There are Three Cherokee Tribes

The UKB is a federally-recognized Indian tribe headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma, that resides within the boundaries of the Cherokee Nation Reservation. The UKB maintains a separate tribal government and existence.

The UKB did not exist until the mid-20th century. In 1946, the U.S. Congress authorized UKB to organize. The UKB received approval of their corporate charter in 1950. Long before that, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were many voluntary social or traditional organizations of individual Cherokees who described themselves as “Keetoowah.”

But other than the shared use of the “Keetoowah” name, there is no historical evidence connecting the UKB tribal entity of 1950 to any of the earlier Keetoowah social organizations. In fact, in 1937, the United States Department of Interior Solicitor determined that the Keetoowah groups were not an Indian tribe.

According to the Solicitor in 1937, “the Keetoowah Society is an organization of full-blood Indians which originated almost a century ago for the preservation of Indian culture and tradition…while the name is derived from an ancient Keetoowah town or band of Cherokee Indians in what is now North Carolina, there is no historical connection between the society and the band; there exists only a cultural and mystical relationship with the early group.”

The UKB organized nearly 100 years after the end of treaty-making between the United States and the Cherokee Nation. It therefore has no rights or claims under treaties ratified between the U.S. and Cherokee Nation.

The Cherokee Nation — and Cherokee Nation alone — is the beneficiary of the commitments made to Cherokee Nation through the 1835 Treaty of New Echota. As such, Cherokee Nation is the sole holder of the delegate right found in Article 7 of the treaty.

There is no legal basis for claims from the other Cherokee tribes to the delegate right. There were only two parties to the 1835 Treaty of New Echota: the United States and the Cherokee Nation.

Article 7 of the Treaty is definitive, ‘Cherokee Nation …shall be entitled to a delegate in the House of Representatives.’

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians was recognized in 1868. EBCI’s population is roughly 16,000 and its land base is in western North Carolina.The ECBI was formed by the Cherokees who remained in the east and did not remove to Indian Territory on the Trail of Tears. The ECBI was recognized by the federal government in 1868 as a tribe separate from the Cherokee Nation.

Like the UKB, the ECBI tribe was therefore not a party to the treaties entered into between the Cherokee Nation and the United States—they are a separate and distinct entity from the Cherokee Nation and were recognized as such in 1868. They do not share in the treaty rights conferred on the Cherokee Nation by the 1835 and 1866 treaties.