Cedric Sunray: Cherokee Nation joins the disenrollment club

Monday, October 17, 2011  

"A few weeks ago, I read the following paragraph in an NPR article about the Cherokee Freedmen:

“This is not a club; you can’t just claim to be Cherokee and show up and be included,” says Cara Cowan Watts, a vocal member of the Cherokees’ tribal council.

The Cherokee Nation is the largest of three federally recognized Cherokee tribes. It boasts more than 300,000 members, and like many Indian nations, it fiercely defends its right to self-governance.

“This is absolutely something that we have to defend. And the Cherokee people overwhelmingly voted in the Constitution that we want to remain an Indian tribe made up of Indians,” Watts says.

An Indian tribe made up of Indians? Given Cowan-Watts’ heritage, I found her recent remarks to be alternately funny, absurd and revisionist."

Get the Story:
Cedric Sunray: Disenrollment Clubs (Indian Country Today 10/14)