Race, Anti-Blackness, and the Cherokee Nation: A Reading List

In the past week in the wake of the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, we’ve watched as cities, towns, and villages have risen up, marched against police brutality, and demanded that Black Lives Matter. If the Instagram stories and twitter threads are any indication, many are waking up to issues of racism and inequality for the first time, and it’s simultaneously frustrating and beautiful to watch. While many white folks have a lot of learning and un-learning ahead, we in Indian country do as well, especially in my own tribe.

We in the Cherokee Nation have work to do.

With our history of slaveholding and ongoing disenfranchisement of Cherokee Freedmen and Black Cherokee citizens, our nation has upheld anti-Blackness for generations. I and many white-coding Cherokees are complicit with our silence, it’s much easier to point the finger outward toward the structures of white supremacy that pervade American society, rather than inward toward the ways our own tribal structures and narratives perpetuate anti-Blackness. I know I have personal learning to do, so I commit to try and do better, and hope others will as well.

What follows is an ongoing and incomplete list of resources and readings to start the conversation. This is not a stand in for action, and definitely not the end of the road, it is not even the beginning. Self-education is an important step, but is meaningless without real action. I encourage fellow CN citizens to read and learn, but also start the difficult conversations within our own families, with tribal officials, and one another, and to start to build a nation that is inclusive of Black liberation as well as Indigenous sovereignty.

I made this primarily thinking about other CN citizens as the audience, so if you are unfamiliar with any of the “backstory” of our nation, you may need to read some other materials first.

This is not a history limited to Cherokee, other members of the Five Tribes have this history as well, and within all of our nations in Indian Country we have a history and ongoing struggle with anti-Blackness. I encourage folks to create their own reading lists or resources for their community.

If you have readings, resources, articles, or anything to add to this growing list, please comment on this post or send me an email, nativeappropriations@gmail.com.

When available, I have linked to the full PDF. If any of the links don’t link to the full PDF, let me know–I may have linked the wrong version. If any scholars listed here would prefer I not link to your work in full, just contact me. For books, I’ve tried to link to the publishers or independent bookstores, but most of these are available on Amazon as well.

As a disclaimer, I have not read every reading on this list. I can’t vouch for them other than many of these come from scholars and writers I trust, and many were recommended to me by others. As I said, I have a lot to learn as well. This list is heavily weighted to ‘academic’ scholarship (cause that’s me and what I do) and to the history of enslavement and the Freedmen cases, but there are additional resources on broader conversations of race, belonging, anti-blackness, and intersections between Black and Native communities, and I’ll continue to add and update.

Race, Anti-blackness, and the Cherokee Nation Reading List

Racial Formations, Broader Native/Black History:

Field, K. T. (2018). Growing Up with the Country: Family, Race, and Nation after the Civil War. Yale University Press. Buy Here.

Forbes, J. D. (1993). Africans and Native Americans: The language of race and the evolution of red-black peoples. University of Illinois Press. Buy Here.

Katz, W. L. (2012). Black Indians: A hidden heritage (Rev. ed.). Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Buy Here.
– NPR interview with Katz: “Black Indians Explore Challenges Of ‘Hidden’ Heritage”

Wilderson III, F. B. (2010). Red, white & black: Cinema and the structure of US antagonisms. Duke University Press. Buy here. Link to PDF.

History and Contexts of Native/Cherokee Slaveholding:

Krauthamer, B. (2013). Black slaves, Indian masters: slavery, emancipation, and citizenship in the Native American South. UNC Press Books. Buy Here.

Miles, T. (2015). Ties that bind: The story of an Afro-Cherokee family in slavery and freedom (Vol. 14). Univ of California Press. Buy Here.

Miles, T. (2015). The Cherokee Rose: A Novel of Gardens & Ghosts. John F. Blair, Publisher. Buy Here.

Miles, T. (2010). The House on Diamond Hill: A Cherokee Plantation Story. Univ of North Carolina Press. Buy Here.

Minges, P. N. (Ed.). (2004). Black Indian slave narratives. John F. Blair, Publisher. Buy Here.

Naylor, C. E. (2009). African Cherokees in Indian Territory: From Chattel to Citizens. Univ of North Carolina Press. Buy Here.

Cherokee Identity and Broader Native Identity and Belonging:

Garroutte, Eva Marie. 2003. Real Indians: Identity and the Survival of Native America. Berkeley: University of California Press. Buy Here.

Sturm, C. (2002). Blood politics: Race, culture, and identity in the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. Univ of California Press. Buy Here.

Sturm, Circe. 2011. Becoming Indian: The Struggle over Cherokee Identity in the Twenty-First Century. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press. Buy Here.

Ratteree, K., & Hill, N. S. (Eds.). (2017). The Great Vanishing Act: Blood Quantum and the Future of Native Nations. Fulcrum Publishing. Buy Here.

Wilkins, D. E., & Wilkins, S. H. (2017). Dismembered: Native Disenrollment and the Battle for Human Rights. University of Washington Press. Buy Here.

Cherokee Freedmen:

Cherokee Nation and Cherokee Freedmen, A Historical Timeline (Cherokee Phoenix, September 27, 2017)

Nash v. Cherokee Nation 2014:
– Court brief (via Turtle Talk)
– Court opinions (via casetext)
– Cherokee Nation reply (via Turtle Talk)
Allen v. Cherokee Nation 2006

Barbery, M. (2013, May 16). “From one fire”. This Land Press. https://thislandpress.com/2013/05/16/cherokee-freedman/ (AK note: great in-depth, non-academic overview of the Freedman issue, some cringy language from author, but important info overall)

Chin, J., Bustamante, N., Solyom, J. A., & Brayboy, B. M. J. (2016). Terminus amnesia: Cherokee Freedmen, citizenship, and education. Theory Into Practice, 55(1), 28-38. (Link to PDF)

Chin, J. (2013). Red Law, White Supremacy: Cherokee Freedmen, Tribal Sovereignty, and the Colonial Feedback Loop. J. Marshall L. Rev., 47, 1227. (Link to PDF)

Cooper, Kenneth J. “Perspective | I’m a Descendant of the Cherokee Nation’s Black Slaves. Tribal Citizenship Is Our Birthright.” Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/09/15/im-a-descendant-of-the-cherokee-nations-black-slaves-tribal-citizenship-is-our-birthright/

Ray, S. A. (2006). A Race or a Nation-Cherokee National Identity and the Status of Freedmen’s Descendants. Mich. J. Race & L., 12, 387. (Link to PDF)

Broader Convos of Anti-Blackness/Settler Colonialism and Intersections between Black and Native Studies:

Iyko Day. (2015). Being or Nothingness: Indigeneity, Antiblackness, and Settler Colonial Critique. Critical Ethnic Studies, 1(2), 102-121. doi:10.5749/jcritethnstud.1.2.0102 (Link to PDF)

Byrd, J. A. (2019). Weather with You: Settler Colonialism, Antiblackness, and the Grounded Relationalities of Resistance. Critical Ethnic Studies, 5(1-2), 207-214. (Can’t find full PDF)

Harris, C. (2019). Of Blackness and Indigeneity: Comments on Jodi A. Byrd’s “Weather with You: Settler Colonialism, Antiblackness, and the Grounded Relationalities of Resistance”. Critical Ethnic Studies, 5(1-2), 215-228. doi:10.5749/jcritethnstud.5.1-2.0215 (Can’t find full PDF)

King, T. L. (2019). The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies. Duke University Press. Buy Here.

King, T. L., Navarro, J., & Smith, A. (Eds.). (2020). Otherwise Worlds: Against Settler Colonialism and Anti-Blackness. Duke University Press. Buy Here.

Podcasts:

• The Henceforward is a podcast that considers relationships between Indigenous Peoples and Black Peoples on Turtle Island.
• Medicine for the Resistance is a podcast hosted by an Anishnaabe kwe and an Afro mystic looking at life through #Black and #Indigenous eyes.
• First two episodes of Black Wall Street 1921, a podcast chronicling history and events before, during and after the Tulsa Race Massacre. 

Documentary:

• “By Blood”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSUzPi8Wtlc

Other Syllabi/Reading Lists:

• There are also many more resources on Cherokee history and identity on the Elizabeth Warren Syllabus

• If you need a more thorough introduction to race and racism in what is currently known as the United States, my graduate seminar “Intro to Critical Race Theory” course is online, and free.
  
• “Settler Colonialism, Resistance, and Resilience”–online syllabus with readings for intro Native studies course I teach to College Horizons Scholars

Please send me any feedback or more resources you feel should be included! I realize this is just the tip of the iceberg.