Ravensford Land Swap in the Smokies

“My first instinct is to side with the Cherokees. They barely have enough down there to fit their behinds on. The Smokies used to be their land anyway. However, many people disagree with me. The mountaineers had the land after the Cherokee and they were kicked out too. If we fool with the National Park boundaries, it would open up other bad possibilities. The boundaries should not be touched. I sympathize with that too, but geez.. all the more power to the Cherokees, right? hmmm...

Brief article

against it-article

informative article”

“All the Cherokee have to do is doze a bunch of those crapped out mostly vacant eyesore buildings and they'll have plenty of space for what they want.”

“This may sound harsh, but.... NO!”

“Are they mostly vacant, treebait? Not from what I have seen, but?

Alot of poor people live in poor-looking places. It seems that alot of people have ill will towards their casinos as well. I think it is a great means of livelihood for them. Just as Gatlinburg is a good resource of money to merchants whose family used to farm rocks and get by, and then they had to move because of the park.

but you do have a point...”

“NO to the landswap, I gather?”

“I watched a special on TV not to long ago that they found a human skull that dated back before the indians here in America. The indians tried to claim the remains saying it was one of their own. After looking at the skull they came up with , that there was no way it could of been an indian skull. They compared it to 1000's os other skulls that were indians and it did not match even closely.

The indians don't want this to be researched so they took it to the supreme court to stop the research. If it is allowed to be studied it will show that the indians were not the first ones to settle the land here in the America's. Thus voiding alot of the rights they have here in America. Just thought I would throw that out there.”

“ooooooo - that's interesting, Bbinkley!!
I had a similar retort to someone who was discussing about the Elkmont cabins being owned by non-native rich people from Knoxville and Nashville, and they wanted the cabins to go to dust.

Who is native anyway? Before the mountaineers in the Smokies, it was the Cherokee, and there was definitely people before the Cherokee!

hmmmm... I will definitely be thinking about that. I probably should sit on the fence, even tho my first instinct is to side with the Cherokees. Have to think about it some mo'”

“No to the landswap. The natives had their lands, and if they choose to build casino over schools, they made theri decision.

All the talk I hear from natives about preserving mother earth, and I have to hear about this? Arrrrgh.”

“Here is a link from national park service regarding some of the info on kennewick man

kennewick man link ”

“Here is another link from another point of view

a better link ”