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The U.S. secretary of the interior has approved a new constitution for the Cherokee Nation that ensures citizenship for descendants of its Freedmen, the Black people once enslaved by tribal citizens.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced the approval in a Wednesday statement. The issue of tribal citizenship for Freedmen has long been the subject of litigation for the Five Tribes: the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Muscogee and Seminole nations.

The Cherokee Nation is the only one of the five that has granted its Freedmen full citizenship. In her statement, Haaland encouraged the other tribes to do likewise.