Cherokee Nation To Vote on Expelling Slaves' Descendants

[Union Label]

I never thought that the Cherokee Nation would try this shameful tactic. I have a small amount of native american blood in me from my moms side but its not Cherokee that I know of. But it looks like they are trying to brush it under the rug that there were slves in the early days.

VINITA, Okla. -- J.D. Baldridge, 73, has official government documents showing him to be a descendant of a full-blood Cherokee. He has memories of a youth spent among Cherokee neighbors and kin, at tribal stomp dances and hog fries. He holds on to a fair amount of Cherokee vocabulary. " Salali," Baldridge says, his face creasing into a smile at the word. "Squirrel stew. Oh, that was good."

What Baldridge, a retired Oklahoma county sheriff, also has is at least one black ancestor, a former slave of a Cherokee family. That could get Baldridge cast out of the tribe, along with thousands of others.

The 250,000-member Cherokee Nation will vote in a special election today whether to override a 141-year-old treaty and change the tribal constitution to bar "freedmen," the descendants of former tribal slaves, from being members of the sovereign nation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/02/AR2007030201647_pf.html

[rebel with a cause]

1. Saw this, and I am part Cherokee.

Here I was proud of it, and now I read this. This is ridiculous, and I cannot believe this is going on with people who are suppose to be very tolerant.

I cannot win for loosing. I recently found out I had slave owners in the history on my father's side of the family. Now I find out this after being so proud of proving that at least part of my mother's Native American heritage was Cherokee. Pardon me while I just fade away in shame. :blush:

[BlooInBloo]

2. Well I guess that answers the question of which is the more oppressed.