An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

Achebe’s book is taught in high schools around the US but exclusively
as African literature. What if it was taught as an Indigenous book in a
global Indigenous studies course? Again, would that help us think
differently about Black Americans? Would it help us think carefully about
Black and Indigenous relationships today and going forward? Mankiller
offered four reasons why it is important to discuss these relationships, the
first being that it is necessary to build coalitions with Black Americans,
even though she often believes that at times their issues, especially during
the civil rights movement, are different. She argued, “I had a great deal of
trouble explaining to my friends who were working in the Civil Rights
Movement that while the civil rights movement tried to help people gain
entry into the system, we were fighting to understand our different issues
here.” 16 Though I think that is a simplification of Black freedom struggles,
it is a common belief.
The second reason she offered is the rampant antiblackness in US
society. She illustrated her point by touching on the issue of white-looking
Native people being easily accepted as Natives by whites, remarking, “If
you meet someone who says I am half white and half Yakama, or half white
and half Oneida, or whatever, people tend to accept those people. But, if
you find someone who says I am half black and half Oneida, Yakama, or
Cherokee, people have more difficulty with that.”
The third reason she gave, related to the previous one, was the
antiblackness within Indian Country. Namely, she spoke specifically about
the Seminole Nation’s 2000 expelling of Freedmen, whom she explicitly
referred to as citizens. She commented that this raised several issues,
including “the tribal right, which tribes have fought for since the beginning
of contact, to determine who is their membership” and “the civil and human
rights of the Freedmen, and to bring together these very different issues—
they are sort of at a juncture, and I think that we are going to see these
issues arise more often.” Finally, she ended her remarks with the fourth
reason: the importance of kinship and connection. She stated that she could
look at Black folks and say, “That person is Creek, or that person is
Cherokee,” which made her think about the lost connections and possibility
of reconnecting those people of African descent to their US Indigenous
roots.
Chief Mankiller, who passed in 2010, was a fantastic leader of the
Cherokee Nation and well respected in Indian Country. She also tried her