Marvin James Summerfield, (8/25/2007 8:22:48 AM)

I did not vote to kick out the Freedmen and neither did my family..We knew it was racist by nature..we warned Chad and his followers that the whole world would perceive Cherokees to be racist..and it has come to pass. Chad and his followers are reaping what they sowed with their racist views..simple as that.

Cherokee Full-Blood

edgar, (8/25/2007 8:54:55 AM)

an examination of history will show that indian tribes were forced by the government to make their former slaves and freedmen on their land members of the tribe. this ensued largely because most of the indian tribes, and nearly all of the five civilized tribes, supported the confederacy during the civil war. in essence, the tribes were being penalized for their support of the south. further, no one in their right minds believe that black people in tahlequah are forced to live only in certain places. that is a violation of state and federal law, and were it the truth, the NAACP and ACLU would have taken stands to right the situation a long time ago.

pm, tulsa (8/25/2007 11:11:12 AM)

Edgar it COULD be true they were forced by the government to do this. But lets face it everyone, even americans were forced to accept slave as part of their society. Nevertheless that is long in the past and does not apply today. Lets try and live in the present! ok. It is racist.

SJA, Bartlesville, OK (8/25/2007 1:13:30 PM)

I have a corection in reference to the state

ment, "Freedmen descendants who also have Dawes Roll Ancestors were not disenfranchised, but other descendants of Cherokee slaves were". The Freedmen descendants that were on the "Cherokee by Blood" rolls weren't disenfranchised. Even if you had documentation via the US Government showing that your ancestors were "born Cherokee" or "Cherokee by blood", it doesn't count. To be a citizen of the Cherokee Tribe, everyone including the Freedmen have to prove back to an ancestor on the Dawes Roll. My understanding is that the majority of the Freedmen were put on the Freedmen Roll whether they had "one or more drops of Cherokee blood", because it was easier to sell their land.

KAT, Tulsa (8/25/2007 9:45:30 PM)

This case is going to be decided on the LAW. The government to government relationship between the US and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma is in serious peril. No where in the Treaty of 1866 does it mention blood quantum's. Chad Smith is a master at manipulating his own people and clouding the issue. Cherokees who are chanting "don't let the blacks in because they have no indian blood" are stupid and misled.

In 1866 the Cherokee "Nation" was a melting pot of people. The freedmen were embraced by the tribe. Some even held important positions in government. This issue is not going to be decided on culture, blood quantum's, or who is indian and who is not, it's going to be decided on the LAW as it pertains to that treaty.

While many are bickering over a drop of blood and rewriting Cherokee history, Congress, the lawyers, judges, and the freedmen are studying that treaty with a fine tooth comb. It's sad that the Cherokee people are listening to Chad Smith and his cohorts spin tales of untruths about the freedmen. The Cherokees need to form study groups on their own, in their communities and have an historian help them sort through the Treaty as it pertains to the Freedmen. Not only the treaty, but all other freedmen court cases that followed. Cherokee tribal courts studied it last year and ruled it was unconstitutional to deny the Freedmen membership. You are fooling yourselves if you think Congress won't come to the same conclusion.

Geez, Tulsa (8/25/2007 10:00:37 PM)

Geez, can't figure this out for the life of me what you all are talking about but I guess it goes back several hundred years? Can't you all just move on? I mean, heck, why don't we just go back a few THOUSAND years. Where does it end. Get over it.

Red Blooded American, Tulsa (8/25/2007 10:04:25 PM)

All of our blood in this country runs red. That's what is important is that we are all red blooded Americans first - I could careless what my ancestry is and nor would I ever join any entity to go back hundreds of years for entitlement. With the variety of heritage in my blood, I could probably get entitlement to at least TWO entities and get all kinds of benefits.

Cedrick Von Copperpenny, (8/27/2007 6:14:07 AM)

All things equal, can anyone answer me why Diane Watson and the NAACP are not willing to wait for the fed court to rule? I think their actions reflect more political grandstanding.

Mike, Oklahoma (8/27/2007 8:56:44 AM)

To the point:

A treaty cannot make a Creek Indian a Cherokee Indian.

A treaty cannot make a White or Black person Cherokee Indian.

I was surprised to see so little people at Watson's meetings. I wanted to know where were the 2,700 Freedmen? They were not there. If this issues mean's so much to them, as to have a US congresswoman travel to see them in the area where they live, they should have been there. It did not happen.

Curtis, Carnegie (8/27/2007 9:52:45 AM)

This is really sad, for it seems to me that it is only about 'benefits'. I am full blooded and get no benefits, except the medical treatment which is a government trust responsibility under our treaties. Treaties are nation to nation, not a state. You do not see them doing this to France or Russia...anyways this is about 'benefits' or money. For those saying just get over it, or just forget it.....well the BLOOD of the Trail of TEARS still RUNS thru my VEINS.

Lenape member, Dewey, Oklahoma (8/27/2007 12:01:16 PM)

Treaties are funny, they can make a Delaware a Cherokee... At issue is the validity of the 1866 treaty - designed specifically to punish the Cherokee and take the lands of the Delaware (Lenape). The treaty directes the Delaware to melt in with the Cherokee, according to the Internation Human Rights Council this is an act of "Cultural Genocide". Does anyone mention this? No...it would take a world view of of the situation and not just "dollars" vs "membership".

Enkv, Oklalhoma (8/27/2007 1:03:38 PM)

As I said before, Tribes only did what the US

government mandated, They followed the regulations on Dawes and other rolls, They

followed the laws tht said tribes had to have

CDIB/Tribal cards, Tribes followed the law of

"self-governance" but where is the finger

pointed at. The Tribe. If Watson, NAACP etc.

searched and listen to some ancestors , the

slaves was taken in by a lot of tribes and

protected from non-Indian colonist. Majority

had the freedon to do as they wish, while

there was a few that was treated as slaves,

most likely from whites intermarried into

the tribe. Tribes have also been discriminated

against for years and even today, when Rep.

Watson is wanting to cut services to many

elderly and poor so she can "look good!"

and now we have all these Black entities

jumping on the bandwagon and hollering about

"Jim Crow" and racist. Hey! you'll are

shouting at a race that has been discriminated

against for 100 of years by the Euro's and

now those that was historically helped, had an alligiance and sheltered by Indians are now turning on them. My question; exactly how many

so called descendents of slaves are being

denied and do they have prove of ancestry.

I am full-blood and I had to show proof.

My how greed can change relationships!

David Velarde Jr,, (8/27/2007 4:42:09 PM)

Hey, how about disenrolling all the Cherokees with White blood? That would solve the problem wouldn't it? Our nation requires that you be 3/8 in order to be on the rolls. That's almost half. If the Freedmen can't be a part of your nation, why should you let all those white people claiming to be Cherokees to be enrolled.

KAT, Tulsa (8/27/2007 7:31:50 PM)

Mike, were you under the influence of something? I attended the meeting in Muskogee and the room was FULL! Are you the same MIKE that made a spectacle of yourself? If so, Geez dude, where is your intergrity and honor. What would make a person be so desperate and stoop so low at to spread a lie that the freedmen weren't there. What next, violence? You and your cohorts are too limited in your thinking to know you've just given Diane Watson even more ammunition to present to Congress next month with your complete and utter disrespect at the meeting. Now, having said this, if you really want to get the freedmen OUT for good, stop wasting all your desperate energy being peaved off at Diane Watson and have Chad Smith get one of his friends in Congress help him you. But who is willing to put their neck and career on the line to have the Treaty amended to remove the adoption of the Freedmen? Drum roll please......NO ONE! IT IS MORALLY WRONG, WRONG, WRONG and racist on all levels! No member of Congress with half a brain will touch it! This case is going to be decided on the LAW. While people try to gain public support for clouding the issue with blood quantums; the freedmen, lawyers, congress and others are sitting at their desks or tables and doing their homework and research. While some of Chad Smiths henchmen are shouting the "Freedmen will suck us dry" and "protect your daughters", the Freedmen, and their supporters are getting themselves poised and ready for this bill to launch, with "FACTS" in hand. Go ahead; keep preaching to the choir, but until you and every Cherokee understands this issue is about the LAW and not about Blood, you are going to lose!!! You can't discriminate and disenroll your own citizens who were adopted into the tribe and expect the federal government to hand over $300 million dollars in taxpayers money to help you do it! Remember the SEMINOLES!

Lenape Member, Dewey, Oklahoma (8/28/2007 11:23:47 AM)

FREEMEN TODAY - DELAWARE'S TOMORROW! BEWARE FELLOW TRIBESMEN! PLEASE CHAD, GIVE IT UP!

Patti Jo King, Norman, OK (9/7/2007 2:36:03 PM)

"One must be an Indian to be part of an Indian tribe." Is that a confusing statement?

Yes. some 200 or so descendents of former slaves (some slaves of Cherokees, some not), were removed from the tribes' membership roles in March. They were forced onto those roles in 1866 by the federal government because it did not want to take responsibility for promises made to the freedmen - reparations they deserved after building the nation in the first place. They were also placed on the roles because the government wanted to chip away at the Indian land base, knowing that people with no family, kinship, or cultural ties to the land would be far more likely to sell it to speculators later, than the Indians with those ties. So they divied up the land even further and compelled the tribe to accept the Freedmen as members. If there is one thing Indians know, it is that when it comes to the federal government, it has always been about the land.

On the other hand, black Cherokees with family ties, those who intermarried and intermingled, have always been a prescence in the Nation - even before Indian removal from the South. They were accepted by families, and consequently, while these 200 or so non-Indian freedmen have been removed, there are still some 1500 black Cherokee tribal members in good standing. They are our relatives, and they are an intricate part of our communities now as always. This matter is not about racial discrimination and never has been. You have to be an Indian to a member of an Indian tribe.

If you must see this as a race issue, you must look at both sides of the situation. My relatives were not slaveholders, but I have Cherokee ancestors that also had African roots, as do many Cherokees. In Rep. Watson's terms, that makes me African as well. Should I attempt to join an African tribe and refer to myself as an African-American? I doubt I would have much success, because tribal societies are based on kinship and cultural knowledge. Don't take this from me, an Indian - ask an African. Think about it.

The disgruntled persons who are bemoaning their removal from the tribal roles and are insinuating that Indian people are racists in this matter, are not revealing all the facts. What they are not saying is that they want Chief Smith and the Cherokee Council ousted because they don't like the current distribution of gaming revenues. Currently the tribe splits the revenues 70/30, with 70% going to support and stabilize Cherokee Nation business and 30% going to human services. This split was a big issue in the last election. Why do we split the profits this way? Because the goal of the Cherokee Nation is to become self-supporting, and to be able to sever support ties with the federal government in the future. Our businesses create jobs for our families and support for our communities. Oklahoma is a disadvantaged state with huge unemployment rates and little economic security. Indian people, once the owners of this entire rich nation, have been reduced to the state of wards of the federal government, and have been marginalized for centuries. Our current Cherokee leaders are taking us in the best direction for all of our people.

If Watson has her way, some 6,000 jobs will be lost, and the $300 million that supports our communites will be gone. What kind of a community member with kinship ties wishes that on their relatives? Further proof - The complaintants are not kin to the Cherokees.

Indian nations are communal societies made up of historic kinship relations. We know and care about one another and we work together for the good of the entire community because each and every one of us has a historic tie to the land and the people, and therefore, a personal stake in what transpires there. This is the characteristic that sets Indians apart from others in America. We work and think as a tribe - not as individuals.

People, like the complaintants in this case, prove by their actions that they are not thinking about the good of the peopl

Patti Jo King, Norman, OK (9/7/2007 2:41:42 PM)

(Continued...)

People, like the complaintants in this case, prove by their actions that they are not thinking about the good of the people, which is even further proof that they are not Indians. They are thinking about the money they can make off this case, not mourning the loss of family and kinship ties, and certainly not mourning any loss of dignity.

In addition, if they were seriously mourning the loss of dignity, they would not be equating justice with dollars and cents as Rep. Watson (who now claims she is Indian as well, but can't say what tribe) is. Money can not restore dignity. There are no longer any slaves or masters alive today. None of us have ever had to face the reprehensible marginalization those poor souls faced, and none of us carry the guilt the slaveholders carried. None of us are victims or victimizers. Both Indian and blacks have historically faced the most agregious disenfranchisement and inhumane treatment this dominant society could ever have meted out. You can not put monetary value on the losses we have experienced. Money is only paper. It does not right wrongs. Can we not see that by facing off against one another, we are behaving exactly as those who wish us to fail hope that we will? We can not change the past, we can only work together to make the future better for our children and future generations.

Two quick, little-discussed facts: Only about 10% of the Cherokees owned slaves. The majority of the Indians were vehemently anti-slavery advocates, many were Baptist and Nativist abolitionists who worked tirelessly to end the practice of slavery in Indian Territory. Furthermore, the Cherokee Nation outlawed slavery in Indian Territory before the Emancipation Proclamation was ever issued. Simply stating that the Cherokee Nation was part of the Confederacy is a historically inaccurate. The situation was extremely complicated. I encourage all of those who want to come to a real understanding of this situation to look into the history of the Cherokee Nation and learn about the legal (and illegal) political manipulation that shaped our history.

AFRIMERICAN, Los Angeles, Ca. (9/9/2007 2:58:00 AM)

I read where someone wrote the Indian tribes were forced to accept Blacks, that is so far from the truth as to be nothing more than white racist propaganda.

The Indians, [misnomer] from the time the pilgrims landed in the East, and from the time that Columbus landed in the West, always embraced blacks as kinsmen moreso than whites.

When the Whites began the institutions of slavery, they enslaved the Indian tribes prior to importing Blacks, Ponce De Leon was notorious for such.

The Cherokee Tribe is now suffering from the same social disease as prominent Afrimericans above a certain economic level, which is, from the desire to be accepted by Whites as equal, they have adopt all the biases whites live by, even when those biases are against them ethnically.

I call it being around White folks too much to where one becomes White in everything but skintone, and ethnic heritage, that they use pervertedly to justify their self betrayal.

Whiteness, and white privilege does have it's value, but I would never want to be White, or aligned with self serving White agendas that deprives others of their due.

AFRIMERICAN, Los Angeles, Ca. (9/9/2007 3:15:15 AM)

The NAACP is a puppet, and Puppetted Organization, controlled by non-Afrimericans [Blacks]. Some Afrimericans sincerely believe it serves their interest, but in the long run, it only serves to be a tool that non-Afrimericans use as a facade that all Afrimericans are, or should be like it portends, and it is used as a tool to fool whites that it is an organization all Afrimericans support, and authorized to speak for Afrimericans, when in truth 80% of Afrimericans have a gross dislike for the NAACP.

The legislation note is nothing but posturing, the tribe has its own constitution and government structure that designates them as a nation, thus they have the right to vote and change what they wish per their national interest.

The legislation that should be introduced is legislation for Afrimericans to be given similar tribal nation status.

Unfortunately, Afrimerican politicians will never introduce such legislation because they have become too comfortable being House Negroes.

Carol T., Fort Smith, AR (9/12/2007 7:01:44 AM)

As always, when it comes to the Black race not getting their way then the race card is generally always played. It's pretty obvious as we can all see in the papers and on the news. The Cherokee Nation has proof that we are composed of many races. I myself am a Full Blood and have many races in my family including Black. So trust me - racism in not the issue here. Since I receive no benefits and do not use the Cherokee Nation at all then I have nothing to gain or lose whether the Freedman are there or not. But I am a proud Cherokee and feel we as Cherokee's want to hold onto to our race and culture and not let it consist of people there for just the benefits. Come on , put that chip back on your shoulder and accept the vote of our Cherokee people.

KAT, TULSA (9/12/2007 7:10:28 PM)

It's so funny that you would say that. The Cherokee people opted to IGNORE THEIR OWN CHEROKEE COURTS!!! THE LAW OF THE LAND!!!

WHENEVER BLOOD QUANTUM'S ARE MENTIONED, THAT MAKES IT ABOUT RACE. The Cherokee leadership is responsible for this mess and before I take it back I'll say it again. GEEZ!!!

Jessie, tulsa (9/12/2007 8:22:07 PM)

Patti Jo King...

Your own tribal courts followed the law. They saw the importance of the LAW!!!

You, along with many like you, do not see the importance of following the LAW. Chad Smith is hiding behind "SOVEREIGNTY" at any cost to ethnically cleanse citizens who were ADOPTED by the tribe. You can't change what your ancestors did. You are a detriment to the Cherokee Nation if you continue to write opinions like these. Again, this case will be decided on the law as it pertains to that Treaty. Not blood quantums, cultural ties, or passionate public pleas. It will be decided on the LAW!!! Chad Smith is shooting at the freedmen with both barrels because as a lawyer, he knows he doesn't have a leg to stand on. A large portion of the Cherokees sided with the confederacy, and of course, lost the war. Blame them for the Treaty of 1866, not the Freedmen. It's a done, and that's a KNOWN FACT!!!

Randi, Denver (1/2/2008 2:10:25 PM)

A horse is a horse. A squirrel is a squirrel. The two don't mix! If a person has Indian blood then he/she is an Indian. If not..?? This taking up of people's time is only for ANYTHING FREE the government has to offer! You don't have to be and Indian to get freebies from the government. You can be an illegal immigrant! True medical is offered free ONLY if you live on a rez. Try to be a white American and see how many papers you have to fill out and how long it takes you to get accepted. I can see why anyone would want to be an Indian. I am NOT Cherokee and I DO NOT accept the charity of the government. I WORK and always have. I put myself thru college to become an attorney. EVERYONE should do his/her own thing and build good self esteem!! And ONLY an INDIAN should be called an INDIAN. Chad Smith is doing the best he can with his tribe and should be honored, not tongue lashed by people who don't know the rules. STRANGE but USUAL..people who don't know SPEAK on a subject. Those who know sit quietly by and listen to the birds. Bet more than half of you who have answered don't have one drop of Indian blood in you, but you feel confident to speak about something you know nothing about excepting the biased readings. I'm sorry for you. God gave you a mouth..you can sit quietly and people will think you are dumb, or you can open it and prove them right! Awohali

Sissy, Denver (1/17/2008 10:43:40 PM)

You cannot enter a horse in a dog show or an orchid as a petunia. Some REAL Indian people are not registered as Indians because their families were forced to hide to keep from being marched in the trail of tears and therefore were not put on the Dawes Rolls. Please know what you are complaining about before you speak. If ANY person takes the DNA test and PROVES that he/she IS in fact an Indian, then he/she can legally be accepted into a tribe. If not, you cannot say this is racist. It is the LAW of the tribe and is written as such.