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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saving Sacred Lands

Image
Written by: Samantha Riley     A Chaco Kiva.     Chaco Culture National Historical Park is located in San Juan County and McKinley County, New Mexico. The park is known for having one of the densest concentrations of Pueblo Native Americans in the American Southwest. The location historically was a major center of Pueblo culture and was used for trade, and political and ceremonial activities. The Pueblo people built a number of structures in the hub. Many of the stone structures still stand today, and many ancient artifacts of the Pueblo people remain.   The park and its outskirts, with their historical and cultural significance, are sacred sites to many Native Americans in the Southwest. The significance of the land is hard to communicate to non-Native parties, because theirs stories of the land are sacred knowledge and are not to be shared with people outside of the tribal communities. Now, the sacred sites near Chaco Canyon are in danger of being destroyed. Com
Read more

The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe and the effects of pollution

Image
Author: Samantha Riley    The Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe put settlement money into the Akwesasne Freedom School. Bottom, in back, Kanerahtens, Amberdawn LaFrance, Emma Shenandoah, and Amalli Nalli; in front, Tekanonhtakhen, Iehahserenhawe, Kahnawakeniate, Ranerahtentha and Rowenrenkehteh. Photo credits to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe. The Saint Regis Mohawk Reservation can be found along the United State’s and Canada’s border, ranging twenty-five square miles in a region known as the Akwesasne. Within this environment can be found more than 3,000 acres of wetlands across islands and rivers, including the Saint Lawrence, Saint Regis, Raquette, Grasse, and Salmon Rivers. As one could imagine, these rivers are invaluable to the 13,000 Saint Regis Mohawks, or the Kanienkehake People of the Flint. The tribe has occupied their land since at least 1600 A.D., according to archaeological findings. Unfortunately, the effects of pollution are endangering the environment, li
Read more
Author: Jocelyn P. In the months after the announcement of the family separation policy introduced by the Trump administration, outrage and demands for immediately stopping this process were all over the news. And inevitably so, comparisons were made to past traumatic actions the US government has taken against outsider communities. Namely that of Native Americans. Indeed, family separation was too common to native communities during the late 1800s and early 1900s. With the Browning Ruling declaring that Native American parents were technically children themselves they could not determine where their children went to school (Peterson). This ruling left native families with no rights to keep their children. They had no say in when, where or how their children were educated, so the US government took it upon themselves to strip these children from their families and place them into boarding schools in order to “re-educate” them. The common phrase being “kill the Indiana, save the
Read more