Cherokee chief backs right of freedmen descendants to run for tribal office

The case involves a descendant of Cherokee freedmen, or former Cherokee-owned slaves in the 19th century, who filed paperwork Monday to run for an at-large seat on the tribal council this summer. On Tuesday, another candidate asked the tribe’s Election Commission to disqualify Marilyn Vann on the grounds that “she is not Cherokee by blood.”

The tribe has had long political fights and court battles over the status of freedmen descendants, but Hoskin pointed to a federal court decision from 2017, and to a Cherokee Nation Supreme Court decision the same year, that recognized descendants of freedmen as “full Cherokee citizens under the law.”

“Our tribe is a better nation for having embraced full and equal citizenship of freedmen descendants, including the right to seek public office,” Hoskin said in a statement to the Tulsa World.

“The anti-Freedmen proponents of this lawsuit, if successful, would force Cherokee citizens of Freedmen descent to essentially start over in their effort to secure civil rights in the Cherokee Nation. Those efforts, which are completely contrary to settled Cherokee law, must not succeed.”

The complaint, filed by candidate Robin Mayes, refers to a 2007 amendment to the tribe’s constitution “to limit citizenship in the nation to only those persons who were Cherokee, Shawnee or Delaware by blood.”

“The courts of the Cherokee Nation are wholly without authority to nullify any portion of the constitution that may conflict with federal law,” the complaint states. “The Cherokee people voted in 2003 to remove from their constitution language granting over-site of the constitution by the federal government.”

Vann, president of an advocacy group called the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, vowed to fight the complaint in court if necessary.

“We will fight for the law,” she told the World. “We will fight for the right of the people to choose their representatives.”

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Photos: Cherokee Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. sworn in