Celia Naylor, "'She Better Off Dead than Jest Livin' for the Whip': Enslaved Women's Resistance in the Nineteenth-Century Cherokee Nation"
(page 2 of 5)

Although specific forms of enslavement have existed within some Indian nations (e.g., the enslavement of war captives), certainly not all Native Americans enslaved African-Americans. There were, however, five Indian nations that purchased and sold people of African descent initially in the southeastern United States and later west in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).[6] These five nations—the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles—were referred to as the "Five Civilized Tribes." They were called "civilized" because more than any other Indian nations, they had adopted some elements of European-American worldviews (including chattel slavery). European traders and settlers had also intermarried with some Indians from these nations, thus increasing the extent of these nations' acculturation of European-American mores. In the nineteenth century, these five nations incorporated the enslavement of people of African descent within their social, economic, and political structures. In these five Indian nations, only a minority enslaved people of African descent. Yet, like White southern slaveholders, they controlled and limited the lives of enslaved people (e.g., some outlawed slave literacy and restricted the movements of enslaved people on and off their farms and plantations). A few Indians owned over 100 enslaved people, but the majority of Indian slaveowners operated small farms with fewer than 25 enslaved people. Beginning in the 1830s, enslaved people and the institution of slavery would be transferred with Native Americans to areas west of the Mississippi when the Five Tribes were forcibly relocated to Indian Territory (during what is often described, for the Cherokee Nation, as the "Trail of Tears").

As part of the rebuilding process in the post-removal period in the 1830s and 1840s in Indian Territory, Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks established more restrictive "slave codes" that controlled the lives of slaves.[7] Such statutes reinforced the position of enslaved people of African descent as inferior to free Native citizens. Following the Trail of Tears in the 1830s, as the Cherokees attempted to codify and reestablish their societal rules regarding the peculiar institution in the new territory, enslaved people sought to rupture, by any means necessary, the legally sanctioned forces that daily denied their personhood and humanity. For some enslaved people in the Cherokee Nation, running away from their owners' farms and plantations represented the most effective course for pursuing their freedom. Indeed, reward advertisements for runaway slaves remain one concrete form of evidence of resistance, often offering substantial information about the fugitive slaves and their experiences. In addition, the Cherokee Advocate, the newspaper of the Cherokee Nation established in September 1844 in Tahlequah, Indian Territory, regularly posted runaway ads, as well as notices of slave auctions in the area.[8] In Indian Territory, as in southeastern states, some reward ads in the Cherokee Advocate suggest that slaves often ran away due to their connection to kin.[9] Since some enslaved people absconded to be closer to relatives, owners became knowledgeable of the whereabouts of their slaves' partners, parents, and children. Moreover, family members often harbored runaway relatives and provided a temporary refuge for kin on the run. As a result of their awareness of enslaved people's family ties, owners often predicted the probable destinations of runaway slaves.

Although reward advertisements for runaway slaves provide evidence of this specific form of slave resistance, documentation of other avenues of resistance remain more ambivalent and elusive within Indian Territory, as elsewhere. However, the Oklahoma interviews of previously enslaved African-Americans, conducted in the 1930s (during the Depression) by the Works Progress Administration (WPA), furnish examples of various types of slave resistance in Indian Territory.[10] Even when enslaved people chose not to risk the copious repercussions of running away to procure their freedom, many still demonstrated their detestation for their enslaved state in actions ranging from accidental deeds to calculated strategies. Enslaved women, in particular, vented their resistance to slavery in acts of non-cooperation, retaliation, theft, and verbal and physical confrontation.

One of the frequently practiced forms of slave resistance involved the theft of goods and property, including food, clothing, animals, and other commodities. As was the case for slaves in the southeastern United States, enslaved people in the Cherokee Nation stole an array of items from their owners. These acts served to protest vile treatment and harsh conditions, as well as to provide necessities for themselves and their families. Cherokee freedwoman Sarah Wilson recalled that her aunt "was always pestering around trying to get something for herself." However, one day while cleaning the yard, their master (Mr. Johnson) saw her "pick up something and put it inside her apron. He flew at her and cussed her, and started like he was going to hit her but she just stood right up to him and never budged, and when he come close she just screamed out loud and run at him with her fingers stuck out straight and jabbed him in the belly . . .. He seen she wasn't going to be afraid, and he set out to sell her."[11]

Such actions contested owners' sweeping control over enslaved people's daily lives. Most owners expected obsequious behavior from their slaves and those in their surrounding Cherokee communities; instead of complying with her master's expectations of submissiveness, Wilson's aunt communicated, through her words and actions, no such deference for her master's authority. In response to her offenses, Ben Johnson utilized one of his primary privileges as master and attempted to sell Wilson's aunt—a particular course to penalize those deemed "troublesome property." Like other masters in the Cherokee Nation and in southeastern states, Ben Johnson recognized that such misconduct not only served to defy his authority but also encouraged others along a similar path of rebelliousness. Just as the presence of fugitive slaves in the vicinity of plantations vexed Cherokee slaveowners, so, too, did private and public acts of rebellion on their farms prove economically and emotionally taxing to owners in Indian Territory.

Page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5                Next page