About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline

LOG IN
LOG IN


105 B.U. L. Rev. Online 1 (2025)

handle is hein.journals/bulron105 and id is 1 raw text is: REJECTING THE RACIALIZATION OF INDIANNESSt ANDREA J. MARTIN* INTRODUCTION In her exemplary article, Indianness as Property, Professor Pratt contributes to the long-standing and contentious debate about whether the descendants of Freedmen-formerly enslaved individuals of African descent held by the Five Civilized Tribes-should be granted tribal citizenship. As background, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole tribes were labeled civilized because they adopted aspects of White culture, including speaking English, converting to Christianity, and embracing an agrarian lifestyle-practices that also included the use of enslaved labor.1 The enslaved individuals, owned by these tribes and brought to Oklahoma along the Trail of Tears, were classified as Freedmen after the Civil War.2 Most of the Five Tribes deny citizenship to the Freedmen descendants,3 rousing debates about the inclusiveness of Indian tribal membership. At the heart of this debate lies a complex interplay between Native identity, sovereign rights, and racial justice. Proponents of extending tribal citizenship to Freedmen descendants highlight their vital role in the history and development of tribal nations and their legal rights based on 1866 treaties with the federal government that required the Five Tribes to grant citizenship to freed slaves and their descendants.4 They assert that their exclusion perpetuates discrimination I An invited response to Carla D. Pratt, Indianness as Property, 105 B.U. L. REv. 311 (2025). * Assistant Professor of Law at Penn State Dickinson Law and Partner in the Center for the Futures of Native Peoples, Dickinson College. 1 Carla D. Pratt, Indianness as Property, 105 B.U. L. REv. 311, 318-20; see also Matthew L.M. Fletcher, Race and American Indian Tribal Nationhood, 11 Wyo. L. REv. 295, 301 (2011) (observing that whether American Indian was deemed civilized under law might also depend on whether American Indian had relinquished all or some aspects of tribal national citizenship or was no longer loyal to Indian tribe, but to state or federal government instead). 2 Ted Shepherd, Not Indian Enough: Freedmen, Jurisdiction, and Equal Protection, 2024 PEPP. L. REv. 43, 51, 53. 3 Pratt, supra note 1, at 362. ' Id. at 337; see also Treaty with the Seminole Indians, Seminole Nation-U.S., art. II, Mar. 21, 1866, 14 Stat. 755; Treaty with the Choctaws and Chickasaws, Choctaw & Chickasaw Nations-U.S., art. II, Apr. 28, 1866, 14 Stat. 769; Treaty with the Creek Indians, Creek Nation- U.S., art. II, June 14, 1866, 14 Stat. 785; Treaty with the Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Nation- U.S., art. IV, July 19, 1866, 14 Stat. 799. 1