Review of African Cherokees in Indian Territory: From Chattel to Citizens By Celia E. Naylor

Authors

Sharlotte Neely, Northern Kentucky University

Date of this Version

2010

Citation

Great Plains Quarterly 30:1 (Winter 2010)

Comments

Copyright 2013 Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Abstract

In African Cherokees in Indian Territory, Celia E. Naylor tackles the controversial issue of slave-owning by Cherokee Indians and cuts through wishful myths to the truth that slavery is not somehow better when one's master is also nonwhite. In her remarkable book, Naylor traces the lives of African slaves and freedmen from 1839 when the forced removal over the Trail of Tears dumped the Cherokees of the southern Appalachians and their black slaves on the Great Plains to 1907 when Indian Territory became the state of Oklahoma. Naylor is thorough in searching out all the primary source material, and she gives voices to the former slaves themselves via the treasure trove of life histories collected in the 1930s by the federal government's Works Progress Administration (WPA).