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