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?