Cherokee Indians say they will not be dictated to by U.S.

[The Northerner]

(Reuters) - The nation's second-largest Indian tribe said on Tuesday that it would not be dictated to by the U.S. government over its move to banish 2,800 African Americans from its citizenship rolls.

"The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA," Joe Crittenden, the tribe's acting principal chief, said in a statement responding to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Crittenden, who leads the tribe until a new principal chief is elected, went on to complain about unnamed congressmen meddling in the tribe's self-governance.

The reaction follows a letter the tribe received on Monday from BIA Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk, who warned that the results of the September 24 Cherokee election for principal chief will not be recognized by the U.S. government if the ousted members, known to some as "Cherokee Freedmen," are not allowed to vote.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/14/us-usa-cherokees-idUSTRE78D05X20110914

[tblue]

1. WTF?

:wtf: I don't have the energy to read it. My head already exploded from the last op I read. :nuke:

[butterfly77]

10. Lol!

:rofl: I know what you mean. I think I will take a break now and come back later,my head is already starting to hurt..

[kelly1mm]

2. Who cares if the US Government won't recognise the election. They are

self governing. While I am mixed on their decision to disenroll the decendents of freedmen, I certainly don't want the US government dictating anything to the Indian nations.

[1620rock]

3. This whole damn country is descending into callus bigotry.

[Heywood J]

4. I guess they don't care about having military protection, disaster relief, highway funds,

health funds, or anything else. Remember, it's the descendents of the slaves owned by tribe members that they're booting off the rolls. I don't feel the slightest bit of sympathy for them, considering the whole organization is race-based.

[CBGLuthier]

6. race-based? That is a damned silly way to dismiss tribal sovereignty.

Of course tribes are race based.

BTW they will continue to enjoy all of those things you list and still do not have to do what the federal government of the united states tells them. Perhaps you should educate yourself on the unique nature of tribal sovereignty. It is a nation not a fucking reservation.

Personally I do not care for their decision to strike the freedmen but it is THEIR decision to make. Not yours or mine.

[Supersedeas]

11. And the focus here is on US Government interference

[Duppers]

9. WTF?!!

First, prove to me that First American owned AA slaves.

Secondly, the fact that many of "them" are of mixed race does not mean that they do not qualify as FAs.

And thirdly, what the hell do you mean "I don't feel the slightest bit of sympathy for them, considering the whole organization is race-based." How the hell would you like your inherited lands stolen from you?!!!! Race-based!! Of course it's race-based and why shouldn't it be!!!

I sense a lot of bigotry from you.

[a la izquierda]

5. Yew, this is such a mess.

I can't wait to get back to Oklahoma and hear how this is playing out.

[Lance_Boyle]

7. Revoke their permission to run casinos.

That's why the black descendants were booted - more loot for the "pure bloods." So take away the loot and see how the nation enjoys its racial purity then.

[Joe Fields]

14. That is how I see this, from all reports I've read.

[JustAnotherGen]

8. Well

Eh? I don't know what to say. My father was terrified of his Maternal Great Grandmother and Grandmother . . . respectively a Full blooded Cherokee woman and his grandmother was half Irish/half Cherokee. But he was a black child in the South that used to sit up in the 'colored only' section of Saturday matinees in the 40's and early 50's watching propaganda about 'blood thirsty injuns'. Even though he had one of those 'blood thirsty' ones in his house all growing up (his mother's grandmother lived with them until she died in her early 90's).

This seems to me like some guy at the top trying to get 'his' - nothing more, nothing less. I guess I need to start looking at the Cherokee Nation as just another 'Corporation' in America with an unethical and greedy CEO. I have 3rd cousins that come to family reunions who are 3/4 cherokee (my great grandmothers younger sister married Cherokee - older sister married a bi-racial man as she did - complex family history! :rofl: ) - and these folks are wonderful. Not one prejudice bone in their bodies.

So eh? I'm not willing to throw the entire Cherokee nation under the bus - just their leadership.

You see it even in Central and Western NY (where I grew up) with other nations. The 'top' keep it all for themselves and the people go without in those tribes too.

[Odin2005]

12. Looks like it's not just whites who are into the whole "Racial Purity" thing.

:puke:

[sofa king]

15. No, it's more complicated than that.

Every member on a tribal roll, and the tribe as a whole, must be able to demonstrate "descent from an historic Indian tribe" in order to be recognized by the United States.

This vague wording is purposely constructed to cut out the "racial purity" angle. The widespread tribal practice of inviting former and escaped slaves into the tribes (and other people of all races and walks of life) was often later used against tribes, and still comes up in naive anti-Indian arguments today (see Donald Trump's "they don't look like Indians to me" comments, for example). So the "descent" angle is designed to minimize the racial arguments against a tribe.

The case of the Cherokee is further complicated by the fact that they and the US entered into a treaty in 1866 which granted full tribal citizenship to any slaves that the Cherokee had owned up to 1863. That puts the tribe and those members in a difficult place, because while the treaty makes them members, those members cannot acquire a CDIB card--a "certificate of degree of Indian blood," which is one of the easier ways a tribal member can prove eligibility for membership in a tribe, and which some US agencies require (or used to require) for tribal members to receive services.

And then, I assume, it starts to get really complicated, for some of those freedmen Cherokee certainly practiced patterned in-marriage back into the Tribe, while others may not have.

It looks like Wikipedia has been busy trying to lay out the broad outlines... and it's already a huge article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_freedmen_controversy

I would caution outside observers to keep in mind that in tribal politics everything is turned on its head, much of it is not what it appears to be at first blush, and there is no simple answer to any of these questions. Membership is far and away the most controversial subject within almost any tribe, and the Cherokee are the second largest tribe in the United States!

[TheKentuckian]

13. I am of these people and I'm ashamed of this. My great-grandmother was full blood.