A few years back, Microkhan wrote a lengthy Wired opus about a thorny conflict in Oklahoma: The battle over whether descendants of freedmen should be allowed to join the Native American tribes that their ancestors had belonged to. Now the Obama administration may be entering the fray:
In a letter sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder last week, the six lawmakers say, “The illegal actions of the leadership of the Five Tribes, some of which are the wealthiest tribes in Indian Country, have resulted in the freedman’s inability to access federal benefits and programs, totaling in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually, in the areas of housing, education, health and public works.”
The letter, first reported by The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, requests a “full-scale investigation into what we believe are the Five Tribes’ systematic expulsion of its freedman citizens in violation of their treaty, voting and civil rights.”
Learn plenty more about this long-festering issue from the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes.
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