Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen

Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Choctaw and Chickasaw Freedmen, Education, McCurtain County, OK.

10/02/2023

Attend the Descendants of Freedmen Assn virtual conference on 11 4 2023. Attendees have a chance to win a copy of Angela Walton Rajis new book Oklahoma Freedmen of the 5 Tribes. Get your ticket now! www.freedmen5tribes.com

03/09/2023

Rodslen Brown (1960–2020) was a basket maker who specialized in round reed, flat reed and honeysuckle baskets. She was a citizen of Cherokee Nation who advocated for citizenship for Freedman descendants like herself. In 2013, she received the Cherokee Nation Community Leadership Award.

In a video tribute available to view in our digital exhibition "Ancestors Know Who We Are," Brown's daughter Melissa Payne says, "Rodslen Brown is the most amazing woman I have ever known, not just because she was my mother, but because her heart was so big that she wanted to help everyone. [...] I'm thankful for her because she has taught us so much. She has taught us to look beyond our means. Color doesn't matter. My mother, Rodslen Brown, loved everyone." Visit the exhibition to learn more about Brown's efforts and impact on behalf of her fellow Freedman descendants: https://americanindian.si.edu/ancestors-know/artists/rodslen-brown/
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Rodslen Brown (Black/Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, 1960–2020), "Lace Moxie’s Purse," 2014. Oklahoma. Root runners, flat reed, dye, hide. 27/0589

There were Residential Boarding Schools in which Freedchildren of the Five Slaveholding Tribes were “students.” One of t...
03/06/2022

There were Residential Boarding Schools in which Freedchildren of the Five Slaveholding Tribes were “students.” One of these schools that we have photos of is Oak Hill Industrial Academy. The boarding school was created for Choctaw Freedmen and was first tan by the Presbyterian church. The superintendent of the school noted that students were “taken from their homes.”

Being “idle” was considered a sin. This was the school’s motto, which was on the walls:
“Time is precious
Time is money—
Do not stand idle, waiting,
Do not keep others waiting,
Do something useful.
Be a busy, silent worker,
Shun the idle, noisy shirker.”

In oral history interviews with former students, students noted that they were deprived of food as punishment and that they were only given a full meal on Sundays. They also had to work over the summers to make the $8 they had to pay to the school to attend.

A late

Did you know: One way Freedwomen of the Five Tribes in Indian Territory would straighten their hair was to apply a salve...
03/05/2022

Did you know: One way Freedwomen of the Five Tribes in Indian Territory would straighten their hair was to apply a salve made of lard cooked with bear grass roots?

Today, on the Centennial of the Tulsa Terrorist Massacre, we remember the over 300 African-American victims of white sup...
05/31/2021

Today, on the Centennial of the Tulsa Terrorist Massacre, we remember the over 300 African-American victims of white supremacist violence who were murdered on this day in 1921. We honor the survivors, and the descendants of the survivors. There are events happening today to honor them. Check out for more information on that front.

As we reflect on the 100 year anniversary of the Tulsa Terrorist Massacre committed by white supremacists, it’s important to remember how the land in Tulsa was aggregated and how Black Tulsans were able to build businesses in Tulsa. Tulsa is just as much of a Native/Indigenous story as it is a Black story as many of the founding members of the city were Afro-Indigenous people who were citizens of the Five Slaveholding Tribes (the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee Nations). Many of these Afro-Indigenous Freedmen even had land allotments in Tulsa—and in Greenwood specifically—in which the infrastructure of the town were built. Much more research needs to be done into this history, but we do know that the distribution of land allotments allowed for Oklahoma to become the state in the US with the most Black towns in the entire United States.

BREAKING NEWS: On May 27, Chief Gary Batton () of the announced an initiative to consider tribal membership for Choct...
05/31/2021

BREAKING NEWS: On May 27, Chief Gary Batton () of the announced an initiative to consider tribal membership for Choctaw Freedmen in the Choctaw Nation. He also called on the federal government to “consider its moral and legal obligations and review the CDIB process for Freedmen. CDIB enrollment for Freedmen would mean automatic access to critical programs like tribal health care, housing programs and more.“

To read the full blog post: https://www.choctawnation.com/chief-blog-full

02/23/2021

Do you know of any Freedmen (and particularly Seminole Freedmen) who have been denied a COVID vaccine at an IHS site due to being Freedmen? If so, please reach out to us if you would like your story featured in a news story. There is a reporter doing a story on Freedmen and the COVID vaccine.

Did you know that Freedmen of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek Nations could be fined up to $250,000 and could face up ...
01/11/2021

Did you know that Freedmen of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek Nations could be fined up to $250,000 and could face up to 5 years in federal prison for creating traditional arts and crafts and selling them with our tribal labels or with Native labels? Because we are not citizens of our federally-recognized tribes (due to anti-Black racism in our tribes), we are not protected under the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, and could this be punished for selling Native American art and crafts. We are not able to
equally practice our traditional crafts or traditional ways, from arts and crafts (such as basket weaving, beading, quilt making, mat weaving, and bow making) to fishing and hunting, due to our ancestors’ African ancestry. This is one of the consequences of tribal Jim Crow laws.
These are some of the most fundamental rights that are afforded to Indigenous peoples, but because our tribes discriminate against us in seeking tribal citizenship, we are unable to equally participate in cultural ways and activities.

We must end this cultural genocide against Black Native Freedmen of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Muscogee Creek Nations and we must stand against the criminalization of Black Natives who simply want to practice their cultural art and crafts and sell them to others.

: For generations, white and Native historians claimed that Native slave-owners from the Five Tribes were less violent ...
01/03/2021

: For generations, white and Native historians claimed that Native slave-owners from the Five Tribes were less violent than white slave owners. The story of Lucy, a Black enslaved woman owned by a Choctaw master who was BURNED ALIVE by her female Choctaw owner disproves this myth.

In 1858 an enslaved man named Prince confessed to the murder of his master Richard Harkins. He claimed he had killed him with an axe to his head—transforming a tool of his forced labor to a weapon to end the life of his abusive enslaver. After Prince murdered Harkins,
he used a rope to a tie a rock to Harkins’s body and drowned him in a river. When he confessed under probable torture he “named” his accomplices, including his Aunt Lucy who he claimed urged him to kill Harkins for some time and even taught him how to tie the rope around his dead co**se in order to secure a rock for the drowning of his body.

When Prince’s Choctaw enslavers looked into the river to dig up Harkins’s body, they also found Prince’s body in the exact same spot and ruled his death a “suicide.” Lucy never confessed to the crime.

Lavinia Pitchlynn Harkins, Richard’s widow and Lucy’s slaveholder following his death, demanded that Lucy be put to death. Although she had never admitted to participating in the crime and maintained her innocence, she was to be executed, by being violently and torturously burned alive in front of an audience of other Choctaws. Lavinia Pitchlynn’s family members described her as “a raving maniac,” “deranged,” and “half-crazy,” when discussing the public burning of Lucy.

Next to the co**se of her deceased nephew, Prince, Lucy was “placed upon a log heap and burnt up” alive. She was burned alive in front of “many persons,” similar to the rampant lynchings that would take place against Black people in the Jim Crow period. Lucy may very well have been the first Black woman to ever be publicly lynched—she was publicly burned alive—in Indian Territory or the United States at large.

If you would like to read more about this story, please consult "Black Slaves, Indian Masters: Slavery, Emancipation, and Citizenship in the Native American South."

You can also consult this blogpost from , where she discusses the possibilities for how this event could have not only impacted Lucy, but her descendants as well. (it's also free!) http://choctawfreedmenlegacy.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-burning-of-lucy-choctaw-slave.html

I found an amazing photo on the Oklahoma Historical Society website of Choctaw Freedmen bow fishing in 1902 and decided ...
01/02/2021

I found an amazing photo on the Oklahoma Historical Society website of Choctaw Freedmen bow fishing in 1902 and decided to try colorizing it on MyHeritage and the results are amazing! The Choctaw term for a fishing bow is "Tanamp Shibata."

Despite this being a central part of our ancestors' way of life pre-statehood, Choctaw Freedmen now cannot apply for Choctaw fishing and hunting licenses because we are not tribal citizens. Being blocked from citizenship also affects our human rights as Indigenous people to our Indigenous ways of life and to our culture.

01/01/2021

Afammi Himitta' Ayokpa! ✨🌟💫🌠🎆🎉🎊
(“Happy New Year!” in Chikashshanompa’, the Chickasaw language)

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