74th Cherokee National Holiday on Labor Day
Kevin Freeman: Ahoy, mates. Welcome aboard another voyage of Pirate Money Radio, the show that sails against the storms of fiat tyranny, cultural confusion and counterfeit ideas to chart a course toward liberty, security and values built on biblical truth. I'm your captain, Kevan Freeman, coming to you from the heart of Texas and joined today by my daughter on her first time as co host, Madison Freeman. Welcome, Madison. Thank you. I'm honored to be here.
Hey.
Kevin Freeman: This episode's aiming right in the middle of the 74th Cherokee National Holiday in Tahlequah. Every Labor Day weekend, the Cherokee Nation gathers to celebrate the signing of the 1839 Constitution, the document that rebuilt their government after the forced removal known as the Trail of Tears. That holiday is not nostalgia. It's a declaration of survival and ordered liberty and surprising to many as distinctly Christian roots. Madison, we were just there. This is personal, right?
Madison Freeman: Mm, We were just there. We were just at the hospital. Beautiful hospital. beautiful nation. They've done a lot of great things over there.
Kevin Freeman: Well, we were there with Marnie, your mom, my darling wife, the love of my life. And we walked the streets, we met warm and gracious people. We watched a family member receive care at a beautiful $470 million W.W. hastings Hospital that opened just in July. It's brand new, state of the art Cherokee Nation's building a world class health system while pressing for the full measure of promises made long ago. We know after the Trail of Tears, the survivors arrived in Indian territory and reunited with the old settlers who had come earlier. And Madison, we've had two family lines. One that came early and one that came on the Trail of tears. And in July 1839, they passed the act of Union. On September 6, 1839, they adopted a new constitution modeled closely after their earlier 1827 document and based on the US Constitution. And they established the capital at Tahlequah, divided the land into districts, rebuilt schools, courts and a national government. That's the government still operating today. And that's the one we're celebrating at National Holiday.
Madison Freeman: Yes.
Kevin Freeman: All right. The spiritual foundation is found in a book, well, several books. The history of the Cherokee Indians and their legends and folklore. And it's also found, and I've got one copy here, which was what is is out of the Fire Flame by James Adair. Madison, you've heard this your whole life. The Cherokee Nation religion actually mirrors M and parallels The Christian religion, I think
Madison Freeman: a lot of people assume, because it's a Native American tribe, that it's, a lot of worshiping the sun God and the moon God and the river and all those things. But really, it closely mirrors Christianity the more you look into it.
Kevin Freeman: Oh, yeah. So here's a quote. When the early missionaries came among the Cherokees, they were astonished at the similarity of the religious tradition of the Cherokees to biblical accounts. that while the greater part had been idolatrous, so a number of churches were worshiping sun, moon, stars and other gods. Small portion denied that system and taught that there were three beings above, three beings who created all things and will judge all men. The three beings were said to be unanimous in thought and action and always will be the only objects to which worship and prayer should be dedicated. And they said the three were really one. Yehawah, his son and a great spirit. Have you got that quote from Emmett?
Madison Freeman: Yeah. Emmett Starr goes on to say, they claimed that Yehawa was the name of a great king. He was a man and yet a spirit so very similar to Christianity, a great and glorious being. His name was never to be spoken in common talk. The great king commanded them to rest every seventh day, so a Sabbath day. They were told not to work on this day and that they should devote it to talking about God. God made the first man of red clay, and he was Indian, and he made woman of one of his ribs. So very parallel to Adam and Eve. They had preachers and prophets who taught the people to obey God and their parents. And they warned the people of the approaching flood, but said that the world would only be destroyed by water once, and then it would later be destroyed by fire.
Kevin Freeman: That's almost verbatim from the book of Genesis. Yes, and it's Yehawah created the heavens and the earth in seven days. He rested on the seventh day. Actually, he created in six, rest on the seventh. All right, so I'm going to quote Star a little bit more. A little before the flood. Then he warns of a flood God, sent a messenger from above to warn the people of the flood unless they turn from their wickedness. He then told a man to make a house that would swim, which is interesting, Cherokee, a house that would swim, but sounds like.
Madison Freeman: Sounds like a boat.
Kevin Freeman: Sounds like an ork. Right. and then to take his family and some of the different kinds of animals. Two of each kind of animal. The rain commenced and continued for 40 days and 40 nights. I'm just quoting from the Cherokee, readings While the water at the same time gushed out of the ground as it did come from out of the clouds. That's again just like the biblical account.
Madison Freeman: Starr goes on to say the Cherokees detail to the missionaries parallels to practically every one of the stories of the Bible. They called Abraham Akwahame, Moses was called Wasi. These accounts were so circumstantial that many investigators were led to believe that the Cherokees were actually of Semitic origin.
Kevin Freeman: You mean they thought they were Jewish?
Madison Freeman: On account of the fact that the Cherokees thought that the missionaries were bringing them back to their old religion. It was relatively easy to convert them from a tribe of savages to a Christian nation within the comparatively short period of 30 years.
Kevin Freeman: Wow.
The Cherokee were considered among the most civilized Native American tribes
All right, so I've got this James Adair book here. He wrote as an eyewitness traitor in the 1700s. He observed this reality. He lived with Indians for 30 years and published his book in 1775. He recorded that the Cherokee paid religious devotion to Yohi Wah. Now the Emmet Starr says Yehowah but you can see the similarity. The great Beneficent Supreme Holy Spirit of Fire. And that their ceremonies were more closely following the Mosaic tradition than pagan imitation. They had no idols. They had a strong sense of theocracy under one true and living God manifest in three deities. So that really does sound like the Bible account, doesn't it?
Madison Freeman: It does. Which is very interesting because again that's very different from most other Native American tribes.
Kevin Freeman: It is and I'm pleased with that. And Cherokee Nation became one of the, they will call one of the five civilized tribes. And a big reason for that was they picked up agrarian practice. They adopted the Christian religion very easily. They would do trading practices. They Alphabet and written language syllabary from Sequoia. I mean there are a whole lot of reasons that the Cherokee people were considered to be among the most civilized.
Madison Freeman: Right?
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. But one thing that happened, they came as you know, Madison, they came from Georgia and Tennessee and North Carolina. But they discovered gold which ties one of our pirate money radio tie ins is they discovered gold in Georgia. Then all of a sudden these very civilized Cherokee need to be rem going to talk about that. but the Cherokee national holiday commemorates the constitution that they formed after a Trail of Tears. Now you recently and I dove into this issue of the Trail of Tears. Tell us about that.
Madison Freeman: mainly we were just talking about how there's a lot of different things going around especially on the Internet, YouTube videos and such, talking about how the Trail of Tears might not have actually been as bad as people are making out to be. but if we go into the research further, it really was horrific.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. Now I get it. There is this idea that everybody's a victim and there's this victimhood status. And so, wow, what was bad? Well, I had ancestors who were slaves. Well, you were a victim and that really was bad. And it does impact your life. But we had ancestors that were forced on a Trail of Tears. And now there are people, ah, even in the conservative side of things who are trying to say, well, that didn't really happen like that. No, nobody was really. It wasn't a trailer. They didn't even make the term up. and we're going to cover that because you and I, we did the deep dive research.
Madison Freeman: We did.
Kevin Freeman: We spent the entire way back from, Tahlequah looking it up and studying it. I've got books all over this table, that date back to that time period, that now, sorry people. We've had some horrific things happen in American history. That was one of them. But it doesn't change the fact that I think America is still the greatest nation on Earth and probably has the best history because we've gone back and repaired a lot of bad things.
Madison Freeman: Yeah.
Kevin Freeman: So anyway, all right, we believe in America. We believe in liberty and patriotism and all of that. And we also believe in aligning your money with your values. And there are only three things you can do with your money. You can give it, you can spend it, you can, you can invest it. Here at Pirate Money Radio, we work to explain solutions, support all three areas in a way to promote liberty, security and values. Patriot Mobile, it's a mobile phone company. They support the Pirate Money radio program. Patriot Mobile uses US carriers including AT&T, Verizon and T Mobile and operates on both Apple and Android phones. More information about the economic war room and Patriot Mobile is [email protected] AFR that's PirateMoneyRadio.com AFR and I've got Madison joining me in studio as co host. And Madison, I really got, to give you and your sister, a lot of credit for bringing up a lot of our native heritage. You did that as a school project, right?
Madison Freeman: I remember we had to do a school project and it basically was like, how did your family get over through Ellis Island? And I had to go to my teacher and be like, oh, well, I don't know any of my family that came over from Ellis island, so we had to do a modified project for that.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, it's. It's the old Will Rogers line. My family didn't come over on the Mayflower, but they were here to meet the boat.
Madison Freeman: Yep.
Kevin Freeman: And that is what we'll be talking about when we come back after this break. We'll be right back.
Madison Freeman traced her Cherokee family lineage for school
Mike Carter: Welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: I'm talking with Marnie's and my firstborn daughter, Madison. And Madison, we love you so much. We're so proud of you. and we were together recently in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, and just enjoying and seeing some of the great things the Cherokee Nation is building and doing. That is the home of the Cherokee Nation. That's where, after the Trail of Tears, the Cherokee resettled in what is now Oklahoma. And, Madison, you did an incredible project. we talked about it right before the break of tracing our family lineage. And I've got. Can you see that up here on the screen? I've got it up on the screen. Tell us a little bit, about that lineage. let's go. Starting with my paternal grandmother, my dad's grandma, with Lebel Prather. I met her as a little kid. She passed away in 1969. Sweet, lady. She spoke Cherokee. tell us a little bit about, Lee Belle Prather.
Madison Freeman: so this was a project that I had to do for school because we had no, as far as I could tell, no ancestors who came through Ellis Island. so I did a lot of research through one line. There's probably multiple lines on your dad's side of Cherokee, but this is the one that I found the most. Lee Bell Prather. Her mom was Francis McGee. and Francis's father was Thomas Jefferson Okiltaw McGee, who was a Cherokee citizen. He served as a clerk and a judge in the Delaware District. And because he looked Indian and he had a Cherokee mom, he was taught Cherokee as a child, while his siblings, who looked white, were taught English. and his mother was Judith Cochran, who was born in 1818 in Georgia. And her and her mom actually came down the Trail of Tears. So we have ancestors who came down the Trail of Tears. And this line runs all the way down to you, to your dad, to me. And that is the line that I was able to track the most Cherokee from.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. No. And, Judith Cochran is a direct descendant of two that were born, in the 1700s. Cloud and butterfly was their name. And that's about all very Cherokee names. Yeah. English translation, but yes. All right. But you can also go back to Charles Rogers, and you studied that one in detail. We've got a book here about Sam Houston. Ah. With the Cherokee. Tell a little of that story.
Madison Freeman: Charles Rogers was actually half brother to Tiana Rogers, who was Sam Houston's Cherokee wife, who he left behind when he went to go fight for Texas. and she did not go with him, but he is also the brother of one of the chiefs, who was a chief before the Trail of Tears and then once the Trail of Tears occurred, Jon Ross became chief.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. Well, you look at my grandfather that you never had a chance to know. He died before you were born. Ralph Emerson Freeman served in World War II. He passed away when I was in college. He looked very Indian and he looked very much like he was a contemporary of Will Rogers, as you mentioned. And his mother, Leigh Bell Prather, she looked, she was my great grandmother. She was very much Cherokee, looked in sound and everything else. but this is, you know, I'm kind of a mutt in the Cherokee because my mom was not Cherokee. And it's a, it's a, it's a very matriarchal society.
Madison Freeman: So really the mom is who you inherit your Cherokee from, so to speak. and you don't marry inside your own clan. You're disciplined by your mom's side. Very matriarchal.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, I remember my mom, who's Irish. The discipline would come through her father. She married my dad, who was Cherokee. He would not discipline us very often, if at all. And she didn't understand that. But in the Cherokee tradition, it would be, literally your uncle. Because your dad is not in the same clan you're in. You're born into your mom's clan. And so the women, wouldn't do the discipline, but it also wouldn't be the father, it would be the brother of the mother. The discipline to protect the family name because the dad didn't care. You're not in his clan, you're not embarrassing his clan. So that's kind of how it comes. My grandmother, though, she didn't want to admit it, her family didn't want to admit it. But I trace back, she came very Cherokee, and she was hiding from her Cherokee roots. In fact, her family said, oh, Catherine, you don't want to marry that old Indian, do you? Because it was an embarrassment to the family. There's a whole lot of history going on in our family. you know, my dad was a big fan of the Killers of the Flower Moon book because he knew a lot of the people that were involved in what happened there.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: Anyway, all right, we're going to talk a little bit more about the Cherokee, the civilized tribe, currency, evolution and the Trail of Tears. And we'll be covering all of that when we come back right after this break.
Mike Carter: We'll be right back. M Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security and values. Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: And, I'm having a great conversation with Madison and so glad you're here. And we're talking about the Cherokee people, which is our heritage and we're very proud of our heritage. We're celebrating. right as this program airs, we'll be right in the middle of Cherokee national holiday. And for you Texans, and we are definitely Texans. Madison, you were born here in Texas. you need to know and understand that Sam Houston was adopted into the Cherokee tribe. He married a sixth great aunt of mine, Tiana Rogers, who's buried in Oklahoma. And she said, sam, I've been moved already from Georgia to Oklahoma. I'm not moving for. Actually, I think she started in Tennessee, but I'm not moving to Texas. but the Cherokee, they were very civilized people and they were called a civilized tribe. They had a written language, a constitutional government. They had schools, newspapers, and modern clothing. And I've got a pirate money connection. In the 1700s, the deerskin trade was the foundational commercial economy. Goods were priced in the number of processed hides. A hunter might take 30 buckskins for a single rifle. The high volume trade in made male bucks and female does is highly credited as the origin of the American slang terms bucks. I got a bunch of bucks in my pocket. Or dough. I got some dough for money.
Madison Freeman: That's so interesting. I had no idea.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no. And that's Cherokee Nation. They adopted that. But you know what? They also adopted US money, particularly gold, silver and paper currency, to operate their national schools, courts and international businesses. But then the government broke its word. It forced them out of their ancestral homelands. the treaty of New eshota offered them $5 million for roughly 7 to 7.8 million acres. And that's not a whole lot of money. Just the hospital we were in is how much? 470 million.
Madison Freeman: 470 million.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. So they moved from deer skins to gold and silver to paper. But they paid a terrible price when those promises failed.
Madison Freeman: Right, right. Yeah. I mean, always moving from, you know, gold and silver to fiat money is never a good option.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, It's a government breaking its promise is what it essentially is. And if you're a part of the current fiat system, the government has broken its promises to you. Now, a lot of people will say, oh, they paid them, you know, what was it that they paid? 7.5 million dollars for 7 to 7.8 million acres of land. That's a pretty good deal. I'd find $5 million to buy that land. That was some of the best farmland. It had gold on it. It was highly developed, highly civilized. It had been tamed. It wasn't frontier land.
Madison Freeman: $5 million for that is nothing.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, it is nothing. And the number of bucks that it would take it. Going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the Trail of Tears. And sadly, you know, Matt Walsh, in his Real History series, came out and tried to debunk the Trail of Tears. We're going to rebunk it.
Madison Freeman: Yeah.
Kevin Freeman: I don't know.
Madison Freeman: I don't know what it is after it's been debunked and debunked again. I don't know how that works.
Kevin Freeman: You debunked.
Madison Freeman: It's like an Uno reverse card. Yes, we're going to do that.
Kevin Freeman: We're going to rebunk it. I'm going to go with that.
Madison Freeman: Okay.
Kevin Freeman: All right.
Glint offers an alternative way to store and use gold and silver
But we're talking about, money and how $5 million in 1835, they thought that was sufficient to pay for 7.8 million acres. Part of that is they were underpaying. Part of it is money has really lost its value. Support for this program comes from Glint. That's a financial technology service offering a debit card and a mobile app that enables users to access gold holdings, their own gold holdings, for everyday purchases. With Glint, users maintain ownership of allocated physical gold, which is stored in a managed vault. At the time of a transaction, gold is sold in real time to cover the purchase amount in local currency. Glint offers an alternative way to store and use the value of gold and silver. Combining that with modern payment infrastructure, Glint clients can monitor their goal balance, view transaction history, and manage their account through the Glint app, available on major mobile platforms. More details about how vaulted physical gold can be used as money are [email protected] Goldpool Gold 247. Again, that's glintpay.com Gold247 Glint. Providing access to gold for modern spending sure makes it easier than having to go out and shoot Bambi to have some dough. Or Bambi's Daddy to get some bucks, Right?
Madison Freeman: Yes. A much easier option is Glint.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. And it is a way to preserve your purchasing power. And frankly, if the, Cherokee had taken that $5 million in gold instead of US paper currency, it would be worth quite a bit today. $5 million in gold from 1835 today. We'll have to look that up over the break, but that is. That. That's a big deal. We're Pirate Money Radio talking with Madison Freeman about the Cherokee people, and we're going to cover that and the Trail of Tears when we come back.
Kevin Freeman: Matt Walsh says Trail of Tears is widely exaggerated
Mike Carter: Welcome to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman, helping you unpack the economic headlines and providing real money solutions.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, we're talking about a, real history series that's out. Matt Walsh, who's done some incredible work. I really have to appreciate what is a Woman and the documentary. He's done some incredible work, but I think it's a swing and a miss on this one. he says that the Trail of Tears is widely exaggerated, that the term is a modern invention, that the removal was essentially a legitimate real estate transaction. And, Madison, I want to walk through that point by point. And right before the break, we learned that they gave them $5 million for 7.8 million acres of land in Georgia, where they found gold on it. Well, if they bought gold with that, if they'd used that $5 million in held gold, according to ChatGPT, $5 million worth of gold in 1830s would be worth over a billion. $1.06 billion today. So that's better.
Madison Freeman: It's better than 5 million, which is essentially a penny for, that land.
Kevin Freeman: But I bet that if they. The gold they already had on the land, it was worth even more than that, probably, if we added that up. All right, let's walk through this whole notion of Matt Walsh. What was the first claim, that he made in his real history?
Madison Freeman: The first thing that he said was that the term Trail of Tears was essentially a modern invention used by WOKE activists to make a point that everyone's a victim.
Kevin Freeman: That's not what we found when we looked it up. What did we find?
Madison Freeman: we found that it was actually a Choctaw chief, who described the forced march, the forced removal of the Choctaw as the Trail of Tears and Death when he was quoted in an Arkansas newspaper. So it was a contemporaneous.
Kevin Freeman: Yes, a Trail of Tears and death. So actually, they didn't sensationalize it up. They actually toned it down.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: Trail of Tears and Death. The Cherokee called it nuna. Let me see. Nung he do. Hi. Ja da va. That is the place where they cried. That's what it translates to. And that was called at the time. That's what it was called.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: So that. I'm sorry, swing and a miss. Matt there really was called the Trail of Tears. Now, what was the second, thing that we found?
Madison Freeman: the second thing that he basically said is that the eyewitnesses over exaggerated. So people, I guess, were recorded later as saying, well, we're not sure about the number of deaths. You know, that was me just trying to figure it out, but I'm not sure. And so he was basically saying that everything that we know about the Trail of Tears was probably over exaggerated, but
Kevin Freeman: there was an eyewitness there that most conservative historians accept. Tell us about that.
Madison Freeman: So Alexis Tocqueville was there, which he is very highly respected among the conservative circle. he was at Mississippi in December of 1831, and he watched Choctaw families cross in freezing weather, wounded, sick, newborns and elderly. And he wrote that it was impossible to conceive the frightful evils that attend these forced migrations. He was a neutral foreign observer, so he didn't really have any modern political agenda. Again, he's respected by most conservatives.
Kevin Freeman: We quote from his book all the time. Democracy in America. You'll see presidents have quoted through the centuries. Democracy in America. He highly respected, not part of American culture, French observer. And he was a lover of America. He wasn't trying to tear America down. But he noted that these were frightful evils. It was a forced march. It was not a real estate transaction. Now, the third argument that Matt Walsh has. What was that?
Madison Freeman: the third argument he had was that the death toll was over exaggerated. I guess there was one historian that came out later and said, well, I was just trying to guesstimate. And so I don't really know how many people died. And so Matt Walsh took that and basically said, well, the death toll is probably exaggerated.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. okay, so Walsh, I remember getting upset about this when we were driving home because we heard Matt and He says, only 700 maximum deaths. It's maybe 10% of the historical record. Well, that offended me. 700 deaths is a lot. Even if we took it the number,
Madison Freeman: it's still a huge number.
Kevin Freeman: It is still a huge number. And then he said, Only 4, 400 died on the well documented military detachments. Now I've got the book on the Trail of Tears. And I was looking at the 400 who died. Number one. 400 is 400. That's a lot of people. but when they actually added up, they have very good numbers that the military detachments had of how many people traveled with them, how many people entered, how many people ran away, and how many people died. And he's right. About 4400 people died on the actual trail. What he's missing is those that died in the stockades, those that died in the arrival camps. And his restricted calculation ignores a lot of death that happened outside of what the military wrote down.
Madison Freeman: Right. Because you had people who died before the trail. You had the people who died because
Kevin Freeman: they were in the internment campsite, you
Madison Freeman: had people who died on the trail, and then you had people who died when they got there because of all the horrible things that they had been through.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah. So the number is probably. Historians, almost all agree that the number is closer to 4,000 people dying out of 15,000 people who traveled, which
Madison Freeman: is a staggering number.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, we were concerned. I remember during, the pandemic, they said, what if 1% of the population died? 1% would be horrifying, and we're glad that that didn't happen. But 4,000 out of 15,000 is more than a quarter.
Kevin Freeman: One out of four people that I think qualifies as a term a Trail of Tears and death.
Madison Freeman: Right.
Kevin Freeman: All right, so what was the fourth argument that he made?
Madison Freeman: the fourth argument that he made was that the treaty was basically, like you said, a real estate transaction. Everybody was cooperating with one another. The government paid them fairly, all, these things.
Kevin Freeman: Yes. But the Treaty of NewSong Echota was signed by a tiny, unauthorized faction, the Treaty Party, representing less than 5% of the nation. The principal chief at the time, Jon Ross, gathered 15,000 signatures, 90% of the people, and they declared it fraudulent. The Senate still ratified it by one vote. And under Cherokee law, signing away the national lands without national council authority was a capital offense. That means you could be put to death for it. This wasn't a fair contract. Can you imagine somebody in your neighborhood, and you live in a subdivision, goes in and signs a deal with an oil company that gives the entire neighborhood over to them, strikes the price and you're stuck with it? That wouldn't feel very good.
Madison Freeman: And again, it was $5 million. That's basically nothing.
Kevin Freeman: It is basically nothing for the amount. 7.8 million acres. Even the Supreme Court said it wasn't fair.
Madison Freeman: Right, right. In Worcester versus Georgia, the Chief justice of the Supreme Court, who was Jon Marshall, ruled that The Cherokee Nation was a distinct political community. That Georgia law had no force inside the Cherokee territory. But President Andrew Jackson simply refused to enforce this decision. And that's probably why so many Cherokees wouldn't carry $20 bills.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no, in Oklahoma, that was a common thing. I hate the $20 bill. They'd like to. Fives, tens, fifties, hundreds. They hated the 20. They didn't. He was the president who shall not be named. What was his famous quote that he said?
Madison Freeman: he said that Jon Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it.
Kevin Freeman: Yep. Jon Marshall made his decision that. All right, so we have a lot of reasons to debunk Matt Walsh. he may have done great work in other areas. This whole idea, though, that they paid $5 million, he said, well, that's fair, considering what they paid for the Louisiana Purchase and for Alaska and all that. No, that's garbage. Because the land that Cherokee had was fully cultivated, fully developed, had gold on it, had been already found. Anybody would have paid $5 million for that property. That was an unfair thing. And then Madison, the fifth rebuttal is what he.
Madison Freeman: we're talking about the soldier's testimonies. He basically was saying that they're inaccurate, and that, you know, we can't trust those.
Kevin Freeman: Well, the soldiers testimony, I think that's contemporaneous. They had no reason to sympathize with the Cherokee over the United States. So. Nice try downplaying this. Matt Walsh, I think you missed it. Do you agree?
Madison Freeman: I think he missed it, too. And again, like, I understand the point he was trying to make, that we shouldn't all be victims or feel like victims all the time. I certainly don't feel like a victim from all of this, but I still think that we should acknowledge the evils that happened in order to not repeat history. That's our goal, you know, to keep moving forward.
Kevin Freeman: One of the other things that really bothered me was that he lumped all Native Americans in together, the Plains Indians, these five civilized tribes and all together, and said, you know, but they deserved it because they were so warlike. And so they did that to other people. Deserve to have it done unto them. I. I think that's a very weak argument.
Madison Freeman: I think it is, too, considering that, you know, like we talked about earlier, the Cherokee, they had a written language. They had a constitutional government. Most of them at that point were Christians. They were just living their life and just, you know, not doing anything, really. They weren't really warlike at that time.
Kevin Freeman: So we agree. We like Matt Walsh's commentaries, especially as he defends the existence of women as a biological fact, which is a good thing. That is. He does that. But sadly, Matt, I think you missed it on this one. Go back and do your homework. the Trail of Tears is a real thing. It's tragedy, and it really is problematic American history, but it doesn't mean America's bad, America's good. And all of my ancestors and all the Cherokee I know, they love America. We are proud to be a part of the American story. All right, we'll cover this and more when we come back after this break.
Madison Freeman talks about her Cherokee heritage on Pirate Money Radio
Mike Carter: welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman, and I'm
Kevin Freeman: joined by Madison Freeman, and we're talking about our mutual Cherokee heritage. We've recently visited Tahlequah, Oklahoma, which is, as this is airing, we'll be celebrating Cherokee National Holiday. and they've done it consistently for as long as I've been alive. And I'm so proud of our Cherokee heritage. I've got a picture here. I'm going to show it to you. This is my dad with. This is Jimmy Rogers, Will Rogers youngest son. And Jimmy, Will died the year my dad was born. And Jimmy is, You know, I never believed my dad. He told me, oh, yeah, we're related to Will Rogers. Until he took me over and introduced him. And Jimmie Rogers said, cousin Kari, and I was like, oh, my gosh, we are. So it all comes from my grandfather. He was born in Oklahoma in 1908. He was listed as an Indian on the 1920 census, but on the 1930 census, he listed himself as white. And I never understood why until I read the book the Killers of the Flower Moon.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, basically, you wanted to be white, and if you weren't white, you were gonna get assigned a caretaker for you, and. Which is just a fancy term of I'm gonna live on your land and take all your goods. And, you know, it's what live your life, basically.
Kevin Freeman: And that's if you were allowed to live. A lot of native people were killed in the 1920s in Oklahoma to steal their property, to steal their Indian citizenship or their head rights and all that. And my grandpa did not necessarily become a citizen of the United States, even though he was born in Oklahoma as a state. Oklahoma has been made a state in 1907. He wasn't declared a citizen until 1924, when Congress passed the Indian Citizenship Act. So don't tell me that somebody that happens to fly here on a tourist visa and have a baby that Baby is automatically a US Citizen. That wasn't true for my grandfather, who was born here in the great state of Oklahoma. Now, the history of the family is we've got a lot of Cherokee throughout it. But Madison, your mom, she's got some Cherokee, too. We just can't document it.
Madison Freeman: We can't document it because, like we talked about, you didn't want to be Cherokee or any Native American at that time. It was not a good time to be Native American. So they probably said they were white, and that's why we can't prove it.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no. And that is true for a lot of people. So actually, I have a little bit of sympathy for Elisabeth Warren, and she grew up in Oklahoma. A lot of people have Indian, lore in their family. And a lot of people. Well, my grandma had high cheekbones, and so she must be Cherokee. And they always say the same thing. Some of it may be true, some of it could be true, and some of it may just be made up. All right, so my grandfather, was definitely both sides, of, my grandfather and grandmother. There's some evidence of Cherokee citizenship, but we have documentation.
Madison Freeman: Correct.
Kevin Freeman: On Granddad's side. And that's what it takes. So, Madison, what's it like to be a Cherokee? What did you have to do to go through to become a Cherokee citizen?
Madison Freeman: So you have to be on the Dawes rolls, which basically means you have an ancestor who registered on the rolls when the census was passed. Cherokee are a little bit different than some Native American tribes. They don't do it by blood quantum. So as long as you have a ancestor on the rolls, you can register as a citizen, get your tribal id, you can vote in every election, and you're good to go.
Kevin Freeman: And you can go to the Cherokee
Madison Freeman: hospital if you need care, healthcare over there.
Kevin Freeman: And so I want to thank, dear friend Johnny Jack Kidwell, who is the at large counselor and the current speaker of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council. I mean, it's like, he's like the Mike Johnson who's Speaker of the House. He's the Mike Johnson of the Cherokee Nation, and he served in the Coast Guard. He's an American hero, veteran, dear friend, and he's currently the speaker of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council. I served as the speaker of the Cherokee community of North Texas, and I'm now chair emeritus, I think is the official term. It used to be speaker emeritus, but we've changed it to chair emeritus, so we should encourage every family. Do you agree?
Madison Freeman: Yeah. If you can find your ancestor on the rolls. You should definitely look into getting a tribal id. You find a nice community of Cherokee. It's super fun to learn about all the history you get. Health care, as we mentioned, if you drive to a Native health center, it's a great thing.
Kevin Freeman: There are a lot of benefits, and we get together and we share family stories. We started a Victory Garden, which we covered last week. Mike Carter and I talked about the Victory Gardens last week. and it really is a way to celebrate your heritage. But, you know, we're all proud to be Americans, and most importantly, we're believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Cherokee have a history of that, too, which is awesome. So this is an opportunity for you to explore your heritage a little bit like Madison and I have done recently. If you've got Native American, write to [email protected] AFR PirateMoneyRadio.com we'll come back and we'll have a little more discussion of the Christian tie in.
Mike Carter: Pirate Money Radio, helping you give, spend and invest in ways that align with liberty, security, and values.
Kevin Freeman talks with Madison Freeman about Cherokee heritage and American history
Welcome back with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: Madison Freeman, has joined me and Madison. We've had a great conversation walking through our family history, walking through the Cherokee debunking. The debunking, of the Trail of Tears. You know, America's got a lot of things in our past that, some of which we can be extraordinarily proud of and some of which we can learn from. But the good news is, we're all Americans now. It doesn't matter if you're Cherokee or if you're Choctaw or if you're Comanche or if you're, from China or if you're from South America or Africa or. It doesn't matter. We're all Americans now. And that's the exciting thing, I think.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, no, it's a. It's a beautiful thing. And even though we've had some hardships as the Cherokee Nation, I think it made a beautiful story. And I think we're all proud to be Americans.
Kevin Freeman: Every family's had some hardship somewhere. You look back and I'm so grateful, Madison, for, our ancestors who came before and they shared the gospel of Jesus with us. The Cherokee adopted Christianity. That's a big thing.
Madison Freeman: It is.
Kevin Freeman: So it's a deeper point. both Emmett Starr and James Adair wrote about this in books. One wrote in the 1700s, the other wrote in the early 20th century. they tell us of people whose Older religious memory contains striking parallels to the biblical account. Three beings above who were really one who created all things. Yehuah, his son, the Great Spirit. You've heard the Great Spirit that's referencing the Holy Spirit. It's amazing. These are stories mirrored Abraham and Moses, a, sacred fire, rejection of idols by a significant portion of the tribe. And when the gospel came, they recognized it as a recovery of what their father fathers had once known. The same God who kept a remnant through the Trail of Tears is the God who calls us today to honest weights and measures to keep our word, to rebuild what has been broken. And the Cherokee Constitution of 1839 celebrated on Cherokee national holiday was an act of ordered liberty. Under that God, our call is the same. Tell the truth, keep our covenants and steward what has been entrusted to us.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, it's amazing to see all of the parallels. I mean I studied theology at Liberty and the parallels between the Cherokee historical account of what they believe is God and the Son and Holy Spirit compared to Christianity is just striking.
Kevin Freeman: And you know, it's better theology in the old Cherokee documents, even if they have the names a little off. Yehoah and his Son and the Great Spirit. It's better theology than you find in a lot of Christian churches today.
Madison Freeman: I think for sure. You go to any woke activist church and it's not going to be similar to the Cherokee telling of the story of the world at all.
Kevin Freeman: You know, and the idea of the Cherokee story, you'll be Earth is known as Turtle island and it rides on the back of turtles is kind of what the old, Cherokee idea was. But when it was created, they say it was created by this three being God. That's the Trinity. Is that found in any other religion other than Christianity?
Madison Freeman: Not that I am aware of or have studied, no.
Kevin Freeman: You've studied a lot of alternative religions, haven't you?
Madison Freeman: I have and I have yet to find another one that talks about a three person in one being.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, I've got a Cherokee actually Native American NewSong Testament here and they're translating it. And when we were in Tahlequah, we saw Bibles and hymnals that were in Cherokee. I wish that my great grandmother taught my father some Cherokee and he could count to five and I'll probably butcher it.
Madison Freeman: Terrible.
Kevin Freeman: But it was saagwa taali, joi nunqui whiskey. That's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in Cherokee and wado we know which is thank you. And ocio and osio.
Madison Freeman: Hello.
Kevin Freeman: Yes. Which is hello. So. So we've Got a fun historical family heritage to enjoy. And I'm really excited because, Madison, you and your sister brought a lot of this out because she just wanted to dive deep into it.
Madison Freeman: Yeah, no, it was really fun learning about that in school. And I remember talking to your dad about it. He was so proud. It was his favorite thing to talk about his Cherokee history. He loves anything Cherokee. and so we're just proud of it. We're proud of our heritage.
Kevin Freeman: He's been gone almost three years now, but I gave him a copy of this book, the History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folklore. And I remember him flipping through it and he'd say things like, oh, that old boy, your grandpa used to go fishing with him. Oh, my grandmother, she loved that.
Mike Carter: Oh.
Kevin Freeman: and two of our family lines are prominently featured in this book. It's just. It's been an amazing, amazing time. All right, if you want to go deeper, visit piratemoneyradio.com I've had fun. Madison, we need to have you back again. If you're watching on Real Life Network, until next time, stay faithful, stay free. But if you're listening by podcast or on afr, stay tuned.
Mike Carter: Foreign.
Kevin and Madison Freeman discuss American history on Pirate Money Radio
Welcome back to Pirate Money Radio with your host, Kevan Freeman.
Kevin Freeman: I'm joined by beautiful daughter Madison. You've grown up so beautifully. I'm proud of you. You got your. Your degree from Liberty University and you're working with us in social media. I'm just so glad you're part of our team. Do you have any final thoughts from this episode?
Madison Freeman: I think that Truth Matters would be the first thing I would say. even the hard parts of our American history, we debunked Matt Walsh, which I understand the point he was trying to make, but I also think it's important to acknowledge the truth of our past so we don't repeat it.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, no. And this was unfair. It was unfair what happened to the Cherokee. But I'll tell you, if you're of Italian descent, unfair, things have happened. If you're of African descent, definitely unfair things have likely happened in your family and to your family. but there is another greater truth, and that is that the gospel overcomes all of that. Right.
Madison Freeman: Hm.
Kevin Freeman: The Christian life is a better life. And we may be Cherokee in our heritage. we have friends who happen to be Irish or English or South African or African or Italian or Chinese. We've got friends. That's the beauty of America. And it's the beauty of the body of Christ, right?
Madison Freeman: It is. There's Something beautiful in all of the diversity, but also the unity within the diversity because we're all believers and children of God.
Kevin Freeman: And I think that's an important lesson for us to learn today. We could focus exclusively. I'm Native American, you owe me reparations. That's not the message of the gospel. In fact, all of that identity is hidden in Jesus Christ.
Madison Freeman: Correct.
Kevin Freeman: And so we've got to, philosophically, spiritually, emotionally, we've got to realize, yeah, we have a heritage and it's fun to celebrate it. And it's sad to learn, like the killers of the flower moon, that people were murdered to steal from them. But, it's also beautiful in that in Christ we can all come together.
Madison Freeman: Yeah. And I think the beauty of the American story is how much we've corrected things. I think America is one of the only nations that has taken the horrible things and done something about it which a lot of people today don't recognize.
Kevin Freeman: Yeah, it's great to have friends from all backgrounds, all walks all over the world. I remember Dr. Ben Carson has been sitting where you are seated right now. And he tells his story and his truth and we all have that. But then he always comes back to, I love the Lord Jesus, I'm a believer and I love America. And he's American. He went from abject poverty to ah, to the top 1/10 of 1% in one lifetime through hard work and the blessings of God.
Kevin Freeman: So that's our message. If this episode has stirred something and you write to [email protected] so I want to close with prayer. Father, we thank you for the resilience of the Cherokee people. For the privilege of remembering their story. We thank you that you prepared our hearts through ancient traditions that are pointed to your truth. Heal the wounds of broken promises, give wisdom to our leaders, protect our veterans, strengthen families and restore a love of truth and honest healing in America. We pray for the peace of Jerusalem and for your purposes among the nations. In Jesus name, amen. You can find Pirate Money Radio on all major podcast platforms [email protected] this is Kevan and Madison Freeman and we're here at Pirate Money Radio.
The Cherokee story is one of faith, survival and ordered liberty. Kevin and Madison Freeman explore their family roots, the Christian parallels in historic Cherokee traditions, the truth about the Trail of Tears and the rebuilding of a nation after broken promises. Discover why honest history matters—and how faith, truth and American unity can overcome even the deepest wounds.
(00:00) The Cherokee Nation celebrates its 74th Cherokee National Holiday on Labor Day
(06:12) The Cherokee were considered among the most civilized Native American tribes
(11:13) Madison Freeman traced her Cherokee family lineage for school
(20:28) Glint offers an alternative way to store and use gold and silver
(22:37) Kevin Freeman: Matt Walsh says Trail of Tears is widely exaggerated
(33:42) Madison Freeman talks about her Cherokee heritage on Pirate Money Radio
(39:29) Kevin Freeman talks with Madison Freeman about Cherokee heritage and American history
(45:02) Kevin and Madison Freeman discuss American history on Pirate Money Radio
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