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Welcome back to Questions You Didn't Ask. I'm
Naisha Frey, joined again by the brilliant Dr.
Elena Roberts as we continue. Sankofa and Solidarity,
uncovering Black and Native legacies for health
equity. Let's dive back in. We didn't get a chance
to talk about land rights, right? Even when we
think about the Northeast, right? The states
are really small. You start to come further down
the Southeast, they start to get bigger. But
then when you move West, they're huge, right?
And so one of the things that was interesting
about your book was, you know, as we mentioned
before, the American government found a way to
impose its will on the Native nations, right,
to free and emancipate their slaves, which the
Native nations would not have done without that
power move, right? They fought it. One of the
reasons why they fought it was because what came
with that was the 40 acres requirement for each
of the formerly enslaved people or maybe families.
I don't know if it was a family unit or individuals.
Feel free to clarify me. But they actually received
the 40 acres. When we think about the vastness
of what's on the other side of the Mississippi,
that is a lot more doable. because the land mass
is larger. And how you talked about how that
land formation, that land acquisition or allocation,
and the emancipation of those formerly enslaved
Africans led to the development of states like
Oklahoma. You also talked about how it was kind
of a foundational element for the establishment
of communities like Tulsa, right? And so can
you tell my audience a little bit more about
the role African and Black freedmen played in
reshaping post -slavery America? And we hear
about Tulsa, but we do not hear about the Black
people who were formerly enslaved by Native.
Can you share a little bit about how those formerly
enslaved people reshaped what we know today to
be America? So if we're thinking about the way
like a textbook is divided, I mean, it's been
a long time since I was in school, but I'm thinking
about this all the time with my college students.
The Civil War kind of gets a portion and then
you have the kind of Western expansion portion
of the book. But this is actually all happening
at the same time. So during the Civil War, the
United States is also thinking about expanding
West. The Homestead Act is passed during the
war, 1862. And so as white settlers are at the
same time, you know, fighting a war in some aspects,
they're also thinking about how can I kind of
create my own new home somewhere in the West?
West meaning, you know, west of the Mississippi
River. And so for... People in Indian territory,
which is what eventually becomes the state of
Oklahoma, they are in what at first the United
States thought of as like, oh, like it's dry
there. Like no one wants to live there. Fine.
Native Americans, you know, move there from the
Southeast. This is where we're going to push
you because we don't care. We're never going
to move there. 20 years later, they're like,
oh, actually, maybe we should move there. And
so they. begin pressuring Indian nations to give
up some of their land there. But it's after the
Civil War that the United States says we can
use basically as an excuse the fact that Native
nations fought in the Civil War, some on the
side of the Confederacy, and say, you know, if
you want to reestablish connections and positive
relationships with us, the government that you
now have to deal with again, you got to give
up some land. And this is how they also push
through the emancipation of formerly enslaved
people in these Indian nations. And so the way
that Native nations owned land traditionally
was communally, meaning, you know, a tribe kind
of thought of a piece of land as their own and
individuals could settle wherever they wanted
on that land and they could, you know, farm wherever
they wanted. And as much as they could farm was,
you know, their portion of that land. And that's
what they, the five tribes, were still doing
in Indian territory. But the United States didn't
like that. They didn't like it as a social construct
because they didn't like the idea that Native
people weren't kind of subscribing to Native
or Euro -American norms. But they also didn't
like it on a political and economic level because
that meant that white people couldn't come in
and kind of buy their own section of that land
if they wanted to. And so part of the trees that
they make after the Civil War is, you know, free
those Black people, make those Black people part
of your nation, and then also divide that land
that you own. uh into individual parcels like
you know white americans do we have personal
property that's the way we make and pass down
you know wealth uh we want you to do that too
now and so they came in and surveyed all of this
huge amount of land and then they gave that well
they didn't give it to so they bought some of
that to then use for things like the Homestead
Act or things like the land runs. And then the
rest of that was, it stayed within those Indian
nations, except now everyone had individual title
to land. So, you know, you asked about, does
every individual get one or it's the family and
it's every individual. So my grandfather's dad,
he had a piece of land, 40 acres. All of his
brothers, all of his 11 brothers all had their
own portions of land as well, sometimes right
by each other, sometimes in like random different
places. And also every Native person had the
same thing. And so that's how eventually you're
able to kind of open up these various states
because then Indian Territory becomes two halves.
So one where Indian nations are still present,
one where white settlers have been allowed to
live that becomes the state of Oklahoma. And
then eventually the United States has enough
white settlers there to then say, OK, now we
want to make this a state. Native nations fight
back against this. They say, you know, we want
to live here as our own governments. This is
what you promised us. We are sovereign nations
who have treaties with the United States going
back till your very founding. They try to actually
create their own state. It's called the state
of Sequoia. They create signatures like they
have conventions. At the same time, African -Americans
from the United States are coming into this space
and saying, you know, we want to actually build
our own state here, too. Like we want to be free
from discrimination that we're facing in the
U .S. South. And so there are Black politicians.
There are African -American leaders, also Frederick
Douglass, who are saying, you know, this is the
space where we should create kind of our own
our own example of what African -Americans can
do once we're free. And Indian Territory really
kind of becomes a battleground and also a space
where all these different groups are envisioning
like what could be for themselves. I mean, and
white people are part of this, too. White people
are coming from the South. where the hierarchy
that allowed for racial slavery also kept poor
white people from being able to do much, like
not having many opportunities as well. That's
kind of always what I teach my white students,
that racism also does not help you, a white person,
which also creates this hierarchy in which you
are not benefiting unless you're part of the
1%. And so really, this is, I think, a good encapsulation
of what... the United States becomes because
it is a fight between these three main groups,
Black, Native, and white Americans over land
and who has the right to claim this land, who
has title to this land, who is better, who is
more civilized. And so in kind of all this mess,
places like Tulsa's Greenwood District are able
to flourish because for the time period between
when it becomes the state of Oklahoma and then
in the early days of the state of Oklahoma. for
about a decade or two, you have still this opportunity.
You still have the ability to function without
all of these white settlers crowding around you
with a hardened racial hierarchy. But it's when
you get all these white settlers and you get
the might of the state and the idea that, OK,
now this is a settled place. This is no longer
kind of the Western frontier where anything is
possible. Now we need to put into place the things
that already exist on the East Coast. That's
when kind of the white violence really ratchets
up. And that's when you get the Tulsa massacre,
because all these white people are coming here
and saying, why is this black person doing better
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going. Right. Right. I came out here to assert
myself in order to rise above my own white poverty
that enslaved me. informally on the East Coast.
And I definitely wanted to be seen as arriving
to other white folks, but I can't do that if
there are Black people that are doing better
than me. So the answer is destroy it. Yay. Let's
bomb it. Let's terrorize these people and put
them in their place. So I'm saying that with
a smile and I'm laughing, but obviously I'm describing
something that was terrible, that was horrible,
that was violent, that was what we call domestic
terrorism, right? And with that, you also mentioned
how in that early push West, how people of African
descent, right, were able to acquire massive
amounts of land. With that came wealth building
opportunities. And with those wealth building
opportunities came the development of places
like Tulsa. From my somewhat limited understanding
of history, acquiring that type of land was almost
impossible. in the original colonies, right,
on the East Coast. And so there is an assumption
that I'm making, and we know what assumptions
do, so I'm going to limit my assumptions, is
that those Black folks were doing better, right,
than the people that were in the original colonies
or east of the Mississippi, right? And then there's
also this weird thing. Again, my brain went poof.
When, you know what I'm about to say, when Frederick
Douglass, our beloved and dear Frederick Douglass,
revealed himself as being human, wholeheartedly
human, a .k .a. imperfect. Imperfect in that
he was making a political statement and a political
move that seemed counter to his original thesis,
right? So I will leave it there and let you talk
a little bit more about what his motivation was,
maybe a little bit about the context in which
he's making a statement about what's happening
on the west side of the Mississippi and what
opportunities are there. So when we talk about
African -Americans and land. The, you know, the
phrase, the motto, whatever, that a lot of people
know, even if they don't know more of the deeper
history is, you know, the idea of 40 acres and
a mule. Like it's been in multiple rap songs,
most recently in Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl
song, which was amazing. And this comes from
the idea that, you know, African -Americans deserve
something like anything after these generations
of free labor in the United States. And this
comes from like a real life historical incident
or episode. When during the Civil War, African
-Americans start basically following the United
States Army as it's on its way through the South,
winning, sometimes losing, winning also. And
the generals are really kind of saying, you know,
we can't house all these Black people. We can't
feed them. We don't even always have enough for
ourselves. What are we going to do with all these
people? They talk to Abraham Lincoln. They talk
to Ulysses S. Grant, various people. And then
finally someone has the idea, well, why don't
we ask African Americans what they want? Like,
what can we do for you guys? And a group of reverends
and other politicians or political leaders kind
of say, you can give us a home. Like, you can
give us our own land. Like, clearly we already
know how to take care of ourselves. We've been
taking care of white people. And so what we want
is to have something of our own. And at this
point, this is 1864, There are multiple slaveholders
who have fled their plantations, fled their plantations.
And in the South Carolina Sea Islands and Georgia,
they say, like, can we just kind of have this
land that these people are no longer living on?
And the government and one of the generals, Sherman.
says, you know, yes, we are going to do what's
called the field order, which is kind of a, it's
not an official proclamation, but it's something
that's happening during wartime to make things
easier, basically. And so this order basically
gives them to write to like to 40 acres of land.
And so they're able to plant that land. They
build schools with the help of people who come
from the North. They build churches. And so they're
finally creating communities, you know, free
from slaveholders and also from, you know, discrimination.
It's great. Then after the Civil War, President
Lincoln dies. President Andrew Jackson takes
over or Johnson. And Johnson does not like this.
Johnson, who is a southerner, is very uncomfortable
with the fact that black people could have land
that was taken from a white person. And so he
tells Congress, you got to make them give that
land back. And so for the most part, they do.
So this kind of experiment that has shown that
African -Americans can successfully farm, surprise,
and take care of themselves still doesn't end
up mattering in the end because the United States
is very uncomfortable with the idea of taking
private property from any white person and giving
it to a black person. There are still some African
-Americans who are able to buy land throughout
the South. There's this great book. I can't remember
the name of it right now, but the author is Bria
Baker. And she talks about. You know, the landowners
throughout the South, some of whom have still
passed that land down to their descendants today,
which is amazing. But generally in the South,
racism doesn't allow people to take ownership
of land and stay on it. Usually, even if some
person is able to kind of amass the capital needed
to buy land, they're scared off of it because
there's violence. You know, their life is threatened.
The life of their family is threatened. And so
they're moving north or moving west. Or they're
staying in the South and becoming a sharecropper.
But in the West, there's a different opportunity
because a lot of the land out there is still
held by Native Americans. And white people don't
respect Native Americans and their claims to
land in the same way they do white Americans.
And so what we see with the five tribes is that
sort of disrespect, not as bad as it gets with
people who are in the further West, like the
Pacific Northwest and then places like what is
now Arizona. Montana, etc. The five tribes, because
they are respected still as these, you know,
quote unquote, civilized peoples, they do have
treaties that allow them to sell their land to
the US. So they do still make money, a low amount
of money, but amount of money from that land
sale, they do still have some control over that.
But there is that provision that gives people
like my family land, because for Republicans
who are in Congress and who wanted to give African
Americans in the Southland, but didn't have the
votes. can say, you know, well, this is Native
Americans. Like, we don't care about that. Like,
let's kind of do what we weren't able to do for
Black people in the South here in the West. Right.
And so they're able to put that in that treaty
that goes through. Then you also have African
-Americans who are able to kind of come together
and like unite to, you know, pull their money
to buy land. So a lot of the Black towns in Oklahoma,
Oklahoma being the state with the most Black
towns at the turn of the 20th century. That comes
from, you know, Black people who have gotten
wealthy and who kind of buy a whole pool of land
and then subdivide that land so that African
-Americans who don't have as much money can purchase
that. And so this is why people like Frederick
Douglass see the West really as kind of the place
where land ownership is possible. Like clearly
there wasn't enough kind of white. desire to
actually give equality to African -Americans
in the South. He sees that he's realistic. He
says, maybe it's not going to happen here, but
it could happen in the West because black people,
you know, they know how to take care of this
land. They are like you white people. They are
productive. They're smart. Like they want to
farm. They want to be. you know, good citizens,
unlike Native Americans. And so the interesting
thing about Douglas's statement is that he feels
it's necessary almost to denigrate Native Americans
in order to make this point about African Americans.
That's a wrap on this episode of Questions You
Didn't Ask. I'm Naisha Frey, and it's been a
privilege to speak with award -winning author,
Dr. Elena Roberts. Join us next week as we continue
our series, Sankofa and Solidarity. uncovering
Black and Native legacies for health equity.
See you then.