Freedmen vs Cherokee Nation

Oklahoma State Government will face a human crisis over termination of Cherokee Nation. Oklahoma state government would be hit with a social economic melt down with passage of Congresswoman Watson's bill H.R. 2824, to include Freedmen that are citizens of the Cherokee Nation. Congresswoman Watson's bill would stop two hundred and seventy million dollars of federal funding going to the Cherokee Nation each year. In no way, does that funding come close to covering the nations funded programs to its’ some three hundred thousand citizens. Mike Graham August 23, 2007

I'm not sure which paper this was in, might have been the Tulsa World: Editor: Diane Watson, a California congresswoman, brought her dog-and-pony show to Tulsa and Muskogee this past week to recruit supporters for her legislation to sever government-to-government relations with the Cherokee Nation. (See "Congresswoman rips citizenship revocation," Aug.21) However, her grandstanding may have cost her more than she planned. Her credibility began to suffer when she could not answer simple questions nor discuss the details of the Treaty of 1866, the treaty on which she based HR 2824, the house bill she is trying to sell to the rest of Congress. Watson has hung her reputation on a misinterpretation of that treaty that gave freedmen land rights, not citizenship rights. She also failed to explain how she decided which group ofAfrican-Americans to discriminate against. Currently, there are more than 1500 Black Cherokees who are tribal citizens who will suffer, along with th

She still doesn't get it....purchase of land in Oklahoma doesn't make one Cherokee or give one any understanding of the Cherokee Nation... I'm a tax payer and she sure isn't protecting my tax dollar! She can protect my tax dollar by allowing it to go to Cherokees not non Cherokees!! Cherokees vote just like any other elections that are held in the states, what's to understand? ********************* OKLAHOMA CITY—A California congresswoman and a Cherokee leader held dueling news conferences at the state Capitol on Tuesday on a bill to strip the Cherokee Nation of federal funding. Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., said Cherokees broke an 1866 treaty when they voted March 3 to deny tribal citizenship to more than 2,000 descendants of black slaves, known as Cherokee freedmen. She has introduced a bill to cut off federal funds to the tribe unless it rescinds the vote. She said her legislation would cost the tribe about $300 million that is distributed through the Bureau of In