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| This will be an eradication of all the misinformation in sara's article! | |
| Body | From the Website of the Hawaii Reporter Native Truth By: Sara Hoklotubbe This ia a de-bunking of the erroneous misinformation in Sara's opinion piece, by Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma Member, David Cornsilk: The editorial published by Sara Hoklotubbe, while well written, is replete with inaccuracies that discredit her position and expose her as an immoral hate-monger. David's response to her tripe follows: Sara said: James Dellinger and Phil Brand must believe if they tell a lie long enough, people will believe them. In their article, "Don´t Free Hawaii!" they have used erroneous information to bolster their argument against not only the Native people of Hawaii, but Native people everywhere. David Said: Typical of hate mongers, Sara tries to cast a wide net to ensnare as many unsuspecting Native people as possible. Just the same as Chad Smith's cry that the Watson bill is an attack on "all tribes" if told often enough, just as she accuses Dellinger and Brand, some will begin to believe it. Sara said: It may come as a shock to these two writers, but not everyone in the world wants to be a white American. David Said: Now that's funny. Not because it isn't true, but because Sara is a white American. The fact that she, like most of the Freedmen, has a smidgen of Cherokee blood, doesn't change the fact that she, like 90+ percent of the Cherokee citizenry are white. Sara said: The American Indians led the fight against terrorism in 1492. David Said: FALSE! The tribes first encountered by Columbus were peaceful and welcoming. Had they known what we know now, or even what they learned shortly after his arrival, Columbus would have been killed immediately and the Spanish would have just assumed he fell off the edge of the world. Sara said: They were driven by force to give up their homelands to satisfy the greed of the encroaching white settlers. David Said: A truth, finally. Sara said: The tribal governments eventually had to enter into treaties with the United States, but their tribal sovereignty remained intact. That government-to-government relationship still endures today. David Said: Since there are more extinct tribes than those now appearing on the federally recognized BIA list, her statement again is too sweeping and misinformed. And her assertion that tribal sovereignty "remained intact" is wrong. While some aspects of indigenous sovereignty remains with those tribes enjoying federal recognition, it cannot be said to be "intact." Congress has taken away many aspects of that sovereignty and most tribes have treated away other sovereign authorities. The Cherokee Nation, in the Treaty of 1866, treated away its right to regulate the citizenship of the Freedmen. Like the Freedmen of the Seminole Nation, the Cherokee Freedmen are protected by federal authority in accordance with an agreement between two sovereigns. Sara said: The Hawaiians weren´t so lucky. If Dellinger and Brand really believe that the Hawaiians welcomed the overthrow of their government by the United States with open arms, they are sadly mistaken. David Said: Again, a speck of truth. Sara said: The Akaka bill would restore Native Hawaiians only part of their sovereignty. It is long overdue and needs to be passed. David Said: Sara is sticking her nose somewhere it does not belong. The Native Hawaiians are fully capable of determining whether the Akaka bill should be passed. I have numerous personal friends who are Native Hawaiian and they are deeply opposed to the Akaka bill. Others favor it and some just don't give a hoot. How ever they may feel, it is their business, not hers. Just because she occupied space on their island, just like any immigrant, does not give her any authority to speak on their behalf or declare the Akaka bill a good deal. Sara said: However, in their argument against Hawaiian sovereignty, Dellinger and Brand introduced inaccurate information, specifically about the Cherokee Nation and their relationship with the Freedmen. Freedmen are black descendants of former slaves. David Said: Yes, the Freedmen have black and predominately slave ancestry, but that African blood does not taint them anymore or less than Sara's white ancestry taints her. And her assertion that the Freedmen are descendants of slaves without stating that a large number of the Freedmen are actually Cherokees by blood forced upon the Freedmen against their will because of their negro ancestry shows that she is either ill-informed of Cherokee history or she is intentionally misleading the readers of her editorial in an effort to foment hate against the Freedmen. Sara said: The Freedmen were never "registered as tribal members during the early 20th century..." David Said: Utterly FALSE! The Freedmen were listed on the Dawes Roll as CITIZENS of the CHEROKEE NATION in 1902. That date is within the 20th Century. Freedmen shared equally in all per capita payments as citizens of the Cherokee Nation prior to 1920 and when the big payment was made to Cherokee citizens in 1963, the Freedmen were paid as well. And in 1970, when the Cherokees were first permitted by Congress to vote for the office of Principal Chief for the first time since 1903, as many Freedmen were registered to vote as Cherokees by blood. Many of those Freedmen still hold their original blue cards. In fact, Freedmen were registered as members of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma right up to March of 1983. It was at that time that Ross O. Swimmer unceremoniously and illegally kicked them out, regardless of whether they had Cherokee blood or not. Sara said: They were given land rights in Indian Territory after the civil war by the Treaty of 1866, not tribal citizenship rights. David Said: It is funny how the situation leads to convenient arguments against the Freedmen. When the Freedmen were first adopted in 1866 by an amendment to the Cherokee Constitution of 1839, it was known and widely accepted that the Freedmen would have EQUAL rights to Cherokees by blood in both political and land rights. They acquired both civil rights and a right of soil equal to their by blood brethren. Yet, when it came time for them to vote, some Cherokees refused to permit it, saying, "they only have a right to land, no right to vote." And then, when land was sold and there was money distributed in 1883, some Cherokees said, "they have a right to vote, but no right to land." That argument was repeated again when the Dawes Commission was creating its roll. Cherokee officials claimed that the intent of the Treaty of 1866 was to give civil rights to the Freedmen, but not land rights. The issue was sorted out by the United States Supreme Court when it declared that the adopted classes of Cherokees, i.e. Delaware, Freedmen and Shawnees, were adopted with EQUAL civil rights and land rights. Beginning in 1903 and right up to 1971, Freedmen shared equally with Cherokees by blood and adopted whites in whatever payments were made to the individual Dawes enrollees or their heirs. Sara said: They [Freedmen] were free and immediately became U.S. citizens. David Said: LOL! Again, Sara's ignorance of the history of the Cherokee Nation and our citizens is appalling. The Freedmen, identical with their Cherokee by blood counterparts, were NOT CITIZENS of the United States prior to 1902. Both groups became citizens under the authority of Congress by passage of the Dawes Act conferring citizenship upon the citizens of the Five Civilized Tribes. The ONLY citizenship the Freedmen enjoyed prior to 1902 was Cherokee citizenship. Sara said: Since 1975, the Cherokee Constitution has based its citizenship requirement on lineage from an Indian ancestor listed on the Dawes Rolls. David Said: Utterly false. The 1975 Constitution and its progeny the 2003 constitution, do not state in any article contained therein, that proof of blood of the tribe is necessary for membership in the CNO. The ruling in March 2006 by the Cherokee Nation Judicial Appeals Tribunal stated the obvious. Anyone with an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls is eligible for membership. Both the Freedmen and the Cherokees by blood are listed on the Dawes Roll, yet neither group is mentioned by name in either constitution. There was no need to mention either group because both were eligible for citizenship and it was the intent of Congress that all Dawes enrolled Cherokee citizens be permitted to vote for the office of Principal Chief. Sara said: It wasn´t until March 2006, that a Cherokee Supreme Court Judge with political aspirations ruled that the language of the Cherokee Constitution needed clarification, thus allowing non-Indian Freedmen to enroll in the tribe. David Said: Sara ignores the fact that the ruling was by a MAJORITY of the judges, not just one. While Stacy Leeds, who wrote the majority opinion, did eventually run for the office of Principal Chief, she did so only after choosing not to seek another term on the court. If she was trying to gain political favor from the Freedmen over the Cherokees by blood, such a position would more likely be political suicide because the Cherokees by blood outnumber the Freedmen nearly 4 to one. Ms. Leeds ruled in the only way an intelligent, logical and ethical judge would have ruled. And interestingly, the other judge who sided with her, had actually ruled against the Freedmen in a previous case (Riggs v. Ummerteskee). He changed his opinion, wrote a special opinion to explain and changed the course of history for our tribe. It was actually Darrell Dowty who cast the deciding vote. Ms. Leeds original opinion was written as a dissenting opinion. But when it was read by Mr. Dowty, he came to his senses and ruled with her in favor of the Freedmen's citizenship rights. Sara said: Dellinger and Brand said the Freedmen were "voted out of the tribe." Not true. The Cherokee people legally voted, as a sovereign nation, in March 2007 to amend the Cherokee Nation Constitution to clarify its language. David Said: The question here is the word "legally." Was the vote legal? That question is before the Cherokee courts. The Freedmen were members of the CNO prior to the March 2007 vote. They were immediately expelled following that vote. I'm not sure what semantics Sara is relying upon to say they were not "voted out" but the end result is that they lost their citizenship. Sara said: The amendment passed and brought people from all ethnic groups into the tribe, including black, yellow, red, white, and green, with one condition: they must have at least one Cherokee ancestor listed on the Dawes Rolls. David Said: Yet, the Freedmen were expelled! The Freedmen have Cherokee ancestors. Every single one of them living today has at least ONE, most of them more, Cherokee ancestors listed on the Dawes Roll. All of the citizens of the Cherokee Nation were Cherokees regardless of their ethnic heritage. The word "Cherokee" refers solely to the nationality of the citizens of the Cherokee Nation and has nothing, NOTHING to do with the race of the individual. Sara said: (The Dawes Rolls were created by the US government in the early 1900´s as a prelude to opening Indian Territory to white settlers.) David Said: Again, another nugget of truth. Sara said: The Cherokee Nation has over 1500 citizens of African-American ancestry. David Said: I have wondered all along how the hate-mongers know this number! Apparently they are keeping track of who among the Cherokees by blood, has negro ancestry. Just like the Nazis, the officials of the Cherokee Nation are creating a registry of Cherokees by blood they believe are tainted by negro ancestry. They are currently attempting to expatriate the largest population of Cherokees of black descent. Will the 1500 Sara touts be next? for now we can only wonder. Sara said: The only folks who lost their citizenship from the passage of that amendment were non-Indians of any ethnicity who do not have a Cherokee ancestor on the Roll. David Said: Sara throws in the words "of any ethnicity" as if that makes expatriation for no crime other than race okay. It doesn't. And because the only, ONLY citizens of the Cherokee Nation who were expatriated were the Freedmen, her claims of a wider net of racial purification doesn't wash. This attack was against Cherokees of negro ancestry and the fact that Sara and Chad Smith have not figured out how to rid the tribe of the remaining 1500 black Cherokees only gives us another ethnic cleansing to look forward to. Sara said: They [Freedmen] had only been enrolled for one year. David Said: Citizenship in the Cherokee Nation is by birth. We are born of citizens and are citizens upon our entry into the world. The Freedmen were first expelled in 1983 and they have been fighting for their civil and political rights ever since. They won their rights back in March 2006. They began the arduous process of enrolling only to be faced with the attack before they even had a chance to get themselves enrolled. I had always believed the Cherokee people were fair, but the vote, which was originally intended to be only a few months after their victory in court, did not permit them the adequate time to find the proper documents to enroll, which prevented a majority of the Freedmen from voting. On the other hand the Cherokees by blood were permitted to enroll all along or at least since 1975. There is an apparent injustice in any effort to destroy someone's rights and at the same time give them no opportunity to adequately defend themselves. Sara said: Dellinger and Brand stated that the Freedmen have been left living as "second class citizens" on their own land. I guess these writers do not know that the Cherokees do not have a reservation. If the Freedmen owned property within the boundaries of the current day Cherokee Nation, then they still have it, and they still live there the same as before. David Said: Obviously Sara can't read. D & B stated that the Freedmen were "second class citizens on their own land." They never said the Freedmen were losing their land or that the Cherokees lived on a reservation. Its no wonder Sara can't understand the Freedmen issues when she has difficulty understanding a simple statement. Sara said: Native Americans, Native Alaskans, and Native Hawaiians have one thing in common. We are indigenous peoples, with cultures that reach back thousands of years. David Said: How racist can you be? All peoples have cultures that reach back thousands of years. Whether individuals of those ethnic groups practice those cultures is another thing, and neither has anything to do with political rights. If that were the case, Sara, who is a white woman, living a white person's life, but having a long distant Indian ancestor, would be hitting the bricks. While she did grow up in northern Delaware County, the Cherokee Indians she grew up around disclaim her as a white woman. In fact, they describe her as being a snob to Indians and clung tenaciously to her white friends. She has lived most of her adult life outside the Cherokee Nation and is not a participant in any of the authentic Cherokee cultural practices. In other words, just like white people disconnected from their original cultural heritage, Sara is doubly afflicted because she is disconnected from what little Cherokee heritage she has and from her original white heritage. Sara said: We have ceremonies that non-Native people wish they had so bad they will do anything to try to become part of a tribe. David Said: What do you mean we white woman? You are not a member of the Cherokee ceremonial grounds or any of the Cherokee churches. Whatever ceremonies your long distant Cherokee Indian ancestors might have participated in does not make you an Indian by culture or heritage. The ONLY thing that makes Sara an Indian is federal law, which says that an Indian is a member of a federally recognized tribe. Sara said: As Native people, we have survived attempted genocide of unparalleled proportions for centuries. We know who we are and no one can take that truth from us. David Said: Yes Sara, we do know who WE are, but the only reason WE Indians of the Cherokee Nation know who YOU are is because of your blathering on issues you know little to nothing about. If we knew you from a Cherokee cultural perspective, your opinions might carry some weight. You are free to hold whatever immoral, unethical and extremely un-Cherokee views you want. After all, your white ancestors wrote the U.S. Constitution to protect your rights to free speech, however hateful and wrong it might be. David Cornsilk |
