I admit ignorance of the Dawes process for the Freedmen...however,  my
family gave testimony before the commissioner, who I'm sure was not
Dawes himself, but anyway, they had to prove their marriages, the
other rolls they were on etc...my grandfather's birth certificate is
in his Dawes packet...actually my Indian line was the easiest to
prove, gov'm't kept good records of us....:)

So although there is no blood quantum listed on the Dawes Index to the
Final Roll for the Freedmen, I've not heard whether there is any other
records within the Dawes *packets* that give any further
information...

It is not the Cherokee Nation's fault that the Dawes folks decided to
behave in the manner in which they did....:)  You won't find many
Cherokees that agree with the what was going on in that time period
either....:)  It is also not the Cherokee Nation's fault that some
folks' ancestors choose not to sign up for the Dawes Roll thus
preventing their descendants from ever being citizens as well...

Char



On 3/3/07, Sunshine49 <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> as I read it today, not that many have signed up to vote- their
> census recorded about 20,000 freedmen for the five tribes; as of late
> last month, only about 2,800 had re-registered in time to vote.
> "Today, no more than a few thousand descendants of the slaves are
> officially members of the five tribes, leaving their prospects for
> defeating the Cherokee referendum slim." [Washington Post] When the
> Dawes Rolls were compiled, census takers set up tents in fields and
> interviewed and inspected the applicants. They were separated into
> categories; if you looked white with Indian blood, or Indian, you
> were listed as whole or part Indian; if you looked black, you were
> not, you were listed as a freedman and no Indian lineage was noted.
> Some claim that if you had so much as a drop of black blood, you were
> considered a freedman, tho some Cherokee leaders dispute this. "In
> cases of mixed freedmen and Indian parents [applicants] were not
> given credit for having any Indian blood." [Kent Carter, 'The Dawes
> Commission'] Many descendants of slaves were dismissed from the tribe
> in 1983 when they were required to show lineage from the Dawes Rolls;
> a tribal court in 2006 reinstated them; today's vote is to settle the
> issue again. [WP]
>
> Nancy
>
> -------
> I was never lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.
>
> --Daniel Boone
>
>
>
> On Mar 3, 2007, at 3:54 PM, Anita Wills wrote:
>
> > Well arent' all of the tribal members going to vote, including the
> > Freedmen descendants?
> >
> > Anita
> >
> >
> >> From: Clara Callahan <[log in to unmask]>
> >> Reply-To: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia
> >> history              <[log in to unmask]>
> >> To: [log in to unmask]
> >> Subject: Re: Cherokee Election March 3rd Q&A
> >> Date: Sat, 3 Mar 2007 11:27:06 -0800
> >>
> >> What the Cherokee trying to enforce a requirement for membership
> >> might define as justice appears to be quite the opposite of what
> >> possibly soon-to-be-denied-members might define as justice.
> >>
> >>   I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "mere" tribalism.  We
> >> are, after all, talking about a tribe here.  Are you saying that
> >> Indian tribes are free to act tribally until they offend someone's
> >> sensibilities, at which point "tribalism" becomes a yucky thing
> >> they shouldn't be allowed to continue?
> >>
> >> Jurretta Heckscher <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>   Dear Clara:
> >>
> >> I would hope you gonna root for whomever is being treated unjustly.
> >> The alternative is mere tribalism, the source and justification for
> >> much of the world's injustice in the first place.
> >>
> >> --Jurretta Heckscher
> >>
> >> On Mar 3, 2007, at 1:54 PM, Clara Callahan wrote:
> >> >
> >>
> >> > We just finished a couple of weeks of conversation about what those
> >> > whites did to those poor Indians and what those whites did to those
> >> > poor blacks. Now the conversation has turned to what those Indians
> >> > are doing to those poor whites and blacks. So far on this board no
> >> > one is championing either "minority" which, considering the past
> >> two
> >> > weeks' conversation, I find quite interesting. What does one do
> >> when
> >> > one "minority" goes up against another "minority"? Who you gonna
> >> root
> >> > for, the descendents of slaves, the descendents of whites who
> >> married
> >> > Indians, or the descendents of Indians?
> >> > This oughtta be good.
> >> >
> >>
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> >>
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