Freedmen In the 1890s, a common English-language designator for Creeks of African descent was Freedmen. The word, which was equally applicable to women and men, both revealed and concealed much about the group. On the one hand, it correctly expressed the condition of the former slaves of the Creek nation: They had been slaves; now they were freed. On the other hand, the word was a powerful tool that implied Freedmen were readily discernible from other Creeks. When applied to all Creeks of African descent, the term implied that they had all been slaves to Creek masters before 1866, when the government of the Creek Nation was forced by the federal government to the United States to abolish slavery. But not all freedmen were freed Creek slaves or descended from freed Creek slaves. Freed men and women of African descent had been members of the Creek Nation since its emergence on the eighteenth century. In the late nineteenth century, when non-African Creeks applied the term Freedmen to all black Creeks, they relegated all black Creeks to the status of freed slaves and descendants of slaves. They thereby erased the free Creeks of African descent from the history of the Creek nation and remapped its racial boundaries. Courtesy, Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds. Where will the Nation be at home? Race, Nationalism, Emigration Movement in the Creek Nation. Chang 2002 , 77-78, 106-7; Debo 1941, 126-127
Posted on: Tue, 06 May 2014 01:38:28 +0000
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