Black/ Indian Relations

What do we know about the history of African American and Native American relations? Our social conscience has a form of amnesia on the subject and it's time to take a closer look at the historical relationship between folks of African descent and Native Americans- as a United States history and a contemporary identity. 

To that end, I went googling and happened across a transcript from the National Congress of American Indians (“Exploring the Legacy and Future of Black and IndianRelations”), rendered by Dr. Willard Johnson, of the Kansas Institute for African American and Native American Family History and it is well worth the read.

The ties between African American communities and Native American communities were forged through slavery (Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw and other Southeastern Native tribes owned slaves into the 1800s), war alliances (runaway slaves that found their way to Creek or Seminole territory were allied to the Indian tribes against the settler-oppressor), and, naturally, kinship. While some of these kinship ties were documented via the Freedmen rolls, others were not attested. More information on the Freedmen rolls can be found on the Oklahoma Historical Society's website.

Out of the transcript, I also located a site of archived slave narratives wherein those telling their story claimed ties to Native American communities. Those narratives have been archived here. (I feel obligated to caution readers that some of the narratives use wordage deemed entirely offensive today.)

I found this information to be fascinating (like, am I the only person that didn't know James Brown was African American, Apache, and Asian?) because it stretches identity and calls us to extend our understanding of our collective history as an American people.