Cherokee Portrayal Was Misinformed And Unfair

To the editors:



It is a sad day when students of such an esteemed institution as Harvard can be so uneducated about American Indian history. Jeff D. Nanney’s opinion piece (“Who You Are Not” Apr. 22) is full of erroneous information.

The Cherokee Nation did not “purge its ranks of nearly 3000 members–all of them black.” The March 3 vote defined Cherokee Nation citizenship to include those citizens who can link their heritage to an ancestor listed on the Dawes Rolls. It doesn’t matter if you are black, red, white, or green: As long as you have an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls you can be a card-carrying Cherokee citizen.

The Freedmen have tried to use the mainstream media to turn this into a racial issue. After all, it makes great sensational news and sells newspapers. But the truth is that those Freedmen who have Cherokee ancestors shall now and forever remain Cherokee citizens. It is only those who cannot prove Cherokee ancestry who lost their right to citizenship.

Is that awful? You decide. In the end, shouldn’t everyone have to play by the same rules? There are scores of Cherokee people whose ancestors are not listed on the Dawes Rolls. This is because they either refused to sign up, or they were simply missed by the white census-takers. Unfortunately, these Cherokee-by-blood people have never been able to be Cherokee citizens either. But these people know where they came from, who their ancestors are, and they don’t need a Cherokee “blue card” to validate their existence.

The Dawes Rolls are the most authentic document we have to trace ancestors. If we didn’t use those rolls, then what would we use? Should we just open the tribe up to anyone who says they have a great, great, great-grandmother who was a Cherokee princess? We wouldn’t have an Indian tribe anymore, would we?

The Cherokee Nation is a sovereign nation and its people have the right to define its citizenry just as every other nation on earth. On March 3, the Cherokee people voted to include everyone as citizens, regardless of their race, with one stipulation­—they must link to an ancestor on the Dawes Rolls.

When it comes to this issue, it is not “racist attitudes” Mr. Nanney needs to worry about. He needs to put his efforts into curbing sensationalism by doing his homework. A good place to start with research on this topic is at www.cherokee.org.



SARA HOKLOTUBBE

Kahului, Hawaii

April 25, 2007



The writer is a Cherokee citizen and author.