Published Sources on Freedmen
This page lists published works about Freedmen. The bibliography was created by Daniel F. Littlefield Jr. in 1995 and updated in 2020 by Dayna Robinson. Please note: The Oklahoma Historical Society does not officially endorse the following works. This list is provided only as a guide for researchers, and we are not responsible for the content found in these publications.
Use the links below to view the records of a specific tribe.
General Information
Cherokee
Chickasaw
Choctaw
Muscogee (Creek)
Seminole
General Information
Abel, Annie Heloise. The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1915.
This work was one of the first studies to treat the slaveholding tribes. It has been reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press.
Brooks, James F. Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.
Foster, Laurence. “Negro-Indian Relations in the Southeast.” New York: AMS Press, 1978.
This is a reprint of an early dissertation and the regional study of tribes that were later removed to Indian Territory.
Krauthamer, Barbara. Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013.
From the late eighteenth century through the end of the Civil War, the Choctaw and Chickasaw bought, sold, and owned Africans and African Americans as slaves, a fact that persisted after the tribe’s removal from the Deep South to Indian Territory.
Porter, Kenneth Wiggens. The Negro on the American Frontier. New York: Arno Press, 1971.
Though this work puts much of its emphasis on the Seminole, Porter deals with tribes indigenous to the Southeast and treats their history in the post-removal period.
United States. Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes. The Final Rolls of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory. Baltimore, MD.: Reprinted by Genealogical Pub, 2003.
Walton-Raji, Angela Y. Freedmen of the Frontier. Palmyra, VA: Shortwood Press, 2019.
Wickett, Murray R. Contested Territory: Whites, Native Americans and African Americans in Oklahoma, 1865–1907. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
Wright, J. Leitch, Jr. The Only Land They Knew. New York: The Free Press, 1981.
This is a general study of slavery and explores the contact between American Indians and African Americans in the slavery system, demonstrating that the legalities of servitude often made little or no distinction between Indians and African Americans.
Cherokee Freedmen
Chin, Jeremiah, Nicholas Bustamante, Jessica Ann Solyom, and Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy. “Terminus Amnesia: Cherokee Freedmen, Citizenship, and Education.” Theory into Practice 55, no. 1 (2016): 28–38.
In 2007 the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma amended its constitution to limit membership to only those who can trace lineal descent to an individual listed as “Cherokee by Blood” on the final Dawes Rolls.
Gammon, Tim. “Black Freedmen and the Cherokee Nation.” Journal of American Studies II (December 1977): 357–364.
Gammon, Tim. “The Black Freedmen of the Cherokee Nation.” Negro History Bulletin 40 (July–August 1977): 733-735.
Halliburton, R., Jr. Red Over Black: Black Slavery among the Cherokee Indians. Greenwood Press, 1977.
This study emphasizes the post-removal period.
Henry, Bethany Hope. “Cherokee Freedmen: The Struggle for Citizenship.” Thesis, University of Missouri, 2012.
In 2011 the Cherokee Nation Supreme Court voted to exclude Freedmen from voting, overturning a constitutional amendment that gave Freedmen tribal rights. Cherokee Freedmen argue that the Cherokee Nation is ignoring the Treaty of 1866, which granted all Freedmen “rights as Cherokee citizens,” and they call upon federal support to redeem their rights as equals.
Inniss, Lolita Buckner. “Cherokee Freedmen and the Color of Belonging.” Columbia Journal of Race and Law vol. 5, no. 2 (2015).
This article addresses the Cherokee Nation and its historic conflict with the descendants of its former enslaved people, designated Cherokee Freedmen.
Johnson, Roxanne Elizabeth. “At Whose Expense?: Cherokee Freedmen in Indian Territory.” Thesis, University of New Mexico, 2002.
Kim, Yule, and Library of Congress. Congressional Research Service. The Cherokee Freedmen Dispute: Legal Background, Analysis, and Proposed Legislation. Washington, District of Columbia: Congressional Research Service, 2008.
Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. The Cherokee Freedmen. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.
This work traces the history of the Cherokee Freedmen from emancipation to Oklahoma’s statehood.
Page, Jo Ann Curls. Index to the Cherokee Freedmen Enrollment Cards of the Dawes Commission, 1901–1906. Bowie, MD.: Heritage Books, 1996.
This index is an essential key to the Dawes Commission enrollment cards, established to assess the claims of former enslaved people seeking to prove their Cherokee citizenship. These cards record the names of each household member and their ages, sex, and relationship to the head of household.
Perdue, Theda. Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 1548–1866. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979.
This is a study of the way the Cherokee adopted the institution of slavery and practiced it from the colonial period to the Civil War.
Ray, S. Alan. “A Race or a Nation? Cherokee National Identity and the Status of Freedmen’s Descendants.” Michigan Journal of Race and Law, vol. 12, no. 2, 2007.
This article examines the Cherokee Freedmen controversy to assess whether law and biology can function as sufficient models for crafting Cherokee identity at a crucial moment in the tribe’s history.
Sturm, Circe. Blood Politics: Race, Culture, and Identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.
Focusing on the Oklahoma Cherokee, the author examines how Cherokee identity is socially and politically constructed, and how that process is embedded in ideas of blood, color, and race.
Spears, Shannon. “The Problem of the Twenty-First Century in the Cherokee Nation Is the Problem of the Color-Line: How the Cherokee Freedmen Have Articulated a Sense of Cultural Identity and Citizenship Claims Over Time.” Dissertation, University of Louisville, 2014.
This research investigates the Cherokee Freedmen, who were once enslaved by Cherokee in the Cherokee Nation, and who have articulated their identity and tribal citizenship status as Cherokee Natives in the Cherokee Nation.
Yarbrough, Fay A. Race and the Cherokee Nation: Sovereignty in the Nineteenth Century. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
This work examines how leaders of the Cherokee Nation fostered a racial ideology through the regulation of interracial marriage.
Chickasaw Freedmen
Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. The Chickasaw Freedmen. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980.
This work traces the history of the Chickasaw Freedmen from emancipation to Oklahoma’s statehood.
Roberts, Alaina Elizabeth. “Chickasaw Freedpeople at the Crossroads of Reconstruction.” Dissertation, Indiana University, 2017.
This dissertation analyzes the experiences and identity discourses of the Black former enslaved peoples of Chickasaw from the Civil War through Oklahoma statehood (roughly 1861–1907).
Choctaw Freedmen
Douzart, Ambronita Rose. “Troubled Journey: Choctaws, Slaves, and Freedmen.” Dissertation, University of Texas at Dallas, 2013.
Flickinger, Robert Elliott. The Choctaw Freedmen and the Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy. Fonda, IA: Journal and Times Press, 1914.
Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr., and Mary Ann Littlefield. “The Beams Family: Free Blacks in Indian Territory.” The Journal of Negro History 41 (January 1976): 17–35.
This is a study of a family’s struggle against slave hunters and their physical and legal efforts to survive.
Muscogee (Creek) Freedmen
Davis, Napoleon, and J. B. Campbell. Oklahoma Creek Freedman: My Roots, 1858-1921. Self-published.
Debo, Angie. The Road to Disappearance. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967.
This history of the Muscogee (Creek), while not focused on Freedmen, contains information about the role of African Americans, particularly in tribal politics.
Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. Africans and Creeks. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979.
This work presents a history of Black–Creek contact from the colonial period to the Civil War.
Myers, Terri. “From Creek Freedmen to Oklahoma Oil Men: The Black Heritage and Architectural Legacy of Okmulgee (1878–1929).” Oklahoma: Okmulgee Historic Preservation Commission, 1991.
This report includes the project objectives, a summary of the research design and methodology used to determine significant events and themes that influenced the development of Okmulgee’s Black communities, a discussion of expected property types, and a list of noteworthy properties.
Porter, Kenneth Wiggens. The Negro on the American Frontier. New Hampshire: Ayer Publishers, 1996.
Though this work puts much of its emphasis on the Seminole, Porter deals with tribes indigenous to the Southeast and treats their history in the post-removal period.
Warde, Mary Jane. “The Historic Context for African American History in Muskogee, Oklahoma” Oklahoma: 2014.
Wright, J. Leitch, Jr. Creeks and Seminoles: The Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogee People. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
This work details the role of people of African descent in the history of the Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole, primarily in the pre-removal period.
Zellar, Gary. African Creeks: Estelvste and the Creek Nation. Race and Culture in the American West, vol. 1. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.
Zellar, Gary. “‘If I Ain’t One, You Won’t Find Another One Here’: Race, Identity, Citizenship, and Land, the African Creek Experience in the Indian Territory and Oklahoma, 1830–1910.” Thesis, University of Arkansas, 2003.
Seminole Freedmen
Bateman, Rebecca Belle. “‘We’re Still Here’: History, Kinship, and Group Identity among the Seminole freedmen of Oklahoma.” Dissertation, Johns Hopkins University, 1991.
Dixon, Anthony. Black Seminole Involvement and Leadership During the Second Seminole War, 1835–1842. Dissertation, Indiana University, 2007.
Klos, George E. “Black Seminoles in Territorial Florida.” Southern Historian 10 (1989): 26–42.
Klos, George E. “Blacks and the Seminole Removal Debate, 1821–1835.” Florida Historical Quarterly 68 (1989): 55–78.
Littlefield, Daniel F., Jr. Africans and Seminoles: From Removal to Emancipation. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.
This work explores slavery and other relationships between Seminoles and African Americans from the late eighteenth century to the American Civil War. Reprinted at the end of this work are a number of lists of slaves with varying amounts of biographical information.
Micco, Melinda Beth. “Freedmen and Seminoles: Forging a Seminole Nation.” Thesis, University of California at Berkley, 1995.
Mock, Shirley Boteler. Dreaming with the Ancestors: Black Seminole Women in Texas and Mexico. Race and Culture in the American West, vol. 4. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010.
Freedmen and their descendants have garnered much public and scholarly attention, but women’s roles have largely been absent from that discussion.
Mulroy, K. “Mixed Race in the Seminole Nation.” Ethnohistory 58, no. 1 (2011): 113–41.
This is a story of two hidden identities. It focuses on the family history of Phil Wilkes Fixico (aka Philip Vincent Wilkes and Pompey Bruner Fixico). His family history records that his paternal grandfather was the offspring of a Seminole woman and a Seminole Freedman, but that this “intermarriage” was kept secret from the Dawes Commission and the boy was enrolled as a “full blood” Indian.
Mulroy, Kevin. The Seminole Freedmen: A History. Race and Culture in the American West, vol. 2. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007.
The book covers the beginnings in Florida, removal to Indian Territory, post-removal upheavals, Seminole slaveholders, intermarriage, relations with the Seminole in Oklahoma, and more.
Opala, Joseph. A Brief History of the Seminole Freedmen. African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center Papers: series 2, number 3. Austin: University of Texas, 1980.
Opala, Joseph. “Seminole-African Relations on the Florida Frontier,” Papers in Anthropology 22 (Spring 1981): 11–51.
Porter, Kenneth Wiggens. The Negro on the American Frontier. New Hampshire: Ayer Publishers, 1996.
Von Robertson, Ray. “A Pan-Africanist Analysis of Black Seminole Perceptions of Racism, Discrimination, and Exclusion.” The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 4, no. 5, Sept 2011.
Von Robertson, Ray. “Am I Black or Am I Indian? An Examination of the Marginality of the Estelusti.” Journal of African American Studies (formerly Journal of African American Men) 10, no. 1 (2006): 33–43.
Von Robertson, Ray. “Estelusti Marginality: A Qualitative Examination of the Black Seminole.” The Journal of Pan African Studies, vol. 2, no. 4, June 2008.
Watts, Jill. “‘We Do Not Live for Ourselves Only,’ Seminole Black Perceptions and the Second Seminole War.” UCLA Historical Journal 7 (1986): 5–28.
Wright, J. Leitch, Jr. Creeks and Seminoles: The Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogee People. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986.
This work details the role of people of African descent in the history of the Muskogee (Creek) and Seminole, primarily in the pre-removal period.
