According to the Associated Press, in a letter dated April 30, lawmakers asked Holder to investigate the “illegal expulsion” of Freedmen for the Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek nations.
The issue has placed the Obama Administration in the middle of a battle between traditional Democrats -- African Americans and Native Americans.
Two years ago, the Cherokee Nation voted to amend its constitution to restrict tribal membership to blood descendents and the Congressional Black Caucus tried to restrict federal funding to the tribe -- a move that was not supported by then-candidate Barrack Obama.
Last May, in a statement issued to the Tulsa World, Obama said:
“Tribal sovereignty must mean that the place to resolve intertribal disputes is the tribe itself. Our nation has learned with tragic results that federal intervention in internal matters of Indian tribes is rarely productive . . . This is not a legacy we want to continue.
However, speaking directly to the Cherokee Nation issue, Obama also expressed opposition to unwarranted tribal disenrollment and described discrimination anywhere as intolerable.
In most Native nations, proof of blood degree is required. Descendants may have less blood degree from marrying out of the tribe as generations go. That is my concern, if the blood is not there, one does not have enough to be recognized.
ReplyDeleteWhat is it exactly that the Congressional Black Caucus want? Uphold rights or trample them? Did the Five Tribes at some point in their history sign a Treaty that gave away those Nation's right to determine their own citizenship and citizenship requirements? The CBC cannot have their cake and eat it too, unless they are willing to repeat the mistakes of bad Indian policy of the 1800's they will prove to be just as repressive as the country was during its slave holding days.
ReplyDeleteOne cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, if the five tribes want to embrace blood quantum (a conceptual policy of the U.S. at one time meant to dilute the indian nations) that is their right as free nations. The Freedmen have a place in the U.S. let them go amongst their fellow U.S. citizens and find and enjoy those rights reserved to them as American's and let go of the past.