Cherokees expel descendants of slaves from tribe

[edjax1952]

Cherokees expel descendants of slaves from tribe - Yahoo! News

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — One of the nation's largest American Indian tribes has sent letters to about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by its members, revoking their citizenship and cutting their medical care, food stipends, low-income homeowners' assistance and other services.
The Cherokee Nation acted this week after its Supreme Court upheld the results of a 2007 special vote to amend the Cherokee constitution and remove the slaves' descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls. The 300,000-member tribe is the biggest in Oklahoma, although many of its members live elsewhere.
Olive Anderson, 70, of Kansas City, Mo., called the letter she received "a slap in the face."
"It tears me up to think they can attack my ancestors," Anderson said.
The tribe never owned black slaves, but some individual members did. They were freed after the Civil War, in which the tribe allied with the Confederacy. An 1866 treaty between the tribe and the federal government gave the freedmen and their descendants "all the rights of native Cherokees."
But more than 76 percent of Cherokee voters approved the amendment stripping the descendants of their citizenship. Tribal leaders who backed the amendment, including then-Principal Chief Chad Smith, said the vote was about the fundamental right of every government to determine its citizens, not about racial exclusion.

 

[edjax1952]

Cherokees expel descendants of slaves from tribe - Yahoo! News

TULSA, Okla. (AP) — One of the nation's largest American Indian tribes has sent letters to about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by its members, revoking their citizenship and cutting their medical care, food stipends, low-income homeowners' assistance and other services.
The Cherokee Nation acted this week after its Supreme Court upheld the results of a 2007 special vote to amend the Cherokee constitution and remove the slaves' descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls. The 300,000-member tribe is the biggest in Oklahoma, although many of its members live elsewhere.
Olive Anderson, 70, of Kansas City, Mo., called the letter she received "a slap in the face."
"It tears me up to think they can attack my ancestors," Anderson said.
The tribe never owned black slaves, but some individual members did. They were freed after the Civil War, in which the tribe allied with the Confederacy. An 1866 treaty between the tribe and the federal government gave the freedmen and their descendants "all the rights of native Cherokees."
But more than 76 percent of Cherokee voters approved the amendment stripping the descendants of their citizenship. Tribal leaders who backed the amendment, including then-Principal Chief Chad Smith, said the vote was about the fundamental right of every government to determine its citizens, not about racial exclusion.

The article goes on to state:

Along with losing services, Nash and other descendants of freedmen won't be able to vote in the hotly contested Sept. 24 election for principal chief that pits Smith against longtime tribal councilman Bill John Baker. The election is being held after the tribe's Supreme Court tossed out the results of a June election, saying it could not determine with a mathematical certainty who won. The results had flip-flopped between the two during weeks of counts and recounts. Baker had twice been declared winner, but so had Smith.

After Cherokee Supreme Court upheld the 2007 vote on Aug. 22, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development temporarily froze $33 million in funds while it studies the issue. Federal lawmakers who believe the amendment violated the freedmen's civil rights had lobbied federal agencies to cut funding to the tribe.

 

[Mad Scientist]

Most people only know that the "Evil White Man" had slaves, hardly anyone knows that Indians had em too. Interesting that they say "The Tribe didn't have slaves but individual members did". It appears that "splitting hairs" has been going on forever.

Morgan Freeman is a decedent of slaves owned by Indians.

 

[Xchel]

actually they were called freedmen for a reason, they had been freed by the Cherokee...but the white men forced them to march the trail with the Cherokee to Oklahoma. I have no issue with not allowing them a voting rights membership...why? because they aren't Cherokee, it is quite that simple.

 

[William Joyce]

One of the nation's largest American Indian tribes has sent letters to about 2,800 descendants of slaves once owned by its members, revoking their citizenship and cutting their medical care, food stipends, low-income homeowners' assistance and other services.

Nigga, dat is so cold...

 

[Xchel]

How is it so cold William? They aren't Native American and they certainly aren't Cherokee. The ones that are Cherokee and can prove it don't lose their benefit. The acceptance in the tribe was something that was forced on them by the government in the first place.

 

[editec]

Anyone whose family was forced on the TRIAL OF TEARS ought to have the right to claim membership of that tribe, I think.

 

[Tank]

I have no issue with not allowing them a voting rights membership...why? because they aren't Cherokee, it is quite that simple.

I have no issue with not allowing them a voting rights membership...why? because they aren't White, it is quite that simple.

 

[Xchel]

Anyone whose family was forced on the TRIAL OF TEARS ought to have the right to claim membership of that tribe, I think.

being forced to walk the trail did not make a person suddenly convert into a Native American. The Cherokee from the Union abolished slavery creating a controversy in the tribe...at that point those Cherokee granted the Freedmen citizenship. In the 1980s the rules were ammended and you had to prove that you were Cherokee via the Dawes Rolls. Most of the Freedmen have not been active in the tribe in over 100 years and many more do not identify themselves as Cherokee..they aren't Cherokee of course. Why should they receive citizenship when actual Cherokee by blood are denied citizenship because their ancestors do not appear on the Dawes roll?

The Cherokee Nation amended membership rules to require direct descent from an ancestor listed in the Cherokee By Blood section of the Dawes Rolls and stripped descendants of Cherokee Freedmen of voting rights and citizenship unless they satisfied this new criterion.

 

[edjax1952]

Anyone whose family was forced on the TRIAL OF TEARS ought to have the right to claim membership of that tribe, I think.

Here we go again with claiming rights for special circumstance. Someones rights do not change because of outside influence. Rights are either of the unalienable type or they are granted by an authority who has the ability to establish and defend those rights(in which case they are actually priveldeges and not rights).

What you are say is that before that, Trail of Tears, some did not have a claim to rights into the Cherokee Nation. After the Trail of Tears, they did. Not by the decison of the Cherokee Nation but by entitlement through a percieved justification of reward because of endured hardship. And you are deciding this to be mandated to the Cherokee Nation by what authority?