yes a slaveowner can be a white southerner. i was just stating that i believe that most people of cherokee descent have a better chance of being descended from a cherokee slaveowner than southern whites have of being a descendant of a white slaveowner. mostly because there actually werent all that many white slaveowners in comparison to non slave owning whites in the south to begin with, plus the cherokees were in smaller numbers yet were known to have slaves a hundred years before their scattering. with the idea in mind that they most likely had most of the same common ancestors multiple times in their recent history (small communities tend to have greater chances of having one ancestor appear multiple times, say a 4th great grandfather also as a 5th or a 3rd grandfather somewhere else across multiple lineages, the result of distant cousins intermarrying) so they would have a better chance of being that much closer to the slavery issue than many southern whites. not that it should matter. but i think it will in the future since repriations from an indian nation might be easier to get than from the national government itself and what with the cherokees kicking out most members of slave descent recently it could at some point go that way.