Had no idea that the native Americans owned slaves.
“Crazy James” Vann, Cherokee Chief and one of the weathiest men in America at the time, was rich enough that he could afford to burn a slave alive at the stake for stealing, as a warning to his other slaves.
But there was Indians and then again there was Indians, the most benign form of slavery I know was practiced by the Seminoles of Florida, a sort of mild feudalism where runaway slaves settled into their own villages and gave part of their harvest to the Seminoles proper. Lots miscegenation of course such that Osceola hisself was a mixture of Indian, White and Black.
During the Second Seminole War the enduring partnership of the Seminole Wildcat and the Black Seminole John Horse became legendary.
After the Seminoles and Black Seminoles fought the US to a standstill, the 500 Black Seminoles, negroes who had been engaged in a shooting war with the US Government, were actually allowed to bear arms during their removal to Indian Territory with the Seminoles on the pretext that they were their slaves.
In Oklahoma the Black Seminoles settled mostly in their own communities adjacent to those of the Seminoles. Ten years later, in the 1850’s, the US Government outlawed the practice of slaves bearing arms, thus legally disarming the Black Seminoles. In response, Creek Indian slavecatchers started abducting Black Seminoles and selling them into real slavery. John Horse’s own wife was kidnapped and sold off.
Whereupon the Black Seminoles accepted a deal with the Mexican Government; a land grant south of Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras in return for the interdiction of Kiowa, Apache and Comanche raids. Wildcat’s band accompanied them south. During the latter 1850’s the Seminoles and Black Seminoles likely intercepted far more War Parties and raiders than the Second Cavalry and Texas Rangers combined.
Wildcat died of smallpox in 1857, most of his band then returning to Oklahoma, the Black Seminoles under John Horse stayed on. Fifteen years later John Horse accepted a deal where they would scout for the US Cavalry out of Ft Clark, so they relocated there. Three Black Seminole Scouts were awarded Medals of Honor for feats of valor when going against Comanches.
