Editing Five Civilized Tribes (section)

==History==
[[File:Etowah Aerial HRoe 2016.jpg|thumb|The [[Mississippian culture]] was a [[Mound builders|mound-building]] Native American urban culture, which flourished in the [[Southern United States|South]] and [[East Coast of the United States|Eastern]] regions of the United States prior to the arrival of White settlers.]]

The Five Civilized Tribes is a term used for five major [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|indigenous tribes]] who lived in the [[Southeastern United States]]. They lived in an area that had been influenced by the [[Mississippian culture]]. Prior to the arrival of white settlers, these tribes generally had [[Matrilineality|matrilineal]] kinship systems, with property and hereditary positions passed through the mother's family.{{citation needed|date=October 2021}}

===First to 18th century===
Based on the development of surplus foods from cultivation, Mississippian towns had more dense populations, and they developed artisan classes, and [[Inheritance|hereditary]] religious and political elites. The Mississippian culture flourished in what is now the Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States from 800 to 1500 CE. Agriculture was the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns, some covering hundreds of acres and populated with thousands of people. They were known for building large, complex earthwork mounds. These communities regulated their space with planned streets, subdivided into residential and public areas. Their system of government was hereditary. [[Chiefdom]]s were of varying size and complexity, with high levels of military organization.<ref name="Smith2000">{{cite web |last1=Smith |first1=C.R. |title=The Native People of North America: Southeast Culture Area |url=https://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/noamer_soeast.html |publisher=Cabrillo College |access-date=30 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181123125104/http://www.cabrillo.edu/~crsmith/noamer_soeast.html |archive-date=23 November 2018 |date=2000 }}</ref>

===18th century===
[[File:Trails of Tears en.png|thumb|Routes of [[Southern United States|southern]] removals to the first Indian Territory of the Five Civilized Tribes]]

President [[George Washington]] and [[Henry Knox]], the first [[Secretary of War]], implemented a policy of cultural transformation in relation to Native Americans.{{Citation needed|date=January 2025}} The Cherokee and Choctaw tended, in turn, to adopt and appropriate certain cultural aspects of the federation of colonies.

In 1776, assembled in [[Philadelphia]], the [[Second Continental Congress]] unanimously adopted the [[United States Declaration of Independence|Declaration of Independence]], which was largely written by [[Thomas Jefferson]]. American independence was subsequently achieved by the victory of the [[Continental Army]], led by [[George Washington]], in the [[American Revolutionary War]] and codified in the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] in 1784.

The Five Tribes generally adopted cultural practices from Americans that they found useful. Tribal groups who had towns or villages closer to European-descendant Americans, or interacted more with them through trading or intermarriage, took up more of such new practices. Those towns that were more isolated tended to maintain their traditional cultures.<ref name=perdue>{{cite book|last=Perdue|first=Theda|title=Mixed Blood Indians: Racial Construction in the Early South|year=2003|publisher=The University of Georgia Press|chapter=Chapter 2 "Both White and Red"|page=51|isbn=0-8203-2731-X}}</ref> George Washington promulgated a doctrine that held that Indian Americans were biologically equals, but that their societies were inferior. He formulated and implemented a policy to encourage civilizing them, which [[Thomas Jefferson]] continued and expanded.<ref name=remini_reform_begins>{{cite book |last = Remini |first = Robert |title = Andrew Jackson |orig-date = 1977|year=1998 |publisher=History Book Club |chapter = The Reform Begins |page = 201 |id = {{Listed Invalid ISBN|0-9650631-0-7}} }}</ref> Historian [[Robert Remini]] wrote that the American leaders "presumed that once the Indians adopted the practice of [[private property]], built homes, farmed, educated their children, and embraced [[Christianity]], these Native Americans would win acceptance from Americans of European descent.<ref name="remini_reform_begins" />

George Washington's six-point plan included: regulating the buying of Indian lands, promoting commerce with the tribes, promoting experiments to civilize or improve Indian society, authorizing [[President of the United States|presidential]] authority to bestow presents on the tribes, and punish those who violated Indian rights.<ref name=eric_miller>{{cite web |url = http://www.dreric.org/library/northwest.shtml |title = George Washington And Indians |access-date = 2 May 2008 |last = Miller |first = Eric |year = 1994| publisher=Eric Miller}}</ref>

The [[Federal government of the United States|US government]] appointed Indian agents, such as [[Benjamin Hawkins]] in the [[Southeastern United States|Southeast]], to live among Indians and to encourage them, through example and instruction, to assimilate and adopt the lifestyle of White settlers.<ref name="perdue"/> The tribes of the Southeast adopted Washington's policy as they established schools, took up yeoman farming practices, converted to [[Christianity]], and built homes similar to those of their colonial neighbors.<ref name=eric_miller /> These five tribes also adopted the practice of chattel slavery: holding enslaved African Americans as forced workers.<ref name="Smith"/>

{{Quote|How different would be the sensation of a philosophic mind to reflect that instead of exterminating a part of the human race by our modes of population that we had persevered through all difficulties and at last had imparted our Knowledge of cultivating and the arts, to the Aboriginals of the Country by which the source of future life and happiness had been preserved and extended. But it has been conceived to be impracticable to civilize the Indians of North America – This opinion is probably more convenient than just. |[[Henry Knox]] letter to [[George Washington]], July 7, 1789<ref>[https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-03-02-0067 "To George Washington from Henry Knox, 7 July 1789," National Archives]</ref>}}

Following the establishment of independence following the American Revolutionary War, Americans pushed into the interior and into the Deep South, areas that were still largely dominated by Native Americans. The invention of the [[cotton gin]] made cultivation of short-staple cotton profitable in the interior, and settlers encroached on Native American lands in the Upper South, including western [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], and the future states of [[Alabama]], [[Louisiana]], and [[Mississippi]]. They demanded the chance to cultivate these lands for agriculture. Armed conflicts occurred between some of the tribes and the settlers, who kept pushing west and [[Territorial evolution of the United States|acquired additional territories]] through negotiated treaties with European colonial powers and sometimes by force.

===19th century===
[[File:Boundaries of the Five Tribes in 1866.svg|thumb|The boundaries of the Five Civilized Tribes in 1866]]
[[File:Cherokee National Capitol.jpg|thumb|[[Cherokee National Capitol|Cherokee Nation Historic Courthouse]] in [[Tahlequah, Oklahoma]], built in 1849, the oldest public building in present-day [[Oklahoma]]<ref>Moser, George W. [http://www.leftmoon.com/cherokee10/history.asp A Brief History of Cherokee Lodge #10.] (retrieved 26 June 2009)</ref>]]

In the early 19th century, under such leaders as [[Andrew Jackson]], elected president in 1828, and others, the US government formally initiated [[Indian removal]], forcing those tribes still living east of the [[Mississippi River]], including the Five Tribes, to lands west of the river. Congress passed authorizing legislation in 1830, to fund such moves and arrange for new lands in what became known as [[Indian Territory#Five Civilized Tribes|Indian Territory]] to the west. Most members of the Five Tribes were forced to Indian Territory before 1840, many to what later became the states of Kansas and [[Oklahoma]].<!-- Both Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were in current boundaries of Oklahoma --> The [[Cherokee Nation (19th century)|Cherokee Nation]] resisted removal until 1838 and lost thousands of members in removal, along what they called the [[Cherokee removal|Cherokee Trail of Tears]]. President [[Martin Van Buren]] had enforced the [[Treaty of New Echota]], although the Senate had not ratified it, and a majority of the tribe said they had not agreed to its cessions of communal land.{{Citation needed|date=January 2022}}

Once the tribes had been relocated to Indian Territory, the US government promised that their lands would be free of American settlers. But settlers soon began to violate that, and enforcement was difficult in the western frontier.

====Freedmen of the Five Tribes====
{{Main|Choctaw freedmen|Cherokee freedmen controversy|Creek Freedmen|Black Seminoles}}
{{More citations needed section|date=October 2021}}

The Five Tribes participated in [[Native American slave ownership]] that had enslaved Black people before and during the [[American Civil War]]. The Five Tribes largely supported the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]], which had severed ties with the [[Union (Civil War)|Union]] prior to the war, in large part because they were promised their own state if the Confederacy won.<ref>{{cite web |title=Confederacy signs treaties with Native Americans |url=https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/confederacy-signs-treaties-with-native-americans |access-date=30 July 2021}}</ref> During removal to Indian Territory, "the Five Tribes considered enslaved Black people an ideal way of transporting capital to the West" because they were "movable  property."<ref name="Roberts2021">{{Cite book|last=Roberts|first=Alaina E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jk4gEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1|title=I've Been Here All the While: Black freedom on Native Land|year=2021|isbn=978-0-8122-9798-0|location=Philadelphia |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|pages=39–45|oclc=1240582535}}</ref>

After the end of the Civil War, the US required these tribes to make new peace treaties, and to emancipate their slaves, as slaves had been emancipated and were granted citizenship in the US. All Five Tribes acknowledged "in writing that, because of the agreements they had made with the Confederate States during the Civil War, previous treaties made with the United States would no longer be upheld, thus prompting the need for a new treaty and an opportunity for the United States to fulfill its goal of wrenching more land" from their grasp.<ref name="Roberts2021" />

They were required to offer full citizenship in their tribes to those freedmen who wanted to stay with the tribes. Those who wanted to leave could become US citizens. By that time, numerous families had intermarried or had other personal ties with African Americans.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Cunningham |first1=Frank |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e3_BbNscm90C |title=General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians  |date=1998 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |page=9780806130354 |isbn=978-0-8061-3035-4}}</ref>

The [[Emancipation Proclamation]] of 1863 declared all slaves in the [[Confederate States of America|Confederacy]], which were states that had separated from the [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]], to be permanently free. The proclamation did not fully end slavery in the five [[border states (American Civil War)|border states]] that remained in the Union, but slavery everywhere in the nation was abolished with the ratification of the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Thirteenth Amendment]] to the [[United States Constitution]] in December 1865.

The [[Civil Rights Act of 1866]], passed over the veto of [[President Andrew Johnson]], gave ex-slaves full [[citizenship]], except for voting, in the United States. The [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] was ratified to make clear that Congress had the legal authority to do so.<ref>{{cite web |author=National Archives and Records Administration |title=14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Civil Rights (1868) |url=https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/14th-amendment |website=National Archives |date=7 September 2021 |access-date=2 June 2024}}</ref> The [[Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fifteenth Amendment]] extended the franchise to all adult males; only adult males among Whites had previously had the franchise, and it was sometimes limited by certain requirements. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are known as the "civil rights amendments", the "post-Civil War amendments", and the "[[Reconstruction Amendments]]".

To help freedmen transition from slavery to freedom, including a free labor market, President [[Abraham Lincoln]] created the [[Freedmen's Bureau]], which assigned agents throughout the former Confederate states. The Bureau also founded schools to educate freedmen, both adults and children; helped freedmen negotiate labor contracts; and tried to minimize violence against freedmen. The era of [[Reconstruction era of the United States|Reconstruction]] was an attempt to establish new governments in the former Confederacy and to bring freedmen into society as voting citizens. Northern church bodies, such as the [[American Missionary Association]] and the [[Freewill Baptists]], sent teachers to the South to assist in educating freedmen and their children, and eventually established several colleges for higher education. [[United States Army|US Army]] occupation soldiers were stationed throughout the South via military districts enacted by the [[Reconstruction Acts]]; they tried to protect freedmen in voting polls and public facilities from violence and intimidation by White Southerners, which were common throughout the region.<!-- What is the point of this history about Reconstruction in the US? -->

The Chickasaw were allied with the Confederacy. After the Civil War, the US government required the nation also to make a new peace treaty in 1866. It included the provision that they [[emancipate]] the [[Slavery in the United States|enslaved African Americans]] and provide full citizenship to those who wanted to stay in the Chickasaw Nation. The Chickasaw and Choctaw negotiated new treaties "without a clause accepting their guilt, allowing them to declare that they had been forced into a Confederate alliance by American desertion." Unlike other tribes, Chickasaw tribal leaders never offered freedpeople citizenship. The slaves were freed and they could continue to live within the boundaries of the nation as second-class citizens, or they could move to Union states and no longer be associated with the tribe, which meant they did not participate in the [[Dawes Rolls]] of the 1890s, which registered tribal members.<ref name="Roberts2021" />

The Choctaw-Chickasaw Freedmen Association of Oklahoma currently represents the interests of freedmen descendants in both of these tribes.<ref>"[http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/8-chocfreed.htm The Choctaw Freedmen of Oklahoma]", african-nativeamerican.com, accessed October 17, 2013.</ref> The freed people of the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations were able to enjoy most citizenship rights immediately after emancipation.<ref name="Roberts202147">{{Cite book|last=Roberts|first=Alaina E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Jk4gEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA47|title=I've Been Here All the While: Black freedom on Native Land|year=2021|isbn=978-0-8122-9798-0|location=Philadelphia|page=47|oclc=1240582535 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press }}</ref>

But the Chickasaw Nation and Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma never granted citizenship to their Freedmen.<!-- Isn't this a repetition of previous content and cite by same author? --><ref name="Roberts2017">{{cite news|last=Roberts|first=Alaina E.|title=A federal court has ruled blood cannot determine tribal citizenship. Here's why that matters.|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2017/09/07/a-federal-court-has-ruled-blood-cannot-determine-tribal-citizenship-heres-why-that-matters/|newspaper=The Washington Post|date=September 7, 2017|access-date=July 18, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Herrera |first1=Allison |title=Interview: Choctaw Nation Chief Gary Batton Talks About Freedmen Citizenship |url=https://www.kosu.org/local-news/2021-09-21/interview-choctaw-nation-chief-gary-batton-talks-about-freedmen-citizenship?ct=t(EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_KOSU_Daily_9212021)&mc_cid=2dc0bd6883&mc_eid=ba79188045 |work=KOSU_Daily |access-date=21 September 2021 |agency=NPR |publisher=KOSU |date=September 21, 2021}}</ref> They enacted legislation similar to the US [[Black Codes (United States)|Black Codes]], which set certain wages for ex-slaves and attempted to force freed people to find employment under Indian tribal members.<ref name="Roberts202147" />

The only way that African Americans could become citizens of the Chickasaw Nation at that time was to have one or more Chickasaw parents, or to petition for citizenship and go through the process available to other non-Natives, even if they were known to have been of partial Chickasaw descent in an earlier generation. Because the Chickasaw Nation did not provide citizenship to their freedmen after the American Civil War, which they felt would be akin to formal adoption of individuals into the tribe, they were penalized by the US government. It took more than half of their territory, with no compensation. They lost territory that had been negotiated in treaties in exchange for their use after removal from the Southeast.{{citation needed|date=September 2012}}

In the late 19th century, under the [[Dawes Act]] and related legislation, the US government decided to break up communal tribal lands, allocating 160-acre plots to heads of households of enrolled members of the tribes. It determined that land left over was "surplus" and could be sold, including to non-Native Americans. Allotment was also a means to extinguish Indian title to these lands, and the US government required the dissolution of tribal governments prior to admission of the territories as the US state of Oklahoma.

As American settlement increased in the [[Oklahoma Territory]], pressure built to combine the territories and admit Oklahoma as a state.

In 1893, the government opened the "[[Cherokee Outlet|Cherokee Strip]]" to outside settlement in the [[Land Run of 1893|Oklahoma Land Run]].

===20th century===
In 1907, the Oklahoma Territory and the Indian Territory were merged to form the state of Oklahoma. Relative to other states, all Five Tribes are represented in significant numbers in the population of Oklahoma today.

In the late 20th century, the Cherokee Nation voted to restrict membership to only those descendants of persons listed as "Cherokee by blood" on the [[Dawes Rolls]] of the early 20th century. This decision excluded most [[Cherokee Freedmen]]; by this time, this term referred to descendants of the original group. At the time, registrars tended to classify any person with visible African American features as a Freedman, not inquiring or allowing them to document Indian descent.

===21st century===
Since the 20th century, the Freedmen have argued that the Dawes Rolls were often inaccurate in terms of recording Cherokee ancestry among persons of mixed race, even if they were considered Cherokee by blood within the tribe. The registrars confused appearance with culture. In addition, the Freedmen have argued that the post-Civil War treaties made between the tribes and the US granted them full citizenship in the tribes. The [[Choctaw Freedmen]] and [[Creek Freedmen]] have similarly struggled with their respective tribes over the terms of citizenship in contemporary times. The tribes have wanted to limit those who can benefit from tribal citizenship, in an era in which gaming casinos are yielding considerable revenues for members. The majority of members of the tribes have voted to limit membership, and as sovereign nations, they have the right to determine their rules. But descendants of freedmen believe their long standing as citizens since the post-Civil War treaties should be continued.

In 2017, the Cherokee Freedmen were granted citizenship again in the tribe.<ref>[https://ecf.dcd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_public_doc?2013cv1313-248 ''Cherokee Nation v. Raymond Nash, et al. and Marilyn Vann, et al. and Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior'' ruling, August 30, 2017]</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/08/31/547705829/judge-rules-that-cherokee-freedmen-have-right-to-tribal-citizenship|title=Judge Rules That Cherokee Freedmen Have Right To Tribal Citizenship|newspaper=npr|date=2017-08-31|access-date=2017-09-01|last1=Chow|first1=Kat}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://anadisgoi.com/images/archive/1784/release.pdf |title=Cherokee Nation Attorney General Todd Hembree issues statement on Freedmen ruling, August 31, 2017 (Accessible in PDF format as of September 8, 2017 |access-date=July 30, 2021 |archive-date=November 16, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181116001718/http://anadisgoi.com/images/archive/1784/release.pdf }}</ref> The Cherokee Nation was the first among the five tribes to update its constitution to include the Cherokee Freedmen as full citizens.<ref name="npr.org">{{cite news |last1=Kelly |first1=Mary Louise |title=Cherokee Nation Strikes Down Language That Limits Citizenship Rights 'By Blood' |url=https://www.npr.org/2021/02/25/971084455/cherokee-nation-strikes-down-language-that-limits-citizenship-rights-by-blood |access-date=6 May 2021 |agency=NPR |date=February 25, 2021}}</ref>

In 2018, the US Congress removed the blood quantum requirement for land allotment for the Five Tribes, though it had not been a tribal citizenship requirement.<ref>{{cite web |title=Congress strips blood quantum requirement from Stigler Act |url=https://www.tahlequahdailypress.com/news/national_news/congress-strips-blood-quantum-requirement-from-stigler-act/article_70740408-391b-5ad9-8339-1a3964b0f91e.html |website=Tahlequah Daily Press |date=21 December 2018 |access-date=30 July 2021}}</ref> Historian Mark Miller noted:

<blockquote>Even so-called purely 'descendancy' tribes such as the Five Tribes with no blood quantum requirement jealously guard some proven, documentary link by blood to distant ancestors. More than any single BIA {{bracket|[[Bureau of Indian Affairs]]}} requirement, however, this criterion has proven troublesome for southeastern groups [seeking federal recognition] because of its reliance on non-Indian records and the confused (and confusing) nature of surviving documents.<ref name="Miller172">{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Mark |title=Claiming Tribal Identity |date=August 16, 2013 |isbn=978-0-8061-5051-2 |page=172 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yUFuAAAAQBAJ}}</ref></blockquote>

In July 2021, the [[Cherokee Freedman|Cherokee Freedmen]] asked Congress to withhold housing assistance money until the Five Civilized Tribes addressed the citizenship status of freedmen's descendants. <!-- {{citation needed span|date=October 2021|Discrimination against the Freedmen by the Five Tribes was noted in the [[COVID-19 vaccine]] distribution.}} --> They took this action although the Cherokee Nation had already updated its constitution to end their exclusion of the Cherokee Freedmen as members.<ref name="kosu.org">{{cite web |last1=Herrera |first1=Allison |title=Freedmen Ask Congress To Withhold Housing Assistance Money Until Tribes Address Citizenship |url=https://www.kosu.org/u-s-news/2021-07-29/freedmen-ask-congress-to-withhold-housing-assistance-money-until-tribes-address-citizenship |website=KOSU |date=29 July 2021 |access-date=30 July 2021}}</ref>

Like other federally-recognized tribes, the Five Tribes have participated in shaping the current BIA Federal Acknowledgment Process for tribes under consideration for such recognition. They are suspicious of groups that claim Indian identity but appear to have no history of culture and community.<ref name="Miller7">{{cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Mark |title=Claiming Tribal Identity |date=August 16, 2013 |isbn=978-0-8061-5051-2 |page=7 |publisher=University of Oklahoma Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yUFuAAAAQBAJ}}</ref>