Cherokee Heritage — Alice and the Watkins Line

Michael Jared Dutton's Cherokee heritage traces through his great-great-grandmother Alice, who married Andrew Watkins. While Alice's maiden name remains unknown, her Cherokee identity is corroborated by documented mixed-blood Cherokee communities in Washington County, Virginia.

The Watkins family itself had connections to the Cherokee dating back to at least 1791, when a Claiborne Watkins was present at the Treaty of Holston between colonial settlers and the Cherokee nation.

This heritage is a source of pride for the family and represents an important thread in the complex tapestry of Appalachian history — where indigenous, colonial, and frontier cultures intersected and blended over centuries.