<\/p> \r\nOn September 2, 2017, as our tribe\u2019s Secretary of State, I stood on the stage at Cherokee Nation\u2019s annual State of the Nation address. A Cherokee pastor, a full-blood elder fluent in our language, led attendees in singing \u201cAmazing Grace.\u201d\r\n
<\/p>\r\nIt was a fitting hymn for the moment, written by a 18th century slave trader who found salvation and went on to become an abolitionist.\r\n
<\/p>\r\nA day earlier, the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court declared what a federal judge had ruled two days before \u2014 that the Treaty of 1866 gave Freedmen and their descendants \u201call the rights of native Cherokees.\u201d Both courts concluded that Cherokee Nation, a sovereign nation with the right to determine its own standards of citizenship, ceded that right by treaty as it relates to freed slaves of Cherokees and their descendants.\r\n
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\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t\u201cthe [@CherokeeNation Supreme] court has acknowledged, in the strongest terms, our ancestors\u2019 commitment to equality 155 years ago in the Treaty of 1866. My hope is that we all share in that same commitment going forward.\u201d #Equality https:\/\/t.co\/XGB1WXJ5DK<\/p>\n\t\t<\/a>\n\t<\/div>\n\t
<\/p>\r\nA product of the Reconstruction Era, the Treaty of 1866 between Cherokee Nation and the United States includes provisions on which Cherokee Nation relies today, such as our borders, our relationship with other tribes, and land use, to name a few. The Treaty of 1866 is our last treaty with the United States, and it also reaffirmed important portions of all previous treaties, including the 1835 Treaty of New Echota that provides for our delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. \r\n
<\/p>\r\nThe Treaty of 1866 remains alive and well, as a federal judge affirmed. Its relevance today impacts everyone within our treaty-based reservation, because our reservation was effectively reaffirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in last year\u2019s McGirt case. The Treaty of 1866 is a legally binding document that ties together every agreement Cherokee Nation has ever had with the United States. Breaking the Treaty of 1866 could be our undoing.\r\n
<\/p>\r\nThis bears repeating: In the Treaty of 1866, we agreed to free our slaves and give them \u201call\u201d the rights of native Cherokees. Not some rights. Not rights subject to a popular vote. Not rights with an expiration date. \u201cAll the rights.\u201d Any right Cherokee Nation had to enslave human beings, or deny them or their descendants full citizenship, was disposed of by treaty 155 years ago.\r\n
<\/p>\r\nU.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black once said, \u201cGreat nations, like great men, should keep their word.\u201d The United States has broken every treaty it ever had with the Cherokee Nation. Cherokee Nation is a great nation and, at our best, we keep our word.\r\n
<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\nFor much of the 155 years following the Treaty of 1866, Cherokee Nation and the Freedmen were denied their rights: Cherokee Nation at the hands of the United States and the Freedmen at the hands of the Cherokee Nation. For example, by an overwhelming margin in a 2007 constitutional referendum, Freedmen were denied any claim of citizenship in Cherokee Nation. Ultimately, after generations of effort, Cherokee Nation and the Freedmen successfully regained their rightful status under the law.\r\n <\/p>\r\nFor Cherokee citizens of Freedmen descent, the fight continues beyond their legal victories in 2017. February 1, the first day of Black History Month, saw history repeat itself with another legal assault on the rights of Freedmen. For the first time in our modern history a Cherokee Nation citizen of Freedmen descent filed to run for a seat on the Council of the Cherokee Nation, only to be met with a lawsuit alleging that Freedmen lack the right of native Cherokees to run for public office. While I make no endorsement in that particular council race, I condemn the legal challenge.\r\n <\/p>\r\nThe anti-Freedmen proponents of the legal challenge cling to a proposition that defies logic, is at odds with history<\/a> and breaks our sacred promise. They say Freedmen can only achieve the \u201call rights of native Cherokees\u201d by waging yet another political battle at the ballot box to remove anti-Freedmen language that supposedly remains in the Cherokee Nation Constitution. By their logic, Freedmen may have vindicated their treaty rights in the highest court of our nation and in federal court, but can only enjoy full citizenship by subjecting their hard-earned civil rights to another popular vote. \r\n <\/p>\r\nBy this logic, if the Freedmen should fail in this repeat political effort, they would then return to court, certainly win again, and then be again subjected to another round of pleading for their civil rights at the ballot box. The Treaty of 1866, which we must not break, imposes no such hurdle.\r\n <\/p>
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