Ancestry/Genealogy

"an Indian Princess" as an ancestor. It annoys Native people for two reasons.

One is that most Native tribal nations in North America (north of the Rio Grande) did not have hereditary rulers. In the ones that formed confederacies by consent or conquest, like the Algonquian tribes of New England or the Algonquians in the Virginia region, the son of a leader often took his father's place when the father died. The son had to be old enough and experienced enough to lead, but he could be challenged. Inherited leadership was not guaranteed.

So when someone says they have an Indian princess ancestor, it reveals that they know nothing about the people they claim to descend from and that probably there was no Native ancestor.

The second reason that it annoys Native people is that it sounds racist to them, as if an ordinary person isn't good enough, but a "princess" makes Native ancestry acceptable and exotic or glamorous.