Black Indians United
Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund
5 Tribes Embassy
1866 Treaties-Ethnic (Black) Indians and Freedmen
Fast Facts
What was the last Aboriginal Domain to Join The United States of America?
Answer: Hawai’i.
Two Hawaiian Girls, circa 1907
Photo Credit: California Historical Society
Although it was improperly seized by U.S. military force and its Indigenous Monarchs deposed in 1890, the Island Nation became a U.S. State on August 21, 1959. It was the 50th and last state to become part of the U.S.
The name Hawaii (may have meant “Heaven” to Ethnic Native American Aboriginals), appeared in the Aboriginal Americas in two known places;
1. On the Pacific Coast of Northern California in the settlement of “Owyhee.”
2. On the Pacific Coast of Mexico in the form of “Ñuu Tnoo Huahi Andehui”, translated to mean “Black Town Temple of Heaven.” [Ande, refers to the Andes, while “hui” means “the people”], ergo, “Black Town Temple of Heaven to the Andes People.” The town’s name is also Tilantongo. It was an Olmec center with a reference to the aboriginal Coyas of Peru. The descendants of the Olmec were the Mixtec (also known as Ñuudzahui, or “people of the Clouds“). Their name certainly suggests that they were a people of high elevation.
The ancient story of the subjects at issue is preserved in the Mixtec Codex Vindobenesis (circa 900-1100 A.D.)
Hawaii’s Ethnic (Black) Aboriginals were known as Kanaka. They were often ‘blackbirded’ (meaning, ‘kidnapped‘) into Slavery.
Intriguing Serendipitous Connection
Coincidentally, Nionne Ollie, a Black French-speaking Cherokee woman of Keowee, South Carolina (variant spelling, ‘Nani’), the wife of Chief Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter) named one of their sons, ‘Ookanaka.”
Nionee Ollie (described as “Black“) was said to have been from a Band of refugee Natchez (Notchey) born in the old historic Cherokee town of Tomately in 1733. She was captured as a Slave at Goose Creek, SC and sold into Slavery to a couple that took her to the French West Indies. Nionne purchased her own freedom as a young woman, returned to the Cherokee Nation and married Chief Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter). The couple had many prominent Cherokee children whose descendants remain part of the Nations (Black and Red) to date.
Their first born son was Dragging Canoe (Tsi’yu-gunsini or Canoe).
Tsi’yu Gunsini means, He is dragging it). Dragging Canoe was a famous Warrior Chief. He founded the Chickamauga Cherokees, comprised of many Black or Mixed Breed Cherokees.
Chickamauga Cherokee
Ookanaka
*The couple's second son was Little Owl or Ookanaka (remember Black Aboriginal Hawaiians were known as Kanaka).
Their third son was Badger (Ocurina He).
The fourth son was White Mankiller (Unacatadihi or Yonegatatehee).
Fifth, wasTurtle at Home.
I'm a paragraph. Click once to begin entering your own content. You can change my font, size, line height, color and more by highlighting part of me and selecting the options from the toolbar.
Nionee (Nani) died in 1831 at the age of 98, a prominent citizen at Keowee Old Town in the South Carolina’s Low Country, near the area that the fateful Treaties of Hopewell were signed by the Nations that would ultimately comprise the 5 Civilized Tribes (first treaties with the United States). The Seminoles were represented as a sub-tribe of the Creeks. Nionee is buried at Oconee, SC.
Caulunna (Moytoy was the Uncle of Attakullakulla). Caulunna’s son was Raven of Chota. Spring Frog was the Grandson of Raven of Chota (making him the last line of the Great Chief’s of Chota).
Spring Frog, a representative of the old aboriginal Cherokee Nation, joined the Cherokee Council during the Civil War in Indian Territory, along with Chief Downing and rendered a decree that freed All Ethnic (Black) Cherokees in 1863, as well to adopt them en masse at Cow Creek Bayou.
In a strict moral sense, Spring Frog was fulfilling an ancestral mandate of intent passed down from the old original Cherokee Nation Central Government, and that was to ensure the Freedom and Autonomy of the Ethnic Black Cherokees and their Descendants, whom had been such an integral part of their Nation from time immaterial as Citizens, Nationals and Ambassadors. They were certainly inhabiting the Aboriginal Indian Country prior to Colonial Settlement of Europeans in the hemisphere.
Kanagatoga/Kanaka Toga
Old Hop was the Uncle of Attakullakulla (his mother’s brother) and his child’s name was Kanagatoga (Kanaka-Toga). Old Hop had two Black Indian Sons (Ambassadors each, French John and Capee Capee). Euro-historians omitted Ethnic information on these two Ethnic (Black) Indigenous dignitaries of Royal Lineage, in that the two were recorded routinely as, “French Cherokee Diplomats", and “Adopted Sons” of Old Hop, while a few others wrote that French John and Capee Capee “may have been former African Slaves.”
Even if that were true, it makes their story that much more epic and newsworthy (From Black Indian Slave to the First Foreign Ambassadors of the Cherokee Nation.)
Ookanaka’s father, Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter) was the first Chief to seek freedom for enslaved Cherokees in the Carolina Low Country (the southern-most portion of the Cherokee domain filled with Tribute Tribes and remnant peoples of many nations).
Ookanaka’s mother, Nionne Ollie’s Cherokee descendant line contains Welch surnamed individuals, including, “Shoeboots.” He also married a Black female Slave.
Cousins By-Blood
Ookanaka and Beloved War Woman, Nancy Ward of the Cherokees were cousins by-blood.
Tame Doe, sister of Attakullakulla (Little Carpenter), was the mother of Nancy Ward, Beloved War Woman of the Cherokees (also known as Nanyehi, Ghighau or Cherokee Rose). She had verifiable By-Blood Black Cherokee Cousins, all are Predecessor Sovereigns of today’s Cherokees-Red and Black. Their story is typical of the social structure and Ethno-historical composition of each Nation of the 5 Civilized Tribes.
The freedom and autonomy of the Ethnic (Black) Cherokees, Lineal Descendants, legal Adoptees, Ethnic Protectorate, Heirs and Beneficiaries of the Cherokee Nation, was forever proclaimed, ratified and confirmed 3 years later by the Treaty of 1866 with the United States, which enfranchised them with their own tribal land and autonomous legal domain ‘Canadian District‘ (Colony, District and Communities) with overflow lands geographically located in the Cherokee Outlet.
The Treaty-mandated lands (and overflow lands-sufficient to distribute to every Cherokee Freedmen, was granted to cover a very large Ethnic Class and upon which to locate other friendly Indians)-later faced legal Challenge in the 1890s as the Cherokee Nation collected monies from the sale of overflow outlet lands into their own coffers and denied Cherokee Freedmen, Delaware and Shawnees rightful compensation for their domain.
The Ethnic Cherokee Class ultimately won the challenge, but the money was deposited into a Federal Trust account for their benefit in a Kansas Bank.
The land had already been wholly distributed in the Land Run with full patents issued to purchasers by Land Agents.
The Cherokee Freedmen, Delawares and Shawnees were authorized to file a legal claim as either a single Ethnic Class of Cherokees or Individual Nations. The Cherokee Freedmen have never been provided a Government accounting of the Trust Fund established for their benefit, comprised of their share of proceeds from the sale of Cherokee Outlet Lands.
However, the Cherokee Outlet Lands (including Enid, Oklahoma) were opened to White settlement by the U.S. Government in 1893 (before the Class Action was adjudicated by the Court), resulting in the Great Land Run of 1893. Ethnic Black Indians and other settlers of the same race were forced to stake a claim for the land, purchase the same and withstand tremendous pressure to take up stakes and leave, includinga tough Black Oklahoma Pioneer Settler, named Mollie Eskridge. The law-abiding gun-toting widow, outfitted her two young children (a girl and a boy) with firearms to keep con men, sooners and hosts of greedy predators off their land. Miss Eskridge was also instrumental in founding St. Stephens A.M.E. Church on the grounds of Government Springs in Enid's East Park Neighborhood, as well as Grayson Baptist Church. Both Churches flank Government Springs. The two churches and Government Springs Park, are directly across the street from the Leona Mitchell Southern Heights Heritage Center and Museum, an Ethnic (Black) Indian Museum, nicely rounding out the historic Southern Heights/East Park Neighborhood.
The present government of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (which continues to fight vigorously against the inclusion of Ethnic (Black) Cherokee Native Americans and Freedmen, as well for their permanent legal exile) was formed in 1948 after passage of the Wheeler-Howard Indian Reorganization Act (1934). In 1961 the reorganized Cherokee Nation was awarded $15,000,000 by the U.S. Claims Commission for the lands of the Cherokee Outlet.
A Timely Question Deserving of An Official Answer
Was the wrong group of Cherokees given the Cherokee Freedmen, Delaware and Shawnees proceeds for the sale of Cherokee Outlet Lands?