The 184-Year-Old Promise to the Cherokee Congress Must Keep
The tribe’s right to a congressional delegate is embedded in the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. The council’s nominee should be confirmed by Congress immediately.
The number seven is significant to the Cherokee people. We have seven clans in our origin story and seven sacred directions, and centered in our government seal is the seven-pointed star. And when we make a decision affecting our people, its purpose is to advance our tribe seven generations from now.
The Cherokee Nation is strong today because we rest upon this solid foundation. It is a foundation laid by a people of grit whose great suffering has been eclipsed by greater determination. It is a foundation built by great leaders whose names are recorded in our history books and imprinted in our hearts, and by hundreds of thousands of Cherokees who struggled and forged ahead in anonymity.
In 1835, when the Treaty of New Echota moved us from our homelands in the Southeast to the Indian Territory, we were coerced into ceding vast amounts of land where we once prospered. But our leaders at the table negotiating with the federal government also had the foresight to insert into the treaty what they knew would be best for us roughly seven generations later.
It included a place to start over, in what is now Oklahoma, and a system of health care, which is now the largest tribal health care system in the country and successful despite funding challenges. And because our ancestors never intended for us to be behind the scenes asking the government to introduce laws or change broken funding formulas, our ancestors also bargained for another guarantee: the tribe’s right to a congressional delegate, to ensure we would always have a voice.
That’s why aschief, I appointed Kim Teehee to be the tribe’s first-ever delegate to the House of Representatives; the Council of the Cherokee Nation unanimously approved. We are sending a Cherokee to Washington because Ms. Teehee deserves to be given her rightful seat as a voice for change that will keep in mind those seven generations to come.
The path to finalizing her as a delegate requires congressional action, and we’re flexible about which route is best: We can either exercise our right by simply asking Congress to enact legislation to seat the Cherokee Nation delegate, since the body already voted for and approved this delegate position in the 19th-century treaty. Or, for the same reason, Ms. Teehee could simply be seated by the Speaker of the House.
We have faith action will be taken because our relationship with the United States is better than ever, at present. It’s taken this long to get here because, historically, the relationship has been a complicated one.
After our removal, the Cherokee Nation, through perseverance, experienced somewhat of a Golden Age. But after Oklahoma statehood came the allotment era, in which a detrimental policy of state-sponsored land theft, enforced by the Dawes Act of 1887, crippled the tribe’s power and cut our land base by more than half.
For most of the 20th century, the United States suppressed our tribal nation financially and operationally, leaving us unable to execute basic government functions, let alone advance the treaty-affirmed right to send a delegate to Congress.
Because of this, even today we experience challenges long unattended to. But with the Cherokee Nation more united than ever, our unanimously elected delegate can help address these issues.
For instance, we manage a high school next to our government offices in Oklahoma that is about 90 percent Cherokee. Each year we send graduates to Harvard, Dartmouth or other Ivy League schools. But they learn engineering and science in antiquated buildings without adequate technology. Frustratingly, in order for us to build a new facility, we must still get approval from the federal government.
That’s the case for many issues affecting our children and the wider community. And until legislation was changed last year, Cherokee families lost the special restricted status of their allotted land based on their blood quantum dropping below half Indian, according to the federal government. It echoed the Dawes Act, and removal from the Southeast before it.
But there are other antiquated laws and funding formulas related to tribes that still exist today and need reform. We need more champions at the table in Washington. The Cherokee Nation, as the largest tribe in the country, can serve those roles for all tribal nations. While House delegates do not have the same voting privileges as representatives, Ms. Teehee will use her platform to lobby for equitable funding in education and health care — and she will push the federal government to fulfill all other treaty obligations.
Since the Cherokee right to a delegate has itself been long enshrined in treaties, some have asked, “Why now?” For a long while, it didn’t seem possible. However, as a young man, I was a delegate at the 1999 Cherokee Constitutional Convention and made sure a delegate provision — like the one in the New Echota treaty of 1835 — was included in our Constitution, keeping in mind this opportunity we have now.
This fall, we will continue to work with our congressional delegation from Oklahoma to confirm Ms. Teehee as our delegate and expand our push to the broader audience of Congress. We have strong support from large sections of Congress and will be working to address any remaining questions members have. We will use the examples of territories and jurisdictions with delegates to Congress — like Guam, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia itself — as paths forward.
Although the 1785 Treaty of Hopewell, the 1835 Treaty of New Echota and the Treaty of 1866 were signed a long time ago, they are still in full force. The rights they grant our tribe have no expiration date.
Aschief of the Cherokee Nation, I joined Ms. Teehee last week with several members of the House and the Senate to discuss finalizing her seat to Congress. My proposition to the government of the United States is simple: Keep your word.
We will continue in that tradition. We will be worthy of all who came before us.
Wado.
Chuck Hoskin Jr. is the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation.
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