Executive Department

This chapter addresses Article VI of the Oklahoma constitution, which concerns the executive department. Section 1 provides that “the Executive authority of the state shall be vested in a Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, State Auditor and Inspector, Attorney General, State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Commissioner of Labor, Commissioner of Insurance, and other officers provided by law and this Constitution.” While these executive officers may hold meetings outside the state’s capital, they may not set up branch offices in any place other than Oklahoma City. Section 2 states that “the Supreme Executive power shall be vested in a Governor.” Sections 3 and 4 provides for the eligibility of an individual to certain state offices as well as the terms of office and succession, respectively. The chapter then details the provisions for the qualifications, powers, and duties of each of the executive officers. Article VI also includes the provision for the seal of the state (Section 35), which incorporates images from the Five Civilized Tribes along with the seal of Oklahoma Territory.

The Catawba Indians

The Catawba Indian Nation of the 1750s developed from the integration of diverse Piedmont Indian people who belonged to and lived in autonomous communities along the Catawba River of North and South Carolina. Catawban-speaking Piedmont Indians experienced many processes of coalescence, where thinly populated groups joined the militarily strong Iswą Indians (Catawba proper) for protection and survival. Over twenty-five groups of Indians merged with the Iswą, creating an alliance or confederation of tribal communities. They all worked together building a unified community through kinship, traditional customs, and a shared history to form a nation, despite the effects of colonialism, which included European settlement, Indian slavery, warfare, disease, land loss, and federal termination. American settler colonialism, therefore, functions to erase and exterminate Native societies through biological warfare (intentional or not), military might, seizure of Native land, and assimilation. In spite of these challenges, the Catawbas’ nation-building efforts have been constant, but in 1960 the federal government terminated its relationship with the Nation. In the 1970s, the Catawba Indian Nation filed a suit to reclaim their land and their federal recognition status. Consequently, the Nation received federal recognition in 1993 and became the only federally recognized tribe in the state of South Carolina. The Nation has land seven miles east of the city of Rock Hill along the Catawba River. Tribal citizenship consists of 3,400 Catawbas including 2,400 citizens of voting age. The tribe holds elections every four years to fill five executive positions—Chief, Assistant Chief, Secretary/Treasurer, and two at-large positions. Scholarship on Southeastern Indians focuses less on the history of the Catawba Indian Nation and more on the historical narratives of the Five Civilized Tribes, which obscures the role Catawbas filled in the history of the development of the South. Finally, a comprehensive Catawba Nation history explains how the people became Catawba and, through persistence, ensured the survival of the Nation and its people.