Rascism on the reservation


It's hard to conclude that anything but racism is behind this. The Cherokee Nation is about to hold a vote to amend its constitution to exclude from the tribe any person whose ancestors were not registered as a Cherokee on the Dawes Rolls, compiled by the U.S. government in 1906. At that time the Cherokees were in Oklahoma. Lots of Cherokees had white blood and lots of Cherokees had black blood. Here's what happened:

When the Dawes Rolls were created, those with any African blood were put on the Freedmen roll, even if they were half Cherokee. Those with mixed-white and Cherokee ancestry, even if they were seven-eighths white and one-eighth Cherokee, were put on the Cherokee by blood roll. More than 75 percent of those enrolled in the Cherokee Nation have less than one-quarter Cherokee blood, the vast majority of them of European ancestry.

Marilyn Vann said she could not believe that one election could determine whether she was allowed to claim Cherokee blood.

“There are Freedmen who can prove they have a full-blooded Cherokee grandfather who won’t be members,” said Ms. Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. “And there are blond people who are 1/1000th Cherokee who are members.”

Mike Miller, the Cherokee Nation spokesman, agreed.

“We are aware that there are those who can prove Indian blood who are not Cherokee citizens, because they are not on the Dawes ‘by blood’ Rolls,” Mr. Miller said. “But I don’t know of a single tribe that determines citizenship through a bunch of sources.”

Talk about sophistry. The question, of course, is why those not tainted with that single drop of black blood have chosen the Dawes Rolls as the single source for proving membership, when even they admit that source is inaccurate. Since the only thing that distinguishes the folks on that roll from those on the Freedman rolls is the presence of any black "blood", the conclusion is inescapable that this movement is motivated by racism.

It is somewhat ironic that the rolls contain another racist assumption. Besides consigning anyone with a drop of black blood to the "black" category, they consigned anyone with a drop of Indian (but no black) blood to the "Indian" category. That may have turned out to be a benefit for tribal members today, but one wonders if it was an unmixed blessing then.

Posted: Sunday - March 04, 2007 at 08:09 PM          

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