#25 Days of Black History Challenge-Indian Territory Edition

ON THIS DAY 28th February

Chickasaw Freedmen

Muskogee Phoenix February 28, 1901 

The Enid Daily Eagle February 28, 1910

The Daily News-Republican February 28, 1908

25 Day Black Family History Challenge

 Ligon and Allied Families

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Creek Descendants-Black History Month,Thus, by Treaty, Act of Congress and the Laws of the Creek Nation, the Freedmen Have Been Admitted to Membership or citizenship in the Creek Nation Day 21

The final citizenship rolls of the Creek Nation embrace a considerable number of persons not Creeks by blood. These persons are known as freedmen and are of African descent. It becomes necessary, therefore, to consider the rights of these freedmen and their descendants, born since the closing of the final rolls, to share in the distribution of the Creek judgment of December 4, 1933. Prior to 1861 slavery existed in the Creek Nation, and there were within the limits of such nation many persons of African blood who were held as slaves. During the Civil War the Creeks, like others of the Five Civilized Tribes, threw in their lot with the Southern Confederacy and renounced allegiance to the United States. By a treaty concluded June 14, 1866 (14 Stat. 785), the United States renewed its relations with the Creek Nation and confirmed their rights to their lands. Article II of the treaty admitting the freedmen and their descendants to citizenship in the nation reads:

"The Creeks hereby covenant and agree that henceforth neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted in accordance with laws applicable to all members of said tribe, shall ever exist in said nation; and inasmuch as there are among the Creeks many persons of African descent, who have no interest in the soil, it is stipulated that hereafter these persons lawfully residing in said Creek country under their laws and usages, or who have been thus residing in said country, and may return with in one year from the ratification of this treaty, and their descendants and such others of the same race as may be permitted by the laws of the said nation to settle within the limits of the jurisdiction of the Creek Nation as citizens (thereof,) shall have and enjoy all the rights and privileges of native citizens, including an equal interest in the soil and national funds, and the laws of the said nation shall be equally binding upon and give equal protection to all such persons, and all others, of whatsoever race or color, who may be adopted as citizens or members of said tribe."

In conformity with the foregoing article, the laws of the Creek Nation (see chapter 7, Article I, Section 2, Constitution and Laws of the Creek Nation, edition of 1890) declare that "All persons of African descent, who were made citizens by the treaty of June 1866 between the Creek Nation and the United States, shall hereafter be recognized as citizens of the Muskogee Nation." Further recognition of the rights of the freedmen and their descendants to membership or citizenship in the Creek Nation is extended by the act of June 10, 1896 (29 Stat. 321, 341); the Curtis Act of June 28, 1898 (30 Stat. 495, 503); and the act of April 26, 1906 (34 Stat. 137, 138).

http://thorpe.ou.edu/sol_opinions/opinions501-600.html (17 of 179) [6/5/2002 1:25:46 AM]

p501-575

Thus, by treaty, act of Congress and the laws of the Creek Nation, the freedmen have been admitted to membership or citizenship in the Creek Nation, not as members by blood but as members by adoption with all the rights incident to such membership, including the right to share in all distributions of tribal property on an equal footing with blood members. This includes the right to share in the per capita payment provided for by the act of June 19, 1934, unless the provisions of that act expressly exclude them from such participation. The act does not do so. It makes no distinction between the freedmen and the members or citizens by blood. The direction is that the payment be made to the "members of the Creek Tribe of Indians entitled thereto", and this embraces all members of that tribe including the freedmen, who have been admitted, as we have seen, to all the rights and privileges of blood members. The new roll of Creek freedmen will accordingly be made in like manner as that of the Creeks by blood, that is to say, freedmen whose names appear on the final rolls and who were in being on December 4 will first be added to the roll. The names of deceased enrollees will then be stricken and there will be added the descendants of all freedmen enrollees born since the closing of the final rolls, provided such descendants are living on December 4, 1933, and meet the residential requirements of the Creek Law of October 26, 1889, the provisions of which law extend to the freedmen as well as to persons possessing Creek Indian blood.

Source:

CASES AND MATERIALS ON
PROBLEMS IN LANDS ALLOTTED TO AMERICAN INDIANS

Revised First Permanent Edition

BY
Joseph F. Rarick, J.S.D. David Ross Boyd Professor of Law College of Law University of Oklahoma

Reproduced with permission of Louise S. Rarick

Copyright 1980 and 1982 by Joseph F. Rarick

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 19, Serena WILLIS Choctaw Freedwoman Card #1284

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 19

Petition to Transfer From Choctaw Freedman Roll to Choctaw By Blood Roll #F-011

Serena WILLIS Choctaw Freedwoman Card #1284

Claimant in Equity Case 7071

#BlackHistory365

In the matter of the petition of Sorena (sic) Willis, et al., for the correction of the enrollment records of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes in the matter of their enrollment as freedmen of the Choctaw Nation, and for the transfer of their names from the said Freedmen Roll to the roll of Choctaws by blood.

 

January 15, 1906, there was filed with the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes by Albert J. Lee, attorney for the petitioners, a petition of Mitchell Willis praying that the names of Sorena Willis, Rosa Murphy and Mary Murphy be transferred from the roll of Choctaw Freedmen to the roll of citizens by blood of the Choctaw Nation.

 

Attached to the petition as (sic) the affidavit of Mitchell Willis, in which he alleges that he is sixty years of age, an enrolled freedman of the Choctaw Nation and lives at the town of Sawyer, Indian Territory, that for the past eleven years Sorena Willis has been his lawful wife, that the said Sorena Willis as a daughter of Pheba, (sic) a half breed Choctaw slave woman by Pitman Colbert a full blood enrolled Chickasaw Indian. The affiant states that he is the administrator of the estate of Rosa Murphy and guardian of Mary Murphy, the daughter of said Rosa Murphy; that Rosa Murphy was the daughter of Mary Russell, who was the daughter of Henry Fulsom, a full blood recognized and enrolled Choctaw citizen by Delila Willis a three quarters blood Choctaw, who was enrolled at Goodland, Indian Territory as a freedman.

 

No answer to the petition has been filed by the attorneys for the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations within the fifteen days allowed for that purpose by the regulations adopted by the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes January 2, 1906.

M-1186 Choctaw Freedwoman Card #1351 Front/Rear Serena WILLIS et al.,

M-1301 Interview Packet Choctaw Freedwoman Card #1351Serena WILLIS, p1

Joe & Dillard Perry Petition to Transfer Files F-011 Serena WILLIS et al., 

Note: Serena WILLIS never provided testimony about her father; her husband provided the information and referred to her father as "Mr. Mingo" The commissioner took great pains to include that in his report and highlighted the difference from the time of the initial "application" for her land allotments. Years later when Serena and her attorney sought to have her and her children transferred to the Choctaw by Blood Roll the discrepancy was used to refute her claim of Choctaw ancestry. 

M-1186 Chickasaw Freedwoman Card #1284 Front/Rear Mary RUSSELL et al., 

M-1186 Choctaw Freedman Card #1335 Front/Rear Henry WILLIS

Figure 2 Don Martini "Who was Who Among the Southern Indians, a genealogical notebook, 1698-1907 pp146-47

Figure 3 Don Martini "Who was Who Among the Southern Indians, a genealogical notebook, 1698-1907 p239

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 17, Statement of Ormsby McHarg, Attorney for Choctaw Nation

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 17, p394 &395

Statement of Ormsby McHarg, Attorney for Choctaw Nation 

"Indians effort made to drive the African into obscurity."

Congressional Hearing: H.R. 19279, H.R. 19552 & H.R. 22830 9 April 1910

#BlackHistory365

 

WASHINGTON, Saturday, April 9,1910.

 

STATEMENT OF ORMSBY M’HARG, ESQ., OF NEW YORK CITY, N. Y. 

Mr. McHARG. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, I will ask the stenographer, then, that anything I may say will be incorporated after Mr. Hill's remarks, so that there will be no break of his thought. 

The CHAIRMAN. That can be done. 

Mr. McHARG. Gentlemen, perhaps you thought yesterday that I considered this question a simpler one than you do. It happens that my education has been such that I believe that in law, when we are permitted to have a full hearing on a subject, we are precluded from having anything else said, and while I very much admire the industry of the gentlemen who have presented this matter on the part of the people who claim they have been denied their rights in enrollment, yet it often happens that if a man cross-examines his witnesses too long, he loses his case. There has been heretofore entirely too much discussion of this matter, and everything that has been stated here has been heard before, either before committees or subcommittees, or before the courts. I think this case ought to be disposed of very promptly because of that fact.

I regret very much, gentlemen of the committee, that you attach the consequence you do to this so-called freedman's situation. These men stand here protecting the integrity of their race, and they are entitled to do it. You cannot find the suggestion of a law on the statute books of the Choctaw Nation that has ever permitted the admission of a strain of negro blood in their race.

That opens up the whole question of who are freedmen, and who are not, so plainly that a man must show that he is a negro who was in slavery or the descendant of one who was in slavery before he can be called a "freedman," and if he cannot do that, he is off these rolls. As Booker T. Washington has said, there is a wonderful virility in this negro blood. That is the situation. There is a brand there, whether or not it is the brand of Noah, when he put his hand upon his son and said he must go out and serve men.

When these men were sent to the freedmen's tent they were sent there properly, and you cannot find any law on the statute books that would send them anywhere else, neither in the Choctaw Nation nor in the Chickasaw Nation. Anyone that had upon him the mark of the African had no right upon the full-blood roll.

Now, the suggestion has been made that some negroes were citizens of the Choctaw Nation before they went into this new home of theirs in the Indian Territory. Yes; but remember there is a broad distinction between a man who merely has a habitat in a community and a man who enjoys the full rights and privileges and immunities of that community. I want to say to you that at the time those negroes were among the Choctaws in the southern part of the United States they enjoyed no right of property. They enjoyed only the primitive interest in and use of the soil among the people, circulating about among them as servants in different capacities, but always bearing the brand of slavery.

Mr. Kendall. But the interest they enjoyed was a community interest?

Mr. McHarg. Yes. Well, that applies to all men who stand on their feet; the right of air, the right of water, and the right of doing for themselves. They could roam about freely in a community of that kind. They could fish in the streams, and they could do the things that were usual; they could serve. Yet at no time were they recognized as having any right to any property.

Mr. Kendall. Before they were transferred to Oklahoma, Mr. McHarg, you should remember there was no individual interest on that account.

Mr. McHarg. There never has been.

Mr. Kendall. The interest was what might be called communal?

Mr. McHarg. Yes; just as it was over there.

Mr. Kendall. Do you claim that these people with negro blood had not the same rights to occupy the Territory as the full bloods?

Mr. McHarg. Absolutely. I will make that point without fear of successful contradiction. I will stand by that. 

I want to say to you that this is the situation: That the negro had no property right of any description in this country, the first negro came here as a slave. Others were incorporated about them from the system of the South, in which this was found, and it is not necessary for me to represent the force and vigor and the demonstrativeness of the Indians in connection with that matter and the effort made to drive the African into obscurity. Do not say that those men in that condition could ever rise to the dignity of ownership of private property!

M-234 Letters Received Chickasaw Removal

Joe & Dillard Perry Petition to Transfer Files F-020 Oliver Colbert

M-1186 Choctaw Freedmen Dawes Card #1202 (Front & Rear) Oliver Colbert 

M-1186 Choctaw by Blood Dawes Card #4383 Bulah Marston

M-1186 Choctaw by Blood Dawes Card #4189 Hannah Thomas

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants-Black History Day 13, Argument Submitted by Douglas H. Johnston, Governor Chickasaw Nation

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 13, p126

Argument Submitted by Douglas H. Johnston, Governor Chickasaw Nation

#BlackHistory365

To return to a discussion of the specific cases under consideration, these claimants have always taken the status of their mother. They are, with very few exceptions, the illegitimate descendants of freedmen. They now enjoy the status of freedmen, and such is in accordance with the law of the land as well as according to the laws, customs, and usages of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes. Their mothers being freedmen, they are freedmen, and they have always been so classed and called by the tribes and by the officers of the United States in the preparation of the tribal rolls.

When the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes began its work of enrollment in 1898 and 1899, these persons voluntarily applied as freedmen. An attempt has been made by the attorneys representing them to show that they were compelled by coercion and duress to make application as freedmen, although they insisted and desired to be permitted to apply as citizens by blood.

This charge has been fully gone into in former investigations conducted by the committees on Indian Affairs of Congress and has been absolutely refuted by the testimony introduced, including that of members of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, who were engaged in the enrollment work in these two nations, and other reputable persons. It would seem unnecessary to bring these matters to your attention again, as they have been so clearly brought out in former investigations. In this connection permit me to refer you to Senate Report No 5013, Fifty-ninth Congress, second session.

Senate Report 5013 part 1, p497

Senate Report 5013 part 2, pp1524-25

Senate Report 5013 part 2, p1609

Senate Report 5013 (59th Congress, 2nd Session) part 2 p1610

Senate Report 5013 (59th Congress, 2nd Session) part 2 p1611

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants-Black History Day 12, Argument Submitted by Douglas H. Johnston, Governor Chickasaw Nation

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 12

Argument Submitted by Douglas H. Johnston, Governor Chickasaw Nation

#BlackHistory365

Argument on behalf of the Chickasaw Nation against H.R. 19279, a proposed bill providing for the reopening of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Citizenship Rolls and for the transfer of the names of numerous persons from the Freedman Rolls to the rolls of Citizens by Blood of said tribes

The legislation proposed by H.R. 19279 has been brought to the attention of Congress at every session during the past few years, and full hearings have been had before he committees of Congress thereon on numerous occasions, but whenever it has been defeated, as it has been on every occasion, it appears again in another form at the next session and the arguments of its supporters are so invidious and they are so persistent in presenting them that it is feared if they go unchallenged now, the former investigations on these matters may be overlooked and the committee, or some of its members, may be convinced to the serious detriment of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes.

The bill now under consideration presents this matter in the broadest form in which it has ever been brought to the attention of Congress, and if passed would result in the reopening of the citizenship rolls of these two tribes and the enrollment of an incalculable number of persons who have, or might submit some proof that they have, a trace of Indian blood.

Editor's Note: the following documents were prepared and included in Equity Case 7071, which was filed approximately three years before these hearings and the testimony given by Governor Johnston, Chickasaw Nation in 1910. In addition there was a lawsuit working it's way through the "judicial system" known as Equity Case 7071, which included approximately 2,000 similar cases that petitioned to be transferred from the "freedmen roll" to the "citizen by blood roll."

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 11, Final Part 4 "Too Remarkable To Be True"

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 11, #BlackHistory365

Hearings before the Committee on Indian Affairs House of Representatives (61-2)

H.R. 192789, H.R. 19552 & H.R. 22830 pp 59

Digitized by Google

Argument & Brief Part 4 (Final)

“Too Remarkable To Be True”

Argument by Harry J. Cantwell, Esq.

I desire, right there, to call the attention of the committee to something that appears to me to be palpable, and yet it is almost too remarkable to be true, and that is that the Dawes Commission, as shown by the statements of the commission to the Secretary of the Interior, took this roll of 1896, which was intended to be a roll of full citizenship, and when they came to makeup the roll of 1898-and in the act of 1898 these special rights of ex-slaves were confirmed— they added those who had been born since the roll of 1896 and returned that citizenship roll as the roll of limited rights; and I say an investigation of that matter will show that to be conclusive, and it accounts largely for the exclusion of a great number of these people independent of the charges of fraud that have been made and the evidence which shows that they were misdirected by being sent from the citizenship tent to the freedmen's tent by officials of the commission.

 Those people did not know. A great deal of testimony was brought out in the Senate as to how they were sent from the citizenship tent over to the freedmen's tent.  

By the act of 1896 their enrollment upon the so-called freedman roll would have conferred upon them full rights. 

What distinction, what difference, did it make to them whether they were called Indians or freedmen? The oral argument that was made was that that was done because these people did not apply for enrollment upon the citizenship roll, and therefore they shall be denied their rights. They did not know the difference as to the right involved between the citizenship roll and the rights under the freedmen roll. There was no difference in the act of 1896 between their rights, whether they were enrolled as freedmen or enrolled as Indians. 

1896 Application for Citizenship Cathrine Perry #505

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 11, Part 3, Act of 1896 Application for Citizenship

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants Black History Day 11, #BlackHistory365

Hearings Before the Committee on Indian Affairs House of Representatives (61-2)

H.R. 192789, H.R. 19552 & H.R. 22830 pp 58-59

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Argument & Brief Part 3

Argument by Harry J. Cantwell, esq.

Now, in 1896, when the commission was directed to make up its first roll-and mark you, in 1896  the Creek negroes had been accorded without dispute the full rights of the Indians-in 1896, when the act of 1896 was passed, the Court of Claims had just decided the rights of the Cherokee freedmen, and had given the Cherokee freedmen, under the Cherokee treaty, full rights with the full-blood Cherokees, so that the distinction between freedmen and Indians and people mixed of blood of any kind in the  Cherokee tribe was absolutely immaterial.

Now, there is no act of Congress between 1866 and 1896 which at all applies or refers in any way, shape, form, or manner to this especial right which was given to the particular individual who had been a slave. But in the act of 1896 there was a direct and positive direction to that commission to make up the roll of the members of the tribe and make up the rolls of freedmen entitled to citizenship, and to add them to the list of members to be certified to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs

There is an irresistible conclusion to be drawn from that, when considered in connection with the history of the tribes and in connection with the history of the freedmen litigation, confining the word “freedman” to him who had been formerly a slave-an irresistible conclusion that the United States intended to confer upon all freedmen of all the tribes at that time the full and equal right of membership.

Mr. Campbell. Now, here, conceding that all of that is true, and that upon it is based the legal rights of the claimants, why do you come to Congress with that claim in behalf of some three or four thousand people who on an argument of law with a disputed question of fact relating to every one of your claimants, upon which there is no evidence before the committee?

Mr. Cantwell. Of course Congress can not pass upon the disputed point of fact.

Mr. Campbell. That is what you are asking us to pass upon, is it not?

Mr. Cantwell. No.

Mr. Campbell. You are asking us to enroll these people?

Mr. Cantwell. No; not asking you enroll these people, except as this provides. The language of it puts upon Congress no burden of disputed facts whatever. This bill is to this effect-the Bartholdt bill and the Maguire bill are practically to the same effect-

Department of the Interior, Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes,
Muskogee, Indian Territory, Nov. 20, 1899
Argument of Melven Cornish Esq., before the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes p27

Western History Collection, Melven Cornish Collection

Senate Report 5013 (59th Congress, 2nd Session) part 2, p1546