A Complexity That Must Be Named
The history of African Americans and Indigenous peoples is not simply a story of shared oppression. It is also, in some chapters, a story of complicity in that oppression — one that demands honest examination if we are to understand the full architecture of race in America.
The Five Civilized Tribes and Slaveholding
The Five Civilized Tribes — Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek (Muscogee), and Seminole — were given this name by white colonial authorities partly because many of their leaders adopted European-style governance and, significantly, adopted chattel slavery.
By the early 19th century, wealthy members of these nations owned enslaved Black people and operated plantation-style agriculture in the Southeast. When they were forcibly removed to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) via the Trail of Tears (1830–1850), they brought enslaved Black people with them.
The Contradiiction of the Trail of Tears
Enslaved Black people suffered the Trail of Tears twice:
- As the human property of Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek enslavers during removal
- Already enslaved in a country that treated them as property of the state
Estimates suggest approximately 15,000 enslaved Black people were held in Indian Territory by the Five Tribes at the start of the Civil War.
The Seminole Exception
The Seminoles had a notably different relationship. Many escaped enslaved Black people joined Seminole communities and fought alongside them in the Seminole Wars (1817–1858). Black Seminoles — also called Seminole Freedmen — formed a distinct cultural community with African and Indigenous heritage.
The US Army had particular difficulty fighting the Seminoles in part because of Black Seminole military knowledge and tactics.
Freedmen and Citizenship
After the Civil War, the 1866 Treaty of Fort Smith required the Five Tribes to grant citizenship to their formerly enslaved people — the Freedmen. This was largely resisted. The legal battles over Cherokee, Choctaw, and Creek Freedmen citizenship and tribal enrollment continued into the 21st century.
In 2021, the Cherokee Nation seated its first Freedmen delegate to the US Congress after years of legal battles — a recognition nearly 160 years delayed.
Why This Matters for the Diaspora
This history teaches us that:
- Oppression creates complex hierarchies — victims of one system can participate in another
- Black freedom was never the automatic result of Indigenous freedom or vice versa
- The Black Seminole story demonstrates what solidarity across communities could produce
- Naming complexity is not the same as equating — understanding the full story is the anti-colonial act
