Leaders and representatives of five Oklahoma-based tribes on Wednesday told a U.S. Senate committee that they have followed treaties and court rulings regarding the citizenship of Freedmen and that the federal government should respect their sovereignty.
Freedmen were the freed Black people enslaved by the Cherokee, Seminole, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek) and Chickasaw nations. They were guaranteed the rights of citizens of the tribes under separate 1866 treaties with the United States.
