[Music]
Slavery is as old as civilization.
Every culture and society practiced it and were also victims of it.
The North American Indians were no different.
Various tribes enslaved other tribes usually through raids and after battles capturing
their quarry.
This included men women and children.
Native Americans also captured whites and also had black slaves from the colonial period
until the end of the Civil War.
How common was Native American enslavement?
Were there any major differences between Indian slave owners and other ethnic slave owners?
Which tribes were the most notorious for enslaving others?
Hello I'm Colin Heaton a veteran of the United States Army and Marine Corps former history
professor book author and welcome to this episode of Forgotten history [Music]
[Music] thank you [Music]
Many tribes practice slavery.
However their primary practice was not based upon race but more on their differences in
tribal customs and the conflict between tribes over territory and resources.
Many times slaves were taken to replace those who had been killed especially as laborers.
Children who were orphaned were usually brought up within the tribe as their own without distinction.
This was also true of white captives such as the famous story of Comanche chief Quanah
Parker's mother.
She was captured as a young girl and brought up as Comanche and when forcibly returned
to white society she could not assimilate.
But many Indian cultures captured or accepted runaway black slaves and not all tribes treated
them the same way.
In the Iroquois nation of New York Ohio and Pennsylvania which was actually comprised
of the five original Iroquois Nations which comprised the Mohawk Oneida Onondaga Cayuga
and Seneca.
It was not uncommon and chronicled by the French that the Iroquois tribes were rather
ruthless in the raids to capture slaves, black or white and the captives often underwent
very long painful and humiliating torture sessions to break their spirits.
But in the colonies in the mid-1760s New York requested as a requirement of treaties with
the Huron and Delaware tribes that they had to return escaped slaves.
Yet the record does not reflect that any were in fact returned.
In fact those that we call the Five Civilized Tribes in the southeast United States which
were actually given that name due to their adoption of many European cultural values
to iclude centralized forms of representative government conversion to Christianity education
and literacy intermarriage with whites and of course their participation in the ownership
of black slaves.
Much of this cultural assimilation was due to the belief by the tribes that if they acquiesced
and adopted European methods then they would not be persecuted themselves and pushed off
their lands.
These Native American groups primarily included the nations in the Southeast such as the Cherokee
Chickasaw Choctaw Creek and Seminole tribes.
Ironically only the Chickasaw and Choctaw failed to free all of the people they held
in captivity until 1866 after the Civil War when the federal government had to step in.
By the 18th century many Native Americans owned black slaves and some tribes such as
the Catawba and Cherokee were notorious for their dislike of blacks hence their slaves
were not normally assimilated but worked like common laborers under often harsh conditions.
The Cherokee were also famous for owning the largest number of black slaves purchased from
white slave traders in the colonial period.
It is recorded that in 1809 the Cherokee owned nearly 600 black slaves.
Another unique fact was that the Cherokee Constitution did not recognize the children
of black women as members of the nation.
The Cherokee did not recognize formal marriages between their people and the black slaves
in the Cherokee Act of Union in 1839 and this was revised in 1855.
Those slaves who returned after the Civil War were denied Cherokee citizenship although
Cherokee Chief Lewis Downing tried to legally correct this, but he was overruled by the
National Council and the Cherokee National legislature called upon the federal government
to remove what they called "The Intruders".
However it should be noted that there was a sect within the Cherokee called the Keetoowah
Society which was a secret abolitionist organization that ran its own Underground Railroad and
protected runaway slaves.
The Chickasaw produced cotton corn tobacco livestock and poultry for self-consumption
but also to sell on the open market to white Americans.
Their use of black slave labor assisted in these projects being that they were an agrarian-based
economy.
The Chickasaw also gave greater value to white mixed members over those who were black mixed
and in their culture white mixed Chickasaw often became chiefs but that was not part
of the program for the black Chickasaw.
In an effort to stop race mixing Chickasaws were publicly punished for having relationships
with blacks.
They were subjected to fines whippings and often expulsion from the nation.
The Creek Nation had many interactions with blacks and some took runaway slaves into their
protection although they still considered them inferior due to the type of field work
that the men had to do on the plantations.
Many blacks would become Creek slaves or in some cases the Creeks would sell the runaways
back to their white owners.
During the 18th century after the American Revolution the whites placed bounties on runaways.
In most cases the Creeks refused to comply with the white demands for their return.
During this period few Creeks owned black slaves but by the 1850s this changed and after
the great relocation west where it is estimated that 10 percent of the Creek Nation were black
slaves.
The Choctaw in Georgia in their 1840 Constitution did not allow freed blacks or runaways to
settle within Choctaw territory meaning that they were not allowed to own land but white
men could and often did get permission in writing from the tribal chief or United States
agent in charge to live within the Choctaw Nation.
Blacks or their offspring were not allowed to become citizens of the nation or hold office
but this was not true of Choctaw white men married to Choctaw women and their children
were considered members who could then become citizens.
The Choctaw also began to have an abrasive relationship the Christian missionaries who
arrived and built churches and schools and this was tolerated until the missionaries
began preaching that slavery in its entirety was antithetical to Christian values then
the missionaries were politely told to leave.
The Choctaw like the majority of white slave owners did not want their slaves literate.
Most of the Indian slave owners and many of the chiefs of the various tribes were themselves
mixed race living in both the world of the Indian and the white man.
Some of these slave owner chiefs were also mixed Indian and black such as the father
of Medal of Honor recipient Pompey Factor who was himself a black Seminole.
The Seminoles were generally the most relaxed in their relations with the black slaves and
they generally welcomed them into their tribes and the children of the mixed-race children
were usually treated no differently than the other members with Pompey Factor's father
being a prime example.
But this was not universal.
Seminoles still raided plantations and took both black and white slaves and many black
slaves ran away to join the Seminoles believing that they would have a better life.
This was true until the end of the First Seminole War after which the practice became too risky
and the black runaways were often returned to avoid retribution from their white owners.
General Thomas Jesup believed that if there was a Second Seminole War the entire southern
region could explode into open rebellion with black slaves revolting against their owners
in alliance with the Seminole and possibly other tribes.
During the conclusion of the Second Seminole War these tribes took their black slaves with
them along the way to Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma when they were removed
from the American Southeast by the U.S. government.
Pompey Factor's family removed west from Florida and after the government forced relocation
of the tribes they ended up in Arkansas.
Many were relocated in Arkansas and some like Factor's family even went to Texas.
Many of these Indians still own their slaves even as they were themselves being pushed
onto reservations.
The Seminoles were then thrown onto Creek lands who were already there and as the Creek
practiced chattel slavery some Seminole thought that was a great idea while the majority did
not.
Regardless the Creek and other tribes raided Seminole properties to steal their slaves.
It was these actions that saw Factor's family and others escaping to Mexico where slavery
was illegal.
It was this push westward that carried chattel slavery into the frontier setting a stage
for future political conflict that would become problematic with the approaching Civil War
pitting slave states against non-slave states.
However it has been documented that in many cases blacks held as slaves by Indians fared
much better and lived a better life than blacks owned by the majority of white masters.
But then there were the tribes that did not own slaves of any kind let alone blacks who
gave runaways sanctuary and made them part of their tribes.
Some whites disapproved of the lenient treatment given to the blacks by their Indian benefactors
and owners.
The great black orator Frederick Douglass stated in 1850, "the slave finds more of the
milk of human kindness in the bosom of the savage Indian than in the heart of his Christian
master."
One government official a white Indian agent named Douglas Cooper was somewhat disturbed
by the relaxed lenient and almost equal treatment of blacks held by some Indian tribes that
he suggested to these tribes that they should invite white men in to teach them the proper
method of handling the Negroes It is known that some Native American women bought male
slaves then freed them, married them and then their children were born free according to
the laws in the 18th century.
As one may imagine this practice was somewhat frowned upon by many in the slave holding
states.
Later the practice of Native American slavery was as diverse as it was common among their
contemporaries.
Some tribes had laws and councils that adjudicated the status of black slaves and even white
slaves.
The treatment of black slaves among their Native American owners was just as diverse
when compared to whites depending upon the tribe in question, but it is irrefutable that
Native Americans while not in their majority were deeply involved in the black slave trade
in varying degrees.
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