Cherokee Nation Court Rules on Freedmen Case

TAHLEQUAH, Okla. - In a split ruling, the Cherokee Nation's highest court today reversed a prior decision regarding the citizenship of Freedmen. The court ruled unconstitutional the Cherokee Nation's law requiring citizens to trace their ancestry to a person with either Cherokee, Shawnee or Delaware blood. The ruling means that the Cherokee Nation's citizenship roll is now open to the descendants of Freedmen who were included in the Dawes Rolls of the Five Civilized Tribes.

"In holding that Freedmen descendants are entitled to be citizens of the Cherokee Nation, our supreme court, the JAT, today reversed its earlier decision in the Riggs case, in which it had reached the opposite decision," said Diane Hammons, General Counsel for the Cherokee Nation. "The decision today holds that the Cherokee Nation's registration statute is unconstitutional, because it limits registration to Cherokees by blood, and adopted Shawnees and Delawares. Although the 1975 Constitution makes no specific mention of Freedmen descendants, the Court ruled that they were included in the wording ‘by reference to the Dawes Commission Rolls,' and that if the 1975 framers intended to exclude the Freedmen descendants, they would have more explicitly stated.

"We had argued that the intent of the framers of the 1975 Constitution was to limit citizenship to Indians by blood, either Cherokees by blood or adopted Shawnees and Delawares," Hammons said. "We made that argument based upon our reliance of a prior JAT decision, a review of the historical documents surrounding the 1975 Constitution, and interviews with surviving framers."

The Cherokee Nation's registration office will fully implement the orders of the court. Descendants of Freedmen who can show proof of an ancestor on the Freedmen Roll of the Cherokee Nation are eligible to be citizens of the Cherokee Nation.

"We are a strong tripartite government that respects the rule of law," Hammons said. "Our Court has announced its decision, and we accept that as the law of the land."

The full ruling from the Cherokee Nation Judicial Appeals Tribunal can be found on the Cherokee Nation's Web site, www.cherokee.org.