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5 Colum. J. Race & L. 100 (2014-2015)
Cherokee Freedmen and the Color of Belonging

handle is hein.journals/cjoral5 and id is 100 raw text is: Cherokee Freedmen and the Color of Belonging CHEROKEE FREEDMEN AND THE COLOR OF BELONGING LOLITA BUCKNER INNISS* This Article addresses the Cherokee Nation and its historic confkct with the descendants of itsformer black slaves, designated Cherokee Freedmen. This Article sperficaly addresses how historic discussions of black, red, and white skin colors, desinating the African-ancestored, aborginal (Native American), and European- ancestored people of the United States, have helped to shape the contours of color-based national belonging among the Cherokee. The Cherokee past practice of black slavery and the past and continuing use of skin color-coded belonging not only undermines the coherence of Cherokee sovereignly, identity, and belonging but also problematiZes the notion of an exp§city aborxginal way of lfe ly bridging red and white cultural difference over apoint of legal and ethical contention: black inequaliy. I. INTRODUCTION......................................................101 II. THE NATIVE AMERICAN SOVEREIGNTY CONUNDRUM ...... ............103 III. CHEROKEE COLOR-BASED BELONGING, SLAVERY, AND POLITICAL LEGITIMACY......................................................... 105 A. Skin Color Discourse as the Source of Belonging ..... ......... 108 B. Whiteness and Cherokee Political Legitimacy ........ ............108 C. Cherokee Constitutional Norms, Color, and Citizenship.................111 IV. CHEROKEE FREEDMEN EMANCIPATION AND ITS AFTERMATH.................. 114 V. CONCLUSION: THE END OF AN ERA, BUT NOT THE END OF COLOR-BASED CLAIMS TO BELONGING .................................. ........... 118 Professor of Law, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, Cleveland State University. Ph.D and LLM with Distinction, Osgoode Hall, York University; J. D., University of California, Los Angeles; A.B., Princeton University. The author thanks members of the Harvard University Law School Institute for Global Law and Policy, members of the Lutie Lytle Workshop, and Dean Kevin R. Johnson of the University of California, Davis for reviewing versions of this article. The author offers special thanks to Associate Dean Carla Pratt of Pennsylvania State University School of Law for her in depth comments on earlier drafts of this article. Finally, but not least, the author thanks the editors of the Columbia Journal of Race and Law and especially Madiba Dennie for her assistance during the editing process. 100 Vol. 5.2

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