TULSA, Okla.
The Cherokee Nation wants a federal judge to decide whether descendants of the tribe’s former Black slaves, known as freedmen, have a federal right to citizenship in the tribe.
In the five-page complaint filed last Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Tulsa, the nation argues that, because of the U.S. government’s modification of an 1866 treaty it had with the tribe, descendants of freedmen are not entitled to federal citizenship rights. It names several freedmen descendants and the U.S. Department of the Interior, among others, as defendants.
“We feel like it will help settle the issue of whether or not we broke the treaty,” said Mike Miller, spokesman for the Tahlequah-based tribe. “We feel confident we have not, and that’s why we’re willing to take that step.”
For decades, descendants of freed Cherokee slaves fought to reclaim their citizenship, even though they were adopted into the tribe in 1866 under a treaty with the U.S. government. A tribal court order gives them citizenship for now while their case moves through the tribal court system.
Ralph Keen Jr., an attorney representing about 380 freedmen descendants, said the nation’s federal complaint was not “supported by federal law or history.”
