I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land by Alaina E. Roberts

Author:Alaina E. Roberts [Roberts, Alaina E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, United States, 19th Century, Americas (North; Central; South; West Indies), African American & Black
ISBN: 9780812253030
Google: Jk4gEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Published: 2021-04-05T00:11:30.102523+00:00

FIGURE 7. Great Seal of the state of Oklahoma.

Though unwilling to see them as the permanent, rightful owners of the land or even as equal partners in diplomacy, white settlers were eager to use Native peoples as representations of this new state. This sort of representation is a part of the settler colonial process—as the actual prior residents diminish in number and in influence, they become important symbols of the settler colonial state’s past. The Oklahoma state seal is a veritable smorgasbord of symbolism starting with the very method by which it came to be: the idea for the seal was taken from that proposed by representatives of the Five Tribes at the Sequoyah Convention. Literally and metaphorically, this new state was created from that which was taken from the Native peoples of Indian Territory.

On the seal, the Five Tribes make up a five-pointed star (representing one of the stars that symbolize each individual American state on the American flag), with each point of the star encapsulating each Indian nation’s seal. In the middle of the star, inside a wreath, a Native man wearing the headdress of a Plains Indian shakes the hand of a white man in front of a figure of blind Justice, symbolizing equality for the two races. Perhaps most telling of all, above Justice’s head are the Latin words “Labor Omnia Vincit,” which translate to “labor conquers all things.” Reflecting white settlers’ belief that hard work, rather than support of the settler colonial process, led to their success, the adage is an interesting juxtaposition to the state’s modern-day colloquial name, “the Sooner State,” which honors those who refused to abide by legal and moral rules requiring them to wait to stake their claim to land during the 1889 Land Run.

With statehood came many profound changes for people of Native and African descent. But one thing that stayed the same—or actually worsened—was white economic exploitation. By 1895 speculators had located the major petroleum and natural-gas fields within several of the Five Tribes but largely failed to realize their vast potential; this would take several more years. White settlers would exploit these resources through the use of a new tool: guardianship.66 Land allotment carried with it distinctions between different “classes” of people. Indian freedpeople received less land than those deemed Indians, but even among Indians there was an important difference imposed after allotment was processed: one’s supposed racial identity determined the actions they could take with regard to their land. After many arguments, hearings, testimonies, and letters between politicians, tribal citizens, reformers, and speculators, white American legislators decided that those Indians deemed “full-blooded” were barred from the ability to “alienate, sell, dispose of, or encumber in any manner” the entirety of their allotment for 25 years after the passage of the 1906 Five Tribes Act (until 1931). During this period, their allotments were also not taxed.67 This was a way to paternalistically protect them from swindlers and force them to learn the ways of yeoman agriculture.68 Mixed-race persons

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