After two elections and several recounts and court decisions, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma has installed a new principal chief for the first time in a dozen years. Unlike his predecessor, Chief Bill John Baker has not opposed descendants of the tribe's former slaves, known as the Cherokee Freedmen, having rights as tribal citizens. That legal issue has been in dispute for more than a century and has yet to be permanently resolved. At stake are the Freedmen's voting rights and access to health, housing and other services. To one degree or another, the citizenship rights of the five tribes' Freedmen and their descendants have been in contention ever since. For the past five years, the legal status of the Cherokee Freedmen, specifically, has bounced back and forth between tribal courts, federal courts and agencies, members of Congress and Cherokee voters. Cherokee politics is one consideration that is expected to shape Baker's stance on the Freedmen.