Posted on 09/16/2011 1:08:12 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
The nation's second-largest Indian tribe said on Tuesday that it would not be dictated to by the U.S. government over its move to banish 2,800 African Americans from its citizenship rolls.
"The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA," Joe Crittenden, the tribe's acting principal chief, said in a statement responding to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Crittenden, who leads the tribe until a new principal chief is elected, went on to complain about unnamed congressmen meddling in the tribe's self-governance.
The reaction follows a letter the tribe received on Monday from BIA Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk, who warned that the results of the September 24 Cherokee election for principal chief will not be recognized by the U.S. government if the ousted members, known to some as "Cherokee Freedmen," are not allowed to vote.
The dispute stems from the fact that some wealthy Cherokee owned black slaves who worked on their plantations in the South. By the 1830s, most of the tribe was forced to relocate to present-day Oklahoma, and many took their slaves with them. The so-called Freedmen are descendants of those slaves.
After the Civil War, in which the Cherokee fought for the South, a treaty was signed in 1866 guaranteeing tribal citizenship for the freed slaves.
The U.S. government said that the 1866 treaty between the Cherokee tribe and the U.S. government guaranteed that the slaves were tribal citizens, whether or not they had a Cherokee blood relation.
The African Americans lost their citizenship last month when the Cherokee Supreme Court voted to support the right of tribal members to change the tribe's constitution on citizenship matters.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Didn’t know there was an enclave of unwelcome Blacks within the Cherokee Nation.
How can you be African Americans and Cherokee citizens at the same time. What would that make you? Native African Americans? African Native Americans? Or what?
Seems to me, both are oxymorons.
I’ve seen this story before, usually accompanied by some people snarking on the Libs for not standing up for the freedmen — but then I realized that the Conservatives have been remarkably quiet about this as well.
And I don’t know why.
“And I don’t know why.”
Why do they want to revoke their citizenship? Or tribal membership I guess I should say. It’s not a lot of people, so i don’t see why this is an issue for the Cherokee tribe. And then what happens to them? Do they have to apply for US citizenship?
The BIA can piss up a rope. ha!
If only the rest of America would tell this to the Fed.
So that's where Idaho's former Attorney General went.
Big mistake BIA. I've worked with the tribes before in the past and they will stand up together and tell Uncle Sam to shove it. And they can get away from it, especially since the Oklahoma tribes are politically very powerful and are recognized collectively as a sovereign government under U.S. law. Obama's BIA can try to bully them, but will get its head handed back on a platter.
There is a deeper meaning here somewhere...
Nah,it's just the welfare pie is going to shrink and the Indians don't want to share anymore with the brothers.
It’s all about $$$$ and federal resources. Indian affairs is a zero sum game, with haves and have-nots. When those $$$$ and resources start drying up, then the tribes start squabbling internally and with each other. I guess the Oklahoma Cherokees got tired of sending out checks to black who are not Indian by blood. Eligibility is an enormous issue for the tribes, and they will push back hard against outside attempts to interfere with their ability to decide who is and Indian and who is not.
We will exclude. (Wampanoag)
Typical MSM smear job, trying to paint the Cherokees as bad ol’ racists like Massa in the Old South.
Not all Cherokees fought with the Confederacy, although some did. I suspect that those who fought did so over resentment about the Trail of Tears. How convenient for MSNBC to omit that little item! Some minorities are more equal than others.
Of course, liars in the media like to paint all Confederates as mint julep-sipping, veranda-sitting, slave-beating bad guys. And some fools believe it.
The comedian Don Cheadle’s family was among those people who were owned by the Cherokees.
Interesting, warring tribes?
Come to Connecticut and visit the Mashantucket Pequot tribe. It has s black side and a white side and things are not peaceful.
I agree. I’m just guessing that it’s more culturally driven. I se no reason to think that they’re not going through what most other cultures are going through right now...an identity crisis.
"Hast du gesehen in deine leben? Dey darker den us....WOOF!"
Well, Oklahoma Indians are somewhat different. There are no reservations in Oklahoma, but hundreds, perhaps thousands of individual Indian communities, which were thrown together as a result the 1830s-1840s Indian removal policy. In fact, the old Oklahoma Territory was uncle Sam’s dumping ground for uprooted Eastern Indians (from the so-called Five Civilized tribes), and although they maintain their original tribal identities, they still band together to exert tremendous political power, and Oklahoma’s congressional delegation fiercely protects them. BIA has started a fight it can’t win by involving itself in this internal eligibility issue.
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