4 groups battle to be deemed authentic descendants of Georgia Cherokees
By BILL TORPY
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/08/07
Dahlonega — The summons looked official enough, with letterhead reading The Court of the Northern District of The Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee.
So on the specified date last summer, Owen Gassaway, who runs a small Florida airport, sent a representative to Dahlonega. The "court" turned out to be the cramped dining room of Johnny Chattin, who calls himself the tribe's attorney general.
VYING FOR STATUS
The four entities claiming to be the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee recognized by the state Legislature in 1993:
• Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee Indians Inc., Dahlonega. Incorporated 1977. Applied for federal recognition (request pending).
• Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, Echota Fire Inc., Dahlonega. Incorporated 2003.
• Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee Inc., Cumming. Incorporated 2003.
• Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, Dahlonega. No incorporation. Founded, its leader says, "before the remembrances of man."
Chattin — with bluish eyes, unnaturally black braids and metal bracelets accenting Popeye forearms — greeted the assembled with tales of Cherokee heritage and sovereignty. Then the unorthodox court ruled against Gassaway in a dispute over construction at his airport, ordering him to pay $709,000 to a Georgia man of Cherokee descent who built some hangars.
The judgment was entered in Palm Beach County court, where the plaintiff sought a lien against the airport.
"It couldn't get any crazier," said Gassaway, sounding like a man who'd entered an alternate universe. "What do they have in their pipes?"
Though a Florida judge voided the judgment, Gassaway said he'd spent thousands of dollars fighting a legal system he calls a "sham and a fraud." He isn't the only one who thinks so.
At least three other tribes claiming to be authentic descendants of North Georgia Cherokees argue the same thing.
The four groups have battled for years, arguing they represent the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee recognized by the state General Assembly in 1993. The largely honorary designation allows members to sell "authentic" crafts but does not grant governmental powers.
For 14 years, various factions have wrangled to claim the legislatively blessed name.
Alliances form and then fall out. Sometimes they re-form. People question one another's Native American pedigrees, which draws howls of indignation and counterattacks. They have sued each other, threatened protests, slammed each other in print and insulted each other on the Internet.
Dahlonega resident Martha Perry, a leader of the similarly named Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee Indians Inc., says Chattin is a "fake" who fashioned himself into an American Indian persona to flaunt the prestige of tribal politics and sell $299 Indian flutes.
The leaders of the also similarly named Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, Echota Fire Inc. — based in Dahlonega, but with a CEO in Oklahoma — and the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee Inc., run by Cumming resident Lucian Lamar Sneed, agree with Perry.
But their rancor isn't reserved for Chattin. They fight with one another, too.
Former state legislator Bill Dover, who pushed the 1993 legislation and was recognized — at least by some — as chief of the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, said the squabbling is nothing new. "The one group of people who can't agree with one another is Indians," he said. "There's all sorts of people pointing fingers saying, 'You are and you aren't' " in the tribe.
To cut through the confusion, the state Council on American Indian Concerns hired experts to identify which is the rightful tribe. Their study, started in 2005, was completed last week.
The council is to determine which tribe should prevail and send its recommendation to the governor, attorney general and Legislature for action.
Henry Flood, the Miami-based consultant writing the report, calls the situation "one of the most complicated Indian cases I've done in a long time."
Picking the right tribe is difficult, Flood said, because the various groups "raise arguments that are plausible." To make matters worse, many tribal members admit, Cherokee blood has been so diluted that it's hard to distinguish who's genuine.
The 1993 legislation left little guidance on how to determine the tribe's rightful members. Flood looked at ancestry, but also at each organization's community ties and internal governing documents.
"There is not going to be a definite magic answer," he said.
State designation would leave the winning tribe short of federal designation, a far more rigorous process that could lead to the right to build casinos, obtain government grants and even claim some sovereignty.
There are no federally designated tribes in Georgia, although the number of people claiming American Indian ancestry has grown; 53,197 Georgians claimed at least partial American Indian heritage in the 2000 census.
Dover, the former lawmaker, said the 1993 state designation was simply meant to preserve Cherokee heritage.
'Never ceded our rights'
The effort for tribal recognition started in 1977 when Thomas Mote and his mother incorporated a group that eventually expanded from a heritage club. It created a tribal court with a magistrate and a marshal to handle tribal matters, Dover said.
"We have been assimilated but never ceded our rights to the government," Dover said.
By 1995, Dover and Mote, who was Georgia's first Indian council chairman, split ways.
Mote, who did not return calls seeking comment for this story, wrote in a complaint to the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs soon after the split that Dover "cannot document any Indian ancestry, and he is known to be recruiting members [in] some kind of scheme to assist the United Keetowah Nation of Oklahoma in bringing gambling to Georgia."
Dover, who said he'd left tribal politics, said he is one-quarter Cherokee. He said he does not want to bring gambling to Georgia.
Martha Perry, now a leader of the group Mote started in 1977, said Mote was later removed, although "Thomas is still a member of the tribe by blood." (Sneed, who heads the group in Cumming, said Mote is now with his group.)
In 1996, Chattin and others formed the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee, Echota Fire. But a lawsuit from a previous incarnation of Sneed's group later prevented Chattin's organization from interfering with the activities of or holding themselves out as members of the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee Inc. or the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee.
Undeterred, Chattin kept the name Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee. He also realized the state-recognized group's address was incorrectly listed in the state code. At the time, P.O. Box 1993, Dahlonega, didn't exist.
"When Johnny found out the post boxes were expanding [in 2000], he ran down there right quick and reserved that box," Sneed said. "That's his claim to fame. He has that box."
Chattin grins while recalling the post office box caper.
"I'm a tactician," he said. It turned out to be a clever move.
P.O. box a key acquisition
Kenneth Van Way, who works at the Indian Arts and Crafts Board, the federal agency that monitors the authenticity of Indian crafts, said the Georgia attorney general's office told his office: "Whoever has the P.O. box cited in the law is recognized as legitimate. So the person with the P.O. box is the state-recognized tribe."
Not to be outdone, Sneed, a former lawyer and a tactician himself, won on the Internet.
"I tied up 67 dot-com names, every combination of Georgia and Cherokee and Indian you could think of," he said.
Sneed has sold crafts on some of the Web sites, but he also has used them to launch withering attacks on Chattin, calling him a fraud, among other things. "I'm killing him," Sneed said with a hint of a cackle.
Chattin's lips draw tight when he talks about Sneed. He pulled from a folder a copy of a 25-year-old criminal case against Sneed, who was convicted of mismanaging money.
One thing most agree on is that there is money in this.
Chattin's organization last year received an $88,850 grant from the federal Department of Health and Human Services "to teach and record traditional natural methods used in preserving Native foods," according to grant records.
And in November, Chattin's organization was ruled eligible to apply for $2.6 million in rural development funds through the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The tribe is seeking money to build a museum.
Chattin fancies himself a man of destiny, drawn back to his ancestral grounds to pull together the people who were scattered 170 years ago on the Trail of Tears. He claims his tribe's "inherent sovereignty through treaty, statute or executive order."
Gary Garrison, a Bureau of Indian Affairs spokesman, notes that since there are no federally recognized tribes in Georgia, there are no groups with such sovereignty.
Gassaway, the Florida airport manager, who fought in Europe in World War II under Gen. George S. Patton, has fired back against Chattin's tribe in a federal lawsuit claiming the group doesn't have legitimacy.
Gassaway talks about his saga with Chattin as almost mythical: "Here he comes out of the northwest [Georgia] woods with all this tribal business, twisting things around, causing trouble — only in America."
Sneed believes the Georgia Tribe of Eastern Cherokee Indians Inc., the group started by Mote 30 years ago, has the inside track to receive recommendation in the upcoming report. Sneed said he believes the group ultimately plans to build a casino.
Perry, a leader in that group, denies seeking a casino, but said she does know what is needed, given the controversy among the tribes: "We should get a movie producer."
