From Indian Territory/Oklahoma and the Chickasaw Nation to Liberia: The Saga of Hannah LOVE

The Saga of Hannah Love

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The story of Chickasaw Freedmen the former slaves of Chickasaw Indians is not well known. When the Chickasaw tribe was removed to Indian Territory they brought with them hundreds of enslaved people of African and African-Native descent.

 Once they were emancipated in 1866 the next forty years, they lived among the Chickasaw without the citizenship that was included in the Treaty of 1866. Richmond and Hannah were part of that removal and emancipation.

 

Once Indian Territory the state now known as Oklahoma Richmond and Hannah had been nurturing their two children and many grandchildren in a community known as Wynnewood. 

 

Wynnewood would undergo many changes that the Love family noticed and began to consider "removing" their family members back to Africa, specifically Liberia. 

 

This video was created to highlight the courage this family had to uproot themselves, this time, their choice and give up the land and citizenship they finally realized after surviving the struggles of enslavement, Jim Crow and lynching’s that were front page news for the communities of Wynnewood and Pauls Valley, Oklahoma

Community, Culture & Identity Nancy Ishcomer-Shields

Nancy Ishcomer-Shields: Community, Culture & Identity

During the course of researching another project I came across a statement by Tams Bixby in the Congressional Record Serial Set responding to an accusation by attorney Webster Ballinger that the Dawes Commission was excluding people who had a right to transferred to the Chickasaw or Choctaw by blood roll.

Bixby stated that "Numerous other cases could be cited of persons of mixed Indian and negro blood who have been finally enrolled as citizens by blood of the Choctaw Nation..." 

Senate Report 5013 (59th Congress, 2nd Session) part 2, p1542

 

My curiosity demanded that I check this information out for myself and since Bixby provided an example of the numerous people on the blood roll that were "mixed Indian and negro" I was all in.

Senate Report 5013 (59th Congress, 2nd Session) part 2, p1541

What I discovered by looking at the extended family of Nancy Shields was a subject and story that Tams Bixby did not include in his testimony as a rebuttal to Webster Ballinger, the "colored father" of Nancy (Shield) may have father other children by at least two other women but those children were considered "full-blood" Choctaw Indians.

It would appear the other children of Nelson Ishcomer chose to distance themselves away from the stigma or taint of having "negro blood" and began the process of identifying themselves as full blood Choctaw Indians, Nancy Shield(s) chose a different path for herself and her children.

This appears to be another example of how the Dawes Commission and the Choctaw Nation divided families and left the nation divided on artificial identities that are with us today.

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Nancy Ishcomer-Shields