05 March 2007

Cherokees vote to expel descendants of former slaves

Members of the Cherokee nation voted yesterday to expel descendants of black slaves they once owned. In a special election to amend their constitution citizenship is to be limited to those listed as “Cherokee by blood”. The move stripped tribal membership from freedmen (those descended from slaves) and blacks who were married to Cherokees. They had enjoyed full citizenship rights for 141 years.

The ballot, which followed a ruling by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court in March 2006 confirming citizenship to freedmen descendants, will now limit citizenship to those who can trace their heritage to a “Cherokee by blood” list, part of what is known as the Dawes Rolls census created in 1906. Under that census, anybody with a trace of African-American blood, even if half Cherokee, was placed on the freedmen roll. Those with full Cherokee or mixed white and Cherokee ancestry were put on the “Cherokee by blood” roll.

Supporters say that it was a long-overdue move by Cherokees to determine their own tribal make-up. In their view freedmen were granted tribal membership under duress in an 1866 treaty with the US Government. Those who wanted to expel freedmen said that, without the vote, thousands more descendants would seek to cash in on the tribe’s revenue and welfare network.

Opponents of the vote denounced it as a racist plot to deny tribal revenue to those not deemed full-blood Cherokee, and to block them from claiming a slice of the tribal pie. A minority of the 270,000 Cherokees are descendants of freedmen. Members are entitled to a share of the $350 million annual budget from federal and tribal revenue, housing and medical support.

The vote has reopened a chapter in Native American history –that some country’s largest tribes were slave holders and sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War. Cherokees, Choctaws, Chicksaws, Creeks and Seminoles were known as the Five Civilised Tribes because they adopted many of the ways of the Confederate South, including the ownership of black slaves.

This may well not be the end of the story: In 2000 the Seminole Nation expelled its freedmen. But the federal Government, through the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and federal courts, refused to recognise the Seminoles as a sovereign nation. Faced with such a loss of status, they took the freedmen back.

8 comments:

jams o donnell said...

But if the freedmen and those of cherokee/black origin are being disenfranchised after over 140 years, why now? Is it money?

beakerkin said...

It was about preserving their culture.The number of people with Cherokee blood is astronomical. This includes members of my own family.

Few of these excluded members had anything to do with the tribe on a day to day basis. Now that there is Casino revenue many people are sudenly claiming to be Native American.

In general when you move past the 1/2 level all claims become dubious.

Being descended from slaves owned by the tribe does not entitle anyone to membership. The status should never have been given in the first place.

However, I would be remiss if stating there are not antagonism between the Black and Native American communities. One can see the comments on Bad Eagle and judge for yourself.

jams o donnell said...

I saw some stuff which certainly indicated a racial element to all of this: One email quoted widely by someone called Darren Buzzard looked as if it could have been out of the mouth of any white supremacist. I'm not surprised - racism is not the sole preserve of whites although some , paticluarly fellow leftists would like to think that was the case.

billie said...

no- i agree jams- folks who have minority status here in america have always been at odds but lately- due to more media coverage perhaps- the enormity of what is going on has started to emerge. folks within their own 'groups' are fighting about who is 'more like' the group ideal and whatnot and it is just as venomous as white supremacist groups. it is such a shame. i guess this is further proof that underneath the skin we are all humans. apparently, we can all hate with the best of them.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

I don't know enough about all this to have an opinion but I just wanted to add the mild amusement at Al Sharpton and Strom Thurmond possibly sharing ancestry with one another. When you break it all down, we all belong to the brotherhood of man and we're all related. Pity that we treat each other like crap and make up race based exclusionary rules.

jams o donnell said...

Sadly so Betmo.. WE are no different under the skin.. The three pairs of genes that control skin colour dont make us more or less hateful...

I saw that story, of a link between Sharpton and Thurmond. I really do wish we looked to our many, many similarities rather than our few differences. Perhaps one day humans will.

Eugene said...

The Blackfoot Solicitor General to the Traditional Government, James Craven, would call this "Custer Work." So would I.

Who says who is and isn't American? Americans. Is this based on race or DNA testing, blood quantum, names on original roles, etc.? The methods we Indians use are methods designed for us by the imperialist occupiers of our land base. Does France, Seirre Leone, China, or Russia decide who is and isn't American? No. But The United States Government does have a hand in the definition of who is and isn't Indian. An actual BIA document says something like this: Hold to the quarter blood quantum, encourage inermarriage until we can define them out of existence, thus solving our persistent Indian problem.

The decision about the Cherokee Freedmen is Racist and IS about money.

On March 22, from 1:30 to 3:00pm PST, I [Eugene Johnson], and several others, will be interviewing Marilyn Vann, president of the Freedmen Association on a combination of the two Native programs on KBOO, "Mitakuye Oyasin/Indian World," 90.7fm in the Portland, Oregon area or on the web at www.kboo.fm.

Here is a vote I'd like to see: Let's vote all the white folks off of our land. Look what they've done to it. They've destroyed our rivers, destroyed our traditional food sources, have started numerous illegal wars, etc. [tongue in cheek, of course]

Anonymous said...

Call it what you like, it's prejudice if the descendants do have a drop of Cherokee blood. With ancestors coming out of Virginia, and rumors of family members in my family being of native american descent(may or not be cherokee if so)I am not after money, I am into genealogy, and finding out my ancestral culture. If I was entitled to any part of the money then why shouldn't I get my share. Anyway, I do believe that if the slaves were taken against there will by the Cherokee, then they should be compensated as well, blood or no blood.