The Married-In Victim

Several full-blood Cherokee men were convicted in a federal court of murdering a white man in the Cherokee Nation and sentenced to death. Federal courts then tried crimes in the Nation involving non-citizens, while the Nation's own courts heard cases solely between its citizens. The prosecution treated the dead man as a white non-citizen. The defence argued he had become an adopted Cherokee citizen: he had obtained a Cherokee marriage licence from a district clerk, married a Cherokee woman in a recorded ceremony, and been recognised by the Nation as a citizen, including by voting. If so, they argued, only the Cherokee courts could try them.