Book Description

This study explores the conflict between two Indian nations, the Delaware Tribe of Indians (headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma) and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma). The removal of the Delawares to the Cherokee Nation in 1867 created overlapping tribal territorial jurisdictions. Neither side would compromise what they understood to be their sovereignty, land, and resources. The Delawares argue that they should fully exercise their political relationship with the United States just as any other tribal nation while the Cherokee Nation resist the Delawares' sovereignty. Both the Delaware Tribe of Indians and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma are historically important. The Delawares were the first tribal nation to sign a treaty with the United States, thus setting the stage for the relationship between all Indian tribes and the federal government. The Cherokee Nation is noted in history for its legal challenges to the U.S. that defined American Indian tribes as domestic dependant nations, which is a legal basis for tribal sovereignty today. Although numerous scholars have explored the Delawares and Cherokees, few have explored the divisive relationship between these two nations. Their relationship calls into question the legal and highly political definition of federal acknowledgement and the administrative processes thereof. With recognition comes federal resources and money. Thus, in the struggle of these two nations an important aspect of tribal sovereignty is on trial. The controversy is not just a matter of two tribal nations defending their own territory and resources. It is a matter of nationalism, history, and identity. Delaware-Cherokee hostility intensified in, 1979, when the Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act became law. Up to this point, the federal government recognized the Delaware Tribe of Indians, specifically because the Delawares were recognized as eligible to reorganize through the 1934 Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act (OIWA). In 1977, the Cherokee Nation reorganized and began to insist that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) recognize the 1867 Articles of Agreement between the Delawares and the Cherokees. As a result of the Cherokee Nation's pressure, the BIA terminated its government to government relationship with the Delaware Tribe of Indians in 1979. The Delawares appealed their case to the BIA which administratively restored the Delawares' federal acknowledgement in 1996. During the eight years that the Delawares were restored to federal acknowledgement, the Cherokee Nation objected and took the BIA up the legal ladder to the Supreme Court. In the mean time, the Delaware Tribe of Indians developed a number of successful programs available only to federally recognized tribes through the Indian Self-Determination and Assistance Act, but court rulings destroyed these programs. Thus, the Delawares became the only tribe to lose its federal recognition twice in the last forty years. While this study examines the uniquely divisive relationship between the Delawares and Cherokees, it is a study about termination and federal recognition and the rights of the tribal members that is relevant to all tribes. Thus, this dissertation illuminates important issues that are at the heart of Indian history today---sovereignty, self-determination and identity.