Date of Award
8-1-1945
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Abstract
Excerpt: "Negro slavery existed among the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes. The development of Negro slavery as an institution is traced from their home in the South as early as 1830 to their new home in the West. The story terminates some forty years after the end of the war between the states when the intervention of the Federal Government effected a final settlement of the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation. After a brief early history of the Choctaws and Chickasaws the story is given of the removal of these Indians to the West, pushed on by pressure from the white man, and the Negro slave who was an integral part of the exodus. A record is given of the growth of slavery into an institution, the desolation, poverty and economic destruction following the Civil War and emancipation. The long legal battle between the United States, and the Choctaws and the Chickasaws over the provision of the Treaty of 1866 which emancipated the slaves, resulted in adoption for the Choctaw freedmen and the allotment of forty acres of land to both Choctaw and Chickasaw freedmen. Negro slavery existed among the Choctaws and Chickasaws and was found profitable in clearing the fields and tilling the soil. Their slave labor was not as efficient as that of the slaves of the southern whites. Slavery took various forms among the different tribes and with individual owners within the tribes. The owners were mainly humane and the brutal type was the exception to the rule. There were many instances of servile devotion and fidelity which was evident, even after emancipation. The Archives Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society, located in the Oklahoma Historical Society building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, proved a valuable source for the study. [...] The Carnegie library and the Oklahoma library commission likewise contain many rare books on Indian history which proved valuable."
Recommended Citation
Jeltz, Wyatt F., "A Study of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians as slaveholders" (1945). Electronic Theses & Dissertations. 433.
https://digitalcommons.pittstate.edu/etd/433
Comments
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