It is time to take a hard look at the Federal Recognition of The Chickamauga Nation. First and foremost, there is no doubt that The Chickamauga Nation is Federally Recognized through Treaty, Annuities, Lands held in Trust both east and west of the Mississippi River, through an existing government, and having never been terminated by the Congress of the United States.
As has also been documented from the Treaties and the historical record of the National Archives, The Chickamauga Nation holds rights few Treaty Tribes can claim: Treaty Rights prior to the existence of the United States. In 1730, the direct bloodline ancestors of current National Executive Chiefs of The Chickamauga Nation, signed the Whitehall Treaty with England. The 1763 Kings Proclamation further established our rights and privileges to land west of the Appalachians, south of the Ohio River, east of the Mississippi River, and extending into north Georgia and Alabama.
We are descendants of the Mound Building Tribes of the Woodlands, Mississippian, Muscogean, and Mobillian Peoples. We are the descendants of those adopted as Chickamauga through their blood, culture, beliefs or practices as traditionalists. We are the descendants of the untold millions before written records or tribal affiliation were ever written or recorded. We are the descendants of each and everyone of our ancestors. We are Chickamauga.
We are Chickamauga, we are Tiscamogie, we are of the Woodland and Mississippian era Mound Building Culture, we are of the Southeast Ceremonial Religious Complex Cult of the Woodland and Mississippian era. We have existed in the Mississippi River Bottoms, the Mississippi River drainage area of North America. We have existed in Southeast since before written record which is why our existence is declared to be from time in memorial.
We gladly embrace the moniker of half-breed or mixed-breed for that is who we were and are. We gladly embrace the declaration of Bloody Fellow to the United States that even if we intermarry and live as though we are white, not a drop of our blood will ever be lost. Our blood, our Chickamauga blood is what makes each and every one of us “Full-Blood Chickamauga.”
What makes a person Chickamauga? The traditional Mound Culture, the traditional way of life, and the traditional values. Our blood descendancy from the traditional Mound Culture is only part of what makes a Chickamauga. Our blood descendancy from the traditions and way of life of our ancestors is only part of what makes us Chickamauga. Our blood descendancy from the traditional values and beliefs is only part of what makes us Chickamauga. What makes us Chickamauga? Our diversity is what makes us Chickamauga.
It is our diversity which made it easy for the United States and her Indian allies, the cherokee and chickasaw, to act in unison to commit acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the Chickamauga. It is our traditionalistic culture and religion which made the Chickamauga targets of the United States and her Indian allies the cherokee and chickasaw to attempt to eradicate us from the face of the earth. It is our diversity and our traditionalism which the United States and her ally the cherokee still use to continue the ethnic cleansing of the Chickamauga.
They have tried to extinguish our Council Fires, our lives, our very existence, but they have failed. They tried to eradicate us from existence, but the Creator protected and provided for our people. They were failures in the past to rid this earth of our ways and beliefs, but they were not completely successful. Their actions may have forced us to hide our Council Fires and our existence to the world around us, but we never ceased to exist and the fires inside us as well as our Council Fires continue despite their best laid plans for our demise.
We have now come out of hiding; we are again openly displaying our Council Fires for all to see. We are claiming each and every right we are entitled to as the Treaty Tribe Government of The Chickamauga Nation. We will no longer ask for rights we possess under Treaty; we will take each and every one of those rights without asking or requesting since those are rights which we already possess, that belong to us.
We are federally recognized and therefore we put those who try to stand in our way on notice: We are Chickamauga! We are Tiscamogie! We are coming to take what is lawfully ours because We Stand!