Indians Speak With Forked Tongues: Evicting Blacks from the Tribe
The Cherokee nation is going to evict all black folk from their official registries because they aren’t Indians. But this is a violation of a treaty with the United States because slaves owned by Indians after the Civil War were taken to live on Cherokee lands.
From Reuters here:
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 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.
This is about elections and benefits, and the blacks are on the losing end of this. I don’t really have an opinion on this- just noting it for the lulz. I’m just shocked that there are still Indians out there. Thanks to the NCAA and whining ninnies who think that anyone wearing feathers and a leather jacket may offend Indians, the next generation of Americans will likely not envision Indians as a brave, hearty race of people. They will only be seen for what they are today- a sad race of poor casino owners, who evict blacks from their land. Sound harsh? Then you must not have been to the Native American Museum in Washington DC.
UPDATE: Rush Limbaughs suggests that it would be hilarious if Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton marched on the Cherokee. I agree.
Slavery existed in American Indian societies. People are the same everywhere-Whites, Blacks, American Indians, etc. What I’ve found with Native Americans or American Indians is that many times when they talk of ‘stolen land’ what they imply is ‘you did what I wanted to do.’
Yes, -Wars were used to get land from American Indians or Native Americans. Most Whites are not the original inhabitants except for Solutreans who came during the Ice Age & the # of Solutreans or Solutrians is not much.
It’s true that wars were used to get land from American Indians, the problem is
that there is selective critique. To American Indian Movement, using wars to get
land is fine when American Indians won but when American Indians lost their land in wars, then the complaints about ‘stolen land’. Truth about American Indians and Europeans is that there was greed on both sides. When American Indians or Native Americans wanted land, they waged wars against other Native Americans to get their land. But when American Indians lost their land in wars, then the complaints about ‘stolen land’, though much of the land they had they used wars to win this from other tribes.
Eg. let’s say I have a house and you take my house by force. Later, some1 more powerful takes that house you took from me by force & then you complain about how your house was stolen. Native American history the same in that Tribe A has their land, Tribe B takes the land from Tribe A by war. After this happened, Europeans takes land from Tribe B by war and Tribe B complains about stolen land. To American Indian Movement, might is right when Native Americans won their lands by wars but might is wrong when Native Americans lost their lands by wars. Might is right as long as you win, but might is wrong when you lose and this is arrogant and hypocritical. That is proud winner/sore loser arrogance of A.I.M.Yet American Indians groups such as A.I.M. only condemn when the Whites did it but think it’s fine when American Indians did it and I can’t accept that view.
That is the problem with Native American history-its ideological when historians omits violent lives Native Americans lived. Honestly, American Indian tribes would have done the same thing if given the chance as when American Indians wanted land, they took it from other Native Americans by wars.
If historians say that wars were used to get land from Native Americans and that Whites did things for their own interests, then yes that is what happened. But for historians to make Native Americans to be Noble Savages who lived in peace is dishonest esp. when they omit the violent lives Native Americans lived. Historians also dishonest when they say the Tainos were peaceful. Both the Caribs and Tainos fought eachother for land, Caribs & to a lesser extent the Tainos both practiced cannibalism. Also both the Tainos and Caribs sometimes kidnapped women and girls to take as wives. Both the Tainos and Caribs lived violent lives so it wasn’t Eden’s Garden.
Native American societies were not democracies & colonialism, culture/language imposed on Native Americans by Europeans were not democracies. I don’t believe Europeans should impose culture on Native Americans and I also don’t believe Native Americans or American Indians should impose their culture on others. I don’t think anybody should impose their beliefs on others unless it’s forbidding mayhem, murder or other harmful conduct.
I would not have wanted to live during time of el sistema de las castas & I also would not have wanted to live during time of human sacrifices. I also would not want to live in the difficult lives the Native Americans lived where you fear your 9 year old daughter could be abducted by a neighboring tribe to be taken as a chief’s wife. I am peaceful & wouldn’t want to live in war times which happened between Whites and American Indians.
I oppose the Aztec & Inca human sacrifices and I oppose violence. I also oppose Europeans imposing culture & religion on Native Americans and I oppose el sistema de las castas which existed in Iberoamerica. I believe again in democracy and all must be treated fairly which means no colonialism, no discrimination .
What matters what’s happening today. If an American Indian is discriminated against when it comes to jobs, then that is wrong and must be solved by legal system. If an American Indian commits a crime or is a crime victim, then there must be = justice based on facts and circumstances. I support democracy and = rights for all ethnic groups. American Indians or Native Americans must be treated fairly as all other groups. If an American Indian has talent to become an engineer, physicist, then they should get the job. If an American Indian commits a crime or is a crime victim, then there must be = justice based on facts and circumstances. I listen to broadcasts by an American Indian Christian woman Linda P. Harvey (part Cherokee) because what she says is right (I’m not Christian but I like what she says) and she has critiqued the political safeness on the part of American Indian groups. But complaining about what happened in the 1800s and blaming what happened in past for todays problems is dumb. I also believe that there must be honesty in discussing Native American history. Slavery’s wrong but I’m not going to complain about something which was abolished long ago.
As you know A LOT OF FREEDMEN WHERE MIXED WITH THERE OPPRESSOR. Indians just like WHITE SLAVE OWNERS DIS THE EXACTLY THE SAME. These are descendants of Native Americans who just want the rights that where promised to them with the 1866 treaty. My great aunt who is on the Freedmen Dawes roll passed on songs sung and language in Choctaw given to her my my great great grandparents