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Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
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27 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Happy #NativeAmericanHeritageDay. As Freedmen of the Five Slaveholding Tribes, we have a unique and powerful lineage. Many of our ancestors were forcibly brought to this land from the African continent and forced to labor for their Indigenous slaveowners.
Our ancestors became important translators, political activists, politicians, teachers, historians, and stewards of our cultural traditions. Today their legacies live in all of us.
Despite the free labor, cultural reproduction, and contributions of our ancestors in their respective tribal communities for centuries, as their descendants we are disenfranchised and excluded from our respective Nations. Stand in solidarity with us: chng.it/8ND2Lx9C
Also, if you are a Freedmen or Black Native from one of the Five Tribes, we would love to read any family stories/see any family photos below!

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More from @ChoctawFreedmen

Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
29 Nov
The reason why we even have federal prisons or a federal justice system at all today is because that was the way the US government was able to criminalize Native people/territories and begin weakening tribal sovereignty. The “feds” are actually a fairly recent invention.
And federal prisons and incarceration were literally invented as a way to control and criminalize not only Indigenous individual people but Indigenous sovereign nations as well. Leavenworth Federal Prison was the first ever federal prison and was opened in 1896. Image
With the introduction of the Major Crimes Act of 1885, US criminal laws expanded to all Native peoples on and off the reservations, increasing the federal government’s reach into Indian crime in Indian Territory, policing people for behaviors that may have been perfectly legal.
Read 18 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
29 Nov
As underscored by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson in the conversation “Living in Reciprocity,” with @Adavis777A, @fritzlechat, and @policingblack, anti-Blackness should not be a part of Indigneous self-governing or treaty-making. We are shocked that Freedmen’s discrimination
is being discussed by a panel in Canada! But we are very happy that Freedmen and tribal anti-Blackness more broadly is getting the attention it deserves globally. Thank you @TashiTewa for asking the question to the panel!
A reminder that we are still asking for more signatures on our petition to Deb Haaland asking her to speak out publicly in support of Freedpeople’s treaty rights to equal and full tribal citizenship. Sign and share.
Read 4 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
29 Nov
Happy Birthday to legendary actor and Chickasaw Freedman @DonCheadle! He has acted in Hotel Rwanda, as well as in Crash and the Oceans film series. He is perhaps most well-known for his role in the Iron Man and Avengers films as War Machine/James Rhodes. ImageImageImageImage
Don Cheadle descends from Chickasaw Freedmen Mary and Bill Kemp and discovered more about his ancestors and their history of enslavement and delayed emancipation in the Chickasaw Nation on a segment with Henry Louis Gates on the PBS Series African American Lives.
Don Cheadle has been nominated for an Academy Award and has won a Golden Globe for his acting. He has also been involved in activism on climate change and against the genocide in Darfur. In 2007, he, along with George Clooney, was presented with a Summit Peace Award by the Nobel
Read 5 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
28 Nov
#FreedmenHistorySpotlightSaturday: Today, we spotlight a #MMIW of Afro-Indigenous descent from the Seminole Nation named Che-Cho-Ter, or Morning Dew. She was one of Chief Osceola’s two wives and bore him four children and was of mixed Black and Seminole descent. Image
According to accounts at the time in the Quarterly Anti-Slavery Magazine, Chief Osceola and Morning Dew traveled to Fort King (in present-day Ocala) to purchase supplies when Morning Dew was seized as a slave. “Evidently having Negro blood in her veins the law pronounced her a
slave.” This all happened while Seminoles still in Florida were struggling against forced removal on the Trail of Tears, objecting to being moved from their Indigenous lands in Florida. The Indians didn’t want to leave their lands and many free Black people in the Seminole Nation
Read 11 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
28 Nov
A follow-up on last night’s Instagram comment, in which we were accused by a non-Black Native of not being Native EVEN if we were mixed with “Indigenous blood.” The person then went on to accuse us of appropriating Native culture. It’s impossible for Freedmen to appropriate our ImageImage
own tribal cultures. When our ancestors were forcibly bought and enslaved by Native masters, they were also forced to assimilate into our tribal communities. They learned how to speak Chikashshanompa' and Chahta Anumpa by force. It was conditional on them not being abused.
Not only did they learn to speak their tribal languages, but they also learned how to cook traditional tribal dishes and transformed them throughout time, incorporating our own African and American Southern traditions into the food. They also transformed the language
Read 7 tweets
Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen Profile picture
28 Nov
The racism that Freedmen and other Black Natives fave from non-Black Natives is insane. This person who publicly commented on one of our Instagram posts said that EVEN IF some Freedmen have Indigenous “Blood” (whatever that means) we are not Native Americans. Image
Notice that this same energy is not directed towards Natives mixed with white who may also have very distant Indigenous ancestry and be white in appearance. This type of discounting of Indigeneity is only reserved for Black Natives.
We are the only ones who are constantly forced to prove ourselves, despite our extensive documentation within these tribes. Also, a reminder that Indigeneity transcends blood, and is tied to culture, treaty rights, historical bonds, and many other factors. Indigenous Nations
Read 5 tweets

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