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The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy is an ongoing political and tribal dispute between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen regarding tribal citizenship. During the American Civil War, the Cherokee who supported the Union abolished the practice of African slavery by act of the Cherokee National Council in 1863. The Cherokee Freedmen became citizens of the Cherokee Nation in accordance with a treaty made with the United States government a year after the Civil War ended. In the early 1980s, the Cherokee Nation administration amended citizenship rules to require direct descent from an ancestor listed as "Cherokee by Blood" on the Dawes Rolls. The change stripped descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen of citizenship and voting rights unless they satisfied this new criterion. About 25,000 Freedmen were excluded from the tribe. On March 7, 2006, the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled that the descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen were unconstitutionally kept from enrolling as citizens and were allowed to enroll in the Cherokee Nation. Chad "Corntassel" Smith, then-Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, called for an emergency election to amend the constitution in response to the ruling. After a petition was circulated, a special election held on March 3, 2007 resulted in a constitutional amendment that disenrolled the Cherokee Freedmen descendants. This led to several legal proceedings in United States and Cherokee Nation courts in which the Freedmen descendants continued to press for their treaty rights and recognition as Cherokee Nation members.〔Daffron (2007)〕 The 2007 constitutional amendment was voided in Cherokee Nation district court on January 14, 2011, but was overturned by a 4-1 ruling in Cherokee Nation Supreme Court on August 22, 2011, before the special run-off election for Principal Chief. The ruling excluded the Cherokee Freedmen descendants from voting in the special election. After the freezing of $33 million in funds by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in response to the ruling, an agreement in federal court between the Cherokee Nation, the Freedmen descendants and the US government allowed the Freedmen to vote in the special election. Bill John Baker was elected Principal Chief in the special election and inaugurated in October 2011. The Cherokee Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of the election results by former chief Chad Smith. Both sides filed complaints in federal court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by July 2012; the Cherokee say the 1866 treaty does not require them to give full citizenship to the Freedmen, who continue to seek full rights. The first hearing on the merits of the case was held in May, 2014 in the U.S. District in Washington, D.C. ==The Cherokee Freedmen== Freedmen is one of the terms given to emancipated slaves and their descendants after slavery was abolished in the United States following the American Civil War. In this context, "Cherokee Freedmen" refers to the African-American men and women who were formerly slaves of the Cherokee before and after removal to Indian Territory. It includes the descendants of the former slaves, as well as those born in unions between formerly enslaved or enslaved African Americans and Cherokee tribal members. After their emancipation and subsequent citizenship, the Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants had to struggle to be accepted as a legitimate part of the Cherokee Nation.〔McLoughlin, William G. ''After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokee’s Struggle for Sovereignty 1839–1880''〕 Some Freedmen have been active in the tribe, voted in elections, ran businesses, attended Cherokee stomp dances, knew Cherokee traditions and folklore, knew the Cherokee language, and served on the tribal council, with several holding district seats. Joseph Brown was elected as the first Cherokee Freedman councilman in 1875, followed by Frank Vann in 1887, and Jerry Alberty in 1889. Joseph "Stick" Ross was elected to the council in 1893. Born into slavery and owned by Principal Chief John Ross before his family's emancipation, Stick Ross became a civic leader. Several companies and landmarks were named after him, including Stick Ross Mountain in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. Leslie Ross, Stick's great-grandson, says, "He knew sign language and spoke Cherokee and Seminole. He was a trapper and a farmer and a rancher. And he was sheriff at one time, too. He was pretty renowned in Tahlequah." The civic position for Freedmen increased by the time of the Dawes Commission in 1906, which broke up tribal land into allotments and created the Dawes Rolls to list Cherokee citizens. With the extinction of tribal government by the Curtis Act of 1898, the Freedmen as well as other Cherokee citizens were counted as US citizens. After the Cherokee Nation reorganized and re-established its government via passage of the Principal Chiefs Act, the Freedmen participated in the 1971 tribal elections held for the office of principal chief, the first election held since the passage of the Curtis Act and before Oklahoma statehood in 1907.〔Ray (2007) p. 411〕 Several Cherokee Freedmen descendants have continued to embrace this historical connection. Others, after having been excluded from the tribe for two decades in the twentieth century and given the continuing citizenship struggle, have become ambivalent about their ties and no longer consider identifying as Cherokee as necessary to their personal identity.〔Sturm (1998) p251〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Cherokee freedmen controversy」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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