Cherokee Slave Revolt Of 1842-gctid52124

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CHEROKEE SLAVE REVOLT OF 1842  by Art T. Burton

 Copyright 1996. Art T. Burton
  Black slavery in America usually evokes images of the antebellum South,  but few realize that members of the Five Civilized Tribes--the  Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles--in Indian  Territory, today's Oklahoma, also had slaves. Like their counterparts in  the South, Indian slaveholders feared slave revolts. Those fears came  true in 1842 when slaves in the Cherokee Nation made a daring dash for  freedom.
  In the 1830s and 1840s, initially at the insistence of President Andrew  Jackson, the United States government forcibly removed the Five  Civilized Tribes from their homes in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee,  North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida to Indian Territory west of the  Mississippi River. Their removal opened the lands to white settlers and  planters.
  When they moved, all of the tribes took with them established systems of  slavery. Mixed-blood Indians, the offspring of white traders and  frontiersmen who married Indian women, were the principal slaveholders  in the tribes, largely because their fathers had taught them the  economics of slavery. Those mixed-blood Indians remained tribal members  and became important middlemen between white settlers and Indian  communities.
  Many Cherokees depended on black slaves as a bridge to white to white  society. Full-blood Indian slave owners relied on the blacks as English  interpreters and translators.
  By 1860, the Cherokees had 4,600 slaves; the Choctaws, 2,344; the  Creeks, 1,532; the Chickasaws, 975; and the Seminoles, 500. Some Indian  slave owners were as harsh and cruel as any white slave master. Indians  were often hired to catch runaway slaves; in fact, slave-catching was a  lucrative way of life for some Indians, especially the Chickasaws.
  Seminoles attitudes toward slavery were different than those of other  tribes. Never practicing chattel slavery, they took in fugitive slaves  and claimed them as their own 'property' to protect the blacks from  slave-catchers. In return, the blacks, who lived in separate villages in  the Seminole country, gave livestock and crop tributes to the Indians.  The blacks and Seminoles also formed a military alliance, with the  blacks serving the Indians as warriors and strategists. In some  instances, the blacks would intermarry into the Seminole community.
  All of the tribes except the Seminoles had slave codes. Even after their  removal to Indian Territory, the Seminoles allowed their slaves to  carry weapons and own horses and other property. Until a treaty in 1845  provided for their relocation to the western area of the Creek Nation,  the Seminoles lived in the Cherokee country around Fort Gibson, Indian  Territory. Before that, Cherokee and Creek slaveholders complained about  the influence of Seminole slaves on their own slave populations.
  The blacks locked their masters and overseers in their houses and cabins  while they slept. Then they burglarized a store, stealing guns, horses,  mules, ammunition, food, and supplies. At daylight the group, which  included men, women, and children, headed toward Mexico, where slavery  was illegal.
  The Cherokee slaves at the Arkansas River port of Webbers Falls, not far  from Fort Gibson, would have had ample opportunity to observe the  Seminole slaves. Most of the Cherokee slaves farmed cotton and other  crops, but some worked at the landing where steamboats docked and where  Joseph Vann operated a public ferry. The Seminoles disembarked at  Webbers Falls after their journey from Florida, and the Cherokee slaves  may have been impressed with the blacks dressed in Seminole fashion and  carrying rifles and knives. The black Seminoles settled in the Illinois  River bottoms near Webbers Falls, allowing the Cherokee slaves to  socialize with them regularly.
  About 4:00 a.m., November 15, 1842, more than twenty-five slaves, most  from Vann's plantation at Webbers Falls, rendezvoused at a prearranged  location near the port town. The blacks locked their masters and  overseers in their houses and cabins while they slept. Then they  burglarized the store of a man named Bigelow, stealing guns, horses,  mules, ammunition, food, and supplies. At daylight the group, which  included men, women, and children, headed toward Mexico, where slavery  was illegal and many runaway slaves sought refuge. When the fugitive  slaves entered the Creek Nation southwest of Webbers Falls, slaves from  the plantations of wealthy Creeks named Bruner and Marshall joined them,  increasing the number of runaway to more than thirty-five.
  When the Cherokees discovered that their slaves had departed, about  forty of them took guns and dogs and went in pursuit of the fugitives.  Each slave reportedly had a horse or mule to ride, and they had taken  some of Vann's blooded racehorses, so they were highly mobile. The  Cherokees followed the slaves into the Creek Nation. There a group of  Creek Indians organized a search party and joined the Cherokees.
  Within a few days of the escape, the Indians caught up with the blacks  about ten miles beyond the Canadian River in the Choctaw Nation. The  slaves found a depression in the prairie which provided a complete  entrenchment for them and their horses, and they decided it would make  an excellent place to fight. A pitched battle followed, with both sides  suffering casualties. The blacks held the position for two days, but the  Indians killed two of them and captured twelve others.
  The fight convinced the Cherokees and Creeks to go home and get  reinforcements before continuing the chase. The remaining fugitives kept  moving toward the Red River.
  During their flight, the fugitives met James Edwards, a white man, and  Billy Wilson, a Delaware Indian, about fifteen miles from the battle  site. Edwards and Wilson were fugitive slave hunters, whom blacks in the  South called patrollers or "patty rollers." They had with them eight  blacks--one man, two women, and five children--who had escaped in the  Choctaw Nation. They had belonged to a white man named Thompson, who had  married a Choctaw woman, making him a citizen of the Choctaw Nation.  The fugitives had been headed west to join one of the  Plains Indian  tribes when a man named Chisholm spotted them and turned them over to  Edwards, Wilson, and a Cherokee man for transport back to Choctaw  authorities.
  Edwards and Wilson made good progress until they met the fugitive  Cherokee and Creek slaves, who killed them. The Choctaw blacks gladly  joined the Cherokee band as they continued on their journey toward  Mexico.
  The slave outbreak was reported to the Cherokee National Council at the  capital in Tahlequah on November 17, 1842. Immediately the council  passed a resolution, which Chief John Ross approved, authorizing  Cherokee Militia Captain John Drew to raise a company of one hundred men  to pursue, arrest, and deliver the blacks to Fort Gibson. The  resolution also relieved the Cherokee Nation of any liability if the  slaves resisted arrest and were killed. The Cherokee national treasury  would compensate Drew's militia, and Drew was authorized to purchase  ammunition and supplies, provided that the expedition was not  unnecessarily protracted and did not incur needless expenses.
  Ross told Indian Agent Pierce M. Butler about the expedition and asked  him to inform the commander at Fort Gibson and the Creek and Choctaw  chiefs. The commander at Fort Gibson loaned Drew twenty-five pounds of  gunpowder for the militia.
  On November 21, Drew left Webbers Falls with eighty-seven well armed men  in his command. By November 26 they had arrived at the site of the  battle between the slaves and the Creeks and Cherokees.
  Picking up the runaways' trail, Drew's command came upon the bodies of  slave hunters Edwards and Wilson, who apparently had been dead about  four days. The militia found the trail again and two days later found  the fugitives about seven miles north of the Red River, some 280 miles  from Fort Gibson.
  The slaves offered no resistance; starving, they surrendered  immediately. Drew captured thirty-one slaves--the entire group except  two who were away hunting. Drew's men returned the slaves to the  Cherokee Nation with no problem, arriving at Webbers Falls by December  7.
  Drew reported to the Cherokee National Council on December 8. After an  investigation, council members ordered five slaves to be held at Fort  Gibson pending trial for the murders of Wilson and Edwards, then told  Drew to deliver the remaining slaves to their owners. The Choctaw male  slave was also turned over to Fort Gibson authorities. Drew kept the two  Choctaw slave women and five children in custody until the Cherokees  could ascertain their disposition from the Choctaw Nation. Joseph Vann  took most of his black rebels out of the Cherokee Nation and put them to  work on his steamboat, which worked the Arkansas, Mississippi, and Ohio  rivers.
  The Cherokees thought the influence of "foreign" free blacks had caused  the slave insurrection. On December 2 they passed "An Act in Regard to  Free Negroes" directing that all free blacks, except those whom  Cherokees had freed, leave the Cherokee Nation by January 1, 1843, or as  soon after as possible. Those who lingered or refused would be  expelled. The act targeted the free black Seminoles living in the  Cherokee Nation.
  Cherokee attitudes against free black Seminoles continued. In 1849,  tired of harassment from slave-catchers, some of the free black  Seminoles under black Chief John Horse fled Indian Territory. They  joined Seminole Chief Wild Cat and his followers and successfully  reached Mexico.
  By 1851, nearly 300 blacks had tried to escape from Indian Territory,  most headed for Mexico or Kansas. In the northern Cherokee Nation, in  what would later become Washington County, Oklahoma, an "underground  railroad" trail led into Kansas. None of the escapes, however, equaled  the scope or violence of the Cherokee slave revolt of 1842.
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[imamu fahiym rbg]

:sankofa:  good post

[NyameNti]

One of the longest unwritten chapters in history of the United States is that treating of the relations of the Negroes and the Indians.  The Indians were already here when the white man came and the Negroes brought in soon after to serve as a subject race found among the Indians one of their means of escape. -Carter G. Woodson, Journal of Negro History, 1920

In the course of time, the American people got into Florida and begin to live.  This caused trouble.  The colored people and the Indians, being natives of the land, naturally went on a war path.  They fought until the American people called for peace.  The Indians and the Negroes gave them peace. -Joe Phillips, Black Seminole, 1930

According to Willam Loren Katz's book, Black Indians, difficult issues are raised.  According to this analysis, eureurasiaans played skillfully on racial differences and ethnic rivalries.  They kept the pot of animosity boiling.  Whites turned Indians into slavehunters and slaveowners, and Kmtyws into " Indian-fighters."   Light-skinned Kmtyws were pitted against dark-skinned, free against enslaved, Black Indians against "pure" Kmtyws or "pure" Indians. Its title stirred controversy among people with Kmtyw ancestors who had long accepted themselves as Indians.  It raised concerns among Native Americans still battling a government that traditionally seized any excuse (e.g., mixture with Kmtyws) to violate treaties, land claims and human rights.

On a personal note, of all the things I was told while growing up one fact- that my grandmother's uncle was an Indian tracker stuck out.  Stories of the red and black Indians in our family line became more evident as I viewed old family photographs.  The 1920s estimate that a third of Kmtyw Americans have Indian blood (this is a gross underestimate).  Most people of color are accused of denying their blackness if they dare "claim" some "Indian" in their family.   Although the latter is valid.  Especially when you see the pictures and hear the stories of the red and black...and who can deny it when you stare at the physical characteristics of family members.

A compelling reality is that Kmtyws and the so-called "native" to America were already here on the continent of North America-each participating in balance with nature.  That is, until the pale-face showed up:

The eureurasiaan is to the other races of mankind what man himself is to the lower animals: he makes them subservient to his use and when he cannot subdue he destroys them.
-Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1835

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THE SLAVE REVOLT IN THE CHEROKEE NATION (1842)
   POSTED ONJANUARY 18, 2018BY CONTRIBUTED BY: SAMUEL MOMODU
   

   
Map of the 1842 Cherokee Slave Revolt

The Slave Revolt in the Cherokee Nation occurred in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) when a group of twenty-five enslaved blacks, mostly from the Joseph Vann plantation, attempted to escape to Mexico where slavery was abolished. The revolt began on November 15, 1842, when the Vann plantation fugitives gathered with slaves from other plantations near Webbers Falls in the Cherokee Nation.

The fugitives burglarized a store, taking horses, mules, several rifles, ammunition, and supplies for their escape to Mexico.  Once Cherokee officials discovered the escape, they sent a search party to bring them back. As the fugitives made their way southwest from the Cherokee Nation, they were joined by ten escaped slaves from plantations in the Creek Nation. The Creeks joined the Cherokees in pursuit of the fugitives, confronting them near the Canadian River.  A battle ensued with two fugitives killed and twelve captured.  The remaining twenty-one escaped and continued to head for Mexico while their Cherokee and Creek pursuers returned to their nations for reinforcements.

Fifteen miles west of the Canadian River, the fugitives met James Edwards, a white man, and Billy Wilson, a Delaware Indian. Edwards and Wilson, known fugitive slave hunters, had in their custody eight slaves, one man, two women, and five children who had previously escaped from the Choctaw Nation and were headed west to join the Plains Indians before being captured.  The Cherokee and Creek fugitives killed Edwards and Wilson, added the Choctaw fugitives to their group, and continued their journey to Mexico.

Noting the fact that fugitives from three of the five major nations in Indian Territory were fleeing the area and fearing a general escape by other enslaved people in the territory, the National Council of the Cherokees on November 17, 1842, authorized the Cherokee Lighthorse Militia to find and return the escapees and appointed John Drew as its captain.  On November 21, 1842, Captain Drew left Webbers Falls with eighty-seven well-armed men in his command to pursue the 29 fugitives.  On November 26, they caught up with the fugitives near the Red River after they had become confused and disoriented on the high plains, disagreeing on whether to go south or west to Mexico.

Drew and his men captured the fugitives (by then numbering thirty-one), and brought all of them back to Webbers Falls by December 7. After an investigation, the Cherokee Nation Council ordered five fugitive slaves to be held at Fort Gibson pending trial for the murders of Wilson and Edwards. After the trial they were executed.  The council ordered the remaining fugitives to be returned to their Cherokee, Creek, and Choctaw owners.  The Cherokee slave revolt was the largest slave rebellion in the Indian Territory and the only one that involved fugitives from different Indian nations.

SUBJECTS:Kmtyw American History, EventsTERMS:United States - Oklahoma, 19th Century (1800-1899), Racial Conflict - Resistance/Rebellion, North America - Mexico, Slaves/Freedmen