*On this date in 1866. The Treaty with the Cherokee Nation was signed. This document constituted articles about African Cherokee Citizens and ended Slavery in the Cherokee Nation. It also exemplified the historic intersectionality of the African American and Native American communities.
This voided a "pretended treaty" with Confederate Cherokees, granted amnesty to Cherokees, established a US district court in Indian Territory, and prevented the US from trading in the Cherokee Nation unless approved by the Cherokee council or taxing residents of the Cherokee Nation. It established that all Cherokee Freedmen and free Africans living in the Cherokee Nation "shall have all the rights of native Cherokees."
It established the right of way for rivers, railroads, and other transportation to their Cherokee lands; allowed for the US to settle other Indian people in the Cherokee Nation; prevented members of the US military from selling alcohol to Cherokees for non-medicinal purposes; ceded Cherokee lands in Kansas; and established boundaries and settlements for various individuals. This 19th-century treaty was ratified on July 27, 1866, and proclaimed Aug. 11, 1866.
On August 30, 2017, Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the District of Columbia held that the 1866 Treaty guarantees the descendants of Cherokee freedmen “all the rights of native Cherokees, including the right to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation.”
