The Spirit of the Red River Valley
With more than 1500 recognized tribal members, the
United Red River Band (URRB) is
the largest Native American organization in northeast Texas, with
the majority of its members claiming residence in adjoining Lamar
and Red River counties, just below the border with Oklahoma. It is
estimated that as many as 40,000 certifiable descendants of Red
River Cherokees are scattered throughout the United States, Mexico
and Canada.
The URRB is
singularly incorporated to uphold and advance the interests of its
people, not only within its sovereign district but wherever they may
have settled. Having originally been forced from their historic
homes and lands in Georgia, Tennessee and the Carolinas by the
United States government, the Cherokee exodus and diaspora found the
people — many of whom had built large houses and owned sprawling
commercial businesses — required to live on the desolate plains land
in the Southwest, primarily in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Subsequently, many Cherokees refused to continue on
the forced march along the "Trail of Tears" and evaded the
marshalling parties of the U.S. Army, settling instead in the
verdant Red River Valley of the Texas Republic, which had only
recently declared independence from Mexico.
For nearly one-hundred years, the Red River
Cherokees fought for recognition by the United States government,
but were continually rebuked due to the tribe's refusal to accept
demands that it be incorporated into the larger Cherokee Nation,
based in Oklahoma.
As the Red River Cherokee people consider themselves
to be autonomous, self-regulating and sovereign — as is any and
every other Native American tribe, regardless of their ancestral
tribal affiliation or place of origin — the
URRB represents a fiercely
independent tribe that has endured despite being driven from lands
it had settled and developed for hundreds (if not thousands) of
years, and through generations of Cherokee family life, culture and
history.
The URRB does
not and will not resort to the means that other indigenous Native
American tribal organizations have in order to raise revenues. As
such, the URRB will not permit
gambling concerns to appropriate the name and heritage of the Red
River Cherokees to operate casinos, bingo halls or poker parlors on
tribal lands, regardless of the potential financial benefit.
Instead, the URRB
strives to create and develop Cherokee-owned businesses that serve
the entire community, while providing educational opportunities for
our young people, and additional health and security benefits for
our older citizens.
URRB Council Approves
Marriage Recognition Amendment
 The tribal council of the United Red River Band of
Cherokees (URRB) has unanimously approved an amendment to its corporate
charter that effectively discontinues the practice of
discriminating against certain persons due to their race, ethnicity,
religious affiliation or sexual orientation in the issuance of
marriage licenses.
The URRB council, meeting in private session, determined that marriage is a covenant between two
adults that cannot be regulated or otherwise restricted by any
nation, state, legislative body or other governmental body. While
not strictly or narrowly defining marriage, the amendment recognizes
the matrimonial contract as a commitment by two people to a family
relationship.
The Marriage Recognition Amendment, which becomes
effective on October 20, 2006, will permit any adult (eighteen years
of age or older) to obtain a marriage license from the tribal
administration office. The licenses can also be obtained by
non-members of the URRB by mail
or via the Internet for proxy marriages; however, such marriages
will only be recognized within URRB
and may not be recognized legally by other states or jurisdictions.
The program will be co-administered by
First Nation
Church, the largest traditional Native American religious institution in the
United States, and the URRB's
administrative division.
The cost of the marriage license is $19 for
URRB tribal members ($24 for
non-members). Tribal members must apply in person at the tribal
administration offices in Paris (Lamar County) or Clarksville (Red
River County).
Non-members may apply online by
clicking here.
Sequoyah & The Cherokee Alphabet
 Prominent
in the United Red River Band's official tribal seal is the image of
Sequoyah (or Ssiquaya, as his name is phonetically written in
Cherokee), the man who devised the Cherokee alphabet, or syllabary.
Sequoyah, who was born around 1765, was a silversmith famed among his people. But more than
that, he became iconic within the Cherokee Nation for devising a
system of letters and symbols representing the various sounds that
comprise the spoken Cherokee language, known as Tsalagi.
Around 1809, Sequoyah began work to create a system of writing
for the Cherokee language. After attempting to create a character
for each word, Sequoyah decided to divide each word into syllables
and create one character for each syllable. Utilizing characters
from the Roman alphabet, with other characters adapted from other
alphabets, he created 86 characters to represent the various spoken
Cherokee syllables. The work of unlocking the complexity of the
Cherokee tongue took Sequoyah twelve years to complete.
At first, many of his fellow Cherokees had strong doubts as to
the worthiness of Sequoyah's syllabary, so he taught his daughter to
read and write using the new system. After proving the worthiness of
his alphabet to Cherokees in his home area, Sequoyah presented the
system to Cherokee leaders and medicine men only to be rebuked and
accused of being possessed by evil spirits. However, Sequoyah
continued to believe in the value of his invention, and the news of
his written symbols quickly spread. Cherokees young and old
soon began filling schools in order to learn the new language, which
was recognized officially and adopted by the Cherokee Nation in
1825.
Sequoyah has a singular connection with the Cherokee people of the
Red River district. In the mid-1840s, late in his life, he journeyed
with a group of other Cherokees through northeast Texas in an
attempt to reunite the scattered members of the tribe that had
settled outside of the main reservations in Oklahoma. Being in
declining health due to advancing age, Sequoyah was unable to
continue on the trek, and shortly thereafter passed away on what is
now Red River tribal land. The United Red River Band honored this
legendary humanitarian by officially placing his image on the tribal
seal in 1958.
1000 Sequoyah Center
Paris, Texas 75460-5934 |
