By STU WOO
The UNITY News

Kenneth Cooper felt he and his fellow Freedmen were left out.

Last March, the Cherokee Nation voted to define requirements for citizenship. Now, only ancestors of Native Americans registered under the Dawes Commission — a century-old federal government census of Native Americans — can become citizens.

But Cooper felt that was a racially tinged snub to the Freedmen, ancestors of the tribe’s former African slaves. So when Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chad Smith said Friday at a UNITY forum that race didn’t matter under the new requirements, Cooper stepped up to the microphone during the question-and-answer session.

“The first thing that you said … made me really angry,” said Cooper, who identifies as a Cherokee Freedman. The two then exchanged testy comments for the next five minutes.

In March 2007, 77 percent of Cherokee Nation citizens voted to approve a constitutional amendment allowing only those who have a Cherokee, Delaware or Shawnee ancestor listed on the Dawes Commission rolls. The commission took a census of Native Americans, taken from 1898 to 1907, to divest the Nation of its lands and allot them to individual citizens. The 2007 amendment overturned a 2006 Tribal Court ruling allowing non-Indian descendants of Freedmen and intermarried whites to become citizens.

Cooper said he found the amendment unjust, especially given that some of the tribe’s wealth came from slave work. He found the new restrictions unfair to Freedmen who had Cherokee blood because “there was no effort by the Dawes Commission (the federal census project) to find out if the Freedman had blood.”

Smith said that there were some Freedmen with Cherokee blood who were registered by the Dawes Commission, but Cooper said those were by far in the minority.

“The federal government provided due process,” Smith responded. “We cannot go back and second-guess that process. I cannot – perhaps you can.”

Friday’s forum, titled “Who is an Indian? Your Guide to Covering Native Americans,” was presented by the Native American Journalists Association.

Afterward, Cooper and Smith chatted outside the meeting room. The two had never met, though Smith was familiar with Cooper’s Louisiana Weekly column about the constitutional amendment last year. The meeting was amiable, both said, and Smith invited Cooper to discuss the topic with him in Cherokee Nation.

Both Cooper and Smith said they were glad to meet each other. Cooper said he would accept the offer to meet in Oklahoma as soon as his schedule allows.

Afterward, Cooper seemed to regret the surly nature of their question-and-answer session exchange, especially if he came off as an “angry black man,” Cooper said, smiling.

By CHARLY EDSITTY
The UNITY News Online

Conversation got heated Friday afternoon when the floor was opened to audience members at the Native American Journalist Association’s “Who is an Indian?” panel.

For nearly two hours, panelists fielded questions, giving insight into the complexities of American Indian culture.

Debate over American Indian citizenship dominated the conversation. The Cherokee Freedmen controversy that called into question the tribal citizenships of 2,867 people drew the most debate.

“There are different concepts of history at play here,” said Kenneth J. Cooper, a Pulitzer Prize-winning independent journalist from Boston. “The Cherokees don’t know their own history.”

Cooper directed his comments toward panelist and current Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, Chad Smith in a debate that lasted several minutes. Cooper argued that race was a major issue in deciding the Freedmen dispute and that a certain group of people who shared mixed Cherokee heritage were wrongly denied tribal membership because they were black.

Ancestors on Cooper’s mother’s side are descendents from slaves who were owned by Cherokees in northeastern Oklahoma. He said he is of Cherokee blood and joins other people whose Cherokee citizenship has been called into question, revoked and then reinstated through a mess of treaties, court cases and tribal elections.

“The first columns said we kicked all blacks out of the Cherokee Nation,” Smith said of media coverage surrounding the controversy. “That’s absolutely false.”

“If you look at the records, tribal membership is not based upon color or appearance,” Smith said. “You just have to have one Cherokee ancestor and it doesn’t matter what you look like or what your other ethnicities are.”

Because a solution has yet to be found, Congress is considering cutting funding to the Cherokee Nation through legislation called HR 2824. Smith played a nine-minute video explaining that the funding cut would negatively affect the oldest, poorest and neediest Cherokees in the nation.

Other panelists included Suzanne Jasper, director of First Peoples Human Rights Coalition; Joe Garcia, president of the National Congress of American Indians; T.W. Shannon, Oklahoma state representative and moderator Karen Briggs, president of Red Hummingbird Media Corporation.

“The issue of who is an Indian must be viewed through the prism of tribal government,” said Shannon, a member of the Chickasaw Nation.

He said issues of citizenship handled by the federal government have been “catastrophic” and said he thinks it’s best if it is left up to the Cherokees to determine citizenship.

“Congress should be very careful trying to determine citizenship for someone else when they have their own issues trying to deal with American citizenship,” Shannon said.

Garcia objected to federal interference with tribal citizenship and regulations on dual tribal enrollment, which limits citizenship to only two tribes, even if someone is a member of more than two by blood.

“Who set that policy?” Garica asked in reference to the federal government. “That’s what gets to me. It takes the right away from my grandchildren to be members of tribes to which they belong.”

Garcia’s granddaughter is a member of several tribes by blood, but does not have citizenship to all of them.

Defining citizenship has proven to be a very emotional issue for American Indians. Smith explained that the fundamental definition of an Indian is a citizen of a tribal nation, but said there are other definitions.

Smith offered up his own definition that didn’t include papers or documentation, but a strong emphasis on community and relationships.

“Are you a member of an Indian community? That’s a relationship,” Smith said. “It doesn’t matter what you look like or where you come from, but if you are accepted by an Indian community, I think you are.”