"Tribal Membership is Based on Blood, Not Race!"

 

Antlers News Record April 29, 1910 p1c6&7

While listening to all of the representatives from the Five Slave Holding Tribes I gave particular attention to the words of the attorneys from the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations. It was particularly revealing that practically from the outset the representative from the Choctaw Nation, attorney and former judge Michael Burrage began his remarks with a familiar line of rhetoric that was not surprising but from my point of view totally disingenuous.

 “To be clear, the Freedman issue, as it relates to the Choctaw Nation, has nothing to do with race. Tribal membership is based on blood, not race.”

WRONG!

From the home town newspaper of "The Honorable Michael Burrage" that demonstrates without a doubt, race, not blood and lineal descent was used to prevent thousands of people with Choctaw or Chickasaw blood from being transferred to the blood roll and receive their rightful share of THREE-HUNDRED & TWENTY ACRES OF LAND as citizens of their respective nation.

Today, citizenship based on the Dawes Land Allotment Rolls is all about "Race."

"It is against the laws of nature, against the laws of God, against laws of the United States and against the sacred obligations between the general government and the Indian tribes."

"The negroes must remain negroes. They can not be transformed into Indians."

Write to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee and leave a message about your Freedmen Ancestors:

testimony@indian.senate.gov