…as long as it isn’t Elizabeth Warren, of course.

Citing treaties with the U.S. government signed in the 18th and 19th centuries, the new elected chief the Cherokee Nation is insisting that the tribe get a delegate to Congress for the first time in history.

“These treaties are sacred. They mean something. There’s no expiration date on them,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., chief of the Cherokee Nation. What I’m asking is for the government of the United States to keep its word.”

You mean, unlike with all those other treaties the U.S. signed with Native American tribes? What’s this? Have you no respect for precedent, man?

Charles Gourd, the director of the Cherokee National Historical Society, told the news media that he and others had wondered  why no Cherokee Nation delegate had ever been seated in Congress despite assurances to that effect. He can’t be serious! If a delegate were finally seated, he and others might then wonder why that provision of a treaty was honored while so many others were breached or ignored at will.

The right for the Cherokee to send a “deputy” to represent them in the United States Congress was first assured by the Treaty of Hopewell of 1785, which defined Cherokee borders and promised certain protections in return. The right to send a “delegate”  to the House of Representatives was specified affirmed in the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. The House has several nonvoting delegates,  representing Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. Continue reading →