In 1880 the Cherokee decided the populace of Cherokee Citizenry needed to be enumerated, so The census was authorized by an act of the Cherokee National Council Senate Bill No.33 on December 1, 1879, see it here http://www.accessgenealogy.com/native/cherokeecensus.php?chercensusPage=419  you will notice all the different citizens are enumerated as to what their ethnicity is, either a Cherokee, or one of the Adopted ethnic citizens of the Nation, including the Negro/Colored, the black family members were simply enumerated as a family member in the Native Cherokee section, the Term Freedmen as a class of Cherokee had not happened yet…

The Cherokee were in the middle of their most prosperous era after the removal from their home land, but this was to be short lived… In 1887 Came the allotment Act by the U.S Congress, Also known as the Dawes Act which authorized the president of the United States to have Native American tribal lands surveyed and divided into allotments

For individual Native American families it was enacted February 8, 1887 and named after its sponsor, U.S. Senator Henry L Dawes of Massachusetts. The Act was amended 1891, and again in 1906 by the Burke Act, The Act remained in effect until 1934. In 1898 came the Curtis Act (Act of June 28, 1898), ch. 517, 30 Stat. 495. Section 28 of the Curtis Act provided that on July 1, 1898, "all tribal courts in
Indian Territory shall be abolished. And the simple fact is and as the purpose demonstrates if there is no judicial system there is no Government; Thus All Indian Governments were abolished by this Congressional act. Later on the federal government discovered the Five Civilized Tribal Governments in Oklahoma was needed in place to further be able to continue conduct business of some land transactions…

In 1901 the Cherokee Nation was faced with termination and allotment, a vote was taken to determine whether the Cherokee people would accept the provisions of the allotment agreement and turn the Indian Territory into a state. The full bloods, under the leadership of Keetoowah Society Chief RedBird Smith, refused to participate and did not vote. They practiced an age old Cherokee tradition of withdrawing to show their displeasure. That did not work in 1835 and it didn't work in 1901. But an interesting aside to the full blood refusal to vote was the remarkable turnout of Freedmen voters. It is estimated that approximately 90 percent of the adult male Freedmen participated in the 1901 election and of those, over 80 percent are believed to have voted against the allotment agreement. This is in direct opposition to the numbers indicated by the intermarried whites and thin blood Cherokees, who voted overwhelmingly for the allotment agreement and termination of the Cherokee Nation.

Why then, did the Freedmen vote against an agreement which promised them a farm of their own? The vote meant the land of their forefathers was about to become a state. They weren't stupid. Many could read and those who could not could meet and discuss what was going on in the deep southern states against free blacks. How could they support their homeland becoming a state, which would bring with it open doors to southern whites who hated them, disfranchised them, even murdered them. The Freedmen had not only lived well in the Cherokee Nation, they had prospered and made contributions to the Nation in both private and public life. They were faced with losing it all. And lose it all they did. Few Freedmen were able to hold onto their allotments in the years leading up to the Great Depression and most were destitute by 1929. One Freedmen was recorded as saying, "Depression, what depression? We couldn't tell no difference." And that is nothing compared to the Jim Crow laws they endured at the hands of southern white trash dominating state affairs. Black lynching were as common in Oklahoma as they were in any southern state.

While all of this was going on, where were the full bloods? They were attempting re-tribalism of themselves through the UKB. They were in seclusion in the refuges we know today as the "full blood Cherokee communities." They were, like the black Cherokees, losing their lands and quickly becoming the poorest population in the state.

But not all Cherokees met this fate. No, the thin bloods did quite well. They joined with the white Oklahoma society to take power and wield it to their own advantage, creating oil moguls, movie stars, land barons, military leaders, senators, congressmen, doctors and lawyers; all the while spinning ever so quickly away from their Cherokee heritage. They sat on the side of the white man when he pointed an accusing finger at the young black man who looked in the direction of the chaste young white girl, then helped pulled the rope as he was strung up on the old oak tree down by the river.

The thin blood Cherokees donned white robes and pointy hoods with holes for eyes and burned crosses and dragged black Cherokees from the Methodist Church in Tahlequah in 1920.

Those who hate the Freedmen because they are black do not know what it means to be a Cherokee. They have lost their way. Come home to the truth my Cherokee brothers and sisters. We adopted the Freedmen as members of our family. It is not the Cherokee way to turn our backs on our own. Throughout our history, the Freedmen have been mistreated because of the color of their skin and the legacy of racism laid bare on the Cherokee soul by our own history of slavery and oppression against them.

In 1983, the Feedmen were not asked if they no longer wanted to be citizens of the Nation of their birth; see the rules concocted by Ross O. Swimmer Chief of CNO http://www.cornsilks.com/cshiprulesswim.html  just as they had not been consulted when slavery was their fate, their ancestors being stolen from their homeland and sold in to slavery, and not consulted when citizenship was their victory see 1866 Treaty ,Articles pertinent to the Freedmen http://www.cornsilks.com/1866excerpt.html  I am proud of the Freedmen who have stood up and refused to be pushed aside, and very proud, I am allowed to stand in their defense against the atrocity of today. Yes they got farms back in 1902, same as  the Cherokee simply because they were Cherokee, and promptly lost them to the white man's greed and fraud. Their fate is so intertwined with ours, it is impossible to extricate them without doing damage to ourselves. They are a part of us by fact of history, culture, blood and most importantly by law.

See at http://libraries.ou.edu/etc/westhist/rogerswc.htm

1906-1907 - Oklahoma statehood began, combines Indian and Oklahoma Territories; The federal government discovered the Tribal Governments in Oklahoma was needed in place to further be able to abuse their rights so in 1906, when Congress was considering the admission of Oklahoma to the Union. The tribal governments were extended indefinitely by Joint Resolution No. 7 of March 2, 1906, 34 Stat. 822, and by Section 28 of the Five Tribes Act of April 26, 1906, ch. 1876, 34 Stat. 148. And all the Five Civilized Tribes (FCT) of Oklahoma stand as Active Governments today. Though it is questionable if all are legally constituted today, as is  exampled by issues of Citizenship of the Freedmen of the Cherokee and Seminole Nations of the five.

In 1936, Congress corrected itself and passed the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (OIWA), http://www.infca.org/tribes/OIWA.htm which provided for a "new day" by which tribes could reorganize their governments and citizenship any way they wanted. However, they must permit all citizens and their voting age descendants a vote, even if it would remove them from the tribe. To date, the Cherokee Nation has not organized under that act and is not rehabilitated by its provisions. The Cherokee Nation remains disabled by the Curtis Act and only the right to popularly select the principal chief has been restored to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. And the (CNO) having been promulgated by Swimmer in 1976 is claiming the same legal cover for legal existence as the Creek Nation, even though they have not taken advantage of the OIWA Act.

 1  |  2  |  3  |  4