The Cherokee Freedmen Controversy is an ongoing political and tribal dispute between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen regarding the issue of tribal citizenship. During the antebellum period, the Cherokee and other Southeast Native American nations known as the Five Civilized Tribes held African-American slaves and took them as workers and property to Indian Territory. After the American Civil War, the Cherokee Freedmen became citizens of the Cherokee Nation in accordance with a reconstruction treaty made with the United States in 1866.