MARILYN Vann

Marilyn Vann, An amazing Cherokee Freedwoman.
Support her fight to retain tribal status. If you support her, you support us all!

>> VERY IMPORTANT NEWS - 12/14/2012 <<
Cherokee freedmen ruling in D.C. case is overturned!


Marilyn Vann, a Cherokee freedmen spokeswoman and plaintiff in the case, said she will push forward with the lawsuit.

"We're going to continue until our rights are thoroughly vindicated," Vann said. "This brings us one step closer to us being able to have a court say - hopefully once and for all - that these are the rights of these people and they are what the parties agreed on in 1866, and nothing has happened to change this."

The Cherokee freedmen, descendants of African American slaves owned by citizens of the Cherokee Nation during the Antebellum Period, were first guaranteed Cherokee citizenship under a treaty with the United States in 1866.

This was in the wake of the American Civil War, when the US emancipated slaves and passed US constitutional amendments granting freedmen citizenship in the United States.

In 1988, the federal court in the Freedmen case of Nero v. Cherokee Nation held that Cherokees could decide citizenship requirements and exclude freedmen.

On March 7, 2006, the Cherokee Nation Judicial Appeal Tribunal ruled that the Cherokee Freedmen were eligible for Cherokee citizenship. This ruling proved controversial; while the Cherokee Freedman had historically been recorded as "citizens" of the Cherokee Nation at least since 1866 and the later Dawes Commission Land Rolls, the ruling "did not limit membership to people possessing Cherokee blood". This ruling was consistent with the 1975 Constitution of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, in its acceptance of the Cherokee Freedmen on the basis of historical citizenship, rather than documented blood relation.

On March 3, 2007 a constitutional amendment was passed by a Cherokee vote limiting citizenship to Cherokees on the Dawes Rolls for those listed as Cherokee by blood, Shawnee and Delaware. The Cherokee Freedmen had 90 days to appeal this amendment vote which disenfranchised them from Cherokee citizenship and file appeal within the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council, which is currently pending in Nash, et al. v. Cherokee Nation Registrar.

On May 14, 2007, the Cherokee Freedmen were reinstated as citizens of the Cherokee Nation by the Cherokee Nation Tribal Courts through a temporary order and temporary injunction until the court reached its final decision.

On January 14, 2011, the tribal district court ruled that the 2007 constitutional amendment was invalid because it conflicted with the 1866 treaty guaranteeing the Freedmen's rights.

:: BREAKING NEWS 12/14/2012
Cherokee freedmen ruling in D.C. case is overturned!


Photograph by Rick McCormick 
Courtesy Marilyn Vann

Marilyn Vann