The controversy over the freedmens status is at least in part about money. The Cherokee nation, the second-largest Native American tribe in the country, receives money from the federal government and earns money from its stake in the lucrative gambling industry, which totaled $26.4 billion for all tribes in 2009. In the run-up to the 2007 amendment vote, some proponents of expelling the freedmen suggested that more blacks might apply for membership to receive tribal money. =+= In the 1800s, the U.S. government passed a law forcing members of the Cherokee nation from their ancestral lands in the Deep South to make room for white settlers. The Cherokee -- as well as their black slaves -- were forcibly marched west of the Mississippi River to the Oklahoma territory during the Trail of Tears, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Native Americans. =+= After the Civil War, the Cherokee formally admitted by treaty their slaves descendants into the nation.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 10:26:26 +0000