An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

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Choctaw owned 14 percent and the Creek 10 percent. 15 These are not small numbers, though a large majority were owned by a few elite families. White people also enslaved Native people. The history is clear. A popular myth that Black people perpetuate suggests that a large majority of Native people owned their Black ancestors. That is not true. The movie Harriet, in two scenes, falls into the trap of this myth. An unidentified Native male who has no lines of dialogue stands in the background among the Black and white slave catchers trying to capture Harriet Tubman. It makes me wonder why the producers and scriptwriters included that detail in the first place? Was Harriet Tubman actually followed by Native slave catchers? Did the producers and scriptwriters want a more inclusive history by including a Native person? Did they want to show Native complicity in slavery? The script does not make this clear. 16 In failing to give the person context and a history, we can perpetuate the idea of Native invisibility and erase their own motives for even engaging with enslavement. While it was wrong for the Five Tribes to own Africans, they existed in a time where white settlers were encroaching on their land. They made a difficult and terrible choice to own slaves. And let me be clear: Native slave masters weren’t better than white ones. 17 To say that Native people were being benevolent is some sick historical mythology, bordering on reproducing the Noble Savage stereotype. If we could ask some of the enslaved Africans, I’m sure they ain’t want to be enslaved at all, whether their treatment was benevolent or not. Owning Africans was an egregious practice, regardless of who the owners were. I recognize that as a Hollywood production, this film can’t cover everything, and that you have to do things for dramatic effect. Nonetheless, Native characters can’t exist as some fantasy to serve simply as a foil for Black freedom. If Black and Indigenous solidarity is important, we also have to be fair in our approach to portraying each other on the big screen, in theater, on television, in music. I wouldn’t be mad about a Native slave catcher if the character had some dimension to him. Instead, all we see is a Native man, along with Black male slave catchers, trying to capture a Black woman. We can do better than this, and our future visual media must engage in some forms of solidarity. TECUMSEH AND THE FIGHT FOR INDIGENOUS JUSTICE
In the early part of the nineteenth century, the name Tecumseh represented an important part of British, US, and Indigenous struggles for land and sovereignty. Peter Cozzens, author of Tecumseh and the Prophet (2020), argues that Tecumseh “advocated a political and military alliance to oppose U.S. encroachment on Indian land.” 18 The majority of these lands were in the Northwest Territory, which consists of the present-day Midwest. He, along with his brother, Tenskwatawa the Prophet, was someone who struggled to bring Native people together and to keep the land that they had intact. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 formally ended the Revolutionary War between the US colonists and the British. After the thirteen original colonies received their political independence, it created further issues with tribal nations like the Shawnee in the Northwest Territory. But it was the Treaty of Greenville (1795) that created the largest issue. Ninety-nine chiefs signed onto the treaty. They agreed to give up all of their land except for northwestern Ohio. Other parts of the treaty allowed the US to construct forts in the middle of Indigenous land. The tribes were able to continue hunting at will and the US government agreed to protect the tribal land from white settlers trying to take it. However, this treaty sought to fundamentally change Indigenous people’s way of life by encouraging them to farm rather than hunt. 19 After the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, increasing numbers of settlers began to populate the region anyway, encroaching on Shawnee land. In addition, the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809), which gave the US several millions of acres in Illinois and Indiana, flooded the area with whites. But Tecumseh never signed the treaty, as the Shawnee were excluded from it, and the land lost as a result was the tipping point for Tecumseh and others. In the fall of 1806, Tecumseh sent out invitations to tribes, even ones they had fought, to join him and the Shawnee in Prophetstown, present-day Lafayette, Indiana. Over two summers, in 1807 and 1808, Tecumseh and the Shawnee were joined by Delawares, Ottawas, and Chippewas, Potawatomis, Kickapoos, Miamis, Sacs, and Wyandots. They were enamored with Tenskwatawa and his message for revitalizing their cultures in the hopes of forever getting rid of the whites and reclaiming their land. 20 Tecumseh ultimately sought to form a confederacy of Indigenous nations to challenge US encroachment on Indigenous land. They understood the importance of previous attempts like that of Pontiac, who forged alliances with tribes seeking to reclaim forts in the Midwest. However, they
Page 4 and 5:
PRAISE FOR AN AFRO-INDIGENOUS HISTO
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REVISIONING HISTORY SERIES A Queer
Page 10 and 11:
To Liseth, El Don, ChiChi
Page 12 and 13:
CHAPTER SEVEN Black and Indigenous
Page 14 and 15: Indigenous people in our collective
Page 16 and 17: and places. In fact, the whole book
Page 18 and 19: INTRODUCTION Thousands of volumes h
Page 20 and 21: RECONNECTING DISCONNECTED HISTORIES
Page 22 and 23: solidarity between Black and white
Page 24 and 25: important to understand how the whi
Page 26 and 27: Indigenous peoples have sought ways
Page 28 and 29: need both movements, as both are he
Page 30 and 31: Some established (mostly white male
Page 32 and 33: meeting between a variety of Indige
Page 34 and 35: Atlantic Diaspora Connections (2009
Page 36 and 37: During every Black History Month in
Page 38 and 39: consciousness, and to a considerabl
Page 40 and 41: PAUL CUFFE Perhaps one of the earli
Page 42 and 43: Afro-Indigenous peoples in the Unit
Page 44 and 45: antiblackness. Finally, these exper
Page 46 and 47: America. There was so much we cover
Page 48 and 49: president-general and another counc
Page 50 and 51: the dehumanization of Native people
Page 52 and 53: On March 4, 1801, Jefferson, during
Page 54 and 55: lasting in its impact than that wit
Page 56 and 57: The Native person could not truly e
Page 58 and 59: CHAPTER THREE ENSLAVEMENT, DISPOSSE
Page 60 and 61: local autonomy—Reconstruction cha
Page 62 and 63: unpleasant, but we must try and com
Page 66 and 67: surpassed those predecessors by per
Page 68 and 69: eaders to reconsider the role of In
Page 70 and 71: a time they moved back to Wisconsin
Page 72 and 73: white people were interested in rem
Page 74 and 75: of their resistance to white encroa
Page 76 and 77: liberation and women’s rights. Ty
Page 78 and 79: covered numerous topics in the spee
Page 80 and 81: commit the same sin that the nation
Page 82 and 83: had to change. They could no longer
Page 84 and 85: Still, Native people continued to s
Page 86 and 87: government’s boarding schools and
Page 88 and 89: civilization and its so-called virt
Page 90 and 91: function of the National Associatio
Page 92 and 93: treatment with white men, . . . [th
Page 94 and 95: In the post-Garvey era, after the U
Page 96 and 97: learned about the prolific and viol
Page 98 and 99: Eastman likely participated in the
Page 100 and 101: Du Bois’s paper offered a broad s
Page 102 and 103: and men to assert their right to ci
Page 104 and 105: CHAPTER FIVE BLACK AMERICANS AND NA
Page 106 and 107: gap we have today, are rooted in ea
Page 108 and 109: Black Americans remembered this Ind
Page 110 and 111: legacies have been tainted. People
Page 112 and 113: Here, King describes the root of ra
Page 114 and 115:
working as a collective to achieve
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egistered in Mississippi. She helpe
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surprising if she did. The Choctaw
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understand history, how they practi
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indeed fought in every war since th
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US, given that the US was not Black
Page 126 and 127:
Malcolm understood well the connect
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me think in terms of American’s i
Page 130 and 131:
In the following scene in the docum
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the land, isn’t four hundred year
Page 134 and 135:
For the majority of white Americans
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this growing unity is the best assu
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with hardly any people of color wil
Page 140 and 141:
did their best to understand how th
Page 142 and 143:
“It was not until Malcolm X came
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lived there. What about their claim
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and operates under a racist and imm
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oth deeply invested in Black civil
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challenge the assumed authority of
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Committee. BWLC, with Frances Beal
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international monopoly finance capi
Page 156 and 157:
Conference on Indigenous Peoples an
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awarded until 2011, and discontinue
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CHAPTER SEVEN BLACK AND INDIGENOUS
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practices and incorporate them into
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e performing minstrelsy without eve
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influenced by racist oppression, th
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Beyond the specifics of this incide
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acism and sexism, as well as across
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there is hardly any chance in hell
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For example, in July 2007, in Detro
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No one wants to be a r*dsk*n. It is
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even absurdly funny. The use of the
Page 180 and 181:
was trying to make. Jones responded
Page 182 and 183:
Desus sarcastically adds, “How ca
Page 184 and 185:
CHAPTER EIGHT THE MATTER OF BLACK A
Page 186 and 187:
Indigenous and Latinx police, “sh
Page 188 and 189:
protester and getting hit with them
Page 190 and 191:
Native people’s use of tropes, sl
Page 192 and 193:
CONCLUSION THE POSSIBILITIES FOR AF
Page 194 and 195:
“they are the problem” and tell
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oppression and white supremacy. . .
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movements.” 14 We can learn from
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est to acknowledge the importance o
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Ta-Nehisi Coates’s fantastic arti
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possible. Our imaginations, coupled
Page 206 and 207:
to people of African descent. I don
Page 208 and 209:
2. You know how Indigenous Nations
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they treated? We should instead cen
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Indigenousness are not so different
Page 214 and 215:
maintain African enslavement. For n
Page 216 and 217:
opposed to her likely believe that
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS YOU DON‘T WRITE a
Page 220 and 221:
Emory University. Thank you to the
Page 222 and 223:
5. Patrick Wolfe, Traces of History
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the initiative strikes which open t
Page 226 and 227:
13. Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the
Page 228 and 229:
28. Robert Dale Parker, ed., The So
Page 230 and 231:
8. Andrew Woolford, This Benevolent
Page 232 and 233:
6. Malinda Maynor Lowery, The Lumbe
Page 234 and 235:
CHAPTER 6. BLACK POWER AND RED POWE
Page 236 and 237:
47. William H. McClendon, “The Bl
Page 238 and 239:
15. Abaki Beck, “Rendered Invisib
Page 240 and 241:
1. Billy-Ray Belcourt and Lindsay N
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Name: The Harmful Consequences of P
Page 244 and 245:
INDEX Please note that page numbers
Page 246 and 247:
Beck, Abaki, 143, 144 The Beginning
Page 248 and 249:
Chicago Defender (publication), 76,
Page 250 and 251:
Dyson, Michael Eric, 140, 149 Eagle
Page 252 and 253:
Hamilton, Charles, 110 Hampton, Fre
Page 254 and 255:
Kaplan, Amy, 205n54 Katznelson, Ira
Page 256 and 257:
Metacomet (chief), 60 Metropolitan
Page 258 and 259:
N.W.A. (band), 161 N-word, as term,
Page 260 and 261:
Red Cloud (Oglala Lakota leader), 6
Page 262 and 263:
“The Souls of White Folk” (Du B
Page 264 and 265:
Wheatley, Phillis, xxii, 8-10, 14,
Page 266 and 267:
North and South American activists
Page 268 and 269:
Dennis Banks and unknown woman at a
Page 270:
Audience at a rally in support of D
Page 273:
American Indian Movement member and
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An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

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