Chickasaw - Choctaw Freedmen

In the Congressional Record Serial Set

The United States Congressional Serial Set, commonly referred to as the Serial Set, began publication with the 15th Congress, 1st Session (1817). Documents before 1817 may be found in the American State Papers.

The Serial Set contains the House and Senate Documents and the House and Senate Reports. The reports are usually from congressional committees dealing with proposed legislation and issues under investigation. The documents include all other papers ordered printed by the House or Senate. Documents cover a wide variety of topics and may include reports of executive departments and independent organizations, reports of special investigations made for Congress, and annual reports of non-governmental organizations. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, executive-branch materials were also published in the Serial Set.[1]

 

The Congressional Record Serial Set provides a timeline of events regarding the relationship of formerly enslaved people of African and African-Native descent in the among the so called Five Civilized Tribes. 

Once emancipated the relationship between the formerly enslaved and their enslavers had to be regulated by laws negotiated between the United States and the slave holding tribes of Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians. Contained in these records are some of the vital issues that are still being discussed and determined in United States House of Representatives today.

For the descendants of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen and others, it is important for a better understanding of this history and how the unique relationship has a historical record that helps illuminate the past and the present when the descendants of freedmen advocate for the “rights and privileges of citizenship” in the nation of their ancestors birth.

 

The University Of Oklahoma College Of Law has done an admirable job of digitizing the various documents in the Congressional Serial Set that they have designated as important for American Indian and Alaskan Natives but what they have done is also provide important records for the descendants of Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen.

 

The following are helpful sources for the research and education of Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen and tribal history. They are important because in the majority of these documents, the freedmen did not create them and they had very little if any input into the creation of the memorials, acts and legislation contained in the documents. Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen inclusion in these documents attest to the importance of the issues that affected them and their descendants.  These historical documents provide clarity to the issues of citizenship, identity and culture of the Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen and their descendants.

 

  1. Senate Document 168 (28-1) January 30, 1844-224pgs

    1. Message from the President of the United States, transmitting the correspondence in relation to the proceedings and conduct of the Choctaw Commission, under the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek

  2. Senate Executive Document 66 (40-2) June 18, 1868

    1. Status of the Loyal Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians under the 49th article of treaty of April 28, 1866

  3. Senate Executive Document 82 (40-2) July 24, 1868

    1. Papers related to the rights of freedmen under the 3rd article of treaty concluded April 28, 1866

  4. Senate Executive Document 71 (41-2) March 25, 1870

    1. Report by S. N. Clark, special agent of the Freedmen’s Bureau, upon the condition of the freedmen in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations

  5. Senate Miscellaneous Document 90 (41-2) March 18, 1870

    1. Memorial of the Choctaw Nation against the enactment into laws of bills under consideration entitled “A bill to provide for the consolidation of the Indian tribes and to organize a system of government in Indian Territory;” and “A bill to incorporate the Kansas, Indian Territory and Gulf Railway Company… to unite upon and construct a single track through Indian Territory to reach the Gulf.

  6. Senate Miscellaneous Document 106 (41-2) April 1, 1870-7pgs

    1. Memorial of a Committee on Behalf of the Colored People of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Tribes of Indians, representing their grievances, and praying the adoption of such measures as will secure to them equal rights and privileges with white citizens.

  7. House Miscellaneous Document 29 (42-1) April 10, 1871- 2pgs

    1. Freedmen of the Chickasaw Nation. (To accompany bill H.R. no. 379.) Copy of an act passed by the Legislature of the Chickasaw Nation, relative to the freedmen of the Chickasaw Nation

  8. House Miscellaneous Document 46 (42-2) January 23, 1872 -16pgs.

    1. Petition of Freedmen of Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations ask for payment of $300,000 to freedmen for securing homes and establishing schools. Note there are over 200 names of freedmen families, which could easily equate to a thousand actual individuals

  9. House Executive Document 207, (42-3) February 13, 1873

    1. Letter from the Secretary of the Interior, transmitting an act passed by the legislature of the Chickasaw Nation entitled "An act to adopt the negroes of the Chickasaw Nation

  10. Senate Miscellaneous Document 97, (43-1) April 8, 1874-2pgs

    1. Letter from the Acting Secretary of the Interior, to the Chairman of the Committee on Indian Affairs, in relation to persons of African descent resident in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations on the 28th day of April, 1866

  11. House Executive Document 212 (43-1) April 14, 1874-4pgs.

    1. Letter from the acting Secretary of the Interior, in relation to a treaty made with the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians April 28, 1866

  12. Senate Miscellaneous Document 118 (43-1) June 02, 1874-3pgs.

    1. Letter from the Secretary of the Interior to the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, relative to Senate Bill No. 680, for the relief of certain persons of African descent resident in the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations.

  13. Senate Miscellaneous Document 121 (43-1) June 08, 1874-73pgs

    1. Memorial of P. P. Pitchlynn, the right of the Choctaw Nation to be paid the money awarded to it by the U. S. Senate on the 9th of March, A. D. 1859

  14. House Miscellaneous Document 294 (43-1) June 16, 1874-11pgs

    1. Remonstrance of the Choctaw Delegates (Rights of freedmen)

  15. House Miscellaneous Document 41, (44-2) February 21, 1877-5pgs

    1. It is further agreed that one-half of the proceeds realized and coming to the Chickasaw Nation out of the sale of the leased district shall be paid to the said J. H. B. Latrobe, provided the Choctaws and Chickasaws agree to grant the freed- men the forty-acre lots, and other stipulated privileges, and receive the three hundred thousand dollars, after deducting the amount or price of the forty-acre lots allowed said freedmen, according to - article of treaty.

 

[1] Library of Congress, American Memory U.S. Serial Set About