Cherokee Freedmen
As Cherokee Freedmen descendants are of African slaves designated, with their Cherokee -Besitzern of the states of North Carolina , South Carolina and Georgia in the Indian territory because of the Indian Removal Act were expelled from the 1830th
After the slaves were released in 1863 by the proclamation of emancipation , the slaves were granted land in what is now Oklahoma . Many descendants of the slaves were made members of the tribe, often against the will of the tribe (see Curtis Act ). After the Cherokee Nation was reestablished as a sovereign nation within the United States in 1970, Cherokee Freedmen were often denied tribe membership. According to the Cherokee Nation Constitution, as amended in 1983, citizenship can only be granted to persons who can prove a consanguinity. On August 30, 2007, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Cherokee Freedmen could not be denied citizenship in the Cherokee Nation . Approximately 45,000 Cherokee Freedmen now live in the Cherokee Nation area of northeast Oklahoma. To this day, there is controversy surrounding the tribal membership of the Cherokee Freedmen, which is associated with significant benefits such as free health care.
Fort Smith Council
In September 1865 negotiations between the 5 Civilized Tribes and the United States Government began in Fort Smith , Arkansas . After the majority of the southern tribes took part in the civil war, the federal government demanded new treaties. The American Civil War had divided the tribes. The Cherokee divided into Southern and Northern Cherokee. Other tribes like the Choctaw and Chickasaw unitedly supported the Confederation. About half of the Cherokee supported the United States and the other half the Confederation. On July 19, 1866, a contract was signed in Washington, which was announced on August 11, 1866. In this treaty, the Cherokee Nation pledged to outlaw slavery in their territory. In the 9th article of the contract it was specified that all former slaves and their imitators can become members of the tribe. All ex-slaves who lived in the Cherokee area before the outbreak of civil war should be accorded the same rights and duties as the Cherokee. On November 26, 1866, the Cherokee Nation amended its constitution. The article prohibiting the admission of blacks into the nation has been changed. The Cherokee Freedmen had to make a decision within 6 months. Either they became nationals of the United States and had to leave Cherokee territory, or they became Cherokee and were allowed to stay. These were allocated 160 acres of land per family . At the end of the Civil War, the Cherokee Nation numbered 21,000 tribesmen. Around 9% of families owned one or more slaves. This involved around 4,000 people. Many former slaves fled the Indian territory. Others were forcibly evicted by armed Cherokee.
Cherokee Outlet
The Cherokee Outlet was a 97 mile wide and 225 mile long strip along the Kansas border . It was not part of the Cherokee reservation area, but was made available to them as hunting and grazing land in 1836. Since the Cherokee were primarily sedentary farmers and their focus was in the northeast of today's state of Oklahoma, the area was little used by the Cherokee and leased to cattle breeders. After the Civil War, the federal government forced the Cherokee to sell areas of the strip to other Indian tribes. For example, the Kansas native Osage bought an area west of the Cherokee Nation, now Osage County . The proceeds from the land sales were to be distributed to the Cherokee families. This created lists that are used today for tribal membership. No freedmen was taken into account in the distribution of funds in 1880. Delaware and Shawnee, who lived in Cherokee Nation territory, also received nothing. The Cherokee Nation planned to distribute $ 7,240,000 to 28,243 Cherokee, 3,524 freedmen were to receive nothing, although they would have been entitled to $ 903,365. Moses Whitmire sued the Court of Claims for this sum on behalf of the Freedmen and the other excluded Indians.
Dawes Act and Curtis Act
According to these laws, tribal land should be distributed to individual families. Here too, lists of authorized persons were created that were and are used to determine tribal affiliation.
References and comments
- ↑ mid continent public library The Cherokee Freedmen: Slaves of the Tribe
- ^ Time: How a Court Answered a Forgotten Question of Slavery's Legacy
- ↑ The Cherokee Nation today covers an area of 13 counties with 18,000 square kilometers east of Tulsa and has over 500,000 residents.
- ↑ Kathy-Ann Tan: Reconfiguring Citizenship and National Identity in the North American Literary Imagination, Wayne State University Press, 2015, p. 227, the following
- ↑ blackpast.com (1866) US Treaty With The Cherokee Nation
- ↑ They further agree that all freedmen who have been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners or by law, as well as all free colored persons who were in the country at the commencement of the rebellion, and are now residents therein, or who may return within six months, and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees
- ↑ Emily Greenwald, Article 9 of the 1866 Cherokee Treaty, Historical Research Associates, Inc. Page 8: At this point in time, about nine percent of Cherokee families owned slaves, with the total number of Cherokees around 21,000 and the number of slaves between 3,500 and 4,000.
- ^ Congress Report of the Secretary of Interior, Decisions of Court of claims as to rights of Freedmen, Delawares, Shawnees in Cherokee funds, Government Printing Office 1896, p. 415 the following