Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants-Black History Day 4, Legal Meaning of "Descendants"

Choctaw & Chickasaw Descendants-Black History Day 4

Legal Meaning of "Descendants"

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The Indian in the Indian Territory had no rights to the lands except such rights as were given him by the National Government. When the grant was made to them of lands in the Indian Territory, the grant was to the Indians and their descendants. The negro was taken by the Indian away from all of the advantages of civilization and chained to the environment of a nomadic and primitive life. The negro became to all intents and purposes and without his consent, an Indian. Except for such habits of industry as he had inherited from a life of slavery under former white masters, he had no more ability to earn a livelihood than the Indian. The inherited habit of industry was in all cases lessened, and in many cases entirely destroyed, by reason of the association with the Indian. The negro was deprived of the advantages of civilization, and where not given the benefits given the Indian is a more helpless human being and should be an object of greater solicitude of the Government than the Indian.

In the Choctaw tribe the rights of the full-blood negro are limited under the treaties to 40 acres of land, but the right of the mixed-blood Indian—that is, of the Indian who has negro blood—to inheritance from his Indian ancestor under the legal meaning of the word “descendants” is undoubted. The Indian intermarried with the negro and the negro with the Indian. The children became in every respect full members of the tribe. By the action of certain officers of the Interior Department there was sought to be applied to these people a rule only applicable to a condition of slavery, that the conditions of the child follow the condition of the mother. This was a necessary rule in slavery, when slaves were chattel. It has no place whatever as a rule to determine the rights of a human being to property when he ceases to be a chattel.

There is no legal argument which would deny the application of the legal meaning of the “descendants” to the citizen of mixed Indian and negro blood, whether he claims through the father or through the mother. There is no moral reason which would prevent the full application of the legal term “descendants” when the community property is to be distributed to every member of the community. These citizens are not asking for gratuities-they are asking simply for justice and for law. They are asking for the award of rights which are legally secure, but the award of which has been denied them by administrative action.

M-1301 Oral Interview Chickasaw Freedman Card #572

Chickasaw by blood Card #551