Cherokee Freedmen Protest Cherokee Election
July 31, 2003
Descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen recently protested the Cherokee Nation election, based on the tribe’s refusal to allow them to register and vote in the elections and to participate in their nation as full citizens. This protest was made to the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) through the Norman, Oklahoma law firm of Velie and Velie. As a result the BIA has not certified the recent Cherokee Election, and the final results are still pending decision of the BIA. In addition, the BIA is looking into the election procedure in the Cherokee Nation.
In early
July, several Freedman representatives issued a letter to the BIA, protesting the
May 24, Cherokee elections. Shortly afterward, Hastings Shade and 3 members who
sit on the tribal council sent a follow up petition in support of the letter
from the Freedmen. The council members were Stephanie Wickliffe-Shepherd, Mary
Flute-Cooksey, and Don Crittenden, and support came also from Robin Mayes, one
of the candidates for Principal Chief. They requested that the BIA not
certify the elections due to irregularities in the tribal elections and due
to the Cherokee government’s refusal to allow the Cherokee Freedmen their
rights to vote and to participate in affairs as citizens.
Principal
Chief Chadwick Smith was notified on July 25. He was also informed that the
recently held Cherokee Nation elections of May 24, 2003 would not be certified
by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). The BIA states that the election
procedures to select the Principal Chief had never been approved by the
Department of the Interior as required by law; also, the BIA raised its right
to not approve constitutional amendments where there were issues of Cherokee
Freedmen being denied the right to participate in the elections, based on a
recent court case involving the Seminole nation with similar Freedmen issues.
The
Cherokee Freedmen are descendants of free blacks and former slaves of the
Cherokee Indians who were living in the Cherokee nation at the time of the
Civil War. Many, if not the majority of the Freedmen did have Cherokee Indian
blood. These Freedmen were given the rights of native Cherokee citizens in an
1866 treaty between the US government and the Cherokee nation. These Freedmen were adopted into the tribe
with full citizenship rights that same year. Freedmen tribal members held
political office, voted, and participated as full members of the Cherokee
nation.
In a press
release that has just been released by a newly formed Freedman's organization
in Oklahoma, part of it reads:
During the early 20th century, the Federal government Dawes
Commission made a “final” roll of Cherokee citizens, including the freedmen in
order to divide the tribal land owned in common between the tribal citizens.
The roll included degrees of Indian blood for the native Cherokee including
adopted Delaware Indians with no Cherokee blood, but not the Freedmen with
Cherokee blood. Many of the Freedmen were sons and daughters of Cherokee
leaders, were recognized as citizens of the Cherokee Nation but their blood was
not recorded deliberately to limit the rights these Black Cherokees and their
descendants would have in the future. This roll is now used by the nation to
exclude the descendants of these very people who were adopted to come into
compliance with the treaty of 1866.
Efforts to
block the Freedmen occurred in 1983 when Ross Swimmer, then Principal Chief
found out that most of the Freedmen were supporting a rival candidate for
Principal Chief. Also during the Swimmer administration, the tribal council
quickly passed an act which required that all tribal members be able to obtain
a Certificate of Indian Blood (CDIB) card showing their degree of Indian blood.
Since it was decided in the 1890s not to show any degree of Cherokee blood, of
the Black Cherokees this act 90 years later in Swimmer's
administration immediately took care of Swimmer’s opposing votes and also
removed the African-Cherokee citizens from the rolls. The former Chief is currently an official in the Department of
the Interior, appointed by President Bush to head the Office of Indian Trust
Transition.
The policy
to ostracize the Freedmen continues to this day in the Cherokee
Nation, and is endorsed faithfully by the tribe’s registration committee,
sending Freedmen wishing the enroll themselves and their children repeatedly in
circles to obtain CDIB cards which the committee knows they will not be allowed
to obtain, due to the blood quantum loophole. This is done continually
and alleged to occur in the other nations known as the Five Civilized
Tribes.
The degree
of blood also known as a measurement of "blood quantum"
is based on an entirely unscientific, politically biased and contrived
calculation created in the 1800s.
Hundreds of persons some even within the same family were arbitrarily
put on different rolls-----some of rolls “by blood” others on “Freedman rolls”
others on rolls as Adopted Delaware Indians and others on rolls such as
“intermarried whites.” Adopted Delawares, Absentee Shawnees and others with no
documented Cherokee blood are allowed to enroll their descendants as citizens,
obtain cards, and make contributions to the Cherokee Nation as respected citizens.
Freedmen are not.
Those who
are of African and Cherokee ancestry---with documented evidence----are treated
quite differently. They are directed to "go get a CDIB card," which
puts them in a continuous circle of frustration and loss. Obtaining the card is
based on the roll from the 1890s that consciously chose to leave their blood
quantum blank. Looking at the official
tribal rolls, the column is left blank. It does not say 0% Cherokee blood; it
is merely left empty. This is on the Final Rolls of all of the Five
nations----Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole nations.
A court
case was brought to the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court in 1998 addressed this
very issue, and the registrar defended the actions by stating in the hearing
that all the person had to do was to obtain this elusive CDIB card. Thus the
plaintiff will simply give up, being elderly, and live to understand that her
rights which she once held are now denied by her own people.
Thus, the
Cherokee Freedmen have no right to vote, no opportunity to participate fully in
the community where they have been a part for more than 160 years. This
challenge of the Cherokee Nation, is bringing the Cherokee practice of
political apartheid to the public eye.
Among
the Cherokee Freedmen descendants making this formal complaint are members of a
newly formed organization, The Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized
Tribes. The Association is a based in Oklahoma and professes a mission to
educate the public on the history, education, culture, genealogy, and the
political rights of black Indians whose ancestors were classified as Freedmen
on the tribal rolls of the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw and Chickasaw
Indian Nations.
These
Cherokee Freedmen hope to end discrimination for black Indians in the areas of
tribal enrollment, voting in tribal elections, and participation in tribal and
BIA programs for Indians who are members of Federally Recognized tribes or the
Descendants of Federally recognized tribal members. The developments of this
story will interest the Freedmen of the other nations and the outcome and
the certification of the Cherokee election will also remain in the air till
these issues are addressed.
http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/election.htm