A page from the 1924 Baker Roll. Image from National Archives
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians will use a 1924 roll to determine membership even though tribal council members acknowledged the document's flaws. After a two-hour debate last month, the council voted 6 to 4, with two abstentions, to adopt the 1924 Baker Roll as “the foundation on which all enrollment decisions are made," The Smoky Mountain News reported. It will be used to determine whether a person meets the tribe's one-sixteenth blood quantum requirement. But the roll contains numerous inaccuracies, tribal leaders and members said. There are outright mathematical mistakes in some blood quantum entries and some contend there are people on there who aren't Cherokee at all. “It’s improper, it’s immoral that I would have anyone in authority stand in front of us and tell my people that they’ve got to take a broken document," council member Teresa McCoy said at the meeting, the paper reported. The tribe at one point hired an outside company to look at its enrollment records but Chief Michell Hicks said the results weren't usable. An internal audit is now taking place, the paper reported. Get the Story:
Cherokee adopts Baker Roll list as basis for tribal membership (The Smoky Mountain News 3/11)
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