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Summarized by Kent Larsen
Mormon Indians Protest Denial Of Recognition
Rock Herald SC Herald 27Mar00 D2
By J. Stabley: The Herald
CATAWBA INDIAN RESERVATION, SOUTH CAROLINA -- Pickney Head's family
left the reservation in the late 1880s after they were converted by
Mormon missionaries and 'gathered' to Utah. As a result, Head spent
40 years trying to get recognition for his family and four other
families as part of the Catawba Indian tribe. From the 1890s to the
1930s, Head petitioned congressmen, Indian agencies, government
officials and even the U.S. President, but wasn't able to get
recognition for the 'Western' Catawbas.
But the Catawba Indian Nation didn't totally ignore his appeals. They
used the documents in a 1993 $50 million land settlement claim
against South Carolina and 76 others, covering land taken from the
Catawbas 153 years ago. But even after the Catawbas won their claim,
Head's family and the other four families that joined the Mormons
have been left out of the Nation's roles, and out of a share of the
settlement money.
Tribal leaders voted recently to deny the appeals of western Catawbas
to be listed on the official tribal roll. So the five families are
appealing the tribe's verdict to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. "This
should be a healing event instead of a divisive event," said Cynthia
Walsh, a New Mexico attorney and descendant of one of the families.
"What we are seeking to do is unify all Catawba people, a stronger
force for the next generation to follow."
But current Catawba Chief Gilbert Blue says that recognition as a
member of the tribe also requires heritage and social connection with
other tribe members.
But Pickney Head's great-grandson, Wayne Head, says that the tribe's
constitution doesn't cover that. Instead, tribal leaders ignored
their constitution when faced with the Western Catawba's
applications. "Why did the executive committee circumvent the current
Catawba bylaws and constitution by not putting the enrollment
applications before the Tribal Council as required by the bylaws and
constitution?," Head wrote in an e-mail message to The Herald on
Friday.
Complicating the dispute is the Bureau of Indian Affair's chaos
about the matter. The Catawba tribe has been waiting since 1993 for
the Bureau to complete a new membership roll, which the Bureau was
supposed to complete within a year. Tribal leaders say they need the
roll to be completed so that they can pass a new tribal constitution
and elect a new tribal council. But now Walsh has filed a protest
with the Bureau, asking that the roll process be stopped until a
lawsuit by dissidents has been resolved.
Of course, the roll is important, because the Bureau distributes
funds based on the roll, and has done so since 1890. At that time,
according to tribal historian Tom Blumer, Catawbas that didn't live
in South Carolina were left off the roll. The 1890 roll eventually
evolved into a 1943 roll, and then to the most current roll, "From
the very beginning, the roll was about money," Blumer said. "It's an
accident of history for those who weren't on the 1943 rolls. They
were erroneously taken off the rolls for the distribution of funds."
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