The Cherokee Nation and Congress


Written by: McKenzie Witherell


Since 1835, The Cherokee Nation has had the right to send a non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives. The Treaty of New Echota of 1835 states that “it is stipulated that they shall be entitled to a delegate in the House of Representatives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provisions for the same.” This means that the Cherokee Nation, since selling their land to the United States for the sum of 5 million dollars, has had this right to send a delegate, but why did it take so long?
The first announcement of the plan to send a delegate to Congress in 2019, after this long-forgotten section of the treaty had been re-discovered. How will this action of sending a delegate to Congress affect the Cherokee nation? As we look at this, we see the effects that this delegate will have on the Cherokee nation. Although, this delegate will be non-voting they will still represent the Cherokee people, thus placing a representative in congress to hear and express the worries and fears of the people. This now places the Cherokee nation in the same playing field as the other non-voting representatives within the other territories of the United States and the Capital of the Country. This delegate will show the Nation that the native people are still strong.
The way that the Native Americans were treated throughout history is very distressing. In the same treaty, the New Echota of 1835, the Cherokee people lost their tribal lands to the westward expansion of the baby country. This loss ultimately changed the path of the Cherokee people and their way of life. The forced removal of native tribes and the reestablishment in the new reservations greatly changed the way that the tribes interacted with and worked with the American government. This treaty in 1835, created the standards for the Cherokee nation to be one of the 600 federally recognized tribes, thus giving them the right to self-governance and having a presence in the House of Representatives.
This brings the Cherokee nation to today, as the Nation goes into this upcoming election, I wonder just how this will affect the Cherokee people. How will this representation start to change the views and opinions of the American people? This delegate brings the issues of Native Americans back into the forefront of the American peoples’ mind. We see that what was done to the tribes was unethical.
This will start the appropriate discussions about the creation of laws without the appropriate representation. The Government creates laws and policies that might not be favorable for the nations that are recognized by the federal government. Having an acceptable delegate selected from the tribe by the head of the tribe, guarantees that the Cherokee will have a voice. While the powers for the delegates are limited, what they represent is by far more powerful. They show that the Cherokee people and all of the other nations are still present in the American society.
In 2019, the Chief of the Cherokee people appointed a delegate to send to congress. She will be the delegate to the House of Representatives for the Cherokee people and be the beacon of hope for the Cherokee people as well as all other tribes who do not have this written into treaties. Kimberly Teehee will take her seat in congress, causing Congress to figure out where she will sit. She will be the first delegate in congress to represent a sovereign Native American government.

Sources:

Del Real, Jose A. “Cherokee Nation Seeks to Send First Delegate to Congress .” The New York
 Times , August 27, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/us/cherokee-nation-delegate-congress.html.

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