SAY THEIR NAME

 I would like to thank the people who have allowed me to use the images of their ancestors to create this short video and preserve the history of Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen.

Say their name!

Nadine Ruff

Sandra Williams

Verdie Triplett

Annazette Schillings

Julia Powers

Larry Green

Regina L. Richardson

Alex Phillips

Carlotta Kemp-Wheeler

Angela Walton-RajiAthena Butler

Rose Oakes

Frank Overton

Evelyn Norwood

National Chickasaw & Choctaw Freedmen Day

 What! you say you never heard of the National Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen Day? Well, I guess I can understand that since October 10, has been highly regarded as “Indigenous People’s Day” 

 

After viewing literally hundreds of Facebook and Twitter post “celebrating” the 10^th as Indigenous day instead of Columbus Day I see how you may have not been aware of a day that recognized people who were enslaved by some “Indigenous” folk known as Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians.

 

One of many “interesting” post I saw Monday was a quote attributed to the “Honorable Chief” of the Choctaw Nation, Garry Batton.

The Chief wrote an “Open Letter” in 2021 allegedly reaching out to Choctaw Freedmen Descendants expressing a willingness to explore citizenship for Choctaw Freedmen Descendants. Chief Batton went so far as to state “we hear you we see you” and he indicated a desire to have “meaningful conversations with the descendants of Choctaw Freedmen that historically were citizens of the nation until they were stripped of their citizenship around 1985. You read that right, Choctaw Freedmen Descendants were already citizens but that citizenship was revoked based on their race. 

 

It must be pointed out; this letter of the Chief came at a critical point when the honorable Congresswoman Maxine Waters’ Committee was threatening to withhold millions of dollars of NAHASDAH funds from numerous Native Nations including the Chickasaw and Choctaw. So, if you believe as I do Chief Batton’s “open letter” had more to do with getting money for his tribe than any real reconciliation with Freedmen Descendants; let’s just call a thing a thing! Chief Batton had no intentions of having a “meaningful conversation” with Choctaw Freedmen Descendants.

 

Let’s examine what has happened in the year of him issuing that statement, The nation along with the others received almost a billion dollars in funding. Numerous letters were sent to the Chief and the Choctaw Nation seeking to take him up on his word to have “meaningful conversations” on “reinstating” the citizenship granted to their ancestors in 1885. No one that wrote a letter received the courtesy of a response so we will never know how many letters were received and the Chief can make any statement he desires to minimize the sincere outreach the Choctaw Freedmen Descendants did by thinking the Chief and the nation were sincere in adhering to granting citizenship to those that sought the same rights and privileges that their ancestors enjoyed based on the Treaty of 1866.

Now that you have a little of the background of this “tribal membership for Freedmen is a sensitive and complex topic” let us examine one more wrinkle in the “deception” of “meaningful conversation.”

On July 27, 2022 almost a year from the date Chief Batton issued his “open letter” to the Freedmen descendants, the attorney for the Choctaw Nation (Michael Burrage) gave a presentation that told you all you needed to know about what the nation’s intentions are.

Attorney and former Judge Burrage fixed his face to say that the “Freedmen issues is not a race issue.” 

Chief Batton sent Michael Burrage to that Senate Oversight Hearing for one purpose only, to make it clear the nation has no intention to honor the same treaty of 1866 that they derive much of their federal money for their citizens and their nation. They have no intention of reinstating the citizenship of the Choctaw Freedmen Descendants because they have determined citizenship by blood and lineal descent not by treaty obligation or the precedent of granting citizenship to the Choctaw Freedmen and their descendants in 1885.

As the nation and the world “celebrate” Indigenous People’s Day” when people complain about Columbus as the oppressor let me remind you of the oppression that existed among the Five Slave Holding Tribes; Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee/Creek and Seminole. 

Let me remind you of those five ONLY the Cherokee Nation has lived up to it’s promises of citizenship for the descendants of their formerly enslaved population. The Seminole Nation continues to grant second class citizenship to its Freedmen Descendants and the Chickasaw and Creek remain opposed to living up to the moral obligation that was contained in their treaties and one has to assume it is all about race. 

Not sovereignty, Not Blood and not Lineal Descent because if that were the case there are tens of thousands of lineal descendants of Choctaw and Chickasaw recognized citizens documented who did not receive citizenship because of race and did not receive the value of three-hundred and twenty acres of land based on race.

Indigenous People’s Day rings hollow to those people and all the platitudes won’t change it. However the Congress, the Senate and the President of the United States has the power to correct a “continuing wrong” 

The CHICO Family Chickasaw "Freedmen"

In Honor of Lonzetta Bruce who has joined her Chico ancestors