Juneteenth might mark the day in 1865 when enslaved individuals in Galveston, Texas discovered they’d been freed, however hundreds of individuals in Oklahoma are nonetheless preventing for full citizenship within the tribal nations that after held their ancestors in bondage.
A number of tribes practiced slavery, and 5 in Oklahoma — The Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Muscogee nations — signed reconstruction treaties with the U.S. in 1866 abolishing it three years after President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. They granted the previously enslaved, recognized generally as Freedmen, citizenship inside their respective tribes.
Solely a type of tribes, the Cherokee Nation, continues to totally grant the rights of citizenship.
For descendants of individuals who had been enslaved by tribal nations, Juneteenth is each a celebration of freedom for individuals of African descent and a reminder of their battle to be totally embraced by the Indigenous communities with whom they share historical past and in lots of circumstances ancestry.
Muscogee Nation
Historically, Freedmen within the Muscogee Nation have a good time emancipation day on August 4, marking when the tribe’s council drew up a regulation to declare them free, mentioned Rhonda Grayson, the founder and director of the Oklahoma Indian Territory Museum of Black Creek Freedmen Historical past.
She traces her lineage to previously enslaved individuals listed on a 1906 U.S. census of Native Individuals who had been forcibly eliminated to Oklahoma. Often called the Dawes Rolls, the census created two lists – those that appeared Native and those that appeared Black. These with African ancestry had been placed on the Freedmen rolls, though many additionally had Native ancestry.
Final week, the Muscogee Nation Supreme Courtroom heard arguments in a case introduced by Grayson and Jeff Kennedy, who’re preventing for his or her citizenship rights and recognition inside the Muscogee Nation.
“Our ancestors had been Muscogee individuals of African descent,” mentioned Damario Solomon-Simmons, an legal professional representing Grayson and Kennedy whose ancestor was additionally a Freedmen within the tribe. “We had been remodeled into ‘Freedmen’ by the Dawes Fee.”
Their ancestors had been additionally compelled on the Path of Tears, and after the Civil Battle they had been granted citizenship and served within the tribe’s legislative our bodies, Kennedy mentioned.
“We imagine that the (Muscogee) Nation wouldn’t be what it’s at the moment with out the bloodshed and tears of these African individuals,” he mentioned.
However, in 1979, the tribe adopted a brand new structure proscribing citizenship to Muscogee individuals “by-blood.” Grayson and Kennedy’s lawsuit countered that citizenship requirement is a violation of the 1866 treaty, and in 2023 a Muscogee Nation district court docket agreed. The Muscogee Nation’s citizenship board appealed and is asking the Supreme Courtroom to overturn that call.
“That provision has guided our Nation for many years and displays the desire of the individuals via a democratic course of,” Jason Salsman, a spokesperson for the Muscogee Nation mentioned in a press release. “We imagine that any change to our citizenship legal guidelines should come from our personal residents—not from outdoors interpretations.”
The court docket’s ruling is anticipated later this yr, and it may open the door for hundreds of latest members to the tribe.
For Grayson, the authorized battle is about greater than their birthright to citizenship she mentioned, it’s additionally about setting straight the historic file.
“We weren’t simply slaves,” Grayson mentioned. “Our individuals must know that. Our younger individuals must know that.”
Seminole Nation
In 2021, following strain from Congress and the administration of President Joe Biden, the Indian Well being Companies started permitting Freedmen residents within the Seminole Nation to entry healthcare at IHS amenities after a number of reported that they’d been denied COVID-19 vaccinations.
Whereas the descendants of previously enslaved Seminole Nation tribal members had beforehand been granted citizenship, in 2000 the tribe voted to limit citizenship to those that had one-eighth Seminole ancestry in response to the Dawes Rolls, thereby disenrolling greater than 1,000 residents of African ancestry.
In 2002, a U.S. district court docket ordered the tribe to reinstate their membership, nonetheless, at the moment the descendants of these on the Seminole Nation’s Freedmen rolls are solely allowed to vote and sit on tribal council and are thereby not full residents.
“They’re utilizing one thing that america used to separate us, and now they’re utilizing it to maintain us in a really dangerous place by placing quite a lot of our individuals at a drawback,” mentioned LeEtta Osborne-Sampson, a Freedmen member of the Seminole Nation and considered one of 4 who sit on its tribal council. She mentioned members like her are usually not given entry to others providers offered by the tribal nation, comparable to training and housing help. There are about 2,500 Freedmen residents of the tribe at the moment, she mentioned.
Seminole Nation Chief Lewis Johnson didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Choctaw Nation
Beginning in 1885, the Choctaw Nation had given citizenship to Freedmen descendants, however in 1983 the tribal nation adopted a structure that restricted membership to these with Choctaw ancestors “by blood” in response to the Dawes Rolls.
In 2021, the Home Monetary Companies Committee threatened to withhold tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in housing funds from the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee, and Seminole nations if they didn’t honor their 1866 treaty obligations and totally acknowledge the descendants of Freedmen as residents. In response, Chief Gary Batton issued an open letter promising to confront the problem.
“The story of Choctaw Freedmen deserves our consideration and considerate consideration inside the framework of tribal self-governance,” Batton wrote. “At the moment our tribal membership is predicated on the Dawes Rolls — a toxic legacy from 125 years in the past that took root and precipitated a myriad of membership points for tribal nations, together with Freedmen.”
Batton, who stays in workplace, referred to as for an open dialogue between Choctaw Freedmen, tribal residents, elected officers, and the federal authorities. However since then, Freedmen descendants say that dialogue hasn’t taken place.
“It grew to become apparent, sadly, that it was an empty gesture,” mentioned creator and genealogist Angela Walton-Raji. Like many Freedmen descendants, Walton-Raji mentioned her ancestors had been each Black and Choctaw however had been compelled to enroll on the Dawes Rolls as a Freedmen solely. “It’s very clear that there was an anti-Black sentiment then, as there may be now,” she mentioned.
Randy Sachs, a spokesperson for the Choctaw Nation, mentioned in a press release to The Related Press that the tribe arrange an inside committee and requested tribal members for touch upon the problem, however over that two yr interval they solely acquired about 20 calls – greater than half of which had been from a single household. “Figuring out our membership is a vital a part of defending our sovereignty, and we’ll proceed to hearken to quite a lot of voices,” he mentioned.
There has by no means been a authorized problem to the tribe’s 1983 structure, and Walton-Raji mentioned many Freedmen descendants both don’t know that a part of their historical past, as a result of it’s not taught in colleges or totally acknowledged by the tribe, or shouldn’t have the funds to mount a court docket case that would final a long time.
Chickasaw Nation
The Chickasaw Nation collectively signed its 1866 reconstruction treaty with the Choctaw Nation. Nevertheless, in contrast to the Choctaw, the Chickasaw Nation by no means acknowledged the individuals it held in slavery as residents of the tribe.
“They broke the treaty, they by no means gave citizenship to their Freedmen. So up till statehood, Chickasaw Freedmen had no nation, they had been by no means residents of any nation,,” mentioned Walton-Raji, who can be a co-founder of the Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Affiliation. Oklahoma grew to become a state in 1907.
The Chickasaw Nation didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Since they had been by no means granted citizenship, their descendants are on the biggest drawback relating to any authorized declare to citizenship within the Chickasaw Nation, Walton-Raji mentioned.
In 2021, following the Cherokee Nation’s modification to its structure that granted full citizenship to Freedmen descendants, Dept. of the Inside Secretary Deb Haaland inspired different tribes “to take comparable steps to fulfill their ethical and authorized obligations to the Freedmen.”
Chickasaw Nation Gov. Invoice Anoatubby responded by saying that the tribe’s citizenship is a matter of tribal sovereignty. ____
This story has been up to date to appropriate the yr during which a U.S. Home of Representatives committee threatened to withhold federal funds from tribal nations if they didn’t honor their treaty obligations to the Freedmen. It was 2021, not 2001.