Is Willie Nelson a Pretendian?

Yeah, a lot of Texans may shoot me for even venturing this, and Willie doesn't shove his alleged American Indian ancestry in your face, let alone try to grift off it, that I'm aware of.

Nonetheless, let's take a look at the nutgrafs of this Observer piece about Willie and Native American golf courses.

Some, including me, count Cut ‘N Putt, purchased in 1979, as yet another early Native-owned course. Willie Nelson, after all, was twice named Outstanding Indian of The Year by the American Indian Exposition. In 2014, he and Neil Young were presented with buffalo robes for their work with Farm Aid and the Keystone Pipeline protests by the Oceti Sakowin, Ponca, and Omaha nations. 

But, as it is for others who believe they have Native roots in Arkansas and Texas (the states where Willie’s family lived), proof can be elusive. Nelson is on record saying his mother—Myrle Marie Greenhaw Harvey Nelson—was three-quarters Cherokee. 

In the Story of Texas, the Bullock Texas State History Museum reports this as fact. In an interview reported in The Encyclopedia of Arkansas, however, Nelson’s mother’s sister, Sybil Greenhaw Young (1923–1999), claimed it was her mother, Bertha Greenhaw (Willie’s grandmother), who was three-quarters Cherokee. In the same interview, Young also said her grandmother (Willie’s great-grandmother) was “full-blooded Cherokee” and that Willie’s great-grandfather was “half Cherokee and half Irish.” The encyclopedia separately reports that while Cherokees were known to live in that same area, Willie’s maternal grandparents were listed in U.S. Census records as white. 

I know that due to small size, and small money in part due to shooting itself in the foot in various ways, the Observer might not be able to investigate this too much, and, that Mark Wagner is not a regular contributing writer (it's actually his first piece), but still. That said, Wagner supplies the answer himself

None of these ancestors appear in the Dawes Rolls, a historic federal record from 1909 to 1914 that documented the enrollment of members of five tribes including Cherokees, and neither they nor Willie have ever been a citizen of the federally recognized Cherokee Nation, which enjoys tribal sovereignty and determines its own membership. Willie himself was born the year before the The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the New Deal act (written by John Collier) that led most tribal constitutions in ensuing decades to develop a criteria for claiming Native heritage. 

Given this history, and considering the social milieu that Willie came out of, it is perhaps not surprising that the Greenhaws and Nelsons did not formally demonstrate descent from an enrolled ancestor. Nevertheless, as late as a 2024 interview with Robert Sheer, Nelson again recounted the family stories that establish, for him, his mother’s Cherokee ancestry. Given this, the accolades from the tribes themselves, and Willie’s embrace of Native causes, I include Cut ‘N Putt as an early Native-owned golf course and one worth our pilgrimage.

The answer is that a lot of non-identitarian librulz continue to give librul icons a pass on pretendianism. Sadly, he continues to get a certain amount of a pass on it. I think even pretendian-hunting individuals and websites give people like Nelson a pass if they're not grifting and they're simpatico with American Indian causes.

As for the why? Well, Willie's white family roots are in Arkansas, just like another country music legend who had a disturbed younger adult life and was also a pretendian. I'm of course talking about Johnny Cash.

In both cases, more with their family ancestors than themselves, perhaps, I think the claim was a way of adding a bit of spice to a life that was otherwise straight up "poor white" — or other terms you can insert. Many others in Arkansas, and Oklahoma, were or are in the same ship.