The Cherokee Freedmen are individuals, formerly enslaved in the Cherokee Nation and freed in 1863, and their descendants. They have African ancestry, and many also have Cherokee ancestry, making some Black Indians. Today, descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen on the Dawes Rolls are eligible for citizenship within the Cherokee Nation.
During the early 19th century, some Cherokee and other Southeast Native American nations known as the Five Civilized Tribes held African-American slaves as property. Slavery was an important part of the Cherokee economy and culture; by 1860, Cherokee Nation members owned 2,511 slaves, largely taken from the Southeast thirty years before. This slave labor contributed to the redevelopment of Cherokee infrastructure. After the American Civil War, the Cherokee Freedmen were emancipated and allowed to become citizens of the Cherokee Nation in accordance with a reconstruction treaty made with the United States in 1866.
In the early 1980s, the Cherokee Nation administration amended citizenship rules to require direct descent from an ancestor listed on the "Cherokee By Blood" section of the Dawes Rolls. The change stripped descendants of the Cherokee Freedmen of citizenship and voting rights unless they satisfied this new criterion. As a result, there were several legal proceedings between the two parties from the late 20th century to August 2017.
On August 30, 2017, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the Freedmen descendants and the U.S. Department of the Interior, granting the Freedmen descendants full rights to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. After Justice Shawna Baker of the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court published the opinion, Effect of Cherokee Nation v. Nash & Vann v. Zinke, CNSC-2017-07 in 2021, the Cherokee Nation's Supreme Court ruled to remove the words "by blood" from its constitution and other legal doctrines.
Terminology
"Freedmen" is one of the terms given to emancipated slaves and their descendants after slavery was abolished in the United States following the American Civil War. In this context, "Cherokee Freedmen" refers to the African American people who were enslaved by Cherokee people before 1866. It includes the descendants of such former slaves, as well as those born in unions between free or enslaved African Americans and Cherokee Nation citizens, and the term "Cherokee Freedmen descendants" is also sometimes used to identify contemporary members of the group.
Several Cherokee Freedmen descendants have continued to embrace this historical connection. Others, after having been excluded from the tribe for two decades in the late twentieth century and subject to a continuing citizenship struggle, have become ambivalent about their ties. They no longer think identifying as Cherokee is necessary to their personal identity.
History
Slavery among the Cherokee
Slavery was a component of Cherokee society prior to European colonization, as they frequently enslaved enemy captives taken during times of conflict with other Indigenous tribes. By their oral tradition, Cherokee people traditionally viewed slavery as the result of an individual's failure in warfare and as a temporary status, pending release or the slave's adoption into the tribe. During the late 17th and early 18th century, Carolinian settlers purchased or impressed Cherokees as slaves.
From the late 1700s to the 1860s, the Five Civilized Tribes in the American Southeast began to adopt certain Euro-American customs. Some men acquired separate land and became planters, purchasing enslaved African Americans for laborers in field work, domestic service, and various trades. In the 1730s, the Cherokee signed a treaty with the British Empire to return runaway slaves to British colonists.
The 1809 census taken by Cherokee agent Colonel Return J. Meigs Sr. counted 583 "Negro slaves" held by Cherokee slaveowners. By 1835, that number increased to 1,592 slaves, with more than seven percent (7.4%) of Cherokee families owning slaves. This was a higher percentage than generally across the South, where about 5% of families owned slaves.
Cherokee slaveowners took their slaves with them on the Trail of Tears, the forced removal of Native Americans from their original lands to Indian Territory by the federal government. Of the Five Civilized Tribes removed to Indian Territory, the Cherokee were the largest tribe and held the most enslaved African Americans. Prominent Cherokee slaveowners included the families of Joseph Lynch, Joseph Vann, Major Ridge, Stand Watie, Elias Boudinot, and Principal Chief John Ross.
While slavery was less common among full-blood Cherokee, because these people tended to live in more isolated settlements away from European-American influence and trade, both full-blood and mixed-blood Cherokee became slaveowners. Among the notable examples of the former is Tarsekayahke, also known by the name "Shoe Boots". He participated in the 1793 raid on Morgan's Station, Montgomery County, Kentucky, the last Indian raid in the state. The raiders took as captive Clarinda Allington, a white adolescent girl, and she was adopted into a Cherokee family and assimilated. Shoe Boots later married her and they had children: William, Sarah and John. Shoe Boots fought for the Cherokee in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War.
At this time Shoe Boots held two African-American slaves, including Doll, who was about Clarinda's age. Clarinda left, taking their children with her. Afterward, Shoe Boots took Doll as a sexual partner or concubine. He fathered three children with her, whom he named as Elizabeth, Polly and John.
The Cherokee tribe had a matrilineal kinship system, by which inheritance and descent were passed on the mother's side; children were considered born into her family and clan. Since these mixed-race children were born to a slave, they inherited Doll's slave status. The Cherokee had adopted this element of slave law common among the slave states in the United States, known as partus sequitur ventrem. For the children to be fully accepted in the tribe, they would ordinarily have had to be adopted by a Cherokee woman and her clan. But on October 20, 1824, Shoe Boots petitioned the Cherokee National Council to grant emancipation for his three children and have them recognized as free Cherokee citizens. Shoe Boots stated in his petition,
These is the only children I have as Citizens of this Nation, and as the time I may be called to die is uncertain, My desire is to have them as free citizens of this nation. Knowing what property I may have, is to be divided amongst the Best of my friends, how can I think of them having bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh to be called their property, and this by my imprudent conduct, and for them and their offspring to suffer for generations yet unborn, is a thought too great a magnitude for me to remain silent any longer.
After consideration, his request was granted by the Cherokee National Council on November 6, 1824. That year the Council passed a law prohibiting marriage between Cherokee and slaves, or Cherokee and free Blacks. But, the following year in 1825, the Council passed a law giving automatic Cherokee citizenship to mixed-race children born to white women and their Cherokee husbands. Gradually more Cherokee men were marrying white women from outside the tribe. The Council wanted to provide a way for the children of these male leaders to be considered citizens of the tribe. Before this time, mixed-race children had generally been born to Cherokee women and white men, most often traders. Because of the matrilineal kinship system, these children were traditionally considered born to the mother's family and clan, and thus citizens of the tribe by birth.
While granting his request for emancipation of his children, the Council ordered Shoe Boots to cease his relationship with Doll. But he fathered two more boys with her, twin sons Lewis and William, before his death in 1829. Heirs of his estate later forced these two sons into slavery. His sisters inherited his twin sons as property, and they unsuccessfully petitioned the council to grant emancipation and citizenship to the twins.
The nature of enslavement in Cherokee society in the antebellum years was often similar to that in European-American slave society, with little difference between the two. The Cherokee instituted their own slave code and laws that discriminated against slaves and free blacks. Cherokee law barred intermarriage of Cherokee and blacks, whether the latter were enslaved or free. African Americans who aided slaves were to be punished with 100 lashes on the back. Cherokee society barred those of African descent from holding public office, bearing arms, voting, and owning property. It was illegal for anyone within the limits of the Cherokee Nation to teach blacks to read or write. This law was amended so that the punishment for non-Cherokee citizens teaching blacks was a request for removal from the Cherokee Nation by authorities. The tribe's 1839 Constitution banned "negro and mulatto" people from holding office.
After removal to Indian Territory with the Cherokee, enslaved African Americans initiated several revolts and escape attempts, attesting to their desire for freedom. In the Cherokee Slave Revolt of 1842, several African-American slaves in Indian Territory, including 25 held by Cherokee planter Joseph Vann, left their respective plantations near Webbers Falls, Indian Territory to escape to Mexico. The slaves were captured by a Cherokee militia under the command of Captain John Drew of the Cherokee Lighthorse near Fort Gibson. On December 2, 1842, the Cherokee National Council passed "An Act in regard to Free Negroes"; it banned all free blacks from the limits of the Cherokee Nation by January 1843, except those freed by Cherokee slaveowners. In 1846, an estimated 130–150 African slaves escaped from several plantations in Cherokee territory. Most of the slaves were captured in Seminole territory by a joint group of Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole slaveowners.
American Civil War and abolition of slavery
By 1861, the Cherokee held about 4,000 black slaves. During the American Civil War, the Cherokee Nation was divided between support for the Union and support for the Confederate States of America. Principal Chief John Ross originally adopted a policy of neutrality in regard to the Civil War and relations with the two opposing forces. In July 1861, Ross and Muscogee chief Opothleyahola attempted to unite the Five Civilized Tribes in an agreement to remain neutral, but failed at establishing an intertribal alliance.
Ross and the Cherokee council later agreed to side with the Confederacy on August 12, 1861. On October 7, 1861, Ross signed a treaty with General Albert Pike of the Confederacy and the Cherokee officially joined the other nations of the Five Civilized Tribes in establishing a Pro-Confederate alliance. After Ross's capture by Union forces on July 15, 1862, and his parole, he sided with the Union and repudiated the Confederate treaty. He remained in Union territory until the end of the war.
Stand Watie, a longtime rival of Ross and a leader of the majority Pro-Confederate Cherokee, became Principal Chief of the Southern Cherokee on August 21, 1862. A wealthy planter and slaveholder, Watie served as an officer in the Confederate Army and was the last Brigadier General to surrender to the Union.
Cherokee loyal to Ross pledged support to the Union and acknowledged Ross as Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Pro-Confederate Cherokee sided with Watie and the Southern Cherokee faction. Following the US Emancipation Proclamation, the Cherokee National Council, consisting of Pro-Union Cherokee and headed by acting Principal Chief Thomas Pegg, passed two emancipation acts that freed all enslaved African Americans within the limits of the Cherokee Nation.
The first, "An Act Providing for the Abolition of Slavery in the Cherokee Nation", was passed on February 18, 1863.
Be it enacted by the Natl Council, That in view of the difficulties and evils which have arisen from the Institution of Slavery and which seem inseparable from its existence in the Cherokee Nation, The Delegation appointed to proceed to Washington are impowered and instructed to assure the President of the U States of the desire of the Authorities and People to remove that Institution from the statutes and Soil of the Cherokee Nation and of their wish to provide for that object at once upon the Principle of Compensation to the owners of Slaves not disloyal to the Government of the United States as tendered by Congress to States which shall abolish Slavery to their midst.
The second, "An Act Emancipating the Slaves in the Cherokee Nation", was passed on February 20, 1863.
Be it enacted by the National Council: That all negro and other slaves within the lands of the Cherokee Nation be and they are hereby emancipated from slavery, and any person or persons who may have been held in slavery hereby declared to be forever free.
The acts became effective on June 25, 1863, and any Cherokee citizen who held slaves was to be fined no less than one thousand dollars or more than five thousand dollars. Officials who failed to enforce the act were to be removed and deemed ineligible to hold any office in the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee became the sole nation of the Five Civilized Tribes to abolish slavery during the war. But despite the actions of the National Council, few slaves were freed. Those Cherokee loyal to the Confederacy held more slaves than did pro-Union Cherokee. Despite agreeing to end slavery, pro-Union Cherokee did not provide for civil and social equality for Freedmen in the Cherokee Nation.
Fort Smith Conference and Treaty of 1866
After the Civil War ended in 1865, the factions of Cherokee who supported the Union and those who supported the Confederacy continued to be at odds. In September 1865, each side was represented along with delegations from the other Five Civilized Nations and other nations to negotiate with the Southern Treaty Commission at Fort Smith, Arkansas. US Commissioner of Indian Affairs Dennis N. Cooley headed the Southern Treaty Commission, which included Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Superintendency Elijah Sells, Chief Clerk of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Charles Eli Mix, Brigadier General William S. Harney, Colonel Ely Samuel Parker, and Quaker philanthropist Thomas Wistar.
The Southern Cherokee delegates were Stand Watie, Elias Cornelius Boudinot, Richard Fields, James Madison Bell, and William Penn Adair. The Northern Cherokee led by John Ross were represented by Thomas Pegg, Lewis Downing, H. D. Reese, Smith Christie, and White Catcher. The US officials ignored the factional divisions and addressed the Cherokee as one entity, stating that their rights, annuities, and land claims from past treaties were voided due to the Cherokee joining the Confederacy.
On the September 9th meeting, Cooley insisted on several conditions for a treaty agreement that the Cherokee must comply with. Some of the conditions included the abolishment of slavery, full citizenship for the Cherokee Freedmen, and rights to annuities and land. The Southern Cherokee delegation hoped to achieve independent status for a Southern Cherokee Nation and wanted the U.S. government to pay for the relocation of Freedmen out of the Cherokee Nation to United States territory. The Pro-Union Cherokee delegation, whose government abolished slavery before the Civil War ended, were willing to adopt Freedmen into the tribe as citizens and to allocate land for their use.
The two factions prolonged negotiations for a period of time with additional meetings held in Washington, DC between the two and the U.S. government. While negotiations took place, the US Department of the Interior tasked the newly established Freedmen's Bureau, headed by Brevet Major General John Sanborn, to observe the treatment of Freedmen in Indian Territory and regulate relations as a free labor system was established.
The two Cherokee factions offered a series of treaty drafts to the U.S. government with Cooley giving each side twelve stipulations for the treaties. The Pro-Union Cherokee rejected four of those stipulations while agreeing with the rest. While the Southern Cherokee treaty had some support, the treaty offered by Ross' faction was ultimately selected. The Pro-Union faction was the sole Cherokee group that the U.S. government settled treaty terms with. Issues such as the status of Cherokee Freedmen and the voiding of the Confederate treaty were previously agreed upon, and both sides compromised on issues such as amnesty for Cherokee who had fought for the Confederacy.
On July 19, 1866, six delegates representing the Cherokee Nation signed a Reconstruction treaty with the United States in Washington, D.C. The treaty granted Cherokee citizenship to the Freedmen and their descendants (article 9). The treaty also set aside a large tract of land for Freedmen to settle, with 160 acres for each head of household (article 4), and granted them voting rights and self-determination within the constraints of the greater Cherokee Nation (article 5 and article 10).
The Cherokee Nation having, voluntarily, in February, eighteen hundred and sixty-three, by an act of the national council, forever abolished slavery, hereby covenant and agree that never hereafter shall either slavery or involuntary servitude exist in their nation otherwise than in the punishment of crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, in accordance with laws applicable to all the members of said tribe alike. They further agree that all freedmen who have been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners or by law, as well as all free colored persons who were in the country at the commencement of the rebellion, and are now residents therein, or who may return within six months, and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees: Provided, That owners of slaves so emancipated in the Cherokee Nation shall never receive any compensation or pay for the slaves so emancipated. – Article 9 of The Treaty Of 1866
Other nations of the Five Civilized Tribes also signed treaties with the U.S. government in 1866 with articles concerning their respective Freedmen and the abolishing of slavery. While the Chickasaw Nation was the sole tribe that refused to include Freedmen as citizens, the Choctaw Nation formally granted citizenship to Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen by adoption in 1885 after considerable tribal debate.
The Cherokee Nation Constitution was amended in a special convention on November 26, 1866. The constitutional amendments removed all language excluding people of African descent and reiterated the treaty's language concerning the Freedmen. The constitution also reiterated the treaty's six-month deadline for Freedmen to return to the Cherokee Nation to be counted as citizens. Cherokee and other tribal Freedmen were allowed the choice to reside as citizens with the tribes, or to have United States citizenship in United States territory outside the tribal nations.
All native born Cherokees, all Indians, and whites legally members of the Nation by adoption, and all freedmen who have been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners or by law, as well as free colored persons who were in the country at the commencement of the rebellion, and are now residents therein, or who may return within six months from the 19th day of July, 1866, and their descendants, who reside within the limits of the Cherokee Nation, shall be taken and deemed to be, citizens of the Cherokee Nation. – 1866 Amendments to Article 3, Section 5 of the 1836 Cherokee Nation Constitution
Assimilation and resistance
Following the recognition of the 1866 treaty, efforts were made by the Cherokee Nation and other nations to incorporate the Freedmen. As citizens of the Cherokee Nation, Freedmen were allowed to vote in local and national elections. By 1875, the inclusion of Freedmen in political office was established with the first Cherokee Freedman elected to the Cherokee National Council.
After their emancipation and subsequent citizenship, the Cherokee Freedmen and their descendants struggled to be accepted as a legitimate part of the Cherokee Nation. For example, during the 1870s the Cherokee Nation dramatically expanded its social welfare spending. However, welfare programs targeted native Cherokee citizens and excluded Freedmen and other nonwhite adopted Cherokee citizens like the Delaware and Shawnee. Some Freedmen have been active in the tribe, voted in elections, ran businesses, attended Cherokee stomp dances, knew Cherokee traditions, folklore, and the Cherokee language. There were Cherokee Freedmen who served on the tribal council, including Joseph Brown, Ned Irons, Samuel Stidham, Frank Vann, Jerry Alberty, Joseph "Stick" Ross, Creek Sam, Jack Brown, and Fox Glass. The most well known was Ross, who was born into slavery and owned by Principal Chief John Ross before his family's emancipation. He became a civic leader with several companies and landmarks named after him, including Stick Ross Mountain in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.
During the 1870s, several segregated Freedmen schools were established, with seven primary schools in operation by 1872. It was not until 1890 that a high school, Cherokee Colored High School, was established near Tahlequah. The Cherokee Nation typically did not fund these schools at a level comparable to those for Cherokee children.
Tribal records and rolls
1880 census
In 1880, the Cherokee compiled a census to distribute per capita funds related to the Cherokee Outlet, a tract of land west of the Cherokee Nation that was sold by the Cherokee in the 1870s. The 1880 census did not include a single Freedmen and also excluded the Delaware and Shawnee, who had been adopted into the Cherokee after being allocated land at their reservation between 1860 and 1867. In the same year, the Cherokee Senate voted to deny citizenship to Freedmen who applied past the six-month deadline specified by the 1866 Cherokee treaty. Yet there were Freedmen who had never left the Nation who were also denied citizenship.
The Cherokee claimed that the 1866 treaty with the U.S. granted civil and political rights to Cherokee Freedmen, but not the right to share in tribal assets. Principal Chief Dennis Wolf Bushyhead (1877–1887) opposed the exclusion of Cherokee Freedmen from distribution of assets and believed that the Freedmen's omission from the 1880 census was a violation of the 1866 treaty. But his veto to pass an act that added a "by blood" requirement for the distribution of assets was overridden by the Cherokee National Council in 1883.
1888 Wallace Roll
In the 1880s the federal government became involved on behalf of the Cherokee Freedmen; in 1888 the US Congress passed An Act to secure to the Cherokee Freedmen and others their proportion of certain proceeds of lands, Oct. 19, 1888, 25 Stat. 608, which included a special appropriation of $75,000 to compensate for failure of the tribe to pay them money owed. Special Agent John W. Wallace was commissioned to investigate and create a roll, now known as the Wallace Roll, to aid in the per-capita distribution of federal money. The Wallace Roll, completed from 1889 to 1897 (with several people working on it) included 3,524 Freedmen.
The Cherokee Nation continued to challenge the rights of the Freedmen. In 1890, by passing "An act to refer to the U.S. Court of Claims certain claims of the Shawnee and Delaware Indians and the freedmen of the Cherokee Nation", Oct. 1, 1890, 26 Stat. 636, the US Congress authorized the U.S. Court of Claims to hear suits by the Freedmen against the Cherokee Nation for recovery of proceeds denied them. The Freedmen won the claims court case that followed, Whitmire v. Cherokee Nation and The United States (1912) (30 Ct. Clms. 138(1895)).
The Cherokee Nation appealed it to the US Supreme Court. It related to treaty obligations of the Cherokee Nation to the United States. The Claims Court ruled that payments of annuities and other benefits could not be restricted to "particular class of Cherokee citizens, such as those by blood." This ruling was upheld by the Supreme Court, thus affirming the rights of Freedmen and their descendants to share in tribal assets.
1894–1896 Kern-Clifton Roll
As the Cherokee Nation had already distributed the funds they had received for sale of the Cherokee Outlet, the U.S. government as co-defendant was obligated to pay the award to the Cherokee Freedmen. It commissioned the Kern-Clifton roll, completed in 1896, as a record of the 5,600 Freedmen who were to receive a portion of the land sale funds as settlement. The payment process took a decade.
1898–1907 Dawes Rolls
Prior to the distribution of proceeds, Congress had passed the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887. It was a measure to promote assimilation of Native Americans in the Indian Territory by requiring the extinguishing of tribal government and land claims; communal lands were to be allotted to individual households of citizens registered as tribal citizens, to encourage subsistence farming according to the European-American model. The U.S. government would declare any remaining lands to be "surplus" to communal Indian needs and allowed it to be bought and developed by non-Native Americans. This resulted in massive losses of land for the tribes.
As a part of the act and subsequent bills, the Dawes Commission was formed in 1893 and took a census of the citizens in Indian Territory from 1898 to 1906. The Dawes Rolls, officially known as The Final Rolls of the Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory, listed individuals under the categories of Indians by blood, intermarried Whites, and Freedmen. The rolls were completed in March 1907 and additional citizens were enrolled under an Act of Congress on August 1, 1914. Although Freedmen frequently had Cherokee ancestry and sometimes living Cherokee parents, the Dawes commissioners generally listed all Freedmen or people of visible African features exclusively on the Freedmen Roll, rather than recording an individual's percentage of Cherokee ancestry.
It was not an orderly process. The Dawes Rolls of 1902 listed 41,798 citizens of the Cherokee Nation, and 4,924 persons listed separately as Freedmen. Intermarried whites, mostly men, were also listed separately. The genealogist Angela Y. Walton-Raji said that together, the Five Civilized Tribes had nearly 20,000 Freedmen listed on the Dawes Rolls.