No feather in their caps

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For as long as she can remember, Evelyn Ross knew she was part Cherokee. Her grandparents told her they had Cherokee blood, and she recalls her mother and grandmother once receiving support checks from the Cherokee Nation.

As an adult, Mrs. Ross held a membership card that allowed her to vote in elections in the Cherokee Nation. Her husband, James Ross, is the grandson of Stick Ross, a Cherokee council member who served over 100 years ago and whose ancestors walked the Trail of Tears in the 1830s.

But Mrs. Ross, a 77-year-old resident of Tahlequah, Okla., is no longer recognized as a citizen by the Cherokee Nation. She lost her membership because her ancestors were registered as Cherokee Freedmen -- black slaves, formerly owned by Cherokee. When the Freedmen were emancipated by the Treaty of 1866, many were granted full tribal citizenship. Now many of their descendants have been shut out of the tribe, and they are fighting to be allowed back in.

Mrs. Ross and her husband learned they were no longer welcome in the tribe when they showed up at a Cherokee office to confirm their voter registration. "They said the Freedmen couldn't vote anymore, and they couldn't get any assistance," Mrs. Ross said. "You had to prove you had -- Cherokee in you."

Losing tribal membership means more than voting rights. They are no longer recognized as members of a community where citizens receive financial assistance, health care and the benefits of belonging to a tribe that has been buoyed by casino profits. Although Cherokee officials do not release financial information about the tribe's casinos, Indian gaming casinos in the United States brought in more than $18 billion in 2004.

Unfortunately for the Freedmen, tribal laws virtually prohibit them from proving their Cherokee ancestry. The Cherokee tribal council passed an act in 1983 requiring that all members hold a Certificate of Indian Blood. In order to obtain that certificate, applicants must demonstrate that their ancestors were on another list, the Dawes Rolls. Authorized by Congress in 1893, the Dawes Rolls were taken to determine land distribution. Now the Cherokee Nation uses inclusion on the rolls as a membership requirement, and whether the Freedmen were listed on them depends on who you ask.

"Anyone, no matter what ethnicity they are, may be a citizen of the Cherokee Nation if they are registered on the Dawes Rolls," said Mike Miller, a spokesman for the Cherokee Nation. But the Freedmen, he said, are not on the Rolls. "We never tell people they don't have Cherokee ancestry. What we tell them is, they're not eligible for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation."

The Freedmen disagree. "They are on it, and they're citizens of the tribe," said Jon Velie, a Norman, Okla., lawyer who filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Freedmen. "The Freedmen are on the Dawes Rolls. They're just segregated."

No one -- Cherokee officials included -- argues that the Dawes Rolls are entirely fair. Along with the roster of Cherokee Indians, government officials composed a Cherokee Freedmen roll. People were sometimes divided based on what they looked like, and stories abound of siblings ending up on different rolls because their skin tones differed.

"I don't think anyone would claim the Dawes Roll is perfect," said Mr. Miller. "But it's what we've got 100 years later."