Equity Case 7071 Searching For Descendants

Equity Case 7071 Searching For Descendants

Over the years many people have approached me about Equity Case 7071 and the people who sought to be transferred from the Freedmen Roll to the Chickasaw or Choctaw by Blood Roll. When I first became aware of this case that had my great grandmother as the lead litigant I was intrigued that so many people claimed to have Native American ancestry.

At first I was pretty much a non-believer because a lot of people will tell you their grandmother was a full blood this and that, with high cheek bones and long hair, I dismissed it and went on about my business. It wasn’t until my father began telling me stories about “his” Indian grandmother that I took an interest just to humor him in the idea of him having Native American ancestry.

It was by accident I became engrossed and involved in research that is now going on thirty years because when I saw the name of his Indian grandmother in the book written by Dr. Daniel F. Littlefield Jr., I was not convinced my father was not making the story up.

Once I read about Bettie Ligon and her claim to be the daughter of Robert Howard Love a Chickasaw Indian I began to research the story and cut my father some slack on this incredible story he recalled from his childhood. The more and more I researched the more and more information I discovered.

Equity Case 7071 Cover Page

I have tracked down documents in the Congressional Record, law libraries, historical societies, courthouses and newspapers from all over the country to research the reasons and documents that would support the claim of more than fifteen hundred individuals seeking acknowledgement and the rights of a Chickasaw or Choctaw Indian by blood.

Daily Ardmoreite April 14, 1907

In the course of my research I’ve uncovered many documents that tend to demonstrate the truth in their claims and the extent the Chickasaw, Choctaw Nations went to deny these individuals their rights as citizens. I discover how complicit the Department of Interior was in condoning a racist custom of ignoring the genealogical ancestry of people who possessed Chickasaw or Choctaw ancestry based on the antebellum notion that a person’s “race” is predicated on the “race of their mother. If that individual had a mother that was enslaved, then the only conclusion they could reach was that child did not, did not derive any genetic material from their father.

So it is time to reach out to the descendants of the men, women and children who appear on Equity case 7071; Bettie Ligon, et al., Plaintiffs v Douglass H Johnson, et al., green McCurtain, et al., and James R. Garfield, Secretary of the Interior, Defendants.

These people never really had their day in court. It was the decision of one man; Webster Ballinger who decided that when it came time to file a brief so he could argue what was once described as the” most important suit that was ever filed with the clerk of the United States district court since the establishment of the citizens tribunal is that of Bettie Ligon on behalf of herself and over 1,500 other freedmen of the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations.”

Today, the Department of Interior is using the same language that was used in 1907 to justify the continued practice of dismissing applications for a CDIB card to establish a person “Indian blood.”  In an article written April 14, 1907 in the Daily Ardmoreite the attorneys for the claimants on Equity Case 7071 stated; “the Five Civilized Tribes adopted a rule whereby they declared all persons possessed of negro blood regardless of the quantum of Indian blood, to be negroes only and entitled only to such share in the tribal properties as was accorded to ex-slaves.”

The article further states, the commission adopted a rule that this class of persons were entitled to only such property rights as were their mothers going back to the old ante-bellum rule which applied to slaves and which applies nowhere in this country at this time, the status of the individual depended upon the status of the mother.”

Department of the Interior CDIB Rejection Letter 2017

In other words there was no consideration that the claims by “freedmen” of having a Chickasaw or Choctaw father was used to evaluate if someone had Indian blood. Based on that custom, now more than one hundred years later he record of their Indian fathers was never going to be included in deciding if the descendants of these men and women would ever receive the rights and privileges of citizenship in the nation of their ancestor’s birth.

Oh, and by the way, this decision also meant that these individuals would not receive the customary three-hundred and twenty acres of land that was given to someone with Chickasaw or Choctaw blood. 

That is no different than the letters sent to descendants of people on Equity Case 7071 from the Department of Interior; “Whether a person should have been included on the rolls is irrelevant, the fact is that they were not an “that ends the matter.”

The courts, the Department of the Interior, Congress and the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations have based their entire decision making process on the racist ante-bellum theory that a person’s race is predicated on their enslaved mother; “and that ends the matter?”

Does it?

I would like to hear from those who have an ancestor on Equity Case 7071 and what their thoughts are concerning the continued adherence to a slave era custom?

I would like to know who has applied for a CDIB card and have been rejected.

I would really like to know if we have the wherewithal to stand up to the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nation as well as the United States government to demonstrate that this bit of their past will not stand and that does not end the matter!

I can be reached at videogriot@gmail.com

If you have researched your ancestor(s) and know their name and Dawes Card Number please forward that information.

And if you have an image of that ancestor and would like to share it I would greatly appreciate putting a face to the people of Equity Case 7071.

Thanks in advance.

Terry LIGON

Great grandson of Bettie LOVE-LIGON