When her phone started blowing up at the beauty parlor Wednesday afternoon, Marilyn Vann knew something was up.
The lead plaintiff in a long-standing lawsuit against the Cherokee Nation over the citizenship rights of the descendants of the tribe’s former slaves, Vann knew that that many calls and text messages on a weekday afternoon could only mean one thing: a ruling was in.
“I knew it had to be the case, otherwise people wouldn’t be calling me like that,” she said. “But I never doubted that we would win.”
Late Wednesday afternoon, the District Court for the District of Columbia denied a motion from the Cherokee Nation for a partial summary judgment and ruled that the Treaty of 1866 does indeed extend citizenship rights to the freedmen descendants.
“Although the Cherokee Nation Constitution defines citizenship, Article 9 of the 1866 Treaty guarantees that the Cherokee Freedmen shall have the right to it for as long as native Cherokees have that right,” Judge Thomas Hogan wrote. “The history, negotiations and practical construction of the 1866 Treaty suggest no other result.”
About 2,800 Freedmen descendants are currently enrolled in the tribe but no new applications have been processed since a 2007 referendum that restricted Cherokee Nation citizenship to direct descendants of individuals on the Delaware, Shawnee and Cherokee lists of the Dawes Rolls, which were compiled in the late 19th and early 20th century.
In his ruling Wednesday, Hogan noted that the tribe still has the right to determine its citizenship, but that when it does so, it has to put the Freedmen descendants on the same level as native-born Cherokees.
“The Cherokee Nation’s sovereign right to determine its membership is no less now than as a result of this decision than it was after the nation executed the 1866 treaty,” Hogan wrote. “The Cherokee Nation can continue to define itself as it sees fit but must do so equally and evenhandedly with respect to native Cherokees and the descendants of Cherokee freedmen.”
Late Thursday afternoon, Cherokee Nation Attorney General Todd Hembree issued a statement announcing that the tribe would not contest the ruling and its registrar has started working through the backlog of citizenship applications from Freedmen descendants.
“The Cherokee Nation respects the rule of law, and yesterday we began accepting and processing citizenship applications from Freedmen descendants,” he said. “I do not intend to file an appeal.
“While the U.S. District Court ruled against the Cherokee Nation, I do not see it as a defeat. As the Attorney General, I see this as an opportunity to resolve the Freedmen citizenship issue and allow the Cherokee Nation to move beyond this dispute.
“My office will work tirelessly to thoroughly review this decision and its legal ramifications, and will move forward in a way that best serves the interests of the Cherokee Nation and its citizens, including Freedmen descendants.”
Transferred back to the District of Columbia in late 2013 from the Northern District of Oklahoma, the lawsuit, Cherokee Nation v. Nash, was pending for almost a decade and bounced between two district courts. Despite promises from Hogan for a “speedy ruling,” oral arguments in the case were last heard more than three years ago.
With the decision coming just days before Cherokee National Holiday, the timing carries additional weight for Vann and other Freedmen descendants as they move forward.
“Holiday is when everyone comes together and reunites at the hog fries, powwow grounds and ceremonial grounds,” she said. “The judge may not have been aware it was just before the holiday, but think it’s a wonderful thing for us.”