Pulling Together
Family History
My family story begins with my grandmother (Katie
Island), loving grandmother and a storytelling grandmother.
And I'm sure some of you had a person like that in your life. They are
a God send. She was in her 80s and I, 10 or 11 years old, in Oklahoma,
in the 1930s, Depression time. She told me how they followed the Civil
War soldiers at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, then now Oklahoma, for
their survival. that she did not know her exact birthdate, said it was
at pumpkin time. The day her mother died she was about 9 years old and
on that same day they heard about the emancipation proclamation. So
these bits and pieces served me very well and they festered in my mind
for more than 50 years.
Through the years at family gatherings I asked questions, trying to
find the continuity of our family heritage often to the chagrin of
some. And yet I was hoping someone else would go about preserving our
history. Too soon I neared my own retirement. Suddenly I realized I
was at the end of my generation. What should I do? Who do I know?
Lord, is it I?
I decided to send more than 46 SASE letters to first cousins. I
received five responses. But those five were so strong--we decided to
do the statistics of the immediate families. Geraldine
Robinson
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The real problem is that Ms. Davis is black, in a
tribe that is struggling mightily to distance itself from a history in
which black Seminole warriors and chiefs had starring roles. The
question of whether the tribe can legally deny federal money to the
black Seminole will be decided in a closely watched federal lawsuit
known as Sylvia Davis vs. the United States. The case has a deeper
significance for historians, who see yet another example of how the
American multicultural past is papered over by the myth of racial and
ethnic purity.
Modern Americans are typically surprised to learn
that Native American tribes had any black members. In most cases, as in
several other tribes moved to Oklahoma, black members began as slaves.
But even though blacks in the Seminole tribe sometimes posed as slaves
to avoid capture, they were in fact full tribal citizens from the very
beginning. African
Seminoles
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There were other black
interpreters, but Cow Tom was described in the book by John H. Major as
the Negro Creek upon whom General Jessup most trusted. (1) The African Creek
-- the Negro Indians -- were the basis of all
official action, because "they were as important in any negotiation
as the most exalted person present." (2) Tom was insightful, and he realized that it would be to his advantage
and the advantage of all of the other blacks who lived among the Creeks
to relocate from their southern white slave masters, and thus Tom made
sure that it was clear to the military that the slaves were to move
westward with the Creeks. Just as Abraham, the black Seminole, had done so for the Africans
living among the Red Stick warriors who later became the Seminoles, Tom
insured the safety of several hundred Africans who moved with the Creeks
during the removal.
After arrival in Indian Territory, Chief Yargee depended further upon Cow Tom. Although a cattle man in his youth,
Cow Tom's job became primarily as a
negotiator and interpreter for the chief. As the chief knew no English
and had no interest in the language, the role of Cow Tom was critical,
and made him even more valuable to the Chief.
Cow Tom Bio
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* * Genetic Ancestral Testing
Cannot Deliver On Its Promise, Study Warns—ScienceDaily—18
October 2007—But the search for roots can be a serious
matter, as [Troy] Duster [The Chronicle Review ("Deep
Roots and Tangled Branches," February 3, 2006] pointed
out in a February 2006 article in the Chronicle of Higher
Education. According to the researchers, the Seminole Nation
of Oklahoma, for example, which won a land settlement now
worth $56 million, requires one-eighth Seminole blood for
members to receive benefits. In 2000, it changed its
constitution to exclude black members of the tribe who do
not meet blood-quantum requirements. The descendants of
these "Seminole Freedmen," or freed slaves, sought DNA
testing in hopes to regain tribal benefits, despite the
tribe's rejection of genetic ancestry testing as evidence of
enrollment. Their expulsion was found to be a violation of
the federal treaty, and they were re-enrolled in 2003."I
hope to never see a day when genetic ancestry tracing with
its inconclusive, continent-based affiliations supersedes
treaties between specific nations and citizenship criteria
that require documentation of named ancestors," said
Kimberly TallBear, co-author of the article and a UC
President's Postdoctoral Fellow with joint appointments in
UC Berkeley's Departments of Gender and Women's Studies;
Rhetoric; and Environmental Science, Policy, and
Management.—ScienceDaily
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* * 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 Narrative
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Harrison says her father, Henry Jacob, was a Creek freedman who owned
a farm and operated a ferry north of Muskogee near the little town of
Clarksville, which is no longer listed on the official state
transportation department's map. She says her father used the ferry to
carry horses, buggies, wagons, and people across the Arkansas River.
Harrison's mother was Rebecca Jacob. In addition to raising Emma and her
brothers and sisters, Rebecca helped her husband farm the 160 acres they
owned on the north side of the river. Emma says they raised corn,
cotton, hogs, chicken, ducks, geese, and "everything like
that."
For entertainment, Emma says she used to play baseball with her
brothers. On Sunday, the whole family used to attend the Blue Creek
Baptist Church where Emma's father was a deacon and her uncle, Eli
Jacob, was the pastor.
Harrison celebrates 100th birthday
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Andrew
Jackson and Other Kill Them Heroes—William Lorenz
Katz—25 January 2012—He [Andrew Jackson] was the
hero of New Orleans where he defeated a vastly
superior British army, (and in this had the support
enslaved and free African Americans, Choctaw and
other Indians). But he was never a hero to Native
Americans—they called him “Long Knife.” He was
elected President as a successful “Indian-fighter”
and then authorized the US Army to remove 70,000
peaceful people from their homes in the southern
states and deport them at bayonet point on the
infamous “Trail
of Tears.” As a Tennessee slave trader and
slaveholder he could hardly be considered a hero of
the families he held in bondage.
If ever Jackson
showed his unrestrained belligerence it was when he
led a U.S. invasion of Florida. His goal was to
throttle an alliance of African American escaped
slaves and Seminole Indians who had lived there for
years, a rainbow coalition peacefully bringing up
their families, defending their lives, freedom and
land. He also planned to take Florida from a Spain
that claimed it by conquest. An updated edition of
my book Black
Indians
came out a week before Gingrich’s words, and spends
entire chapters on the Florida invasion, to destroy
the Black-Seminole communities.
Since Southern
US planters were driven to sputtering fury by the
nearby presence of successful and armed communities
of people of color, for years they had been sending
armed slave-hunting posses into Florida. By 1818 the
slaveholder grip on US foreign and domestic policies
helped send Jackson and the strongest army in the
Americas to defeat these freedom-fighters and take
Florida.
This is what I
wrote in the current edition:
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Jackson’s invasion of 1818 did more than
take Florida from Spain. It threw the
United States into a war to prevent the
Black Seminole alliance from disturbing
the South’s plantation system.
Slaveholder James Monroe secretly
ordered the invasion, and slaveholder
General Andrew Jackson conducted it to
provide the president “plausible
deniability.” Secretary of State John
Quincy Adams lied to Congress about the
war’s intent, massacres, and clear
violation of the Constitution. Only
Congress can declare war. Adams further
declared opponents of the war were
“aiding the enemy” and said Jackson’s
atrocities were efforts at “peace,
friendship and liberality.” To these
leaders Florida’s African Seminole
alliance was a dangerous beacon light,
refuge and a massive underground
railroad for their slaves, writes
historian William Weeks.* They feared
it would trigger a rebellion that could
destroy the US plantation system. Their
words and actions as government
officials, Weeks writes, remind
“historians not to search for the truth
in the official explanation of events.”
Old
wounds, fevers, and malaria aggravated
Jackson’s hatred as he threw himself
into this “savage and negro war.” He
ordered his men to destroy crops, take
women and children hostage, and deploy
savage dogs. He claimed “self-defense”
and “the purest patriotism,” and at the
end boasted to his wife, “the enemy is
scattered over the whole face of the
Earth, and at least one half must starve
and die with disease.”
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Jackson, Monroe
Administration officials, and now Newt Gingrich,
believe the General a gallant, selfless
patriot fighting for a noble cause. Gingrich’s take
on history and Jackson as a “kill them” hero reveals
how he intends to run for the White House, and
suggests how he would pursue foreign and domestic
goals. —Counterpunch
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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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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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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
1950
1960
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
____ 2005
Enjoy!
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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 16 November 2011
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