Descendants of Black slaves have right to Indigenous citizenship

The Cherokee Nation recently came to a conclusion regarding the citizenship of a segment of its population, the Cherokee Freedmen, who are the descendants of Black people who were once enslaved by members of the nation. Last month, the nation’s high court ruled to remove the phrase “by blood” from its constitution and other tribal laws, re-establishing tribal citizenship for the Freedmen, which had been removed in 2011.

Similar struggles for recognition have taken place among other Indigenous nations, including the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. While many Native Americans were enslaved along with Black people during the United States’ colonial period, there were some wealthier tribal members who took part in the enslaving of Black people before the practice was abolished in the 1860s. During the Trail of Tears — the U.S. government’s forced displacement of multiple indigenous groups from their homeland — many enslaved Black people also made the journey and settled with those nations in what is now Oklahoma. Not long after the Civil War, the Cherokee Nation signed a treaty with the United States’ government to accept formerly enslaved Black people as full Cherokee citizens. For several decades in recent history, however, Freedmen from multiple Indigenous ethnicities have had to go through legal proceedings to re-establish citizenship.

Kyle Mays is Black and Saginaw Chippewa, and an assistant professor in the department of African American Studies, American Indian Studies, and in the department of History at the University of California Los Angeles. He studies contemporary popular culture, the history of Black people and Native Americans in the United States, and is the author of “An Afro-indigenous History of the United States” (being released later this year). Mays took some time to discuss the citizenship and membership of Black people in Indigenous communities, its history, and Afroindigenous solidarity. (This email interview has been edited for length and clarity. )

Q:

This debate, over whether tribal citizenship should be granted to the descendants of enslaved Black people, has occurred among other tribal nations as well. Can you start by briefly helping us understand some of the history between Black and Native American people? How these two groups first intersected?

A:

The relationship between Africans and Indigenous peoples in the U.S. begin during pre-revolutionary America. You have folks like Paul Cuffe. Cuffe was born in 1759 to a Wampanoag mother and an Ashanti father. He represents some of the earliest persons of Afro-indigenous blood. Moving into the 19th century, many of these intersections happened as a result of the Five Tribes’ enslavement of Africans, and this is the root of conflict between the Five Tribes and African Americans. However, not all tribal nations enslaved Africans. However, let me be clear: Native enslavement was just as brutal as U.S. enslavement. For example, in the “Treaty with the Florida Tribes of Indians, 1823” that the U.S. government negotiated with Florida Tribes, they would compensate the tribes for apprehending Africans who escaped their bondage, and there are several other treaties that are like this. So, we can’t romanticize these relationships and assume that they were natural allies in the grand fight against White supremacy. That was not the case.

Q:

A point of contention here seems to be found in the Dawes Rolls. What are the Dawes Rolls, exactly, and what role do they play in this question over tribal citizenship?

A:

The Dawes Rolls, named after Henry Dawes, a Republican senator from Massachusetts. He helped usher in the Dawes Act (1887), which sought to eradicate tribal control of their land and assimilate them into U.S. (White) culture. The Dawes Rolls were established from 1898 to 1914 to create a list of tribal citizens among the Five Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole). Those people who were officially accepted on the list received land. The other side of the Dawes

Rolls were that they were often exclusionary of Freedmen and those with mixed African American blood. That is, if you “looked” Black and didn’t “look” Native American, then a person documenting this information would say that you weren’t eligible to be enrolled. The list is anti-black.

Q:

Freedmen from other tribal nations have said that they believe their expulsion from tribal citizenship is about “greed and racism” with regard to federal funding and assistance for members, while other tribal members and representatives have said that their decisions about citizenship are based on maintaining tribal sovereignty and independently determining the parameters of indigenous identity. What do you make of these conflicting views on tribal membership?

A:

The most fascinating thing about both of these perspectives is that they are true. And to be clear, I don’t believe that the federal government should interfere in any decisions that tribal nations make. If they are sovereign, let them be. At the same time, the Freedmen have had little recourse in their efforts to be recognized as citizens of these respective nations. Thus, they can only rely on the federal government. The Cherokee Nation and other Five Tribes would do well simply to enroll the Freedmen as full citizens. Period. Giving citizenship to the Freedmen would be one of the best ways to exercise sovereignty. This would be significant for offering some redress for the rampant antiblackness that still exists among the Five Tribes and throughout Indian Country.

Q:

In your forthcoming book, “An Afro-indigenous History of the United States,” it’s said that you talk about how “the foundations of the U.S. are rooted in antiblackness and settler colonialism, and that these parallel oppressions continue into the present.” What do you think could be some ways to move forward in Afro-indigenous solidarity?

A:

Some ways to move forward in Afro-indigenous solidarity will require at least three starting positions. First, Black and Indigenous people need to have conversations outside of the gaze of whiteness. When whiteness is involved, there’s no telling how conversations can go. Our elders should lead the way in recommending how we can move forward in a good way. The second thing is to become familiar with each other’s histories, including moments of collaborations. If we don’t know where each group is coming from, where they have been, and what their current condition is, we can make certain assumptions about one another. Finally, having a real conversation about what reparations look like, and in tandem, would really help us imagine a world outside of White supremacy and colonialism. Afro-indigenous peoples should be centered in such conversations.

lisa.deaderick@sduniontribune.com