Individuals who have been accused of being Indigenous identity frauds include:
Academic •
Ward Churchill (born 1947) – A professor of ethnic studies and political activist, Churchill built his career on his claims of Indigenous identity that were unsupported by membership in any tribe or by later genealogical research that failed to find any evidence of Indigenous ancestry. •
Elizabeth Hoover – University of California Berkeley professor and Native food sovereignty activist with documented childhood identification as Native and involvement within Native culture. Following questions about her ancestry, Hoover conducted her own family genealogical research. She then announced in 2022 that she was not Native American, adding that she had been mistaken about her ancestry. Hoover did not resign from her university position. •
Julie Nagam – a Curator and Art Historian claiming Metis blood while teaching at the University of Winnipeg (and raising over $18M in Indigenous research grants), was revealed to have no Indigenous heritage in several exposures.,,,. •
Andrea Smith Smith built a career as a scholar, author and activist based on her claim that she is a Cherokee woman. Despite many articles and statements by Cherokee people and genealogists stating she has no Cherokee heritage or citizenship, she has never retracted her claim. Smith has been employed as a professor in the Department of
Ethnic Studies at
University of California, Riverside. In August 2023, the university announced that she would resign from the university as an
emerita professor in August 2024, due to charges that she "made fraudulent claims to Native American identity in violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct provisions concerning academic integrity". •
Vianne Timmons, President of Memorial University of Newfoundland claimed membership in controversial Bras d'Or Mi'kmaq First Nation. •
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond (born 1963) A lawyer, academic, and former judge, for whom false claims to Indigenous ancestry were alleged by the
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 2022. She was dismissed from a university faculty position, and various honors and awards that she had received were revoked or relinquished, including all her 11 honorary degrees and the
Order of Canada. However, in 2024, the
Law Society of British Columbia released a report which stated that
DNA analysis indicated that Turpell-Lafond most likely had recent Indigenous ancestry, while confirming she had made numerous "mischaracterizations" in her credentials.
Film, television, and music •
Mona Darkfeather (1882–1977) •
Chief Thundercloud (1899–1955) and
Roy Rogers in
North of the Great Divide, 1950 •
"Iron Eyes" Cody Born
Espera Oscar de Corti, and later becoming known as "The Crying Indian", this Italian-American actor is most well known for his appearance in a 1970's anti-littering PSA. Cody pretended to be from various tribes and denied his Italian heritage for the rest of his life. •
Johnny Depp (born 1963) This actor has claimed both
Creek and
Cherokee descent on numerous occasions, including when cast as
Tonto in the 2013 film
The Lone Ranger, but has no documented Native ancestry, is not a citizen in any tribe, and is regarded as "a non-Indian" and a "pretendian" by Native leaders. •
Michelle Latimer – Canadian actress and film director whose claims of Indigenous ancestry and tribal membership have been questioned by the CBC, the Globe and Mail and other media. Latimer has said that her identification as Indigenous rested on the oral history of her maternal grandfather. Latimer later produced genealogical records to bolster her claim that she was a 'non-status Algonquin'; these claims were rejected by tribal leaders. However, one genealogical researcher has found that Latimer had two Indigenous ancestors dating from 1644, while others have found that Latimer has Indigenous ancestry from both her paternal and maternal lines that originate from a "historical community of Baskatong that was known for its Algonquin and Métis population." In 2020, Latimer apologized for having claimed historical roots to the Kitigan Zibi community. •
Sacheen Littlefeather An investigation by the Navajo writer-activist
Jacqueline Keeler and her team, and reviewed by academics prior to publication, revealed no apparent ties to any tribe in the United States. She serves on the
Academy of Motion Pictures' Indigenous alliance, which "recognizes self-identification" She is an adviser for IllumiNative, The
Cherokee Nation has stated that Rae is not a citizen of their nation and she did not receive funding for the film
Fancy Dance (2023), which they funded. For about 60 years, she built a career in part on her claimed Canadian and Native heritage. She was introduced as a regular character on the
Sesame Street television series in 1975, at which time she stated that "Cree Indians are my tribe, and we live in Canada". A Canadian novelist, Boyden has claimed
Mi'kmaq,
Métis,
Nipmuc, and
Ojibway heritage. He registered with the
Ontario Métis Aboriginal Association, also known as the Woodland Métis Tribe. In January 2017, Boyden said he had erroneously identified himself as Mi'kmaq in the past and that he was a "white kid with native roots". •
Asa Earl Carter (1925–1979) Published using the pseudonym Forrest Carter as a supposed
Cherokee. The founder of a
Ku Klux Klan paramilitary group and a
white supremacist politician under his birth name, he used his pseudonym to write popular books including
The Rebel Outlaw: Josey Wales and
The Education of Little Tree. Also known for co-authoring
George Wallace's tagline, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever". •
Grey Owl (1888–1938) •
Jamake Highwater (1931–2001) A prolific American writer and journalist born as
Jackie Marks who passed as Cherokee and used Native American culture as his writing theme, although he was actually of eastern European Jewish ancestry. •
Thomas King (born 1943), writer, professor of Indigenous studies, revealed no Indigenous ancestry after claiming Cherokee roots for decades. •
Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance (1890–1932) The persona of the African-American journalist, writer, and film actor
Sylvester Clark Long, who falsely claimed Blackfoot and Cherokee heritage. •
Brooke Medicine Eagle (born 1943) the pseudonym of
Brooke Edwards, an American author, singer-songwriter, and teacher specializing in a
New Age interpretation of Native American religion. •
Nasdijj (born 1950) The pseudonym of writer
Tim Barrus, an American author and social worker best known for having published three "
memoirs" between 2000 and 2004 while presenting himself as a
Navajo. •
Red Thunder Cloud (1919–1996) Born
Cromwell Ashbie Hawkins West, also known as Carlos Westez, a singer, dancer, storyteller, and field researcher who was promoted as the last fluent speaker of the
Catawba language, but was later revealed to have learned what little he knew of the language from books and to have been of African American heritage. •
Sat-Okh (1920–2003), also known as
Stanisław Supłatowicz, was a writer, artist, and soldier who served during
World War II, who claimed to be of
Polish and
Shawnee descent. His origins were heavily disputed. •
Margaret Seltzer (born 1975)The writer of a "memoir" of her supposed experiences as a half–Native American foster child and gang member in
South Central Los Angeles was later revealed to have completely fabricated the story after growing up in an affluent neighborhood with no Native American background or heritage.
Political •
Kaya Jones (born 1984)A singer and model who joined the
National Diversity Coalition for Trump as their "Native American Ambassador"; she falsely claimed to be
Apache. •
Kevin Klein – Manitoba politician whose ongoing claims of Métis ancestry were debunked in a July 31, 2023 piece by the
CBC. • Sherri Rollins - Winnipeg City Councillor claiming contemporary Indigeneity allegedly from an ancestor 300 years ago). •
Danielle Smith – Premier of Alberta who claimed to have a Cherokee great-great-grandmother who was a victim of the
Trail of Tears. An investigation from
APTN National News found no evidence that Smith's ancestors were Indigenous or victims of the Trail of Tears. •
Elizabeth Warren (born 1949)A
U.S. Senator and presidential candidate who said she grew up believing she had Cherokee and Delaware ancestry due to family members saying so, and then claimed such heritage publicly. After her heritage was called into question, she attempted to support her claim by releasing a video with
DNA analysis, but her DNA claims were rejected by the
Cherokee Nation, which formally requires a documented lineage. Warren was listed as a Native American minority in a faculty directory at
Harvard and had been lauded as the first tenured professor with a minority background by
The Crimson. She was also listed as a Native American in the faculty directory at the
University of Pennsylvania. Warren eventually expressed regret and apologized for "claiming American Indian heritage".
Visual arts •
Gina Adams (born 1965) A visual artist and assistant professor at
Emily Carr University, Adams claims
White Earth Ojibwe and
Lakota ancestry, which closed in 1918. Genealogists reported that Adams' grandfather "was a white man named Albert Theriault, who was born in Massachusetts to French-Canadian parents." An artist and activist who claimed one-quarter
Cherokee descent by blood and to have grown up in a Cherokee-speaking community, Durham exhibited his work in the U.S. as Native American art until the 1990 passage of the
Indian Arts and Crafts Act (which prohibits false claims of Native production of arts and crafts that are offered for sale). He subsequently left the United States and continued to falsely claim Cherokee status in European exhibitions. He had formerly been an organizer and central committee member for the
American Indian Movement, and worked as the chief administrator for the
International Indian Treaty Council. He was found to have "no known ties to any Cherokee community" and to be "neither enrolled nor eligible for citizenship" in any of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. An artist who claimed to be
Osage. Born
Effie Goodman, under her assumed identity she made art that she misrepresented as Native American, and also engaged in Native American political activism. •
Cheyanne TurionsAn artist and art curator who claimed an
Indigenous Canadian identity for grant applications until "outed" in 2021, Turions later stated that she had investigated her family's history and that as a result "I changed my self-identification to settler," and resigned from her position as a curator.
Other •
Edgar Laplante (1888–1944), an American-born French-Canadian con man and actor known for his
confidence tricks. ==See also==