Posted on 03/03/2007 9:06:01 AM PST by rabidralph
VINITA, Okla. -- J.D. Baldridge, 73, has official government documents showing him to be a descendant of a full-blood Cherokee. He has memories of a youth spent among Cherokee neighbors and kin, at tribal stomp dances and hog fries. He holds on to a fair amount of Cherokee vocabulary. " Salali," Baldridge says, his face creasing into a smile at the word. "Squirrel stew. Oh, that was good."
What Baldridge, a retired Oklahoma county sheriff, also has is at least one black ancestor, a former slave of a Cherokee family. That could get Baldridge cast out of the tribe, along with thousands of others.
The 250,000-member Cherokee Nation will vote in a special election today whether to override a 141-year-old treaty and change the tribal constitution to bar "freedmen," the descendants of former tribal slaves, from being members of the sovereign nation.
"It's a basic, inherent right to determine our own citizenry. We paid very dearly for those rights," Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith said in an interview last month in Oklahoma City.
But the Cherokee freedmen see the vote as less about self-determination than about discrimination and historical blinders. They see in the referendum hints of racism and a desire by some Cherokees to deny the tribe's slave-owning past.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
i do NOT understand this at all, as it is divorced from our long-held TRADITIONS. for eons, BEING Tsalagiyi was WANTING to BE a TSALAGIYI badly enough to make the sacrifices to BE Tsalagiyi! (i.e., marrying into the nation,adhering to a band, joining a clan, accepting/inculcating our laws/traditions/culture/etc as one's OWN, etc.).
for example, David "Runs-the-Path" Williams had blond hair & blue eyes & was the son of a Tsalagiyi woman & an English horse-trader. in the 19th Century, NOBODY would have doubted that David (OR his FATHER, for that matter!!!) was an AUTHENTIC Tsalagiyi, as he BELIEVED himself TO BE Tsalagiyi & LIVED the life of a traditional Tsalagiyi warrior ALL of his LIFE.
those ,who have bothered to read this far into my post, will therefore understand why i am HUMILIATED by what the "tribal BIGSHOTS" have done.
forgive me, but i cannot end this writing without quoting an OLD proverb:
"Before a man puts away as valueless his people's beliefs of life & his traditional way of being, he had better assure that he was something of worth, with which to replace them."
free dixie,sw
a through investigation, by the band that he CLAIMED to belong to, indicates that he has NO AmerIndian ancestors for at least SIX generations. NONE.
therefore, he is something else, but NOT an Indian.
free dixie,sw
that ACCURATELY describes what BEING Tsalagagiyi traditionally MEANS.
fyi, my father (an enrolled FULL-blood) KNEW "Runs the Path", when he was an old man. my dad said (i asked him, as a child will, about the BLOND guy that i had heard stories about.) that NOBODY questioned that he was a TRUE member of his clan/society/band/tribe/nation, despite his blue eyes & blond hair. NOBODY!
he WAS Tsalagiyi because he LIVED Tsalagiyi!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
"He was Tsalagagiyi because he LIVED Tsalagagiyi"
And thats how it SHOULD be!
Thanks for the knowledge,stand.
i don't know if it comes through clearly in my posts on this subject or not, but i'm BOTH distressed & shamed by this NONSENSE, which has been pushed by the "tribal BIG-shots".
imVho, the "BIG-shots" are a HUMILIATION to everything that it means to BE Tsalagiyi/"Cherokee".
free dixie,sw
no sh&% sherlock, does one need to put sarcasm tags on everything? I think it was very obvious at what I was getting as you are the only person to make an issue of this.
"in the olden days" a person who wished to BE Tsalagiyi (as a portion of BECOMING an adoptee, during the ceremony) used to say:
"i truly regret that i was not born a Tsalagiyi, and feel myself to be UNWORTHY to be so, nonetheless i, humbling myself before each of you,state the desire to BECOME one with the people."
free dixie,sw
i thought that you, like all too many other people, might NOT know how the investigation of his ancestory came out.
free dixie,sw
Not really offended, bugged me a little, but not offended.
free dixie,sw
every time something like this happens, the BIGOTS & RACISTS "have a field day" at our expense.
it IS important to those of us who are legitimately part-bloods, if to nobody else.
free dixie,sw
I am also bewildered by what the tribal leadership has done with the Cherokee Freedman descendants. My grgrgrandfather and your namesake, Stand Watie who was married to my grgraunt, fought the federal government for years after the Civil war to give the Freedmen the same land allotments etc. that the Cherokee got because they considered them family. The slaves came with them on the trail of tears, they volunteered and fought in the civil war, built the South and considered themselves Southerners.
My grandfather, a lawyer, was such a pain about it all that the Union arrested and tried him for 'treason' 10 years after the war. He won that case as well as the one giving the Freedman tribal rights.
It appears the civil war within the Cherokee tribe never ended. Which was really the war the Cherokees were fighting at the time and a centuries long story in itself.
For some interesting reading and a glimpse into that era, take a look at the testimonies of some of those freedman slaves. Freedom for the slaves of the Cherokee often brought more pain, poverty and suffering than before.
" Of course I hear about Abraham Lincoln and he was a great man, but I was told mostly by my children when dey come home from school about him. I always think of my old Master as de one dat freed me, and anyways Abraham Lincoln and none of his North people didn't look after me and buy my crop right after I was free like old Master did. Dat was de time dat was the hardest and everything was dark and confusion."
http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/estelusti.htm
Sounds like the"big shots"are out of touch with their own cultural roots.
Very sad situation.
free dixie,sw
$$$$$$$$$$$$$ & more POWER.
that's it, finis, the end.
free dixie,sw
Every Indian I've ever met asks the same question.
And that fact, a part of human nature, has never and will likely never change. Unfortunately.
I think a cousin (several times removed) of mine said it best.
When called before congress to testify on Indian Affairs after the civil war, congress asked,
“What is your trade, calling, or occupation?”
Bell replied, “Various things. I practice law a little, farm some, run for office occasionally. Now and then take a hand at poker and never miss a horse race, if I get to it.
The rest of the time I spend in trying to fool God like you white folks do.”
Cherokee ping
And though I wear a shirt and tie
I'm still part redman deep inside.
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