Black Caucus takes aim at Cherokee funds

TULSA, Okla. (AP) _ Some federal lawmakers are urging the U.S. Senate to include a clause in a Native American housing assistance bill denying benefits to the Cherokee Nation unless it recognizes descendants of the tribe's former black slaves, known as freedmen.

But a spokesman for the Tahlequah-based tribe says some lawmakers are ``coercing Cherokees'' to give rights to non-Indians that Congress took away more than 100 years ago.

The letter, sent last month to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, says the group will ``actively oppose'' passage of the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Reauthorization Act of 2007 unless the bill contains the limitation.

``We must send the unequivocal message to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma that failure to provide full citizenship rights to the Cherokee freedmen will have severe consequences,'' the letter states. It was signed by nearly three-dozen members of the caucus.

In September, the House passed the bill, H.R. 2786, with a 333-75 vote.

``The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's push to disenfranchise Cherokee freedmen represents a fundamental injustice that must not go unchecked,'' said U.S. Rep. Diane Watson, a California Democrat who claims Indian blood and ties to Oklahoma. ``The letter we sent ... indicates how resolute we are about this injustice.''

At stake is $300 million in federal money that would go to the Cherokee Nation, the country's second-largest Indian tribe. The money pays for health clinics, Head Start programs, elderly care and housing assistance.
If funding were cut off, tribal leaders say more than 6,000 nation employees could lose their jobs, touching off a ripple effect that would economically devastate northeastern Oklahoma.

``I want to continue to stress the point that if the tribe does not want to honor its treaty obligations, they can forgo the money,'' said Marilyn Vann, president of the Oklahoma

City-based Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes. ``It's a choice of the Cherokee Nation folks whether they want to spend millions of dollars trying to get around treaty obligations.''

Mike Miller, a spokesman for the tribe, said the record clearly shows that more than 100 years ago, Congress took away the rights of any descendants of freedmen born after 1902.

``Congress changed the treaty itself, and the Cherokee Nation has had to live with that change, and dozens of others, for more than a century,'' Miller said. ``Now, more than 100 years later, some members of Congress want to turn back the clock on one specific part of the treaty, a part they had already changed, and change it back.

``Some members of Congress are telling us that if we follow the laws Congress has passed and if we abide by the treaty, then they will cut our funding,'' he said.

For decades, descendants of freed Cherokee slaves fought to reclaim their citizenship, even though they were adopted into the tribe in 1866 under a treaty with the U.S. government.

A ruling in 2006 by the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court held that the Cherokee constitution assured freedmen descendants of tribal citizenship.

That led to a petition drive for a ballot measure to determine who is a citizen of the nation, which claims 270,000 members.

Last year, nearly 77 percent of Cherokee voters decided in a special election to amend the nation's constitution to remove about 2,800 freedmen descendants and other non-Indians from tribal rolls.

Critics of the vote said then it was hardly a mandate because only a fraction of the nation's tribal citizens _ about 9,000 cast ballots.