Cherokee Nation Revokes Tribal Citizenship From Descendants of Slaves
by Jorge Rivas
Wednesday, August 24 2011, 10:54 AM EST
On Monday the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court reversed and vacated a district court decision that granted equal tribal citizenship rights to descendants of freedmen — former slaves who had been owned by Cherokees. The decision will immediately terminate the tribal citizenship of about 2,800 so-called “non-Indians.”
In 2007, the Cherokee Nation ruled it would no longer recognize the descendants of freedmen as members of the Cherokee Nation. But in January, Cherokee Nation District Judge John Cripps ruled in favor of the freedmen descendants, citing an 1866 treaty between the United States and the tribe that granted equal rights to the freedmen.
In Monday’s 4-1 decision, the court maintained that citizenship was extended to the freedmen by an 1866 Cherokee constitutional amendment — not the treaty — and that Judge Cripps did not have the authority to overturn its results.
The attorney representing freedmen in their case against the Cherokee Nation said Tuesday that he was shocked the tribe’s Supreme Court ruled against the freedmen so close to the special election to pick a new chief, according to the Oklahoman.
The ruling came a day before the tribe’s election officials sent out absentee ballots for the election between Chad Smith and Bill John Baker.
The freedmen, who have been fighting for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation, consider the incumbent principal tribal chief Smith one of their adversaries.
*************************************************************
It no longer surprises me that this revocation of the citizenship of the Black Freedmen/Women Cherokees occurred.
I have written about this racist travesty here, here, and here.
Just a few months ago, the Cherokee Nation Court voted to return citizenship back to the 2,800 Freedman/Women who were stripped of their citizenship in 2007.
Nevermind that the ex-enslave Freedmen/Women lived under race-based slavery in the Cherokee Nation. Nevermind that the Freedmen/Women walked the Trail of Tears with the evicted Cherokees, as well as some Freedmen/Women dying along the Trail with Cherokees. Nevermind that the Cherokee Constitution itself clearly stated that ex-enslaves were given citizenship.
There will be those who will state the hateful cognitive dissonance of “Hey, it’s their country. Let them do as they please.”
And what is the difference in stating the obvious on the flip side, if it was the United States and the citizenship of Black Americans? The same could also be said about America: “Hey, it’s their country. Let them do as they please.”
That the Cherokee Nation has re-written its constitution more than once to sabotage the rights of citizenship for the Freedmen/Women is no secret. Taking the citizenship from the Freedmen/Women who were citizens of the Cherokee Nation is sick, repulsive, and racist.
Yeah, I said it. And to hell with whomever hates to hear the truth.
As for those who feel that the Cherokees have “paid their debt” to the Freedmen/Women; that the Cherokee Nation has done right by stripping their citizens of this constitutional right; that the Cherokee nation acted legally and humanely in its mistreatment of its citizens–I say that those who utter and believe such hate are just as less than as this so-called nation that worships race hatred. The Cherokee Nation will never be able to live this venomous episode down. It has shown its true colors in out-whiting the most racist of Whites in the United States. And hey, the CN is only doing what the United States wishes it could do–and get away with.
There are those who bleat that the White man and White woman have done soooo much for Black Americans. That the Cherokee Nation has done soooo much for the Freedmen/Women.
Bullshit.
The Cherokee Nation has been just as racially savage against the Freedmen/Women just as the United States has been racially savage against her Black citizens.
Both so-called nations are nothing but Whores of Babylon, and like the Great Whore, the Cherokee Nation worships the abominations of hate, cruelty, and vile trickery.
Nations which shit on their citizens like the Cherokee Nation are on borrowed time anyway.
Just goes to show Black people:
We are in this alone. The world is not in our corner no matter how many of us self-delude ourselves into thinking that many non-Blacks give a damn about us. Very few do. Very few lift a finger. Very few speak up.
As for what the Cherokee Nation has been itching to do since 2007, I will say the same thing I would say to any nation that fits the Whore of Babylon tag:
Drop dead.
BEAUTIFUL, ALSO, ARE THE SOULS OF MY BLACK SISTERS 
Amazing blog! Thanks for the great contribution with this post.
I met a Native American on a personal level, who was quick to remind me, an African American, that her ancestors/people sold escaped slaves back into slavery after befriending them. And we were expected to be friends, the timing was way off. I’ve decided to have a thin skin, I previously felt a thick skin was best, but the audacity and tone of that conversation I found appalling.
Only a few persons of color have been able to secure for themselves and their families now and for their future generations, land and some semblence of wealth. Talk about having the rug pulled out from under you. This is just another in those who would copy the racist behavior of others and think it is the way it should be. Scared to level the playing field, is what goads them. We have to be better than good wherever/whenever anyone from the Black ethnic populations, challenge the status quo. One must be “damm good”, not the better but the best.
Speaking of the present president as was written about Frederick Douglass many years ago, on September 25,1883.
“Though the colored man is no longer subject to barter and sale, he is currounded by an adverse settlement which fetters all his movements. In his downward couse he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resented and resisted at every step of is progress. If he comes in ignorance, rags and wretchedness he conforms to the popular belief of his character, and in that character he is welcome, but if he shall come as a gentleman, a scholar and a statesman, he is hailed as a contradiction to the national faith concerning his race, and his coming is resented as impudence. In one case he provoke contempt and derision, but in the other he is an affront to pride and provokes malice.”
Recognizable?