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The Cherokee Freedmen were always considered as part of the tribe until the U.S. Government gave millions of dollars to the Indians. Then the Indian politicians kicked them out so they wouldn't have to share the money with them.
It's almost laughable, but it's actually sad that many people think it was only a white American practice.
And in general, "they" don't want to hear any different. It clashes with their agenda about how evil America, and whites are . A couple years ago, I think it was in the youtube comment section on a slavery thread, I shared about the slavery of the Irish complete with references. You would not believe all the thumbs downs I got. It made them so angry at the thought that they were not the only slaves. Or that other people groups also enslaved somehow lessened black slavery. A bunch even said that it was not true . You can't reason with people like that.
Instead of asking why did X practice slavery wouldn't it make more sense to find a group that DID NOT practice it and then ask why? Pretty much anyone born can see the appeal of having somebody wait on you and cater to your needs.
As others have said...because. For various reasons mankind has used slavery for various needs and throughout various time periods since humans have walked upright. Native Americans were not the exception. Odd that the word humane comes from the late middle English word of human. Hardly seems right.
And it's far from over despite what we may think about it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Giesela
Many cultures all over the planet had slaves of one sort or another throughout time.
MightyQueen81 got it exactly. Its part of the human condition to separate "us vs. them". Once something or someone is a "them", whether its color, gender, ethnicity or economic differences, they are just a resource. Pretty common. We humans are not very nice. Its why we have to have laws with consequences.
This map shows where the world’s 30 million slaves live. There are 60,000 in the U.S.
By Max Fisher - October 17, 2013
We think of slavery as a practice of the past, an image from Roman colonies or 18th-century American plantations, but the practice of enslaving human beings as property still exists. There are 29.8 million people living as slaves right now, according to a comprehensive new report issued by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation.
This is not some softened, by-modern-standards definition of slavery. These 30 million people are living as forced laborers, forced prostitutes, child soldiers, child brides in forced marriages and, in all ways that matter, as pieces of property, chattel in the servitude of absolute ownership. Walk Free investigated 162 countries and found slaves in every single one. But the practice is far worse in some countries than others.
There are an estimated 20.9 Million people trapped in some form of slavery today. It’s sometimes called “Modern-Day Slavery†and sometimes “Human Trafficking." At all times it is slavery at its core.
How much did these tribes becoming mixed with whites lead to them adopting slavery and other parts of white culture of that time?
Many Native American tribal groups practiced slavery for centuries before Europeans arrived.
It's also known that at least 7 tribal groups were totally eradicated through genocide. I'm not talking about a campaign of genocide, I'm talking about every single person in the tribe was killed, so that the tribe ceased to exist, with its language and customs permanently eradicated.
The French were the first Europeans to arrive in the Detroit area and the slave-trade among tribal groups was so bad it interfered in the French fur trade.
The French tried for several years using negotiations to get those tribal groups to stop engaging in wars and raids to acquire slaves, but to no avail.
Ultimately, the French sided with one of the tribes and went to war against the others to put in end to the slave trade.
The Melungeons, and others. But there is a difference of opinion about their origin.
DNA testing took care of most of the differences of opinion.
A friend of mine with Tennessee roots and a common Melungeon surname (but no oral tradition of Melungeon background) back in her family several generations ago just took that test, as did her sister. Surprise! 7% African background, previously completely unknown to my friend's current family. She did the math - not that far back if one individual was involved - a black g-g-grandparent seems to be indicated. Of course that percentage could have been acquired through more than one ancestor.
My friend is very fair-skinned, blue eyed, has typical western European facial features and light brown hair - that is very curly. Family did have an oral tradition of Cherokee background, but no genetic American Indian heritage emerged. She and her sister plan to dig a bit deeper as this has raised a lot of unanswered questions for them - sadly, the older generation of their family is gone now.
The OP cited the Cherokees as slave-holders. By the time of the Cherokee Removal in 1845, many of the Cherokee were very, very assimilated with the dominant culture and many were intermarried with whites. Many Scottish backcountry traders had Cherokee wives, and their descendants became Cherokee leaders - look at the background of Chief John Ross. By the time of the Removal, individuals who considered themselves Cherokee and who were often tribal leaders were only 1/6 Cherokee by "blood".
The dominant white culture in the ante bellum Cherokees' original lands and later in Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) included wealthy slaveholders, and the Cherokee leadership of the time mirrored this culture.
See General Stand Watie, a Cherokee Confederate from Oklahoma, for a remarkable story of how various cultures mixed and adapted what was pragmatic for their time and place.
I don't know why people have this romanticized belief that Native Americans overall were a peace loving race of people living in harmony with nature. They weren't. They were human beings like the rest of us. They had slaves, had wars, sacrificed people for religious purposes and killed vast numbers of animals causing the extinction of some species. In many respects, they weren't all that different in this regard than early Europeans or any other people across the globe.
Don't let the SJW historical revisionist crow know that.
I can not speak to the Cherokee, but Indians of the Northwest & Plains practiced slavery.
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. A couple years ago, I think it was in the youtube comment section on a slavery thread, I shared about the slavery of the Irish complete with references. You would not believe all the thumbs downs I got. It made them so angry at the thought that they were not the only slaves. Or that other people groups also enslaved somehow lessened black slavery. A bunch even said that it was not true 
. You can't reason with people like that.
