Hey, we want our slaves back!

[SlyPokerDog]

OKLAHOMA CITY — The nation's second-largest Indian tribe said on Tuesday that it would not be dictated to by the U.S. government over its move to banish 2,800 African Americans from its citizenship rolls.

"The Cherokee Nation will not be governed by the BIA," Joe Crittenden, the tribe's acting principal chief, said in a statement responding to the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Crittenden, who leads the tribe until a new principal chief is elected, went on to complain about unnamed congressmen meddling in the tribe's self-governance.
The reaction follows a letter the tribe received on Monday from BIA Assistant Secretary Larry Echo Hawk, who warned that the results of the September 24 Cherokee election for principal chief will not be recognized by the U.S. government if the ousted members, known to some as "Cherokee Freedmen," are not allowed to vote.

The dispute stems from the fact that some wealthy Cherokee owned black slaves who worked on their plantations in the South. By the 1830s, most of the tribe was forced to relocate to present-day Oklahoma, and many took their slaves with them. The so-called Freedmen are descendants of those slaves.

After the Civil War, in which the Cherokee fought for the South, a treaty was signed in 1866 guaranteeing tribal citizenship for the freed slaves.

The U.S. government said that the 1866 treaty between the Cherokee tribe and the U.S. government guaranteed that the slaves were tribal citizens, whether or not they had a Cherokee blood relation.

The African Americans lost their citizenship last month when the Cherokee Supreme Court voted to support the right of tribal members to change the tribe's constitution on citizenship matters.

The change meant that Cherokee Freedmen who could not prove they have a Cherokee blood relation were no longer citizens, making them ineligible to vote in tribal elections or receive benefits.

Besides pressure from the BIA to accept the 1866 Treaty as the law of the land, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is withholding a $33 million disbursement to the tribe over the Freedmen controversy.

Attorneys in a federal lawsuit in Washington are asking a judge to restore voting rights for the ousted Cherokee Freedmen in time for the September 24 tribal election for Principal Chief.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44516027/ns/us_news-life/#.TnE7INQjr7p

 

[barfo]

Interesting, thanks for posting that. Had no idea the Cherokees had slaves.

barfo

 

[ABM]

Interesting, thanks for posting that. Had no idea the Cherokees had slaves.

barfo

I'm anticipating the Braves vs. Slaves matchup in HD!

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

I see no wrong in this; the Cherokee Nation is a sovereign entity and can govern themselves the way they want to.

 

[ABM]

I see no wrong in this; the Cherokee Nation is a sovereign entity and can govern themselves the way they want to.

I just hope they don't get Siouxed.

 

[BLAZER PROPHET]

 

[MARIS61]

I see no wrong in this; the Cherokee Nation is a sovereign entity and can govern themselves the way they want to.

They are a sovereign entity only in that they signed a treaty with the US gifting them that standing.

If they now refuse to stand by their word in another treaty then all treaties signed by them are essentially worthless and void.

They could easily find themselves deported and exiled without a country at all.

The term Indian Givers didn't just invent itself. They earned it.

 

[MARIS61]

Interesting, thanks for posting that. Had no idea the Cherokees had slaves.

barfo

http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/SLAVE_RV.HTM

Indians also enslaved their own long before Europeans landed in America. Later they sold their Indian slaves to the Europeans on a large scale, decimating the tribes of SE America.

Traditions of Native American slavery

Many Native American tribes did practice some form of slavery before the European introduction of African slavery into North America; but none exploited slave labor on a large scale.[1]

Native American groups frequently enslaved war captives whom they primarily used for small-scale labor.[1] Some, however, were used in ritual sacrifice.[1] Although not much is known about them, there is little evidence that these slaves were considered racially inferior to the Native Americans who held power over them.[1] Nor did Native Americans buy and sell captives in the pre-colonial era, although they sometimes exchanged enslaved individuals with other tribes in peace gestures or in exchange for their own members.[1] In fact, the word "slave" may not even accurately apply to these captive people.[1] Most of these so-called Native American slaves tended to live on the fringes of Native American society and were slowly integrated into the tribe.[1]

Until European settlers arrived, these slaves were other tribesmen.[1] The situation of these enslaved Native Americans varied among the tribes. In many cases, enslaved captives were adopted into the new tribes to replace warriors killed during a raid.[1] Enslaved warriors sometimes endured mutilation or torture that could end in death as part of a grief ritual for relatives slain in battle.[1] Some Native Americans would cut off one foot of their captives to keep them from running away. Others allowed enslaved captives to marry the widows of slain husbands.[1] The Creek, who engaged in this practice, treated children born of slaves and tribal members as full members of the tribe rather than as enslaved offspring.[1] Several tribes held captives as hostages for payment.[1] Various tribes also practiced debt slavery or imposed slavery on tribal members who had committed crimes; full tribal status would be restored as the enslaved worked off their obligations to the tribal society.[1] Other such slave-owning tribes of North America included Comanche of Texas, Creek of Georgia, the fishing societies, such as the Yurok, that lived along the coast from what is now Alaska to California, the Pawnee, and Klamath.[2]

When the Europeans “discovered” the Native Americans they began to participate in the slave trade.[3] Native Americans, in their initial encounters with the Europeans, attempted to use their captives from other tribes as a “method of playing one tribe against another” in an unsuccessful game of divide and conquer.[3]

The Haida and Tlingit who lived along southeast Alaska's coast were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California.[4][5] In their society, slavery was hereditary after slaves were taken as prisoners of war.[4][5] Among some Pacific Northwest tribes, as many as one-fourth of the population were slaves.

Once Europeans arrived as colonialists in North America, the nature of Native American slavery changed abruptly and dramatically.[1] Native Americans found that British settlers, especially those in the southern colonies, eagerly purchased or captured Native Americans to be used as forced labor in cultivating tobacco, rice, and indigo.[1] Increasingly, Native Americans began selling war captives to whites rather than integrating them into their own societies.[1] As the demand for labor in the West Indies became insatiable, whites began to actively enslave Native Americans for export to the "sugar islands" and Northern colonies.[1] The resulting Native American slave trade devastated the southeastern Native American populations and transformed Native American tribal relations throughout the entire region.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_among_Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

 

[Natebishop3]

They are a sovereign entity only in that they signed a treaty with the US gifting them that standing.

If they now refuse to stand by their word in another treaty then all treaties signed by them are essentially worthless and void.

They could easily find themselves deported and exiled without a country at all.

The term Indian Givers didn't just invent itself. They earned it.

Ummmmmm I think you misunderstood the origin of the name "Indian giver".

 

[santeesioux]

They are a sovereign entity only in that they signed a treaty with the US gifting them that standing.

If they now refuse to stand by their word in another treaty then all treaties signed by them are essentially worthless and void.

They could easily find themselves deported and exiled without a country at all.

The term Indian Givers didn't just invent itself. They earned it.

Racist.

 

[MARIS61]

Ummmmmm I think you misunderstood the origin of the name "Indian giver".

Definition of INDIAN GIVER

sometimes offensive

: a person who gives something to another and then takes it back or expects an equivalent in return.

 

[MARIS61]

Racist.

I assume you're referring to the Cherokee?

 

[santeesioux]

You sir, are a racist!!1!

 

[MARIS61]

You sir, are a racist!!1!

Do you have anything of value to contribute, or just empty insults?

FWIW, we're discussing the history of Cherokee keeping and selling slaves, both African and Indian, and how they recently took a vote to go back on a promise they made.

 

[santeesioux]

I'm just messing with you buddy, the only Indians worse than the Cherokees are the Klamaths.

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

Again, I stand by what I said; The Cherokee Nation are simply asking that you descend from someone off of the Dawes Rolls for enrollment regardless of blood quantum (whereas most tribes ask that you be at least 1/4 Native American). Something every other tribe in the country requires.

 

[MARIS61]

Again, I stand by what I said; The Cherokee Nation are simply asking that you descend from someone off of the Dawes Rolls for enrollment regardless of blood quantum (whereas most tribes ask that you be at least 1/4 Native American). Something every other tribe in the country requires.

Every other tribe in the country didn't give their word that they wouldn't.

A man is only as good as his word.

 

[Fez Hammersticks]

That quote is hilarious when you consider the many treaties broken/disregarded when gold/minerals/etc. were discovered.

The Freedmans are being ask to follow requirements set by the Federal Government and the BIA just like every tribally enrolled Native American has to. I see nothing wrong in this. At all.

 

[MARIS61]

That quote is hilarious when you consider the many treaties broken/disregarded when gold/minerals/etc. were discovered.

I see. Someone else lied to me so it's perfectly moral for me to now lie to you.

Great rationalization.

A liar is a liar. A cheat is a cheat. There are plenty of reasons, but no excuses.

 

[julius]

Do you have anything of value to contribute, or just empty insults?

FWIW, we're discussing the history of Cherokee keeping and selling slaves, both African and Indian, and how they recently took a vote to go back on a promise they made.

Well, it's only fair that they get to go back on promises they made, considering the united states government mastered that with them

 

[huevonkiller]

Interesting, thanks for posting that. Had no idea the Cherokees had slaves.

barfo

Uh dude, almost all major civilizations had slaves....

That's why it is important to go to history class.