Kickstarter

Freed Men: Oppressed by the Oppressed” is a 60-minute documentary and interactive website that reveals an untold history about the Cherokee Nation and the recent removal of its black citizens, or Freedmen. Over the last six months, the film’s producer and director, with support from the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute and the nonprofit outlet, Thread News, conducted an in-depth probe into the Cherokee Nation that looks at two unexpectedly overlapping stains on American history: slavery and the disenfranchisement of Indians. We are now seeking completion funds.

By supporting this project, our production team will be able to complete filming and produce an accompanying website that explore a narrative almost entirely excised from our history. The film will reveal disturbing details—previously unreported—surrounding the Cherokee Nation’s recent expulsion of its Freedmen, who descend from slaves once owned by the tribe. The film will include interviews with advocates representing both sides of the debate, which has attracted a diverse cast of interested parties. Many believe that other American tribes are taking cues from the Cherokee; if that is the case, the expulsion of its Freedmen could set a precedent for thousands of so-called black Indians across the country.

The story told in “Freed Men: Oppressed by the Oppressed” actually begins a hundred years ago, and in order to appreciate the complicated issues unfolding today, the film will interweave past and present events.

No one knows exactly how many Indians were killed along the Trail of Tears. But it’s hard to imagine that during this period an even more poorly documented crime was being perpetrated. The brutality committed by whites against American Indians has become a part of our national conscience. Largely unknown, however, is that the institution of slavery was adopted by the Cherokee long before their forced removal from the southern states.

By the time gold was discovered in present-day Georgia—the Cherokee’s aboriginal land—at the dawn of the 18th century, Cherokee slave codes were indistinguishable from those enacted by the rest of the South. Soon after, when the Federal Removal Act mandated that the Cherokee and other Indians relinquish their native land and move west, countless blacks enslaved by Cherokees crossed into the frontier bonded and shackled. These black slaves suffered, unbelievably, a far more violent journey than their Indian masters. 

The practice of slavery within the Cherokee Nation, however, intensified just as white colonialists invaded or married into the tribe, establishing a less homogenous people than those portrayed in school textbooks. The existence of white Cherokees was increasingly prevalent in positions of power. “If you look at pictures of the leaders of the Cherokee Nation, most of them, they dressed white, they looked white,” Professor Agnew of Northeastern University of Oklahoma said during filming, “they were white for all intents and purposes.”

When the Lincoln administration threatened slaveholders, the Cherokee Nation signed allegiance with the Confederacy. Finding themselves on the losing side of the Civil War, and their shrinking territory under threat once again, the Cherokee Nation sought to reestablish government-to-government relations with the U.S.

Finally, in the summer of 1866, just months after U.S. lawmakers amended the Constitution to bar slavery, the Cherokee Nation entered into a treaty with the U.S. Among a long list of terms, the Treaty granted perpetual freedom and full tribal membership to all Cherokee slaves and their descendants. The Treaty of 1866 named these black, newly minted Cherokee citizens: Freedmen.

HOW YOUR FUNDING WILL BE USED:

With your support, “Freed Men: Oppressed by the Oppressed” will pick up over a century later. (It should be noted here that “Freed Men: Oppressed by the Oppressed” is not an advocacy film. Although the film is investigative in nature, we are committed to quality reporting and journalistic integrity, documenting viewpoints from each camp.)

In 1999, Cherokee Nation annual revenues were $2 million. In 2011, annual earnings soared to $800 million. Just as tribal revenues started to swell, then Chief Chadwick Smith, along with senior tribal leaders began using the term “non-Indians” to describe its Freedmen citizens.

According to advocates, the Smith administration developed a base of supporters by arguing that the more “non-Indians” in the tribe, the fewer resources would be available to true Cherokees. This fueled nationalist sentiments, and the Smith administration gained popularity among conservative members of the tribe.

Soon after, Smith hired Jack Abramoff (who was later convicted of conspiracy and sentenced to federal prison) to lobby the Interior Department and Congress on behalf of the Cherokee Nation on issues related to “sovereignty” and “appropriations,” according to records the film’s producer obtained.

Together, Smith and Abramoff succeeded in convincing Congress to increase federal funds to the Cherokee Nation just as Smith was preparing to issue an executive order to remove Cherokee Freedmen citizens from the tribe.

Just weeks before the 2003 tribal election, Smith issued an executive order refusing to recognize Freedmen as Cherokee citizens, effectively eliminating their right to vote. And with thousands of Freedmen sidelined, on May 24, 2003, Smith was successfully elected to his second term in office.

Legal wrangling ensued. With Freedmen unable to vote, and legal proceedings stalled in federal court, Chief Smith was elected to office again in 2007 -- dozens of members of Congress argue, illegally. These members of Congress, many of whom make up the Black Caucus, also contend that the Freedmen removal by the Cherokee Nation violated federal law and the treaty of 1866.

Yet measures taken by these Congressional leaders intended to check the Cherokee Nation proved impotent against the tribe’s deep-pocketed lobbying apparatus. Indeed, lawmakers were unable to curb the flow of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars awarded to a tribe they accused of violating civil rights. While many federal officials condemned the Cherokee Nation’s actions, the Interior Department and the Department of Defense awarded the tribe’s business arm millions of dollars worth of contracts.

This October, after an eight-year legal battle, a federal judge dismissed the Freedmen lawsuit, ruling that the Cherokee Nation is immune from such litigation. Several days after the decision, following Smith’s 12-year reign, a new chief was elected to the helm of the Cherokee Nation. Chief John Bill Baker, according to advocates, is maintaining the status quo by boxing out most of the tribe’s former black citizens. What’s more, a request by members of Congress that the Justice Department open a civil rights investigation into the Cherokee Nation was denied.

Many advocates anticipate that the Cherokee Nation’s apparent immunity from federal intervention has licensed carte blanche discrimination against hundreds of thousands of Freedmen across the region, extending into neighboring Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations.

With completion funds, our team will be able to continue filming in Oklahoma and Washington DC over the coming months. Our film will investigate the veracity of reports concerning racial discrimination across the remnants of Indian Territory and explore federal government struggle to reconcile its policies with its past sins.

Meanwhile, our accompanying website will serve as a public forum, and include source documents, historical multimedia, and exclusive video from the field.

"Freed Men: Oppressed by the Oppressed" is a project of Thread, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that powers targeted digital outlets, documentary films, and interactive projects dedicated to in-depth journalism in the public interest.

Your contribution to this project is tax-deductible. 

Thank you for your support . . .