Washington, D.C., appeals court rules for Cherokee freedmen

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District Columbia reversed a district court judge, who concluded last year that the suit couldn't go forward because the tribe had invoked its sovereign immunity to exclude itself as a party. The appeals court on Friday reinstated the suit, ruling that the principal chief is still a defendant and is, in effect, “one and the same” as the Cherokee Nation.

“As a result, the Principal Chief can adequately represent the Cherokee Nation in this suit, meaning that the Cherokee Nation itself is not a required party,” the court ruled, citing court precedents involving similar circumstances.

The decision on Friday means the issue of whether freedmen descendants are entitled to tribal citizenship is alive in two separate federal courts — one here and another in Tulsa.

While the tribe was fighting the case here under former Principal Chief Chad Smith, it filed its own lawsuit in Tulsa against the freedmen.

The Obama administration has intervened in the Tulsa case on the side of the freedmen, saying an 1866 treaty that allowed the freed slaves of individual Cherokees to be members of the tribe is still in effect for the descendants of those freed slaves.

The administration is asking the judge in Tulsa for a declaratory judgment that the 1866 treaty “provided Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants with ‘all the rights of native Cherokees,' including the right to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.”

The Cherokee Nation approved a constitutional amendment in 2007 requiring tribal blood for citizenship and effectively barring non-Indian freedmen. The tribe's highest court upheld the tribe's right to set the rules for its membership.