Chikamaka Band


The Chikamaka Band is an organization based in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia, who self-identify as American Indians descended from Chickamauga Cherokee band, who lived the Tennessee River valley area near Nickajack in the 1790s and early 1800s, then retreated from the river bottom land and migrated up to the Cumberland Plateau in and around Tracy City, Tennessee.

Members

The members of the Chikamaka Band claim descent from American Indians, who came together resisting the encroachments of European-descended settlers of what became the United States of America. The Chikamaka Band has written that their alliance, known as the Chickamauga Confederacy, was largely made up of people from the following American Indian groups: Chikamaka, Catawba, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Itsate Creek, Creek, Delaware, Mohawk, Natchez, Saponi, and Shawnee. It also included allied groups of Tories, many of whom were of Scottish, Irish, or German origin.

Recognition status

On 19 June 2010, the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs recognized the Chikamaka Band as a Tennessee State Indigenous American Indian Tribe; however, the state attorney general's office declared that recognition "void and of no effect" on 3 September 2010. The Chickamaka Band is an unrecognized tribe, which neither state recognition or federal recognition.
On May 12, 2015, three of the six tribes impacted by the State Attorney General's declaration filed a Federal law suit, Tanasi Tribe et al v. Robert E. Cooper, Jr. et al, claiming the nonrecognition amounts to "intentional discrimination".

History

Current members of the Chikamaka Band claim descent from intertribal groups that they claimed joined Dragging Canoe,, a Chickamauga Cherokee who was born and died in Monroe County, Tennessee.

Controversy

There has been an ongoing battle between the Cherokee and the tribes native to Tennessee. At stake is claim to land and rights that include building casinos. The Chickamaka are opposed to casinos. The Cherokee filed the original lawsuit to stop the Tennessee Commission of Indian Affairs from recognizing the native groups, State recognition of these tribes weakens the claims of the Cherokee.