{"id":3229,"date":"2007-03-04T09:09:39","date_gmt":"2007-03-04T16:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/03\/04\/white-indians-kick-black-indians-out-of-cherokee-tribe\/"},"modified":"2007-03-04T09:09:39","modified_gmt":"2007-03-04T16:09:39","slug":"white-indians-kick-black-indians-out-of-cherokee-tribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3229","title":{"rendered":"White Indians Kick Black Indians Out of Cherokee Tribe"},"content":{"rendered":"

The White Indians of the Cherokee Nation have voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of Black descendants of the Freedmen (Black Indians in my view). So the descendants of the Freedmen can no longer be members of the tribe. The vote was overwhelming. <\/a><\/p>\n

With all 32 precincts reporting, 76.6 percent had voted in favor of an amendment to the tribal constitution that would limit citizenship to descendants of “by blood” tribe members as listed on the federal Dawes Commission’s rolls from more than 100 years ago.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have written about the background of this case before<\/a>, and even people who are known descendants of tribal leaders are being kicked out. The evidence that the Freedmen are of Cherokee descent is strong, and the leader of the Cherokees, realizes that the Freedmen are indeed of Cherokee ancestry<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When the Dawes Rolls were created, those with any African blood were put on the Freedmen roll, even if they were half Cherokee. Those with mixed-white and Cherokee ancestry, even if they were seven-eighths white and one-eighth Cherokee, were put on the Cherokee by blood roll. More than 75 percent of those enrolled in the Cherokee Nation have less than one-quarter Cherokee blood, the vast majority of them of European ancestry.<\/p>\n

Marilyn Vann said she could not believe that one election could determine whether she was allowed to claim Cherokee blood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are Freedmen who can prove they have a full-blooded Cherokee grandfather who won\u2019t be members,\u201d said Ms. Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. \u201cAnd there are blond people who are 1\/1000th Cherokee who are members.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Miller, the Cherokee Nation spokesman, agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are aware that there are those who can prove Indian blood who are not Cherokee citizens, because they are not on the Dawes \u2018by blood\u2019 Rolls,\u201d Mr. Miller said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t know of a single tribe that determines citizenship through a bunch of sources.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the spirit of keeping it real, I can’t understand for the life of me why anyone who is of Native American\/First Nations descent would use a document like the Dawes Rolls which was drafted using the United States definitions of race to determine ancestry. I hope that they would understand how the US governments treaties and documents have never been used in a way that uplifts Native peoples, which is why relying on those documents should be obviously wrong. People who have been so decimated by racism should really know better than to engage in this racist behavior.<\/p>\n

But unfortunately this is part of a pattern, as the quote below from the New York Times notes<\/a>. Ann<\/a> pointed out to me that this had happened with the Black Seminoles<\/a> in 2003.<\/p>\n

This is the second time in recent years that an Indian nation has tried to remove its Freedmen. The Seminole Freedmen won a similar legal battle in 2003.<\/p>\n

The Seminoles were formed when refugees from several tribes joined with runaway slaves. But after the Seminoles denied their Freedmen voting rights and financial benefits, effectively abrogating the Treaty of 1866, the federal government refused to recognize the Seminoles as a sovereign nation.<\/p>\n

The Cherokees are also risking their tribal sovereignty, said Jon Velie, a lawyer for the Seminole and Cherokee Freedmen.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is this racial schism in Indian Country that is growing and getting worse,\u201d Mr. Velie said. \u201cEven having the debate is the problem. You then become a lesser person because people get to decide whether you\u2019re in or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taylor Keen, a Cherokee tribal council member who supports Freedmen citizenship, suggested that proponents of the amendment were pandering to racism, trying to score political points for when they run for tribal office in June.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a sad chapter in Cherokee history,\u201d Mr. Keen said. \u201cBut this is not my Cherokee Nation. My Cherokee Nation is one that honors all parts of her past.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Personally, I wonder if this racial split is related to the resurgence in Indian identity, where you have many people now claiming Indian ancestry, who had previously been living as Blacks or Whites. I suspect that many of these leaders have an identity that is just as tied to whiteness as it is to Cherokeeness. The White Indians really disappoint me. It is their lighter skin and lack of visible African ancestry that is allowing them to engage in such racism. If the tribe didn’t want to be so racist, they would accept a broad definition of “Cherokee” that was not based on the US government. Let’s be real– since when did the US government act in the best interest of First Nations people?<\/p>\n

It would be an an ironic twist if the Cherokees lose tribal sovereignty for excluding the Freedmen’s descendants. First, they tried to rely on a US government document, which applied two versions of a one drop rule. Then later the US decides, “hey because you used our old document, we are taking your sovereignty.”<\/p>\n

This is indeed a sad day, when we see racism being used to divide and conquer, and it provides some evidence for the irrationality of racism. Here we have people who don’t even act in the best interest of themselves because of their biased views. This is a glaring example of institutionalized racism at its worst.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The White Indians of the Cherokee Nation have voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of Black descendants of the Freedmen (Black Indians in my view). So the descendants of the Freedmen can no longer be members of the tribe. The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-race-racism-and-related-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}