Cherokee, Freedmen, Ohlone, Indians

The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy is an ongoing political and tribal dispute between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen regarding tribal citizenship. During the American Civil War, the Cherokee who supported the Union abolished the practice of African slavery by act of the Cherokee National Council in 1863.

The Cherokee Freedmen became citizens of the Cherokee Nation in accordance with a treaty made with the United States government a year after the Civil War ended. In the early 1980s, the Cherokee Nation administration amended citizenship rules to require direct descent from an ancestor listed as "Cherokee by Blood" on the Dawes Rolls.

The change stripped descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen of citizenship and voting rights unless they satisfied this new criterion. About 25,000 Freedmen were excluded from the tribe. Cherokee freedmen On March 7, 2006, the Cherokee Supreme Court ruled that the descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen were unconstitutionally kept from enrolling as citizens and were allowed to enrol in the Cherokee Nation. Chad "Corntassel" Smith, then-Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, called for an emergency election to amend the constitution in response to the ruling. After a petition was circulated, a special election held on March 3, 2007 resulted in a constitutional amendment that dis-enrolled the Cherokee Freedmen descendants.

Caster Painting

This led to several legal proceedings in United States and Cherokee Nation courts in which the Freedmen descendants continued to press for their treaty rights and recognition as Cherokee Nation members.

The 2007 constitutional amendment was voided in Cherokee Nation district court on January 14, 2011, but was overturned by a 4-1 ruling in Cherokee Nation Supreme Court on August 22, 2011, before the special run-off election for Principal Chief. The ruling excluded the Cherokee Freedmen descendants from voting in the special election.

After the freezing of 33 million dollars in funds by the Department of Housing and Urban Development and a letter from the Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in response to the ruling, an agreement in federal court between the Cherokee Nation, the Freedmen descendants and the US government allowed the Freedmen to vote in the special election. Bill John Baker was elected Principal Chief in the special election and inaugurated in October 2011. The Cherokee Supreme Court dismissed an appeal of the election results by former chief Chad Smith. Both sides filed complaints in federal court in Tulsa, Oklahoma, by July 2012; the Cherokee say the 1866 treaty does not require them to give full citizenship to the Freedmen, who continue to seek full rights. The first hearing on the merits of the case was held in May, 2014 in the U.S. A.

Ohlone people, also known as the Costanoan, are a Native American people of the central and northern California coast. When Spanish explorers and missionaries arrived in the late 18th century, the Ohlone inhabited the area along the coast from San Francisco Bay through Monterey Bay to the lower Salinas Valley.

Caster Painting

At that time they spoke a variety of languages, the Ohlone languages, belonging to the Costanoan sub-family of the Utian language family, which itself belongs to the proposed Penutian language phylum.

The term "Ohlone" has been used in place of "Costanoan" since the 1970s by some descendant groups and by most ethnographers, historians, and writers of popular literature.

In pre-colonial times, the Ohlone lived in more than 50 distinct landholding groups, and did not view themselves as a distinct group. They lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering, in the typical ethnographic California pattern. The members of these various bands interacted freely with one another as they built friendships and marriages, traded tools and other necessities, and partook in cultural practices. The Ohlone people practised the Kuksu religion.

 Before the Spanish came, the northern California region was one of the most densely populated regions north of Mexico. However in the years 1769 to 1833, the Spanish missions in California had a devastating effect on Ohlone culture. The Ohlone population declined steeply during this period. The Ohlone living today belong to one or another of a number of geographically distinct groups, most, but not all, in their original home territory.

The Muwekma Ohlone Tribe has members from around the San Francisco Bay Area, and is composed of descendants of the Ohlones/Costanoans from the San Jose, Santa Clara, and San Francisco missions.

The Ohlone/Costanoan Esselen Nation, consisting of descendants of intermarried Rumsen Costanoan and Esselen speakers of Mission San Carlos Borromeo, are centred at Monterey. The Amah-Mutsun Tribe are descendants of Mutsun Costanoan speakers of Mission San Juan Bautista, inland from Monterey Bay.

Most members of another group of Rumsien language, descendants from Mission San Carlos, the Costanoan Rumsien Carmel Tribe of Pomona/Chino, now live in southern California. These groups, and others with smaller memberships (see groups listed under the heading Present Day below) are separately petitioning the federal government for tribal recognition.

Spainish, Blood, Quantum, laws

Casta Paintings
During the Spanish colonial period, Spaniards developed a complex caste system based on race, which was used for social control and which also determined a person's importance in society. There were four main categories of race: (1) Peninsular, a Spaniard born in Spain; (2) Criollo (feminine, criolla), a person of Spanish descent born in the New World; (3) Indio (fem. India), a person who is descendent of the original inhabitants of the Americas; and (4) Negro (fem. negra) - a person of black African descent, usually a slave or their free descendants. Ilona Katzew (New York University)

Since the sixteenth century, Spaniards had transposed their own social schema onto their colonies in the New World. The subordination of State to Church and the ideology of limpieza de sangre (purity of blood)--where the absence of Jewish or Muslim blood defined an honourable Old Christian--were factors contributing to Spain's hierarchically organised society, whose members had clearly delineated social roles.

Casta Painting

When the Spanish colonised the New World, they brought with them this division of society into nobles and plebeians. By converting the Indians to the Christian faith, an imperative that gave justification to the colonial enterprise, Spaniards became the aristocracy of Mexico regardless of their origins or occupations.

The supremacy of Spaniards (or whites) was remarked at the end of the colonial period by Alexander von Humboldt (1769 - 1859), a German natural scientist who travelled in the New World: "any white person, although he rides his horse barefoot, imagines himself to be of the nobility of the country.

Indians, who, with the exception of their own nobility, were associated with agriculture, became the tribute-paying plebeians. Nevertheless, the Spanish system admitted the existence of an Indian Republic within the colony, which meant that the Spaniards recognised the existence of an internal hierarchy for Indian society.

Because Indians were destined collectively to become "New Christians," they merited the protection of the Spanish Crown. Blacks, on the other hand, were brought to the New World as slaves and were in theory situated at the lowest echelons of society; they worked as domestic servants for the Spaniards and as labourers on the sugar plantations, mines, and estates. Blacks were considered a homogeneous group with no rights and were redeemable only on an individual level, once they had proven their loyalty to the Church and their masters.

Casta Painting

In both cases above, the author is clearly saying that ALL Blacks in the Americas were brought there as Slaves, and that Blacks were the lowest class.

The truth is that the great majority of Blacks in the Americas were indigenous people: Many Black Spanish and Portuguese citizens came to the Americas, and as all these paintings clearly indicate,

Blacks were among the wealthy elite. It is also indisputable that all of "North Americas - Native Americans" are Mulattoes and Whites. It is possible that "SOME" are "ANCIENTLY" derived from European Albino/Mongol and Black stock!

Though it can not be gauged how much mixing occurred between the very first Europeans in the Americas (the Frontiersmen), and the Native Americans. However, resent research indicates that the admixture from frontiersmen was extensive, as new artefacts demonstrate that "Pure" Indians were Blacker than first thought.

Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws; is legislation enacted in the United States to define membership in Native American tribes or nations. "Blood quantum" refers to describing the degree of ancestry for an individual of a specific racial or ethnic group, for instance: 1/2 by the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians (equivalent to one parent), 1/4 by the Hopi Tribe of Arizona (equivalent to one grandparent), 1/8 by the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma (equivalent to one great-grandparent), 1/16 by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, North Carolina (equivalent to one great-great-grandparent), 1/32 by the Kaw Nation (equivalent to one great-great-great-grandparent).

Its use started in 1705 when Virginia adopted laws that limited colonial civil rights of Native Americans and persons of half or more Native American ancestry. The concept of blood quantum was not widely applied until the Indian Reorganisation Act of 1934. The government used it to establish the individuals who could be recognised as Native American and be eligible for financial and other benefits under treaties that were made or sales of land.

Since that time, however, Native American nations have established their own rules for tribal membership, which vary among them. In some cases, individuals may qualify as tribal members, but not as American Indian for the purposes of certain federal benefits, which are still related to blood quantum. In the early 21st century some tribes have tightened their membership rules and excluded people who had previously been considered members, such as in the case of the Cherokee Freedmen.

America, Native Americans, Choris, Muskogean

Georgia Trustee
After retirement in 1742, Vernon became the indispensable man. He missed only 4 of 114 meetings during the last nine years of the Trust and supervised the removal of restrictions on land tenure, rum, and slavery. Egmont, the first president of the Common Council and the dominant figure among the Trustees until his retirement, acted as Georgia's champion in Parliament. He strongly opposed Walpole's attempts to conciliate Spain at the expense of Georgia.He had to walk a careful line, however, because the Trustees depended upon Walpole for their annual subsidies. Other Trustees contributed according to their abilities.

Henry L'Apostre advised on finances, Samuel Smith on religion, and Thomas Tower on legal matters, particularly on instructions to Georgia officials. Stephen Hales's closeness to the royal family and his standing as a scientist lent prestige to the body of Trustees. Shaftesbury, a political opponent of Walpole, joined the Common Council in 1733 and, except for a brief resignation, remained faithful to the end. He led the negotiations to convert Georgia to a royal colony. For the entire twenty years the Trustees employed only two staff members, Benjamin Martyn as secretary and Harman Verelst as accountant.

Louis Choris (1795-1828) was a famous German-Russian painter and explorer. He was one of the first sketch artists for expedition research. Louis Choris, who was a Russian of German stock, was born in Yekaterinoslav, now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine on March 22, 1795.  He visited the Pacific and the west coast of North America in 1816 on board the Ruric, being attached in the capacity of artist to the Romanzoff expedition under the command of Lieutenant Otto von Kotzebue, sent out for the purpose of exploring a northwest passage.

Choris is said to have "painted nature as he found it. The essence of his art is truth; a fresh, vigorous view of life, and an originality in portrayal." The accompanying illustrations may therefore be looked upon as faithfully representing the subjects treated by the artist. After the voyage of the Ruric, Choris went to Paris where he issued a portfolio of his drawings in lithographic reproduction and studied in the ateliers of Gerard and Regnault. Choris worked extensively in pastels. He documented the Ohlone people in the missions of San Francisco, California in 1816.

Examiner: British researchers probe mystery of lost Native American artifact. It is the Rosetta Stone of North America. The English translation of this hand-painted vellum containing a lost Native American writing system, requires eight printed pages.

With the encouragement of His Royal Highness, Charles, Prince of Wales, a search has begun on both sides of the Atlantic to find the original artifact, or at least a copy of the writing system. It has been misplaced for over 230 years. The year is 1733. Growing increasingly fearful of a combined Spanish, French and Indian attack on its vulnerable white population, the Province of South Carolina agreed to renounce claims on territory southwest of the Savannah River so that a new colony of yeoman farmers could be established on its frontier.

Roughly sixty percent of South Carolina’s population was either African or Native American slaves. These suppressed peoples would be highly inclined to assist the French and Spanish. In 1715, without the direct assistance of European powers, the Yamasee Indians had almost succeeded in wiping the southern part Carolina off the face of the earth. Back then there was no North or South Carolina. A new alliance of tribes in the Carolina Mountains switched sides and attacked the Yamasee just at the moment when Charleston faced annihilation. This alliance was now called the Cherokees. The new colony, called Georgia in honor of King George I, would have no slaves.

Its first town, Savannah, had been designed in advance as a military bastion. Its unique plan maximized the defensive effectiveness of artillery. All males in the colony agreed to be members of the militia in return for being given free land. The colony’s Board of Trustees planned to recruit the thousands of Englishmen in debtor’s prisons, plus German Protestants, being persecuted in Catholic regions, to settle the countryside. Unlike Maryland, Virginia, South and North Carolina, there would be no plantation aristocracy. At least, that was the plan.

The key to this colony’s success would be good relations with the Muskogean peoples of the interior.
Prior to the Yamasee War, they had been divided up into provinces of various sizes. The strongest province was itself an alliance known to the British as the Ochese Creek Indians. At about the same time in 1718 that the Mountain Alliance was given the name Cherokees, the Muskogeans formed their own regional confederacy from provinces speaking several languages and dialects. The Muskogean Confederacy was not a tribe at this time, but would eventually evolve into the Creek Indians.

Nevertheless, in 1733, this alliance contained the largest and most culturally advanced indigenous population in North America. It claimed all the former lands of its members, between the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina southward to St. Augustine, FL. Expansion of the Cherokee Alliance into western North Carolina had forced many Muskogean provinces to relocate to Alabama and Georgia. Its members would not be called “the Creek Indians” until the 1740s.

America, Trustee Georgia

Trustee Georgia, 1732-1752 A.D. Edward J. Cashin, Augusta State University
The first twenty years of Georgia history are referred to as Trustee Georgia because during that time a Board of Trustees governed the colony. England's King George signed a charter establishing the colony and creating its governing board on April 21, 1732. His action culminated a lengthy process.

James Edward Oglethorpe, famous for conducting a parliamentary investigation into the conditions of London prisons, exercised a leading role in the movement to found the new colony. James Oglethorpe, a leader in the British movement to found a new colony in America, set sail for the new world on November 17, 1732, accompanied by Georgia's first settlers. He confided to his friend John Lord Viscount Percival (known as the first earl of Egmont after that title was conferred on him in 1733) that he intended to help released debtors begin a new life in America.

In fact, Oglethorpe had received a grant of £5,000 to carry out his plan. In 1729 Dr. Thomas Bray chose trustees to administer his estate. In addition to Oglethorpe, the trustees, called the Associates of Dr. Bray, included several future members of the Georgia Trust, notably Percival, James Vernon, and Thomas Coram. Coram is better known as the founder of the Foundling Hospital in London. Oglethorpe and his friends decided to add the Bray legacy to the funds in hand for the purpose of establishing a new colony between the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, in territory claimed by both the province of South Carolina and the Spanish colony of Florida. Right: Addih Haddisch, a Mandan Chief, Karl Bodmer, 1841 A.D., Beinecke Library, Yale University.

On September 17, 1730, the associates presented a petition for a charter to the Privy Council, Parliament's executive body, headed by the chancellor of the exchequer, Robert Walpole. The petition was routinely passed on to the notoriously inefficient Board of Trade, which dawdled for a year without acting. Walpole, the prime minister, was less than eager to challenge the Spanish, who had a prior claim to the region requested by the petitioners. Walpole needed the support of the influential members of Parliament who supported the charter, however, and he managed to bring the charter before the Privy Council. After going through several revisions, the notion of helping debtors gave way to a more pragmatic plan to send over "the deserving poor" who would protect South Carolina while producing such goods as wine and silk for England.

The colonists were entitled to all the rights of Englishmen, yet there was no provision for the essential right of local government. Religious liberty was guaranteed, except for Roman Catholicism and Judaism. A group of Jews landed in Georgia without explicit permission in 1733 but were allowed to remain.

The charter created a corporate body called a Trust and provided for an unspecified number of Trustees who would govern the colony from England. Seventy-one men served as Trustees during the life of the Trust. Trustees were forbidden by the charter from holding office orland in Georgia, nor were they paid. Presumably, their motives for serving were humanitarian, and their motto was Non sibi sed aliis ("Not for self, but for others").

The charter provided that the body of Trustees elect fifteen members to serve as an executive committee called the Common Council, and specified a quorum of eight to transact business. As time went on, the council frequently lacked a quorum; those present One face of the 1733 seal of the Georgia Trustees features two figures resting upon urns. They represent the Savannah and Altamaha rivers, which formed the northwestern and southeastern boundaries of the province.

Twelve Trustees attended the first meeting on July 20, 1732, at the Georgia office in the Old Palace Yard, conveniently close to Westminster. Committees were named to solicit contributions and interview applicants to the new colony. On November 17, 1732, seven Trustees bade farewell to Oglethorpe and the first settlers as they left from Gravesend aboard the Anne. The Trustees succeeded in obtaining £10,000 from the government in 1733 and lesser amounts in subsequent years. Georgia was the only American colony that depended on Parliament's annual subsidies. The most active members of the Trust, in terms of their attendance at council, corporation, or committee meetings, were, in order of frequency, James Vernon, the earl of Egmont, Henry L'Apostre, Samuel Smith, Thomas Tower, John Laroche, Robert Hucks, Stephen Hales, James Oglethorpe, and Anthony Ashley Cooper, fourth earl of Shaftesbury.

The number of meetings attended ranged from Vernon's 712 to Shaftesbury's 266. Sixty-one Trustees attended fewer meetings. James Vernon, one of the original Associates of Dr. Bray and an architect of the charter, maintained an interest in Georgia throughout the life of the Trust. He arranged the Salzburger settlement and negotiated with the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts for missionaries. He differed from Egmont and Oglethorpe in his willingness to respond to the colonists' complaints.

When Oglethorpe became preoccupied with the Spanish war, Vernon proposed the plan of dividing the colony into two provinces, Savannah and Frederica, each with a president and magistrates. The Trustees named William Stephens president in Savannah, and he served until 1751, when he was replaced by Henry Parker in the final year of the Trust's tenure. Oglethorpe neglected to name a president for Frederica, and the magistrates there were instructed to report to Stephens. The Trustees did not want to appoint a single governor because the king in council had to approve the appointment of governors, and the Trustees preferred to keep control in their hands.