Tribe can change constitution, not freedmen treaty, BIA says

Tribe can change constitution, not freedmen treaty, BIA says


By JIM MYERS World Washington Bureau
8/11/2007


WASHINGTON -- The head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs endorsed the Cherokee Nation's right to amend its constitution without federal approval, but he made it clear Friday that the action does nothing to alter the tribal membership of freedmen descendants.

"By approving this constitutional amendment, it doesn't change the freedmen's status," Carl Artman said. "The 1866 treaty between the United States and the Cherokee Nation affirms their rights.

"Until the treaty of 1866 is abrogated, the freedmen will remain members of the tribe."

Making his comments during an interview, Artman said his agency would consider taking the Cherokee Nation to court to enforce that treaty if the tribe once again moved to expel certain descendants of former slaves from its membership rolls.

"I am not sure that court action is the way to go," he said. "We would look at all of our options."

Artman's Aug. 9 letter to the tribe, which announced his approval of the constitutional change taking the federal government out of its amendment process and his comments about that decision, stressed that the tribe still must follow the law.

"In approving the amendment, it affirmed tribal sovereignty," Artman said, adding that tribal sovereignty, just like the sovereignty of the federal government or a state government, can be limited by a constitution.

"It can also be limited by treaties, and in this case, sovereignty is limited, guided by the 1866 treaty," he said.

Cherokee officials said Artman's approval ends an eight-year "struggle" to remove the federal agency from the tribe's constitutional process.

Cherokee Nation voters passed a constitutional amendment removing federal oversight on June 23.

Artman and Principal Chief Chad Smith clashed over a similar vote in 2003, forcing the chief to set another vote.

Smith said Friday that Artman's approval of the June 23 vote validates self-governance for tribes.

"We do appreciate that they (the BIA) acknowledge what our own courts have already held to be true -- that the Cherokee people are the only people with the right to decide what our constitution says," Smith said.

Meredith Frailey, the speaker of the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council, said federal approval affirms that the tribe is capable of making fundamental government decisions.

"The BIA has told us what we already knew -- the Cherokee people do not need a federal bureaucracy micromanaging our nation," she said.

Artman's decisions on the Cherokee Nation, specifically those pertaining to freedmen descendants, are being watched closely by members of Congress.

U.S. Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and perhaps the tribe's most vocal congressional critic, is not ready to let the matter drop.

"Assistant Secretary Artman's decision to approve the Cherokee Nation's amended constitution is the wrong message at the wrong time," she said. "It demonstrates the need for immediate and aggressive congressional oversight of this matter."

Artman said he did not see the point of holding a congressional hearing.

"Oversight of what?" he asked. "The freedmen always have been part of the Cherokee Nation, and they still are." pu,Also --- World staff writer S.E. Ruckman contributed to this story.