Here is a story you might not have heard about. I have been staring at it for days wondering what to think about it. Let's give it a shot.
My father was a Okie from Muskogee. Some of my earliest memories are of attending holiday feasts at my Great Uncle Earl's Oklahoma farm, feasts also attended by his Cherokee neighbors. They were all nice people. At the time I noticed that some of them matched the television profile of the classic American "Indian" and others resembled African Americans. My great uncle told me they were all Cherokee and they were all his friends. If Uncle Earl told me somebody was his friend, that was good enough for me.
Boring history alert. I am going quote at length from H.R. 2824 introduced by Rep. Diane Watson on June 21, 2007. It lays out the history of this sad story about as well as any summary I have seen.
(1) In the 1830s, members of the Cherokee Nation were removed from their lands in the southeastern United States and forced to migrate to Oklahoma along a route known as the Trail of Tears. Among those persons forced to migrate were the Black slaves of Cherokees, free Blacks married to Cherokees, and the children of mixed-race families, known now as the `Black Cherokees'.Bet you didn't know the Cherokee were plantation and slave owners back in the 1820s. They were fully assimilated into the culture of the old South. Bet you didn't know they were moved off their plantations by the ethnic cleansing efforts of President Andy Jackson, who was really the tool of a bunch of racist crooks. Crooks we would identify today as being Washington insiders and lobbyists. Bet you didn't know the slave holding Cherokee Nation joined the Confederacy and later reached a formal peace treaty with the United States. Their black slaves, and freed blacks married to Cherokee became Black Cherokee members of the Cherokee nation. Lots of those former slaves stayed on the land with the "pure blood" Cherokee. They intermarried both before and after 1866. Their descendants went to my Uncle Earl's holiday feasts along with their "pure blood" relatives. With the passage of time all was forgotten and all was forgiven.
(2) In 1861, the Cherokee Nation executed a treaty with the Confederate States of America, thereby severing its relations with the United States Government. Members of the Cherokee Nation held positions in the Congress and military of the Confederate States of America and waged war against the United States during the Civil War.
(3) Following the Civil War, the United States reestablished relations with the Cherokee Nation through the Treaty of 1866. The Treaty of 1866 declared that the Black Cherokees, also known as `Cherokee Freedmen', were to be made citizens of the Cherokee Nation and to have all the rights of Cherokees.
(4) The Treaty of 1866 further guarantees the following:
(A) Laws `shall be uniform throughout said nation' and that if `any law, either in its provisions or in the manner of its enforcement, in the opinion of the President of the United States, operate unjustly in [the Freedmen] district, he is hereby authorized and empowered to correct such evil.'.
(B) The Cherokee Freedmen are given the right to elect officials and to representation `according to numbers' on the national council.
(5) Following the Treaty of 1866, the Cherokee National Council amended its constitution to guarantee the Cherokee Freedmen full rights as citizens of the Cherokee Nation.
(6) Also following the Treaty of 1866, the Courts upheld the Cherokee Freedmen's treaty rights, including--
(A) in 1895, the Court of Claims held that the Cherokee Freedmen were entitled to share in the tribe's land sale proceeds and the Cherokee Nation's sovereignty could not be exercised in a manner that breached the nation's treaty obligations to the United States (Whitmire, Trustee for the Cherokee Freedmen v. Cherokee Nation, 30 CT Cl. 138, 180 (CT Cl. 1895); and
(B) in 1906, the Supreme Court noted that the Cherokee Freedmen are citizens of the Cherokee Nation entitled to the same property rights as other members of the Cherokee Nation under the Treaty of 1866 (Red Bird v. United States, 203 U.S. 76, 84).
(7) In a December 19, 2006, ruling in Vann v. Kempthorne, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia found that in 1906, the Dawes Commission registered members of the Cherokee Nation under separate categories: the `Freedmen Roll' for the Black Cherokees and the `Blood Roll' for other Cherokees. Individuals possessing African blood were placed on the Freedmen Roll, where no levels of Indian blood were recorded. Those possessing no African blood were placed on the Blood Roll, where levels of Indian blood were recorded. The Dawes Commission declared that persons recorded on the Freedmen Roll were on equal footing with those on the Blood Roll.
(8) In 1970, Congress passed the `Principal Chiefs Act' requiring the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee Nations to obtain approval for their voting laws for selection of the principal chief. The Department of the Interior drafted a policy stating that it was not necessary that each of these groups have identical or similar regulations, but that three conditions are deemed fundamental to the democratic selection of a principal tribal official. One of the three conditions stipulated by the Department is that voter qualifications of the Cherokees must be broad enough to include the enrolled Cherokee Freedmen citizens.
(9) In May 2003, the Cherokee Nation held an election for its officers and ratification of a new constitution. The vote proposed to amend the 1999 constitution of the Cherokee Nation by removing the requirement that the United States Department of the Interior and Bureau of Indian Affairs approve amendments to the Cherokee Nation Constitution. The Cherokee Freedmen were not permitted to vote or run for office. The election violated the Treaty of 1866, the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, the Principal Chiefs Act of 1970, and the Department of the Interior's guidance on the ratification of a new constitution.
(10) In May 2003, the Cherokee Nation held an election for its officers and the ratification of a new constitution. The new constitution removed the requirement that the United States Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs approve amendments to the Cherokee Nation constitution. The Cherokee Freedmen were not permitted to vote in this election. The election violated the Treaty of 1866, the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the Principal Chiefs Act of 1970.
(11) The Department of the Interior has not recognized the May 2003 vote to amend the Cherokee Nation's constitution. The Cherokee Nation has subsequently removed its request for approval from the Department of the Interior.
(12) Currently, the Cherokee Nation operates under a Principal Chief elected in violation to the 1970 Principal Chiefs Act and Treaty of 1866, a National Council constituted without Cherokee Freedmen representatives in violation of the Treaty of 1866, and a Constitution not approved by the United States pursuant to Article XV, Section 10 of the 1975 Cherokee Nation Constitution.
(13) In May 2003, the Cherokee Nation renamed its highest court, formerly named the Judicial Appeals Tribunal and newly renamed the Supreme Court, after the Judicial Appeals Tribunal ruled in a 2-1 decision that the Cherokee Freedmen were entitled to citizenship pursuant to the 1975 Cherokee Nation constitution. Pursuant to the new May 2003 constitution, which still has not been approved by the Department of the Interior, the illegally elected Principal Chief appointed two additional judges to the Supreme Court. The panel of five Supreme Court judges ruled in a 3-2 decision that the Cherokee Nation could hold a vote on the tribal status of the Cherokee Freedmen.
(14) Operating under the unapproved Constitution, the Cherokee Nation held an election in March 2007, to remove the Cherokee Freedmen from the Cherokee Nation. In a vote of less than 4 percent of the total Cherokee Nation population, the voters elected to remove Cherokee Freedmen not on the Dawes blood rolls from the Nation.
(15) In May 2007, the Cherokee Nation leadership determined that it would allow registered Freedmen to vote in the June 23, 2007 election for tribal officers. Despite the Cherokee Nation's decision to allow Freedmen to vote, Freedmen's rights as members of the Cherokee Nation are severely restricted: Freedmen are not allowed to run for office in the June 2007 election in violation of the Treaty of 1866; the registration of Freedmen entitled to Cherokee citizenship under the 1906 Dawes Rolls has been halted; and the election is to be held under provisions of an unapproved constitution and in violation of the 1970 Principal Chiefs Act that requires the Cherokee leadership to submit its voting requirements for the election to the Secretary of the Interior for his approval. Further, the actions of the Cherokee Nation in halting citizenship application processing and voter registration of Freedmen have disproportionately reduced the number of Freedmen voters that can participate in the election.
(16) The manner in which the Cherokee Nation is conducting the relationship between the United States and the tribal entity is not in the best interest of the United States Government, citizens of the Cherokee Nation, and violates existing treaties and laws governing the relationship between the United States Government and the Cherokee Nation.
(17) Current efforts of the Cherokee Nation to expel members of the Cherokee Freedmen from the tribal rolls and abolish Department of the Interior oversight are being pursued in violation of the treaty rights extended to the Cherokee Freedmen in a treaty agreement between the United States and Cherokee Nation in the 1866 Treaty and in violation of Freedmen citizenship under the federally approved Cherokee Nation constitution of 1975.
(18) The Department of the Interior has failed to uphold its fiduciary responsibility by recognizing the May 2003 Cherokee Nation election for Principal Chief in which Freedmen were not allowed to vote in violation of the Principal Chiefs Act and the Treaty of 1866 and by failing to take any administrative action against the Cherokee Nation leadership for its decision to sanction a referendum in March 2007 in which the Freedmen were expelled from the Cherokee Nation.
Guess what has happened? The Cherokee Nation has discovered casino gambling. Gaming profits are divided among members of the Cherokee Nation. The fewer Cherokee, the more money is available to benefit each remaining member. At just about the same time as they discovered casino gambling the leaders of Cherokee Nation rediscovered all their historic racism. One way to quickly reduce the number of Cherokee is to kick out all those descendants of the slaves of their ancestors enrolled as Black Cherokee in 1866. That is exactly what they did.
Representative Watson and 21 cosponsors, many from the black caucus, propose to force the Cherokee leadership to rescind the expulsion of the Cherokee Freemen by severing relations with the Cherokee Nation until such time as they agree to abide by the 1866 Treaty. Section 3 of the act pointedly calls for
SUSPENSION OF RIGHT TO CONDUCT GAMING OPERATIONS.That provision has gotten the attention of the Cherokee leadership. Mike Graham of the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation and Founder of United Native America writes.
(a) In General- The Cherokee Nation's authority to conduct gaming regulated under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and to administer any funds from such gaming are suspended until such time that the Cherokee Nation is in compliance with all treaty and other obligations with the United States, as determined by a final certification under section 2(d).
(b) Report- Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the National Indian Gaming Commission shall submit a report to Congress detailing the actions that have been taken to enforce subsection (a).
Congresswoman Watson's legislation also call's for suspending the Cherokee Nation's authority to conduct gaming operations. This action alone would cause thousands of people to loose their jobs to include Freedmen citizens of the nation , plus cause countless other businesses to close down. Any member of congress supporting congresswoman Watson's Inhuman cause with H.R.2824, will open up a Pandora's box that will shake the hall's of government's coast to coast far beyond election year in 2008. Democrats and republicans are on notice as to the ramifications and short coming of H.R.2824 passing.Of course, the Cherokees deny racism. They claim they have a perfect right to throw Freedmen Cherokees out unless they can prove a family connection to some pure blood Cherokee. Proving a connection to a slave held by some pure blood Cherokee isn't good enough. Notice that the 1866 rolls put all the mixed blood Cherokee in the Black Cherokee camp. Anybody whose mother or father was a Cherokee slave is not considered a Cherokee by the "pure blood" proponents.
As you can tell when money enters an equation human rights, honor, nobility and dignity are often the first casualties.
Congresswoman Watson was scheduled to have held hearings in both Tulsa and Muskogee on August 20, 2007. I am looking for a report. This will be a hot topic in Congress over the next few months. The Cherokee aren't the only Native Americans trying to use proof of ancestry to restrict the number of people benefiting from casino gambling.
