Tracing my Ancestral Roots to the Freedmen of the Chickasaw Nation and Beyond — Entry One
Seeing my third great-grandfather’s signature on the Chickisaw Nation Freedmen Roll brought to life the legend that I had heard about since childhood and recently dreamt of finding in my adult years.
From 1898 to 1914 the United States government partnered with the 5 Civilized Tribes to form the Dawes Commission. This group, appointed by President Grover Cleveland in 1893, was responsible for processing over 101,000 individuals for tribal membership. Anyone found eligible for the Final Rolls was entitled to an allotment of land. Today the five tribes use the Dawes Rolls as the basis for determining membership. One has to simply trace ancestry to a (great)grandmother, grandfather, etc, and provide proof of lineage.
Obtaining tribal membership for me has always been about far more than some sort of tangible benefit. I'm a firm believer that finding out where I came from will be key to where I end up in life, so tracing my roots is dear to my heart. I started searching online and it wasn’t long before I built my family tree on Ancestry.com. Like many I’ve read about before, I found myself unable to even pull away from the hunt. Each page I opened revealed another fascinating part of the puzzle. I pictured plains, wagon trains, and boomtowns. In my mind's eye, I was transported back to the prosperous prairies of the Earth region of Chickasaw Country, and the world before me was new and free. Before I knew it I had not only connected myself to the Dawes Roll, I discovered a part of my slave roots as well.
Reading from my third great-grandfather King Blue’s own words on Chickasaw Freedmen Card No 63, he was born to Louisa, a slave of Ben Colbert.
As I searched further, I found the slave schedule where a 5-year-old black male registered under Benjamin Colbert along with a woman of 30. Records like these are what I knew existed, and now that I’ve found them I’m determined to keep them alive and pass them on to future generations.
In December of 1902 King Blue at the age of 47 registered on the Dawes Roll.
This look far into my past has been really exciting. Uncovering history is a true passion of mine and something that I see as a great necessity. The next step in this journey is to collect all of the documents needed to establish my connection to the Roll. This will involve collecting birth or death certificates and I also plan to visit Holisso: The Center for Study of Chickasaw History and Culture. I’ll update again soon with the next entry as things develop.