Transcripts For CSPAN2 Freed 20240704

Paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable elizabeth warren, a senator from the commonwealth of massachusetts to perform the duties of the chair. Signed patty murray, president pro tempore. The presiding officer under the previous order, the senate stans adjourned until 12 00 p. M. On friday, august 4, 2023. The u. S. Senate is not in session for the month of august at a portion of september to work in their home states. Lawmakers will be back to legislative business tuesday september 5th we will wu live coverage here on cspan2. Sport sometimes it looks better. As far as intermarriage, there are relatively small amounts of intermarriage especially in the chickasaw and choctaw nations. There are people like the father of John Hope Franklin talks about his grandmother being choctaw. The art kind of stories of this intermarriage but when it comes down to it there is relatively little of that particularly on the nations of the creek and nations have more but theres always a kind of fear of intermarriage and interracial sex is going to create people who are viewed as black and not as native you see that a lot of legislation and all of these tribes are bidding interracial sex, interracial marriage, citizenship for interracial children and the book talks about how it was difficult to have an interracial marriage or interracial sexual relationship that produces children and how those mixedrace children were treated differently depending on how the nation was thinking that citizenship and think about kinship and maligning at that time. Thank you. Those two books are greater i recommend them for anybody whos interested inin this topic learning more. This is a question that again ties to the discussion that everybody is having right now, not everybody but lots of people having within society right now. Thank you for your insightful discussion but my question is about reparation. Discussion of reparations are gaining traction particularly across academic institutions benefit from ever built with slave labor artist discussion of what reparation for the sins of slaves and free people of the five tribes may look like if at all. I was just having thi conversation onwi twitter. So in my book i loosely called the land allotment as reparations added to that because the white americans who are orchestrating this allotment are t doing it definitely to create native dispossession, to get a foothold in turning apart native nations making it part of the United States while also a lot of these men are republicans who do think that Land Ownership is something that will allow black people to kind of create their own communities, to build themselves up after slavery, and so this is usually in paternalistic words and thinking but i still feel like it is really whats the intent to makea difference in these black peoples lives, even if theyre not at all willing to do that in the United States site you think of thatou land allotment is something that did economically and socially change the lives of those free people in the economist Melinda Miller has done work that shows cherokee free people did have better education, better wealth accumulation as result of the land allotment spirit it didnt come willingly fromes these intimations. It still is something that is given with the desire to make a difference and does make a difference. And will continue to create generational wealth if not for like black poultry, the destruction in the tulsa massacre. Of course the conversation about the tulsa massacre reparation for that is ongoing and its really one of the clearest examples of black wealth that has been purposely destroyed. There are plenty of records that show exactly what people lost. One of the survivors who spoke tour carvers spoke about how her life changed, her economic circumstances changed after the massacre and get there still no ability or desire to end that conversation by saying yes, we owe you something, not just an apology but also financially. The reparations discussion i think is interesting in indian territory because i feel like it did happen and that reconstruction was used as sort of an experiment in land, by his possession for black people but also its just kind of an example of how racism in the United States works and that it builds on itself even if you get out after slavery, maybe everything you had just blew up because of racist white people and know what do you do what now you have to start over again. Even if you do that whats going to happen when red line comes up whats goingoi to happen when sh and such comes . Its almost impossible to escape. So yeah, basically i think oaklawn is a great study on reparations and a real need for it. Thanks. Baptized another question that we got in the chat about sort of the aftermath of the allotments. After engine free people were given allotments with able to maintain that land . Youve talked about multiple other barriers that come up here are the black land owners today who can trace the allotments in oakland back to the 1866 treaty . Want to hear about what the aftermath of that is. Yeah. My family still has the land allotment theres at least one if theyre still there and its funny because you see the deed, now, i dont know, 30, 40 people because every generation there are more and more owners almost. There are many families like that in oklahoma, but, unfortunately, there were kind of guards putut in place to protect native and free people by not having to pay taxes and also racist paternalistic but not aligned to sell the allotments which is on the one hand, beneficial and on the other hand, harmful because some of them needed that land or needed that money to eat or to buy things. Eventually a few years out from the end of allotment those restrictions are taken off. Meetingg native and black people dont realize those restrictions taken off and they dont pay taxes and they lose their land that way. Sometimes there are people who are kind of schemers and cheaters who steal their land away through various means like many of these people are still illiterate especially the older generations and so sometimes they find things come there land is gone. But there are also people like maybe some people know who at one point was richest black girl actually the rich history in general may bee in the United States. Who was ahe freed person dissend and was able to keep all the wealth from her land and that came from oil and natural gas through her darting appointed through the United States. There are Success Stories like on a very high level. Thereer are middle income stores like my family. Never got money from the land allotment but still very sentimentally important i think that we still have the lamp in our family. He and then there are many more people dont have that land anymore for various reasons, most of which were out of their control. Thank you. We have a couple of different questions about the differences between some of the tribes that helped slaves. I will sayit that generally and then follow up with more specific things folks are asking. One person asked that following up on what you talked about with the treaty of 1866, some tribes resisted such as the chickasaw resisted adoption more successfully. Can you talk about the differences between the stripes in terms of the relationship with freed people and how do you understand those differences in ways that might challenge existing scholarship on this topic . Im not sure i understand the differences between the five tribes in ways that challenges existing scholarships here there hasnt been that much work done on the chickasaws, and more on the choctaws but still not as much as a for charities or the creeks. Generally cherokee investment the chickasaws are notably disliking black people. The historical sources say that their travel agents, white men who come into these nations all savior, surprised at how badly black people are treated or how badly chickasaw choctaw indians think about b black people come not that they their racialr the other nations, i think you kindn of in a better way and a click away, around in the cherokee, creek nations to adoption and to allowing black people and black indians to take on leadership roles to play part in government, whereas as you mentioned in the chickasaw mission, free people are never adopted. So theres nothing we can even put you to say at one time we were adopted and that we were disenfranchised are they signed a treaty at a never followed through on those promises choctaws did at a later date but because the chickasaw and choctaw treaties were tied together, it didnt necessarily come to the end of the treaty was supposed to come to touch her okay. Alcon explained that . The choctaws and chickasaws have an interesting treaty because the Unitedd States said you can adopt these people, or you cannot adopt them but if you dont adopt them youre not going to getut the money for the land that we have just taken from you, bought from you. Its an interesting choice given to them, and ive always searched for documents of why they were given s this specific choice there i havent found them. Maybe someone else will but have to draw a conclusion that this prejudice among these nations was no and he thought theyre not going to adopt them, then we will get to keep that money, its really great to have been lawsuits back and forth between the two nations and the United States over that money and over that difference in those treaties, but that is the biggest difference. There are other differences in how much light is given to free people in all the treaties. The choctaw and chickasaw nation treaties is the only treaty not to have what you call a guilt clause but they dont admit any guilt for aligned themselves with the confederacy, whereas the other nations do that in the treaties and so another kind of, another part of the difference in the choctaws and chickasaws is designed to educate their children and decided its too important for them to know about the United States so that kind of strategic choice that they made to buy into certain american things that ended up helping them out in multiple ways. Thank you. We have a couple of the questions about sort of the aftermath. Once these different tribes are required to extend citizenship and land to engine freed people. One is a question about boarding schools did indeed free people during the allotment periodg wht ever forced to go to boarding schools in the same way native children were during this time . We talked about that briefly before. Admin this is another question about of course after this time you have the dog roles and lots with the United States government tries to make sense of these populations of people. One person is asking if there was pressure from indian freed people to identify as either black or native on the census . And if that was a choice that people are able a to make personally on one that was sort of forced upon them . Well, so there was a twitter account called choctaw friedman that is from, i believe there are undergrads at columbia and theyre also friedman dissented andlo they have a wealth of information as it introduced me to think that i did know. They were talking about a boarding school the other day where freed people went. I had never felt anything in my resources that talk to freed people forceder to go to boardig schools but there are many schools where black and native people not necessarily black native people but africanamericans and native americans came in contact with like the talk saw academy and there also places like hampton and black schools where native students with, either voluntarily or forcibly. So those are examples of black and native people againes being pushed into this subservient role because these are stools where they can learn to be secondclass citizen. There are lots of interesting examples about how theres camaraderie and alliance in the schools but also racism and prejudice against each other. Your second question, so entail, gosh, what is a, 1960 i think you didnt get to choose your own race on the consensus. Offenses taker, using a white person would come to your door and decide what race you are based on how you look, sometimes based on our people were in your household how they look my family on one senses we are natives and an earlier census on the next census we are black. If that because someone else came to the door the next time . There are multiple reasons why, but it actually creates an issue for historians after people doing genealogical work because it can be hard to trace your family and to see if youre trying to find out was my family native how do they racial identify because races change all the time from senses to senses that after the census i know it was a really big thing where people could check multiple boxes iul think those y be on the last no, the last, like two ago were you to be multiracial sudley. That was kind of really great black and native people who were finally able to have the whole identity as well as a lot of other mixedrace people. Thanks. We have time for about one more question and we have a couple of questions in here about your Research Methodology and a couple people are interested in researching their own family history. I wonder if you could talk about some of the challenges you faced in archives, in oral tradition, speaking about methodology to the field edges bringing some of these unheard voices to the forefront. How that worked in your own research and need advice you have for others are interested in exploring their own family histories that are tied to this past spirit my first order of advice iss the minute you start thinking about it, Start Talking to people especially your elders. I waited too long and many of my elders have passed on which is something i will always regret. I did get to interview some of them because i knew that it would be important for me to have my family and my book, which they are. But also while oral histories and family narratives are important, you want to make sure that there interspersed with archival sources and things that you can also kind of point to to say look, like this was a pattern picketed just happened with my family, or perhaps it happened carefully to my family so this shows Something Else about history and how certain prophecies happen so, for example, my second cousin who was one of my big kind of treasure trove told me about a story of my great greatgreatgrandfather being told by his former owner that he could ride on a horse as long as he could write all of the horse he couldn live on that land. And he did it. He had a very big piece of land to land allotment broke that up i was like okay, that sounds legal but also stands something will be in a tv show. And i found it to other times in archives, people saying similar things. Okay, two other times but still it means that its not just kind of an exaggeration or a fabrication. It means itea happened a few times. Maybe it was rare but it still shows this sort of relationship between black and native people in a certain weight after the civil war. So gather as much information as you can. Use things like the dawes rolls, for customers that iss a place like ancestry. Com, and then use genealogical resources, the black native run by angeline gosh it was amazing to him with as a College Student like can you guys help me . I think this person is my relative they were amazing so the community is it there and they are ready and willing to help you. Its just come in and be humble because i think we all want to find visually interesting parts of our family t history, but dot come and wine to find a certain thing because that can lead to heartbreakan sometimes. Say cupit i think thats good advice here thank you so much, dr. Roberts this was a wonderful conversation and i appreciate you sharing your knowledge with us. 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