Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt

[educatedindian]

We should have looked at this years ago.

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https://apnews.com/oklahoma-governors-tribal-fight-raises-ancestry-questions-61f53c6a2094c89f90b1a4190f08a7db
When Republican Kevin Stitt was elected Oklahoma governor in 2018, many Cherokee Nation members felt proud that one of their own had accomplished such a feat, even if their politics didn’t necessarily align with his.

But in less than a year in office, Stitt began facing fierce blowback, particularly from fellow tribal citizens, for engaging in a battle with the Cherokee Nation and other Oklahoma-based Native American tribes over the amount of casino gambling revenue they were giving to the state.

Many of the 39 federally recognized tribes in the state quickly united and launched a slick, multi-million-dollar ad campaign touting the benefits the tribes bring to the state. One fellow Cherokee Nation member launched an online petition that labeled Stitt a “traitor” and sought to have his tribal citizenship revoked. And several Cherokee genealogists have separately questioned Stitt’s ancestry, providing documents that indicate that the governor’s ancestor fraudulently got the family on the tribe’s citizenship rolls more than 100 years ago.

The fight is the first real test of power for the mortgage company CEO-turned-governor, and it is raising questions about tribal citizenship and identity, and the role that plays in politics.

“It’s one thing to be able to claim a heritage, and it’s a whole other thing to respect what that heritage means,” said state Rep. Collin Walke, a Democrat from Oklahoma City who is a Cherokee Nation citizen and the co-chair of the state’sNative American legislative caucus.

“Gov. Stitt’s affiliation with the tribe, I think he used that as a talking point, not so much as a substantive appreciation of what his actual heritage is.”

....Claiming Native American heritage can be a politically risky for a politician, especially if there’s an impression that it’s being done for political gain. Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren learned that lesson when she used DNA test results to try and rebut the ridicule of President Donald Trump, who derides her by referring to her as “Pocahontas,” which is a slur. Warren ended up angering many Native Americans and later apologized.

Unlike Warren, Stitt is a recognized citizen of the Cherokee Nation, which uses lineal descent to determine citizenship. That means a person can apply for citizenship if they have an ancestor who is listed on an original tribal roll.

According to archived tribal documents from the early 1900s that were reviewed by The Associated Press, the Cherokee Nation sought to remove one of Stitt’s ancestors, Francis M. Dawson, from the tribal rolls, alleging that he bribed a commission clerk to get him and his family on them. The tribe’s decision to remove Dawson and his family ultimately was overruled by the federal government, which had enacted a law that said anyone on the 1880 Cherokee census would be enrolled, said David Cornsilk, one of several Cherokee genealogists who has studied Stitt’s ancestry through records available in the National Archives.

Stitt declined a request to discuss his lineage but said through a spokeswoman that he never knew about an attempt to remove his ancestors from tribal rolls until a reporter recently asked him about it. He said he felt the line of inquiry was “highly offensive” and a distraction from the more important issue of the gambling compacts.

The Cherokee Nation’s new principal chief, Chuck Hoskin Jr., also declined a request to discuss Stitt’s ancestry, and the tribe said in a statement that its was focused on the mediation of its gambling compact.

“Governor Kevin Stitt is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation and our tribe does not dis-enroll our tribal citizens, nor is the Nation associated with any related petitions,” the tribe said.

Cornsilk, the Cherokee genealogist who works for the tribe but doesn’t speak on its behalf, described Stitt as a disconnected tribal citizen who doesn’t vote in tribal elections or actively participate with the tribe or in its traditions.

“Now, I don’t judge him for that because a lot of our citizens fall into that category,” Cornsilk said. “What I do judge him for is the fact that he’s attacking our tribe and tribal sovereignty..."

[Sandy S]

According to the federal documents we reviewed, Cherokee Nation attorneys accused Gov. Stitt’s ancestor, Francis Dawson, of bribing commissioners around 1880 — pretending to be Cherokee in order to gain tribal citizenship as well as access to hundreds of acres of free land. Cherokee attorneys also alleged that Dawson paid for about two dozen of his relatives to gain access to tribal rolls, along with allotted land, by paying Cherokee officials and his attorney $100 a head for each enrollment.

THE CHEROKEE NATION attempted to remove Francis Dawson from its tribal rolls over 100 years ago. But Cherokee Nation citizenship is not based on race, and Gov. Stitt, Dawson’s descendant, remains a member of the tribe. Though his family’s history of citizenship is unique, it is not necessarily unusual for a Cherokee Nation citizen to lack genetic ties to the tribe. Today, there exists no mechanism in Cherokee Nation law to disenroll a citizen.

Around 1900, Cherokee attorneys worked to remove the Dawsons from the tribe by taking the case before the Dawes Commission, which was originally established by the federal government to force tribes in Oklahoma to cede their land by distributing plots to individual Indigenous owners. The commission eventually dissolved communal tribal lands, piece by piece, as family plots were sold to non-Native owners.

One of the dozens of witnesses in the case testified that Dawson had only one witness, a doctor in Arkansas, to prove he was Cherokee. “(Dawson) said he could give him four drinks of Arkansas whiskey and he would swear that black was white,” J.L. Clinkenbeard testified on page 29 of the documents. He added that the doctor himself never actually testified in person.

The Cherokee Nation once fought to disenroll Gov. Kevin Stitt’s ancestors
Documents show the Oklahoma governor’s connections to the tribe may have originated in an act of fraud more than 100 years ago.
Graham Lee Brewer February 24, 2020

https://www.hcn.org/articles/indigenous-affairs-the-cherokee-nation-once-fought-to-disenroll-gov-kevin-stitts-ancestors/