Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin Jr. signed an executive order in April creating the "Principal Chief's Records Task Force." Its goal is to find records related to each chief's administration since the office's founding in 1827, determine the tribe's authority over them and provide recommendations on how tribal officials handle that information.
Hoskin said reclaiming that history from other entities is an act of tribal sovereignty.
"I think any government around the world would understand that that is part of its sovereign duty," Hoskin said.
But the Cherokee Nation does not have solid policies to manage those records. The task force, he said, could help guide future administrations as a result.
"The other aspect of the mission is prospective," Hoskin said. "What should we do as a nation through law and policy and practice to ensure that the records of principal chiefs, including myself and then going forward, are managed in a way that is transparent and is based on the fundamental principle that the records of principal chiefs belong to the Cherokee people, not the individual office holder?"
A part of Hoskin's executive order requires a survey be distributed to citizens via the tribe's Gadugi Portal, designed to provide information about the whereabouts of records and input on how the nation should handle them.
That survey was unveiled in late May and closes on June 12.
The tribe is also consulting living former principal chiefs with tenures dating back to 1975 as advisory members. Only Chad Smith declined, according to Hoskin, but the offer remains open.
Keith Austin, former Cherokee Nation tribal councilor, is leading the seven-member task force. He said consulting the chiefs is important in documenting a piece of the tribe's centuries-long history of self-governance.
"Our culture is not just in our arts and our historic ways. It is also in our self-governance," Austin said. "It goes back to long before the United States was the United States, long before Great Britain came here and established the colonies. The Cherokee people were a self-governing people, and the story of how we govern is literally part of the story of the culture of the Cherokee people."
The task force's findings are due on June 30 and will be made public within the following 45 days, according to the April executive order.
Hoskin said he expects to introduce legislation to the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council alongside Deputy Principal Chief Bryan Warner once the recommendations are submitted.
"I think we should have a body of law that, number one, declares as a matter of Cherokee Nation policy, that the records of principal chiefs belong to the Cherokee people," Hoskin said. "And then, of course, there's an entire management structure that will need to be built up upon that proposition."
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