RACISM AND THE CHEROKEE NATION

by William Loren Katz

As President Bill Clinton and others arrived for the 42nd anniversary of Selma's "bloody Sunday" that assured Congressional passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the Cherokee Nation took a different road. It voted overwhelmingly to revoke citizenship rights for 2800 members because their ancestors included people of Africa descent.

Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes, has long fought racism from both governmental officials and Indigenous figures. In this instance, she claims, Cherokee leaders misled voters by insisting "freedmen don't have Indian blood", "the freedmen were forced on the tribe", "the freedmen do not have a treaty right to citizenship", "the people have never voted on citizenship provisions in the history of the tribe", and "the amendment will create an all Indian tribe." Cherokee voters were also influenced by the racist charge "that the freedmen if not ejected, would use up all of the tribal service monies."

The design of the constitutional amendment, Vann points out, is patently discriminatory. It removes membership from descendants of enrolled freedmen members whose documentation of Indian ancestry was affirmed by the Dawes Commission more than a century ago as well as those without documentation of Indian ancestry. On the other hand it accepts Cherokee members with white blood or even people whose ancestors are listed as "adopted whites."

This development comes at a moment of intense examination of the African and Indian alliances that began after 1492. Governor Nicolas de Ovando of Hispaniola arrived in the Americas in 1502 with a Spanish armada that carried the first enslaved Africans. Within a year Ovando wrote to King Ferdinand that the Africans "fled to the [Taino] Indians and never could be captured." To the fury of Europeans, Native Americans, the first people enslaved in the New World, accepted African runaways. Obviously, Indians saw no reason to face the invasion
alone.

In maroon colonies beyond the European coastline settlements, each group contributed invaluable gifts. As victims of the triangular trade, Africans brought a unique view of European goals, weapons, and diplomacy. Native American villages offered runaways a safe haven for families and a base for operations, and the two peoples of color forged their maroon settlements into the "first rainbow coalition." So ubiquitous were maroons that a French scholar called them
"the gangrene of colonial society." And so threatening were they to white hegemony, that Europeans repeatedly dispatched search and destroy armies.

British colonial officials in what is now the United States required Indian Nations to sign treaties promising the return of Black runaways. (There is no record of any fugitives being returned!) To keep Native American villages from becoming an escape hatch, officials offered Indians staggering rewards for runaways. And finally, British traders introduced African slavery to the Five Nations -- the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and Seminoles. Once these Nations adopted European-style dress, Christianity and African bondage, they were called "The Five Civilized Tribes." But in the age of Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831, southern planters, still frantic about leaks in their labor system, demanded removal of the Five Nations. Presidents Jackson and Van Buren authorized the Army to conduct a Trail of Tears that pushed 60,000 Indians, including black members, to barren lands in Oklahoma. Black and red Cherokees
comforted one other as thousands perished on the painful march.

By then African bondage dominated the social, political and economic life of the Five Nations, and created class and racial divisions that persist today. A minority of Cherokees with white blood owned slaves and claimed a superior status. The majority "pure Indian blood" Cherokees became "inferior." Africans were kept on the lowest rung. However in the 1850s, Heinrich Mollhausen, a noted German artist visited the Indian Territory and described a form of bondage
unlike that practiced on southern plantations:

"These slaves receive from the Indian masters more Christian treatment than among the Christian whites. The traveler may seek in vain for any other difference between master and servant than such as nature had made in the physical characteristics of the races; and the Negro is regarded as a companion and helper, to whom thanks and kindness are due when he exerts himself for the welfare of the household."

In 1860 Cherokees in Oklahoma owned 2511 slaves, and at the outset of the Civil War the Five Nations with 8,000 slaves, pressured by pro-slavery Indian Agents and surrounded on three sides by Confederate forces, agreed to support the Confederacy. However, Opothle Yahola, a wealthy Creek Chief, was able to lead 7,600 people -- including half of the Seminole Nation, Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and others, to federal lines in Kansas. By April 1862 the young men of the multicultural exodus had joined the Union Army, fought early
battles and helped free slaves in Missouri.

The Union victory in the Civil War allowed U.S. officials to scrap its Indian treaties. Whites, who forced African slavery on Indians, suddenly demanded they accept freedom. The Seminoles quickly embraced equality, and elected African members to high office, and the other nations were slower. However, in a few years Black Cherokees ran barbershops, blacksmith shops,
general stores and restaurants, and some became ferryboat operators, cotton-gin managers, teachers and postmasters. O.S. Fox, editor of the Cherokee Afro-American was enthusiastic about the Indian Territory:

"The opportunities for our people in that country far surpassed any of the kind possessed by our people in the U.S. . . . It is nonsense for any Afro-American to emigrate to Africa or anywhere else if he can make a living in the Indian Territory."

In 1879 Cherokees of African descent in petitioning for their rights recalled their legacy in these words:

"The Cherokee nation is our country; there we were born and reared; there are our homes made by the sweat or our brows; there are our wives and children, whom we love as dearly as though we were born with red, instead of black skins. There we intend to live and defend our natural rights, as guaranteed by the treaties and laws of the United States, by every legitimate and lawful means."

In 2007 Cherokees of African lineage still have to fight for their natural rights and against the racial bigotry carried across the Atlantic by the invaders.

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William Loren Katz is the author of BLACK INDIANS: A HIDDEN HERITAGE and forty other books. His webwsite is WWW.WILLIAMLKATZ.COM

Editorial: Our Taino Bloodlines

By Domingo Hernandez De Jesus

Some critics of the Taino movement were denying any biological inheritance among the contemporary Boricua population. When faced with the now famous DNA studies they defended their position by stating that this Native American contribution could not be attributed to the Taino bloodlines. They argued by reminding us that for two hundred years, Native Americans were brought as slaves from many parts of South, Central and North America, so these and not the Taino may be our ancestors.

It seems to me that they did not read Dr. Juan Martinez Cruzado's full report. He points out that the number of Africans taken to Puerto Rico vastly outnumbered those of the Native American slaves who originated out side of the island. If the biological contribution in question came only from a imported source, then the number of persons with these markers today would be smaller than the African. Therefore it is his conclusion that the majority of the Native American genetic material found in Puerto Rico today comes directly from the Taino population since it surpasses the number of African contribution by 40%. We also know that this DNA study was tracing the female line and records show that the vast majority of slaves were male and their genetic contributions would not show in this particular study.

The devastation of the European invasion was felt in common by all Native American nations. At the time of the first contact our Taino ancestors numbered in the millions. It is interesting to note that many smaller nations managed to escape extinction. The Cherokee were estimated to have about 20,000 at the time on contact. Their numbers were affected by the same conditions. During the Trail of Tears most of the Cherokee were forced to leave their land for far away Oklahoma. Less than 1,000 Cherokees managed to escape the removal and were able to stay in their ancestral lands. Today their descendents are known as the Eastern Cherokee and they have 13,079 enrolled members. Just 48 years before the removal of the Cherokee we find a military census in Puerto Rico that mentions 2,302 Indians living in an area known as "Las Indieras" that same original census also mentions that there was another Indian community of similar size living in Anasco. This census is saying that there were at least 4,000 full blood Native Americans living in Puerto Rico at that time (1778) They were full bloods because the Spanish were fanatical about creating names and categories for those of any amount of mixture (ie. Mestizo,Pardo, Mulato,Trigueno, Jabao, Zambo etc).

These people were clearly listed as Indios. So I wonder why if we had 4,000 full
bloods just 200 years ago, how is it we have none today? Or do we? How could the Eastern Cherokee go from a small group of 1,000 to 13,000 in 200 yrs. while the Taino go from 4,000 to 0 in the same time frame? There is no mention of wars or uprisings as was happening in the USA at the time. So what could account for the Taino's disappearance ?

We look at the 1800 census and those that came afterward the category of Indian has been left out. The numbers under the category of Pardo also show a great increase. The Indians were simply put in another category. This other category “Pardo" has been translated as colored. Many in the USA think of the term of color as being Black. Yet the census form had a different listing for “Free Blacks.” There were also listings for enslaved Blacks and enslaved Mulatos. The term Pardo (brown) was used only for free persons who were considered non Whites and also non Black by Spanish standards. these were the bi-racial and tri-racial combinations of Native American African and European offspring.

To insist that the Taino are extinct is to deny the overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

It is to imply that somehow under the same circumstances and in some cases even better conditions than others, our ancestors were too weak or too dumb to survive when others did. It is to assume that our Taino blood line is thin and faint. That we are claiming one individual who lived 500 years ago. These conclusions are a mistake, and border on racist. The truth is that 200 years ago Native full bloods are documented to be in Puerto Rico that they numbered between 2,000 to 4,000. That these people were in contact with a larger population of Mestizos, Mulatos and Zambos. Most of which by definition had a strong Native component. Add to this the fact that there was a strong level of isolation to many parts of Puerto Rico, not only in the 1800s but even into the mid-20th century.

In the early 1900's there were barely 60 miles of paved roads in all of Puerto Rico. There were many communities that were inaccessible except by mule, horse or by foot. While every official town had their own church, the surrounding villages did not. This is why Puerto Ricans baptize their children twice. Once without a priest and one with. Both of my grandmothers gave birth at home in huts with only a mid-wife to help. My point is that in isolation the blood quantum can stay the same indefinitely, if the persons reproducing have the same quantum. So in communities where you have full bloods, mixing with half bloods and these villages are isolated you will still find many if not most with consistent and strong features reflecting their Indian background. This is the case in a large proportion of our people. This is why so many of us still fit the description given by Colon himself: bronze skin tone, straight black hair, high cheekbones, etc.

Many of our families report that their children are born with the " Mongol Spot" But doctors don't tell them that it is a trait common with Asians and Native Americans , they just tell them it means that the baby will be dark. This spot is what originally was meant by the " Mancha de Platano" (the Plantain Stain) because that is what it tends to look like on our babies. Our Taino bloodlines are not weak or faint, many of us just have to go back two generations to connect with our Taino life ways. In terms of blood we know it is there. We need only give the eye test to ourselves or to some other close relative.

I don't have to claim someone from 500 years ago. I claim my grandfather and both my grandmothers.