In 1936, Congress corrected itself and passed the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (OIWA), http://www.infca.org/tribes/OIWA.htm which provided for a "new day" by which tribes could reorganize their governments and citizenship any way they wanted. However, they must permit all citizens and their voting age descendants a vote, even if it would remove them from the tribe. To date, the Cherokee Nation has not organized under that act and is not rehabilitated by its provisions. The Cherokee Nation remains disabled by the Curtis Act and only the right to popularly select the principal chief has been restored to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. And the (CNO) having been promulgated by Swimmer in 1976 is claiming the same legal cover for legal existence as the Creek Nation, even though they have not taken advantage of the OIWA Act.
The Creeks were the first to face this problem head on in the Harjo V Kleppe, 420 F. Supp. 1110, 1118-1131 (D.D.C. 1976), aff'd 581 F.2d 949 (D.C. Cir. 1978), the court held that the Five Tribes Act of 1906 had continued the executive and legislative authority of the Creek government ONLY under the Creek constitution of 1867.
However, neither the Five Tribes Act of 1906 nor the Harjo decision revived the Creek tribal court system. If this is so for the Creek in federal Court, you can most assuredly assume it to be so for the Cherokee Nation, who had NOT been to any court to date, nor been allowed as a special entity to restore their court system.
In regards to my believing the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) is not the Cherokee Nation, I am forever surfing the web searching for materials that will corroborate the fact, I came across the following case:
STATE OF OKLAHOMA, PETITIONER V. CHESTER LEE BROOKS, AKA ACHISSON AMENSHI, AND LARRY JOE BROOKS
No. 88-1147 In the Supreme Court of the United States
See the complete document here http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/briefs/1988/sg880200.txt
The following section pertains to the 1947 Act, which was actually confirmed in 1947, but passed in 1908: An example: "in the Act of May 27, 1908, ch. 199, 35 Stat. 312, Congress eliminated all restrictions on alienation of allotments of persons having less than one-half Indian blood and permitted alienation of all but a 40-acre homestead for allottees having between one-half and three-quarters Indian blood. See Stewart v. Keyes, 295 U.S. at 411-412, 415. In the Act of June 14, 1918, ch. 101, 40 Stat. 606,
Congress vested the state courts with jurisdiction over the lands of allotted members of the Five Tribes in heir ship proceedings and subjected the lands of full-blood members to state laws governing the partition of real property. See Shade v. Downing, 333 U.S. 586 (1948); United States v. Hellard, 322 U.S. 363 (1944). Section 1 of the Act of April 12, 1926, ch. 115, 44 Stat. 239, provided that restrictions on allotments were removed upon death, but that a full-blood member could convey inherited or devised restricted land only with the permission of the state court having jurisdiction over the estate. Section 2 of the 1926 Act, 44 Stat. 240, made the state statutes of limitations applicable to restricted Indians of the Five Tribes and their heirs and grantees.
In 1947, Congress confirmed that all restrictions on lands belonging to members of the Five Tribes were to be removed upon the death of the original owner, but required state court approval of alienation if the heir was of one-half or more Indian blood. Act of Aug. 4, 1947, ch. 458, Section 1, 61 Stat. 731."
The following are words borrowed from the document to demonstrate there was a Curtis Act and what it did and meant, and how tribes circumvented the crippling effect of the act on their respective Governments. And you will notice the Cherokee Nation has NEVER taken advantage of the 1936 Act to reinstate their Judicial system, quite simply there can be no Democratic Governing entity with out a Court system.
"The effective date of Section 28 of the Curtis Act was postponed until October 1, 1898, as regards the Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek Tribes (30 Stat. 504, 505), See Sections 29, 30, 30 Stat. 505-519.
The Act provided that if the Tribes ratified the agreements, the Curtis Act would apply to those Tribes only to the extent it did not conflict with the agreements (Sections 29, 30, 30 Stat. 505, 514). The Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations ratified their joint agreement, which retained the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States courts in the Indian Territory over cases involving real estate and certain enumerated offenses, "without reference to race" (Section 29, 30 Stat. 511), but apparently permitted the tribal courts to exercise concurrent jurisdiction in other matters solely involving members of the Tribes.
The Seminole Nation entered into a separate agreement (Act of July 1, 1898, ch. 542, 30 Stat. 567), which conferred exclusive jurisdiction on the United States court for the Indian Territory in certain civil and criminal cases "without reference to race or citizenship," but otherwise provided that "the courts of said nation shall retain all the jurisdiction which they now have" (30 Stat. 569). The Creek Nation did not ratify the agreement that had been negotiated with the Dawes Commission, but it later entered into a different agreement. See Act of March 1, 1901, ch. 676, 31 Stat. 861, as supplemented by the Act of June 30, 1902, ch. 1323, 32 Stat. 500. That agreement provided that it was not to "be construed to revive or reestablish the Creek courts which have been abolished by former Acts of Congress" (Section 47, 31 Stat. 873). (In Muscogee (Creek) Nation v. Hodel, 851 F.2d 1439 (D.C. Cir. 1988), cert. denied, No. 88-798
(Jan. 9, 1989), the court held that the authority of the Creek Nation to establish tribal courts was reinstated by Section 3 of the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act of 1936, 25 U.S.C. 503.)
The Cherokee Nation had refused to negotiate even a tentative agreement with the Dawes Commission, but it entered into an agreement in 1901 that likewise declined to revive the tribal courts. Act of Mar. 1, 1901, ch. 675, Section 72, 31 Stat. 859."
1949, Chief W.W. Keeler, was appointed Chief by President Harry Truman , he served up to 1970 when the 70 Chief’s act was passed by the U.S. Congress that allowed for the FCT to popularly select their heads of Government (Chiefs) What is the 70’s Chief Act answered here http://www.cornsilks.com/70chiefact.html
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