(TheRedAlertNews.com) – The Cherokee Nation has demanded that it receive a delegate in the US Congress under a treaty from nearly 200 years ago, which would put it in the same position as Washington, DC, and American overseas territories.
The Cherokee Nation, which presently has about 400,000 people and is the largest of the three Cherokee tribes recognized by the US government, claims it is entitled to a Congress delegate under the 1835 Treaty of New Echota.
The tribe argues that under that agreement with the US government, which was signed by a minority of its members, it was supposed to receive new land, $5 million, and a congressional delegate in exchange for leaving its ancestral lands.
“For two centuries, Congress has failed to honor that promise,” Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in an online video,” as cited by The Washington Times.
“However, the Treaty of New Echota has no expiration date. The obligation to seat a Cherokee Nation delegate is as binding today as it was in 1835,” he declared.
In the 1830s, the Cherokee were forced to move from their lands in the Southeast United States to the Indian Territory, today’s Oklahoma, in the so-called Trail of Tears.
In 2019, Chief Hoskin appointed Kimberly Teehee as a representative of the Cherokee Nation to the US Congress.
Before that, the Obama administration employed Teehee on American Indian affairs and was also an aide to US Democrat Rep. Dan Kildee of Michigan.
If the demands of the Cherokee Nation were met, presumably under the 1835 treaty, Teehee would become a non-voting delegate to the US Congress.
As such, she would be able to introduce bills and vote in House of Representatives committees but not on the House floor.
If the Cherokee Nation receives a non-voting member of Congress, it would have the same representation as the District of Colombia and most US overseas territories – Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Northern Mariana Islands, and the US Virgin Islands.
The free associated commonwealth of Puerto Rico has a resident commissioner with a four-year term.
The Cherokee were forced to relocate from their lands in the South to present-day Oklahoma, an arduous and deadly journey known as the Trail of Tears.https://t.co/ayoEod9M2u
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) September 28, 2022
