“She Better Off Dead than Jest Livin’ for the Whip”: Enslaved Women’s Resistance in the Nineteenth-Century Cherokee Nation

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). ¹ 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. ² 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. ³ 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. ⁴ 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. ⁵ 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.” ⁶

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.

1. The Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles owned and occupied large areas of land in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and smaller portions of land in Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. The significant population of slaves in Indian Territory has heightened the discussion of slavery among the so-called “Five Civilized Tribes.” Using the count conducted in 1860 by the United States Census Office, Michael Doran proffered an estimate of the number of Native Americans, African-American slaves, and European-Americans residing in Indian Territory in 1860. He deduced that in the Cherokee Nation, there were 13,821 Indian citizens (81%), 2,511 slaves (15%), and 716 whites (4%); in the Choctaw Nation, there were 13,666 Indian citizens (81%), 2,349 slaves (14%), and 804 whites (5%); in the Chickasaw Nation, there were 4,260 Indian citizens (79%), 975 slaves (18%), and 148 whites (3%); in the Creek Nation, there were 13,550 Indian citizens (86%), 1,532 slaves (10%), and 596 whites (4%); and in the Seminole Nation, there were 2,630 Indian citizens (71%), 1,000 slaves (29%), and 35 whites. See Michael F. Doran, “Population Statistics of Nineteenth-Century Indian Territory,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 53, no. 4 (1975-1976): 501.[↑]
2. For a thorough analysis of how race and bondage shaped legislation within the Cherokee Nation, see Fay Yarbrough, Race and the Cherokee Nation: Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008).[↑]
3. In order to disseminate information about the occurrences in the new land, the first issue of the Cherokee Advocate was printed in the new Cherokee capital of Tahlequah on 26 September 1844. This weekly newspaper’s motto was “Our Rights, Our Country, Our Race.” The Cherokee Advocate was not the first Cherokee newspaper to be published. The Cherokee Phoenix had been established in 1828 prior to removal to Indian Territory.[↑]
4. See, for example, the runaway slave advertisement for Harvey in the Cherokee Advocate, September 18, 1848. The same advertisement for Harvey also appeared in the following three weekly issues of the Cherokee Advocate. Also see the runaway slave advertisement for Isaac in the Cherokee Advocate, September 3, 1849, and for George in the Cherokee Advocate, April 30, 1849. The same advertisement for George also appeared in the following three weekly issues of the Cherokee Advocate.[↑]
5. For interviews specifically with former slaves living in Oklahoma, see George P. Rawick, ed., Oklahoma and Mississippi Narratives, vol. 7 of The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1973), Oklahoma Narratives, vol. 12, Supplement Series 1 of The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1977), and T. Lindsay Baker and Julie P. Baker, eds., The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996). Volume 7 of Rawick’s collection includes the interviews of seventy-five ex-slaves and/or children of ex-slaves. Of these seventy-five interviewees, a total of fourteen self-identified as ex-slaves or children of ex-slaves of Native Americans in Indian Territory—six Cherokee ex-slaves, four Creek ex-slaves, two Choctaw ex-slaves, and two Chickasaw ex-slaves. Volume 12 of Rawick’s collection includes the interviews of sixty-seven ex-slaves or children of ex-slaves. Of these sixty-seven interviewees, a total of thirty-four identified themselves as ex-slaves or children of ex-slaves of Native Americans in Indian Territory—sixteen Cherokee ex-slaves, nine Choctaw ex-slaves, eight Creek ex-slaves, and one Chickasaw ex-slave. Initially deposited in the Library of Congress, the WPA interviews of ex-slaves remained a relatively untapped source of information until Greenwood Press’ publication of these interviews in the 1970s. The WPA conducted interviews with ex-slaves living in South Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Indiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Georgia, North Carolina, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Tennessee, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, and Washington. In April 2001, the Library of Congress announced the release of the online collection, “Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938,” at the American Memory Web site: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml. This online collection includes over 2,300 interviews and 500 black-and-white photographs of ex-slave interviewees.[↑]
6. Rawick, American Slave, vol. 7, 346.[↑]