Big news. Descendants of enslaved people once owned by members of the Cherokee Tribe have had their citizenship rights restored by a federal judge. The Freedmen are again lawful and equal citizens of a sovereign nation.
In 1866, as part of a treaty with the U.S., the Cherokee Nation agreed to give its former slaves citizenship. You will recall that a war had just ended. A war where one side fought to preserve its right to enrich themselves from the labor of humans they bought and sold. That side lost.
Yet in 2007 Cherokee citizens voted to remove membership privileges from the Freedmen--its name for those who descended from enslaved Cherokees.
This from a tribe that itself has had numerous treaties broken by our U.S. government for 200+ years.
Freedmen fought in the courts to restore their citizenship. A ten year battle that ended this week.
Judge Thomas F. Hogan wrote in Cherokee Nation v. Raymond Nash:
"The Court finds it confounding that the Cherokee Nation historically had no qualms about regarding freedmen as Cherokee 'property' yet continues, even after 150 years, to balk when confronted with the legal imperative to treat them as Cherokee people. While the Cherokee Nation might persist in its design to perpetuate a moral injustice, this Court will not be complicit in the perpetuation of a legal injustice."