During the first half of the nineteenth century in the U.S., African Americans and Native Americans in some places began bonding together because of their shared enemy, the white man. Slaves in the southernmost states fled south to Florida rather than attempt a longer escape to the north, knowing that the Florida wilderness provided a better opportunity to avoid capture and return to their owners. Some came to live with Native Americans in their villages and helped make a living there. In the course of these relationships, a sizeable number were relocated with the Five Civilized Tribes to what now is Oklahoma. By the start of the Civil War, more than 4,000 former slaves lived there. Therefore, don’t overlook checking records relating to Native Americans to locate African American ancestors.
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Where do you look for native american records?
I cannot cite a source, but I have been given to understand that some Native Americans owned African Americans as slaves. Can you affirm or deny that ?
In their home lands before the trail of tears many Cherokee hsd become farmers/plantation owners and owned slaves. Many of these slaves when to Oklahama. Because many Cherokee were slave owners they first sided with the south in the civil war. There were also a fair number of mixed breeds in the group. The slave issue is not a great in the othere 4 civilized tribes if my memery is right. The Florida x-slaves would have mixed the the Seminole
I have been researching the Cherokee in Arkansas. There is an excellent CD sold by Billy Eddington, a well-known expert on native American research, about the African-Americans and the natirve Americans. In fact, I believe she has actually put many African-American and Cherokee families together on her CD.
I had tried to get info from The Arkansas History Commission and the University of Arkansas and they told me that Arkansas did not keep any records of Indians.I sent them pictures of my ggmo and family in an Indian costume and they could not identify them