Hi Erik,
I think we may have been talking at cross purposes here. I agree that there's no proof of Smith's ancestry in what he says in his article, I'm certainly not intending to argue otherwise. Maybe he does have Choctaw ancestry. Maybe he doesn't. Who knows?
However, it strikes me that from what he says it was reasonable of him to believe that he had "a modest measure of Choctaw blood". And that was my main point really: That what he believed was reasonable, rather than fanciful and delusional, a view which, to me, seemed unfair to the man.
best,
Matt
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