In early September 2017, the Cherokee Nation accepted a U.S. District Court ruling on the descendants of Cherokee Freedmen by arguing that they had “all the rights of native Cherokees.” Judge Thomas Hogan ended one chapter in the longstanding controversy concerning the status of the descendants of former slaves, many of whom live among Cherokees. It is now time for Cherokees to resolve internal discrepancies and to strengthen relationships within the nation.
The core issue in the Cherokee Freedmen controversy has always been power relations and the question of who has the right to determine citizenship in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. After the Civil War, the United States ratified a treaty with the Cherokee in which all slaves residing within the Cherokee Nation would be freed, and they would gain full legal status within the Cherokee Nation. The Treaty of 1866 thus guaranteed to some 2,500 slaves freedom and an equal status with those who were Cherokee according to the definition used by the tribe members Cherokees were not eager to accept Freedmen as full members of their tribe, and debates on tribal citizenship and on the interpretation of the treaty have continued to the present day.
For Native American peoples, kinship and blood quantum were, and still are, essential foundations for tribal citizenship. Freedmen, on the other hand, laid claim to citizenship as a treaty right. In 2007, the Cherokee Nation, citing its inherent sovereign power to determine its own citizenship criteria, restricted citizenship to those who could prove their family line through its tribal rolls.
The government of the United States made efforts to support the Cherokee Freedmen. For instance, it blocked federal housing funds from the Cherokee people in 2011, and consequently the tribe returned Cherokee citizenship to more than 2,800 people. Later they were disenrolled from the tribe again, forcing them to join an estimated 40,000 unenrolled descendants of the slaves once owned by Cherokees.
It would appear that the Cherokee Nation has now stepped into a new era in their history. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that old attitudes remain strong among some of its citizens. I would like to suggest that current developments are a positive thing, and I hope that the relationships among and between Cherokee citizens shall improve in the process of time. Citizenship and a sense of belonging are important factors when one constructs his or her identity and attitude towards life.
References:
Champagne, Duane, George P. Horse Capture, and Chandler C. Jackson. 2007. American Indian Nations: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press.
Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. 1978. The Cherokee Freedmen: From Emancipation to American Citizenship. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.
Monet, Jenni. 2017. Linking Arms, Marching Forward: Cherokee Nation Accepts Ruling on Freedmen. In Indian Country Today. Available from https://indiancountrymedianetwork.com/news/native-news/cherokee-nation-accepts-ruling-freedmen/.
Sturm, Circe. 2014. “Race, Sovereignty, and Civil Rights: Understanding the Cherokee Freedmen Controversy.” Cultural Anthropology 29, no. 3: 575–598. https://doi.org/10.14506/ca29.3.07