Ayidan Mai

“It’s about color, and when it comes down to it, they don’t want the black people to have anything” - Opal Jackson, Freedmen descendant

A little discussed past

Every summer at Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the Cherokee Indians sponsor their Trail of Tears pageant. The story of how the US government robbed the five tribes of their homelands in the south and moved them by force to Oklaholma. They don’t tell of the thousands of black slaves the tribes brought with them.

A history of slave ownership and African-Natives

Most of the ‘Five Civilized Tribes’ were slave holding nations.

Slavery was introduced by white slave owners into the upper echelons of Native nations. Most full-blooded Natives weren’t slave owners, rather the ‘mixed-bloods’, the people who lived like white planters, were. Masters frequently raped their female slaves. Those slaves had children who would go on to be known as the Freedmen.

After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, a treaty was signed with the federal government in 1866. In this agreement, four of five tribes guaranteed full tribal citizenship for former slaves.

The treaty clearly says that former slaves ‘shall have all the rights of Natives’.

Despite this, the Freedmen are still fighting for their rights to this day.

Current struggles of the Freedmen

“We are still being treated the way that they was treating us back then. This is something that needs to come to an end” - Sylvia Davis, Seminole Freedmen.

Sylvia is proud of her Native heritage and sits on the Seminole tribal council. Despite this, she has encountered constant racism and hostility.

In tribal meeting, Sylvia says “I had a tribal member sit across from me using the word ‘nigger’ and then the Chief of the Seminole Nation, standing at the podium, with a smile on his face. I do have a name. My momma didn’t name me no ‘nigger’. My name is Sylvia and you can address me by that name”.

Theola Jones is a “proud member of the Seminole Nation”. Her two sons were recruited and accepted by the Haskell Indian Nations University because of their talents in football and basketball and their Seminole heritage but were denied access to the library and infirmary because they have black ancestry.

Despite being awarded “all the rights of Natives” in 1866, Freedmen continue to struggle for their rights and recognition.

Many are now being denied tribal citizenship, especially by the Cherokee Nation, and are purposefully excluded from any of the benefits, opportunities and revenue that are extended to all other recognised tribal citizens.

There are roughly 30,000 Cherokee Freedmen descendants today.

“When you know what you really are and you haven’t been embraced or acknowledged, it’s horrible’ - Kenneth Payton, Freedmen descendent

The removal of rights after 117 years of citizenship

From 1866 Freedmen were generally considered to be full tribal citizens. In the late 1970s federal services and benefits such as free health care were awarded to federally recognized tribes.

As members of the Cherokee Nation, federal benefits and services were also provided to the Cherokee Freedmen.

Efforts to block the Freedmen descendants from the tribe began in 1983, after over a century of recognition. The Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation issued an executive order stating that all Cherokee Nation citizens must have a “Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood” card in order to vote and be recognised.

The One-Drop Rule

The CDIB cards were made to be based on a specific federal census taken between 1902 and 1906. The problem is, this census was conducted under the ‘one drop’ rule.

They would simply look at the people being registered, and if they seemed like they had any black blood whatsoever they were classified as being strictly of African descent, even though they were socially, culturally and genetically Native.

Everyone else was put on a ‘blood roll’ where their quantum, or amount of native blood compared to white blood, was recorded.

It should be noted that like many people, the Cherokee Chief at the time was one-eight native and seven-eights white, yet on this treaty he would be regarded as a full Native with all the rights that the status brings with it.

This meant that no Freedman could possibly be allowed citizenship, even if they could document their heritage, and led to the completed the disfranchisement of the Cherokee Freedmen descendants, which was the intention.

“From the late 1700s to the 1860s, the Five Civilized Tribes were involved in the institution of African slavery as planters and several tribal members began acquiring African-American slaves for field work, domestic work, and various trades”