The 150th anniversary of the Civil War between the United States has come and gone. Yet the attorney for Cherokee Freedmen, John Velie, continues to hammer away at every venue and opportunity to muddy the good name of the Cherokees and cause some of our citizens to call us racist, all because our people voted not to accept Freedmen who could not prove Cherokee blood ties.

Slaves and ex-slaves who chose to mate with Cherokees are citizens now, just as other tribal citizens of mixed heritage are part of the tribe from other races and nationalities.

The Freedmen and their leader, Marilyn Vann, still believe the words at the bottom of Article 9 of the 1866 Treaty gave them citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. “They further agree that all freedmen who have been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners or by law, as well as all free colored persons who were in the country at the commencement of the rebellion, and are now residents therein, or who may return within six months, and their descendants, shall have all rights of Native Cherokees.” 

Please tell me or explain how that passage denotes citizenship.

John A. Ketcher
Tahlequah, Okla.