Cherokees Pull Freed Slaves' Memberships

[warpedskydiver 0]

Cherokees Pull Freed Slaves' Memberships
Sunday, March 4, 2007 7:58 AM EST
The Associated Press
By MURRAY EVANS

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — 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.

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.

[DSE 3]

The tribe has this right to post-Dawes tribal membership; the Ute nation did this 40 years ago. So far, it's worked out to be a situation of political nightmares, financial disaster, and many very difficult relationships.
However, most Utes live on the rez, as do what are now known as the "disenfranchised" Utes. Very few Cherokee live on the rez. What's scary about this one, is that if similar tribes such as the Choctaw, Seminole, Miccosukee, and Muscogee follow the same pattern, the economy of those tribes and the tourist areas in general, will significantly suffer.
Watch...The nation itself, is probably prepping up for a major casino push. Fewer tribabl members means smaller distribution of funds.

[RBM 1]

and they have every right to do what they did, the U.S should stay out of their business, they are protected under their own consitution and the majority of their ppl voted and under thier laws they preveiled with a majority for the amendment to their law.. nuff said.

[warpedskydiver 0]

The last part of your statement is what came to mind when I read the story.

[tbrown 26]

A lot of this is motivated by sudden newfound wealth due to gambling. The fewer members, the bigger the cut each member gets. Just goes to show that Indians can be just as nasty and selfish as anybody else.

It's a historic fact by the way that many of these former slaves also marched to Oklahoma on the "Trail of Tears" and suffered just as much as the full blooded Cherokees.

Your humble servant.....Professor Gravity !

[DSE 3]

Quote

A lot of this is motivated by sudden newfound wealth due to gambling. The fewer members, the bigger the cut each member gets. Just goes to show that Indians can be just as nasty and selfish as anybody else.

It's a historic fact by the way that many of these former slaves also marched to Oklahoma on the "Trail of Tears" and suffered just as much as the full blooded Cherokees.

Your last point is moot. Whether they did march or not is completely irrelevant.
The US Bureau of Ethnology under JW Powell (now the Bureau of Indian Affairs underneath the Dept of the Interior), set the stipulations for reparations, not the tribe. As it turned out nearly 200 years later, the tribe chose to take responsibility for themselves. The slaves were not slaves to the Cherokee or any other tribe, but rather were runaways from their white masters. Is there any sense of irony that non-Cherokees are discussing whether the tribe should or should not be able to control their destiny?
While I may or may not agree with the decision on the part of the tribe, bringing the Trail of Tears to the discussion is an invalid component in the argument.
Where this discussion bears real weight, is that there were slaves that intermarried within the tribe, and their descendants may now find themselves disenfranchised.
There are full-blooded indigenous peoples in this country that don't meet the blood quantum of either mother or father's tribe, therefore rendering them (by federal law), non-indigenous regardless of their heritage.

[warpedskydiver 0]

It's what an old friend of mine referred to as being "the wrong kind of indian" the kind that gets no casino money at all.

Hence all those Yumatilla casinos you see out there