[By Ray Carter - Director, Center for Independent Journalism] In a recent online post, Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr., mocked efforts to keep Critical Race Theory (CRT) out of Oklahoma classrooms.
“The solution in search of problem nonsense that is the ban on ‘critical race theory’ continues to sap time & energy and undermine efforts at seeking a full understanding of history and culture,” Hoskin tweeted on Nov. 26. “We’d waste less time banning unicorns.”
Hoskin’s tweet came in response to news regarding the implementation of House Bill 1775, which bans K-12 schools from teaching that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex,” that “an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously,” and other similar concepts broadly associated with Critical Race Theory.
In touting the need for a “full understanding of history and culture,” Hoskin echoed the arguments of many CRT supporters and/or opponents of HB 1775.
Ironically, one area where Oklahoma students are seldom provided “full understanding,” according to critics, is the Cherokee Nation’s participation in chattel slavery of black people and the tribe’s participation in the Civil War on the side of the Confederacy, alongside four other tribes—the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole, and Muscogee tribes.
Some experts say that chapter of history deserves much more classroom focus.
“Although there were Indigenous people who integrated states of unfreedom within their communities, as other scholars have demonstrated, these were not exactly the same structures and processes as the practice of chattel slavery. And still, some members of the Five Tribes practiced chattel slavery in their southeastern communities and later on in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma),” said Celia E. Naylor, professor of Africana Studies at Columbia University and author of African Cherokees in Indian Territory: From Chattel to Citizens.
“It is important for students in history classrooms, and for everyone, to understand the complexities of slavery in the U.S. and in Indigenous nations,” she said. “Without reckoning with the complexities of slavery in the past, we will continue to navigate the various iterations of the afterlives of slavery in the present day.”
A 2016 senior thesis by Olivia DeWitt at Southern Adventist University, “Red Masters & Their Black Slaves in a White Man’s War: The Five Civilized Tribes’ Relationship with the Confederacy in Light of Slavery,” highlighted how the Five Tribes’ slavery practices were strongly linked to their decision to ally with the Confederacy. DeWitt suggests history texts have too often downplayed the role of slavery within the tribes.
“History has largely ignored the enslavement of blacks by Indians before and during the Civil War, which some historians have called ‘one of the longest unwritten chapters in the history of the United States,’” DeWitt wrote.
As with the larger white population, relatively few Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and Muscogee individuals owned black slaves, according to records, but a substantial number of slaves were nonetheless collectively owned by members of the Five Tribes.
The Oklahoma Historical Society reports, “By the time of the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the tribes’ members owned approximately ten thousand slaves.”
In a 2014 article, the Atlanta Black Star reported that Cherokees “held more Black slaves than any other Native American community. By 1860, the Cherokee had 4,600 slaves.”
Among the Cherokee Nation, DeWitt found 330 of the tribe’s 13,821 members owned 2,511 black slaves.
“In lifestyle and sometimes even physical appearance, many of the slave-owning Indians were indistinguishable from white southerners,” DeWitt wrote.
The Five Tribes’ cultural embrace of chattel slavery caused them to behave differently from all other tribes during the Civil War era, DeWitt found, writing that the Five Tribes “did not have political motives and were not forced into an alliance; the issue of slavery seems to have been motivation enough to ally against the Union.”
“Out of all the tribes residing in Indian Territory, only the five slave-owning tribes chose to ally and fight with the Confederacy,” DeWitt wrote.
Following the Civil War, the Five Tribes signed treaties promising to give citizenship to their former slaves (referred to as Freedmen) and their descendants. But critics note the tribes substantially failed to live up to those treaty promises.
Marilyn Vann, president of the Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Tribes Association, credits the Cherokees with having begun to deal with the reality of the tribe’s history regarding slavery.
“Right now the tribe has a call out in order to get Freedmen people to provide historical materials to throw into a museum,” Vann said. “So I would say the Cherokee Nation is not trying to shy away from the past.”
The Cherokee Freedmen History Project is seeking historical materials, references, documents, and images to address gaps in representation and storytelling at all tribal sites.
Vann said some of the other Five Tribes continue to be far more resistant to recognizing Freedmen descendants. However, she also noted the Cherokees’ willingness to accept Freedmen is a relatively recent development.
“For so long, you had people like Chief (Chad) Smith that opposed Freedmen citizenship,” Vann said. “The attitude was kind of like, ‘We can do what we want to.’ It’s going to take time to get past those years that the treaty was not being followed.”
Smith was first elected principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1999 and went on to serve three terms before losing a bid for a fourth term in 2011.
Critics of HB 1775 argued the law would prevent teaching students about the history of racial strife in the United States, but supporters noted the bill explicitly authorizes teaching materials covered in Oklahoma’s state academic standards.
‘Teaching History in All of Its Complexities’
Read more »by Muskogee Politico - December 13, 2021 at 07:32PM
Cherokee Chief mocks Oklahoma's anti-CRT efforts
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