Before I Forget

          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."

      Land records from 1899 to 1907 for citizens of the Five Civilized Tribes were just uploaded onto Family Search's website--for free viewing. Did you get that? FREE! Fold3, an Ancestry-owned site, has had this database--but for paid subscribers only. 

https://familysearch.org/search/collection/1390101?collectionNameFilter=false

      The Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory were: Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw.

      Citizens of these tribes who were (1) then living in Indian Territory and (2) whose membership had been approved by the Dawes Commission were allotted land previously held in common by each tribe. Natives had the option of improving their property or selling to land-hungry settlers moving into northeast Oklahoma.

      When people learned to capture that black ooze puddling on their land, millionaires were created. Construction boomed, tent "cities" housed immigrants from other states eager for work and the chance to buy land. Non-Native residents pushed for greater economic control. Demands were made for statehood. President Teddy Roosevelt signed the docs making Oklahoma a state in November of 1907. 

     The only family I've found on this database descend from my mother's first cousin--twice removed. Thomas Jefferson Coffee, great-grandson of Irish immigrant, Ambrose Coffee, was born in Missouri. He married Louella Christian in 1888. She had Dawes Enrollment No. 3046, and Tom was "adopted" into Louella's Chickasaw tribe by marriage. They raised their family in Marshall County along the Texas/Oklahoma border. See Louella's documents at the link below.  Click the arrow on the upper left of that page to scroll the many documents within Louella's folder or to resize the images. Pretty nifty, eh?

https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-61B9-G87?i=1093&wc=MXHP-M38%3A967441201%2C967570901%3Fcc%3D1390101

(Again, forgive my clunky URLs as I know NOT how to make them short and sweetly clickable)

      My Coffee cousins might be interested in seeing two grainy pages of Tom Coffee's actual Application for Enrollment into the Chickasaw Nation in December 1902. As a reminder, Tom was a first cousin to our John Willis Coffee. See both pages:    

Forced removal of several native tribes from southeastern United States to Indian Territory in the early 1800s prompted this kickass meme. The subject looks more like a "Plains Indian" but I won't quibble. 

      Earlier I mentioned Ties That Bind by Tiya Miles, a favorite resource for Indian Territory history. I learned today that Dr. Miles published a new novel in April: The Cherokee Rose. One reviewer described it as "luminous." An interesting term for a difficult period of history. I'm anxious to read her book.

      Google directed me to a lovely interview with Dr. Miles and Krista Tippett. If you've an interest in Oklahoma history, have a listen or read the transcript from 2012:

http://www.onbeing.org/program/toward-living-memory/transcript/1347

      This. Did you see this? I can't imagine some buffoon telling me this if I were to make inquiry as to a library's holdings. Thankfully she sulked only for a short time before turning it into a challenge. 

http://tiyamiles.com/2015/03/31/writing-the-cherokee-rose/ 

      Thanks again for following!