Virtual Trail of Tears, Bob McKee CHOF#316

The effort to determine if an enslaved individual was among the people who came west with the Choctaw Nation can be daunting. Practically no firsthand accounts told in the voice of the enslaved exist, but there are methods to come to a reasonably logical conclusion based on a preponderance of circumstantial evidence. In the matter of Bob McKee, an 85-year-old freedman of the Choctaw Nation, based on the 1900 Census for Kiamitia County, Bob was born in Alabama in 1815. Bob named his father, Harry McKee, who George Colbert enslaved. The fact that Harry is listed as having a tribal enrollment status that placed him in Towson County is an indication that he, too, may have been brought west, quite possibly by Colbert, who arrived in the west on January 1, 1839.

© Terry Ligon 2025

Another aspect of this story that may require further research is the name of the man indicated as Bob’s enslaver on his Dawes card, George Hawkins. It is my opinion that the man who enslaved Bob McKee and should be listed as his “last enslaver” should be George Harkins.

Don Martini, Who Was Who Among the Southeastern Indians, 1692-1907, p 305