Tribe revokes membership of an estimated 2,800 descendants of slaves

MSNBC News Services
Updated: 10:52 p.m. CT March 3, 2007
OKLAHOMA CITY - Cherokee Nation members voted Saturday to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves.

With all 32 precincts reporting, 76.6 percent had voted in favor of an amendment to the tribal constitution that would limit citizenship to descendants of “by blood” tribe members as listed on the federal Dawes Commission’s rolls from more than 100 years ago.

The commission, set up by a Congress bent on breaking up Indians’ collective lands and parceling them out to tribal citizens, drew up two rolls, one listing Cherokees by blood and the other listing freedmen, a roll of blacks regardless of whether they had Indian blood.

Some opponents of the ballot question argued that attempts to remove freedmen from the tribe were motivated by racism.

“I’m very disappointed that people bought into a lot of rhetoric and falsehoods by tribal leaders,” said Marilyn Vann, president of the Oklahoma City-based Descendants of Freedmen of Five Civilized Tribes.

Tribal officials said the vote was a matter of self-determination.

“The Cherokee people exercised the most basic democratic right, the right to vote,” tribal Principal Chief Chad Smith said. “Their voice is clear as to who should be citizens of the Cherokee Nation. No one else has the right to make that determination.’

Smith said turnout — more than 8,700 — was higher than turnout for the tribal vote on the Cherokee Nation constitution four years ago.

“On lots of issues, when they go to identity, they become things that people pay attention to,” Smith said.

The petition drive for the ballot measure followed a March 2006 ruling by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court that said an 1866 treaty assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship. Since then, more than 2,000 freedmen descendants have enrolled as citizens of the tribe.

Big money at stake
Advocates of expelling the freedmen call it a matter of safeguarding tribal resources, which include a $350 million annual budget from federal and tribal revenue, and Cherokees' share of a gambling industry that, for U.S. tribes overall, takes in $22 billion a year. The grass-roots campaign for expulsion has given heavy play to warnings that keeping freedmen in the Cherokee Nation could encourage thousands more to sign up for a slice of the tribal pie.

"Don't get taken advantage of by these people. They will suck you dry," Darren Buzzard, an advocate of expelling the freedmen, wrote last summer in a widely circulated e-mail denounced by freedmen.**** "Don't let black freedmen back you into a corner. PROTECT CHEROKEE CULTURE FOR OUR CHILDREN. FOR OUR DAUGHTER[S] . . . FIGHT AGAINST THE INFILTRATION."***

The issue is a remnant of the "peculiar institution" of Southern slavery and a discordant note set against the ringing statements of racial solidarity often voiced by people of color.

"It's oppressed people that's oppressing people," said Verdie Triplett, 53, an outspoken freedman of the Choctaw tribe, which, like the Cherokee, once owned black slaves.

Cherokees, along with Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles, were long known as the "Five Civilized Tribes" because they adopted many of the ways of their white neighbors in the South, including the holding of black slaves.

Court challenges by freedmen descendants seeking to stop the election were denied, but a federal judge left open the possibility that the case could be refiled if Cherokees voted to lift their membership rights.

Tribal spokesman Mike Miller said the period to protest the election lasts until March 12 and Cherokee courts are the proper venue for a challenge.

Vann promised a protest within the next week. “We don’t accept this fraudulent election,” Vann said.

The Associated Press and The Washington Post contributed to this report.

So racism is colorblind, I must say I am shocked to see a a segment of people who dealt with so much hardship and intolerance, find the same beliefs acceptable.

Hmmm... I don't see how it is racist to say you have to actually be a Cherokee to be considered a member of the Cherokee tribe

The commission, set up by a Congress bent on breaking up Indians’ collective lands and parceling them out to tribal citizens, drew up two rolls, one listing Cherokees by blood and the other listing freedmen, a roll of blacks regardless of whether they had Indian blood.

Let the Cherokee govern in the sovereignity promised them

Apparently even if you have Indian blood it doesn't matter, perhaps we are seeing an ethnic cleansing, to purify the tribe.

Whats the problem ?
I don't see this as racist .

Cherokee Nation members voted Saturday to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves.

It is important to note at this point that Africans and mixed bloods were not just religious leaders among the “exile” communities of Muskogees and Seminoles, the same also existed within the communities of the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. Most of the early records of the missionaries note that their earliest converts were the enslaved African-Americans within Native American communities. [45] Even as late as 1818, the missionaries referred to their “Sabbath schools” as “our Black Schools,” because of the presence of Africans as both students and teachers. [46] As few missionaries spoke the native languages, the Africans played an intermediary role as teacher, and of necessity, preacher.

Without a doubt, the Trail of Tears fell hardest upon those 1000 African Americans were forced to march, many without shoes, through the dead of winter into Oklahoma. [80] The route to Oklahoma was blazed by African-Americans, “My grandparents were helped and protected by very faithful Negro slaves who... went ahead of the wagons and killed any wild beast who came along.” [81] In spite of the fact that they were given the responsibility to guard (with “axes and guns”) the caravans at night, few of the slaves made their escape.
The newspaper reports of the time detailed a “peaceful and deathless trek of the Cherokees,” [82] but missionary Elizur Butler estimated conservatively that over 4600 Indians and African-Americans died on that nine-month march.

More recent estimates put the number of deaths at nearly 8,000 people who died as a direct result of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. [83] An estimate of the number of African-Americans who died on the Cherokee Trail of Tears could be as much as 1/4 to 1/3 of those who made the trek west. If we can assume similar numbers of deaths among the Choctaw slaves as the Cherokee, perhaps 100 of the Choctaw slaves died in route. Many Choctaws stayed in Alabama and formed a community of resistance with African slaves similar to Fort Negro which proved to be a thorn in the side for later governments
http://www.us-data.org/us/minges/underdog.html

And you must have a vested interest in this on behalf of African Americans..............why is it racist if the Native Americans have a vested interest ?

You posted the link because you felt African Americans were being discriminated against.Correct me if I am wrong.

but I don't like the fact that Americans have no regard for the Native Americans and its oh so obvious

Cherokees and other tribes brought slaves with them, when the federal government forced them to leave the Southeast and march to the Indian Territory that would become Oklahoma. The Cherokee tribe fought for the South in the Civil War. Afterward, the U.S. government demanded Cherokees free their slaves and make them citizens of the Cherokee Nation.

The people, dubbed "freedmen," embraced citizenship. They voted in tribal elections and ran for office. They served on the tribal council. They started businesses and became teachers in schools for freedmen children.

What's difficult to know is how much before and after slavery ended — the lives of Cherokees and blacks intertwined and the lines between them blurred.

In the last 20 years, modern-day freedmen — descended from former slaves, free blacks and others — have tried to reclaim citizenship. The resulting conflict provokes charges and countercharges that racism, greed and dirty politics are all at play.

Lucy Allen v. Cherokee Nation Tribal Council, filed in 2004, asked the court to strike down a law making citizenship contingent on "proof of Cherokee blood."

... tribal lawyers argued that Cherokees — who approved a Constitution in 1975 reserving membership for "citizens as proven by reference to the Dawes Commission Rolls" — had already made clear freedmen should not be counted among them.

"It's not unreasonable to require someone to be Cherokee to be a citizen of the Cherokee Nation," Richard Osburn, an attorney for the tribe, told the court. Seven months later, a divided court issued its ruling.

"If the Freedmen's citizenship rights existed on the very night before the 1975 (Tribal) Constitution was approved, then they must necessarily survive today," Justice Stacy Leeds wrote for the 2-1 majority last March. "The Cherokee Nation is much more than just a group of families with a common ancestry."

Allen, celebrating the answer she'd been waiting for, drove with her sons to Tahlequah to register as new citizens. But the court's decision alarmed many others.

After the Allen ruling, critics collected more than 3,000 signatures demanding that Cherokee voters be allowed to decide. Smith, the chief, has called a vote for March 3.

Earlier this month, a group of freedmen asked a federal judge to stop the vote from taking place. The court's response to that request — part of an ongoing lawsuit by freedmen challenging the last tribal election because they were excluded from voting — will be closely watched.

Strangely, somehow the act of acknowledging one's ties to the nations especially in Oklahoma , become infused with the issue of citizenship. For Freedmen descendants, this may be primarily because of the struggle of our ancestors, who after the indignities suffered as slaves, many suddenly found themselves confronted with complete alienation as ex-slaves---no longer of use to their former masters, many of whom were prominent tribal leaders.

History teaches us so much, and many Freedmen sought vehemently for recognition not only as human beings, after slavery ended, but also as full citizens in the land of their birth, and they hoped to be able to contribute to their nation. In the Creek and Seminole nations, Freedmen were indeed a part of the tribal structure throughout the 19th century. In the Cherokee Nation, the Cherokee historian Emmett Starr even pointed out that there were some former slaves who were also contributors to their nation as leaders---Stick Ross, Ned Irons, Frank Vann and others. These former slaves rose to become leaders within their own nation.

In the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations the struggles were more complex. Richard Brashears, Nathan Cochran, Watson Brown and others were needed as interpreters, yet, when they had the chance to work within the tribal structure, their participation was blocked. What resulted was that they became activists and established a number of organizations devoted to their own uplift and progress. The Choctaw Freedmen had some successes especially after their official adoption by the tribe in 1885. But the Chickasaw Freedmen who faced the continual problem of being completely without support of their nation, found themselves in complete isolation and their struggle ended only when statehood came. They then had the new issues emerge when statehood brought about the status of being second class citizens in the new Jim Crow state of Oklahoma .

As we fast forward to 2007---after 100 years, is citizenship a viable option?

The question should be asked, if membership in a nation is a real concept at all beyond the greater country in which we live. Separate nations have certain characteristics----a separate economy, their own currency, a government structure recognized in the international body of nations, and the incorporation of all of the people(s) that make up that nation. Are these characteristics in existence right now in those tribes to which the Freedmen have historical affiliation? Progress is being made, but at present, the answer is no---these characteristics do not exist.

Is citizenship a viable option in the light of those characteristics? Is this where energies should be placed? It is at best a personal issue for individuals.

There is the ongoing struggle of the Cherokee Freedmen. Their citizenship is at stake in the upcoming election. Their struggle is real and the upcoming election is critical.

The Creek Nation has had recent legal issues, but the case pending in that nation is not a case on behalf of the Freedmen---it is a case of proving Creek blood ties. Regardless of the arguments saying that it is a Freedmen case----it is NOT. Already, there are enrolled members of the Creek Nation who have African blood. Those members have proven blood ties to the nation. The current case is for two individuals hoping to prove their blood ties but who are not allowed to enroll at present. If the case was about the Freedmen, then all Freedmen would be eligible for enrollment when/if the case is settled in the favor of the two plaintiffs.

So, the Creek Freedmen, Choctaw Freedmen and Chickasaw Freedmen all with unique histories, are not at this time eligible for citizenship in their nations.

Should they pursue justice? Hopefully injustice is always seen as something to be addressed. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Seminole Freedmen rebuffed by Supreme Court. June 29, 2004

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to allow the Seminole Freedmen to sue the federal government without the Seminole Nation's involvement.

The Freedmen are trying to gain access and services provided by a $56 million settlement awarded to the Seminole Nation. They sued the Department of Interior but two courts said the tribe had to be part of the suit. But since the tribe has sovereign immunity, it cannot be joined without consent.

The Freedmen are descendants of African slaves who were made members of the tribe by a post-Civil War treaty. The Bureau of Indian Affairs has met with the Freedmen to talk about services that could be provided to them.

Afterward, the U.S. government demanded Cherokees free their slaves and make them citizens of the Cherokee Nation

Blood Quantum Laws is an umbrella term that describes legislation enacted to define membership in Native American groups. "Blood quantum" refers to attempts to calculate the degree of racial inheritance for a given individual.

The Dawes Act, also known as the General Allotment Act, was part of a federal initiative to "civilize" the Indians by forcing them into Western cultural and legal practices. The strategy of this Act was to take lands held in common by tribes as reservations and break them up into individually-owned parcels. Parcels of land were given to individuals who could prove that they were members of the tribe who owned the land, and the remainder was often opened for white settlement. Tribes set their own membership requirements, and many used blood quantum as part of the necessary qualification.

Many Indian tribes continue to employ blood quantum in their own current tribal laws to determine who is eligible for membership in the tribe. These often require a minimum degree of blood relationship and often an ancestor listed in a specific tribal census from the late 1800s or early 1900s. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina, for example, require an ancestor listed in the 1924 Baker census and a minimum of 1/32 Cherokee blood inherited from their ancestor(s) on that roll.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_quantum_laws

Cougar99 this is a quote from your profile,Im now questioning its integrity.......................................................................................................................... "The bottom line is if you have sparks with the person that is what counts, the world is too small and time is too short, to worry about things that don't carry any substance."..........................................

Sure I am an outsider........but I don't like the fact that Americans have no regard for the Native Americans and its oh so obvious

I am not generalising about Americans

You have high regard for others and you have proved it too ? Says who ? You?
I could say a lot of inmodest stuff about myself -self praise is not my scene and you would be none the wiser.

Why are African Americans called African Americans

ASk that before you ask why Native Americans are called Native Americans .

To my mind and as an outsider- America is not geared towards ethnicity except if its black v white