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I don't know if it's true, and I read this a very long time ago so I can't give a reference, but I believe that escaped slaves and the Scottish were easily accepted into Cherokee society.
The whole migration into North America has always confused me. Most migrations have resulted from some type of "pressure", such as drought, invaders, or the loss of a ready food supply. That a small population of nomads could, essentially, wipe out the local supply of seals and therefore have to travel north into colder and harsher lands seems rather odd to me. That they did migrate is obvious. But just why they did it I have a hard time understanding.
A secondary problem would be a requirement for inbreeding over a long period of time. Even a few hundred individuals would provide too small a gene pool for a healthy population. A few thousand individuals would, likewise, be a very small population from which all of the "natives" of North America could spring from.
Many societies in the past have culled "different" newborns. Those with birth defects would die before the day was out. But still, inbreeding would taint a large portion of the population.
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