[Eskimo2017]

I was wanting anyone to post their knowledge of the history of the Indians that occupied the river valley area before they were forced to move to Oklahoma.

[Eskimo2017]

Originally Posted by Eskimo2017

I was wanting anyone to post their knowledge of the history of the Indians that occupied the river valley area before they were forced to move to Oklahoma.

[url]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_freedmen_controversy[/url] are any of the Indians in Arkansas listed as one of these instead of just Cherokee, my ancestor was listed as a Cherokee freemen, because she was a slave owned Indian that was blue eyed and looked white with a white name, but in fact was fulled blooded Cherokee but they by marriage into the slave owners family lost her Indian rights as just a Cherokee, and was then labeled as a Cherokee Freedmen.

[lobosolitario]

The Cherokee had moved into Arkansas long before the "removal" and set up successful farmsteads and built towns. So, they were not natives. The Quapaw were natives and mostly lived along the Arkansas River, if fact, Little Rock is built on some of their ancestral homelands. The Caddo were also native and ranged, more-or-less, from the Arkansas River south. Thirty years ago the "experts" didn't think the Caddo lived in the Ouachita Mountains, but during the past 30 years we have found many farmsteads and individual houses in the Ouachita's that carbon dated back to the early 1500s. We have also found sites in the Ouachita's that that date back 2,000 years. Not what you asked for but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to pass on that info.


I'm not sure I'm correct, but my understanding is that the word "freedman" did not come into use until the several census that were taken of the Indians in the 1800s and someone decided to use that term for the newly freed slaves, some of whom were part Indian.