I Can't Imagine the Agony of Removal

We Came West With the Indians

 

   “I Can't Imagine the Agony of Removal.” These were the words of a Chickasaw citizen in a video about the tribe’s history of removal from east of the Mississippi River. It is part of a series of videos that provides the history, apparently from the perspective of Chickasaw citizens and noted historians. 

 

   With titles like “The Last Tribe to Remove; Making Oklahoma Home,” “The Plight of Removal and Our Indomitable Spirit,” and one that presented some very interesting questions titled, “Imagining the Agony of Removal.” 

   After viewing probably about ten of the videos, I couldn’t help but notice the absence of the enslaved people who suffered from the "agony of the removal" or whose “survival” was not considered among those that possessed an “indomitable spirit,” completely omitting them from the same experience, along the same trail of many tears.

 

   As stated earlier, it was the video “Imagining the Agony of Removal”  that got my attention because the narrator made several statements that if you didn’t know it was about the Chickasaw people or any of the Five Slave Holding Tribes, the phrases could apply to those omitted people who were brought west to Indian Territory, as chattel property. Phrases like:

 

   “I can’t imagine being ripped from my home.” 

   “I can’t imagine what my ancestors had to go through, whenever the concept of removal came to them.”

   "I can’t imagine leaving the land of my ancestors because my ancestors were buried there, because burial sites are important.”

   “We didn’t know what it was going to be like in Indian Territory.”

   When you read the heart-breaking oral history provided by Choctaw Freedman Jordan D. Folsom, who spoke about his father’s mother Sylvia, the stories about the removal were shared by many of those held in bondage, they sadly are missing from the standard narrative. 

   “She was a young woman with one child living in Alabama when she, with a bunch of slaves, was put upon the auction block and sold to a slave dealer.” Jordan continued by saying, “Sylvia, with Abe Radford and his young wife, Elizabeth, were all sold to the same dealer, who was bringing slaves to the Indian Territory and selling them to wealthy Indians.” 

   When when the narrator of  “Imagining the Agony of Removal.” said it was unimaginable “to be ripped from my home,” it was the next few words that were brought back to Jordan's family. “Sylvia’s mother was there and was crying but it did no good, they were just chattels and were sold, regardless of what any of the relatives said or did.” 

   Jordan had been the keeper of his family’s oral tradition and without it, the comparisons of his ancestor’s experiences would not be available to help tell the full story of who were on the various trails of removal, leaving sacred burial sites and loved ones behind, never to see them again. 

 

   There was a reference pointed out that the historian Grant Foreman in his writings, “understood the trauma of removal.” Jordan provides some insight into the trauma that Sylvia and her family members certainly experience when he said, “Sylvia was permitted to keep her little boy, but that was the last she saw of her mother…” Sylvia’s little boy died shortly after they were sold to Dr. Henry Folsom, a Choctaw Indian. 

 

   Evidently, there is no room to consider the trauma the institution of chattel slavery among the Choctaw or Chickasaw Nations have caused. Apparently, there was and is no place in the heart of these honorable people that can empathize with the plight of those who were just chattel, and sold to the wealthy among them?

   I can't imagine how the Choctaws and Chickasaws ripped mothers from their children, forced them to leave their homes, bring them to a place like Indian Territory for a "second removal from a land of their ancestors" and are comfortable as they continue to omit them from "their" removal story. 

   I can't imagine, after being sold to Choctaw, Dr. Henry Folsom, the child Sylvia traveled west with died shortly after arrival to Indian Territory. 

 

   I can't imagine, Dr. Henry Folsom would father the only other child Sylvia would give birth to after her arrival to Indian Territory.

      Imagine you were Sylvia, her son Jordan, or her grandson, Jordan Jr., the keeper of the family story. Imagine the agony of their removal story. 

Isaac Alexander, "Negro Blood Denied"

"We Came West With the Indians," Isaac Alexander, "Negro Blood Denied"

   Not unlike many Dawes Commission interviews of those seeking land allotments, the transcript of the so-called sworn testimony of Isaac Alexander was no more than a summary of his actual interview. Isaac statements that were summarized by the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes at South McAlester, Indian Territory on September 8, 1899. The do not reflect the story of a leader, fighter, husband, and father that served his people, and his community when they called on him. 

   Approximately, three years prior to this so-called “true, full, and correct transcript” Isaac Alexander appeared before the Dawes Commission wheb he applied for citizenship in the Chickasaw Nation on September 9, 1896. 

 

   A notice went out across the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations notifying all who there, that applications for citizenship were being taken by the Dawes Commission. This information reached the freedmen communities of these nations with only three months left to file their application before the deadline. This was a hardship for many who had to gather documents and witnesses to testify on their behalf, sometimes miles away from their homes at great expense. To complicate matters more, many of those who would apply were illiterate, making the application process difficult.

   

   The story of Isaac Alexander is the stuff of legends, yet his story has until now been hidden in plain sight. There are many stories that emerge from Indian Territory that subscribe to the dominant narrative of the slave owning tribes and their loss of land and people. What continues to be left out of that story is the loss of land and people of those enslaved, especially those who were the children of “recognized citizens” in each nation. Isaac Alexander’s story encompasses all those issues, and it may be part of the reason the “record” most people are familiar with, is lacking in truth and correctness.

 

      When telling the story of Isaac Alexander, one question is where to begin? As we weave through the story of a man who was born into slavery around 1823, and search for records about him, it is the 1896 Application for Citizenship in the Chickasaw Nation that provides a map that unveils a remarkable story that deserves attention and recognition.

 

   On the 9 September 1896, the Dawes Commission recorded the application for Isaac Alexander, and his extended family for citizenship in the Chickasaw Nation. His claim was written up a local notary and was dated 22 August 1896. On that same day, two other people provided sworn affidavits to corroborate the story Isaac provided, which included the testimony of eighty-year-old Mary James. Mary provided very revealing information about Alexander and his family history.

 

   Isaac was living in Wetumka, Indian Territory in 1896 and gave his age as seventy-two at the time. He provided information about his genealogy and “lineal descent.” His father was named Alex Alexander, who was deceased and was regarded as a half-blood Chickasaw Indian. Isaac continues his saga and says, “we came from Mississippi in 1837.” This statement clearly places not only Isaac, but at least one other person among the Chickasaw that came west to Indian Territory.

 

   Isaac Alexander was a man, seventy-two years old, in one sentence demonstrates a story that is shared at the time, by many other freedmen; “my grandfather’s name on my mother’s side was James Colbert. He was ½ blood Chickasaw Indian.” Isaac continued with his story and provided what can only be described as “intimate knowledge” of the history of his times, intimate knowledge about his grandfather, James Colbert. This was a story told by a man who could not read or write.

 

   Isaac states in his affidavit, “James Colbert helped to make the treaty with the Choctaw Indians for this country.” Isaac did not forget his earlier statement about his mother and provides more information about that line of his family’s history; “my mother’s name was Zilphia Colbert, she was ¼ blood Chickasaw Indian.” These are the types of statements that should have been in that record that generated the 1898 Dawes Land Allotment card, you must ask the question why were they missing, especially because of the existing detail provided in the 1896 application for citizenship?

 

   The details of Isaac Alexander’s life up this point is enough to demonstrate the types of relationships that were occurring in the Chickasaw Nation among the enslavers and those enslaved. Relationships that were allegedly prohibited, yet tolerated, ignored, and never punished. Isaac Alexander’s statements about his grandfather James Colbert can easily be corroborated by a descendant of other descendants claiming a connection to the same James Colbert.

 

   After establishing the names of his father, mother and grandfather, Isaac is like the gift that keeps on giving. Isaac goes on to say; “My grandfather James Colbert died when I was 19 years old. I remember him well. He had long straight black hair. He also owned 9 or 10 slaves at the time of his death.” That statement provides a clue to the date of James Colbert’s death occurring before the emancipation of his slaves, before, the end of the “War of Rebellion in Indian Territory in 1866.”

 

   Isaac goes on to provide details about his mother and wife that are not present in his “testimony” before the Dawes Commission in 1898. 

 

   About his mother, Isaac says, “My mother died when I was 20 years old, she had long black straight hair.” Was he trying to solidify the connection to being part Chickasaw Indian or was he just stating a fact? That truth may only be determined by way of a DNA match between the descendants of Isaac Alexander and the descendants of James Colbert.

 

  Isaac continued his affidavit by providing information about his wife Polly Ann McClish who died in 1883. Again, what you will not see anywhere in that 1898 interview he allegedly gave to Commissioner Needles on September 8, 1898, is information about his wife, his grandfather or his children and grandchildren. However, the record and paper trail left by Isaac Alexander is as stated before, the stuff of legends.

 

   In the same document, Isaac provides the names and ages of his seven living children. If he had more children. However, on a separate page, Isaac provides a descendant chart for his and Polly’s seven children and twenty-six grandchildren! It is the page with Isaac’s story about his life that must be returned to for information that makes this man and this interview worthy of all the recognition it can receive.

 

  Isaac indicates he had been issued permits by the Chickasaw Government to operate his “two good farms on the Canadian River in the Chickasaw Nation?” 

 

   Isaac Alexander revealed in his interview that he, “was a Union Soldier during the war and was discharged for disability in June 1865.” Isaac would “receive a pension for his disability for the amount of twelve dollars per month “on account of the same disability.”

   Isaac served with a friend by the name Quash Carolina in the Indian Home Guards, as part of the Union Army.  Quash provided testimony to support Isaac’s in the Civil War as a Union soldier.

 

   “I was a member of Company H of the 1st Indian home guards during the war, and served under the name of quash McLeesh, my slave name. I was the slave of a Chickasaw Indian named Frazier McLeesh. I have known the claimant Isaac Alexander, all my life. We are both Chickasaw colored men. He was in the 79th US colored troops and I remember seeing him when at Fort Gibson, when his regiment came to that place. He went to the war about a year before I did. Just prior to that, our families lived not more than 100 yards apart. We Chickasaw people who have been in the Indian home guards moved into camp near the old Creek agency, on the Arkansas River, near Muskogee, after were discharged, and remained there till March following, when we all came back to the Chickasaw Nation, together.”

 

   Isaac returned to his family and home in the Chickasaw Nation, receiving an honorable discharge for his military service. He was wounded in battle but undeterred from serving his people and his community. For the enslaved people of Indian Territory, the Civil War ended in 1866, after the signing of several treaties with the United States. This was the beginning of another struggle Isaac would offer his leadership in efforts to support his family and community in the Chickasaw Nation.

 

   It was the treaty between the United States and the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations that became the catalyst for Isaac Alexander volunteering again. He joined a group of more than forty freedmen leaders that placed an X mark next to their names on a Memorial to the United States Senate, (Senate Executive Document #82, 40^th Congress, 2^nd Session.) This group of men were advocating for the civil rights of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen that were written in the Treaty negotiated at Fort Smith, Arkansas in 1866 that ended the Civil War in Indian Territory.

 

   As a true patriot, Isaac sacrificed the strength and vitality he entered the war with to emancipate himself, and his people, from enslavement in the Chickasaw Nation. Isaac found himself fighting again, on a different battlefield, just two years later because the treaty of 1866 did not have an enforcement clause that would legally secure those rights he valiantly fought for as a soldier in the Union Army.

 

“I do not know how old I was when I enlisted, but I had grandchildren when I went into the army. I was a sound hearty man when I enlisted and was free from all disease.”

 

   The Chickasaw Nation passed legislation to adopt their former slaves in 1873, (Senate Miscellaneous Document 95, 42^nd Congress, 3^rd Session) only to rescind the legislation shortly thereafter because the President of the United States and Congress failed to ratify the legislation, before the Chickasaws change their mind. 

 

   After constant struggles with the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations over their adoption, and without any assistance from the United States, the Chickasaw and Choctaw freedmen met at a convention, and selected Isaac Alexander and King Blue to represent them and visit Washington, on their behalf.

 

  Despite, setback after setback the Chickasaw Freedmen with the support of men like Isaac Alexander continued their struggle for Civil Rights, citizenship, and inclusion in both nations that they toiled in as chattel slaves. The same nation that brought him west along the same tear-stained trail that saw Isaac ironically become one of the first inhabitants of the Chickasaw Nation west of the Mississippi.

 

  Isaac’s Alexander’s story is vital to telling the story of the Chickasaw nation, he and his descendants may have never gained the status of citizen they so richly deserved, but his Isaac and his story demand to be remembered, every time the tribes commemorate their, removal west. His story demands to be heard when people talk about the United States Colored Troops, because he answered the call for freedom. 

 

   Isaac Alexander and his descendants are among the First Families of Indian Territory and the state of Oklahoma, it is time to recognize their contributions. Think about the audacity of the Commissioner who wrote on that application submitted by Isaac Alexander as he described his history and genealogy, and it was reduced to “Negro Blood Denied.”

 

   It is this attitude that appears to continue today in the Chickasaw Nation, and the state of Oklahoma when it comes to people like Isaac Alexander, they are denied the same dignity that others receive without question. Isaac Alexander is a true, American Hero.

The Africans Among Us

WE CAME WEST WITH THE INDIANS

The Africans Among Us

 

   One of the sources that was useful in the search for enslaved people that came west with the Indians were the footnotes in Dr. Daniel Littlefield’s book, “The Chickasaw Freedmen a People Without a Country.” Dr. Littlefield’s footnotes were the guide for information that led to records that would prove important for identifying the enslaved people that came west on the infamous trail of tears.

   It was a petition in his book that had a list of names of people who concluded, since the Choctaw Nation failed to adopt them after four years, and denied them the opportunity to educate their children or any of the privileges stated in the Treaty of 1866; expressed their desire to be “removed” from the Choctaw nation and receive the one-hundred dollars per capita that was spelled out in the same Treaty of 1866. 

   The leaders in the freedmen community sent a memorial to Congress with the names of various people who decided they wanted to leave the nation and accept the one-hundred dollars that was part of the treaty of 1866. After locating a copy of the memorial to Congress the freedmen created, on page two of the document was the name Sally Jones, a widow who made “her X mark” indicating her willingness to leave, but that was not what made me notice her? Sally’s name had an asterisk by it and at the bottom of the page it was explained.

   The memorial was sent to Congress in 1872, four years after the date the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations were to adopt their formerly enslaved population, and that footnote indicated that Sally Jones a widow, was one-hundred and seventeen years old! Sally as it turns out was not the only person identified as someone that reached the age of one hundred. On page 4 was a one-hundred- and two-year-old widow by the name of, Charlotte Jeffreys. Of the four pages of names, hundreds of formerly enslaved people, and their descendants, only two were identified as being Centenarians but it is quite possible there were others or those that were within five to ten years of that milestone number.

   One question must be asked, after enduring the removal from Mississippi and Alabama as well as surviving enslavement, rearing families among the Chickasaw and Choctaw, why would these two women at such an advance age decide it was better to participate in another “removal” and start life anew? For these two elderly women it had to be a desperate decision to take part in another removal. Clearly, this was not going to be like the removal they were a part of three decades earlier when they would have been middle-aged women then.

   House Miscellaneous Document 46, 42^nd Congress, 2^nd Session provided names of people who, if they could be found on other records like the Dawes cards, would offer an opportunity to put a name to those muster rolls and emigration records that just had a number or tic mark to indicate people like Israel Folsom, a slave of Choctaw Peter P. Pitchlynn?

   Despite the advance ages of Sally Jones and Charlotte Jeffreys, another question had to be asked, did they have any descendants named in that memorial to Congress, and could they be found in the Dawes Commission records? An additional question to consider is, what other records are available that might have the name of an enslaved person living in one of the five slave holding tribes, who may have come west during the removals? 

Members About to Remove West...

Minutes From the Monroe Mission Church 16 September 1837

“A resolution was passed that the following members, who are about to remove west of the Mississippi, receive letters of dismission and recommendation, …Tennessee Bynum, Daniel and his wife Kissander, Harry and his wife Sally, Bob and Amy, Abram and his wife Dinah, Agnes, Manuel, Juda, Apphia, Billy, Mimey Colbert, Titus, Sally, Fanny and Silpha. Concluded with prayer. T.C. Stuart, Mod.”

 

Daniel, Kissander and Tennessee Bynum

 

   The minutes of the Monroe Mission in Mississippi contain some of the most important history that documents the culture, history, and relationships of the enslaved and their enslavers. To put into proper context the resolution that was passed in 1837, it is essential to look at the records left that document both, the slave and their “enslaver.” 

 

   All the actions recorded by the church present just a glimpse of life and how these Chickasaw slave holders interacted with their slaves, unfortunately it doesn’t inform us of what the day-to-day life was like this community. Since the focus is on those that came west with the Indians, what were the outcomes of this relationship? What can be learned about the people that worshipped at Monroe Mission more than sixty years later, when the Chickasaw Nation began to create records of their citizens and former slaves to distribute land allotments from 1898-1914?

 

   Three individuals mentioned in the minutes of September 16th, Daniel his wife Kissander and Tennessee Bynum are identified as worshippers at Monroe Mission as early as 14 September 1828. Apparently, Daniel was a religious man and had been a member of the church before this date when his “infant daughter Emelina” was baptized in the church at the same time Mimy’s infant daughter Kitty.

 

   Daniel and “Cassander” appear to be active members of the church and would have their son Isaac baptized about two years later 1 August 1830. To illustrate just how much the slaves of this area took part in the church, several other enslaved people, had their children baptized; Abram and Dinah’s son Israel, Crissa’s daughter Rose and Molly’s daughter Delpha all were active members and took full advantage to see their children become part of their religious beliefs. In June of 1833, Charles, the son of Daniel and Kissander was baptized which leaves very little doubt that the slaves living in Mississippi and held in bondage by the Chickasaw members of this church were at the very least, allowed to practice “their religious beliefs” within the same walls as their slave-owners.

 

   What this information also does is provide the names and relative ages of some of the slaves who would “remove” west of the Mississippi as stated in the 1837 memo that provided papers for them when they arrived in Indian Territory.

 

   Because we know from these records that Daniel and Kissander were a couple and had at least three children born to them prior to 1837, those are five names to look for as survivors that would receive land allotments circa 1898. The ages of Daniel and Kissander are not given in any of the records of Monroe Church, but one thing does seem consistent, the two are a couple and researching the Dawes Cards should provide their names on the rear of a card for any children they had before or after the removal to Indian Territory?

 

   From 1837 to 1898, a span of six decades would pass with Daniel and Kissander would experience every event that happened along the Trail of Tears as they travelled with Tennessee Bynum to Indian Territory. It is not known when Daniel and Kissander died but there is enough evidence by the ages of the children they gave life too that they were in Indian Territory when Kissander gave birth to their daughter Hannah in 1846.

 

   Newton Burney states Arthur Stevenson is son of Dave Stevenson and Sallie was the daughter of Ike Stevenson, both Ike and Dave were brothers of Newton's wife Chris, by different mothers. He further states that both Dave and Ike “belonged to Tennessee Bynum.” This would mean both Dave and Ike were the brothers of Emeline Stevenson and all three were the children of Daniel and Kissander.

   There are other examples that demonstrate the complexities of relationships between slaves and their enslavers, and a few of them have a direct connection to the worshippers at Monroe Mission. The descendants of Daniel and Cassander is one that illustrates, without a doubt, how the issues of race, identity and citizenship among the Five Slave Holding Tribes can be easily distorted when there are omissions in the historical record.

To Be Born Without Recognition

We Came West With the Indians

To Be Born Without Recognition

 

   Many people today have some knowledge of the Trail of Tears story, particularly the story of Cherokee Indians being forced to leave their ancestral homelands and marched hundreds of miles to a new home west of the Mississippi River. The struggles, death and loss of land receives a great deal of attention and the outpouring of empathy for the plight of the Indigenous community can arguably be represented by this story of pain and suffering.

 

   Reading the letters and reports generated during the time of the removal exposes the pain and suffering that occurred on these treks overland, through swamps and mud with the loss of people and livestock that was taken with them for a new beginning, demonstrates, what a tragic episode in the lives and history of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek/Muscogee, and Seminole people, rightfully so.

   In the Cherokee nation, leaders were killed for agreeing to sell their lands in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee for land in the west. No one wanted to leave their birthplace but the incursion of whites on their land, and the unwillingness of the United States government to protect them from the intrusions of the whites, forced the people of the five tribes to abandon their homes with hopes of securing a home west as long as the grass grows and water flows. 

 

   Some of the wealthy class within the Cherokee, Chickasaw and Choctaw nations decided to sell off their land and property early on, and “self-emigrate” west in the 1820’s, almost a decade before the major body of the tribes would be “assisted” by the United States to travel to the land west of Arkansas known as Indian Territory. These self-emigrating, landowners, in many cases brought something west with them that rarely receives attention, empathy or recognition when the stories about the “Trail of Tears” is told or commemorated; they brought with them enslaved people of African and African-Native descent.

 

   It has been practically two-hundred years since this upheaval and movement of people. In all that time, the enslaved people who lived among, toiled for, and in some cases bore children of the men in these nations continue to be ignored and omitted from a story that each year, garners the attention of people across the country. Sadly, there is no recognition of the people that came with them and left many tears along the same trail.

 

   In 1829, a report of the valuations and improvements that were abandoned by a group of Cherokees because of a Treaty in 1828. In that report was a list of people who “emigrated” west, with categories titled; whites, Indians and mixed blooded, “slaves” and horses. There were ninety-one slaves listed on the muster roll, with notable people like Joseph Vann and Moses Alberty among the approximately thirty-six slave owners. 

M-234 Cherokee Emigration 05 May 1828 Roll#113 Frame#55

   The thirty-six owners were from Georgia and Alabama, and they probably had a great deal of input on what was written on that document that accounted for their loss of property and the provisions it took to move themselves, ninety-one slaves and livestock that included over four-hundred head of horses. 

 

   Just like the horses, mules and probably oxen that shoulder the burden of getting the thirty-six men and their families to Indian Territory, those unnamed slaves that were part of the party going west had no identity other than property owned by men like Moses Alberty and Rich Joe Vann, Cherokee Indians.

 

   After two-hundred years, it is past time to recognize those men, women and children that walked the same trail that Joe Vann, Captain White, The Mountain, Andrew M. Vann, Moses Alberty, and their families. It is time that the descendants of the enslaved that came west with the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek/Muscogee, and Seminole nations begin to recognize the ancestors that made were on the same trail. Many of their names may never be known, but there are many that can be identified and that is the purpose of this story.

   It is possible to determine many of the people who came west to Indian Territory with the use of many records that exist today. We can reconstruct a list of these individuals, who they were and, in some cases, who they made the journey with. The numerous muster rolls of “emigrating” Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole is one resource but there are others. The greatest source of information is the Dawes Land Allotment cards that were created between 1898-1914. 

 

  Recognition of these men, women and children is important for the full story of loss and the “Trail of Tears” to be appreciated. We know that Moses Alberty ate from the provisions brought along the trail, there is a possibility that one of his twenty-five slaves, had a small portion of it to sustain herself along the trail with her child in tow? We know, that when Sarah Ramsey arrived in Indian Territory with her ten horses, her seven slaves helped get them there. What we also need to know who those seven slaves were, that assisted Sarah. We need to know the nine slaves that Joe Vann brought with him to the territory, because they contributed to the wealth, he was famous for accumulating. 

 

   So rather than trying to tell the story of these men, women, and children and what happened to them along the trail of many tears, it may be more convenient and rewarding to present what we know about them after the trail and the legacy they left for their descendants? But, at the heart of this “conversation” we want to recognize them as survivors that came to Indian Territory, and left their mark on the history, culture, and development of these nations after their arrival west of the Mississippi.

 

   Today, we are beginning to see more acknowledgements about the enslaved people that came west with the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek/Muscogee and Seminole “Nations.” They may be in the form of children’s books, scholarly articles and perhaps a video or two. With this newfound interest it is important to present the voices of these men, women and even some infants that reached adulthood, and survived to tell their stories. 

 

   That is the importance of this work; the voices of those that survived slavery, the trail of many tears, the War of the Rebellion, Reconstruction, the Dawes Commission and its policies on race and lineal descent; all the way to Oklahoma statehood. The Indian Territory freedmen were some resilient people and demand recognition.