"Can't sit here." Black Cherokees being denied.

Updates
(Indian Country Today) Freedmen status at issue in Washington: In Oklahoma, Cherokee voters returned Principal Chief Chad Smith to office, and by a similarly wide margin approved a ballot measure canceling the BIA's authority to sign off on the tribe's constitution.

The world's eyes were on the June 23 votes because of the Cherokee freedmen, approximately 2,800 descendants of slaves kept by the Cherokee before the Civil War. After the war, in an 1866 treaty between the Cherokee and the federal government, the freedmen became tribal members. The Cherokee tried to vote them out of the tribe in March. The freedmen brought lawsuits in tribal and federal courts, and the BIA declined to validate the March results because the freedmen had not participated in the vote on an underlying change to the tribal constitution. The freedmen therefore remained tribal members.

But with freedmen permitted to vote June 23, tribal voters set up a showdown with the BIA by again eliminating its authority over the tribal constitution. To public knowledge, the tribe has not scheduled another vote on freedmen membership, but it has met the BIA's objection to its March vote ousting the freedmen.

Speculation on Capitol Hill, from a well-placed source asking for anonymity due to the racially charged nature of the freedmen issue, has it that the tribe may wait until the heat dies down to address the status of the freedmen, whose tribal citizenship the source considered ''provisional.''

In Washington, Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., continued to push a bill in the House of Representatives that would withdraw federal funding from the Cherokee, suspend the tribe's authority to operate a casino, and expose the tribe to freedmen lawsuits in nontribal court. Watson's bill has been referred to the Committee on Natural Resources and the Judiciary Committee, where the bill's backers hope that Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the Judiciary chairman, will schedule a hearing. Watson introduced the bill June 21 with backing from members of the Congressional Black Caucus. The caucus in its entirety has not endorsed the bill, though Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., said June 26 that it had been introduced ''by members of the Congressional Black Caucus.''

Tribal reaction to Watson's bill was immediate. Already on June 21, a longtime Indian attorney at a tribal-practice law firm in Washington expressed outrage over a ''termination bill.'' By June 26, the National Congress of American Indians had weighed in. Quoted in a news release, President Joe Garcia described the bill in terms of termination all over again:

''This is an uncalled for response to a question of treaty interpretation. When Alabama or California takes an action inconsistent with Congressional views, there is no discussion of revoking their statehood. The attempt to revoke tribal nationhood is equally inappropriate. Not since the Termination Era of the 1950s, when the official policy of the federal government was complete destruction of indigenous peoples, have we seen such a piece of legislation. NCAI was founded to oppose termination of Indian tribes.''

Garcia left no doubt NCAI will oppose the dismantling of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma proposed in Watson's bill, H.R. 2824 in the House.

Also on June 26, a key member of the Congressional Black Caucus and outspoken foe of the freedmen expulsion, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., stood down from her uncompromising position of June 6, when she said at a subcommittee hearing that the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act reauthorization bill would not move until the Cherokee freedmen issue was resolved.

The issue is far from resolved, and as subcommittee chairman Waters could have been as good as her word. But member statements at a hearing of the full Financial Services Committee in the House left no doubt that Waters had decided against acting to the detriment of all Indian country because of the Cherokee. The full committee, of which the Waters subcommittee is a part, moved the bill and a number of Democratic

representatives - Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Barney Frank of Massachusetts, Melvin Watt of North Carolina - praised Waters for keeping her eyes on the prize for Indian country too, as it were.

''But the issues raised by the Cherokees' treatment of the freedmen will not go away,'' she promised.

''Where tribal actions regarding membership are anchored upon dubious racial classifications that would violate hard-won civil rights laws in the United States, we've got a problem.''

Frank, the Financial Services chairman, also pledged to back Waters in addressing the freedmen issue in the future.

''The issue of the Cherokee and the race issue is a deeply troubling one. And I guess if we were dealing here with the Cherokee tribe alone, I don't think we would be going forward in the same way. But we are talking about legislation that affects all of the Native Americans, many, many other tribes, and the gentlewoman from California deserves a great deal of credit because this is obviously an issue which she, entirely correctly, feels very strongly that some injustice has been done, and we haven't yet figured out a way to deal with that without putting other people who should not be penalized into the mix. And what she's done is try to focus on the injustice without holding up a bill that's of importance to a range of others. But I intend to be fully supportive of her as she goes forward in trying to deal with this.

''We aren't finished yet with this piece of it. So we go forward with this bill because it does respond to the needs of all of the Native Americans. But this does not mean that any of us here are satisfied with the situation involving the Cherokees, and we will be revisiting that.''

Jacqueline Johnson, executive director of the National Congress of American Indians, downplayed the appearance of conflict between the CBC and American Indians. She said the caucus as a whole hasn't endorsed the Watson bill, and added that Indian country counts some caucus members among its most constant supporters. ''I think that the Cherokee issue may have raised issues that were peripheral, but I don't think it's insurmountable at all.''

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This issue ain't going nowhere anytime soon.

(Indianz) ...Tribes should understand the Cherokee Nation is asking for support of it’s position that it can violate the Treaty of 1866 with the defense of sovereign immunity. It should be understood how dangerous this argument is for Tribes. While treaties do not give sovereignty to Tribes, sovereignty is inherent; they serve as supreme recognition of a nation’s power in the eyes of another. Tribes have utilized US Courts to enforce treaty rights to restore rights to land, water and rights against the United State. Imagine how the precedent will be used by crafty U.S. Attorneys if the Cherokees are successful in relieving their treaty rights under with the defense of sovereign immunity. Do you want the U.S. to claim sovereign immunity against your Tribe when defending your treaty rights? It is simply not in the best interest of a Tribe to argue against treaties."

(BlackAgendaReport) ..."Cherokee voters were influenced by the racist charge 'that the freedmen if not ejected, would use up all of the tribal service monies.'"

(Indianz) ...Dropping the Freedman group and Intermarried Whites as tribal members puts them on equal footing with millions of other American Indian descendants that have to prove their Indian heritage by blood and tribal roll number linkage. Something to think about: "What If Indian Nation leaders open up their tribal membership to anyone? If this happened it would change the political and economic structure of America. This action by Indian Nations would open up a Pandora's box the federal government never thought it would have to deal with again, after it's "for real holocaust" against American Indian Nations. Today, some African Americans claiming Indian heritage are calling themselves Black Indians. There is no such thing as a Black American Indian or White American Indian! You're American Indian or you're not! If you're Black or White and have Indian heritage, that is all you can and should claim. It's an insult to the American Indian community for people of another race to claim their Indian heritage while doing so through their dominant race color.

(Indianz) ...Tribes signed treaties for one reason and one reason alone: to simply ensure the survival of their people. The vote at Cherokee to determine who can rightfully claim citizenship is an example of Indian Country exercising its basic sovereign rights. To allow the tribes to be bullied again by the federal government would be to take back every step they have taken toward reclaiming nationhood.

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Update 3/3/2007:
(Forbes) Cherokee Nation members voted Saturday to revoke the tribal citizenship of an estimated 2,800 descendants of the people the Cherokee once owned as slaves.

With a majority of districts reporting, 76 percent had voted in favor of an amendment to the tribal constitution that would limit citizenship to descendants of "by blood" tribe members as listed on the federal Dawes Commission's rolls from more than 100 years ago.

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Original post 2/28/2007:
(Voice of America) Next month, members of the Cherokee Nation will vote on whether to amend the tribal constitution to make Indian blood a requirement for citizenship. American Indian tribes are considered sovereign nations within the United States, and their citizens are entitled to tribal benefits, including subsidized housing and health care. At issue in the March 3 vote is the status of thousands of descendants of African slaves once owned by tribal members. The people known as Cherokee freedmen say a 140-year-old treaty protects their citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. The story raises questions about Native American identity, race and justice.

The Cherokee tribe has always been one of the largest in the United States. Two centuries ago it was also once one of the wealthiest. Some of its members held more than 100 slaves on plantations in the south. In recent times, though, many Cherokee have lived in deep poverty. That situation is gradually improving, with the success of tribal casinos. Profits from these gambling operations are funding modern health clinics, like one rising from the countryside near Muskogee, Oklahoma...

Johnny Toomer, a forklift operator in Muskogee... says he hasn't been welcomed with open arms. "All I want to be done is done fairly and right... Toomer's great, great grandmother was the daughter of slaves held by the Cherokee. Her people likely walked to Oklahoma from Georgia in 1838 on the infamous Trail of Tears, a forced march under the U.S. government relocation policy that led to the death of nearly a fifth of the tribe...

A tribal court ruling last year forced the Cherokees to recognize Freedmen as citizens. That prompted Toomer and about 1,500 other Freedmen to sign up for membership cards. That sparked a referendum to amend the tribe's constitution and formally expel the Freedmen. "It's an Indian thing, we do not want non-Indians in the tribe," explains Jodie Fishinghawk, who helped lead the referendum drive. "Our Indian blood is what binds us together."

...after fighting on the losing side in the American Civil War, the Cherokees signed a treaty guaranteeing their newly-freed slaves citizenship in the tribe...

"You know, there never was such a thing as the Cherokee race," she says, pointing out that the Cherokee tribe has always been a diverse nation, not a race. "Cherokee was a citizenship. Actually, it's safer for the tribe to say 'We are a nation of people.' If you keep saying you're a race.…" She shakes her head. "The federal government doesn't have government-to-government relations with races, only nations"...

But this whole discussion of race really misses the point, according to Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith. Sitting in his office looking out at the sprawling tribal headquarters campus near Tahlequah, Oklahoma, Smith said more people do want to be in the tribes these days. But it's not so much because of subsidized health care and housing. He says it's a search for tribal identity. "And it's easy to grasp and look to tribes, who are indigenous and have a sense of identity, and have sustained themselves through terrible times."

The Cherokee freedmen maintain that their ancestors helped sustain the tribe through the very worst of times. They argue that now that things have improved, they shouldn't have to fight to call themselves Cherokees.