Indian Territory History Month-The Centenarians Sadie COLBERT-WILLIAMS

 Indian Territory Freedmen History-The Centenarians

Chapter One

Sadie COLBERT-WILLIAMS       CHIF#408        Enslaved by Sally ALBERSON

Sadie Williams is the first story of this special group of “Centenarians” who may have come to Indian Territory during the removal and the record provides testimony about her age, husband and children. 

It will take some more in-depth research to confirm Sadie’s was part of the removal but until other information refutes it, she is a member of this honored group of “freedmen” ancestors. 

It is important to recognize the Centenarians for numerous reasons; the first reason has to do with dispelling the notion that black people only occupied Indian Territory/Oklahoma following the Civil War and became a part of the landscape that developed the “All Black Towns” of the late1800’s. 

These men and women are documented to have lived in the territory prior to all of that history and should be recognized as some of the founders of Oklahoma.

Sadie Colbert-Williams lived a long life full of challenges for a woman living among the Chickasaw Indians from removal to surviving the War of the Rebellion. She lived to feel the exhilaration of Emancipation for herself and all of her living descendants. 

Sadie Colbert-Williams began life approximately at the turn of the nineteenth century and lived to see Indian Territory become the state of Oklahoma in the twentieth century and finally gaining citizenship when it had been denied her in the nation of her birth. 

The Centenarians are a very special group of people and they are to be honored by saying their name and telling their stories as best we can.

Although Sadie doesn’t provide the name of her husband in her interview she does discuss her children and grandchildren who provide the name of the man/men that fathered her children.

THE LEGACY OF SADIE WILLIAMS

·       Salina Johnson CHIF#414 (see PTT#6) b. 1834

o   1910 Census OK-McClain County-Hopping Township-ED185

o   Salina’s father was John Allen aka Johnson?)

o   Frances Grayson CHIF#412 (father Jim Colbert-Chickasaw Indian)

§  Roxanna Anderson CHIF#294

o   Zilphia Alexander CHIF#413

·         Hickman Johnson CHIF#411 b. 1837 d. July 28, 1901 (father is Johnson Allen d.)

o   Fort Smith, Arkansas US Criminal Case#105 Hickman Johnson

o   See SMITH, Martha CREF#1796

o   See KING, Angeline CHOF#D-191

o   TAYLOR, Frances CREF#1803

o   JOHNSON, Joe CREF#1800

o   COLBERT, Jennie CREF#1801

·         Sylvester Colbert CHIF#400 b. 1844

o   See PTT#5

o   See CHIF-NB#438

·         Luvinia Davis CHIF#409 b. 1846

o   Matilda Carolina CHIF#358 (See CREF#1533 OR 1596)

o   Husband Frank Carolina-CREF

·         BREWER, Emily CHIF#401-b. 1847 (see PTT#46&47)

o   See CHIF-M#209

·         COLE, Delilah CHIF#403-b. 1849

o   GIBBS, Theodore CHIF#404-b. 1874

o   COLE, Jeff CHIF#405-b. 1875

§  COLE, Mabel See CREF#152

·         COLBERT, Tobias CHIF#406-b. 1856

·         COLBERT, Boston CHIF#407-b. 1854

o   COLBERT, Carrie See CHIF#259

·         DAVIS, Luvinia CHIF#409-b. 1846

·         CAROLINA, Matilda CHIF#410-b. 1865 

*In creating this list of Centenarians I've taken the liberty to include people who were listed as being in their 90's; this is done because as researchers of Black Americans our recorded history and the ages of our ancestors may not be accurate because of the lack of corroboration on dates. So, I've employed the use of a ten year +/- error rate. In any event someone ninety years old may have experienced a lot of the history that someone who was one-hundred or more years old.