The Choctaw freedmen were enslaved African Americans who became part of the Choctaw Nation with emancipation after the American Civil War, a requirement of the 1866 treaty the US made with the Choctaw. The Choctaw had sided with the Confederacy during the war.
"Freedmen" is one of the terms given to the newly emancipated people after slavery was abolished in the United States. The Choctaw freedmen were adopted into the Choctaw Nation in 1885.
Like other tribes, the Choctaw had held slaves as captives from warfare. As they adopted elements of European culture, such as larger farms and plantations, they began to adapt their system for one of chattel slavery of workers of African descent. Moshulatubbee had slaves, as did many of the European men, generally fur traders, who married into the Choctaw nation. The Folsom and LeFlore families were some of the planters who held the most slaves. Slavery lasted in the Choctaw Nation until 1866. Former slaves of the Choctaw Nation would be called the Choctaw freedmen. The family of African descent and distinct free status in the Choctaw Nation at the time of Indian Removal was the Beams family.
Famous quotes containing the word freedmen:
“The thing that struck me forcefully was the feeling of great age about the place. Standing on that old parade ground, which is now a cricket field, I could feel the dead generations crowding me. Here was the oldest settlement of freedmen in the Western world, no doubt. Men who had thrown off the bands of slavery by their own courage and ingenuity. The courage and daring of the Maroons strike like a purple beam across the history of Jamaica.”
—Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960)