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TULSA, OK - The Cherokee Nation will appeal a federal court ruling that allows the Bureau of Indian Affairs to ignore its own requirements and grant federal recognition to the Delaware Tribe, which has been an integral part of the Cherokee Nation since 1867.

“We respectfully disagree with the ruling,” said Julian Fite, General Counsel for the Cherokee Nation. “We are confident that an appeals court will find that separating the Delawares from the Cherokees without our compliance to federal regulations contradicts nearly 150 years of treaties, agreements and practice by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. In many ways, this is a hollow ruling because it fails to separate the Delawares from the Cherokee Nation or grant them any tribal rights within the Cherokee Nation.”

“The Cherokee Nation is involved in this legal battle to protect our land and our sovereignty,” Fite said. “We will resist anyone who tries to take away the rights of Cherokee people and the Cherokee Nation, whether it is an individual, a state, the federal government or any other group of people.”

“We are not opposed to the Delawares having their own separate identity,” Fite said. “Two years ago, in a similar situation, we separated on agreeable terms with the Shawnees. The Shawnees wanted their own political identity, but they did not try to take away from the Cherokee Nation’s jurisdictional territory or federal relationship to establish that identity. Unfortunately, the Delawares have clearly declared they want to take away Cherokee land and jurisdiction from the Cherokee Nation, and we must defend our sovereignty when it is attacked.”

Former Delaware Chief Dee Ketchum repeatedly claimed the Cherokee Nation was trying to ‘terminate’ the Delawares. Ketchum also urged the Delawares to vote for a referendum which would require Delawares to give up their Cherokee citizenship to remain Delaware. The referendum failed and Ketchum was defeated in a recent election by Larry Joe Brooks.

“We look forward to working with Chief Brooks and resolving this issue in a positive, friendly, mutually beneficial manner,” said Chad Smith, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. “I have known Chief Brooks for a long time and I am sure the relationship between the Cherokees and the Delawares will only improve in the future.”

“If we are unable to find an agreeable method for separation, the Cherokee Nation has no choice but to protect our sovereignty through continuing this litigation,” Fite said. “We do not wish to terminate the Delawares, as the last chief claimed. On the contrary, we have pledged to work with them for a separation that will not erode our sovereignty, a careful separation where all of the rights and interests of both tribes are protected. We hope that working with Chief Brooks we can reach that kind of agreement.”

The Delawares were incorporated into the Cherokee Nation in an agreement between the Delawares and the Cherokee Nation in 1867. The Delawares have had full citizenship rights in the Cherokee Nation since that time. In 1995, the then Secretary of the Interior, Bruce Babbit, exempted the Delawares from the standard federal recognition process and granted the Delawares separation from the Cherokee Nation. The Bureau of Indian affairs had previously told the Delawares that they could not meet the BIA’s federal recognition requirements.

The Delawares’ signing of the 1867 Agreement with the Cherokee Nation was a decision and an act made by the Delawares themselves. The decision was not forced on them by the Cherokees. Similarly, the registration of the individual Delaware citizens to become members of the Cherokee Nation was the act and decision of each Delaware person.

“The Delawares who joined the Cherokee Nation voluntarily chose to do so, and had to make a personal decision to move to Cherokee country in Indian Territory,” Fite said. “Whether these decisions were good or bad, wise or unwise may be open to debate on both sides, but it is important to understand that these were decisions made by the Delawares themselves.”

In the latest previous legal ruling on this matter, in 1997, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia cited an 1890 case brought by former Delaware Chief Charles Journeycake and ruled: “…underscoring the doubts about the sovereign status of the Delawares in the face of agreement to incorporate the two tribes, we conclude that by entering into the 1867 Agreement the Delaware Tribe of Indians relinquished its tribal identity or sovereignty in relation to the Cherokee Nation.”

“This speaks strongly on how an appeals court will view this decision,” Fite said. “We look forward to a positive resolution on appeal if we cannot work out an amicable separation agreement with Chief Brooks and the Delawares.”