Native American slavery was equivalent to white indentured servitude....but not when it came to BLACK SLAVES.
Not in plantation format, for the same duration, by birthright, slave code, or forcible movement post-treaty.
African slaves were owned by
Native Americans from the colonial period until the United States' Civil War. The interactions between Native Americans and African Slaves in the antebellum United States is complex, given that slavery played a significant role in the creation and construction of America. This slavery institution relied largely on the enslavement of Africans and Native Americans owned by white European colonists and later white Americans after the United States gained independence from Great Britain.
[1]
Although chattel slavery was a primarily European institution in the Americas
, several North American indigenous groups over time adopted slave ownership for several purposes, predominantly as a tactic to assimilate into European colonial society. Most of the indigenous tribes who participated in this practice resided in the Southeast where white European infrastructure thrived off of slave ownership, specifically the Five Civilized Tribes (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole).[2] Following the Indian removal of the 1830s, these tribes were relocated to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) and brought their slaves with them.
How Native Americans adopted slavery from white settlers
How Native Americans adopted slavery from white settlers
And how
black people in Indian Territory were denied their rights even after their emancipation.
Members of five Native American nations, the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations (known as the Five Tribes), owned black slaves. Then located outside the territorial boundaries of the US in a region known as Indian Territory (modern-day Oklahoma), these sovereign nations were not affected by proclamations or constitutional amendments. Instead, separate treaties had to be made between the US and these Native American nations not only to free enslaved peoples, but also to formally end the American Civil War battles and antagonism between American and Native American troops.
The fact that by the time of the Civil War black chattel slavery had been an element of life among the Five Tribes for decades is rarely discussed. It is, however, an important aspect of US history which serves to remind us of the complexity of colonialism, exploitation and victimisation that laid the foundations of our country.
The Native American slave trade thrived for over a century, but began to be largely phased out in the early to mid-18th century. An important factor in its decline was the Yamasee War of 1715-1717. After colonists in the English colony of Carolina began defaulting on some of their trade agreements and enslaving even members of their ally tribes, the Yamasee Nation began to question its own alliance with Carolina. Along with the Lower Creeks and the Savannahs, the Yamasees declared war on Carolina, killing 400 colonists, approximately seven percent of the white population. The Carolinian colonists put together a force of black slaves, militiamen, volunteers and friendly Native American nations, which defeated the Yamasees and their allies.
While the Yamasees lost, they succeeded in forcing European colonists to reconsider the risks inherent in the system of Native American enslavement. If Native Americans became angry at the terms of enslavement or allied Native Americans were accidentally enslaved, they might once again retaliate militarily. In addition, enslaved Native Americans often successfully escaped from their owners, as they were familiar with the geography and could elude slave catchers and return to their homelands.
Therefore, after the Yamasee War, the African transatlantic slave trade to the North American colonies drastically increased to account for the loss of Native American slaves.
Some members of the Five Tribes became owners of enslaved black women and men themselves, as they increasingly adapted to Euro-American norms, such as style of dress and governmental structure. Beginning in the late 1700s and intensifying in the early 1800s, members of the Five Tribes used enslaved black women and men as domestic and agricultural labourers. For example, Chickasaw planters exported an estimated 1,000 bales of cotton in 1830; this cotton was picked and processed by black slaves. Comparatively, in 1826, the state of Georgia produced 150,000 bales of cotton.
In 1860, about 30 years after their removal to Indian Territory from their respective homes in the Southeast, Cherokee Nation citizens owned 2,511 slaves (15 percent of their total population), Choctaw citizens owned 2,349 slaves (14 percent of their total population), and Creek citizens owned 1,532 slaves (10 percent of their total population). Chickasaw citizens owned 975 slaves, which amounted to 18 percent of their total population, a proportion equivalent to that of white slave owners in Tennessee, a former neighbour of the Chickasaw Nation and a large slaveholding state.
This made the Chickasaws the largest slave-holding nation of the Five Tribes, in proportion to their population. National laws restricted the movement of enslaved people, preventing them from learning to read and write, and prohibited interracial relationships.
Sorry breh, I chuckled at the tweet when I saw it retweeted on twitter feed earlier today. Trump & his fuccery is an entertaining.
