Cherokee Nation General Counsel Diane Hammons says the tribe respects the court’s decision and will begin to implement its order.
“Descendants of freedmen who can show proof of an ancestor on the freedmen roll of the Cherokee Nation are eligible to be citizens of the Cherokee Nation,” she says.
Tahlequah attorney Todd Hembree, who represented the Cherokee Nation Council in the high-court case, says the main concern will be how the tribe will afford to offer services to an unknown number of additional members.
“Every time you have a finite amount of money or services, to divide it up to a larger pool of people, it will be spread more thin,” he says. “That’s just mathematics.”
— Associated Press
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