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Henry Crittenden, who was born into slavery in the Choctaw Nation but was later emancipated.[1]
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.
Like other American Indian tribes, the Choctaw had customarily held Indian slaves 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]
^Robert Elliott Flickinger, The Choctaw Freedmen
^ abc
"The Choctaw Freedmen of Oklahoma". Retrieved 2008-02-14.
^Cunningham, Frank (1998). General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-3035-4.[page needed]
^ abHerrera, Allison (September 22, 2021). "'We're Not Going Anywhere': Choctaw Freedmen Cite History, Ties To Tribal Nation In Fight For Citizenship". NPR. KOSU. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
^Herrera, Allison (September 21, 2021). "Q&A: Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton On Freedmen Citizenship". NPR. KOSU. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
^Hererra, Allison (July 30, 2021). "Freedmen Ask Congress To Withhold Housing Assistance Money Until Tribes Address Citizenship". NPR. Public Radio Tulsa. Retrieved 24 September 2021.
The ChoctawFreedmen are former enslaved Africans, Afro-Indigenous, and African Americans who were emancipated and granted citizenship in the Choctaw Nation...
be amended without a vote of tribal members and currently excludes Choctawfreedmen. A constitutional amendment can be passed through "two methods: (1)...
1915. Byington 1870, p. 14. Flickinger, Robert Elliot (1911). The ChoctawFreedmen and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy. gutenberg.org. Tiya Miles...
registered tribal members. The Choctaw-Chickasaw Freedmen Association of Oklahoma currently represents the interests of freedmen descendants in both of these...
related to Freedmen. Black Seminoles Choctawfreedmen Creek Freedmen Freedman's Hospital Freedmen's Aid Society Freedmen's Bureau Freedmen's Bureau bills...
Elliott (1914). The ChoctawFreedmen and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy (PDF). Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen. p. 103. Retrieved...
The Choctaw (Choctaw: Chahta) are a Native American people originally based in the Southeastern Woodlands, in what is now Alabama and Mississippi. Their...
grandfather to keep dese two songs. I loves to hear 'em." Flickinger, The ChoctawFreedmen , etc.: "In 1871, when the Jubilee singers first visited Newark, New...
known as the Chickasaw Freedmen. Descendants of the Freedmen continue to live in Oklahoma. Today, the Choctaw-Chickasaw Freedmen Association of Oklahoma...
Gary Batton Talks About Freedmen Citizenship". KOSU. NPR. Retrieved 21 September 2021. "'We're not going anywhere': ChoctawFreedmen cite history, ties to...
Elliott (1914). The ChoctawFreedmen and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy (PDF). Presbyterian Board of Missions for Freedmen. p. 103. Retrieved...
Mississippi Choctaw. The Choctaw Nation had been mostly removed west prior to the War, but the Mississippi Choctaw had remained in the east. Both the Choctaw Nation...
in the United States Black Seminoles Chickasaw freedman Choctawfreedmen Creek freedmenFreedmen Post-civil rights era African-American history David Cornsilk...
University of Oklahoma Press, 1941. Flickinger, Robert Elliot (1914). The ChoctawFreedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy, Valliant, McCurtain County...
slaves were called "Freedmen," as in Cherokee Freedmen, Chickasaw Freedmen, ChoctawFreedmen, Creek Freedmen and Seminole Freedmen. The pro-Union branch...
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Alabama Creole Black Indians Black Seminoles Cherokee freedmen controversy Choctawfreedmen Creek Freedmen Black Southerners Blaxicans Great Dismal Swamp maroons...
federal laws provided civil rights protections in the U.S. South for freedmen, African Americans who were former slaves, and the minority of black people...
stigma of having mixed origin, they have all been categorized as slaves or freedmen in the past. Historically, the Black Seminoles lived mostly in distinct...
defeated Confederates, freedmen and Union sympathizers. The Confederacy's loss was also the Choctaw Nation's loss. The Choctaw Nation, in what would be...
Alabama Creole Black Indians Black Seminoles Cherokee freedmen controversy Choctawfreedmen Creek Freedmen Black Southerners Blaxicans Great Dismal Swamp maroons...
Union Army in 1864. His mother, Millie Colbert Franklin, was one-fourth Choctaw and had been raised in that nation's traditional culture. Millie and David...
for the Detroit Lions Edward P. McCabe, politician Oklahoma portal Choctawfreedmen List of African-American newspapers in Oklahoma Demographics of Oklahoma...
of the Choctaw Nation headquartered there. The current definition of Choctaw Country includes ten counties, being Coal, Atoka, Bryan, Choctaw, McCurtain...
Alabama Creole Black Indians Black Seminoles Cherokee freedmen controversy Choctawfreedmen Creek Freedmen Black Southerners Blaxicans Great Dismal Swamp maroons...
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