Five Civilized Tribes
The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminoles.[1][2][3] White Americans classified them as "civilized" because they had adopted attributes of the Anglo-American culture.[4]
Examples of such colonial attributes adopted by these five tribes included Christianity, centralized governments, literacy, market participation, written constitutions, intermarriage with white Americans, and chattel slavery practices, including purchase of enslaved Black Americans.[5][6] For a period, the Five Civilized Tribes tended to maintain stable political relations with the white population. However, white encroachment continued and eventually led to the removal of these tribes from the Southeast.
In the 21st century, this term has been criticized by some scholars for its ethnocentric assumptions by Anglo-Americans of what they considered civilized,[7] but representatives of these tribes continue to meet regularly on a quarterly basis in their Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes.[8]
The descendants of these tribes, who primarily live in what is now
Terminology
The term "civilized tribes" was adopted to distinguish the Five Tribes from other Native American tribes that were described as "wild" or "savage".[9][10] Texts written by non-indigenous scholars and writers have used words like "savage" and "wild" to identify Indian groups that retained their traditional cultural practices after European contact. As a consequence of evolving attitudes toward ethnocentric word usage and more rigorous ethnographical standards, the term "Five Civilized Tribes" is rarely used in contemporary academic publications.[11]
George Washington believed that the only way Indians could survive in proximity to white settlers was for them to become civilized. The United States accordingly adopted a policy of civilizing Indians while Washington was president. The policy assumed that civilized Indians would require less land, and would need money, so that they would be willing to sell the excess land to white settlers. In white American terms, Indians became civilized by the men giving up hunting and becoming farmers, displacing the women who traditionally had been the primary farmers. They were expected to use draft animals and to give up maize as a main crop and instead raise wheat and cotton. The women were to become housekeepers, caring for children and weaving cotton for clothing. The Indians were also expected to acquire slaves and use them like their white plantation neighbors did.[3]
The word "civilized" was used by white settlers to refer to the Five Tribes, who, during the 18th and early 19th centuries, actively integrated Anglo-American customs into their own cultures.[12] Sociologists, anthropologists, and interdisciplinary scholars alike are interested in how and why these native peoples assimilated certain features of the alien culture of the white settlers who were encroaching on their lands. Historian Steve Brandon asserts that this "adaptation and incorporation of aspects of white culture" was a tactic employed by the Five Nations peoples to resist removal from their lands. While the term "Five Civilized Tribes" has been institutionalized in federal government policy to the point that the U.S. Congress passed laws using the name, the Five Nations themselves have been less accepting of it in formal matters, and some members have declared that grouping the different peoples under this label is effectively another form of colonization and control by white society.[13] Other modern scholars have suggested that the very concept of "civilization" was internalized by individuals who belonged to the Five Nations,[14][11] but because much of Native North American history has been communicated by oral tradition, little scholarly research has been done to substantiate this.
In present-day commentary on Native American cultures, the term "civilized" is contentious and not commonly used in academic literature. Some commentators, including the Indian activist Vine Deloria Jr., have asserted that it is demeaning and implies that the indigenous peoples of the North American continent were "uncivilized" before their contact with the habits, customs, and beliefs of Anglo-American settlers. The term is based on the assumption that different peoples possess objective "degrees" of civilization that may be assessed and raises the question of just what qualities define "civilization". Consequently, it is considered a judgmental term whose meaning is dependent on the user's perspective, and thus best avoided.[15][16]
History
The Five Civilized Tribes is a term used by some Americans for five major indigenous tribes who lived in the Southeastern United States. They coalesced historically in an area that had been strongly influenced by the Mississippian culture. Prior to the arrival of white settlers, these tribes generally had matrilineal kinship systems, with property and hereditary positions passed through the mother's family. But they were much more egalitarian and decentralized than the Mississippian culture peoples at their height.[citation needed]
First to 18th century
Based on the development of surplus foods from cultivation, Mississippian towns had more dense populations, and they developed artisan classes, and hereditary religious and political elites. The Mississippian culture flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500 CE. Agriculture was the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns, some covering hundreds of acres and populated with thousands of people. They were known for building large, complex earthwork mounds. These communities regulated their space with planned streets, subdivided into residential and public areas. Their system of government was hereditary. Chiefdoms were of varying size and complexity, with high levels of military organization.[17]
18th century
President
In 1776, assembled in Philadelphia, the Second Continental Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence, which was largely written by Thomas Jefferson. American independence was subsequently achieved by the victory of the Continental Army, led by George Washington, in the American Revolutionary War and codified in the Treaty of Paris in 1784.
The Five Tribes generally adopted cultural practices from Americans that they found useful. Tribal groups who had towns or villages closer to European-descendant Americans, or interacted more with them through trading or intermarriage, took up more of such new practices. Those towns that were more isolated tended to maintain their traditional cultures.[18] George Washington promulgated a doctrine that held that Indian Americans were biologically equals, but that their societies were inferior. He formulated and implemented a policy to encourage civilizing them, which
George Washington's six-point plan included: regulating the buying of Indian lands, promoting commerce with the tribes, promoting experiments to civilize or improve Indian society, authorizing presidential authority to bestow presents on the tribes, and punish those who violated Indian rights.[20]
The U.S. government appointed Indian agents, such as Benjamin Hawkins in the Southeast, to live among Indians and to encourage them, through example and instruction, to assimilate and adopt the lifestyle of white settlers.[18] The tribes of the Southeast adopted Washington's policy as they established schools, took up yeoman farming practices, converted to Christianity, and built homes similar to those of their colonial neighbors.[20] These five tribes also adopted the practice of chattel slavery: holding enslaved African Americans as forced workers.[6]
How different would be the sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect that instead of exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of population that we had persevered through all difficulties and at last had imparted our Knowledge of cultivating and the arts, to the Aboriginals of the Country by which the source of future life and happiness had been preserved and extended. But it has been conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North America – This opinion is probably more convenient than just.
Following the establishment of independence following the American Revolutionary War, Americans pushed into the interior and into the Deep South, areas that were still largely dominated by Native Americans. The invention of the cotton gin made cultivation of short-staple cotton profitable in the interior, and settlers encroached on Native American lands in the Upper South, including western Georgia, and the future states of Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi. They demanded the chance to cultivate these lands for agriculture. Armed conflicts occurred between some of the tribes and the settlers, who kept pushing west and acquired additional territories through negotiated treaties with European colonial powers and sometimes by force.
19th century
In the early 19th century, under such leaders as
Once the tribes had been relocated to Indian Territory, the U.S. government promised that their lands would be free of Americans of European descent. But settlers soon began to violate that, and enforcement was difficult in the western frontier.
Freedmen of the Five Tribes
This section needs additional citations for verification. (October 2021) |
The Five Tribes participated in
After the end of the Civil War, the U.S. required these tribes to make new peace treaties, and to emancipate their slaves, as slaves had been emancipated and were granted citizenship in the U.S. All Five Tribes acknowledged "in writing that, because of the agreements they had made with the Confederate States during the Civil War, previous treaties made with the United States would no longer be upheld, thus prompting the need for a new treaty and an opportunity for the United States to fulfill its goal of wrenching more land" from their grasp.[24]
They were required to offer full citizenship in their tribes to those freedmen who wanted to stay with the tribes. Those who wanted to leave could become U.S. citizens. By that time, numerous families had intermarried or had other personal ties with African Americans.[25]
The
The
To help freedmen transition from slavery to freedom, including a free labor market, President
Because the Chickasaw allied with the Confederacy, after the Civil War the
The Choctaw-Chickasaw Freedmen Association of Oklahoma currently represents the interests of freedmen descendants in both of these tribes.[26] The freed people of the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations were able to enjoy most citizenship rights immediately after emancipation.[27]
But the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma never granted citizenship to their Freedmen.[28][29] They enacted legislation "akin to the U.S. 'Black Codes,' which set certain wages for ex-slaves and attempted to force freedpeople to find employment under Indian tribal members."[27]
The only way that African Americans could become citizens of the Chickasaw Nation at that time was to have one or more Chickasaw parents, or to petition for citizenship and go through the process available to other non-Natives, even if they were known to have been of partial Chickasaw descent in an earlier generation. Because the Chickasaw Nation did not provide citizenship to their freedmen after the American Civil War, which they felt would be akin to formal adoption of individuals into the tribe, they were penalized by the U.S. government. It took more than half of their territory, with no compensation. They lost territory that had been negotiated in treaties in exchange for their use after removal from the Southeast.[citation needed]
In the late 19th century, under the Dawes Act and related legislation, the U.S. government decided to break up communal tribal lands, allocating 160-acre plots to heads of households of enrolled members of the tribes. It determined that land left over was "surplus" and could be sold, including to non-Native Americans. Allotment was also a means to extinguish Indian title to these lands, and the US government required the dissolution of tribal governments prior to admission of the territories as the US state of Oklahoma.
As American settlement increased in the Oklahoma Territory, pressure built to combine the territories and admit Oklahoma as a state.
In 1893, the government opened the "Cherokee Strip" to outside settlement in the Oklahoma Land Run.
20th century
In 1907, the Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory were merged to form the state of Oklahoma. Relative to other states, all Five Tribes are represented in significant numbers in the population of Oklahoma today.
In the late 20th century, the Cherokee Nation voted to restrict membership to only those descendants of persons listed as "Cherokee by blood" on the
21st century
Since the 20th century, the Freedmen have argued that the Dawes Rolls were often inaccurate in terms of recording Cherokee ancestry among persons of mixed race, even if they were considered Cherokee by blood within the tribe. The registrars confused appearance with culture. In addition, the Freedmen have argued that the post-Civil War treaties made between the tribes and the US granted them full citizenship in the tribes. The
In 2017, the Cherokee Freedmen were granted citizenship again in the tribe.[30][31][32] The Cherokee Nation was the first among the five tribes to update its constitution to include the Cherokee Freedmen as full citizens.[33]
In 2018, the U.S. Congress removed the blood quantum requirement for land allotment for the Five Tribes, though it had not been a tribal citizenship requirement.[34] Historian Mark Miller notes,
Even so-called purely 'descendancy' tribes such as the Five Tribes with no blood quantum requirement jealously guard some proven, documentary link by blood to distant ancestors. More than any single BIA [Bureau of Indian Affairs] requirement, however, this criterion has proven troublesome for southeastern groups [seeking federal recognition] because of its reliance on non-Indian records and the confused (and confusing) nature of surviving documents.[35]
In July 2021, the
Like other federally-recognized tribes, the Five Tribes have participated in shaping the current BIA Federal Acknowledgment Process for tribes under consideration for such recognition. They are suspicious of groups that claim Indian identity but appear to have no history of culture and community.[37]
Tribes
Cherokee
The
Of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes, the Cherokee Nation and the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians (UKB) have headquarters in Tahlequah, Oklahoma. The UKB are mostly descendants of "Old Settlers", Cherokee who migrated to Arkansas and Oklahoma about 1817. They are related to the Cherokee who were forcibly relocated there in the 1830s under the Indian Removal Act. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is on the Qualla Boundary in western North Carolina, and are descendants of those who resisted or avoided relocation.[39] Although the Cherokee Nation sponsors some satellite communities, it does not recognize Cherokee heritage groups that are seeking federal recognition. The Cherokee tribe has 729,533 enrolled members.[40]
Chickasaw
The Chickasaw are Indian people of the United States who originally resided along the Tennessee River and other parts of present-day Tennessee, in the southwest side of present-day Kentucky, west of present-day Huntsville, Alabama, and in parts of Mississippi. They spoke some French and some English. Some historians credit the Chickasaw intervention in the French and Indian War on the side of the British as decisive in ensuring that the United States became an English-speaking nation.[41] Originating further west, the Chickasaw moved east of the Mississippi River long before European contact. All historical records indicate the Chickasaw lived in northeastern Mississippi from the first European contact until they were forced to remove to Oklahoma, where most now live.
The Chicksaw are related to the
Choctaw
The Choctaw are Native American people originally from the
Although smaller Choctaw groups are located in the southern region, the
Muscogee
The Muscogee, or Creek, are originally from present-day Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina.[50] They resided there from approximately 1500 AD until they were forcibly displaced by the American government in the early 19th century. Mvskoke is their name in the Muskogee language. The Muscogee Creek were not one tribe but a confederacy of several, each of which had their own distinct land and sometimes dialects or languages in the Muskogean family.
Starting in 1836, the U.S. government forced them to
Federally recognized tribes descended from the Creek Confederacy include the
The Seminole people originally included many of Creek origin, but developed as a separate culture, through a process of ethnogenesis, before Indian Removal. (See below.)
Seminoles
The Seminoles are a Native American people that developed in present-day Florida. Federally-recognized tribes of this people now reside in Oklahoma and Florida.
The Seminole nation came into existence in the late 18th century and was composed of renegade and outcast Native Americans from Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama, most significantly from among the loose Creek confederacy. They were joined by African Americans who escaped from slavery in South Carolina and Georgia. During Indian removal and the Seminole Wars, roughly 3,000 Seminoles were forced by the U.S. to remove west of the Mississippi River. The Seminole Nation of Oklahoma is made up of their descendants.
But approximately 300 to 500 Seminoles migrated to the Everglades of Florida, where they gained refuge and resisted removal. The U.S. waged two more wars against the Seminoles in Florida in an effort to dislodge them, and about 1,500 U.S. soldiers died. The Seminoles never surrendered to the U.S. government, and consequently the Seminoles of Florida call themselves the "Unconquered People".[52][53]
For about twenty years after the move to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), the Seminoles refused to live with the Muscogee Creek tribe or under their government until they finally reached an agreement with the government to sign a treaty and live with them. The Seminoles favored the North during the Civil War and remained loyal to the Union. They moved north into Kansas during the war.[54]
Seminole tribes include the
See also
- Civilization Fund Act
- Cultural assimilation of Native Americans
- Former Indian Reservations in Oklahoma
- Kill the Indian, Save the Man
- Martial race
- Mission Indians
- Praying Indians
References
- ^ Clinton, Fred S. "Oklahoma Indian History, from The Tulsa World" Archived 2017-08-24 at the Wayback Machine. The Indian School Journal, Volume 16, Number 4, 1915, page 175-187.
- ISBN 978-0-19-513877-1.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-231-50602-1.
- ^ "Five Civilized Tribes". Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture. Oklahoma Historical Society. Archived from the original on 2014-12-28. Retrieved 2015-01-22.
- ^ Roberts, Alaina. "Opinion: How Native Americans adopted slavery from white settlers". Al Jazeera. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
- ^ a b Smith, Ryan P (6 March 2018). "How Native American Slaveholders Complicate the Trail of Tears Narrative". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-3483-3.
- ^ "Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes".
- ^ Indians: the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory: The Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole Nations. United States Census Printing Office. 1890. p. 7.
- ISSN 1991-9336. Retrieved 31 January 2019.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-231-50602-1.
- ISBN 978-0-292-78946-3.
- ISBN 978-1-4381-2087-4.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-8967-3.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-5054-3.
- ^ University of Arkansas staff (January 10, 2019). "The term "Five Civilized Tribes"". University of Arkansas Libraries. Archived from the original on January 21, 2019.
- ^ Smith, C.R. (2000). "The Native People of North America: Southeast Culture Area". Cabrillo College. Archived from the original on 23 November 2018. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
- ^ ISBN 0-8203-2731-X.
- ^ ISBN 0-9650631-0-7.
- ^ a b Miller, Eric (1994). "George Washington And Indians". Eric Miller. Retrieved 2 May 2008.
- ^ "To George Washington from Henry Knox, 7 July 1789," National Archives
- ^ Moser, George W. A Brief History of Cherokee Lodge #10. (retrieved 26 June 2009)
- ^ "Confederacy signs treaties with Native Americans". Retrieved 30 July 2021.
- ^ OCLC 1240582535.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-3035-4.
- ^ "The Choctaw Freedmen of Oklahoma", african-nativeamerican.com, accessed October 17, 2013.
- ^ OCLC 1240582535.
- ^ Roberts, Alaina E. (September 7, 2017). "A federal court has ruled blood cannot determine tribal citizenship. Here's why that matters". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 18, 2020.
- ^ Herrera, Allison (September 21, 2021). "Interview: Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton Talks About Freedmen Citizenship". KOSU_Daily. KOSU. NPR. Retrieved 21 September 2021.
- ^ Cherokee Nation v. Raymond Nash, et al. and Marilyn Vann, et al. and Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior ruling, August 30, 2017
- ^ Chow, Kat (2017-08-31). "Judge Rules That Cherokee Freedmen Have Right To Tribal Citizenship". npr. Retrieved 2017-09-01.
- ^ "Cherokee Nation Attorney General Todd Hembree issues statement on Freedmen ruling, August 31, 2017 (Accessible in PDF format as of September 8, 2017" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on November 16, 2018. Retrieved July 30, 2021.
- ^ Kelly, Mary Louise (February 25, 2021). "Cherokee Nation Strikes Down Language That Limits Citizenship Rights 'By Blood'". NPR. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
- ^ "Congress strips blood quantum requirement from Stigler Act". Tahlequah Daily Press. 21 December 2018. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-5051-2.
- ^ Herrera, Allison (29 July 2021). "Freedmen Ask Congress To Withhold Housing Assistance Money Until Tribes Address Citizenship". KOSU. Retrieved 30 July 2021.
- ISBN 978-0-8061-5051-2.
- ISBN 978-1-4286-4864-7.
- ^ William L. Anderson; Ruth Y. Wetmore; John L. Bell (2006). "Cherokee Indians - Part 5: Trail of Tears and the creation of the Eastern Band of Cherokees". Encyclopedia of North Carolina. State Library of North Carolina. Retrieved 21 January 2019.
- ^ "Status and Trends in the Education of American Indians and Alaska Natives: 2008".
- ^ "The Official Site of the Chickasaw Nation | History". Chickasaw.net. 2014-10-31. Retrieved 2015-10-18.
- ^
Jesse Burt & Bob Ferguson (1973). "The Removal". Indians of the Southeast: Then and Now. Abingdon Press, Nashville and New York. pp. 170–173. ISBN 0-687-18793-1.
- ^ Foreman, Grant 1971. "The Five Civilized Tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole" (Civilization of the American Indian)
- ^ "Choctaw History". Fivecivilizedtribes.org. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
- ^ Frederick Webb Hodge (1907). ... Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico: A-M. U.S. Government Printing Office. p. 288.
- ^ Horatio Bardwell Cushman (1899). History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians. Headlight printing house. p. 564.
- ISBN 0-8173-1109-2.
- ^ Williams, Walter (1979). "Southeastern Indians before Removal, Prehistory, Contact, Decline". Southeastern Indians: Since the Removal Era. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. pp. 7–10.
- ^ "History". Choctaw Nation. Retrieved 2015-10-18.
- ^ Transcribed documents Archived February 13, 2012, at the Wayback Machine Sequoyah Research Center and the American Native Press Archives
- ^ "Muscogee (Creek) Nation". Muscogeenation-nsn.gov. Archived from the original on 2015-10-08. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
- ISBN 978-1-889574-03-5.
- ^ "Seminole History". DOS.Myflorida.com. Florida Department of State. 2016. Archived from the original on May 30, 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
- ^ "Seminole History". Fivecivilizedtribes.org. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 2021-10-29.
External links
- Five Civilized Tribes Museum
- Five Civilized Tribes (archived 28 December 2014)
- Trail of Tears
- Indian Removal Act