Africans and Seminoles
From Removal to Emancipation
By Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr.
A new edition of a standard work documenting the
interrelationship of two racial cultures in antebellum Florida and Oklahoma
Because Seminoles held slaves in a confusing system that was markedly
dissimilar to white society's, the federal government was challenged to identify
which blacks in Florida were free and which were not. As claims by slave owners
and slave hunters fell into conflict, the Seminoles' more relaxed form of
enslavement threatened the overall institution. This discord was intensified by
the Second Seminole War, in which slaves united with Seminoles to fight against
the United States. In exchange for capitulation America proffered the coalition
unfettered freedom in Indian Territory.
In Florida the two societies were so
closely linked that, when the government implemented its program of removal,
Seminoles and African Americans were transported to Oklahoma together.
However, once on their new lands Seminoles and blacks fell into strife with
Creeks, who wanted control over both groups, and with Cherokees and Arkansans,
who feared an enclave of free blacks near their borders. These disputes drove a
wedge between the Seminoles and their black allies.
Until the Civil War, blacks were hounded by slave claims that had followed
them from the east and by raids of Creeks and white slavers from Arkan-sas. Many
blacks were captured and sold. Others fled from Indian Territory and settled in
Mexico.
At the end of the Civil War free blacks and those of African descent who had
remained unemancipated were adopted into the Seminole tribe under provisions of
the Treaty of 1866. They began their role in the founding of what today is the
modern Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. In a preface to this new edition Littlefield
explains the continuing significance of this subject.
Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., a professor of English at the University of
Arkansas, Little Rock, and director of American Native Press Archives, is the
author of Seminole Burning: A Story of Racial Vengeance and editor, with
James W. Parins, of Native American Writing in the Southeast: An Anthology,
1875-1935 (both from University Press of Mississippi).
DECEMBER, 6 x 9 in., 280 pages (approx.)
appendix listing blacks named in official records, index
* * * * *
Black Indian Genealogy Research
African-American Ancestors Among the Five Civilized Tribes
by Angela Y. Walton-Raji
The historical relationship between Native Americans and African-Americans
has been called, "one of the longest unwritten chapters in the history of
the United States." Unlike the commonly held perception that slavery in
America consisted only of white people owning black people, the reality was much
more complex. There were many whites who were enslaved or indentured, many
blacks who were free, and many Indians who owned African Slaves.
Not all White-Indian relations were hostile and a number of tribes, in
particular the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and the Seminoles, or
the "Five Civilized Tribes" as they became known, adopted European
ways, including agriculture and black slaves to work their new farms.
In 1907, the Indian Territory became the State of Oklahoma. To qualify for
the payments and land allotments set aside for the Five Civilized Tribes, the
former slaves of these nations had to apply for official enrollment, thus
producing testimonies of immense value to today's genealogists.
The book shows where to find and how to use the Indian
Freedman Records, discusses Black Indians and Tri-Racial groups from the Upper
South, and has added two lists of family names: Freedman Surnames from the Final
Rolls of the Five Civilized Tribes, and Surnames of Tri-Racial families of the
South. Copyright 1993, 180 pages, illustrated, bibliography, index, paperback.
$18.50 plus $4.00 postage and handling.
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