Warren offers public apology over claim to tribal heritage, receives standing ovation

[pnwmom]

72. You weren't raised in Oklahoma. According to this article written in 2013,

way before this controversy, almost everyone this reporter talked to in Oklahoma thought s/he was of N.A. descent.

So she wasn't being disingenuous. She had just absorbed the beliefs of the people surrounding her, including her own family members.

Also, as recently as 2007, the Cherokee Nation changed its constitution to require a blood connection for tribal membership. This was done in connection with disenrolling the Freedmen, the descendants of black slaves held by the Cherokees. But the black Freedmen were on the Cherokee rolls as part of a treaty with the U.S., so the courts eventually ruled against the Cherokees, saying that the treaty required the to remain on the rolls.

So this may be one more reason Warren thought that her possible blood connection mattered. The Cherokee Nation had written it into their constitution 12 years ago, and then spent years defending that in court.

https://www.salon.com/2013/05/21/slave_descendants_seek_equal_rights_from_cherokee_nation_partner/?fbclid=IwAR2_yR1JvSQv501w-Izqeonba-AWvJ5wWOX46XZWav2mHUH06ocGIz_Av8Y

During the year I spent reporting this story, nearly everyone I met in Oklahoma claimed Indian heritage. To many, the notion that Indian blood pumps through them, irrespective of quantum or degree, is a birthright. It suggests a dual identity. And it insinuates indigenous roots — a deeper, more authentic tie to land and country that predates statehood and union. But unlike most, Payton possesses the documents to back his claims.

SNIP


From the Smithsonian:

https://americanindian.si.edu/exhibitions/indivisible/cherokee_freedmen.html

Early in the 1800s, some Cherokees acquired slaves, and in the 1830s, enslaved African Americans accompanied the Cherokees when the federal government forced them to move to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), where the tribe struggled to rebuild its culture and institutions. By 1861, there were 4,000 black slaves living among the Cherokees.

After the Civil War, the tribe signed a treaty that granted former slaves, or freedmen, “all the rights of Native Cherokees.” But in 2007, Cherokees amended their tribal constitution, making “Indian blood” a requirement for citizenship. As a result, some 2,800 descendants of Cherokee freedmen were excluded from membership.