An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

Some Black folks was trippin’! Why did they cast a Black British
woman? Some argued that it would have been more appropriate to choose a
Black American because, I suppose, they would be able to act the part
better? Is it because of their post-traumatic slave syndrome? I don’t know
about Erivo’s history, but something tells me her ancestors didn’t come on
Christopher Columbus’s boats.
The other reason Black American folks didn’t want her to play the part
was because of some tweets she put out in these Twitter streets years ago. In
them, she allegedly disrespected Black English. I find any disrespect of
Black English offensive. Black Americans have had a strained relationship
to Ebonics, too, however. In 1996, when activists and educators from the
Oakland Unified School District tried to educate teachers about Ebonics,
and make it a part of the curriculum as a way for Black students to more
effectively learn so-called standard American English, people—African
Americans—across the country were mad. Even civil rights icon Jesse
Jackson and the late, literary ancestor-genius Maya Angelou stated publicly
that the idea of Black English being a separate language was absurd. 13 My
major concern, though, is not actually with Black English.
In Harriet, we see Black and Indigenous worlds collide; we see the
history of African enslavement and freedom, and a Native person impeding
that freedom. The enslaver of Harriet pays a notorious slave catcher money
to assemble a team to track and hunt down Tubman. In the scene where the
slave catchers receive their orders, there is a Native person who emerges on
the screen. In an interview, Focus Features asked Howard, “Are all the
characters in Harriet written from history?” He responded that most of the
characters are either based on real-life people or composites of several
people. He further commented, “People don’t pay for historical accuracy;
they pay for a good story.” 14 I wonder how and why Howard, and I assume
Lemmons, chose to cast a tribally unidentified Native slave catcher? Where
did they find that history, and how does it improve upon a good story about
Tubman’s role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad to freedom?
Some Native people in tribes enslaved Africans; they were slave owners
and slave catchers. Some treaties, like the 1823 treaty between the Florida
Native nations and the US government, explicitly mention that tribes that
capture Africans who escaped their captivity would be compensated. In
1860, enslaved Africans made up 15 percent of the Cherokee Nation’s total
population; in the Chickasaw Nation, that number was 18 percent; the