The nation's second-largest Indian tribe formally booted from membership thousands of descendants of black slaves who were brought to Oklahoma more than 170 years ago by Native American owners. The Cherokee nation voted after the Civil War to admit the slave descendants to the tribe.
But on Monday, the Cherokee nation Supreme Court ruled that a 2007 tribal decision to kick the so-called "Freedmen" out of the tribe was proper.
The controversy stems from a footnote in the brutal history of U.S. treatment of Native Americans. When many Indians were forced to move to what later became Oklahoma from the eastern U.S. in 1838, some who had owned plantations in the South brought along their slaves.
Let me begin on what I do know about relationship between Native American and African during slavery: First, both were oppressed people, who were driven/captured from their homelands by mostly Europeans. In the early days of slavery, indigenous peoples of the Americas and Africans were enslaved together. Those who escaped slavery, found themselves welcomed in the Seminoles tribe, which had refused to give them up when whites came demanding the return of fugitive slaves. There were regular intermingling between Native Americans and Africans, which is why today, there are large numbers of black Americans of Native American ancestry.
Now, what I didn't know: There were actually Native American tribes, which partook in the enslavement of Blacks in America? Needless to say that this article has sparked my interest in the topic and I certainly have some reading and research to do. Besides the history, I am most curious of this decision by the Cherokee tribe, particularly their treatment of their Black slaves (if true) and what this expulsion means in terms of reparations to the Blacks to which they once, possibly, owned.
Got any insight to this? Reading suggestions will be very much appreciated.