Descendants of Slaves once owned by the Cherokee have been voted out of the tribe. According to an AP article, seventy - five percent of registered Cherokee voters said "yes" to the proposal demanding that the 2,800 descendants of the Freedmen be stripped of citizenship.
In 1866, the Cherokee signed a treaty guaranteeing the Freedmen citizenship in the tribe. These "Freedmen" not only were former Cherokee slaves, but also walked the Trail of Tears with their masters and worked side by side to build homes and lives in Indian Territory. Many intermarried.
To be eligible for membership in the Cherokee Nation today, a person must have an ancestor on the 1906 Dawes Roll. Many of the Freedmen do have such an ancestor. But the majority of these people were placed on the Freedmen Roll despite having Cherokee blood.
Many Cherokee avoided walking the Trail of Tears by reading the writing on the wall and moved their families out of harm's way while the legal battles were still going on. Having the common sense to save themselves cost most of them a listing on the Dawes Roll. Others escaped while enroute to Indian Territory and took refuge in the hills and hollers of Arkansas and Missouri. And some of our People who completed their journey, didn't like it there and left. These people are also not considered Cherokee.
I find it ironical that there are some people who did make it on the Dawes Rolls who had no Indian blood at all - only a lust for land and good political connections. The descendants of these people are considered Cherokee...
After 500 years of white intermarriage, Cherokee blood runs pretty thin in many families. If the Cherokee Nation eliminated all those who are 3/4 Scots, Irish, Dutch, German and French, the tribe would be a small one indeed. But that isn't likely to happen, at least for now.
But breaking treaties seems to be a lot like eating peanuts. Once you start, it's hard to stop.
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It's an Indian thing, we do not want non-Indians in the tribe, our Indian blood is what binds us together."
-- Jodie Fishinghawk, who helped lead the drive to expel the Freedmen. |
