An Afro-Indigenous History of the United States

allowed that “[Natives] may, without a doubt, be naturalized by the
authority of Congress, and become citizens of a State, and of the United
States.” 38 Taney continued: “If an individual should leave his nation or
tribe, and take up his abode among the white population, he would be
entitled to all the rights and privileges which would belong to an emigrant
from any other foreign people.” 39 Taney opined that Native people could
become citizens as long as they assimilated and adopted whiteness, and
Black people, under no circumstance, could not. Finally, Taney affirmed—
within the confines of colonialism—the humanity of Native people, while
asserting that Black folks were “articles of merchandise.”
We see, again, that in US history, African and Indigenous peoples in the
US have been intimately linked. Even more, the creators of the US nationstate
and democratic project found ways to connect them in unexpected
ways, including via the legal realm.
AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY
White men in the early part of the nineteenth century understood the
connections between creating a white republic, removing Black and
Indigenous peoples, and further colonizing the land. It is no surprise that
white politicians supported, across party lines, the American Colonization
Society (ACS). Founded in 1816, the goal was to remove free African
Americans and enslaved Africans and send them to Africa so that they
could simultaneously abolish slavery, remove Black people, and create a
white republic. White people at that time were scared. They had a reason to
be concerned. Enslaved African insurrections were always possible, as
demonstrated by Haiti, which through revolution became the first Black
nation and the second independent democratic nation in the West. As
historian Brandon Byrd argues, “In the antebellum United States, Haiti
became synonymous with slave insurrection and black barbarism. It came
to mean the specter of abolitionism, and for that it was shunned.” 40 For
slave owners, Haiti, as a representation of Black revolutionary possibility,
“undermined the power of white planters and businessmen who reaped
from black labor the greatest profits that the world had ever seen.” For
those looking for equality, “it encouraged other visions of emancipation and
emboldened champions of racial equality.” 41 Thus, it is not surprising that