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A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation
As President Bill Clinton and others arrived in Selma, Alabama for the 42nd anniversary of the "bloody Sunday" march that prodded Congress to pass the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Cherokee Nation chose a lower road. It voted overwhelmingly for an amendment to their constitution that revokes citizenship rights for 2,800 members because their ancestors included people of African descent.
Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, has long fought racism from both governmental officials and indigenous figures. In this instance, she claims, Cherokee leaders misled voters by insisting "freedmen don't have Indian blood", "the freedmen were forced on the tribe", "the freedmen do not have a treaty right to citizenship", "the people have never voted on citizenship provisions in the history of the tribe", and "the amendment will create an all Indian tribe." Cherokee voters were also influenced by the racist charge "that the freedmen if not ejected, would use up all of the tribal service monies."
The design of the amendment, Vann points out, is patently discriminatory. It removes membership from descendants of enrolled African Cherokees whose documentation of Indian ancestry was affirmed by the Dawes Commission more than a century ago as well as those without documentation of Indian ancestry. On the other hand it accepts Cherokee members with white blood or even people whose ancestors are listed as "adopted whites."
This development comes at a moment of re-examination of African and Indian alliances that followed 1492. Governor Nicolas de Ovando of Hispaniola arrived in the Americas in 1502 with a Spanish armada that carried the first enslaved Africans. Within a year, Ovando wrote to King Ferdinand that the Africans "fled to the Indians and never could be captured." To the fury of Europeans, Native Americans, the first people enslaved in the New World, accepted African runaways. Indians saw no reason to face the invasion alone.
In their maroon colonies beyond the European settlements that dotted the coastlines of the Americas, each group contributed invaluable skills. As victims of the triangular trade, Africans brought their unique experience of European intentions, weapons, and diplomacy. Native American villages offered runaways a safe haven for families and a base for operations, and allowed the two peoples to forge the first "rainbow coalition." So ubiquitous were maroon communities that a French scholar called them "the gangrene of colonial society." Seeing these alternative societies as a threat to their hegemony, Europeans repeatedly deployed search and destroy armies.
More
http://counterpunch.com/katz03172007.html
The design of the amendment, Vann points out, is patently discriminatory. It removes membership from descendants of enrolled African Cherokees whose documentation of Indian ancestry was affirmed by the Dawes Commission more than a century ago as well as those without documentation of Indian ancestry. On the other hand it accepts Cherokee members with white blood or even people whose ancestors are listed as "adopted whites."
This development comes at a moment of re-examination of African and Indian alliances that followed 1492. Governor Nicolas de Ovando of Hispaniola arrived in the Americas in 1502 with a Spanish armada that carried the first enslaved Africans. Within a year, Ovando wrote to King Ferdinand that the Africans "fled to the Indians and never could be captured." To the fury of Europeans, Native Americans, the first people enslaved in the New World, accepted African runaways. Indians saw no reason to face the invasion alone.
In their maroon colonies beyond the European settlements that dotted the coastlines of the Americas, each group contributed invaluable skills. As victims of the triangular trade, Africans brought their unique experience of European intentions, weapons, and diplomacy. Native American villages offered runaways a safe haven for families and a base for operations, and allowed the two peoples to forge the first "rainbow coalition." So ubiquitous were maroon communities that a French scholar called them "the gangrene of colonial society." Seeing these alternative societies as a threat to their hegemony, Europeans repeatedly deployed search and destroy armies.
More
http://counterpunch.com/katz03172007.html
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Fewer than 20% of the tribe's registered voters and less than 4% of the tribe's total population voted in this "special" election. This doesn't excuse the results of the vote; however it is a fact that needs to be considered.
Cherokee Nation Vote: No Such Thing As A Black Or White Indian
Oklahoma Cherokee Nation members have voted to exclude a group of African Americans going by the name of Freedmen and Intermarried Whites. Members of the Freedmen group claim to be descendents of runaway Black slaves, some claim Indian heritage. Some Eastern Indian Nations were forced by the federal government to give full tribal citizenship to the runaway Black slaves through the treaty of 1866 at the end of the U.S. Civil War 1861-1865.
At the end of the U.S. Civil War some Indian Nations were forced at gun point to sign the treaty of 1866. Part of this treaty forced Indian Nations to accept the Freedmen Group and Intermarried Whites as tribal members. Indian Nation leaders rejected the proposal outright, but had no choice but to do as the federal government ordered them. The federal government, on it's own, made it a point to dishonor every treaty it made with American Indian Nations when it suited them.
Today, some African Americans claiming Indian heritage are calling themselves Black Indians. There is no such thing as a Black American Indian or White American Indian! You're American Indian or you're not! If you're Black or White and have Indian heritage, that is all you can and should claim. It's an insult to the American Indian community for people of another race to claim their Indian heritage while doing so through their dominant race color.
Read Full Press Release:
http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=22354
Rolo: Indians, not government, decide tribal citizenship
By Mark Anthony Rolo
Article Last Updated: 03/17/2007 10:50:48 PM MDT
Indian tribes have the right to determine who their citizens are.
That might seem obvious, but the question of who has the right to be Indian surfaced recently in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Tribal members voted to deny African slave descendants citizenship into the tribe.
Back in 1866, the federal government and the Cherokee signed a treaty that, among other things, stipulated that the tribe had to adopt their own emancipated slaves, who were called Freedmen - many of whom were living with the tribe.
For generations Freedmen participated in tribal affairs. Some even held office. But in the 1970s, when the tribe broke free of federal control and was reorganized as a nation, it decided that blood would be the sole factor in determining who was Cherokee.
For the past three decades, many descendants of Freedmen have fought to get reinstated. But on March 3, tribal members went to the polls and, in a landslide, decided that 2,700 blacks could not claim citizenship based on the fact that their ancestors were slaves of the Cherokee.
This rightfully infuriated some of the descendants of Freedmen, who believe racism motivated the vote.
However, Tribal Chairman Chad Smith has stated that race had nothing to do with the tribal vote and that the tribe has a number of mixed-blood members who are black, Hispanic and white. According to Smith, the
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vote was a sovereign exercise by the nation in allowing the people to determine what defines Cherokee citizenship.
But Freedmen descendants have argued that their rights are guaranteed under the terms of the 1866 treaty. They are appealing to the U.S. government to intervene on the basis of that treaty.
What has transpired at Cherokee is extremely disappointing. The majority of Freedmen are not wannabes (interlopers obsessed with Indian culture). Nor are they casino-greedy. Cherokee members do not receive gaming revenue checks each month. And though there may be a few bigoted Cherokees roaming the countryside, this is nothing even close to being called racial-cleansing. In fact, there has been a history of more harmony than division between tribal members and Freedmen.
As unfortunate as the vote was, asking the U.S. government to intervene is not the solution. To do so would undermine the pillar of a tribal nation's sovereignty. Anyone who understands the cornerstone of federal-Indian policy should know that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has a notorious history of bullying tribal nations.
Tribes signed treaties for one reason and one reason alone: to simply ensure the survival of their people.
The vote at Cherokee to determine who can rightfully claim citizenship is an example of Indian Country exercising its basic sovereign rights. To allow the tribes to be bullied again by the federal government would be to take back every step they have taken toward reclaiming nationhood.
Mark Anthony Rolo is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, and author of the novel The Wonder Bull (iUniverse, 2006).
By Mark Anthony Rolo
Article Last Updated: 03/17/2007 10:50:48 PM MDT
Indian tribes have the right to determine who their citizens are.
That might seem obvious, but the question of who has the right to be Indian surfaced recently in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Tribal members voted to deny African slave descendants citizenship into the tribe.
Back in 1866, the federal government and the Cherokee signed a treaty that, among other things, stipulated that the tribe had to adopt their own emancipated slaves, who were called Freedmen - many of whom were living with the tribe.
For generations Freedmen participated in tribal affairs. Some even held office. But in the 1970s, when the tribe broke free of federal control and was reorganized as a nation, it decided that blood would be the sole factor in determining who was Cherokee.
For the past three decades, many descendants of Freedmen have fought to get reinstated. But on March 3, tribal members went to the polls and, in a landslide, decided that 2,700 blacks could not claim citizenship based on the fact that their ancestors were slaves of the Cherokee.
This rightfully infuriated some of the descendants of Freedmen, who believe racism motivated the vote.
However, Tribal Chairman Chad Smith has stated that race had nothing to do with the tribal vote and that the tribe has a number of mixed-blood members who are black, Hispanic and white. According to Smith, the
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advertisement
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
vote was a sovereign exercise by the nation in allowing the people to determine what defines Cherokee citizenship.
But Freedmen descendants have argued that their rights are guaranteed under the terms of the 1866 treaty. They are appealing to the U.S. government to intervene on the basis of that treaty.
What has transpired at Cherokee is extremely disappointing. The majority of Freedmen are not wannabes (interlopers obsessed with Indian culture). Nor are they casino-greedy. Cherokee members do not receive gaming revenue checks each month. And though there may be a few bigoted Cherokees roaming the countryside, this is nothing even close to being called racial-cleansing. In fact, there has been a history of more harmony than division between tribal members and Freedmen.
As unfortunate as the vote was, asking the U.S. government to intervene is not the solution. To do so would undermine the pillar of a tribal nation's sovereignty. Anyone who understands the cornerstone of federal-Indian policy should know that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has a notorious history of bullying tribal nations.
Tribes signed treaties for one reason and one reason alone: to simply ensure the survival of their people.
The vote at Cherokee to determine who can rightfully claim citizenship is an example of Indian Country exercising its basic sovereign rights. To allow the tribes to be bullied again by the federal government would be to take back every step they have taken toward reclaiming nationhood.
Mark Anthony Rolo is a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, and author of the novel The Wonder Bull (iUniverse, 2006).
For more information:
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_5463769
Chippewa fishing rights are a treaty right. Freedmen citizenship in Cherokee Nation is a treaty right. Be careful what you argue about treaties; especially if you are arguing that they can be ignored. It may come back to bite you.
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