Nikole Hanna-Jones: 1619 Project, “Dispossession” Notes and Summary by Trya Miles

1. Native Americans
   • There was a natural conflict between Native peoples and the new American government following the American Revolution.  Put simply, the conflict was about who owned the land.
   • In 1885 the Hopewell Treaty began the practice of negotiation between White “Americans” and native peoples, mostly in this case the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations.
   • Blacks constituted a third group who could join the natives
   • Anglo-Cherokee War: British troops and Cherokees were in a smoldering war that lasted through the War for Independence
   • Southern tribes during the War for Independence period had settled throughout the South.
   • These were squeezed in the three-way struggle between Patriots, British.
   • The Hopewell treaty
   • Andrew Pickens presided over the Hopewell gathering.
   • Pickens was a slave owner and was awarded formerly Cherokee land on which he established an estate. 
   • White settlers were already establishing homesteads on Cherokee land and the new US government was disinclined to evict them.
   • The natives faced a difficult situation, namely sign treaties with the new United States or face ongoing military encroachment.
   • The terms of the treaty were that the Natives would return all prisoners, White and Black, and submit to the authority of the US in exchange for a promise that the govt. would limit further settlement.
   • In subtle ways, this treaty granted a kind of citizenship to the Natives, which was lacking for Blacks.  Thus, the racial social framework was being built in these agreements.
   • Blacks and Native Americans today suffer from low-caste difficulties like poor health outcomes and poverty.
   • Britain struck a deal forbidding Whites from moving Westward. 
   • Additionally, the British struck a trade agreement with natives.
   • This Proclamation of 1763 created a struggle between settler Whites and Britain for land. 
   • Southerners were becoming more populous and wanted lands to the West on which to settle.
   • Book:  Calloway The Indian World of George Washington:
   • The British did not control most of the lands signed over in the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolution—Native people did, and some of the aggrieved Cherokee men continued to fight against the Americans in the interior.
   • The British had developed a variety of strategies for classifying Native Americans and dealing with them.  The new White Americans adopted some of these
   • Natives were treated as citizens of their own nations
   • They were seen as citizens of a lower order society
   • They were not Christian and thus suffered status as heathens
   • Whites practiced the doctrine of discovery.  This held that lands occupied by indigenous peoples who may not have developed it were not Christian came to belong to civilized Europeans
   • White settlers honored property rights, but used misdeeds by natives as pretexts for counter-attacks and land grabs.
2. Slavery
   • The United States made treaties with tribal nations as with foreign governments, even if these nations were not seen as fully equivalent to European states.
   • The Hopewell Treaty established a boundary and it established slavery
   • Mississippian chiefdoms.     
   • This was a hierarchical form of social organization and included slavery
   • Slaves were often captured from other societies.
   • Intermixing of African and Native Enslaved People   
   • These European Explorers in the 1500’s arrived with dark skinned enslaved Africans
   • deSoto marched from coastal Florida through the inner reaches of Georgia and Carolina, attacking Native villages, raiding their food supplies, ransacking their dwellings in search of gold and silver, and capturing some of the inhabitants.
   • The story of Lady Cofitachequi, a tribal leader who took up with a Spanish Slave, doubtless and African, illustrates the natural alliance that could exist between Blacks and Native peoples.
   • As native populations collapsed, due in some part to disease, Natives engaged in an active slave trade with the settlers.  The Natives took as slaves people from enemy tribes.
   • At least thirty to fifty thousand Indigenous Southerners were enslaved by Anglo colonists before the year 1715.
   • At the same time a vigorous African slave trade, including the “middle passage” was emerging
3. Cultural mixing
   • Before American slavery was Africanized, Natives and Africans mixed their cultures and intermarried. 
   • There was much cross fertilization in crafts, herbal medicine, canoeing, and especially cooking.
   • Black and Native people also enacted small-scale rebellions
   • The Seminole, Creek, and Black people waged a war against American soldiers in the Seminole country of Florida in the early 1800s, American military commanders expressed consternation because of its interracial character.
   • Blacks and Natives soon came to be differentiated in the early 1800’s
   • The status of natives could change if they converted to Christianity, a privilege not afforded to Blacks, by legislation. 
   • Slavery was permanent for Blacks, not as much for natives.
   • Encroachment
   • Whites, despite treaties, encroached on native lands.
   • Chickamauga Cherokees relocated to a Tennessee River stronghold and from there launched a series of guerrilla attacks.
   • George Washington and his ilk were enlightenment thinkers and had a high view of indigenousness peoples. 
   • They ruled out extermination
   • Washington’s Address to Congress in 1791, six principles for federal relations with Native people;
   • “impartial” justice,
   • regulated methods of land sales and trade,
   • the right of the government to distribute diplomatic presents, penalties for those who violated Natives’ rights,
   • “rational experiments…for imparting to them the blessings of civilization.”
   • Treaty of Holston 1791, administered by Benjamin Hawkins was an effort to civilize Native Peoples, nudging them to farm and use less land.
   • The effort at cultural conversion encouraged change in crops, individualism, private property, male authority, and the adoption of Christianity.
   • the United States would provide tools, fund the establishment of Christian missions and schools, and commission blacksmiths.
   • And in this mix of cultural features, Native Americans were encouraged to enslave African descent people
   • As Hawkins traveled, he noticed that many natives were not employing slavery in the usual way.
   • Native women would still marry Blacks
   • Natives would work alongside Blacks in the fields.
   • Natives who became successful enslavers, were a small minority.  They were, however, elite social leaders which greatly magnified their influence.
   • James Vann, who was half Cherokee,
4. Andrew Jackson became president in 1828
   • Tightened the government’s outlook towards native population
   • Saw Native Americans as residents within the US rather than separate nations
   • Advocated outright removal of native peoples who obstructed economic progress.
   • Jackson thought that removal was in the native’s best interest
   • State officials picked up on Jackson’s rhetoric and began to be impatient with native settlements that obstructed economic activity in the various states.
5. Indian Removal Act 1830
   • Despite loud objections from native leaders, Jackson signed this measure which authorized removal of natives to points west of the Mississippi.
   • Georgia put a law into effect in 1830 which created the Georgia Guard to patrol Cherokee land and reassigned it to Whites. 
   • Women were harassed, the nation’s printing press destroyed, and arrested national leaders.
   • Even the Vann family was not spared.  They were forced to leave their home for Tennessee.  Five years later they needed to move again.
   • Treaty of New Echota in 1835
   • A group of Cherokee enslavers signed this treaty surrendering their lands and consented to resettlement in Louisiana Purchase Territory.
   • Despite objections by Whites in the north, congress ratified the treaty
   • Elite Cherokee, enslavers mostly, were the first to move in to Indian Territory.
   • The poor natives came under pressure from Winfield Scott and Georgia militia.  This forced march to the west became the famous Trail of Tears.
   • The 3/5 rule for representation gave southern states additional leverage in the vote passing the Treaty of New Echota.  This enabled southerners who desired Cherokee land extra leverage in obtaining it.
   • Additionally, traditional enslavers were able to move onto and work the land vacated by Cherokee people.
   • Book: David and Jeanne Heidler, Indian Removal.
   • Book: Saunt, Unworthy Nation
   • Descendants of Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes Association
   • This group, consisting of the 5 nations convened in 2020 to recover their own history.
   • The outbreak of the Civil War put pressure on the relocated Natives who resided in territory that had not yet become a state.
   • They needed to weigh whether to be loyal to the Union or the South.
   • This group, infused with enslaving plantation culture, actually sided with the confederacy.
   • After the Civil War, the natives, now settled in the West, still held about 8000 slaves, which needed to be freed.
   • Oklahoma 1907 became state
   • From the beginning of Oklahoma’s statehood, it was the intent of leaders that Native Americans would be aligned with Whites and Blacks would be consigned to a new set of Jim Crow law
6. Reunion
   • The chapter concludes with a description of current efforts of descendants of the Five Nations and African Americans to recover their unity and common history.
   • This demonstrates what I think is the point of the book. Decisions made early in the nation’s history continue to echo through time and are very real today. 

Summary: Chapter 5: “Dispossession” Trya Miles

In the early years following the American Revolution it was necessary for the British, Americans, Native Americans, and enslaved Africans to reorder themselves around the establishment of the United States.  Ultimately, the US government and White population had the upper hand in determining the status of and physical location of Native Americans and Blacks.  At the launch of the new country, Native Americans occupied most of the land, a situation that would change in favor of White settlers.  While Natives had second class status, the new American government treated them with a measure of respect.  The government made treaties with Native Americans as they did with peer European nations.   The US further attempted to “civilize” natives through education and relocation programs.  These efforts pressured Natives to plant European crops and to adopt a “White” style of living, mostly by not needing as much land space.  The US tried to give Natives dominance over Blacks by encouraging tribes or at least tribal elites to enslave them.  This was partially successful from the point of view of the American government.  The three-tiered social arrangement was somewhat confused when Blacks and Natives married, fought against the government together, or adopted one another’s cuisine, crafts, and cures.  The White population growth and the onslaught of immigrants increased the demands for land and with time the Natives were seen as obstructing progress.  Andrew Jackson’s presidency thrust aside earlier plans to civilize natives and make allowances for the lifestyles.  The culminating assault on native populations followed the Treaty of New Echota which was signed by a non-representative minority of Cherokee elites.  The point of the treaty was to resettle natives to make room for White homesteads and plantations.  The famous Trail of Tears forced relocation was probably the most egregious example of the cruelty growing White domination.