It would appear to my numb little mind that although the sovereignty of the Cherokee nation must be respected, US courts can find cause for intervention of a sort.

If the Delawares or Shawnees should decide to withdraw from the Cherokee Nation and to act independently as a "separate nation" or nations, that would not necessarily exclude them from benefits (don't laugh) promised by the old treaties, or from the benefits of later "contracts" with local jurisdictions. The agreement/contract/treaty was made with certain persons, acting together, and separating them into disjointed groups does not necessarily prevent their continued participation in contracts/agreements/treaties entered into when they were one more coherent group.

Exclusion of the Freedmen from the Cherokee Nation does not necessarily prevent their sharing in any "benefits" promised them by earlier agreements, ... without the consent and agreement of the US as a party to the treaties, or in the case of the very lucrative casino franchises, the consent of the States who entered into the contracts to permit at least the off-reservation casinos.

The Freedmen might be able to associate as a "separate tribe" and attempt to assert their participation in the earlier agreements, based their being part of "the Nation" at the time the agreements were made.

Chances of successfully pursuing that line of argument probably are in the "snowball in hell" range, as far as odds of success; but US law with regard to contracts, associations, etc., are full of pockets and holes and loopholes, with lots of vagaries that might be exploited.

The claim that the casino profits might bring out one or two hundred thousand descendants of Freedmen seeking to claim a share would seem rather puny if my impression is correct that there are probably several million "descendants by blood" who have dropped out of the NA society who could also make the same kind of claim. I have no solid numbers to support that supposition; but the number of "blood Indians" I've known who were nonparticipants and who claimed that they "qualified by blood" but just weren't interested outnumbers those I've met who did claim to be enrolled.

If one looks at the exponential expansion in any genealogical "tree," the numbers of currently registered participating "members of tribes" just doesn't support any claim that "they were all at the election," whether Freedmen are included or not, and suggests that the "bloods" who didn't show up might vastly outnumber the descendants of Freedmen.

Buckets of worms, no matter how one looks at it.

John