African-Cherokee connections/ by Billy Dubois Edgington

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Title from title screen.

The basic source for this study was the 348 rolls of microfilm "United States. Court of Claims. Eastern Cherokee applications, August 29, 1906 - May 26, 1909" (rolls 1-348, NARA M1104) and and the 12 microfilm rolls of "Records relating to enrollment of Eastern Cherokee, 1908-1910." (NARA M685) The Library has both of these records in the collection on microfilm. Additionally, many of the claimants and their families were checked against the US Federal Census records for 1910, 1900, and several groups were followed back into the 1880 and 1870 records. The third source used extensively in this reconstruction was "Index to the Cherokee Freedman Enrollment cards of the Dawes Commission 1901-1906" by Jo Ann Curls Page, published by Heritage Books of Bowie, Maryland. This library has this book in the collection under: Page, Jo Ann Curls. Index to the Cherokee freedmen enrollment cards of the Dawes Commission, 1901-1906.

In May 1905 the Eastern Cherokee were awarded one million dollars as reparations for violations of various treating, mainly those of 1835-1836 and 1846. In order to qualify for a share of this money the claimants had to be alive on 28 May 1906 and had to prove that they were either a descendant of an Eastern Cherokee, or had been living at the time of the of the treaties involved. 48,847 claims were filed with the commission established to disburse the funds. The commission was headed by Guion Miller and his name has been attached to the resulting roll.

This present study concentrates on those claimants who were of African descent claiming Cherokee connections. All but one or two of these claimants were rejected because most had been slaves of the Cherokees and were not deemed to have been party to the treaties. Many of them seem to have established some blood connection to the Eastern Cherokees and were still rejected if one or more of their ancestors had been slaves. There was no clear statement that this was an established policy, however, abstract cards and notes by commissioners on testimony files repeatedly bear the notation "reject, slaves" or "reject--colored." Several family groups, especially those who settled in Indiana, were descendants of free blacks who left the Carolinas rather than become slaves. One group lists several family members who returned to Africa to settle in Liberia.

Using the Application films, each abstract, or file card was studied for any indication that the claimant was of African descent. This resulted in an initial group of approximately 1200 claims. As each of the original 1200 was extracted, all cross references were noted and also extracted, resulting in over 2800 claims for a total of over 8000 families and nearly 28,000 individuals. All relevant letters and testimony are included in the notes for each individual. These testimonies and letters includ information not on the original application forms.

Every claimant is identified with an individual identification number - that is the number of their claim. Every claim number that mentioned an individual is included in the notes for that individual. Census records are noted by year and location. Every effort has been made to compile an accurate picture of these families. Siblings did not always agree on the name of their grandparents, or uncles.

Contents: African-Cherokee connections : reconstructed families from the Miller roll applications / by Billy Dubois Edgington.

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