Henry Crittenden, who was born into slavery in the Choctaw Nation but was later emancipated.
The Choctaw Freedmen are former enslaved Africans, Afro-Indigenous, and African Americans who were emancipated and granted citizenship in the Choctaw Nation after the Civil War, according to the tribe's new peace treaty of 1866 with the United States. The term also applies to their contemporary descendants.
Similarly to some other "American Indian" tribes, the Choctaw had customarily held other Indigenous people hostage and at times, negotiated them to be sold through contracts of indentured servitude. The enslaved individuals were at times taken initially as captives from warfare. As they adopted elements of European culture, such as larger farms and plantations, the elite began to adapt their system to purchasing and holding chattel slave workers of African-American and Afro-Indigenous descent.[2]Moshulatubbee held slaves, as did many of the European men, generally fur traders, who married into the Choctaw nation. The Folsom and Greenwood LeFlore families were wealthy Choctaw planters who held the most slaves at the time of Indian Removal and afterward.[2] After signing the treaty for Removal, LeFlore withdrew from the Choctaw Nation to stay in Mississippi and take US and state citizenship. He owned 15,000 acres of plantation and 400 enslaved African Americans.
Slavery lasted in the Choctaw Nation until after their signing of the 1866 Reconstruction Treaty. The emancipation and citizenship of the enslaved were requirements of the 1866 treaty that the US made with the Choctaw. The U.S. required a new treaty because the Choctaw had sided with the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. The Confederacy had promised the Choctaw and other tribes of Indian Territory an exclusively Native American state if it won the war.[3] Formerly enslaved peoples of the Choctaw Nation were called the Choctaw Freedmen, comparable to the African-American freedmen in the United States. They differed in that numerous people also had mixed Choctaw and/or European ancestry (the latter was also true of African Americans in the US). At the time of Indian Removal, the Beams family was a part of the Choctaw Nation. They were thought to have been of African descent and also free.[2]
The Choctaw Freedmen were officially adopted as full members into the Choctaw Nation in 1885.[4] In 1983, a requirement for blood relationship was added to the Nation's constitution, excluding many Choctaw Freedmen from membership although many were of African and Choctaw/Chickasaw ancestry. Although there was intermarriage between Blacks and Indians, the Dawes Commission enrolled people of mixed heritage as Freedmen, and indicated no blood relation to the tribe.[5] As of 2021, the Choctaw Freedmen are still fighting for equal legal status in the tribe, as they believe they have been limited to second-class status.[5] The Freedmen argue that the tribe has not honored the 1866 treaty.[6] By 2021, only the Cherokee Nation had updated their constitution to accept as citizens, descendants of Freedmen, those who have ancestors registered with the Dawes Commission.[7]
Prior to European colonization, the Choctaw, in line with the customs of other indigenous tribes of the American Southeast, were accustomed to taking captives in warfare. The captives would then either be enslaved or adopted by a family to replace a family member who had died. As European colonists began to settle the region in the 17th and 18th centuries, they began to purchase Indian slaves to use as workers. Tribes in the region intensified their raids on enemy villages in order to acquire captives with the specific intent of selling them to the colonists in major slave-trading centers such as New Orleans and Charles Town. Many tribes undertook such raids in order to satisfy outstanding debts they had acquired with colonial merchants in South Carolina, an issue which contributed to the eruption of the Yamasee War (1715–1717).[8]
The history of the descendants of African and American-Indian people has been complicated because individuals have had different experiences and status in the tribes. Some Afro-Indian descendants do not identify with their Native ancestry because they were reared in more exclusively African-American environments. Others are reluctant to share stories of mixed ancestry, because of their complicated history. Others fear backlash from both African American and Native American communities, who sometimes reject those of mixed race. Others don't know anything about the hidden side of mixed ancestry. These people of African ancestry lived and cultivated among Native Americans.[9]
Reports indicated that Choctaw slaveholders frequently mistreated their enslaved. Enslaved peoples, especially those who were of mixed Choctaw descent, were sometimes whipped or burned for minor offenses.[10] Records from the period also describe instances of resistance among the enslaved; in one account, an enslaved man named Prince was angered that his Choctaw owner, Richard Harkins, failed to allow his slaves to celebrate Christmas in 1858. Prince murdered Harkins and dumped his body in a nearby river. Barbara Krauthamer says that such accounts highlighted the intersections of race, gender, and power relations that informed the interactions between “Black slaves and Indian masters” in Indian Territory.[11]
The Freedmen had an ambiguous role within the Choctaw Nation. During the first decade of the twentieth century, Choctaw communal lands were allotted to households of tribal members prior to the dissolution of the Choctaw Nation government to extinguish land claims, and incorporation of the territory into the new state of Oklahoma. Tribal members were registered as Choctaw by blood, but most Freedmen were classified as Black if they had visibly African features. They did not share equally with By Blood Choctaws in the allotment of Choctaw lands and resources.
During the following decades, the Choctaw Freedmen continued to face considerable discrimination in terms of social identity and political legislation. While by the late twentieth century, the Choctaw had considered accepting mixed-race Choctaw of partial white ancestry as Indian citizens, they continued to classify Choctaw Freedmen strictly as descendants of African Americans.[9]
Government involvement
According to People's World, the United States government supported slavery among the tribes in Southeastern United States in order to have the native populations assimilate with white settlers. By adopting slavery, the tribes would no longer protect enslaved African Americans who fled as refugees from plantations.[12] This view does not have consensus among historians.
Before introducing black slavery, colonists had attempted to enslave indigenous people in early 1760s. However, smallpox killed 30% of the total indigenous population - which left the slavery system ineffective. Additionally, given that the indigenous inhabitants were on their own land and knew it better than the colonists, escape was far easier for them.[12]
In the 17th century the incorporation of race-based slavery became an efficient alternative for wealthy members of the Choctaw Nation to maintain an increasingly tenuous hold on political and cultural autonomy against Western expansion, while it allowed them to pursue economic and diplomatic goals that benefited them.[11] African slavery among the Choctaws was a growing and widely accepted institution but it differed from Southern slavery in that it was normally not practiced for profit. Rather, the Choctaw held slaves in order to avoid doing agricultural work themselves.[13]In addition, the Choctaw were aware that if they manumitted (freed) their slaves, the bordering slave states of Texas and Arkansas might overrun their nation to eliminate a local safe haven for runaways.
Post-Dawes Commission
In 1894, the Dawes Commission was established to register Choctaw and other families of the Indian Territory so that each tribe's communal lands could be allotted among its heads of households. The final list included 18,981 citizens of the Choctaw Nation, 1,639 Mississippi Choctaw, and 5,994 former slaves (and descendants of former slaves), most of them associated with Choctaw in the Indian/Oklahoma Territory. Following completion of the land allotments, the US proposed to end the tribal governments of the Five Civilized Tribes and to admit the two territories jointly as a state.[14]
The direct "articles of the allotment" rules were published in The Daily Ardmorite; details spanned the entire front page of the newspaper. The rules brought up the issue of identify, and affected more than land distribution. For instance, in February 1896, Susan Brashears came before the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes in Muskogee, in order to request that her four children be placed on the Dawes Rolls as Choctaw Indian "by blood". Their father was her former husband Oliver Stock (or Boss) McCoy, a recognized and enrolled Choctaw citizen; he was of mixed Choctaw and white ancestry, with a Choctaw mother. Their children had been recorded on the 1885 census as half-Choctaw and full citizens because of their father's status.[15] But Brashears's appeal was rejected.
According to the 1897 deal between the Dawes Commission and the Choctaw Nation, the tribal government would allot the tribal land and divide it among its citizens. That was approximately 15,000 Choctaws, 5,000 Freedmen, and 1,500 intermarried white citizens. Both the Choctaw and intermarried white citizens would receive 320 acres of land per household on average, while Freedmen were allotted less than 40 acres per household. Susan's attempt to be recognized as a full-blooded Choctaw was turned down. In doing so the council rejected the possibility of her having Indian blood, due to her mother's classification as black, but she may have been of mixed ancestry.[9][15]
The federal Stigler Act of 1947 directed that protected allotted lands of members of the Five Tribes must be owned by someone with a quantum of at least 1⁄2 native blood in order for it to remain under federal protections. If land was passed to a relative with less than 1⁄2 native blood, the land had to be taken out of federal protection. This requirement resulted in tribal members losing land that in some cases their families had farmed or had ranches on for generations. But in 2018, both the House and Senate voted unanimously for an amendment to remove that blood quantum requirement for the Five Tribes. This change put them on the same basis as other tribal members in Oklahoma. It enables enrolled tribal members to preserve family lands under federal protection.
In a 2018 interview, US Representative Markwayne Mullin (Cherokee) (R-OK) who co-sponsored the bill with Tom Cole (Chickasaw)(R-OK), said that the last person in his family who met the blood quantum criterion was his great-aunt, even though his family still owned and farmed the land their ancestors had farmed and been allotted. He noted that the amended Stigler Act put the Five Tribes on the same basis as others in Oklahoma, allowing them to retain allotted lands in protected status and thus strengthen families and the tribes.[16]
In 2007 Principal Chief George Wickliffe of United Keetoowah Band Of Cherokee had expressed his concern about what he viewed as threats to sovereignty for all tribes because of the Cherokee Nation's freedmen controversy. He believed that the Cherokee Nation's refusal to abide by the Treaty of 1866 was a threat to the government-to-government relationships of all Native tribes.[17]
↑ Schreier, Jesse Turner (February 2009). "Choctaw Nation: A Story of American Indian Resurgence". Western Historical Quarterly. 40 (1): 78. doi:10.1093/whq/40.1.78. ISSN0043-3810.
1 2 3 Douzart, Ambronita Rose (2013). Troubled journey: Choctaws, slaves, and freedmen (Thesis). ProQuest1415455374.
The Cherokee people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama consisting of around 40,000 square miles.
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminoles. White Americans classified them as "civilized" because they had adopted attributes of the Anglo-American culture.
The Dawes Rolls were created by the United States Dawes Commission. The commission was authorized by United States Congress in 1893 to execute the General Allotment Act of 1887.
The American Dawes Commission, named for its first chairman Henry L. Dawes, was authorized under a rider to an Indian Office appropriation bill, March 3, 1893. Its purpose was to convince the Five Civilized Tribes to agree to cede tribal title of Indian lands, and adopt the policy of dividing tribal lands into individual allotments that was enacted for other tribes as the Dawes Act of 1887. In November 1893, President Grover Cleveland appointed Dawes as chairman, and Meridith H. Kidd and Archibald S. McKennon as members.
Blood quantum laws or Indian blood laws are laws in the United States that define Native American status by fractions of Native American ancestry. These laws were enacted by the federal government and state governments as a way to establish legally defined racial population groups. By contrast, many tribes do not include blood quantum as part of their own enrollment criteria. Blood quantum laws were first imposed by white settlers in the 18th century. Blood quantum (BQ) continues to be a controversial topic.
The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma is a Native American reservation occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. At roughly 6,952,960 acres, it is the second-largest reservation in area after the Navajo, exceeding that of eight U.S. states. The seat of government is located in Durant, Oklahoma.
The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles, are an ethnic group of mixed Native American and African origin associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped former slaves, who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida. Many have Seminole lineage, but due to the stigma of having mixed origin, they have all been categorized as slaves or Freedmen in the past.
Black Indians are Native American people – defined as Native American due to being affiliated with Native American communities and being culturally Native American – who also have significant African American heritage.
The Cherokee Nation, formerly known as the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Old Cherokee Nation who relocated, due to increasing pressure, from the Southeast to Indian Territory and Cherokees who were forced to relocate on the Trail of Tears. The tribe also includes descendants of Cherokee Freedmen and Natchez Nation. As of 2024, over 466,000 people were enrolled in the Cherokee Nation.
Black Dutch is a term with several different meanings in United States dialect and slang. It generally refers to racial, ethnic or cultural roots. Its meaning varies and such differences are contingent upon time and place. Several varied groups of multiracial people have sometimes been referred to as or identified as Black Dutch, most often as a reference to their ancestors.
The Cherokee Freedmen controversy was a political and tribal dispute between the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen regarding the issue of tribal membership. The controversy had resulted in several legal proceedings between the two parties from the late 20th century to August 2017.
A freedman or freedwoman is a person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, slaves were freed by manumission, emancipation, or self-purchase. A fugitive slave is a person who escaped enslavement by fleeing.
The Muscogee Nation, or Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Muscogee Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. They commonly refer to themselves as Este Mvskokvlke. Historically, they were often referred to by European Americans as one of the Five Civilized Tribes of the American Southeast.
Creek Freedmen is a term for emancipated Creeks of African descent who were slaves of Muscogee Creek tribal members before 1866. They were emancipated under the tribe's 1866 treaty with the United States following the American Civil War, during which the Creek Nation had allied with the Confederate States of America. Freedmen who wished to stay in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory, with whom they often had blood relatives, were to be granted full citizenship in the Creek Nation. Many of the African Americans had removed with the Creek from the American Southeast in the 1830s, and lived and worked the land since then in Indian Territory.
The 1842 Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation was the largest escape of a group of slaves to occur in the Cherokee Nation, in what was then Indian Territory. The slave revolt started on November 15, 1842, when a group of 20 African-Americans enslaved by the Cherokee escaped and tried to reach Mexico, where slavery had been abolished in 1829. Along their way south, they were joined by 15 slaves escaping from the Creek Nation in Indian Territory.
An Organic Act is a generic name for a statute used by the United States Congress to describe a territory, in anticipation of being admitted to the Union as a state. Because of Oklahoma's unique history an explanation of the Oklahoma Organic Act needs a historic perspective. In general, the Oklahoma Organic Act may be viewed as one of a series of legislative acts, from the time of Reconstruction, enacted by Congress in preparation for the creation of a united State of Oklahoma. The Organic Act created Oklahoma Territory, and Indian Territory that were Organized incorporated territories of the United States out of the old "unorganized" Indian Territory. The Oklahoma Organic Act was one of several acts whose intent was the assimilation of the tribes in Oklahoma and Indian Territories through the elimination of tribes' communal ownership of property.
On the eve of the American Civil War in 1861, a significant number of Indigenous peoples of the Americas had been relocated from the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi. The inhabitants of the eastern part of the Indian Territory, the Five Civilized Tribes, were suzerain nations with established tribal governments, well established cultures, and legal systems that allowed for slavery. Before European Contact these tribes were generally matriarchial societies, with agriculture being the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns with planned streets, residential and public areas. The people were ruled by complex hereditary chiefdoms of varying size and complexity with high levels of military organization.
The ownership of enslaved people by indigenous peoples of the Americas extended throughout the colonial period up to the abolition of slavery. Indigenous people enslaved Amerindians, Africans, and—occasionally—Europeans.
Cherokee descent, "being of Cherokee descent", or "being a Cherokee descendant" are all terms for individuals with some degree of documented Cherokee ancestry but do not meet the criteria for tribal citizenship. The terms are also used by non-Native individuals who self-identify as Cherokee despite lacking documentation or community recognition.
The history of slavery in Oklahoma began in the 1830s with the five Native American nations in the area: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole. Slavery within these Native American nations began simply by placing a lower status on them than their master. The slavery in these tribes varied in style, being specifically different from American slavery. Slavery in the area continued to grow for many years, even throughout the entirety of the Civil War. The growth was significant, slaves making up a portion of the population in the new Indian territory. Slavery ended in the Oklahoma area with the completion of the Civil War. Treaties were made with the nations regarding citizenship and slavery for African Americans. The repercussions of slavery that followed greatly affected the state, with prominent racial issues.
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