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5
In 2012, Warren’s explanation was that her great-great-great grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford, was Cherokee. However, Leahy noted that Smith Crawford “had no Cherokee heritage, was listed as ‘white’ in the Census of 1860, and was most likely half Swedish and half English, Scottish, or German, or some combination thereof.”
However, if Smith Crawford somehow thought she was Cherokee, she was definitely one of the self-hating variety.
“But the most stunning discovery about the life of O.C. Sarah Smith Crawford is that her husband, Ms. Warren’s great-great-great grandfather, was apparently a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees from their family homes in the Southeastern United States and herded them into government-built stockades in what was then called Ross’s Landing (now Chattanooga), Tennessee – the point of origin for the horrific Trail of Tears, which began in January, 1837,” Leahy wrote.