Navajo Nation surpasses Cherokee as largest Native American tribe
19 May 2021, 09:04
It follows a rush of applicants to be registered to qualify for coronavirus hardship assistance payments.
The Navajo Nation, which already has by far the largest land mass of any Native American tribe in the US, now has the largest enrolled population, too.
Navajos clamoured to enrol or fix their records as the tribe offered hardship assistance payments from last year’s federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act.
That boosted the tribe’s rolls from about 306,000 to nearly 400,000 citizens.
The figure tops the Cherokee Nation’s enrolment of 392,000.
But it, too, has been growing, said tribal spokeswoman Julie Hubbard.
The Oklahoma tribe has been receiving about 200 more applications per month, leaving Navajo’s position at the top unstable.
The numbers matter because tribes often are allocated money based on their number of citizens.
Each of the 574 federally recognised tribes determines how to count its population.
Navajo, for example, requires a one-quarter blood quantum to enrol.
Cherokee primarily uses lineal descent.
Tribal governments received 4.8 billion US dollars from the Cares Act based on federal housing population data for tribes, which some said was badly skewed.
The Treasury Department recently revised the methodology and said it would correct the most substantial disparities.
