Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen Recognition for Federal Benefits

Since the July 27, 2022 Oversight Hearing of the Reconstruction Treaty of 1866 held by the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, we have been in contact with the Legislative Assistant and Appropriations Manager Kurt Lynch in the office of Senator Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada.

If you live in Nevada you can contact Mr. Kurt Lynch at the following email address:

Kurt_Lynch@cortezmasto.senate.gov

The Senator is eager to hear from her constituents about their concerns regarding the status of freedmen descendants of the five tribes known as Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Muskogee/Creek. However, our efforts are focused on the issues pertaining to Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen descendants we continue to encourage other descendants to contact their Senators, especially if they are members of the committee like Senator Cortez Masto of Nevada and Senator Lankford of Oklahoma.

Some have asked for a template or form letter they can circulate among their family and other freedmen descendants so they can take part in the "lobbying" effort to inform the committee members of our history and rights to federal benefits based on our connections to the tribes.

List of SCIA members: https://www.indian.senate.gov/about-us/committee-members

Should you wish to take part in this effort please feel free to copy and paste the following statement:

Attorney Michael Burrage for the Choctaw Nation clearly stated in his opening remarks to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, that all the members in the Choctaw Nation today are “lineal descendants” of Choctaw Indians. 

 

Judge Burrage and attorney Stephen Greetham, who represented the Chickasaw Nation, both stressed that because of tribal sovereignty, the tribes had the authority to determine its members, not the federal government. 

 

If that sentiment is true and shared by the committee it ignores one basic fact, the tribes don’t have the authority to determine our heritage or what we are entitled to as “lineal descendants” of recognized Choctaw and Chickasaw citizens.

 

There are three sources available to determine who is a “lineal descendant” of a Choctaw or Chickasaw citizen:

 

1.     The Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen Dawes Cards

2.     The List of Litigants in Equity Case 7071

3.     The 254 files that compose the Joe and Dillard Perry Petition to Transfer Files

 

We are developing databases and indexes for all three resources should you need our assistance.

 

With that in mind we respectfully suggest that Congress and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs determine our rightful status and have the GAO to construct a database, index and population number of descendants that are eligible for the same benefits, monies and programs offered to members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nation, regardless of membership in the nation of their ancestor’s birth.

Contact us at: 

equitycase7071@gmail.com