The Bureau of Indian Affairs rejected a Cherokee amendment removing the federal government from having to approve any constitutional amendment.

Cherokee Principal Chief Chad Smith dismissed the ruling’s effectiveness saying the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court already ruled the Bureau of Indian Affairs had no authority to approve the tribal constitution.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs Carl J. Artman wrote the Cherokee chief Monday. Artman wrote he was concerned that approval of the 2003 amendment “at this time would be used by some as a validation or evidence of legitimacy of the Cherokee Nation’s removal of its Freedmen members from the tribe in apparent violation of the 1866 treaty.

“Therefore, I cannot approve the 2003 amendment knowing it may provide the basis for violating the terms and intent of the 1866 treaty.”

Smith said Tribal courts ruled that the Cherokee Nation could take away the approval authority it had granted the federal government in the 1975 Constitution.

It is insulting and wrong, and the Nation will take all appropriate steps to defend its nationhood and right to self-determination, Smith said.

The decision was not taken lightly, Artman wrote Smith.

The United States 1866 treaty with the Cherokee Nation is somewhat unusual in that it required the Cherokee Nation recognize the rights of individual Freedmen. That was in exchange for tribal amnesty and the continuation of the government-to-government relationship between the United States and the Nation, Artman wrote.

Jon Velie, the attorney representing a group of Freedmen in a case before the federal court in the District of Columbia, pointed out that the tribal Supreme Court as it stands now with five members came into existence under the 2003 constitution.

Earlier the tribe’s highest court, the Judicial Appeals Tribunal, had ruled 2-1 that the Freedmen had full Cherokee citizenship rights, Velie said.

Velie said the BIA’s decision is nothing new.

“They didn’t recognize the amendment before,” he said.

And Smith is not saying the March 3 election to oust the Freedmen was wrong, Velie said.

Instead, Smith’s administration is saying “we’re going to temporarily back off and get this election (June 23 tribal election) in, and we’ll deal with it (Freedmen issue) later,” Velie said.