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The Native Americans Who Owned Slaves: The “Five Civilized Tribes” of the southeast also participated in the institution of slavery.
Intellectual Takeout ^ | 07/05/2019 | By Peter Partoll

Posted on 6/17/2020, 3:52:31 PM by SeekAndFind



Did you know that the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery did not apply to ALL slaves?

Most see slavery as a simple black-vs.-white issue. But those who do may not realize that the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the southeast — Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole — also participated in the institution of slavery.

Because these tribes were located outside the sovereignty of the United States, constitutional amendments did not apply to them.

In the period before the arrival of the Europeans, the Natives practiced flexible forms of slavery that often allowed slaves avenues to freedom through intermarriage. That all changed with the arrival of the Europeans, who introduced Native Americans to a system of permanent bondage based on race.

According to journalist Aliana E. Roberts, this switch occurred after the Yamasee tribe lost a war against the English Carolina colonists in 1717. The Europeans began turning from Native slavery to African slavery, and the Native Americans followed their lead. Many Natives, especially those in the “Five Civilized Tribes” (so-called because they embraced the ways of American settlers) picked up on the trend. By 1800, they had developed “plantations that rivaled those of their white neighbors.”

Roberts states that like most average Americans, many Natives did not own black slaves. Most slaveowners were part of the upper-classes, and were those who had the most influence in society.

In spite of this she also notes that the percentage of black slaves in the population was not insignificant:

In 1860…Cherokee Nation citizens owned 2,511 slaves (15 percent of their total population), Choctaw citizens owned 2,349 slaves (14 percent of their total population), and Creek citizens owned 1,532 slaves (10 percent of their total population). Chickasaw citizens owned 975 slaves, which amounted to 18 percent of their total population, a proportion equivalent to that of white slave owners in Tennessee, a former neighbour of the Chickasaw Nation and a large slaveholding state.

While many Native American nations allowed white slaves to earn their freedom through intermarriage, the tribes also had strict laws forbidding any intermarriage between a Native and a black slave, often punishing those who married their slaves with banishment from the tribe.

The Native slaveowners could also be horrifyingly brutal towards their black slaves. This is illustrated by the case of Lucy, a black slave burned alive for the murder of her native master. She had no part in the murder but was executed anyway at the request of the murdered warrior’s wife.

During the Civil War, the “Five Civilized Tribes” fought on both the Union and Confederate sides. After the war, the Treaties of 1866 freed the slaves. Even after that, blacks still faced discrimination in the Indian territories, with many tribes passing laws similar to the infamous “Black Codes” in the South.

This often-overlooked part of American history takes on new significance in light of today’s debates over slavery reparations and monuments to those who owned slaves or fought to keep them.

Do the descendants of the “Five Civilized Tribes” owe reparations for slavery? Should monuments to their leaders be taken down? The institution of slavery was rightfully eradicated with the passage of the 13th Amendment. But any debate over how to deal with the legacy of this evil institution must remember that the phenomenon was much more complex than is often portrayed or remembered.


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: nativeamericans; slavery
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1 posted on 6/17/2020, 3:52:31 PM by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

It’s the marxist muslims making the issue in their war on America.

The dialogue needs to be directed at islam, they’ve had far more experience in slavery. They, the Arabs had African roots before Christ and with the advent of mohammet, the muslims took over the routes.

Matter of fact, they still practice it in areas in Africal


2 posted on 6/17/2020, 3:56:31 PM by himno hero (had'nff)
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To: himno hero

Go read Carlos the Jackal for his opinion of how to bring down the west. He acknowledged that Marxism by itself could not bring down the west , nor could islam; but an alliance, a coalition of the two could.
Obama was both a marxist and a muslim... and a lying radical at that.


3 posted on 6/17/2020, 3:57:35 PM by himno hero (had'nff)
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To: SeekAndFind

The issue is never the issue.


4 posted on 6/17/2020, 3:58:29 PM by ifinnegan (Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: SeekAndFind

interestingly....if my memory is correct, first generation slaves of Indians were allowed to register as Indians for example on the Dawes Rolls (those that were living), but descendants of those slaves, were not allowed to continue with Indian status.

Sort of interesting, really....all in all, an attempt to reach a sensible legal conclusion while dealing with very difficult issues....


5 posted on 6/17/2020, 3:58:52 PM by ConservativeDude
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To: SeekAndFind

The Seminoles were more of a conglomerate group of natives, runaway slaves and criminals hiding out, back then.....................


6 posted on 6/17/2020, 3:59:16 PM by Red Badger (Always trust God............but wash your hands......................)
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To: himno hero
Obama was both a marxist and a muslim... and a lying radical at that.

Same with Brennan.

7 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:00:23 PM by Migraine
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To: ifinnegan

My question is for people to own slaves, someone had to be selling. We condemning owners but never touch on sellers


8 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:02:30 PM by Jimmy The Snake (Remeber)
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To: SeekAndFind

Good God. Native Americans, when they didn’t just outright kill their enemies, certainly had no issue with taking women and children as slaves.

And they weren’t that much different from the rest of the world until evil Western thought began to take sway.


9 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:03:44 PM by rlmorel ("Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies"- George Orwell)
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To: SeekAndFind
Even after that, blacks still faced discrimination in the Indian territories, with many tribes passing laws similar to the infamous “Black Codes” in the South.

Lot of that going around post war, and for many years afterwards in all parts of the country.

10 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:04:22 PM by DoodleDawg
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To: SeekAndFind

Discussion of “reparations” will have to begin with the peoples of eastern Africa whose ancestors captured and sold other blacks, often from other tribes, to the Europeans. If it does not start there it is a sham.


11 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:04:49 PM by Wuli (Get)
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To: SeekAndFind

The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story Kindle Edition
by Tiya Miles (Author)

But first, we wanted to talk about one of the many complicated stories that involve race and heritage. While it is well-known history that slavery was a common practice in the Deep South before the Civil War, less well known is the fact that it wasn’t just white families that were slave owners.

Some well-to-do Native Americans also owned slaves. In fact, the late Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Wilma Mankiller wrote in her autobiography that, quote, “The truth is that the practice of slavery will forever cast a shadow on the great Cherokee Nation,” unquote.
Indeed that shadow continues today in the latest iteration over the debate over just who to include as members of the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Supreme Court has stripped some of the slave descendents known as freedmen of their Cherokee citizenship in the decision last month.

At the turn of the nineteenth century, James Vann, a Cherokee chief and entrepreneur, established Diamond Hill in Georgia, the most famous plantation in the southeastern Cherokee Nation.
In this first full-length study to reconstruct the history of the plantation, Tiya Miles tells the story of Diamond Hill’s founding, its flourishing, its takeover by white land-lottery winners on the eve of the Cherokee Removal, its decay, and ultimately its renovation in the 1950s.

This moving multiracial history sheds light on the various cultural communities that interacted within the plantation boundaries—from elite Cherokee slaveholders to Cherokee subsistence farmers, from black slaves of various ethnic backgrounds to free blacks from the North and South, from German-speaking Moravian missionaries to white southern skilled laborers.

Moreover, the book includes rich portraits of the women of these various communities. Vividly written and extensively researched, this history illuminates gender, class, and cross-racial relationships on the southern frontier.


12 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:04:59 PM by Grampa Dave ( Can I trust that you and I will get out and vote for Trump, this November!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Of course, that will not be deemed as racist because according to modern “intellectual” thought, people of color cannot be racist.


13 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:05:17 PM by CommerceComet (Hillary: A unique blend of arrogance, incompetence, and corruption.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Indians enslaved members of other tribes as well.


14 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:06:13 PM by Southside_Chicago_Republican (The more I learn about people, the more I like my dog.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Slavery has been a global institution for likely over a hundred thousand years. All races and peoples are equally guilty.


15 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:13:33 PM by MichaelRDanger
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To: SeekAndFind

Only Whites in America owned slaves . Only Blacks from Africa were enslaved.Only in America. That is what the experts, not history says. In America, the White man still has them enslaved today June 17 2020. They wear the title “Slave” proudly. And tell anyone who will listen “I am a slave to the White man”. He makes it so easy for me to be a slave.


16 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:16:43 PM by sport
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To: SeekAndFind

Chief Seattle, the great Native American leader and namesake of that city, held some of the people he defeated as slaves. I suspect his statue, prominently displayed downtown, (along with other monuments to him elsewhere) is safe.


17 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:17:47 PM by trublu
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To: SeekAndFind

I would point out that the Chickasaw, for many years prior to the American Revolution, often attacked the closely related but more peaceful Choctaw, in order to capture Choctaws and sell them to the white slave traders on the coast, and many Choctaw were shipped by boat to slave away their lives in the islands never to see home or family again.


18 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:18:07 PM by piasa (Attitude adjustments offered here free of charge.)
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To: SeekAndFind; All
Slavery in the New World long predated Christopher Columbus and European immigration to the Western Hemisphere.

Not only did the most civilized of the New World tribes, the Aztecs, practice slavery; the killed massive numbers of people in human sacrifice and ate them.

Cannibalism was rampant. Human flesh was for sale in Aztec markets.

Several first person observers noted it at the time.

Since then, re-writers of history have attempted to justify it and walk it back.

19 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:19:16 PM by marktwain (President Trump and his supporters are the Resistance. His opponents are the Reactionaries.)
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To: SeekAndFind

This is a fact, but there will be no calls to strip Indians of their riches. (Casinos.)

It’s Whites who are on the hate list and are slated for replacement.


20 posted on 6/17/2020, 4:19:29 PM by I want the USA back (Never forget Justine Damond, murdered by a NON-WHITE, NON-CHRISTIAN cop. (Oh, and no riots))
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