The House Rules Committee on Wednesday heard testimony on whether to grant the Cherokee Nation a nonvoting seat that was promised in a treaty nearly 200 years ago.
“Today, I come before you to remind you of the promise the federal government made to our ancestors,” Cherokee Nation principal chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in his opening statement. “I ask the House of Representatives to honor this treaty right, fulfill its obligation under the treaty, and seat our delegate.”
Hoskin was referring to the Treaty of New Echota, which was signed in 1835 to offer the Cherokee tribes $5 million and territory in what would become Oklahoma in exchange of their ancestral homeland east of the Mississippi River. Ratified and signed into law by President Andrew Jackson in 1836, the treaty gave the Cherokees two years to relocate….