Burning Phoenix

Written by Allogan Slagle for the United
Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, 1993.

BURNING PHOENIX:
A Study of the Federal Acknowledgment,
Reorganization and Survival of
THE UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA,
and of CHEROKEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA'S Efforts to Terminate the Band
ALLOGAN SLAGLE, FOR THE UKB: 1993

THE UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA AND ITS
INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE UNITED STATES
(COPYRIGHT ALLOGAN SLAGLE 1993)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND DEDICATION
FOREWORD AND ABSTRACT
A BRIEF UKB CHRONOLOGY
1. THE STATUS OF THE UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS IN
OKLAHOMA UNDER THE FEDERAL ACKNOWLEDGMENT CRITERIA AT 25 CFR 83.7....1
2. THE UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA AS A MODERN
AUTONOMOUS TRIBAL ENTITY............................................17
3. KEETOOWAH COHESIVENESS AND CONTINUITY AFTER 1906.................33
4. THE UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND, IRA, OIWA, AND THE "KEETOOWAH SOCIETY,
INC., OPINION"(1937)................................................40
5. THE ACT OF AUGUST 10, 1946.......................................59
6. LAND ACQUISITION RIGHTS, OIWA, AND THE ACT OF AUGUST 10, 1946....95
7. APPROVAL OF THE UKB CHARTER, CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS...........100
8. THE OCTOBER 3, 1950 UKB REFERENDUM..............................111
9. THE UKB DURING THE TERMINATION ERA..............................116
10. THE BELLMON BILL AND THE "REVIVAL" OF CHEROKEE NATION..........152
11. THE ATTEMPTED TERMINATION OF THE UKB...........................165
12. POSTSCRIPT.....................................................199
13. APPENDIX I: SCHOLARLY MONOGRAPHS, THESES AND DISSERTATIONS, CHEROKEE
GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS, PUBLICATIONS AND OTHER WRITINGS..............226
14. APPENDIX II: DOCUMENTS, LAWS AND RESOLUTIONS OF THE UNITED KEETOOWAH
BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA...............................230
15. APPENDIX III: BIBLIOGRAPHY -- TREATIES, AGREEMENTS, STATUES,
REGULATIONS, RULES, OPINIONS AND CASES.............................238
16. APPENDIX IV: GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS OF THE UNITED STATES.........275
17. APPENDIX V: BIBLIOGRAPHY -- AVAILABLE MINUTES AND OTHER MATERIALS
RELATING TO UKB MEETINGS EVINCING CONTINUOUS GOVERNMENTAL FUNCTIONS AND
POLITICAL ACTIVITY.................................................312
18. APPENDIX VI: BIBLIOGRAPHY -- THE CNO REGISTRATION/ DESCENDENCY LIST
AND THE UKB ROLL; SECRETARIAL APPROVAL OF UKB ENROLLMENT DETERMINATIONS;
SECRETARIAL AUTHORITY OVER IRA ELECTIONS; RECOMMENDATIONS...........198

A, D

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This narrative is a response to the requests of staff of the United
States Congress and the Tribal Council of the United Keetoowah Band of
Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma (UKB) for an explanation of the UKB's
history and circumstances. The document demonstrates the continuous
historical existence of the UKB since recognition, and the Band's
autonomy from any other political entity or any non-governmental social
or religious organization(s) that use the names "Keetoowah" or
"Cherokee." The author gratefully acknowledges the support of generations
of UKB leaders and members, the Officers and Council Members of the UKB
and their families, Frank Boudinot and Levi Gritts, Dr. Georgia Leeds and
other scholars and friends, Acting Secretary Abe Fortas, and especially
D'Arcy McNickle. The author thanks others who have contributed to the
compilation of source material for this narrative. The author also wishes
to acknowledge the support of Keetoowah councilmen, staff, and members
whose contributions and editorial suggestions made the completion of this
narrative possible.

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* * * * *
* * * * DEDICATION: * * * *

TO THE ETERNAL KEETOOWAH PHOENIX

AND TO HER CHILDREN

AND

TO D'ARCY MCNICKLE

WHO SAID THE EMPEROR WAS NAKED

* * * * AND POINTED * * * *
* * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * *

* * * * * *

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TALKING POINTS

1) Federal legislation greatly diminished the inherent sovereignty
of Cherokee Nation, leaving certain, primarily administrative functions
intact (1890-1906), under the direct supervision of the President and his
agent, generally the Secretary of the Interior. References to the
"dissolution" of the Cherokee Nation government appeared in the history
and in the language of certain legislation. The government was
essentially dissolved, with the exception of certain residual powers, on
4 March 1906.

2) Having failed at efforts to keep a tribally-elected, rather
than presidentially-appointed, Cherokee government in force, the
Keetoowahs realized that they were on their own, and resolved to rely on
their original governmental form, the foundations of which they brought
with them to Oklahoma. Keetoowah Society, Inc., in anticipation of the
eventual dissolution of the Cherokee Nation, acquires a Federal Charter
(20 September 1905; see 24 April 1944 determination of D'Arcy McNickle,
Tribal Relations Branch).

3) Subsequent Federal legislation restored certain aspects of the
inherent sovereignty of Cherokee Nation, dealing with administrative
functions, in order to protect residual property interests (1906-1930s).

4) Acting Solicitor Frederic L. Kirgis found the Keetoowah Society
ineligible to reorganize under OIWA and IRA. (Opinions of the Solicitor of
the Department of the Interior Relating to Indian Affairs: 1917-1974,
Vol. I (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department of the Interior, 1975), p.
774; Opinion, Keetoowah -- Organization as a Band 29 July 1937)

5) The Department of the Interior found the Cherokee Nation,
organized under the revised 6 September 1839 Constitution, a government
essentially dissolved in 1906, to be ineligible as such to reorganize
under OIWA and IRA. Field investigators found Cherokee citizens, with the
exception of the Keetoowahs, have abandoned tribal relations and have no
interest in reorganization. [MEMO TO INDIAN ORGANIZATION, 25 October 1937,
from Director of Lands (WDW) to Daiker, Indian Organization (enclosure
1310901)]

6) The Keetoowah Society, Inc., and other Keetoowah factions,
started organization work under the supervision of A. C. Monahan,
Regional Coordinator for Organization at Five Civilized Tribes Agency,
upon the discovery that indeed the Keetoowah Indians had a basis for
claiming historical existence as a recognized polity of Indians, August
1939. Investigators later find Kirgis was ignorant of the existence of
the 20 September 1905 Keetoowah Society, Inc. Federal Corporate Charter,
and its legal effect. In a determination of 24 April 1944, Tribal
Relations Branch officer D'Arcy McNickle categorically repudiated the
Kirgis Opinion, and in a meeting on 5 June 1944 with BIA Chief Counsel
Ted Haas, agreed that rather than simply ask the Solicitor to rescind the
old Opinion and submit another, that the Department would recommend to
the Secretary and Congress that Congress pass legislation to clarify the
status of the Keetoowah Indians, thereby allowing the Band to reorganize
under OIWA and IRA.

7) Congress, on the advice of the Acting Secretary and other
agencies, passed the 10 August 1946 Act acknowledging the UKB's
eligibility to reorganize under OIWA and IRA. The legislative intent and
statute itself contemplate recognition of a united entity, initially a
coalition government.

8) UKB reorganized under OIWA and IRA, adopting a Charter,
Constitution and By-laws in a Federal secretarial election on 3 October
1950, and proceeded to function with virtually no Federal assistance as
a federally-acknowledged tribe. The Charter provided for the eventual
recognition by sub-charter of any other Cherokee descendant group with
whom its own members are allowed to share membership, at the discretion
of the UKB Council. During Termination, the BIA refused to cooperate with
every development proposal in keeping with the OIWA and IRA that the UKB
Tribal Council submitted.

9) After 1960, the BIA and Cherokee Nation or Tribe investigated
the possibility of establishing services and programs for Cherokees in
the 14 county region, formerly Cherokee Nation, concluding that the only
possible solution was to make the UKB the vehicle for providing programs
and recognition.

10) Once Cherokee tribal programs were off the ground, the UKB had
little success retaining control of the very programs they fostered, and
even access to services. Independent ventures failed as well, partly due
to the (documented) collusion of their own legal counsel, Earl Boyd
Pierce, with BIA and CNO officials to stop the UKB.

11) The Act of Oct. 22, 1970, 91st Cong., 2nd Sess., P. L. 91-495,
84 Stat. 1091 (1970), the Bellmon Bill, "Authoriz[ed] Each of the Five
Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma to Select Their Principal Officer . . . ."
Federal court challenges determined that the presidentially - or
secretarially - appointed Principal Chiefs of Cherokee Nation since 1906
were bona fide heads of state. Other litigation addressed the question
whether the Cherokee government was terminated in 1906. On 2 October
1975, Commissioner Morris Thompson and Principal Chief Ross O. Swimmer
approved a draft CNO Constitution determining that the automatic
citizenship class shall consist of the Cherokee Dawes Commission
enrollees, and that descendants shall be eligible for registration as
member-descendants.

12) Commissioner Louis Bruce, in American Indian Tribes and their
Federal Relationship, Plus a Partial Listing of other United States
Indian Groups (Wash., D. C.: U.S. Dept. of Interior, BIA, March, 1972)
declared that the UKB is a fully recognized Class 1 OIWA/IRA tribal
entity, while Cherokee Nation remained an unorganized Class 3 service
population.

13) On 5 July 1976, Cherokee voters adopted the draft Constitution,
purporting to supersede the 1906 constitution, but CNO leaders claim in
Federal court that the old Constitution was dead in 1906, or that the
present government is the full successor to the 1839 - 1906 government,
as circumstances demand. The 1976 Constitution purported to sanction
affiliation of any CNO registree with any "clan" or other subordinate
entity within CNO. The Harjo case determined that the 1906 and related
Acts did not terminate the Five Tribes as such, and that the 1936 Act
assured them the enjoyment of their inherent sovereignty, as a general
principal. That case did not consider or discuss the 25 October 1937 Land
Division determination regarding the eligibility of Cherokee Nation to
avail itself of the benefits of OIWA and IRA, or contain any reference to
the intent of Congress, the BIA and the UKB regarding the implications of
UKB reorganization. No provision at Federal case law, and no Act of
Congress, allowed CNO to avail itself of the benefits of OIWA and IRA
reorganization free of the duty of actually taking the steps to
reorganization.

14) In the Federal Register, Vol. 44, No. 26, Tuesday February 6,
1979, pp. 7235-7236, the Secretary of the Interior listed the UKB as a
federally-recognized, service-eligible entity. The Department has since
characterized this and similar publications as binding determinations of
the Department regarding the recognition of tribes, both in Federal
litigation and in congressional hearings.

15) Characterizing the organization of federally-acknowledged
tribes listed in the 6 February 1979 Federal Register notice, on 20
November 1979, Ms. Patricia Simmons, Tribal Relations Specialist,
submitted to the Chief, Branch of Tribal Relations, a detailed report
titled, "Organizational Status of Federally Recognized Indian Entities."
Simmons surveyed a category (p. 2) of "Officially Approved Organizations
Pursuant to Statutory Authority (Indian Reorganization Act: Oklahoma
Indian Welfare Act; and Alaska Native Act), finding (p. 3), UKB had a
Council organized under a Federal Corporate Charter. Cherokee Nation
(with a Council) was listed In the "Other" category of "Officially
Approved Organizations Outside of Specific Statutory Authority," (p.7).

16) Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation Ross O. Swimmer denied UKB's
historical existence for the first time of record to Oklahoma Senator
Henry Bellmon, in a Letter, 27 April 1979. Swimmer claimed the UKB was
"created" by the accidental inclusion of their name in the 6 February
1979 Federal Register notice; see also Letter, 30 April 1979, Principal
Chief of Cherokee Nation Ross O. Swimmer to Oklahoma Senator David Boren,
denying UKB's historical existence.

FOREWORD

At the end of this narrative, the author will reflect upon the
implications of the title. At the outset, it is appropriate simply to
note that the UKB long has applied the metaphor of the Phoenix rising
from ashes to describe its own character and destiny. An account of the
attempts of the modern Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma government to usurp
the UKB's "nest" -- the Band's sovereignty, property rights,
opportunities, character and destiny -- are as important to this
narrative as the story of the Band's reorganization. The Postscript will
reflect upon the implications of the Burning Phoenix as a living metaphor
for the UKB in the face of termination.

A BRIEF UKB CHRONOLOGY

PRECONTACT TO 1730s: Ani-gi-du-wah-gi, the Keetoowah People, find
their source at Keetoowah, a Mother Tribal Town in Swain County, North
Carolina, and its affiliated smaller towns. Political succession proceeded
through elected Captains, a Chief, and Beloved Women.
1730s TO REMOVAL: Despite cultural and political disruption between
the American Revolution and the Removal period, the Keetoowah Indians
retained what they could of their primary rules and ways. They enforced laws
through customary sanctions and the law of blood, maintaining their own local
tradition despite major changes in general Cherokee society. The Keetoowah
Indians were part of the core Red/War groups who had allied with the French.

Some began to move to what became Arkansas territory as early as the end of
the Seven Year War in 1763. The Keetoowahs who allied with the British during
the Revolution joined that first wave of emigrant Keetoowahs. The
Chickamaugas followed after their attack on a white trading party at Muscle
Shoals, Tennessee River, in 1794. They all settled among the Western
Cherokees (Old Settlers). The U. S. officially recognized Western Cherokee
Tribal Council and their territory in 1817. Other Keetoowahs followed, first
to Arkansas and then to Indian Territory. By 1819, they numbered about 6,000.

The U. S. Supreme Court established some of the most important case law
regarding Cherokee Nation during this period:
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U. S. (5 Pet.) 1 (1831).
Worcester v. Georgia 31 U. S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832).

1838-1839, FORCED REMOVAL TO ARKANSAS AND OKLAHOMA:
The remnants of the War Party in the eastern states were too weak to oppose structural changes in
Cherokee government. As removal of the Eastern Emigrants proceeded, the
Keetoowah Indians lived as they always had, relying on subsistence
agriculture, fishing and hunting, practicing the old religion, maintaining
social cohesiveness at various towns in Cherokee territory, with gatherings
and daily interactions across factional and family lines. The Western and
Eastern Cherokees were forced to form a coalition government under a
Constitution dated 6 September 1839. John Ross (Chief from 1828-1866)
maintained support from the Keetoowah traditionals because of his opposition
to removal and his marriage to a fullblood.

1838 to 1860, KEETOOWAH REORGANIZATION IN OKLAHOMA: Knowing that Civil
War would threaten their government and society, and committed to honoring
treaties with the U. S., Keetoowahs reorganized under a Constitution written
by a fullblood Cherokee Baptist Minister, Budd Gritts (1858-1859). Followers
of the Jones family (non-Indian church leaders) also were instrumental in the
reorganization of the Keetoowahs in the 1850s. Starting from a base of born
Keetoowahs, the band drew in and adopted fullbloods from all nine Districts,
but primarily from a region composing five northeastern Oklahoma counties
today. Called the Keetoowah Society, they revived the role their Mother Town
of Keetoowah enjoyed in pre-contact and pre-Removal historical times. Their
leaders were "Captains," under a Head Captain, or "Chief." In 1857, the War
Department offered the town the military reservation of Fort Gibson, from
which the Cherokee Council created the town of Keetoowah. The Cherokee
Council voted to move the Capitol there from Tahlequah, but Chief Ross vetoed
the plan. The Keetoowahs elected Louis Downing their Head Captain, and later
helped him to victory as Principal Chief.

1860-1865, KEETOOWAH INDIANS IN THE CIVIL WAR:

All loyal Keetoowahs opposed the Southern Confederacy and supported the Union.
The Pin Indians, a particularly aggressive faction, fiercely resisted assimilation and invasion
by all non-Indians. The Council of Keetoowah town (Fort Gibson) met until
May, 1863. Convening at Cowskin Prairie that year, the Keetoowahs denounced
the Confederate Cherokees and celebrated the abolition of Slavery. While the
Keetoowah Indians remained loyal to the end of the Civil War, they shared the
common humiliation of all Cherokees resulting from the punishment of Cherokee
Nation for its official alliance with the Southern Confederacy. The 1866
Treaty abrogated all others to the extent they were inconsistent, but the
Keetoowah delegates to the Treaty convention reluctantly signed.

1866-1890, UKB FACTIONALISM AND CONFLICT: Immediately after the Civil
War, conflicts arose over the purposes and direction of the Keetoowah
organization. While some Keetoowahs wanted to preserve the ancient Keetoowah
culture, language and religion in pure form as possible, others preferred to
amalgamate the old ways with aspects of non-Indian culture, including
christianity. (The Cherokee Tobacco 78 U. S. 616 case was decided in 1871.)
The Keetoowahs elected Dennis Bushyhead as Principal Chief in 1879 and 1883.
One political party called itself the Keetoowah Party in 1879 in order to win
fullblood votes. The Society lost controlling influence in tribal politics
with the increase of intermarriage and the increasing influence of mixed-
bloods.

In 1887, the General Allotment Act (Dawes Severalty Act) authorized the
allotment of tribal lands to individual Indians and families. The Act did not
apply to Cherokee Nation (24 Stat. 338, Sec. 339, 1887). The land of Cherokee
Nation had to be allotted through an agreement in 1901, following actions of
the U. S. to limit the sovereignty of Cherokee Nation. The 1889 Act
established Federal courts in Indian territory, conferring limited civil
jurisdiction on tribes, and criminal jurisdiction over certain crimes,
excluding only Indian vs. Indian matters from Federal jurisdiction. The Act
terminated certain of Cherokee Nation's governmental powers over prescribed
territories and over its citizens. In 1889, reacting to the threat of
allotment, the political mission of the Society altered when a convention
amended the 1859 Constitution to include both religious and sectarian
functions, and to allow open meetings. All claimed to worship the same God,
as Keetoowahs.

1890s to 1901, PREPARATIONS FOR STATEHOOD; THE CHEROKEE AGREEMENT, AND
THE DISSOLUTION OF INDIAN TERRITORY AND CHEROKEE NATION, AND ALLOTMENT:

Congressional investigations from the 1870s forward confirmed widespread
corruption in the Indian Service and the Five Tribes governments. Proponents
of Oklahoma statehood pressed for elimination of the original tribal
governments in the 1880s, seeking control of land, oil, and minerals. The
1893 Act created the Five Tribes Commission to negotiate with the Five Tribes
for extinguishment of tribal title in order to facilitate the creation of a
state of Oklahoma in Indian Territory, and starting the allotment process.
Proponents of an Indian State of Sequoyah lost. The 1895 Act extended
Arkansas criminal laws over Indian territory, leaving intact exclusive tribal
jurisdiction over tribal members. The 1897 Act conferred civil and criminal
jurisdiction on the United States courts in the territory over all persons
regardless of race, in addition to imposing the laws of Arkansas and the
United States throughout Indian territory. The Five Tribes Commission
concluded negotiations without the cooperation of the Five Tribes, making the
Curtis Act of 1898 inevitable.

The Curtis Act (1898) forced the Five Tribes to allot their lands. This
Act seriously and deliberately weakened the Five Tribes' governments. The Act
granted territorial towns the right to establish municipal governments under
the laws of Arkansas, rendered the civil laws of the tribes unenforceable in
Federal courts, and abolished tribal courts. The Act prohibited payments by
the United States to tribal officers for disbursement to tribal members. The
Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes benefitted from the incorporation of
provisions of tentative agreements with these tribes, providing that if the
several agreements were ratified by these tribes, the provisions of the
respective agreements would replace conflicting provisions of the Curtis Act.
The Cherokee Nation had refused to negotiate a tentative agreement, and took
the full body blow of the Curtis Act.

Though all Keetoowahs opposed allotment originally, the Keetoowahs split
over how to handle the issue after Cherokee Nation's 31 January 1899 election
on the Cherokee Agreement. The mixed-bloods of Cherokee Nation won in the
popular election to approve the agreement, and Congress ratified the it on 1
March 1901 (31 Stat. 848). The agreement provided that Section 13 of the
Curtis Act would not apply to Cherokee lands, and that "no Act of Congress or
treaty provisions inconsistent with this agreement shall be in force in said
nation" except Sections 14, 27 and 28 of the Curtis Act. These authorized the
incorporation of towns, the location of Indian inspectors in Indian
Territory, and abolished tribal courts. The Agreement did the following:

1) Prescribed the manner of the allotment of all Cherokee land;
2) Prescribed the manner of establishing town sites under the
supervision of the Secretary of the Interior, including sale of town
lots;
3) Established schools;
4) Continued the Cherokee Advocate newspaper;
5) Reserved land for town sites, churches, cemeteries and the like;
6) In Section 58, provided that "The tribal government of the Cherokee
Nation shall not continue longer than March 4, 1906, subject to such
future legislation as Congress may deem proper;"
7) Conferred U. S. citizenship upon Cherokees;
8) In Section 72, provided that "Nothing contained in this agreement,
however, shall be construed to revive or re-establish the Cherokee
courts abolished by said last-mentioned Act of Congress (Curtis Act), or
the authority of any officer, at any time, in any manner connected with
said courts;"
9) in Section 75, provided that "No act, ordinance, or resolution of
the Cherokee national council in any manner affecting the lands of the
tribe, or of individuals after allotment, or the moneys or other
property of the tribe, or of the citizens thereof, except appropriations
for the necessary incidental and salaried expenses of the Cherokee
government as herein limited, shall be of any validity until approved by
the President of the United States."

This Agreement effectively placed the Cherokee Nation under the direct
management of the United States.

In November 1899, the Keetoowah Society convened in Tahlequah to pass
resolutions critical of the Cherokee Council and the Dawes Commission,
particularly with regard to plans to dispose of Cherokee land and to create
a roll without the consent of the Cherokee Nation. They challenged amendments
to the Constitution, and resolved to enroll only under protest. The
Keetoowahs in convention at Big Tucker Springs on 6 September 1901 decided to
enroll with the Dawes Commission led to a final schism between Keetoowah
factions. Redbird Smith left the meeting with eleven of his traditionalist
supporters to resist enrollment actively, forming the Nighthawk Keetoowahs.

Several hundred Keetoowah Indians, including several groups that started
out as members of the Keetoowah Society and left with the Nighthawks in 1901,
coalesced to form a number of secretive, traditionalist, exclusive factions.
Most of these groups started near Gore, Vian, or Proctor, and adjoining
areas. These groups were nascent within the Keetoowah Society as early as
1893, and derived from Goingsnake fire or various of the Four Mothers Nation
fires. Like the Nighthawks, these groups generally refused until 1910 or
later to accept the work of the Dawes Commission.

While they fully intended to maintain tribal government and functions
regardless of the fate of the Cherokee Nation, the Keetoowahs as a body
officially acquiesced under protest to the effect of all the legislative
provisions that would dissolve Cherokee Nation's government and allot
Cherokee lands. They learned that they could not prevent the 1893 Act, the
Dawes Commission enrollment, U. S. citizenship, the Curtis Act and the
abolition of tribal courts, the Agreement with the Cherokee Nation of April
1, 1900, the 1906 Act and the virtual political dissolution of the corrupt
Cherokee government as of 4 March 1906, presidential approval for all tribal
ordinances affecting tribal or individual lands after allotment, and the
allotment in severalty of Cherokee lands. See Cherokee Nation v. Southern
Kansas R. R. 135 U. S. 641 (1890) and Cherokee Nation v. Journeycake, 155 U.
S. 196 (1894).

1901 TO 1906, THE FIVE TRIBES ACT, AND THE REORGANIZATION OF THE
KEETOOWAH SOCIETY, INC., THE CREATION OF THE NIGHTHAWK KEETOOWAHS,
AND OTHER FACTIONS:

During this period, the Keetoowah Indians lived throughout most of
the old Cherokee districts, with the smallest constituencies in Cooweescoowee
and Canadian Districts. The majority of the Keetoowah Indians later formed
the political entity known as the Keetoowah Society, Inc., on 20 September
1905, because they knew that the Cherokee Nation was about to dissolve for
political and practical purposes, leaving Cherokee Nation with no other
general representative government unless the Keetoowahs carried on as a
political body. The Keetoowah Indians believed they had to resort to their
earlier governmental forms. Using a Federal Corporate Charter (20 September
1905) from the Territorial District Court in Tahlequah, as the Keetoowah
Society, Inc., this faction functioned as a polity composed of a Chief and
Council for the express purpose of carrying on the political and social
functions of a Band. Because opposing factions like Redbird Smith's
Nighthawks opposed any political organization they could not dominate, the
Keetoowah Society, Inc., could not fully represent the interests of the
Keetoowah Indians until they resolved such differences. Such a reconciliation
was impossible until the Nighthawks resolved to be a religious and social
organization with no political interests.

Robert Owen, head of the Union Agency of the Five Civilized Tribes, one
of Oklahoma's first U. S. senators and a Cherokee descendant, presented a
memorial for the Keetoowah Society, Inc., at the Sequoyah Convention in 1905.
He worked with attorney Frank Boudinot, the Keetoowahs' legal counsel after
1896 and Secretary after 1901, to prosecuted claims against the U. S. in
behalf of the Keetoowahs. The Keetoowah Society, Inc., elected Frank Boudinot
Chief of the Tribe in 1905, but with no legal effect on Cherokee Nation
except within the Keetoowah Society, Inc. Like the Nighthawk Keetoowahs and
other Keetoowah factions, the Keetoowah Society, Inc., granted membership to
some who were less than fullblood but who were socially and politically
fullblood.

1906-1934, THE GROWTH OF THE KEETOOWAH GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANIZATION PRIOR TO IRA: (The Indian Reorganization Act)

The Five Tribes Act of 1906 provided for final disposition of the
property and legal affairs of the Five Tribes, with special emphasis on the
allotment process, and the establishment of municipalities in Indian
Territory, clearing the way for statehood. The Act adopted language from
various of the agreements with the Five Tribes, and drastically limited the
sovereignty of Cherokee Nation:
Section 11 [Tribal Taxes Abolished] . . . Provided, That all taxes
accruing under tribal laws or regulations of the Secretary of the
Interior shall be abolished from and after December thirty-first,
nineteen hundred and five, but this provision shall not prevent the
collection after that date nor after dissolution of the tribal
government of all such taxes due up to and including December thirty-
first, nineteen hundred and five, and all such taxes levied and
collected after the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and
five, shall be refunded.
Section 28 [Tribal Government Preserved to the Extent Not Terminated] .
. . Provided, That the Tribal existence and present tribal governments
of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole tribes or
nations are continued in full force and effect for all purposes
authorized by law, until otherwise provided by law. . . . but the tribal
council or legislature in any of said tribes or nations shall not be in
session for a longer period than thirty days in any one year; Provided,
That no act, ordinance, or resolution (except resolutions of
adjournment) of the tribal council or legislature of any of said tribes
or nations shall be of any validity until approved by the President of
the United States; Provided further, That no contract involving the
payment of expenditure of any money or affecting any property belonging
to any of said tribes or nations made by them or any of them or by any
officer thereof, shall be of any validity until approved by the
President of the United States.
The Cherokee Nation still had a special trust relationship with the Federal
government, and had not been terminated in the sense that tribes were during
the 1950s. Congress expressly extended the existence of the Cherokee Nation,
and intended that members could elect to continue its functions, or abandon
tribal relations as they saw fit. The Cherokee Tribe retained on paper the
basic powers necessary to carry on self-government, including the right to
choose a form of government and select representatives, and to disburse
assets.
However, Cherokee Nation's members did not choose to carry out these
functions, and abandoned virtually all the governmental activities the Act
allowed them to preserve. The presidentially-appointed Principal Chief
constituted the sole Cherokee government. By the 1930s, the Department found
no extant functional Cherokee Nation government, but only a shell, consisting
of the presidentially-appointed Principal Chief, whose main function was to
sign papers disposing of Cherokee assets. Also, after all the legislation of
the 1890s to 1907, congressional limitations on Cherokee Nation's sovereignty
far outweighed the retained attributes.
After 1907, the Nighthawk Keetoowah Society, in true sectarian spirit,
named itself the "Original Keetoowah Society," based on the prophetic
insights of several of the leaders. John Smith, son of Redbird Smith, and
would-be prophet, continued to issue prophetic utterances in this vein
throughout his life, long after the Nighthawks had adopted an official stance
that they were not a political organization:
This is the original Kee-Too-Wah Society. . . . Any other organization
or body functioning or claiming representation under the name of the
Kee-Too-Wah Society are fictitious and impostors. (26 May 1937)
John Smith, the most influential Nighthawk leader among Redbird Smith's sons,
had lost virtually all credibility among Keetoowahs by the 1930s due to his
disastrous support of the Oneida con artist Chester Polk Cornelius. Cornelius
nearly destroyed the Nighthawk organization with failed get-rich-quick
development schemes that left many members landless and destitute. Some
Nighthawk spokesmen and leaders now erroneously claim the UKB is a splinter
of their religious cult, though the Nighthawks officially withdrew from all
political activity after 1901, and barred its members from affiliating with
any other groups or entities, including christian churches. As the number of
tribal towns associated with the Nighthawks dwindled from 21 in about 1900 to
3 in 1937, the remnants of the "non-political" Nighthawk faction eventually
collapsed into a variety of factions. These included two ceremonial grounds
run by opposing factions of Redbird Smith's own family at Redbird's and at
Stokes Smith's grounds, as well as the Goingsnake "Seven Clans" fire, the
Medicine Springs Fire or Medicine Society, and the Four Mothers Nation.

Other Cherokee political factions arose among the Keetoowahs, partly due
to concerns about potential claims, partly to organize formally as a
federally-recognized Tribe: the Cherokee Immigrant Indians, and the Eastern
and Western Emigrants. These factions of Oklahoma Keetoowah
Cherokees by blood pulled together a coalition from the
northern 14 counties of Oklahoma between 1920 and 1924, electing a Chief
(Levi Gritts), and an Executive Council of Cherokees by Blood out of the body
of the Keetoowah Society, Inc. During the 1930s, the majority of Keetoowah
factions, now without any support of the dwindling Nighthawk separatists,
supported the idea of reorganizing all the Keetoowah Cherokees in all the old
clan districts as a united Band under the proposed Indian Reorganization Act.
The Cherokees by Blood, representing all Cherokee descendants rather than
Keetoowahs alone, failed in 1932 to obtain standing as a party to the
Cherokee claims litigation. However, the Keetoowahs persisted as a political
body apart from the Cherokees by blood.

1934-1937, THE IRA: The Land Division in the Department of the Interior
concluded in 1934 that, unlike the other Five Tribes, Cherokee Nation was
neither interested in reorganizing, nor capable of doing so. Unlike the other
Five Tribes, Cherokee Nation had stopped electing officers and holding
meetings. Most members simply had abandoned tribal relations after 1906, and
by the Great Depression, were leaving Oklahoma by the thousands. Only the
Keetoowah Indians were willing and probably able to reorganize in Oklahoma
with great success, if the factions would only pull together. CNO could only
reorganize under OIWA and IRA today through an election relying almost
entirely on absentee ballots.

At the Muskogee hearing concerning the draft Indian Reorganization Act
on 22 March 1934, Keetoowahs shouted down their opponents and presented John
Collier and his staff with a formal petition and letter supporting the IRA,
and orchestrated a motion from the assembly roundly endorsing the
legislation. Shortly thereafter, the Commissioner received a telegram,
opposing reorganization. Though supposedly wired from the Keetoowah Council,
upon investigating, the Commissioner learned the message was a forgery.
Collier publicly praised the Keetoowahs for their enthusiasm and
understanding for reorganization in a variety of writings and press releases.
Interior Associate Solicitor Felix Cohen monitored the Keetoowahs' efforts to
reorganize. Keetoowah leaders offered plans for reorganization, along with
lists of members who supported IRA. Neither the Cherokee Principal Chiefs nor
any general representative body of Cherokee Nation itself showed any support,
while various non-Keetoowah Cherokees wrote to the Commissioner denouncing
the plan. A. M. Landman, Five Civilized Tribes Superintendent, predicted that
the mixed-bloods would control any pan-tribal Cherokee organization. Landman
believed that a fullblood organization was best suited to represent the
fullbloods. However, each faction demanded recognition as the exclusive
representative government of the Tribe.

1937-1939, OIWA AND EARLY ATTEMPTS TO A REORGANIZE KEETOOWAH
GOVERNMENTWITHIN CHEROKEE NATION'S FORMER BOUNDARIES:

Oklahoma Senator Elmer Thomas, who believed the IRA should be
restricted to reservation Indians, co-authored
the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act to allow Indians living on allotted lands in
the state to avail themselves of the benefits of IRA. Though the
participation of Oklahoma Indians in the IRA was not possible until the
Thomas-Rogers Act of 1936 enabled reorganization under IRA through the OIWA,
the Keetoowahs began planning to organize under the legislation. Just as A.
M. Landman had predicted, the Keetoowah Society, Inc., at the urging of Levi
Gritts, sought permission to represent the Keetoowah Indians, while certain
other factions still demanded recognition as the exclusive representative
government of their own small following, if not of the Tribe.

BIA anthropologist Dr. Charles Wisdom conducted research on the
Keetoowah Indians starting 5 May 1937 with the cooperation of Organization
Field Agent Ben Dwight. Wisdom did not realize the Keetoowahs had a Federal
Charter predating to the dissolution of Cherokee Nation, showing the
Keetoowahs' intent to maintain a governing entity within Cherokee Nation
despite the effect of other Federal legislation. While the Nighthawk
Keetoowahs were willing to submit to an interview, the Nighthawk leaders
later utterly rejected the idea of participating in organization, primarily
because they were not to be the focus of the project. Levi Gritts's effort
failed when Associate Solicitor Frederick Kirgis issued his Keetoowah-
Organization as a Band Opinion (29 July 1937), based on Charles Wisdom's
brief ethnographic study, concluding that the Society, or any of its
factions, standing alone, was only a society of the Keetoowah Indians, and
never had been a governing polity within the Cherokee Nation.

A Land Division decision in October 1937 stated that the Cherokee Nation
government under the 6 September 1839 Constitution was ineligible to
reorganize to undertake the functions of the 1906 government. Congress had
dissolved most aspects of the inherent sovereignty of the Cherokee Nation
government as set out in the 6 September 1839 Constitution. [(MEMO TO INDIAN
ORGANIZATION, 25 October 1937, from Director of Lands (WDW) to Daiker, Indian
Organization (163618); see also Solicitor's Opinion, 1 October 1941, 1 Op.
Sol. on Indian Affairs 1076 (U. S. D. I. 1979)] The decision binds CNO,
despite the Harjo v. Kleppe court's finding that the Five Tribes still
existed in 1972, and that the citizens of those tribes had the right to
organize governments under OIWA and IRA. Thus, while the Cherokee Nation was
not terminated, any new organization of the Cherokee Tribe would have to be
an entirely new entity. Field investigators reaffirmed that Cherokee citizens
forming the general class of Dawes enrollees, with the exception of the
Keetoowahs, had abandoned tribal relations and had no interest in
reorganization.

1939-1946, THE UNION OF KEETOOWAH FACTIONS TO FORM THE UKB: Contrary to
post-1979 accounts by CNO, the UKB Base Roll was the BIA-approved 1949 UKB
Base Roll, not the 1907 Cherokee Dawes Commission Roll. Neither Principal
Chief Jesse B. Milam nor W. W. Keeler had any role except as bystanders in
the UKB reorganization. The UKB was never intended to be a mere loan
association. The UKB was federally-chartered under Section 3 (not Section 4)
of the OIWA. The UKB never identified itself with the Nighthawk cult, because
most UKB members belonged to Protestant denominations.

In June 1939, Organization Field Agent Ben Dwight informed Regional
Coordinator of Organization for the Five Civilized Tribes Agency, Muskogee,
A. C. Monahan, that Kirgis had been unaware of the Keetoowah Society, Inc.'s
Federal Corporate Charter (20 September 1905). In obtaining that Charter, the
Keetoowah Indians had established recognition as a polity of Indians. That
recognition should have made them eligible to reorganize under OIWA and IRA.
Realizing the legal effect of that document, A. C. Monahan assigned Ben
Dwight and A. A. Exendine to help the Band to organize a coalition government
between 1939 and 1946 including the Society, Inc. and other factions as well.

The United Keetoowah Cherokee Band of Indians (UKB) formed a
Constitution and By-laws in 1939, and held popular elections between 1939 and
1946, seating a Chief, Reverend John Hitcher (1939-1946), and a Council. The
UKB undertook land acquisition efforts for the purpose of establishing a
Federal trust land base in Oklahoma in 1942, but the Department would not
cooperate without congressional approval. Some Five Civilized Tribes Agency
employees hoped to use the Band as a vehicle for restoring the Old Cherokee
Nation, or at least for reorganizing all the Cherokee Dawes Commission
enrollees and their descendants under OIWA and IRA. However, the 25 October
1937 decision of the Director of Lands, Land Division, Department of the
Interior, prevented that result. The UKB decided by 1942 to remain a
"Keetoowah" Cherokee polity including only Cherokee descendants who met the
UKB membership requirements. The Department determined that an organization
of the Keetoowahs, reuniting the various Keetoowah factions and other
Cherokees of one-half blood or more who wanted to participate, did not
conflict with the residual government of the Cherokee Nation. The latter was
to retain its 1906 status under an appointed Principal Chief.

D'Arcy McNickle's determination of 24 April 1944 found the UKB was a
historical tribe (see full text below). Rather than merely ask the Solicitor
to rewrite the opinion, Acting Interior Secretary Abe Fortas asked Congress
to pass the 10 August 1946 Act acknowledging the UKB's historical status and
eligibility to reorganize under OIWA and IRA. The legislative history and
intent contemplated recognition of a united body of Keetoowah Indians of 1/4
degree Indian blood or more, with the possibility of enrolling persons of
lesser degree in the future. Keetoowah Indians of all factions and
communities worked with the Organization Field Agents through Five Tribes
Agency after 1946 to reunite under a common secular leadership, although
every UKB Chief from 1939 to 1979 was a protestant clergyman. UKB interest in
Cherokee-related issues was entirely restricted to interests of the UKB
constituency, composed primarily of restricted Indians, non-Dawes enrollees,
and other Keetoowahs who remained loyal to the Keetoowah political ideals.

1946-1950, THE KEETOOWAH INDIANS ACT AND THE UKB REORGANIZATION:
Reverend Jim Pickup (1946-1954, 1956-1957, 1960-1967) succeeded Reverend John
Hitcher (1939-1946) at the latter's death in 1946, continuing as Provisional
Chief until reorganization was complete. Pickup continued as Chief,
alternating with Jeff Tindle, until 1967. Due to the Kirgis Keetoowah -
Organization as a Band Opinion (29 July 1937), the UKB reorganization process
could not begin until Congress agreed to offer the UKB the opportunity to
reorganize under OIWA and IRA. The Organization Field Agents, congressional
staff, and Acting Interior Secretary Abe Fortas, Congressman Stigler and
Senator Thomas supported the proposed UKB reorganization, based on the
results of additional research and the success of organizing efforts.
Congress passed the Keetoowah Act on 10 August 1946, as part of a package
measure including a gift of land to the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribe in Oklahoma.

Although in the 1930s the plan was to organize half-bloods only, the
1946 Act did not contemplate the organization of an adult Indian community
under Section 479 of the IRA, but of a sovereign tribe in the full sense
under Section 476 of the IRA. Therefore, the 1949 UKB Base Roll was open to
quarter-bloods, anticipating the future adoption of other Cherokee
descendants of lesser blood. The reorganization process took another four
years. On 1 May 1949, anticipating the roll the UKB would have in managing
their share of Cherokee Nation property, the BIA named Chief Jim Pickup as
Trustee for Cherokee Nation assets. On 9 May 1950, Secretary Warne signed the
approved UKB Charter, and issued a statement that the UKB treaty rights could
be found in the treaties of the Cherokee Nation. The UKB corporate Charter,
Constitution and By-laws were adopted 3 October 1950 by the majority of
qualified voters. Thereafter, the UKB, incorporating all the factions of the
Keetoowah Indians of the Cherokee Tribe throughout the nine districts of the
old Cherokee Reservation, continued to repose its secular governmental
authority continuously in democratically-elected Chiefs (also informally
called, in the 1940s, "Presidents"), Executive Officers, and a Tribal
Council, with other subordinate officers and officials as needed.

The 1939 Roll, reaffirmed in 1949, became the foundation of the Base
Roll, subject to amendment by 3 October 1955, though the UKB updated it in
1985 with secretarial approval. During the periods of open enrollment,
consistent with the 1950 enrollment laws, members of 1/4 or more Cherokee
ancestry, using the Dawes Roll or any other acceptable proof of Cherokee
ancestry by blood, were adopted into the Band. Enrollment remained open,
though enrollment ordinances changed several times.

1950-1964, THE UKB DURING TERMINATION: Despite undocumented and
spurious claims to the contrary, archival sources demonstrate that the Band
continued to survive and function as a tribal entity since reorganization,
although not without heated election controversies and partisan feuds, such
as those between the Jeff Tindle (1954-1956, 1957-1960) and Jim Pickup (1956-
1957, 1960-1967).

With the aid of Earl Boyd Pierce, Esq., the UKB resumed efforts to
borrow money in order to acquire a tribal trust land base, through the
OIWA/IRA revolving credit. In refusing to extend loans to the UKB, the BIA
relied on the point that the UKB was not organized under Section 4 of the
OIWA as a loan association, but was a recognized tribe organized under
Section 3. When the policy was changed making the Section 3 organizations
eligible to apply, another general policy of BIA Superintendent W. O. Roberts
and the Eisenhower Administration prevented loans for such trust land
acquisition. When UKB Chief Jeff Tindle attempt to have Principal Chief W. W.
Keeler replaced, Muskogee Area Director Fickinger seized on the occurrence of
a UKB election dispute to declare the UKB without a government. When the Band
appealed, the BIA Commissioner Glenn Emmons admonished Fickinger on his
refusal to recognize UKB's Council.

Between 3 October 1950 and 3 October 1960, while the Secretary retained
approval authority over the UKB, but the Department determined that such
authority lapsed on 3 October 1960 (see Letter, 15 October 1961, from
Assistant Chief Tribal Operations Officer Pennington to Muskogee Area
Director Virgil N. Harrington, regarding Harrington's 7 August 1961 inquiry
as to the effect of Sections 5, 6 of the UKB's Charter on secretarial
approval authority after 3 October 1960). Principal Chief W. W. Keeler never
obtained supervisorial authority over the UKB, except covertly, by arranging
with Area Director Harrington and the UKB's attorney to receive all
information regarding their private undertakings so that he could veto them
if they did not suit him.

After Chief Pickup resumed office, replacing Chief Jeff Tindle, the BIA
began to work with the UKB to make the Band the vehicle for delivering
services to its own members and to other service-eligible Cherokees. In 1963,
the BIA and Cherokee Nation realized that because of restrictions in the
Band's Charter that could not be lifted without a secretarial election, the
UKB was unable to engage in land transactions that involved long-term leases
or sale of acquired tribal lands. The UKB continued to seek trust land
acquisition for tribal housing and its own governmental offices and business,
with no cooperation from the BIA.

Members of the UKB Tribal Council continued to administer enrollment and
to verificy qualifications of prospective members, approving enrollment
updates through formal Council action. A 4 June 1963 enrollment ordinances
required new members to prove 1/2 or more degree of Cherokee Indian blood,
but the 23 November 1964 enrollment ordinance restored eligibility to quarter
bloods. All enrollment ordinances continued to rely upon the 1949 UKB roll.

1964-1976, THE UKB DURING RECONSTRUCTION OF CHEROKEE NATION:
Cherokee Nation or Tribe and the UKB embarked on joint enterprises in the
early 1960s. The UKB Council and Chief Pickup tried to help all Cherokees,
regardless of UKB affiliation, by acting as the Cherokees' sponsoring
federally-acknowledged tribal organization for the purpose of bringing in
funds and programs to Oklahoma. Chief Jim Pickup, as Trustee for the trust
assets of Cherokee Nation (4 May 1949 - 17 May 1967), wanted the UKB
Council's joint and concurrent control over Cherokee trust assets, programs
and services within the boundaries of the old Cherokee Nation to continue,
for the benefit of the UKB's own members.

UKB Chief Jim Pickup and UKB Chief Bill Glory (1967-1979) attempted to
work cooperatively with Cherokee Nation, even though UKB members bitterly
criticized both of them for being too accomodating and giving away the rights
of the UKB. Some leading members of the UKB Council even resigned in protest.
Relations deteriorated irreparably between Chief Glory and Principal Chief W.
W. Keeler by 1974. Keeler evicted Glory from the small UKB tribal office
housed in the CNO tribal complex at Tahlequah after Glory retired from the
Cherokee Nation Housing Authority. Cherokee Nation attempted thereafter to
close all doors to UKB participation in Cherokee property and activities.

The Act of Oct. 22, 1970, 91st Cong., 2nd Sess., P. L. 91-495, 84 Stat.
1091 (1970), the Bellmon Bill, "Authoriz[ed] Each of the Five Civilized
Tribes of Oklahoma to Select Their Principal Officer . . . ." However,
Commissioner Louis Bruce, in American Indian Tribes and their Federal
Relationship, Plus a Partial Listing of other United States Indian Groups
(Wash., D. C.: U.S. Dept. of Interior, BIA, March, 1972) declared that the
UKB is a fully recognized Class 1 OIWA/IRA tribal entity, while Cherokee
Nation remained an unorganized Class 3 service population. Federal court
challenges later determined that the presidentially - or secretarially -
appointed Principal Chiefs of Cherokee Nation since 1906 were bona fide heads
of state, but those decisions had no legal effect on the status of the UKB.

1976-1990, THE UKB DURING CHEROKEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA'S SELF-
DETERMINATION: CNO opposed the UKB's continuing efforts to establish a land
base, tribal office complex, businesses, and to maintain a separate roll. CNO
began exploring ways to terminate the Band, including through administrative
and congressional action. The course of choice was to request nullification
of the UKB Corporate Charter as provided in Section 8 of that Charter.

CNO adopted a non-OIWA/IRA government under a 5 July 1976 Constitution
that Commissioner Morris Thompson and Ross O. Swimmer co-approved 2 October
1975. CNO claimed this document to be the legal equivalent of an OIWA
Charter, Constitution and By-laws. CNO claimed that the UKB and CNO shared a
common base roll and service population, and that CNO should control all
funding and trust assets within the former boundaries of Cherokee Nation.
Litigation addressed question whether the Cherokee government was terminated
in 1906. The BIA supported CNO's claim that the OIWA and IRA abolished the
effect of the 1906 Act in that the Tribe was eligible for the benefits of
OIWA and IRA; however, no one has explained how any Tribe can avail itself of
the full benefits of OIWA and IRA without reorganizing accordingly. Congress,
having limited the inherent sovereignty of Cherokee Nation, began to restore
it through piecemeal legislation in the 1980s. The BIA also gave CNO special
dispensations that went around the intent of OIWA and IRA. UKB's organization
under OIWA / IRA became a liability, when Swimmer slurred the OIWA, IRA and
1946 Act, claiming the UKB was a "created" tribe lacking any sovereignty.

UKB political and governmental activities and economic development
efforts were muddled during the early to mid-1970s, dissolving into factional
disputes between Chief Bill Glory and the Tribal Council. The feud led to the
development of a Shadow or Underground government under the leadership of Tom
Hicks, Henry Doublehead and Willie Jumper. Eventually, Jim Gordon (1979-1983)
was elected as the new Chief to succeed Glory after Tom Hicks withdrew. UKB's
Council, gridlocked during the mid-seventies, returned to an even keel when
the Council sought aid from Muskogee Agency to restore order and clear the
wreckage left after Chief Glory's chaotic administration.

The years of Chief Jim Gordon's administration (1979-1983) were fraught
with controversy and a taste of the unrelenting harassment of CNO to come.
Under Chief Gordon, the Enrollment Committee expanded enrollment activities,
under a series of new ordinances. For a time, eligibility expanded, though
few outside the original eligibility classes availed themselves of the
opportunity. New additions to the Roll occurred through Council resolutions
in 1980, and in another series of additions, concluding in October 1982.

During these years, the UKB attempted to participate in various programs and
development strategies with mixed success, due to lack of resources, lack of
cooperation from the BIA and the State, direct interference from CNO, and the
UKB's own internal political confusion and distress.

In the Federal Register, Vol. 44, No. 26, Tuesday February 6, 1979, pp.
7235-7236, the Secretary of the Interior lists the UKB as a federally-
recognized, service-eligible entity. The Department has since characterized
this and similar publications as binding determinations of the Department
regarding the recognition of tribes, both in Federal litigation and in
congressional hearings.

Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation Ross O. Swimmer denied UKB's
historical existence for the first time of record to Oklahoma Senator Henry
Bellmon, in a Letter, 27 April 1979. Swimmer claimed the UKB was "created" by
the accidental inclusion of their name in the 6 February 1979 Federal
Register notice; see also Letter, 30 April 1979, Principal Chief of Cherokee
Nation Ross O. Swimmer to Oklahoma Senator David Boren, denying UKB's
historical existence. The claims that the UKB is a sovereign inferior to CNO,
that the UKB has no rights as a Federal-Indian tribe, regardless of source or
basis, do not antedate 6 February 1979, and probably are no earlier than 27
April 1979.

In May 1979, Assistant Deputy Commissioner Martin Seneca issued a
decision requiring the UKB and CNO to issue concurring resolutions to obtain
P. L. 93-638 "tribal organization" funding. CNO Principal Chief Ross O.
Swimmer lobbied successfully with Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard to
overturn the Seneca determination. However, in characterizing the
organization of federally-acknowledged tribes listed in the 6 February 1979
Federal Register notice, on 20 November 1979, Ms. Patricia Simmons, Tribal
Relations Specialist, submitted to the Chief, Branch of Tribal Relations, a
detailed report titled, "Organizational Status of Federally Recognized Indian
Entities." Simmons surveyed a category (p. 2) of "Officially Approved
Organizations Pursuant to Statutory Authority (Indian Reorganization Act:
Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act; and Alaska Native Act), finding (p. 3), UKB had
a Council organized under a Federal Corporate Charter. In the "Other"
category of "Officially Approved Organizations Outside of Specific Statutory
Authority," (p.7), Cherokee Nation (with a Council) was listed.

On 16 January 1980, Gerard eliminated requirements that CNO obtain
concurring resolutions from the UKB to apply for any Federal program funds
serving Cherokees. CNO continued to claim that the UKB and CNO have a common
population, though very few CNO members ever were eligible for membership in
the UKB. The Band obtained a P. L. 93-638 Grant to amend the 1949 Base Roll
and produce a current (1986) Roll. In the first month of the project, the BIA
reaffirmed that the UKB Base Roll was distinct from the 1907 Cherokee Dawes
Commission Roll, and therefore was a Base Roll distinct from CNO's.

The Band transmitted the updated 1949 Roll, the newly approved and duly
adopted 1986 Membership Roll, and the Final Report of P. L. 93-638 Grant
G08G142002 to the BIA's Muskogee office as a deliverable on 16 March 1986.
The Band submitted these records to Federal District Court with a cover note
from the BIA Muskogee Area Office, in the course in litigation in 1987 in
Cordelia Tyner, a/k/a/ Cordelia Tyner Washington, and the United Keetoowah
Band of Cherokee Indians v. State of Oklahoma, ex re., David Moss, District
Attorney and David Moss, individually; M. Denise Graham, individually, No.
87-2797, U. S. D. C., N. D., Oklahoma., when the State subpoenaed a copy of
the Band's tribally-certified roll.

In 1988, the Department found that the 1976 Cherokee Nation was, as
constituted, "the full successor to the Cherokee Nation of the first decade
of this century."(Letter, 4 February 1988, Hazel E. Elbert, Acting Assistant
Secretary of Interior for Indian Affairs, to James G. Wilcoxen, Esq.,
Wilcoxen and Cate, Muskogee, Oklahoma) However, unexplained questions
regarding the Tribe's inherent sovereignty, precisely because it is the full
successor to the Cherokee Nation as dissolved in part and preserved in part
in 1906. The Department did not find that CNO had any authority over the UKB,
a tribe organized separately under OIWA and IRA. Elbert did find that the 25
October 1937 Land Division Opinion remained in effect.

UKB Membership Ordinance 90 UKB 9-16 16 September 1990 provides that any
descendant of 1/4 Cherokee Indian blood of any enrollee on the 1949 UKB Base
Roll, or on any other historical Cherokee Roll, shall be eligible for
enrollment in the UKB. Final determinations of Cherokee Indian blood quantum
rest with the UKB Tribal Council. Under that ordinance, UKB members who held
affiliation of any kind with any other federally-acknowledged tribe were
required to relinquish that membership. The UKB continues to require
relinquishment for new applicants, but is setting up the process for an IRA
election to change enrollment requirements to require relinquishment and to
ban dual affiliation.

Finally, in 1990, after a systematic review of the United Keetoowah
Band's enrollment and membership files (and a comparison of those data with
the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's data), the BIA Muskogee Area Office
confirmed, that more than 3,000 members of the United Keetoowah Band,
including its Base Enrollees, never were registered with Cherokee Nation of
Oklahoma, and therefore never had any form of dual affiliation with that
entity. Some 4,700 UKB members either never voluntarily registered with
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, or once were registered (voluntarily or
involuntarily), but subsequently voluntarily relinquished their CNO
registration. On 24 July 1992, Rosella C. Garbow, Muskogee Area Tribal
Operations Officer, declared:

This is to certify that records created in 1985 show that the United
Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma has approximately 4,700
enrolled members residing within their service area.

Over 250 more UKB members have relinquished their affiliation with any other
federally-recognized tribe since that date. The 1986 United Keetoowah Band
Roll, completed during the P. L. 93-638 grant, was known to be an official
Tribal Roll for all purposes, duly adopted by the Tribal Council, and
authenticated by the BIA, within the meaning of Federal Indian Law. It is up-
to-date, and there are regular monthly additions through adoption, and
clarifications of exclusive affiliation through relinquishment from Cherokee
Nation of Oklahoma.

Regardless of Dawes descendency, it is the policy of the United
Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma that all lineal descendants of
the 1949 Base Roll and current roll are automatically eligible for membership
in the Band. The UKB hoped that the enrollment update and other status
clarification efforts would result in separation of their population from
CNO's, and would lead to the development of a UKB land base and separate
programs. However, a separation of the two populations required the
cooperation of CNO, and that was virtually impossible for the UKB to obtain.
The UKB sought to finance litigation to obtain a clarification of their
political and economic rights, but CNO intervened with all agencies,
foundations, corporations, local governments and Congress to prevent any
successful business ventures.

CONCLUSION: 1990-1993, THE CHEROKEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA'S
CAMPAIGN TO TERMINATE THE UKB:

In 1990, in a desperate effort to prevent the Secretary
from extending to the UKB the full rights of a properly organize OIWA and IRA
tribal government, Ross O. Swimmer wrote a letter to Assistant Secretary
Brown. This letter concluded that the UKB should not be recognized at all,
because the UKB Base Roll was the not BIA-approved 1949 UKB Base Roll, not
the 1907 Cherokee Dawes Commission Roll, because Principal Chief W. W. Keeler
had the UKB reorganized to suit his own purposes, because the UKB was only
intended to be a loan association, and because the UKB, though federally-
chartered under Section 3 of the OIWA, was always trying to ride the
coattails of the Nighthawk Keetoowahs in order to establish a tribal
identity. Swimmer's claims became the core of the case against the UKB
thereafter in litigation and in hearings. The CNO had terminated a tribe by
creating a new mythology.

The premise upon which Assistant Secretary Forrest Gerard relied in
penning the 16 January 1980 Letter barring separate funding for the United
Keetoowah Band was the same one upon which Congress relied in declaring the
United Keetoowah Band ineligible for separate funding and land acquisition in
Oklahoma (at least for the purposes of the 101st Congress) within the former
boundaries of Cherokee Nation (in Amendment 86 to H. R. 101-116, the FY 1992
Interior Budget Appropriations Bill). That defective premise was that
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the United Keetoowah Band share the same Base
Roll.

AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY OF THE UKB'S STATUS

WITH REVIEW UNDER THE CRITERIA OF 25 C. F. R. 83

"The Keetoowahs themselves have never accepted the view that
they are not "the people' and that they do not speak for the real
interests of the ancient Cherokee world. They continue to this day
to speak and act in all patience as if the decrees of the courts
and the acts of the Congress had never been. But they are still
puzzled at the failure of the United States to understand the
simple thing they have always said, namely that Keetoowah is
Cherokee and should never have been considered anything else."
-- from Position Paper on the UKB, 24 April 1944, D'Arcy McNickle,

THE STATUS OF THE UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF
CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA

The purpose of the following narrative is to lay to rest certain
popular misconceptions about the political identity of the Keetoowah
Indians who compose a recognized Indian tribe. The most damaging of
these misconceptions arose during the concerted, well-financed campaign
by the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and the Department of the Interior to
falsify the record of the UKB's existence and organization to accomplish
the Band's termination. That campaign started on or about 27 April 1979.
The UKB hopes that Congress, Indian nations and voters will learn from
this account how the involuntary termination of tribal existence still
is possible.
* * *
After 1968, Congress took steps to halt or reverse the unilateral
administrative and legislative termination of tribes. P.L. 100-297,
Title 25 U. S. C. Section 2502 (April 28, 1988), formally rescinded P.
L. 83-108 as a statement of the "sense of Congress," at least for the
purposes of the 100th Congress. Congress declared that there shall be no
unilateral termination of any federally-recognized tribe. See
legislative history at 1988 U. S. Code Congressional and Administrative
News, p. 101. Termination still happens, through third-party challenges
to the tribal status of tribes that are recognized. Aggressive lobbying,
litigation, and defamation are effective tools for competing governments
and business interests who find any particular tribe's inherent powers
and rightful property claims to be inconvenient. The UKB example
provides an important case study of the continuing termination process.

This narrative begins at what could be the end. The effect of an
obscure amendment to the FY 1992 Interior budget was to declare the Band
ineligible for separate services or Federal trust land acquisition, and
therefore effectively terminated as a sovereign. The legislative history
of Amendment 86 is illustrative of the UKB's interactions with the U. S.
Congress, the BIA, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and the State of
Oklahoma since 1979.

Knowing well that the purpose of a $100,000 line item in the FY 92
Interior budget was to allow the UKB to maintain a current distinct
Tribal Roll, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma intervened to prevent the
funding allocation. Congressman Mike Synar's testimony against the UKB
during the hearings on FY 1992 Interior appropriations quoted from what
he said was a BIA assessment of the UKB's performance under its 1984 P.
L. 93-638 grant to update the UKB Roll. At the hearing, Chairman Les
Aucoin clearly viewed this quote as the single most important charge
against the UKB. At the appropriations hearing, BIA witnesses verified
that the statement was an authentic quote from a 1980 BIA report.

No one at the hearing, no member of Congress, no staff member ever
read the alleged quote carefully enough to notice the date of the
alleged BIA "determination." No one at the hearing read from or cited
the 1984 grant approval letter from the BIA to the UKB informing the
Band of the award and its terms. No one cited the UKB's 1986 Final
Report or read from the Band's cover letter. No one invited the UKB to
respond, or listened when the UKB learned about the hearing and
attempted to respond to the accusations of Congressman Synar and CNO. No
member of Congress ever has asked whether it was physically impossible
for there to be a 1980 BIA negative assessment of the Band's performance
on a project which did not exist until 1984, and which the Band
completed in 1986. The UKB Tribal Council's Final Report to the BIA on
their 1984 P. L. 93-638 grant accompanied an approved and updated roll.
That roll was verified by the BIA Muskogee Area Office for use as
evidence in Cordelia Tyner, a/k/a/ Cordelia Tyner Washington, and the
United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians v. State of Oklahoma, ex re.,
David Moss, District Attorney and David Moss, individually; M. Denise
Graham, individually, No. 87-2797, U. S. D. C., N. D., Oklahoma (1987),
when the State of Oklahoma demanded that the UKB produce a current
approved Tribal Roll. Contrary to post-1979 accounts by CNO, the UKB
Base Roll was and still is the BIA-approved 1949 UKB Base Roll, not the
1907 Cherokee Dawes Commission Roll. A comparison of the grant letter
and the UKB's Final Report proves that Congressman Synar's 1991
allegations against the UKB were false.

It is impossible to write a valid program evaluation four years
before a project starts and six years before it ends. If the BIA was
prescient enough in 1980 to forsee the UKB would fail to perform on its
1984 grant contract by 1986 and issue a report in 1980 making that
finding, why did the Assistant Secretary grant the award in the first
place? If the new Congress is incapable of rescinding Amendment 86, no
Indian sovereign is safe.
* * *
Another charge against the UKB dating to 1979 is that it is a
splinter group of the Nighthawk Keetoowah religious organization, or
alternatively, that it is a bogus organization wrongfully claiming a
political identity and affiliation with the Nighthawk Keetoowahs. The
UKB never identified itself with the Nighthawk cult. Most original UKB
members belonged to Protestant denominations, and most of the Chiefs
have been fundamentalist preachers or church leaders; that is the plain
truth.
Chadwick Smith, a Cherokee affiliated with Cherokee Nation and
enrolled with the UKB, has been an employee of Cherokee Nation since the
1970s. While he serves as legal counsel for CNO and as a judge in CNO's
magistrate court system, he also represents the Nighthawk Keetoowahs
regarding their false claim that the UKB is a splinter group of the
"Nighthawk" Keetoowah Society, created at some unknown date between 1905
and 27 April 1979 (the date when Ross O. Swimmer's claims against UKB's
status emerged). Chadwick Smith leads a group of "Reformed Keetoowahs"
dedicated to neutralizing UKB political activity, by termination if
possible. Ironically, Chadwick Smith is a grandson of Rachel Quinton, a
faithful UKB Council representive for the Canadian District, as well as
Secretary and Clerk during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, who never saw the
UKB as a creature of CNO. Throughout most of her later years, Secretary
Rachel Quinton unsuccessfully promoted reconciliation between Stokes
Smith, the Chief of the Nighthawk contingent in her day, and the UKB
Council, hoping that Stokes Smith's would encourage his followers to
join the UKB. Mr. Smith's personal crusade against the UKB repudiates
his membership in the UKB, and dishonors the memory of his own
grandmother.

Federal records and official accounts attest that the Nighthawk
Keetoowah Society broke away from the old Keetoowah Society about 1905
as a result of a disagreement regarding the political future of the
community. The history of the "Nighthawks" as a secretive religious cult
in the strict anthropological sense is well-established in scholarly
writings. Today, the two main opposing factions of Keetoowah Nighthawks
at Stokes Smiths Grounds and at Redbird Smith's Grounds still claim
(separately, and in opposition to each other and the rest of the world)
to be the arch-conservative bastion of Cherokee tradition. The
Nighthawks generally have barred members from affiliation in any other
political, religious or social organizations. The Nighthawks' "non-
political" religious organizations shunned most christian influences as
a doctrinal matter, though Redbird Smith himself venerated Christ at the
end of his life. Therefore, it is most interesting to find that in 1991,
the Nighthawk Keetoowahs at Stokes Smith's Grounds reversed a policy of
over 80 years' standing to attack the political status of the UKB,
adopting a new agenda that suited Chad Smith's professional aspirations
quite well. Chad Smith, his father and certain cronies have used their
dual affiliation with CNO and the UKB to mount a widely-advertised
campaign to terminate the UKB from within.

The Keetoowah Society, Inc., incorporated on 20 September 1905, and
worked to keep the Keetoowah factions united. The Corporation led the
struggle for the right of the UKB to reorganize, but its long-time
leaders lost credibility and following to the UKB after 1939. By 1950,
most members of the various Keetoowah factions had joined the UKB, even
though the leaders of these factions never officially resolved their
philosophical differences. While the Nighthawk Keetoowahs recorded under
900 current members (and the membership at the two remaining, opposing
grounds has continued gradually to decline), the official UKB enrollment
was around 1,500 in 1939, and grew to over 3,000 by the time of the IRA
election in 1950. The UKB has a resident Oklahoma service population of
4,700, of whom about 4,000 hold exclusive UKB membership. The weak basis
for the "Nighthawk" legend appears below in a detailed chronology and
analysis of events leading to the acknowledgment of the UKB in 1946 as
a federally-recognized tribe entirely distinct from the Nighthawk
organization or from Cherokee Nation.
* * *
On 27 April 1979, Ross O. Swimmer claimed that the UKB was created
as a Section 4 loan association under OIWA, only to enable individual
Cherokees to obtain personal loans. UKB was never intended to be a mere
OIWA loan association. The UKB was federally-chartered under Section 3
(not Section 4) of the OIWA, and never received any OIWA loans, because
the BIA refused to allow them to participate in the program, even after
the rule changes made them eligible, as a Section 3 chartered Tribe.

Ross O. Swimmer later claimed (8 May 1990) that Principal Chief W.
W. Keeler personally arranged the acknowledgent and reorganization of
the UKB after 1950 in order to assure that Cherokee interests would be
represented in Federal claims actions. While Swimmer's 8 May 1990 claim
is false in stating that Keeler had any significant role in the 1946 Act
or the UKB reorganization, it supports the theory that the UKB is
entitled to standing as a party in any claims actions regarding the
trust assets of the old Cherokee Nation. As the records demonstrate,
neither Principal Chief W. W. Keeler, nor his immediate predecessor
Jesse B. Milam, had any role except as bemused bystanders in UKB's
reorganization. We have found no evidence that Keeler knew what a
Keetoowah was until he was appointed to Cherokee Nation Executive
Committee on 30 July 1948, months before he succeeded Milam.

Swimmer's fallback position was that the UKB never properly
reorganized under OIWA and IRA, notwithstanding the 1946 congressional
recognition of the Band's eligibility to reorganize, due to a 1937
Solicitor's Opinion by Frederic L. Kirgis. In Keetoowah -- Organization
as a Band Kirgis determined the Keetoowah Society, Inc., was ineligible
under OIWA and IRA to reorganize as an Indian tribe. Swimmer was silent
regarding the written findings of the Five Civilized Tribes Agency
Organization Field Agents (Ben Dwight and A. A. Exendine) and of their
Regional Coordinator, A. C. Monahan (between June 1939 and 1946).
Swimmer seemed conveniently ignorant of the documented BIA organization
field work with the UKB after 1937, and the legislative history of the
1946 Keetoowah Indians Act. In debunking Swimmer's follies, this
narrative reviews the entire documented history of the UKB's
reorganization under the OIWA and the IRA. The narrative describes the
Band's near eradictation between 1979 and 1992 due to administrative
termination and legislative logrolling. The narrative concludes with a
brief discussion of measures the UKB is undertaking to survive.
* * *
This story of the near-termination of the UKB begins with an
account of the Band's formal congressional recognition. The 1937
Keetoowah Society, Inc., Opinion lost all significance in the
congressional acknowledgment of the UKB. Congress knew all about the
Opinion, and agreed with the policy basis, but disagreed with the fact-
finding and conclusions. The 1937 Kirgis Opinion relied on the
understanding that the various Keetoowah factions that had broken away
since 1900 had never formed a coalition government. He ignored the
significant point that, though the Keetoowah Society, Inc., had lost
much of its right to claim dominion over all Keetoowah Indians due to
factionalism, the Keetoowah Society had obtained a Federal Charter from
a territorial court in Tahlequah on 20 September 1905, recognizing it as
a polity of Indians. The Keetoowah Indians already had been federally-
acknowledged as a political entity, a tribe.

CNO claims that the 1946 Keetoowah Act was somehow an error, but
the legislative history behind the 1946 Keetoowah Act shows the UKB's
recognition was no fluke. In endorsing the bill, Acting Secretary of the
Interior Abe Fortas relied on ten years of BIA organization work,
finding that it was possible for the majority of Keetoowah Cherokees to
unite to form a coalition government by consensus, even if it meant
abandoning their own factions, including the Keetoowah Society, Inc.,
itself. U. S. Congress recognized the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee
Indians in Oklahoma (UKB) as a Tribe of Indians residing in Oklahoma
under the Act of August 10, 1946 (60 Stat. 976). The Band subsequently
incorporated under Section 3 of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of June
26, 1936 (46 Stat. 1967), the OIWA. The Secretary of the Department of
the Interior approved the Band's election (October 3, 1950) to ratify
the amendments to the UKB Tribal Constitution and Bylaws, and to adopt
a Corporate Charter under the OIWA. The UKB remains an autonomous,
distinct, federally-recognized tribal entity. The UKB has reserved to
itself all the rights and privileges secured to organized tribes under
Section 3 of the Indian Reorganization Act.

CNO also claimed in statements to the BIA (1990 - 1991) that,
regardless of the 1946 Act, the reorganization of the UKB was
fundamentally defective or never completed, and that therefore the Band
should never be recognized. BIA representatives adopted this line in
discussions with Keetoowah representatives visiting in Washington, D.
C., in 1991, claiming that they simply could not locate signed copies of
the UKB Charter, Constitution or By-laws, or proof that the 3 October
1950 Federal election ever had happened. The UKB's findings in Federal
archival holdings in 1990 and 1991 proved not only that these documents
existed, but that BIA staff had made no reasonable effort to look for
them, or simply were lying.

On 27 April 1979, Ross O. Swimmer also claimed that the UKB never
had conducted any governmental or community functions as a Tribe, and
that it had abandoned tribal relations voluntarily at some undefined
time between 1969 and 1979. The inclusion of the UKB's name on the
Interior Secretary's 6 February 1979 Federal Register listing of
federally-recognized tribes, therefore, was a fluke. Swimmer did not
bother to check departmental determinations on the UKB's status during
the 1970s, or request documentation of continuing tribal relations;
Swimmer simply undertook systematic efforts to void the status of the
UKB. In separate letters dated 27 April and 30 April 1979, Swimmer asked
Congress to exercise its authority under Section 8 of the UKB Charter to
nullify the Charter. However, the Department concluded that Congress
also would have to void the UKB Constitution to complete the
transaction, and that spelled TERMINATION. TERMINATION was
not a popular word any more.

Thereafter, Swimmer made the termination of the UKB a personal
crusade. These efforts are a primer for third party challenges of tribal
status throughout the United States. U. S. Secretaries of Interior and
Assistant Secretaries of the Interior for Indian Affairs from Gerard to
Swimmer ignored the congressional mandate respecting the sovereign
rights and entitlements of the UKB. While he was Assistant Secretary
from September 1985 to January 1989, Swimmer used his office to
promulgate a series of negative determinations against the UKB.
Afterwards, Swimmer freely cited decisions of his own administration as
authority in lobbying his successor, Dr. Eddie Frank Brown. Although the
CNO successfully blocked all Federal funding, services, and trust land
acquisition for the Band while Brown was in, the BIA never altered its
basic position, consistent with the 1946 intent of Congress, that the
UKB enjoys a government-to-government relationship with the United
States. See Letter, 10 July 1989 Decision, Acting Superintendent Cecil
Shipp, Tahlequah Agency, BIA, "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN," verifying the
"Federal recognition of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokees of
Oklahoma as a federally recognized tribal entity;" also, Letter, 24 July
1992 Decision, Area Tribal Operations Officer Rosella C. Garbow TO WHOM
IT MAY CONCERN, certifying and authenticating the UKB's Roll; and
Letter, 24 August 1992 Decision, Acting Assistant Secretary Ronald Eden
to Chief John Ross, UKB, confirming that the UKB is an autonomous fully
federally-recognized Tribe, eligible for separate services and land
acquisition, but for Amendment 86 of P. L. 101-116, 2nd Sess., 1991. CNO
failed to challenge these determinations in any way under the APA.

In a Letter dated 10 November 1989, Senator Daniel K. Inouye,
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, to John Ross, then
Treasurer of the UKB, Senator Inouye assured the UKB:
Your status as a recognized tribe is not in question. However,
the decision of the BIA in 1980 to designate the Cherokee Nation as
the recipient of 638 grants and contracts, to the exclusion of your
tribe, is now being reviewed. It is certainly my hope that the
review will be favorable to the right of the United Keetoowah Band
to contract for its own programs and services.

In United Keetoowah Band - Cherokee Nation, 30 October 1990, a
memorandum from Dr. Eddie Frank Brown to the Solicitor of the Department
of the Interior, Brown covered the Department's position paper on the
UKB issue. The Assistant Secretary concluded, "the United Keetoowah Band
has been recognized as a tribe since 1950, and we do not want to
withdraw that recognition. Absent Congressional action, we do not have
the authority to do so." The memorandum substantiated the sovereign
claims of the UKB from 1939 to the present, except that he had failed
altogether to review the record and determinations of the BIA and the
Band proving that the UKB has a distinct, 1949 Base Roll and separate
membership criteria from CNO. Referring to the OIWA, the Position Paper
recalled:
The OIWA allows "the Indians of Oklahoma to exercise substantially
the same rights and privileges as those granted to Indians outside
of Oklahoma by the IRA." H. R. Report No. 2408, at 3. Thus, the
Indian governments that reorganized under Section 3 of the OIWA are
of the same legal and independent character as those non-Oklahoma
Indian tribes that reorganized pursuant to Section 16 of the IRA
(25 U. S. C. Section 476).

The equities here are not on the side of the U. S., Oklahoma or CNO. The
UKB, as a matter of Federal-Indian law, is a government organized under
OIWA and IRA since 1950. The UKB is in no sense subordinate to the CNO.
The UKB Charter and Constitution are senior to the 1975 CNO Constitution
(CNCA), which is not a proper organic document under OIWA and IRA. CNO
has had the opportunity to accept funds and contract out programs under
P. L. 93-638 to the exclusion of the UKB, allegedly on behalf of and for
the benefit of the UKB, and now is participating in Self-Governance
agreements with the U. S., purporting to represent the interests of the
UKB. CNO is incompetent to represent the interests of the UKB, lacks
sovereign interests over the affairs of the UKB, and has had no formal
intersovereign relationship the UKB since 4 March 1906. To test these
statements, one needs only to review the status and history of Cherokee
Nation since at least 1898.
* * *
Notwithstanding the Agreement with the Cherokee Nation, April 1,
1900, which declared the intent of Congress that the governments of the
Five Civilized Tribes would expire in 1906; and notwithstanding other
statutes that pared away particular governmental functions of Cherokee
Nation and the other four Nations in the meantime; the 1906 Act
nonetheless preserved certain residual, primarily executive powers of
the Five Tribes' governments, while restoring none of the terminated
functions, or the revoked Constitutions. Under the OIWA (1936), any
Oklahoma tribe theoretically could form a council, adopt a constitution,
by-laws, and charter with secretarial approval, and reorganize under the
IRA, just as tribes in other states could. However, in a Memorandum to
the Indian Organization Division regarding the eligibility of Cherokee
Nation in particular to avail itself of the benefits of the OIWA, the
Director of Lands of the Department of the Interior determined on 25
October 1937 (File #163618), that:

It is not believed that the Oklahoma Welfare Act may be used
as authority to reorganize the existing tribal government of the
Cherokee Nation. On the contrary, the Act appears to contemplate
the creation of a new, separate and distinct organization, to adopt
its own constitution and bylaws and to procure a charter of
incorporation without regard to the existing government.
It is believed that the powers and jurisdiction of the new
organization should be limited to the property and other benefits
to be acquired under the Act. Those persons whose names are on the
final rolls of the Cherokee Nation have certain rights in the
remaining assets of the tribe, and if any attempts were made to
deny them the right to vote on matters that may affect such rights,
it would doubtless give rise to litigation.

CNO claims all the benefits and advantages of OIWA and IRA
reorganization, with none of the burdens or responsibilities. CNO claims
to be full and exclusive successor to the powers and assets of the Old
Cherokee Nation, with the right to discriminate among classes of
descendants with impunity. CNO claims title to all the IRA purchases for
a Cherokee tribe organized in Oklahoma under OIWA and IRA, although the
only such tribe is the UKB. No Act of Congress, judicial determination
or administrative decision ever has contradicted or reversed the 25
October 1937 determination expressly.

* * *
The Act of Oct. 22, 1970, 91st Cong., 2nd Sess., P. L. 91-495, 84
Stat. 1091, the "Bellmon Bill," "Authorizing Each of the Five Civilized
Tribes of Oklahoma to Select Their Principal Officer, and for Other
Purposes," exemplified efforts to overrule the BIA's interpretation of
the 1906 Five Tribes Act, under which the U. S. appointed the Principal
Chiefs. The Act restored the Cherokee Dawes enrollees' and descendants'
right to select leaders, but did not revive suspended powers which
earlier legislation had dissolved, suspended, or conditioned. While
restoring the opportunity to exercise certain inherent rights of
sovereignty, the Bellmon Bill extended to the Cherokee Nation no
exemptions from the procedural requirements for organization under the
OIWA.

In 1971, Cherokee Nation reelected Principal Chief W. W. Keeler in
an informal national plebiscite. In Harjo v. Kleppe, 420 F. Supp 1110
(D.D.C. 1972), aff'd. sub nom. Harjo v. Andrus, 581 F.2d 949 (D.C.Cir.
1978), the U. S. Supreme Court determined that the Curtis and Dawes
legislation had preserved the governments of the Five Tribes to the
extent Congress had not limited their powers. OIWA, IRA, and later
legislation made it possible for some of the Five Tribes to organize new
governments in the 1970s and regain aspects of their sovereignty that
earlier congressional Acts had restricted or eliminated. However,
eligibility to reorganize is not the same as reorganization;
reorganization, as the UKB can attest, can be an excruciatingly
demanding process.

As a matter of administrative convenience, the Secretary of the
Department of the Interior and Congress condoned the unconventional
quasi-reorganization of the CNO that followed the last term of Principal
Chief W. W. Keeler (1971-1975). As the Cherokee Nation drafted a
Constitution, the CNO properly relied on Harjo in concluding that CNO
indeed had retained aspects of inherent sovereignty through the years;
however, their analysis did not consider the problem of the erosion of
Cherokee Nation's sovereignty through congressional and administrative
acts which still had its effects on Cherokee Nation, leaving intact only
unaffected aspects of inherent sovereignty. Commissioner of Indian
Affairs Morris Thompson approved the Constitution for referendum on 5
September 1975, as "seconded by Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation,
Ross O. Swimmer" on 2 October 1975. Voters approved the Constitution the
next year in a tribal election, not a secretarially-supervised Federal
election in a manner comporting with Federal regulations governing the
conduct of OIWA and IRA elections (now at 25 C. F. R. Section 81).
Article I of the CNO Constitution, "Federal Regulations," stipulates
that:
. . . [T]he Cherokee Nation shall never enact any law which is in
conflict with any Federal law.
Objectively speaking, the content and structure of the CNO Constitution
itself flagrantly violated Federal law regarding reorganization of
Oklahoma tribes, if reorganization under OIWA was the intent of the
framers. However, Article I of the CNO Constitution, "Federal
Regulations," also stipulates that:
The Cherokee Nation is an inseparable part of the Federal Union.
The Constitution of the United States is the Supreme law of the
land; . . . [Emphasis added]

This language leads one to conclude that the CNO depends for its primary
source of Constitutional, sovereign authority on the sovereign power of
the United States, under the U. S. Constitution, and secondarily on the
residual inherent powers remaining to the CNO since 1906, to the extent
that Congress has restored those powers since the Agreement with the
Cherokee Nation, 1 April 1900. Since CNO has not availed itself of the
opportunity to reorganize under OIWA and IRA, the form of organization
under which the Tribe now operates requires only secretarial condonation
of the actions of a Principal Chief, whom CNO voters now select and may
remove from office, operating under a governmental form of
administrative convenience. The 1975 CNO Constitution, then, is a means
for CNO to conduct business as other tribes do, while leaving the 1906
status quo of Federal management of, and authority over, Cherokee Nation
affairs essentially intact. This means that, though selected by voters,
the Principal Chief of Cherokee Nation is essentially a colonial Viceroy
subject to the will of the U. S. Executive Branch. CNO's Constitution,
at "Article XVIII. Adoption" stipulates that:
This Constitution shall become effective when approved by the
President of the United States or his authorized representative and
when ratified by the qualified voters of the Cherokee Nation at an
election conducted pursuant to rules and regulations promulgated by
the Principal Chief.

The legal effect of this Article depends entirely on precisely the same
presidential or secretarial deputization of the Cherokee Nation
Principal Chief, and approval of the Principal Chief's actions, that
Congress contemplated in the 1906 Act. The 1975 CNO Constitution
purported to supersede the 6 September 1839 Cherokee Nation Constitution
(CNCA, "Article XVI. Supersedes Old Constitution 1839," stating, "The
provisions of this Constitution overrule and supersede the provisions of
the Cherokee Nation Constitution enacted the 6th day of September
1839.") This simply reflects the common understanding that since the old
Constitution was a dead letter in 1906, any new approved Constitution
supersedes the old.

Every other Oklahoma tribe that organized under OIWA and IRA had to
obtain secretarial approval of a Constitution, then secretarial approval
of an OIWA draft charter. Thirty percent of the qualified voters were
then supposed to ratify a Constitution, and then the Charter, in
separate sequential Federal elections. By law, the Charters (not the
Constitutions) of OIWA/IRA organized Oklahoma Indian tribes delineate
most of the powers of such tribes. CNCA, the annotated Code of Cherokee
Nation of Oklahoma, contains the 1975 Constitution, code, treaties,
agreements, and Self-Determination legislation, and even the 24 January
1983 speech of President Reagan on Indian Policy, but one searches in
vain for any mention of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act or the Indian
Reorganization Act because the CNO Constitution evolved largely outside
the body of modern Federal-Indian law which is mandatory for other
Oklahoma tribes, including the UKB. Despite occasional explorations of
the possibility of reorganizing, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma never has
proposed or received an OIWA Charter from the Secretary of the Interior,
or submitted its approved Constitution to a secretarially-supervised
election as the OIWA, 25 C. F. R. 81, and 25 U. S. C. 476/479 of the IRA
require.

In contrast, in helping to draft the UKB Charter of 1950, the BIA
ordered the UKB to design the document so that the UKB itself could
extend such a Charter to an organization composing the non-Keetoowah
Dawes enrollees of Cherokee Nation. Oddly enough, until the UKB alters
its Constitution to make 1/4 Cherokee blood quantum mandatory for future
members under the proposed Amendments, the Cherokee Dawes Roll
descendency group composing the population of Cherokee Nation of
Oklahoma still has the right, in theory, to apply for reorganization
under UKB jurisdiction, with the consent of the UKB Council. Of course,
to date, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma never has sought an OIWA
charter through the UKB. In 1950, the Secretary declared, in approving
the UKB Charter, Constitution and By-laws, that "All officers and
employees of the Interior Department are ordered to abide by the
provisions of the said [UKB] Constitution and By-laws." [Letter, 9 May
1950, William E. Warne, Assistant Secretary, approving the Constitution
and By-laws. *: IV] Recall that the CNO Constitution, Article I,
"Federal Regulations," stipulates:

[T]he Cherokee Nation shall never enact any law which is in
conflict with any Federal law.(Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
Constitution, CNCA, 2 October 1975)

Cherokee Nation's laws attacking the sovereign rights of the UKB plainly
violate Federal law. Neither Congress nor the BIA appear to care.

If the Constitution of Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has any legal
effect, then the actions of CNO toward the UKB since 1975 which
contradict the organic documents or laws of UKB are entirely ultra
vires. CNO refuses to recognize the existence of the UKB, while claiming
that the UKB and its members are citizens and subjects of CNO. The
Keetoowah Band, which now is the UKB, remained when the Old Cherokee
Nation Constitution was revoked in 1906. The Cherokee Nation's claims of
jurisdiction over the UKB died with the old organization, though the
Cherokee Nation or Tribe continued to exist for certain purposes as the
1906 Act provides.

The reorganization of the UKB under OIWA and IRA affirmed
conclusively the separate sovereign interests and identity of the UKB.
(Recall that Article XVI of the 1975 CNO Constitution expressly
overruled and superseded "the provisions of the Cherokee Nation
Constitution enacted the 6th day of September 1839.") Nothing in the CNO
Constitution expressly recognizes the UKB or its members or entitles
them to membership or registration in CNO. In contrast, while
recognizing the Delaware Tribe as a part of CNO which is allowed
separate organization under CNO subject to CNO authority, CNO bars the
Delaware Tribe from undertaking any actions contradicting the authority
of CNO (Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma Constitution, CNCA, 2 October 1975)

Congress has restored certain powers to CNO since 1937, thereby
making it easier for CNO to function without reorganizing the Cherokee
Tribe under an OIWA/IRA government. The BIA and Congress have limited
the effects of pre-1896 legislation on the Cherokee Nation in ways that
have allowed CNO to exercise aspects of sovereignty that Congress had
diminished or restricted in 1906, including aspects of criminal and
civil jurisdiction. In 1991 (proving that despite all the self-righteous
cant to the contrary, Lobbying is all), Congress extended permission in
Amendment 86 to P. L. 101-116 for CNO to undermine the property and
governmental rights of the UKB. The impact on UKB and its members has
been dangerously discriminatory. The effect is the confiscation of a
vested property right without due process.
* * *
The bar against UKB's eligibility for any Federal funding,
including funds from the Administration for Native Americans, may be
permanent. At the same time that the BIA conceded the Band's existence
as an autonomous entity (24 August 1992), the BIA also acknowledged the
Band's eligibility to receive land in trust. From then on, the CNO
undertook a campaign with the support of the Oklahoma delegation to
assure that the UKB will have no opportunity to acquire land in trust in
any other state. On 26 January 1993, Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller of
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma included the UKB in a list of some 40
unrecognized petitioning groups claiming Cherokee extraction in an
advisory letter to governors in their respective states, although the
name of the UKB appears on the Federal Register listing of recognized
tribes. The official excuse from CNO spokesperson Mr. Lee Fleming for
this flagrant misrepresentation was that the letter was intended "for
information" only, and therefore, CNO could not be held responsible. To
the contrary, Chief Mankiller's shield is sovereign immunity, since her
letter purported to be an official intergovernmental communication. The
UKB has received no gesture of apology or retraction for this "error,"
and shall receive none. The actions of CNO require the approval of the
Secretary; therefore, these calculated attacks have the official
authorization of the Secretary.

Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, ever confident that political pressure
eventually will lead to the congressional revocation of the UKB Charter
or to a requirement that the UKB submit to the acknowledgment process at
25 CFR 83, already have characterized the UKB in deliberately fraudulent
public statements as a petitioner for acknowledgment. In a determination
published in the body of the Proposed Rule Regarding Department of
Interior Policy on Recognition of Indian Tribes, Vol. 56, No. 161,
Federal Register 47320 (Sept. 18, 1991), the Secretary finally declared
that when any third party attacks the status of a federally-recognized
tribe, the Department will protect only tribes who have survived the 25
CFR 83 process; any other tribe's only recourse is to use the Federal
acknowledgment process to vindicate itself. CNO has tried and failed
repeatedly to force the UKB to submit to the tests of the acknowledgment
process to eliminate the Band. At this point, the UKB, though a
recognized tribe, is ineligible even to apply for funds for status
clarification from the Administration for Native Americans for which
unrecognized tribes are eligible due to CNO's intervention. The UKB's
status problems stem entirely from the perception that the UKB competes
with CNO, and from the false perception that both share the identically
same population; ironically, that competitive atmosphere emanated
directly from CNO's decision to eliminate the UKB.

THE NON-PETITION OF THE NON-TERMINATED, TERMINATED, UNACKNOWLEDGED,
UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA FOR RESTORATION
UNDER 25 C. F. R. 83 (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH A REQUEST FOR RECOGNITION)

In 1990 and 1991, Principal Chief Wilma P. Mankiller demanded of
the BIA and Congress that the UKB be compelled against their own will
and best interests to submit to the Federal acknowledgment process to
prove their status as a tribe. Initially, she demanded congressional
hearings that would compel the Band to produce, in effect, a complete
documented petition seeking acknowledgment. Having achieved the de-facto
termination of the Band in the passage of Amendment 86 to P. L. 101-116,
she did an about-face, claimed in a letter to the appropriate
congressional leaders and committees that neither CNO nor the UKB wanted
a hearing on the matter in spring of 1992 in Tahlequah, and that Chief
John Ross had agreed to send a similar request. Chief Ross never made
such an agreement and never sent any such letter.

The narrative and bibliographies below will address the criteria
for acknowledgment in 25 CFR 83.7 that require the Band to prove that
it:
(a) [Has been i]dentified from historical times until the present
on a substantially continuous basis, as "American Indian," or
"Aboriginal;"(b) [Is a Tribe, a substantial portion of which
inhabits] a specific area or [lives] as a community viewed as
American Indian and distinct from other populations in the area and
[prove that its] members are descendants of an Indian tribe which
historically inhabited a specific area;
(c) Has maintained tribal political influence or other authority
over its members as an autonomous entity throughout history until
the present;
(d) Provides a copy of a governing document or statement describing
in full the membership criteria and procedures through which the
group currently governs its affairs and its members;
(e) Has membership consisting of individuals who have established
descendancy from a tribe which existed historically or from
historical tribes which combined and functioned as a single
autonomous entity;
(f) Has membership composed principally of persons who are not
members of any other tribe; and,
(g) Is not expressly terminated or otherwise forbidden to
participate in the federal-Indian relationship by statute.
The Band has met criterion 25 CFR 83.7, in that the Band has provided on
many occasions to all interested parties and the public:
(d) . . . a copy of a governing document or statement describing in
full the membership criteria and procedures through which the group
currently governs its affairs and its members," consisting of a 3
October 1950 Charter, a 3 October 1950 Constitution and By-laws,
over 50 years of resolutions, ordinances and statutes, a 1949 Base
Roll as amended in 1985, and continuing enrollment updates between
1949 and the present.
Other membership-related criteria of 25 CFR 83.7 require the Band
to show that it:
(e) "Has membership consisting of individuals who have established
descendancy from a tribe which existed historically or from
historical tribes which combined and functioned as a single
autonomous entity;" namely, the Keetoowah Band of Indians of the
Cherokee Tribe; and,
(f) "Has membership composed principally of persons who are not
members of any other tribe."
The narrative will address criterion (g) later.
United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in Oklahoma meets the
criteria the Acknowledgment and Research Branch of the BIA uses for
determining existence an Indian Tribe (25 C.F.R. 83.1-11, redesignated
1985). The following section applies historical Federal, tribal and
other records to demonstrate that the Band can satisfy the requirements
of 25 Code of Federal Regulations Sec. 83. 7 (a) - (g). Bibliographical
citations are in the full narrative and appendices. Below appears a
summary of the accompanying narrative, establishing the evidence
supporting the Band's contention that it meets the following criteria
for acknowledgment in 25 CFR 83.7. The UKB will demonstrate that the
Band:
(a) "[Has been i]dentified from historical times until the present
on a substantially continuous basis, as 'American Indian,' or
'Aboriginal,'" as cited in Federal, Territory, State, Tribal
records and scholarly sources;
(b) [Is a Tribe, a substantial portion of which inhabits] a
specific area or [lives] as a community viewed as American Indian
and distinct from other populations in the area and [prove that
its] members are descendants of an Indian tribe which historically
inhabited a specific area," as cited in Federal, Territory, State,
Tribal records and scholarly sources; and,
(c) "Has maintained tribal political influence or other authority
over its members as an autonomous entity throughout history until
the present," as cited in Federal, Territory, State, Tribal records
and scholarly sources.

In the narrative, a note ("a", "b", and/or "c") follows each statement,
indicating which one or more of these criteria that particular statement
addresses. The Brief UKB Chronology covers the same basic points.
1. At the old Mother Town of Keetoowah in Swain County and its
affiliated smaller towns, North Carolina, political succession continued
through elected Captains and a Chief (pre-contact until about 1833; a,
b, c).
2. The Keetoowah Indians, despite great disruption of their culture
and political town structure between the American Revolution and the
Removal period, retained as much as they could of their primary rules
and ways, by enforcing traditional laws through customary sanctions and
the law of blood (a, c).
3. Following their removal to Indian Territory with the Old Settlers
(mostly between 1805 and 1835; a, c) as well as Eastern Emigrants (1835-
1840; a, c), the Keetoowah Indians reorganized under a Constitution in
1858 in Oklahoma, drawing in Keetoowah adherents from all nine
Districts, but primarily from the region composing five northeastern
Oklahoma counties today (b).
4. The Keetoowah Indians called their organization the Keetoowah
Society, and throughout the nine Districts, they worked to resume the
role the Mother Town of Keetoowah enjoyed in pre-contact and pre-Removal
historical times under the leadership of local headmen called "Captains"
and a Head Captain or "Chief" (a, b, c).
5. As early as the Civil War, conflicts arose about the purposes and
directions of the organization, so that while some Keetoowahs wanted to
preserve the ancient Keetoowah culture, language and religion in pure
form as possible, others preferred to amalgamate the old ways with what
they wanted from non-Indian culture, including christian churches (a).
Indeed, the followers of the Jones family of church leaders were
instrumental in the reorganization of the Keetoowahs in the 1850s (a).
6. In their efforts to preserve the Keetoowah group as a political
entity, some factions preferred a more militant role in opposing the
Southern Confederacy, particularly the so-called "Pin Indians;" but all
loyal Keetoowahs supported the Union (a, c).
7. While the Keetoowah Indians remained loyal to the end of the Civil
War, they shared the common humiliation of all Cherokees resulting from
the punishment of Cherokee Nation for its official position of siding
with the Southern Confederacy (a, c).
8. The Treaty of 1866 abrogated all earlier treaties to the extent
they were inconsistent with the 1866 Treaty. The Keetoowah delegates to
the Treaty convention very reluctantly signed (a, b, c).
9. When congressional investigations led to the discovery of
widespread corruption in the Indian Service and the Five Tribes
governments, and when proponents of Oklahoma statehood pressed for
elimination of the original tribal governments, the Keetoowah Indians
had to make difficult decisions regarding the direction of the tribe (a,
c).
10. While they intended to maintain a tribal government and functions
regardless of the fate of the Cherokee Nation as a whole, the Keetoowah
Society eventually acquiesced to the Agreement with the Cherokee Nation,
April 1, 1900, the Curtis Act and the 1906 Act, to the political
dissolution of the corrupt Cherokee government that the Keetoowahs
loathed anyway, and to the allotment in severalty of Cherokee lands (a,
b, c).
11. When Cherokee Nation was dissolved, members of the Society lived
throughout most of the old Cherokee districts (but with small
constituencies in Cooweescoowee and Canadian Districts; a, b, c).
12. Many Keetoowahs regarded the prospect of allotment of the Tribe's
lands in severalty as so calamitous that they withdrew from the
Keetoowah Society (a, b). Several hundred of these Keetoowah Indians
formed a number of secretive, traditionalist, exclusive factions as
early as 1893, including the Nighthawk Keetoowahs, that refused until
1910 or later to accept the work of the Dawes Commission (a, b). These
groups were clustered around Gore and Vian, in Sequoyah County.
13. In 1905, knowing that the Cherokee Nation was about to dissolve for
useful purposes, the Keetoowah Society reorganized. Using a Federal
Corporate Charter from the Territorial District Court in Tahlequah, as
the Keetoowah Society, Inc., this faction attempted to function as a
polity composed of a Chief and Council (20 September 1905) for the
express purpose of carrying on the political and social functions of a
Band, but because it omitted opposing factions that arose after 1900,
never fully again represented the interests of the Keetoowah Indians as
a body (a, b, c).
14. The other main faction, the Nighthawks, some of whose leaders now
erroneously claim the UKB is a splinter of their religious cult,
withdrew from political activity and barred its members from affiliation
with any other groups or entities, including christian churches (a, b,
c).
15. As the number of tribal towns associated with the Nighthawks
dwindled between 21 in about 1900 to 3 in 1937, the remnants of the
"non-political" Nighthawk faction eventually split into a variety of
factions, including two ceremonial grounds run by factions of Redbird
Smith and his family, as well as the Goingsnake "Seven Clans" fire and
the Four Mothers Nation. Other Cherokee political factions of Keetoowahs
arose, partly due to concerns about potential claims, partly to organize
formally as a Tribe. These factions of Oklahoma Keetoowah Cherokees
pulled together a coalition from the northern 14 counties of Oklahoma
between 1920 and 1924 to elect a Chief (Levi Gritts), and an Executive
Council (a, b, c).
16. During the 1930s, the Keetoowah factions, now without any support
from several dwindling groups of Nighthawk separatists, supported the
idea of reorganizing all the Keetoowah Cherokees in all the old clan
districts as a united Band. They hoped to avail themselves of the
benefits of the proposed Indian Reorganization Act. At a hearing in
Muskogee on 22 March 1934, Keetoowahs showed up in force to present John
Collier and his staff with a formal petition and letter of endorsement
for the Bill (a, b, c). Collier complemented the Keetoowah Band's
enthusiasm and understanding for reorganization in a variety of writings
and press releases. Felix Cohen, Associate Solicitor for the Department
of the Interior, carefully monitored their public, highly organized
efforts in support of IRA (a, c).
17. The Land Division in the Department of the Interior concluded in
1934 that while the Cherokee Nation was neither interested in
reorganizing because most members had abandoned tribal relations, nor
even capable of doing so, the Keetoowah Indians were willing and
probably able to reorganize in Oklahoma with great success, if the
factions would only pull together (a, b, c).
18. Though the participation of Oklahoma Indians in the IRA was not
possible until the Thomas Bill of 1936 enabled reorganization under IRA
through the OIWA, the Keetoowahs never lost sight of their goal, and the
Keetoowah Society, Inc., sought permission to represent the Keetoowah
Indians, including the various factions whose members refused to join
the Keetoowah Society, Inc. (a, b, c). This effort faltered briefly when
Associate Solicitor Frederick Kirgis issued his Keetoowah Society
Opinion in 1937, saying that the Society, standing alone, was only a
society of the Keetoowah Indians, not a Band [Opinions of the Solicitor
of the Department of the Interior Relating to Indian Affairs: 1917-1974,
Vol. I (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Department of the Interior, 1975), p.
774] (a, b, c).
19. Undeterred, the Keetoowah Indians began working with the
Organization Field Agents through Five Tribes Agency after 1937. It was
only after the Kirgis Opinion that BIA's Five Civilized Tribes Regional
Organization Director A. C. Monahan learned that the Keetoowah Society,
Inc., was the source for all the other factions, and that the
Corporation had held a Federal Corporate Charter as a political entity
since 20 September 1905. Monahan ordered agents Dwight and Exendine to
aid the factions to reorganize. D'Arcy McNickle's determination of 24
April 1944 found the UKB was a historical tribe. Rather than merely ask
the Solicitor to rewrite the opinion, the Acting Secretary, Abe Fortas,
to request congressional action allowing the UKB to reorganize under
OIWA and IRA.
20. The UKB adopted a Constitution and By-laws. They elected officers
between 1939 and 1946, seating a Chief, Reverend John Hitcher, and a
Council (a, b, c). Work among various factions united most Keetoowahs
(a, b, c).
21. Some Five Civilized Tribes Agency employees hoped to use the Band
as a vehicle for restoring the Old Cherokee Nation, or at least for
reorganizing all the Cherokee Dawes Commission enrollees and their
descendants under OIWA and IRA, because the Director of Lands, Land
Division, Department of the Interior, already had decided that while the
Cherokee Nation was not terminated, any new organization of the Cherokee
Tribe would have to be an entirely new entity whose property rights
would stem from the OIWA and IRA.[(MEMO TO INDIAN ORGANIZATION, 25
October 1937, from Director of Lands (WDW) to Daiker, Indian
Organization (163618); see also Solicitor's Opinion, 1 October 1941, 1
Op. Sol. on Indian Affairs 1076 (U. S. D. I. 1979)]
22. The Secretary determined that an organization of the Keetoowah
Band, made by reuniting the various Keetoowah factions who wanted to
participate, does not conflict with the residual government of the
Cherokee Nation. The latter was to retain its 1907 status, as a body
under a Principal Chief whom the President (later, the Secretary of the
Interior) appointed to carry out responsibilities regarding the
disposition of the assets of the Old Cherokee Nation (a, b, c).
23. The UKB carried out its own governmental functions in Oklahoma as
a reorganized body, without interfering with the Cherokee Nation, its
Principal Chief or his functions, because the UKB interests in Cherokee-
related issues was entirely restricted to interests of the UKB
constituency. That constituency consisted primarily of restricted
Indians, non-Dawes enrollees, and other Keetoowahs who remained loyal to
the Keetoowah political ideals (a, b, c).
24. So, the United Keetoowahs finally decided by 1942 to remain
exclusively a "Keetoowah" polity that would include only those of
Cherokee descent who met the membership requirements of the