Tribal Termination

Morgan Maher
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A U.S. House bill calling for the termination of U.S.-Cherokee Nation relations would cut $270 million in federal funding for crucial social services such as health care, housing and education, as well as 6,500 jobs.

The bill seeks to punish the Cherokee people for their March 2007 vote requiring every citizen in the Nation, whether African, Caucasian, Asian or Hispanic, to have at least one Native American ancestor listed on the Dawes Rolls of the Cherokee Nation. More than 500 other Native American Nations in the United States also require their citizens to have Native American ancestry.

Send a letter to your elected officials.


Comments

stop this crime

Submitted by jeffreymaron on Wed, 01/30/2008 - 09:22.
Thank you Morgan for championing this worthy cause. This funding should not be held hostage. I urge all to take action to prevent this new atrocity at the feet of the people who were the careful stewards of our mother before this shameful era. Cherokee people need help, children and elders will suffer the most. If you spend time at Reality Sandwich, please take the time to follow the link on the blog and thereby take action. Numbers count and participation makes it work.

a little more complicated though

Submitted by lauren on Wed, 01/30/2008 - 11:18.
This bill is sponsored by congresswoman Diane Watson of CA, an African American.

read the bill in full here: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:H.R.2824:

"SECTION 1. FINDINGS.

Congress finds the following:
(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'."

A later treaty in 1866 put these black "Freedmen" on equal footing with their Indian tribal members. Recently the Cherokee Nation made tribal citizenship dependent upon having an Indian relative on the Dawes Roll, a fed 1906 Cherokee census. So 2800 descendants of Freedmen are out.

The issue of the fed breaking all the treaties is always relevant, and we definitely need more national engagement about Indians in general, but this one seems to leave the white guys out - which is interesting, and it really bothers me too. And, there's probably more complexity that we're missing.

Here's a snip from the Cherokee.org site: http://www.cherokee.org/PressRoom/2471/story.aspx

"Litigation on Freedmen citizenship issues is ongoing in federal and tribal courts. Until all litigation is resolved, the approximately 2,800 Freedmen descendants have been reinstated to citizenship with full social services and the right to vote. Congresswoman Watson's bill would hurt many of these individuals and others in the Nation who receive such federal assistance.

To help Freedmen descendants become citizens, the Nation will provide genealogical assistance, helping research whether they have an Indian ancestor listed on the federally created Dawes Rolls, no matter how long it takes. "