Black/Indigenous Sovereignty Event

In celebration of Black History Month, NYU NALSA is highlighting the often overlooked history and the continued struggle for recognition of Black Indigenous descendants of Freedmen. 

Background: When the Five Tribes were forcibly removed from their homelands in the 1830s–40s, people enslaved by the tribes also made the long journey to Indian Territory. By 1861, eight to ten thousand Black people were enslaved throughout Indian Territory. In 1863 the Cherokee National Council passed an act freeing all people enslaved by their tribe, but many slaveholders ignored the law. 

After the Civil War, new treaties between the US government and the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole abolished slavery among the tribes and outlined citizenship rights available to the Freedmen and their descendants. These treaties were ratified in the summer of 1866. 

Following the end of enslavement in these nations, the Black freedman and their descendants have struggled for rights and recognition in their nations.  Despite the agreements the nations made, only one nation, Cherokee Nation, currently recognizes descendants of tribal enslavement as full citizens.