Black Indians and Trail of Tears

African American and Native American relationships

Becoming Kin: An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future
We find our way forward by going back.

The invented history of the Western world is crumbling fast, Anishinaabe writer Patty Krawec says, but we can still honor the bonds between us. Settlers dominated and divided, but Indigenous peoples won't just send them all "home."

Weaving her own story with the story of her ancestors and with the broader themes of creation, replacement, and disappearance, Krawec helps readers see settler colonialism through the eyes of an Indigenous writer. Settler colonialism tried to force us into one particular way of living, but the old ways of kinship can help us imagine a different future. Krawec asks, What would it look like to remember that we are all related? How might we become better relatives to the land, to one another, and to Indigenous movements for solidarity? Braiding together historical, scientific, and cultural analysis, Indigenous ways of knowing, and the vivid threads of communal memory, Krawec crafts a stunning, forceful call to "unforget" our history.

This remarkable sojourn through Native and settler history, myth, identity, and spirituality helps us retrace our steps and pick up what was lost along the way: chances to honor rather than violate treaties, to see the land as a relative rather than a resource, and to unravel the history we have been taught.
An Indigenous Call to Unforgetting the Past and Reimagining Our Future

 

Black Indians and Trail of Tears

My primary interest in this writing about the Black Seminoles is due to my family heritage being of African Hebrew, Spanish Jew, Gullah, and Muscogee (Creek) ancestry. Throughout my website, I seek to build a sense of Prosperity Consciousness - the act of building a holistic mindset for repairing the world (Tikkun Olam). It is extremely important to build a sense of family unity with our ancestry. As "Holistic Mindset" means - Emphasizing the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts; The best way I know to do so (repairing the world), is to learn and express our common or shared history.

Black Indians: An American Story

Black Indians: An American Story brings to light a forgotten part of America's past- the cultural and racial fusion of Native and African Americans. Narrated by James Earl Jones, produced and directed by the award-winning Native American production company Rich-Heape Films, this presentation explores what brought the two groups together, what drove them apart and the challenges they face today.

This award-winning feature examines a minority group that is discounted and often ignored by mainstream media. Sharing a common past, many African Americans and Native Americans have combined to create a unique culture that has meshed the traditions and fine heritage of both. Little known, little documented and often marginalized, this group has become all but invisible at the dawn of the new millennium.

Black Indians: An American Story

 

A People's History of Florida 1513-1876: How Africans, Seminoles, Women, and Lower Class Whites Shaped the Sunshine State

Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States, predicted that the bottom class perspective of history would eventually gain ground, enveloping the old way of narrating history as told by the powerful. Since then, numerous historical events have been redefined through the outlook of common people that were involved from the bottom-up, forever altering how we understand history. No more romantic diatribes glittered in patriotic myths. No more traditional heroes, standardized viewpoints, unquestionable "facts," or generalized falsehoods. Just plain raw truth that is not afraid to stampede powerful governments with the herd of popular outrage. A People's History of Florida follows the People's History tradition, documenting the active involvement of African-Americans, indigenous people, women, and poor whites in shaping the Sunshine State's history.

Biography -- Adam Wasserman is a historian, social movement organizer, and native of Sarasota, Florida. He is the author of A People's History of Florida, 1513-1876: How Africans, Seminoles, Women, and Lower Class Whites Shaped the Sunshine State.

A People's History of Florida 1513-1876: How Africans, Seminoles, Women, and Lower Class Whites Shaped the Sunshine State

Seminole Indian Tribe History

"The Seminole, before the removal of the main body to Indian Territory, consisted chiefly of descendants of Muscogee (Creeks) and Hitchiti from the Lower Creek towns, with a considerable number of refugees from the Upper Creeks after the Creek war, together with remnants of Yamasee and other conquered tribes, Yuchi, and a large Negro element from runaway slaves. When Hawkins wrote, in 1799, they had 7 towns, which increased to 20 or more as they overran the peninsula."

Seminole Indian Tribe History

 

Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America

Confounding the Color Line is an essential, interdisciplinary introduction to the myriad relationships forged for centuries between Indians and Blacks in North America. Since the days of slavery, the lives and destinies of Indians and Blacks have been entwined-thrown together through circumstance, institutional design, or personal choice. Cultural sharing and intermarriage have resulted in complex identities for some members of Indian and Black communities today.

The contributors to this volume examine the origins, history, various manifestations, and long-term consequences of the different connections that have been established between Indians and Blacks. Stimulating examples of a range of relations are offered, including the challenges faced by Cherokee freedmen, the lives of Afro-Indian whalers in New England, and the ways in which Indians and Africans interacted in Spanish colonial New Mexico. Special attention is given to slavery and its continuing legacy, both in the Old South and in Indian Territory. The intricate nature of modern Indian-Black relations is showcased through discussions of the ties between Black athletes and Indian mascots, the complex identities of Indians in southern New England, the problem of Indian identity within the African American community, and the way in which today's Lumbee Indians have creatively engaged with African American church music.

At once informative and provocative, Confounding the Color Line sheds valuable light on a pivotal and not well understood relationship between these communities of color, which together and separately have affected, sometimes profoundly, the course of American history.

Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America

 

The Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole (Civilization of the American Indian)

Side by side with the westward drift of white Americans in the 1830's was the forced migration of the Five Civilized Tribes from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida. Both groups were deployed against the tribes of the prairies, both breaking the soil of the undeveloped hinterland. Both were striving in the years before the Civil War to found schools, churches, and towns, as well as to preserve orderly development through government and laws.

In this book Grant Foreman brings to light the singular effect the westward movement of Indians had in the cultivation and settlement of the Trans-Mississippi region. It shows the Indian genius at its best and conveys the importance of the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles to the nascent culture of the plains. Their achievements between 1830 and 1860 were of vast importance in the making of America.

The Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole (Civilization of the American Indian) (Volume 8)

Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School

Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School is a Native American perspective on Indian Boarding Schools. This DVD produced by Rich-Heape Films, Inc. uncovers the dark history of U.S. Government policy which took Indian children from their homes, forced them into boarding schools and enacted a policy of educating them in the ways of Western Society. This DVD gives a voice to the countless Indian children forced through a system designed to strip them of their Native American culture, heritage and traditions.

Gayle Ross is a descendent of John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation during and after the infamous Trail of Tears, the forced removal of many Southeastern Indians to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in the late 1830s. Her grandmother told stories and it is from this rich heritage that Gayle s storytelling springs. During the past twenty years, she has become one of the most respected storytellers to emerge from the current surge of interest in this timeless art form.

Our Spirits Don't Speak English: Indian Boarding School

 

The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy

This is the most informative resource about the Trail of Tears I have found. It includes historical background, interesting commentaries, short scenes depicting different events. The actual trip was just a small part of history of the treatment of Native Americans. West Studi does a great job of narrating parts in his native tongue. It added to the feel of reality and authenticity of the events. James Earl Jones adds that deep voice of authority that lets you know some important information is coming. I learned so much about my ancestors from this video. Warning: you will need tissues.

The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy - This DVD tells the tale of the Cheorkee people and the way they were treated in The years of the forward movement of the New American Government Stealing land to Give to The Georgia Aristocrats of the American Southland. They then took these established lands which were wonder Communal farms and turned them in to Slave Plantations after shipping the Cherokees off to Oklahoma and represented colonialism that we have grown to associate with our American Legacy.

The Trail of Tears: Cherokee Legacy

Native Americans have experienced a history full of oppression and racism. Since the period when Native tribes were found on this continent at the time of its "discovery", the British and American governments disregarded Native Americans as the owners of the territory they occupied and used aggressive force to take their lands and destroy their people.

 

NATIVE AMERICAN HEALING IN THE 21ST CENTURY

This comprehensive look at the ancient health and healing methods of American aboriginals uncovers the invaluable contributions that Native Americans made to early frontier living, showing how many of the healing plants and herbs that early European settlers were taught by the aboriginal people are still important sources of today's modern methods of maintaining health.

The Trail of Tears Continues for Black Indians - Issue 66

"In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which was signed into law by President Andrew Jackson. The act argued that, "no state could achieve proper culture, civilization, and progress, as long as Indians remained within its boundaries." The bill called for the removal of all Indians in the southeastern United States to the territory west of the Mississippi River. In 1838, the first groups started out on their 1,000-mile trek, which became known as the Trail of Tears because of the horrors faced, such as disease, lack of food, water and bad weather."

"Indian nations such as the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, Kickapoo, Seminole, Wyandotte, Lenapi, Chickasaw and Mohawk had their lands taken away because settlers and corporations wanted more land, according to historians."

http://www.blackcommentator.com/66/66_reprint_indians.html

Trail of Tears

"The Trail of Tears is a name given to the forced relocation and movement of Native American nations from southeastern parts of the United States following the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The removal included many members of the Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations, among others in the United States, from their homelands to Indian Territory (eastern sections of the present-day state of Oklahoma). The phrase originated from a description of the removal of the Choctaw Nation in 1831."

"Many Native Americans suffered from exposure, disease and starvation en route to their destinations. Many died, including 4,000 of the 13,000 relocated Cherokee, intermarried and accompanying European-Americans, and the 2,000 African-American free blacks and slaves owned by the Cherokee they took with them.[2][3] European Americans and African American freedmen and slaves also participated in the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek and Seminole forced relocations."

"In 1831, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole (sometimes collectively referred to as the Five Civilized Tribes) were living as autonomous nations in what would be called the American Deep South. The process of cultural transformation (proposed by George Washington and Henry Knox) was gaining momentum, especially among the Cherokee and Choctaw.[5] Andrew Jackson continued and renewed the political and military effort for the removal of the Native Americans from these lands with the passage of the Indian Removal Act of 1830."

"In 1831 the Choctaw were the first to be removed, and they became the model for all other removals. After the Choctaw, the Seminole were removed in 1832, the Creek in 1834, then the Chickasaw in 1837, and finally the Cherokee in 1838.[6] After removal, some Native Americans remained in their ancient homelands - the Choctaw are found in Mississippi, the Seminole in Florida, the Creek in Alabama, and the Cherokee in North Carolina. A limited number of non-native Americans (including African-Americans - usually as slaves) also accompanied the Native American nations on the trek westward.[6] By 1837, 46,000 Native Americans from these southeastern states had been removed from their homelands thereby opening 25 million acres (100,000 km2) for predominantly white settlement."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trail_of_Tears

Seminole

"The Seminole are a Native Americans in the United States people originally of Florida, who now reside primarily there and in Oklahoma. The Seminole nation emerged in a process of ethnogenesis out of groups of other Native Americans and a small number of escaped slaves. They were composed most significantly of Creek from what is now Georgia, the Florida Panhandle and Alabama, who settled in the southern and central part of the Florida peninsula in the early 18th century.[1] The word Seminole is a corruption of cimarrón, a Spanish term for "runaway" or "wild one", historically used for certain Native American groups in Florida."

"After an initial period of colonization in Florida, during which they distanced themselves increasingly from other Creek groups, the Seminole established a thriving trade network during the British and second Spanish periods (roughly 1767–1821).[5] The tribe expanded considerably during this time, and was further supplemented from the late 18th century with the appearance of the Black Seminoles – free blacks and escaped slaves who settled in communities near Seminole towns, where they paid tribute to the Native Americans in exchange for protection.[6] However, tensions grew between the Seminole and the United States to the north, leading to a series of conflicts known as the Seminole Wars (1818–1858).[6] Over the course of the wars most Seminoles were forced to relocate west of the Mississippi River in a process of Indian removal."

"During the colonial years, the Seminole were on good terms with both the Spanish and the British. In 1784, the treaty ending the American Revolutionary War transferred British rule of Florida to Spain. The Spanish Empire's decline enabled the Seminole to settle more deeply into Florida. They were led by a dynasty of chiefs founded in the 18th century by Cowkeeper. This dynasty lasted until 1842, when the US forced the majority of Seminole to move from Florida to the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) after the Second Seminole War."

"There is also a village of Black Seminoles who have lived at Red Bays on Andros Island in the Bahamas since the 1820s."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seminole

Black Seminoles

"The Black Seminoles is a term used by modern historians for the descendants of free blacks and some runaway slaves (maroons), mostly Gullahs who escaped from coastal South Carolina and Georgia rice plantations into the Spanish Florida wilderness beginning as early as the late 17th century. By the early 19th century, they had often formed communities near the Seminole Indians."

"Together, the two groups formed a multi-ethnic and bi-racial alliance. Today, Black Seminole descendants still live in Florida, rural communities in Oklahoma and Texas, and in the Bahamas and Northern Mexico. In the 19th century, the Florida "Black Seminoles" were called "Seminole Negroes" by their white American enemies and Estelusti (Black People), by their Indian allies. Modern Black Seminoles are known as "Seminole Freedmen" in Oklahoma, "Black Indians" in the Bahamas, and Mascogos in Mexico. The Black Seminole Scouts served in the United States Army during the 19th century."

"As early as 1689, African slaves fled from the South Carolina Lowcountry to Spanish Florida seeking freedom. Under an edict from King Charles II of Spain in 1693, the black fugitives received liberty in exchange for defending the Spanish settlers at St. Augustine. The Spanish organized the black volunteers into a militia; their settlement at Fort Mose, founded in 1738, was the first legally sanctioned free black town in North America."

"Not all the slaves escaping south found military service in St. Augustine to their liking. It is likely that many more runaway slaves sought refuge in wilderness areas in Northern Florida where their knowledge of tropical agriculture—and resistance to tropical diseases—served them well. Most of the blacks who pioneered Florida were Gullah people who escaped from the rice plantations in South Carolina (and later Georgia). As Gullah, they had preserved much of their African language in an Afro-English based Creole, along with cultural practices and African leadership structure. The Gullah pioneers built their own settlements based on rice and corn agriculture. They were allies to Indians escaping into Florida at the same time."

"In 1763 the British took over rule in Florida, in an exchange of territory with the Spanish west of the Mississippi, of former French lands. The area was still considered a sanctuary for fugitive slaves, as it was lightly settled, and many sought refuge near growing American Indian settlements."

"Florida had been a refuge for runaway slaves for at least 70 years by the time of the American Revolution. Communities of Black Seminoles were established on the outskirts of major Seminole towns.[4] A new influx of freedom-seeking blacks reached Florida during the American Revolution (1775–83). Several thousand American slaves agreed to fight for the British in exchange for liberty and were called black Loyalists. Those who chose freedom and resettlement were evacuated by the British along with their own troops from southern cities such as Charleston, as well as New York, and transported to the Caribbean, New Brunswick and England. (Florida was under British control throughout the conflict.) "

"The Black Seminole culture that took shape after 1800 was a dynamic mixture of African, Native American, Spanish, and slave traditions. "

African-Seminole relations

"By the early 19th century, maroons (free blacks and runaway slaves) and the Seminole were in regular contact in Florida, where they evolved a system of relations unique among North American Native Americans and blacks. In exchange for paying an annual tribute of livestock and crops, black prisoners or slaves found sanctuary among the Seminole. Seminoles, in turn, acquired an important strategic ally in a sparsely populated region."

"Typically, many or most members of the Black Seminole communities were not identified as slaves of individual Native American chiefs. Black Seminoles lived in their own independent communities, elected their own leaders, and could amass wealth in cattle and crops. Most importantly, they bore arms for self-defense. Florida real estate records show that the Seminole and Black Seminole people owned large quantities of Florida land. In some cases, a portion of that Florida land is still owned by the Seminole and Black Seminole descendants in Florida."

"Under the comparatively free conditions, the Black Seminoles flourished. U.S. Army Lieutenant George McCall recorded his impressions of a Black Seminole community in 1826: 'We found these negroes in possession of large fields of the finest land, producing large crops of corn, beans, melons, pumpkins, and other esculent vegetables. ... I saw, while riding along the borders of the ponds, fine rice growing; and in the village large corn-cribs were filled, while the houses were larger and more comfortable than those of the Indians themselves.'"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Seminoles

The African American Experiences is a collection of Black Studies to understand the Past, Present and Future of the People called African American!

"Wealth is to have your own Land, Language and Culture! Where is the Land of the African American? What is the Language? And, Where is the Culture of the people?"

 

facebook

Tweet