Africans and Seminoles: From Removal to Emancipation

by Daniel F. Littlefield Jr.

Overview

This narrative recounts the history of peoples of African descent among the Seminoles from the mid-1830s to the end of the Civil War.

Because Seminoles held slaves in a confusing system that was markedly dissimilar to institutionalized slavery, the federal government was challenged to identify which blacks in Florida were free and which were not. The two societies were so closely linked that, when the government implemented its program of removal, Seminoles and African Americans were transported to Oklahoma together.

However, once on their new lands Seminoles and blacks fell into strife with Creeks, Cherokees, and Arkansans. These disputes drove a wedge between the Seminoles and their black allies. Until the Civil War, blacks were hounded by slave claims that had followed them from the east and by raids of Creeks and white slavers from Arkansas. Many blacks were captured and sold. Others fled from Indian Territory and settled in Mexico.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780837195292
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	08/05/1977
Series:	Contributions in Afro-American and African Studies: Contemporary Black Poets , #32
Edition description:	Waldorf S/Kippe ed.
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., is director of the Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is author of numerous books, including Seminole Burning: A Story of Racial Vengeance as well as coeditor of Native American Writing in the Southeast, both published by University Press of Mississippi. In 2014 the Arkansas Historical Association honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his cofounding of the Sequoyah National Research Center and his promotion of Arkansas history.

Table of Contents

Maps
Preface
1 Backgrounds
2 Black Men and War Policy
3 The Emigrants
4 Fear of the Creeks
5 A Breakdown in Relations
6 Returban to Bondage
7 Bolt for Freedom
8 The Last Slave Controversies
9 Civil War and Emancipation
10 Conclusion
Appendix
Bibliography
Index