Cherokee Freedmen Collection
This collection consists of written testimonies, letters, and affidavits related to over 30 applications of African Americans and their families that were denied enrollment as Cherokee Freedmen. The hearings were mostly conducted at Fort Gibson or Muskogee, Oklahoma by the United States Department of the Interior’s Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes (a.k.a. the Dawes Commission). Images of the original envelopes are included for most of the documents, which are dated from 1901 to 1907.
Many of the testimonies include personal histories, sometimes dating as far back as the 1830s, and great detail is given on the moving of enslaved persons to and from the Cherokee Nation during the Civil War. Some of the historical figures who wrote the letters in this collection include Ethan Allen Hitchcock, who served as the United States Secretary of the Interior under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt from 1899 to 1907, as well as James Davenport and W.W. Hastings, who served as attorneys for the Cherokee Nation.
Click here to browse by person or family or to browse all documents. For more information about the original items from this collection in Cushing Memorial Library and Archives, see the finding aid.