"the People's Paths!" Cherokee News Path - FREEDMEN DESCENDANT PANEL DISTORTS AND OMITS FACTS

Congressional Legislation To Terminate U.S.-Cherokee Relations and Federal Funding Would Hurt Cherokee Children, Elderly and Neediest -- Contact Mike Miller, phone: 918-384-7861

TAHLEQUAH, Oklahoma – At a panel on Cherokee citizenship issues concerning descendants of former slaves in Washington, D.C. today, audience members missed the opportunity to hear both sides of the debate and undisputed facts that would have corrected distortions, falsehoods, and omissions.

In March 2007, the Cherokee people voted by 77% to require every citizen in the tribe – whether African-, Caucasian-, Asian- or Hispanic-American – to have at least one Indian ancestor listed on the 1906 federal census known as the Dawes Rolls.

In response, congressional legislation was introduced to punish the Cherokee Nation for the desire to be what it was for centuries: a tribe of Indians – something that more than 500 other tribes in the United States require. This desire is at the heart of the tragic history of the oppression of Indian nations in the United States.

"If this event had included all viewpoints, the audience would have learned that this issue has nothing to do with race and everything to do with who is a Cherokee. They would have learned that the Cherokee Nation is one of the most racially diverse tribes in the United States, with thousands of members of African, Asian, and Hispanic descent, including Freedmen descendants," Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith said.

"They would have learned that the Nation will financially assist Freedmen descendants who wish to find whether they have an Indian ancestor on the Dawes Rolls. They would also have heard that the Nation complies with the 1866 Treaty with the United States and that the courts should be allowed to decide this issue without interference from politics," Chief Smith added.

Here are 10 facts that would have helped correct the record if the panel had represented a balanced view of this issue:

1. The March 2007 vote requiring Indian ancestry for citizenship had nothing to do with race and everything to do with who is a Cherokee.
2. The Cherokee Nation has thousands of African-Americans citizens, including more than 1,500 descendants of former slaves who also have Indian ancestors on the Dawes Rolls. They are citizens today and were completely unaffected by the March vote.
3. There are only 2,867 descendants of former slaves whose citizenship was affected by the Cherokee referendum. The Cherokee Nation has reinstated all of them as citizens with full economic benefits and the right to vote until the federal and tribal litigation is decided.
4. These same descendants of former slaves will be able to get financial assistance from the Cherokee Nation to research whether they have Indian ancestry for permanent citizenship, no matter how long ago or how long it takes, as long as it is consistent with the March 2007 amendment.
5. This dispute is currently being litigated in three courts.
6. The Cherokee Nation has complied with the 1866 Treaty, and numerous courts and commentators have confirmed this fact over the last 140 years. The Treaty never meant that the descendants of Freedmen would have citizenship. In fact, Congress clarified this once and for all by passing the Five Tribes Act in 1906.
7. Two percent of Cherokees held slaves before the Cherokee Nation voluntarily emancipated them in 1863 - well before the Civil War ended, the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, and the signing of the 1866 Treaty.
8. Two-thirds of Cherokees fought with the Union against the Confederacy during the Civil War.
9. Former Cherokee Principal Chief Joe Byrd, who was one of today's panelists, actually voted three times as a Cherokee Tribal Council Member to limit citizenship in the tribe only to those who descend from Indians. (See Cherokee Nation Resolution No. 21-88, Feb. 11, 1988; Cherokee Nation Legislative Act No. 6-92, Sept. 12, 1992; and Cherokee Nation Legislative Act No. 2-93, July 12, 1993).
10. The legislation cutting $270 million in federal health, housing, education, community, and other funding areas would hurt thousands of Cherokee elderly, children, and needy citizens, including many of the 2,867 reinstated Freedmen descendants. It would also result in the loss of 6,500 jobs in Oklahoma.