Eye for an Eye: The Role of Armed Resistance ... - Freedom Archives

The fear of Red/ Black solidarity was based on their negative experiences
of collaborative efforts between Native nations and Africans . When Africans and
indigenous people were enslaved together they often worked in solidarity to
escape . Throughout the Americas, Africans joined indigenous communities and
offered contributions in agriculture and defense . Africans also offered to the
indigenous communities intelligence of the operations of the settler colony, as
well as expropriated tools, weapons, and supplies . The historical union between
Africans and indigenous people in North America is evident today as about one
third of people ofAfrican descent in the U.S.A. possess Native American
ancestry . 9
The warrior tradition of Africa and indigenous America surely merged in
the French Colonial Louisiana, in what is currently southwest Mississippi, when
predominately Bambara maroons aligned themselves with the indigenous Natchez
nation in the early eighteenth century . Previously, during the Yemassee War of
1715, the Natchez had incorporated African maroons in a conflict with the British .
In 1729, challenging French expansion, the Natchez offered freedom to Africans
supporting their efforts to attack a French settlement on their territory. Those
Africans remaining loyal to the French would be sold to other indigenous nations.
along with any French who were captured . With the support of the majority of
Africans at the French settlement in Natchez territory, the Natchez were able to
capture the settlement without much resistance from the whites . The French found
their white settler military unable to defeat the Natchez and their African allies .
Given the inadequacy of the settler's own troops, the French found it necessary to
align themselves with indigenous nations, including the Choctaw and Tunica