{"id":16325,"date":"2011-09-16T18:29:08","date_gmt":"2011-09-16T18:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=16325"},"modified":"2015-01-19T20:31:58","modified_gmt":"2015-01-19T20:31:58","slug":"tribal-rights-vs-racial-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=16325","title":{"rendered":"Tribal Rights vs. Racial Justice: Was the Cherokee Nation’s expulsion of black Freedmen an act of tribal sovereignty or of racial discrimination?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tribal Rights vs. Racial Justice: Was the Cherokee Nation’s expulsion of black Freedmen an act of tribal sovereignty or of racial discrimination?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\nRoom for Debate<\/a>
\n2011-09-15<\/p>\n

Kevin Maillard<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Law
\nSyracuse University<\/em><\/p>\n

Matthew L. M. Fletcher<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Law
\nMichigan State University<\/em><\/p>\n

Cara Cowan-Watts<\/a><\/strong>, Acting Speaker
\nCherokee Nation Tribal Council<\/em><\/p>\n

Rose Cuison Villazor<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of Law
\nHofstra University<\/em><\/p>\n

Heather Williams<\/strong>, Cherokee citizen and Freedman Descendent
\nCherokee Nation Entertainment Cultural Tourism Department<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Carla D. Pratt<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Academic Affairs
\nPennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of Law<\/em><\/p>\n

Tiya Miles<\/a><\/strong>, Professor of History and Chair of the Department of Afro-American and African Studies
\nUniversity of Michigan<\/em><\/p>\n

Joanne Barker (Lenape)<\/a><\/strong>, Associate Professor of American Indian studies
\nSan Francisco State University<\/em><\/p>\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the Cherokee were relocated from the South to present-day Oklahoma<\/a> in the 1830s, their black slaves were moved with them. Though an 1866 treaty<\/a> gave the descendants of the slaves full rights as tribal citizens, regardless of ancestry, the Cherokee Nation<\/a> has tried to expel them because they lack “Indian blood.”<\/p>\n

The battle has been long fought. A recent ruling by the Cherokee Supreme Court<\/a> upheld the tribe’s right to oust 2,800 Freedmen<\/a>, as they are known, and cut off their health care, food stipends and other aid in the process.<\/p>\n

But federal officials told the tribe that they would not recognize the results of a tribal election later this month if the citizenship of the black members was not restored. Faced with a cutoff of federal aid, a tribal commission this week offered the Freedmen<\/a> provisional ballots, a half-step denounced by the black members.<\/p>\n

Is the effort to expel of people of African descent from Indian tribes an exercise of tribal sovereignty, as tribal leaders claim, or a reversion to Jim Crow<\/a>, as the Freedmen argue? Kevin Noble Maillard, a professor of law at Syracuse University and a member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma<\/a>, organized this discussion of the issue.<\/p>\n

Read the entire debate here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tribal Rights vs. Racial Justice: Was the Cherokee Nation’s expulsion of black Freedmen an act of tribal sovereignty or of racial discrimination? The New York Times Room for Debate 2011-09-15 Kevin Maillard, Associate Professor of Law Syracuse University Matthew L. M. Fletcher, Professor of Law Michigan State University Cara Cowan-Watts, Acting Speaker Cherokee Nation Tribal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,125,1467,8,3015,6940,20],"tags":[6364,6365,2094,7551,7550,4330,4329,1234,7555,7554,1777,7549,7552,3212,7553,2327,2969],"class_list":["post-16325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-identitydevelopment","category-law","category-media-archive","category-native-americans","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-carla-d-pratt","tag-carla-pratt","tag-cherokee-nation","tag-heather-williams","tag-joanne-barker","tag-kevin-maillard","tag-kevin-n-maillard","tag-kevin-noble-maillard","tag-matthew-fletcher","tag-matthew-l-m-fletcher","tag-oklahoma","tag-room-for-debate","tag-rose-c-villazor","tag-rose-cuison-villazor","tag-rose-villazor","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-tiya-miles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16325\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}