Tribal Alliance Against Frauds Says Colby Wilkens is Not Indigenous

Here is a news report that absolutely dropped my jaw: the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds (TAAF) has released a report that debut romance author Colby Wilkens, whose bio says she is of Choctaw and Cherokee descent, has no Native ancestry. 

The TAAF “is an intertribal anti-fraud non-profit whistleblower organization comprised of allies and citizens of Tribes whose sovereignty has been formally acknowledged.”

Wilkens is the author of If I Stopped Haunting You, which released last week on October 15, 2024. Our guest reviewer, Lisa, struggled with the book, and gave it a D-.

Per the report, Wilkens claimed an Indigenous ancestor named Jack Alford Adams, whose father was named William Henry Adams.

William Henry Adams’ name appears on the Dawes Roll, which lists people who were “accepted as eligible for tribal membership as a Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, or Seminole native” in 1898.

However, it turns out that there are, or were, two William Henry Adams.

Wilkens, per the TAAF report, is descended from “the non-Indigenous William Henry Adams.”

We looked at Jack Alford Adams’ father, William Henry Adams (1861-1917), and found someone of the same name on the 1898 Cherokee Dawes Roll, but it is a different person.

The William Henry Adams registered on the Dawes Roll (number 4276) was 9 years old in 1898 and had different parents. Though they had the same name, they were different people.

This is a common challenge for Pretendians.

A few things jump out at me from the TAAF report. First, this research seems thorough. TAAF traced Wilkens’ ancestry back TEN generations.

Second,  Lianna Costantino, co-founder and director of TAAF, told reporters Alex Turner-Cohen and Isabel Vincent at Page Six that. “There were multiple complaints about this person. Lots of people had suspected for some time.”

In addition, Cohen and Vincent reported that:

Several years ago, David Cornsilk, a professional genealogist and managing editor of the Cherokee Observer, commented on a Facebook post Wilkens made about her alleged Cherokee and Choctaw ancestry.

“Since you are making money marketing your writing as a Native American it seems you would want to find out for sure,” Cornsilk wrote.

“I would like to invite you to join our free research group and our team of genealogists and historians will find out the truth for you.

“You owe honesty and transparency to your readers, I hope you will take the high road in this matter.”

If Cornsilk commented several years ago, and TAAF received “multiple complaints,” this report and its findings may not have come out of nowhere.

The issue, in addition to claiming heritage that isn’t true or verified, is marketing and profiting from a false Indigenous heritage.

According to Costantino, TAAF tries to help people save face if they’ve made a mistake with their geneology. She says it is common for people to get caught up in a “family myth” passed down through generations about having native heritage, which few then go on to check.

But she explains people have a responsibility to do so, especially if they make it part of their “whole personality” or use their heritage as part of their career.

So once a person starts to profit from claims if Indigenous heritage or identity, they should absolutely know without a doubt that these claims are true.

In their report TAAF explains “why this matters,” why it’s so important to verify claims of Indigenous heritage:

Why this matters: Fewer than 2.5% of children’s and Young Adult books were published by or about Native peoples in 2023, according to the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This means that any books representing Native Americans have an outsize influence on how others view Native peoples.

This is especially the case for books published by major publishers with the promotion these books will likely have. This drowns out attention to genuine Native voices who are already working hard to counter centuries of oppression and misrepresentation.

TAAF also states that they “call on book stores and events organizers not to support this book.”

The most absurd part for me: If I Stopped Haunting You is about two Indigenous authors who get into an argument on a panel at a book con about Indigenous representation IN PUBLISHING. 

I…cannot think of what to say that fully explain my bewilderment here.

From the review:

Penelope “Pen” Skinner is looking to improve her sales by appearing at Book Con. Unfortunately, her most hated enemy — rival author and former hero of hers Neil Storm – is also there….

Pen feels as if her career has suffered due to her staying true-blue to her culture and heritage, while Neil has, in a phrase, sold out to Whiteness…. It doesn’t help her feelings of inauthenticity that she’s White-passing, biracial, and not registered with her tribe. During a panel dedicated to Indigenous horror authors, Pen lays into Neil for writing a wisecracking misogynist hero who runs around shooting arrows from a quiver strapped to his back, and for succeeding with a book title that she feels is racist (For What Savages May Be).

Neil demurs at this criticism – he declares that, as a fellow Indigenous writer, they should support each other. She suggests to Neil that he ought to write something with “real soul.” The audience disapproves, so Penelope grabs her microphone and chastises them for not accepting her ‘too native’ characters and declares she’ll write a book so good it’ll erase Neil’s name from the history books.

The argument ends when Pen throws a copy of her book at Neil, hitting him in the head hard enough to draw blood and leave a visible scar.

So an allegedly Native author of a romance wherein two Indigenous protagonists argue  about Native representation in fiction is, according to a ten-generations-deep search into their ancestry, allegedly not Native at all.

I’ve reached out to Wilkens and to St. Martin’s Press, and haven’t heard back yet.

ETA:

TL;DR: I’ve been doing more research and remain bewildered and sad about this entire situation.

Researching the TAAF has yielded a lot of mixed information, including that no Indigenous nation or tribe has endorsed their work officially. Some people, including teacher Travis Hedge Coke, have stated that the TAAR is “is not authorized by any tribal government and is racist, transphobic, and otherwise fraudulent. Their “documentation” is often fraudulent & misleading.” Moreover, only Page Six, part of the NY Post, seems to have covered this story, which is startling.

Meanwhile, Indigenous authors and activists are understandably very unsettled and disheartened.

AJ Eversole, a Cherokee author and journalist, shared extensive resources on Xitter and stated that “Cherokee people are very clear about what it means if someone publicly claims a Cherokee identity openly. We have a whole statement on Cherokee Sovereignty and Identity.”

They shared a link to that united statement from the three Cherokee governments, which was released in February 2020. It’s a two-page PDF, and it’s very detailed and explicit about expectations: 

2) Only individuals recognized as citizens of the Cherokee Nation, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians should claim a Cherokee identity as part of their professional or personal identity, or otherwise assert a Cherokee identity to further their career or gain profit or professional advancement.

Cherokee identity is a political identity that can only be established through documentation by one of the Cherokee governments that an individual is a Cherokee citizen. It is not, and never has been, an ethnic or racial identity that is established through self-identification.

3) No individual or collectivity should claim a Cherokee identity on the basis of genetic testing, phenotype, family stories, “inherited” cultural practices, sentiments or feelings of affinity, or any other spurious criteria.

4) Any person who publicly identifies as Cherokee has initiated a public discussion about their identity. It is appropriate to ask such persons to explain the verifiable basis upon which they are claiming a Cherokee identity. If they cannot substantiate that they are a Cherokee citizen, they should be clearly and directly asked to cease identifying as Cherokee.

Point number four really struck me: “any person who identifies publicly has initiated a public discussion about their identity.”

Not only is this statement extremely particular, it makes very clear what the three Cherokee nations expect of anyone identifying themselves as Cherokee. If a person publicly states that they are Cherokee, the Cherokee nations expect that person can provide verifiable documentation of that claimed identity.

As per the full text of point three, “If that Cherokee government determines that they do not have a right to Cherokee citizenship they should immediately cease identifying as Cherokee.”

Eversole also said,

If there is anything I want non-Natives to take away from my words it is that these are heartbreaking moments that are difficult to navigate professionally. Native circles are so, so small. It can be scary to speak up against the majority. Which is why many of us don’t.

That concept isn’t new. Many of us are hurt. Publishing is a business but writing is an art and ultimately we are artists trying to figure out how to share in a society where no one knows enough about us to even know when representation is wrong.

A number of Indigenous and minority authors echo Eversole’s feelings of hurt. Author Erin Baldwin wrote in a long, thoughtful thread on Xitter that she feels betrayed, in part because she’d confided in Wilkens about her own complicated feelings regarding representation and identity.

Baldwin also stated:

all the people in publishing who don’t feel “enough” of an identity and try their hardest to capture their experience in an authentic and meaningful way should feel hurt by someone who didn’t do their due diligence before exploiting an identity for profit….

also i don’t condone anyone attacking this person directly. they have always been kind to me and i genuinely hope this was an honest mistake for them and they admit that publicly, but for all of us that want to do justice to the cultures and identities we represent in our work and in ourselves, this sucks. it sucks and it should matter.

I will update if I learn anything further, and remain bewildered.

ETA 26 October: Colby Wilkens has made a statement on her website and on Instagram:

I have only ever created stories that are authentic to me and my life experiences. I am not enrolled, I have never claimed to be enrolled or to represent the viewpoint of an enrolled tribal member, as reflected in my stories and statements. I have grown up with family and in a home that shared this experience, which goes back to my Great-Grandfather and extended family, and has been part of our culture and identity.

I have always been transparent about my identity, and our struggle to gather the paperwork necessary to enroll because of bad record keeping and missing and inaccurate documentation. This is not unheard of and is a difficult part of forming family histories.

I am working hard alongside my family to find more documentation, which takes time, but until I can prove my ties beyond a shadow of a doubt and in alignment with the Cherokee Nation’s statement on Sovereignty and Identity, I will no longer be writing Native stories. My team and I have decided to pull “If I Dig You” from publication until further notice and “If I Stopped Haunting You” will be my last Native story. Thank you for your patience as we work through this.

Wilkens has removed mentions of Cherokee and Choctaw heritage from her bio and media kit.