Antonine Barada - Death

Death

Barada died in 1887 and is buried alongside his wife in the Catholic cemetery just east of Barada, the village that bears his name.

In 1951 several of Barada's descendants were members of a lawsuit brought against the Government of the United States for recognition of their descent from a full tribal member of the Omaha nation, and their entitlement to compensation related to land allotments and financial benefits received by tribal members. According to the suit, in the 1870s Barada applied to the tribe for membership based on his maternal ancestry. He was rejected due to discriminatory practices by tribal elders and Indian agents. Unlike many Native American tribes, the Omaha have a patrilineal system of descent, so may have rejected Barada because of his French-American father. They considered children with European/white fathers to be "white" and did not accept them into the tribe unless they were officially adopted.

In the 1951 case, the Indian Claims Commission acknowledged there might have been discrimination by the tribe against certain mixed-blood descendants such as Barada; however, the court dismissed the case on the grounds that the Indian Claims Commission did not have jurisdiction over a group claim of individual members; rather, its responsibilities were to adjudicate claims of tribes against the government. The federal government has continued to defer to the federally recognized tribes' sovereignty to determine their own rules for membership and eligibility for voting and benefits.