Freedmen vs Cherokee Nation

Oklahoma tribal judge grants injunction request By: The Associated Press 02/19/11 3:48 PM The Associated Press http://washingtonexaminer.com/news/2011/02/oklahoma-tribal-judge-grants-injunction-request A tribal district court judge has ruled that tribal citizenship applications from descendants of Cherokee freedmen won't be processed until the appeals process is complete. Judge John Cripps decided Friday in favor of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's request to extend a temporary injunction against processing new applications from the group. In January, Cripps ruled the tribe had to accept applications from freedmen descendants who lost their tribal citizenship following a March 2007 referendum. Cripps' Jan. 14 ruling nullified the voter-approved constitutional amendment requiring tribal citizens to have a Native American ancestor listed on the Dawes Roll on the grounds it violated an 1866 treaty between the tribe and the federal government that granted citizenship to the fr...

Tribe files appeal in Freedmen decision Tahlequah Daily Press Tahlequah, OK Teddye Snell 01/26/2011 TAHLEQUAH — Cherokee Nation Attorney General Diane Hammons on Tuesday filed an appeal of a tribal district court decision that called for re-instating Freedmen descendants as citizens. The tribal district court nullified a Constitutional amendment requiring tribal citizens to have an Indian ancestor listed on the federally recognized Dawes Roll. That ruling affirmed the citizenship status of approximately 2,800 Freedmen descendants, and requires the tribe to begin processing citizenship applications within 30 days. Tribal District Court Judge John Cripps overturned the amendment of 2007 on Jan. 14, citing the tribe’s Treaty of 1866, which states that Freedmen and their descendants “shall have all the rights of native Cherokees.” The Cherokee Nation has also filed an application for a delay in the implementation of the district court ruling until the appeal is finalized. The delay would r...

Wednesday, 16 February 2011 16:02 Tragedy and the Ghost Dance’s demise Written by George Ellison (Editor’s note: This is the second of a two-part series regarding the Cherokee Ghost Dance.) http://www.smokymountainnews.com/news/item/3275-tragedy-and-the-ghost-dance%E2%80%99s-demise A recent column focused on a so-called Ghost Dance movement that took place among the Cherokees in 1811-13. That, of course, was almost 80 years before the infamous era in the American West that culminated in the Indian massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. The western Indians initially believed the dance would unite them with friends and relatives in the ghost world. As the movement spread from tribe to tribe, however, the dancers began to imagine that the dance would make them invincible. The unity and fervor that the Ghost Dance movement inspired, however, only brought fear and hysteria to white settlers and contributed to the events ending in the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. When the smoke cleared and t...