Second in atwo-part series about the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians
in Alabama.
In 2004, the former Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Gover (Pawnee) -- who denied the MOWA Choctaw petition after only two days on the job -- apologized for his involvement and admitted the denial was a mistake in Congressional testimony.
During the course of petitioning for federal acknowledgment, the MOWA Choctaw were besieged by a smear campaign instituted by neighboring federal tribes in the region who feared a possible gaming competitor in their midst. This is well documented and the tribally hired Washington D.C. lobbyist in the ordeal, Jack Abramoff, received a six-year prison sentence for the work he did on behalf of his tribal clients.
Millions were spent against the MOWA Choctaw petition, as well as untold hours of lobbying efforts. One of these tribes, the Poarch Creek, even placed an anthropologist on their payroll to create a story reinvisioning the history of the MOWA Choctaw, which was submitted to unknowing members of the U.S. Congress. Long time Poarch Creek leader Eddie Tullis has gone on record many times in various Alabama press outlets attacking the tribe, even though his letter to MOWA Choctaw Chief Framon Weaver in 1981, prior to his tribe’s gaining of federal recognition, asks for MOWA Choctaw support with their federal recognition efforts in the “Spirit of Indian Brotherhood” with promises to “be there for you when your time comes for consideration."
All of this was done by a few Poarch leaders without the consent or knowledge of their own tribal membership with whom the MOWA Choctaw community has had positive relationships with throughout their shared histories.
The MOWA Choctaw’s “lack” of federal recognition has relegated them to second class status within Indian Country, as well as having left them to deal with the misperceptions that not being “federally-recognized” insinuates.
On June 3, 2013, I was invited by current Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Kevin Washburn to the Department of the Interior in Washington D.C. to speak to these issues before the heads of the Assistant Secretary’s office, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and the Bureau of Indian Education. Three weeks later a revised federal recognition process was announced which hopes to eliminate the political dealings of the current acknowledgment workings and which will enable the MOWA Choctaw another avenue for recognition.
In the original petition, the BIA stated that Indian boarding school records, language tapes, and intermarriage records were mysteriously “received out of time and not available for consideration in the petition." After 12 Congressional Bills, multiple appeals through the BIA process, and a federal lawsuit whose merits were never heard as it was politically buried through a “statute of limitations” decision, the MOWA Choctaw are getting closer to their desired goal of equity.
The bingo issue is one that was considered by outside legal counsel twenty years ago and submitted to then Governor James Folsom, Jr. This document clearly illustrates a series of legal documents to include treaty, court cases, Acts of Alabama, and other relevant information which clearly illustrate the rights of the MOWA Choctaw community to control the resources and future developments to occur on their reservation lands.
In that same year (1993), a Supreme Court of South Dakota case recognized the MOWA Choctaw as “a federal tribe for the purposes of the Indian Child Welfare Act”, making the MOWA Choctaw the only tribe in the nation not on the federal register to exercise this right exclusive to federal tribes.
The Alabama House of Representatives and the Senate have also passed resolutions affirming the sovereignty of the MOWA Band of Choctaw Indians. One such resolution states:
Declaring that all federal and state Acts and Judicial decisions pertaining to Choctaw Indians are reaffirmed and declaring that all state and county agencies shall be bound by those federal and state Acts and Judicial decisions.
And let us not forget the major “elephant in the room” reality that has always guided the federal recognition process concerning Black ancestry. In a recent survey of 55 continuous, identifiable, cohesive Indian communities in the Eastern and Southern regions of the United States it was found that of the 29 federally-recognized entities, all but six were found to have been listed in historical records as having mixed-white ancestry.
In the remaining six (all of who battled the BIA more so than the other 23), as well as 26 more that were not federally-recognized, it was found that all had some perceived or real association in historical accounts to have some measure of mixed-Black ancestry. As the Bureau of Indian Affairs is run by whites, mixed-white Indians, and a smaller number of racially identifiable Indians, it is clear that recognition is not about one’s racial proximity to Indian, but rather one’s racial distance from Black.
This is entrenched racism and the most obvious double standard one can imagine rearing its head in the Indian political spectrum. While tribes who are perceived or do have some Black ancestry, as well as significant Indian ancestry are being denied, tribes with large amounts of white ancestry and less significant Indian heritage have been acknowledged.
In 1978 Terry Anderson and Kirke Kickingbird (Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and a practicing attorney) were hired by the National Congress of American Indians to research the federal recognition issue and present a paper on their findings to the National Conference on Federal Recognition in Nashville, Tennessee. Their paper, “An Historical Perspective on the Issue of Federal Recognition and Non-recognition” closed with the following statement:
The reasons that are usually presented to withhold recognition from tribes are 1) that they are racially tainted with the blood of African tribes-men or 2) greed, for newly recognized tribes will share in the appropriations for services given to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The names of justice, mercy, sanity, common sense, fiscal responsibility, and rationality can be presented just as easily on the side of those advocating recognition.
Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux), the most well-known Indian author and academic in contemporary Indian history, had this to say about the MOWA Choctaw:
“The MOWA are and have always been a self-governing community following the ancestral traditions…give the MOWA Choctaws a hand and let’s get this recognition problem solved once and for all.”
Even the Mobile-Press Register joined the chorus of voices for the unequivocal federal recognition of the MOWA Choctaw in 2007. We should heed all of the words of the many who have stood up and are standing up on their behalf. For the few who have continued to fight against their inevitable recognition, they are simply the proverbial caricature of George Wallace standing before the school house doors knowing that an era was coming to an end, but still gasping for one last breath.
And as far as bingo goes, the MOWA Choctaw will undoubtedly have much more to say when their day in court comes. What you are reading here isn’t even showing a fraction of the “hand they will play, with the cards they have been dealt.” This case is a dream pro-bono scenario for those attorneys engaged in the field of Indian law and its outcome will have large implications across Indian Country.
Related Stories:
Cedric Sunray: Some history of MOWA Band of
Choctaw Indians (11/15)
Join the Conversation
