Cherokee Freedmen

The Reconstruction Treaty of July 19, 1866 incorporated all freed slaves of Cherokees as citizens of the Cherokee Nation. There was a six month window of opportunity put on this in attempt to limit freedmen's claim on citizenship. The treaty also designated land that allowed for freedmen to establish families if they wished to do so. As taught in the Cherokee Nation history course, this "imposition of freedmen citizenship" is one of the retributions of the United States on the Cherokee Nation for siding with the Confederacy during the Civil War.

Pretty much ever since, there have been some Cherokees who wanted the freedmen removed from the Cherokee Nation as noncitizens. Littlefield indicates that "most of the freedmen were farmers...Some owned businesses...others worked for the Cherokees...[and] others were teachers." Some of these freedmen could not speak English and spoke only Cherokee. These freedmen had been assimilated into Cherokee culture. They had family ties to full-blood and other mixed-blood Cherokees. In spite of the practice of segregation among Cherokee Nation, freedmen were allowed to vote and run for council office. Eventually rolls were taken of the Cherokee freedmen, omitting any degree of Indian blood and listing each as a freedman. What followed was a controversy regarding the citizenship of these freedmen; to those whose citizenship was not disputed, per capita payments were refused (Conley 140). After the passing of the Curtis Act in 1892 and the closing of the Dawes Roll, the issue lay dead until the late 1970s-80s when the Cherokee Nation had been reconstituted and began functioning again.

The Descendants of Freedmen of the Cherokees began to press their case once again. After much debate, the Cherokee Nation held a vote on March 3, 2007 to determine who could be a Cherokee citizen. The result restricted tribal citizenship to descendants listed by blood on the Dawes Roll. Conley clarifies: "Thus, any black who has Cherokee blood and whose ancestor was listed on the Dawes Roll can be a citizen, but any black descended from any former Cherokee slave listed on the Dawes Roll as a freedman cannot" (141). Many Cherokee officials have hailed it as an exercise of tribal sovereignty to amend the constitution and determine its own membership.

I agree that a tribe has the right to determine its own membership, but if they look to the Dawes Roll for membership of all citizens it just seems wrong to exclude those who had ancestors who had been forcibly assimilated as slaves, grew up in Cherokee culture, and are by cultural definition, Cherokee. The convenient omittance of blood-degree seems to make a case for the Cherokee Nation, saying that freedmen are not of Indian blood. However, many people listed on the Dawes were given a blood-degree when they had none, and others had it taken away when they were full-blood Cherokee. The Dawes Roll was commissioned out of greed for native land. How can Cherokee Nation fully trust and acknowledge a faulty document (despite it being the "most reliable roll"), when it is fully aware of its history and the fraud committed by the Dawes Commission? Many full-blooded Cherokees refused to sign up with the rolls for allotment. As such, several "true, higher-blooded Cherokees" have been unable to obtain citizenship by law since they cannot trace their ancestry back to the Dawes Roll.

When we went to hear the Descendants of Freedmen panel, their ancestries and lineages were presented to us with documentation. For me, this ruled out all doubt that those going before the courts lacked "Indian blood." The freedmen just want an acknowledgement of their heritage and ancestry without having Cherokee Nation take it away from them.
From the other side, we had been told that the freedmen have no interest in being Cherokee and are only after benefits and reparations. This did not seem to be the case at all when we met with the freedmen. Several even explicitly stated that they have no need for services provided by Cherokee Nation and that they have never even utilized such services. The freedmen just want to uphold their ancestry and make connections with who they come from.

It is ironic to me that Cherokee Nation, who one would think would be able to identify with the want and need to preserve one's own history, is voting to get rid of the freedmen as citizens, particularly when they have documentation to support their claims.
As I was lightly discussing the issue and the 2007 vote with one of the NSU students one evening during the last week, she expressed that she was glad to have had a chance to go with us to the Freedmen's panel. She was not fully aware of the argument on the Freedmen's side and had only heard the side of the Cherokee Nation. She expressed that she thinks more people might have voted differently, in favor of the Freedmen, had they known and been fully aware of both sides of the issue.

I support the 2007 vote being ruled as illegal, and I hope the Freedmen continue to get their story out there and more people take the time to decide for themselves their stance on the issue. It would be preferable to backing the one sided argument of the Cherokee Nation officials claiming the entire issue is over money and based upon the idea that "they do not know the freedmen" so they cannot be included as citizens.