Right you are about Sequoya being half. John Ross, the Principal Chief during the Trail of Tears, whose wife Quatie died on the march was only 1/8 (in 1838). I have uncovered so much fascinating, untold history in researching this geneaolgy that began when I asked myself, "Why is it that so many generations of bright, beautiful people who were in America at least a century before Ellis Island was established ended up dispossessed in Oklahoma?" As with African Americans, even one drop of native blood made all your possessions forfeit to any white who was willing to kill you for it or use the courts to take it from you--unless of course, you could "pass". That's why many mixed bloods show up 'white' on census records. Here are two snapshots in time.

Newspaper account:
“The steam-boat Industry, Capt. Johnson, arrived at this place, about noon, on Wednesday last, having on board about 100 cabin and deck passengers, principally emigrants to the Territory, and about 200 emigrating Cherokee Indians, from the old nation, who are on their way to the Cherokee country up the Arkansas. A few of these Cherokees have a little of the appearance of the Indian, but the principal part of them show no signs of retaining in their veins any portion of the aboriginal blood.”
Arkansas Gazette, January 19, 1830

“I fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by the thousands, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew.”
Anonymous Georgia Volunteer, later
A Colonel in the Confederacy


Wado, CountAllVotes.