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The Cherokee Freedmen controversy is an on-going political and tribal dispute among the Cherokee Nation and the Cherokee Freedmen (most are former slaves of Cherokee citizens). This issue concerns the continual membership of the Cherokee Freedmen within the Cherokee Nation. This controversy has received local and nationwide media coverage. The Freedmen were given membership by an earlier treaty with the United States, in which the Cherokee nation agreed to give the Freedmen membership. The argument is that the African American descendants who cannot prove racially indigenous ancestry should not qualify for membership and voting rights.

The Freedmen

Freedmen is the term given to slaves after slavery is abolished. In this context, Freedmen are a group of pending Cherokee citizens who were former slaves of the natural Cherokee tribe members. There is estimated to be 2,800 members of the Cherokee Nation considered to be Freedmen.

History

Slavery among the Cherokee

Cherokees held the greatest number of slaves of any group in Indian Territory (Littlefield 68). Slavery has been a component of Cherokee society since before European contact (for a full discussion, see Perdue 1979), and in the early 1800s, some Cherokee plantation owners in the American south took slaves. (Sturm 231). The nature of slavery in Cherokee society is in some dispute, some point to the lack of mob violence and that there is no record of mass lynching in the Cherokee nation as evidence that Cherokee slaves did not fear for their personal safety as much as some slaves of white masters might have. During the American Civil War, the Cherokee Nation, represented by Chief John Ross, was largely conflicted between the north and the south, and on June 25, 1863, two years before the Thirteenth Amendment), all slaves within the limits of the Cherokee Nation were emancipated by an act of the Cherokee National Council.

The 1866 treaty

After the war, the the factions of Cherokee who supported the Union and those who supported the Confederacy continued to be at odds. Those supporting the confederacy largely felt that the freedmen should be removed from Cherokee Country, while others felt that they should be adopted into the tribe. Federal officials pushed for equal status between tribal members and freedmen, and on July 19, 1866, the Cherokee Nation signed a treaty with the United States extending Cherokee citizenship to the freedmen and their descendants (article 9). The treaty also set aside a large tract for freedmen to settle if they desired (article 4) and granted self-determination within the constraints of the greater Cherokee Nation (article 5).

The rolls

The 1866 treaty did not, however, lead to full acceptance of freedmen in the Cherokee Nation. This resistance was largely due to economic factors. In 1880, a census was compiled in order to distribute per capita funds related to recent land sales. In the same year, the Cherokee senate voted to deny citizenship to freedmen who had failed to comply with the 1866 treaty by returning to the Cherokee Nation within six months. However the 1880 census did not even include those freedmen who had never left, claiming that the treaty granted civil and political rights, but not the right to share in tribal assets (Sturm 234). Cherokee Chief Dennis Wolf Bushyhead (1877-1887) opposed this action, but was overridden by the Council. The federal government interviened, passing a bill in 1888 mandating that adopted citizens of the Cheokee nation share in tribal assets, and compiled what was known as the Wallace Roll in 1989 to count those who were included (including 3,524 freedmen) The freedmen won the claims court case that followed, Witmire v. Cherokee Nation and United States (30 Ct. Clms. 138(1875)). The Cherokee had already distributed the funds, and the U.S. as co-defendent in the case, was to pay the award. The Kern-Clifton roll completed in 1896 listed 5,600 freedmen who received there portion of the funds in the following decade (Sturm 235).

In the midst of all of this, the Dawes Act of 1887 was passed, which converted tribal lands to individual ownership, which was to some degree an attempt at assimilating the Indians. As a part of the act and subsequent bills, the Dawes Commission required a roll which listed people in the Indian Territory under three categories, freedmen, intermarried whites, and Indians by blood. The Dawes Rolls of 1902 listed 41,798 citizens of the Cherokee Nation, 4,924 of them freedmen. The 1908 Curtis Act authorized the Dawes Commission to allot funds without the consent of tribal government (both the Dawes and Curtis Acts are seen as great restrictions on tribal sovereignty), and allowed the federal government to extract taxes from white citizens living in the Indian territories. Allotments were distributed, although there have been many claims of unfair treatment (see Debo 1940), and as the Cherokee Nation was officially dissolved and Oklahoma became a state (1907), by and large the freedmen had self-determination. There were 1,659 freedmen listed on the Kern-Clifton roll were not included in the Dawes Roll (Sturm 235) who were not given (Cherokee) citizenship rights due to there failure to satisfy the criterion of the 1866 treaty. Some have criticized inconsistencies of the Dawes Rolls themselves. For instance, freedwoman Gladys Lannagan in the testimony of members of the Cherokee Freedmen's Association before the Indian Claims Commission on November 14, 1960 reported, "I was born in 1896 and my father died August 5, 1897. But he didn't get my name on the roll. I have two brothers on the roll by blood--one on the roll by blood and one other by Cherokee freedman children's allottees." She stated that one of her grandparents was Cherokee and the other black (Sturm 246). Other cases of black Cherokee with at least 1/4 of their grandparents being full Cherokee not being listed as Cherokee by blood have been presented as well (Sturm 247-250).

In 1924, Congress passed a jurisdictional act which allowed the Cherokees to file suit against the United States to recover the funds paid to freedmen under the Kern-Clifton Rolls in 1894. The result of this suit held that the Kern-Clifton Rolls were only valid for that one distribution, and were superseded by later rolls. The Indian Claims Commission Act of 1946 again stirred interest in the status of the 1,659 freedmen included in the Kern-Clifton but not the later roll.

Activism from the 1940s-1980s

In the 1940s, the Cherokee Freedmen's Association was formed of over 100 freedmen descendants of freedmen on the Wallace, Kern-Clifton, and Dawes Rolls. The group filed petition with the Indian Claims Commission in 1951, which were denied in 1961, since the claims were individual in nature and outside of the jurisdiction of the Indian Claims Commission. Appeals stretched to 1971, but all were denied. The Cherokee Freedmen's Association were faced with two issues. On one hand, the Dawes Rolls, a federally mandated tally, were accepted as defining who were legally and politically Cherokee, and on the other hand, the courts saw their claims as a tribal matter and outside of their jurisdiction. (Sturm 238-239).

In the 1970s incentives instituted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs such as free health care lured many descendants of Indians by blood Dawes enrollees to join the Cherokee Nation. These were extended to the Freedmen as well. However, as the makeup of the Cherokee Nation shifted, the sentiments of those in power shifted as well. The Cherokee election registration committee in 1977-1978 amended the rules for registering to vote, requiring individuals to have a certified degree of Indian blood to vote. There is controversy over whether this is in violation of the 1976 Cherokee Constitution which based citizenship on the Dawes Rolls (Sturm 239). In practice, a certified degree of Indian blood has been a criteria for citizenship since the 1976 constitution. For instance, in 1984, then Deputy Chief Wilma Mankiller said that freedmen "should not be given membership in the Cherokee tribe. That is for people with Cherokee blood." (Baltimore Sun, July 29, 1984) On June 18, 1983, a group of freedmen went to the Muskogee Courthouse to vote for principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. Although they were Dawes enrollees, and had received funds from the nation resulting from recent land sales, and had voted in 1979, they were turned away from the polls and told that freedmen did not have the right to vote. Roger Thornton (169) mentions that few of over 4,000 freedmen with Cherokee blood have sought full recognition as citizens due to the complicated questions about their own identity such a claim would pose.

On July 7, 1983, Reverend Roger H. Nero and five other original enrollees sent a complaint to the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, and on June 18 1984 Nero and 16 other freedmen filed a class action suit against Principal Chief Ross Swimmer, the tribal registrar, a tribal council member, the tribal election committee, the United States, the Office of the President, the Department of the Interior, the Office of the Secretary, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and three BIA employees claiming discrimination on the basis of race. The suit sought nearly $750 million and wanted the last election to be declared null and void. This suit has been criticized as a political stunt by Swimmer's opponent in that election, Perry Wheeler. (Sturm 243). That case and an appeal heard in 1989 both were resolved against the freedmen on account of jurisdiction.

Contemporary feelings

Cherokee Freedmen today feel that they have been gradually pushed out of the Cherokee Nation, and that the process has left each generation less aware of its rights and its history. Sturm reports that most Cherokee Freedmen do not self-identify as Cherokee, and are often only vaguely aware of their history. Large African American populations exist today in Muskogee and Fort Gibson, and nearly three percent of Tahlequah itself is black. Communities in this part of northeastern Oklahoma are largely segregated. Sturm also finds that there is general apathy towards prospects of being recognized, although older people remark that their elders spoke of "glory days" of the Cherokee Nation, and remember the court battles and the role Reverend Nero played in the community. The lack of success of these battles and the cultural distance between the community and Cherokee history are cited as causes in the general disinterest in continuing the fight, although the benefits, such as eligibility for scholarships have caused some freedmen families to seek to register their children (Sturm 251).

Cherokees by blood have also pushed occasionally to garner full citizenship for Freemen. David Cornsilk, editor of the small independent newspaper the Cherokee Observer and founder of the Cherokee National Party sees the issue of honoring the 1866 treaty as an issue of sovereignty. He believes that if the Cherokee Nation exerts its jurisdiction more fully, it will increase its power base and silence some of its critics (Sturm 253). Other non-White Cherokee have expressed solidarity with freedmen due to their similarities of religion (Southern Baptist) and the sense of community (albeit African American) found among freedmen (Sturm 257).

Loss of voting rights and rights of citizenship

In 1999, a new constitution was passed by vote in the Cherokee Nation, but was rejected by the BIA in part because it did not grant voting rights to freedmen. In the 2003 election of current Principal Chief Chad Smith, the new constitution was again passed, although it awaits BIA acceptance. On March 13, 2006, Smith stated in his state of the nation address that the issue of voting rights for freedmen should be put to a vote. The vote was held on March 3, 2007, and Freedmen were expelled from the Cherokee Nation. The attorney general of the Cherokee Nation has agreed to temporarily grant citizenship rights to Freedmen while the constitutionality of the vote is discussed in court.

See Also

• Freedmen

References

1. John Norris (March 12, 2006). "The Cherokee: Saying No to Blacks". hnn.us (Podcast). Retrieved 2007-05-15. {{cite podcast}}: Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
2. The 1880 census also did not include Delawares and Shawnee who had been adopted between 1860 and 1867 (Sturm 234)
3. The federal government was quite involved, passing in 1888, An Act to secure to the Cherokee freedmen and others their proportion of certain proceeds of lands, Oct. 19, 1888, 25 Stat. 608. In 1890, the Congress further authorized the U.S. Court of Claims to hear suits by the Freedmen against the Cherokee Nation for recovery of proceeds denied them in An act to refer to the U.S. Court of Claims certain claims of the Shawnee and Delaware Indians and the freedmen of the Cherokee Nation, Oct. 1, 1890, 26 Stat. 636.

Debo, Angie. And Still the Waters Run: 7he Betrayal of the Fiue Civilized Tribes. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940.

Littlefield, Daniel F. Jr. 7he Cherokee Freedmen: From Emancipation to American Citizenship. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.

Perdue, Theda. Sluveryand the Evolution of CherokeeSociety, 154&1866. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979.

Sturm, Circe. Blood Politics, Racial Classification, and Cherokee National Identity: The Trials and Tribulations of the Cherokee Freedmen. American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 1/2. (Winter - Spring, 1998), pp. 230-258.

Thornton, Russell. The Cherokees:A Population History. Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1990.