Our Sovereignty Is Under Attack
Without legal or historical basis, the United Keetoowah Band has laid claim to the sovereign powers and treaty rights of the Cherokee Nation. These UKB falsehoods not only waste resources and make Cherokee Nation citizens less safe on our own reservation—they threaten our Nation’s very identity and legal existence.
Who are the United Keetoowah Band?
The United Keetoowah Band (UKB) are a federally recognized Indian tribe headquartered in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The UKB did not exist until 1950, when they received approval of their corporate charter. The UKB maintains a separate tribal government from the Cherokee Nation, and has never signed a treaty with the United States.
Who is the Cherokee Nation?
We are the largest tribe in the U.S. with more than 468,000 citizens. From the earliest days of the Union, we have maintained a continuous government-to-government relationship and multiple treaties with the United States. This includes the 1835 Treaty of New Echota and the 1866 Treaty of Washington, which established the boundaries of our Reservation in Oklahoma after we were forcefully removed from our ancestral homelands. Since that time, we have maintained exclusive jurisdiction over our Reservation in northeast Oklahoma.
Our History Is Unbroken
For decades, the UKB have tried to claim the rights, authority, and jurisdiction within our Reservation that belong exclusively to the Cherokee Nation. Recently, the UKB’s efforts to steal our sovereignty have grown worse. They are no longer simply spreading falsehoods, but acting on them by falsely claiming criminal jurisdiction within our Reservation. They are even asking the federal government to take land away from the Cherokee Nation Reservation for their benefit, and for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to find that the entire Cherokee Reservation is also a UKB Reservation.
In doing so, the UKB is literally rewriting history in an attempt to appropriate our legal rights, lay claim to our treaties, and infringe on our sovereignty. Even more, they are endangering our citizens, as the UKB’s unauthorized attempts to act as law enforcement have already interfered with legitimate police investigations.
Let’s be clear: the Cherokee Nation is the sole holder of our treaties with the United States. Our treaty rights are not up for negotiation. The UKB—just like any other tribe—does not share in those rights. The UKB is not the Cherokee Nation, and cannot lay claim to our land when the treaties that created the Cherokee Nation Reservation were signed nearly 100 years before the UKB even existed. Nor is the UKB a successor in interest to the Cherokee Nation, as the Cherokee Nation has continued to exist since the time of those treaties, and cannot have any “successors.”
An Attack On One Tribe’s Sovereignty Is A Threat To All
Despite these attacks, the Cherokee Nation continues to offer food services and health care to UKB citizens living on our Reservation. But if UKB’s false claims are ignored, if their “Lighthorse” continue to dress up as police officers and claim to exercise jurisdiction on our land, if their Tribal Council continues to make false claims to Cherokee Nation’s Reservation, if we allow them to continue to try and rewrite history, the impact on our sovereignty will create real consequences for both Cherokee Nation- and UKB citizens.
More is at stake than simply jurisdiction over our lands. The UKB’s false claims threaten the Cherokee Nation’s very existence.
Stop the lies. Get the facts. Support our Nation.