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The nation's second-largest Indian tribe formally booted from membership thousands of descendants of black slaves who were brought to Oklahoma more than 170 years ago by Native American owners. The Cherokee nation voted after the Civil War to admit the slave descendants to the tribe. But on Monday, the tribe's Supreme Court ruled that a 2007 tribal decision to kick the so-called 'Freedmen' out of the tribe could be upheld. The controversy stems from a footnote in the brutal history of U.S. treatment of Native Americans. When many Indians were forced to move to what later became Oklahoma from the...

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. — The Cherokee Nation Supreme Court on Monday reversed a lower tribal court decision that voided a voter-approved constitutional amendment denying citizenship to non-Native American descendants of tribal members' former black slaves. In a 10-page opinion, tribal court justices wrote that the Cherokee Freedmen, as they are known, were never afforded citizenship in the tribe by the Treaty of 1866, but that a "fair reading indicates that it was an expression by the parties that the Freedmen would be treated as equals" to Cherokees under federal law that existed at the time.

Possum Creek Stone and Anomalous Cherokee DNA Point to Eastern Mediterranean Origins In memoriam Gloria Farley Donald N. Yates DNA Consultants Keynote address for Ancient American History and Archeology Conference, Sandy, Utah, April 2, 2010 SUMMARY  Three examples of North American rock art are discussed and placed in the context of ancient Greek and Hebrew civilization. The Red Bird Petroglyphs are compared with Greek and Hebrew coins and the Bat Creek Stone. The Possum Creek Stone discovered by Gloria Farley is identified as a Greek athlete’s victory pedestal. The Thruston Stone is interpreted as a record of the blending of...

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) -- Former Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller is being remembered as a patriot who was remarkable for both her strength and humility. Hundreds of members of the Cherokee Nation and 170 tribal, state and federal officials gathered Saturday at a memorial service for Mankiller in Tahlequah (TAL'-ih-kwah), about 70 miles east of Tulsa. Mankiller led the Cherokee Nation from December 1985 until 1995. She died Tuesday at age 64 after a bout with pancreatic cancer......

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- Former Cherokee Nation Chief Wilma Mankiller, one of the few women ever to lead a major American Indian tribe, has died. She was 64. Tribal spokesman Mike Miller said Mankiller, who became one of the nation's most visible American Indian leaders during her 10 years as chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, died Tuesday.

Wilma Mankiller, the once dirt-poor Oklahoma farm girl who grew up to become an American Indian and women’s rights activist, author and the first woman to hold the Cherokee Nation’s highest office, died Tuesday. She was 64.

ATHENS (WATE) -- There's a new federal ID requirement that says you have to produce a birth certificate when your driver's license expires. A Native American named Aldea "Hawk" Silverhawk called 6 On Your Side to explain why he doesn't have a birth certificate and how difficult it is to prove where he was born. Years ago, many Tennesseans were born at home and delivered by a midwife. In some cases, there's no record of the birth. For those who fall under these circumstances, if you can show documentation of early schooling or your parent's birth, you can get what's...

The illiterate Cherokee known as Sequoyah watched in awe as white settlers made marks on paper, convinced that these "talking leaves" were the source of white power and success. This inspired the consuming ambition of his life: to create a Cherokee written language. Born around 1770 near present-day Knoxville, Tenn., he was given the name George Gist (or Guess) by his father, an English fur trader, and his mother, a daughter of a prominent Cherokee family. But it was as Sequoyah that around 1809 he started devising a writing system for the spoken Cherokee language. Ten years later, despite the...

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary __________________________________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 15, 2009 President Obama Announces Kimberly Teehee as Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs WASHINGTON – Today, in taped remarks to the 2009 National Congress of American Indians Mid-Year Conference, President Barack Obama announced the appointment of Kimberly Teehee as Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs. As a member of the Domestic Policy Council, Teehee will advise the President on issues impacting Indian Country. President Obama also announced that the White House will hold a Tribal Nations Conference later this fall. "Kim Teehee will be...

Last Monday began the PBS Series, "WE SHALL REMAIN" with their first Episode "After The Mayflower". The ones that will get my attention begin next week, Monday April 20th, 2009, and especially the April 27th "Trail of Tears" episode which will feature "The Ridge", the Cherokee leader and his clan who I wrote about in "Jesus Wept" An American Story. It will be VERY interesting to see how PBS deals with this situation or if they will be overtaken with the usual political correctness and historical rumor. My story is taken from documented records as well as family letters saved...

The Keetoowahs are the traditonal people, the keepers of the language and heritage. They came west 20 years before the Trail of Tears, trading their land in North Carolina for new land the US gave them. Later the "civilized" tribes came and "white-manned" the Keetoowahs out of their land and other Federal entitlements. Learn more about the Keetoowahs at http://unitedkeetoowahband.org/History.htm http://www.keetoowahcherokee.org/

CHEROKEE, N.C. — Investigators have stopped a cheating ring that stole $286,000 at the Cherokee Indian casino in western North Carolina, a newspaper reported today. No arrests have been made but investigators are questioning a 26-year-old electronic card dealer at Harrah’s Cherokee Casino, the Asheville Citizen-Times reported. Cherokee Indian Police Department Chief Ben Reed said the FBI had been contacted. Arrests are likely . . .

Oprah Winfrey has pulled from a recommended reading list on her web site The Education of Little Tree, a book about the real-life story of an orphaned boy raised by his Cherokee grandparents. The book became a sentimental favorite, selling millions of copies, and won the 1991 American Booksellers Association's first ABBY award. Winfrey pulled the book after she learned its author, Forrest Carter, whose real name is Asa Earl Carter, was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan and a former speechwriter for Alabama's segregationist governor George Wallace, reports The Associated Press. Carter died in 1979. Suspicions about...

Descendancy stems from the 19th Century Dawes Commission lists Members of the Cherokee Nation of native Americans have voted to revoke tribal citizenship for descendants of black slaves the Cherokees once owned.A total of 76.6% voted to amend the tribal constitution to limit citizenship to "blood" tribe members. Supporters said only the Cherokees had the right to determine tribal members. Opponents said the amendment was racist and aimed at preventing those with African-American heritage from gaining tribal revenue and government funding. The Cherokee Nation has 250,000 to 270,000 members, second only to the Navajo. 'Right to vote' The list...

VINITA, Okla. -- J.D. Baldridge, 73, has official government documents showing him to be a descendant of a full-blood Cherokee. He has memories of a youth spent among Cherokee neighbors and kin, at tribal stomp dances and hog fries. He holds on to a fair amount of Cherokee vocabulary. " Salali," Baldridge says, his face creasing into a smile at the word. "Squirrel stew. Oh, that was good." What Baldridge, a retired Oklahoma county sheriff, also has is at least one black ancestor, a former slave of a Cherokee family. That could get Baldridge cast out of the tribe, along...

I am running. For Congress in the 11th District of North Carolina in 2006. Here’s why: Many times I’ve urged my readers to visit the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. This is one of the most beautiful places in the nation, and the world. Millions of people agree; the Great Smokies are the third most popular park destination in the US. There is a power, a majesty, a soothing effect, in the mountains, the forests, the streams, the waterfalls. There is truth in the Bible verse, carved in the oak altar of First Presbyterian Church, Highlands, North Carolina, “I...

By Adam Tanner SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The top court of the Cherokee Nation has declined to strike down a gay marriage in what is seen as a pioneering case in American Indian country, the couple and officials said on Wednesday. Cherokee tribal members Kathy Reynolds, 29, and Dawn McKinley, 34, married in May 2004 in Oklahoma, just weeks after the city of San Francisco ignited a national debate on gay marriage by briefly allowing same-sex couples to wed. Gay rights advocates say the pair are the first registered same-sex marriage in Indian country. Because tribal law at the time...

If you are nostalgic for the days when the Ten Commandments were posted in public buildings, you might want to consider visiting the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians. The tribal council is making plans to mount a copy of the Ten Commandments in the council house where government meetings are held, and possibly display them throughout other public buildings in the Cherokee Nation of western North Carolina. The idea was introduced by Councilwoman Angela Kephart last month. She said the tribe should display the Ten Commandments out of respect and devotion to God. The motion passed unanimously. "We aren't...

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) - A Cherokee Nation court has dismissed a lawsuit seeking to prevent the tribe from giving its legal blessing to a lesbian couple's marriage. The Judicial Appeals Tribunal in its ruling Wednesday said that tribe member and attorney Todd Hembree had no standing to sue and could not show that he suffered any harm by legal recognition of the same-sex marriage. Dawn McKinley and Kathy Reynolds haven't decided whether they will try again to file their tribal marriage certificate. Since the tribe is sovereign, Cherokee Nation marriage certificates are recognized just like Oklahoma marriage licenses. The couple,...

Embattled Colorado Professor Files Complaint Against Texas Detractor The Associated Press Published: Jun 9, 2005 BOULDER, Colo. (AP) - University of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, whose essay comparing some Sept. 11 victims to Nazis led to an investigation into his scholarship and ethnicity, has filed a complaint against one of his accusers. Churchill's complaint to Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas, accuses assistant sociology professor Thomas Brown of academic misconduct. Brown has alleged Churchill fabricated crucial details in his argument that the Army committed genocide against Indians in the 1800s. In an e-mail to The Denver Post Wednesday, Brown said Churchill...