Freedmen

I thought that the presentation by the descendants of the Freedmen was one of the highlights of the last week. I am going to keep my response and arguments away from tribal sovereignty and focus instead on what I think it means to be a part of a culture.

The ancestors of the Freedmen, and in some cases, the Freedmen themselves, were incorporated into Cherokee society against their will. Treated as property, the Freedmen were bought and sold by the Cherokees as they were bought and sold by whites. Slaves were taken across the country during the Trail of Tears and the relocation of the Cherokee nation and were forced to adapt to the new environment just like the Cherokees were. Slaves took the Cherokee language just like slaves in the American southeast used the English language. Slaves also adopted elements of Cherokee culture, just like slaves in the southeast adopted elements of Southern white culture.

After the Civil War, the United States and the states themselves gave citizenship to the Freedmen, and so did the Cherokee Nation. I say there is no real justification for taking that citizenship away. If the argument is that they cannot speak the language, then much of the current membership of the Cherokee nation should have their citizenship taken away. If the argument is that they have no connection to Cherokee culture, then those Cherokees not living within the Cherokee nation, or (to be fair) the state of Oklahoma, should have their citizenship taken away. If the reason is that they just want benefits, that is not enough of a reason. Other sovereign nations cannot denationalize people simply for taking advantage of benefits, and I am sure that there have to be some descendants of Cherokees who are enrolled in the tribe for the benefits. In addition, the representatives of the descendants of the Freedmen said nothing whatsoever about wanting the benefits or that feared word, reparations. They simply wanted to have their history and heritage acknowledged. I did not hear any other reasons for the denationalization of descendants of Freedmen.

While the Cherokee nation does have the right to determine who can and cannot be a member of the tribe, it is an unstated rule of modern nations that a person should be able to go to sleep a citizen and wake up the next day knowing that they still are a citizen. Denationalizing the descendants of Freedmen seems to me like a public relations nightmare. But I also don’t see any legitimate cultural reason for denying them membership, especially for a nation that so deemphasizes blood quanta.