openletter

Hi all,

    This to advise you that yesterday I received a letter from the Arts and Crafts Board of the US Dept of Interior, advising us not to claim our crafts to be Native American Made. As of yet, I have not personally read the letter, so I am a little clouded on all of the contents. However, in Bob's reading the letter to me, it is very clear that we are being pushed to disclaim our heritage.



    While I do not believe we should deny this heritage, I do think, for now, we need to refrain from claiming state recognition in connection with the Arts and crafts that our people are making. We need to put on our crafts, " Name, member of the NCNOLT, Inc., roll no.," We are incorporated in the state of Missouri and they have no right to keep us from making this claim. If it were me, I would add, "The Arts and Crafts Board of the US Dept of Interior has ordered us not to claim our Cherokee heritage in connection with our products, but we are members of this Missouri and Arkansas Corporation."

    Obviously, someone has made a complaint to this board to get them involved again. In their letter, they have sent responses from the Missouri and Arkansas governments that state they do not have any state recognized tribes.

    Now, what does this mean? It means we fight back by voting these people out of office and voting those in who will support us. While individuals and perhaps other tribes may tell Missouri and Arkansas not to recognize us, our voting numbers far exceed these opposers of ours. WE NEED TO GET OUR MEMBERS TO THE POLLS AND LET THE POLITICIANS FEEL OUR MUSCLES.

    Right now I have a deadline to meet to get the history to Turner Publishing. This should be done by this weekend. After that, I plan to fight back. I plan to remind the Board that previously I had sent them information on us concerning our recognition. I have asked the person at the Arts and Crafts board if they had decided if we had state recognition or not, and each time, I received no answer. This led me to believe that they hadn't decided the answer to be no.

    As soon as I write my letter with the documents, I would like for us to do an all out campaign and make this public. I hope that Nancy can get this on our web site, and I hope we can get a letter writing campaign going to the politicians.   If Missouri and Arkansas continue to say they have no tribes within their borders, we don't stand a chance of getting federal recognition.

    Nancy, you have my permission to put this on your web site, as we need to let our members know what is going on.

    And, to any of those groups who have broken off from us, and/or any group who started up on their own, be advised that working against us will do you no good. Missouri has made it very clear that no other Indian group will receive a Proclamation.   It is obvious and we have been told, that there is no way we can go through the Legislative route to receive state recognition, because of the fear we might bring in gambling.

    So, the bottom line is, you can either work with us, or work against us and we all get hurt. If we work together and bring our numbers together, we can all win.   If we can get all our Cherokees in, we have over a million strong in Missouri and Arkansas. It is time for our Old Western off reservation Cherokee Nation to rise again and "vote the rascals out"!!