A00199 - A Victory for the Descendants of Boley
As previously mentioned, my mother was born in Boley, Oklahoma
Boley, Oklahoma - Wikipedia
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Muscogee Freedmen Determined Eligible for Membership by Court
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A tribal judge for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in Oklahoma decided that two Freedmen, who are lineal descendants of Black people who were held as slaves by the tribe, are qualified for tribal citizenship.
Despite the tribe’s 1979 Constitutional revision, which added the phrase “Indian by blood,” Freedmen were still not allowed to enlist in the tribe.
“This is a powerful blow against anti-Black discrimination in this country,” the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Damario Solomon-Simmons, stated on September 28 during a press conference that was live webcast. Solomon-Simmons is a Creek Freedman himself; Cow-Tom, one of the five signatories to the 1866 Treaty ensuring tribal citizenship for Creeks of African Descent, as well as access to tribal services like health care, education, housing assistance, and federal funds like Covid-19 relief funding, was a Creek Freedman.
“This will change the lives of Black Creek Freedman throughout this country and particularly in this community. I’m talking about substantially providing healthcare, educational benefits, housing.”
Before the Civil War, the Muskogee (Creek) Nation had a unique form of kinship slavery. In this system, slaves were often integrated into their owner’s clan, engaging in cultural rituals and speaking the Mvskoke tongue, as articulated by District Judge Denette Mouser in her judgment. As the Civil War loomed, the tribe found itself divided; one faction supported the Confederacy, while the other sided with the Union.
Post-war in 1866, the Five Oklahoma Tribes — with the Muscogee (Creek) being one of them — entered into fresh treaties with the US government. These agreements abolished slavery and conferred “all the rights and privileges of native citizens, including an equal share in the land and national resources” upon all Freedmen.
However, 44 years ago, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation made a constitutional amendment, leading to the exclusion of many Freedmen descendants from citizenship. This change was based on the 1900s federal census which categorized Creeks as either “Creek by Blood” or “Creek Freedmen,” collectively referred to as the Dawes Final Rolls.
In a 2020 lawsuit, Rhonda Grayson and Jeff Kennedy challenged the Muscogee (Creek) Nation’s citizenship board for refusing their membership requests, even though both had verifiable ancestry tied to Creek Freedmen on the Dawes Final Rolls.
On September 27, Denette Mouser, the District Judge for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, overruled the board’s decision and urged them to reevaluate the applications of Grayson and Kennedy.
“The nation cannot choose to select and rely on portions of the Treaty to which it points as evidence of the tribe’s intact reservation, and also negate the clear language entitling descendants of a segment of the Dawes Final Roll—the Creek Freedmen—from eligibility for citizenship,” Judge Mouser wrote, referencing the tribe’s reliance on the same Treaty to establish their reservation’s borders in the 2020 McGirt decision. “Either the treaty in its entirety is binding or none of it is.”
“I’m just so happy that our people can now enroll in the nation of our ancestor’s birth, the nation of our birth,” Rhonda Grayson said in an earlier press conference.
Geri Wisner, Attorney General for the Muscogee Creek Nation responded to the decision:
“We will immediately be appealing this case to the Muscogee (Creek) Nation Supreme Court. The MCN constitution, which we are duty-bound to follow, makes no provisions for citizenship for non-Creek individuals.”
In May 2021, the Department of the Interior Secretary Deb Haaland gave her approval to the amended constitution of the Cherokee Nation. She also called on all Oklahoma tribes “to take similar steps to meet their moral and legal obligations to the Freedmen.”
Members of the Freedmen from the other three Oklahoma tribes—Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw—argue that their respective tribal nations are violating the 1866 treaties by not granting them equal rights.
While the Seminole Freedmen are recognized as tribal “citizens,” they don’t have the status of “members” who can access tribal services. This distinction arose when the Seminole Nation, along with the other members of the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma, modified their constitutions to restrict membership only to those with Native ancestry, effectively removing all Freedmen from their citizen rosters.
Decision-makers, even from places as distant as California, anticipate that the recent ruling could set a precedent for other Freedmen seeking full tribal citizenship.
Kamilah Moore, a renowned reparatory justice expert from California and the previous head of the state’s reparatory initiative for African Americans, commented on ‘X’, stating, “A win for Creek Freedmen is a win for all Native American freedmen, and even American freedmen!”
In the case of Muscogee (Creek) Freedman Ivory Vann, despite having a lineage of tribal members, including his father and grandfathers, he faced two rejections for tribal citizenship in 2019.
With the winds of change seemingly blowing in his favor, Vann, on October 2, along with around ten other Creek Freedmen, submitted a new application for tribal citizenship. However, a stay order halted the processing of his application, pending a decision from the Oklahoma Supreme Court.
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