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Brief Narrative Sketch of Cow Tom
Cow Tom is an intelligent negro of the Creek persuasion.
During the Florida war he was interpreter for General Jedsup, and was
the body servant of Lieutenant Lane, when that unfortunate young officer
committed suicide by falling on his sword, the point of the weapon
entering the brain just above the eye. Cow Tom is the proprietor of a
plantation—under a good state of fencing, he purchased the
improvements since the war for $150.
He is entitled under the Creek law
to all the land he can put under fence and cultivate, with the privilege
of keeping off his neighbors at arm’s length, as settlements are not
allowed nearer any occupant than each quarter of a mile. The reason for
this custom, as adopted by the early Indian law givers, growing out of
the tribal relation, obliging the Indians to scatter about and become
independent proprietors.
Wild tribes of nomadic habits are accustomed to wandering about and
huddling together for mutual safety and, defense.
Cow Tom this season has raised fine crops of corn, cotton, and
chickens, sufficient to render comfortable a large family of children
and grandchildren who lean on him for support. But owing to the distance
from the mill, he pounds his corn in a mortar with a wooden pestle, and
the yield of cotton, raised exclusively for home consumption, has to be
ginned with the fingers, and carded by hand.
For breaking up the prairie
he used the old-fashioned "bull plow," such as was in use
before the invention of the "wood patent." By long service,
the plow point, from constant filing, has become worn up to the
mold-board. It should be stated that farmers nearer the States,
especially among the Cherokees, Senecas, Quapaws, Peoria, and other
advanced tribes, have introduced improved farming implements to a
considerable extent.
The Neighborhood
Our fare at Cow Tom’s was relished with a keen appetite, and there
were neat quilts on the beds, of home manufacture. There is a
comfortable school house near by, where the children are taught to read.
There is no physician nearer than Fort Gibson, distant thirty-three
miles, and the inhabitants have a goodly prospect of dying a natural
death.
Source: Chronicles of Oklahoma, Volume
5, No. 1, March 1927 APPENDIX—37 / and http://digital.library.okstate.edu
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy." |
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Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage
By William Loren Katz
Christmas Eve marks the anniversary of one of the least known battles for freedom and self-determination fought in North America. In 1837, in what had become the state of Florida less than a generation earlier, the freedom fighters were members of the Seminole Nation, an alliance of African slave runaways and Native American Seminoles.They faced the strongest power in the Americas, the combined armed forces of the United States Army, Navy and Marines, whose goal was to crush the bi-racial alliance and return its African-American members to slavery. . . . This battle took place during the Second Seminole War (1835-1842), which involved U.S. Naval and Marine units, at times half of the Army, and cost 1,500 military deaths and U.S. taxpayers $30 million [pre-Civil War dollars]. After his decimated army limped back to Fort Gardner, Zachary Taylor won promotion by claiming, “the Indians were driven in every direction.” Later, using his reputation as an “Indian fighter,” Taylor won election as the 12th President of the United States. The Seminole alliance at Lake Okeechobee delivered the Army’s worst defeat in decades of Florida warfare. However truth about the battle and the three wars long remain buried, hidden or distorted.— ConsortiumNews
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 22 December 2011
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