Mixed race in the Seminole Nation

Ethnohistory

Volumn 58, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 113-141

  Mulroy, Kevin ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 78751638905     PISSN: 00141801     EISSN: 15275477     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1215/00141801-2010-066     Document Type: Article

References (130)

1. Kevin Mulroy, Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas (Lubbock, TX, 2003 [1993]).
2. J. B. Campbell, Campbell's Abstract of Seminole Indian Census Cards and Index (Muskogee, OK, 1925).
3. Seminole freedman census card 740, National Archives Record Group (hereafter, NARG) 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (hereafter, BIA), Enrollment Cards for the Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914, Microfilm Publication M1186, roll 93. Digitized versions of the Seminole and freedman census cards can be searched online via the Archival Research Catalog (ARC), arcweb. archives.gov (accessed 10 December, 2007).
4. Seminole Nation, I. T., "Benjamin F. Bruner Obituary," 10 June 1939, seminolenation-indianterritory.org/benjamin_f_bruner_obituary.htm (accessed 6 November 2007).
5. Indian Pioneer Papers (hereafter, IPP), Indian Archives (Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City), vol. 89, int. 12836, Ben F. Bruner, 259-60.
6. "Claims of Loyal Seminole for Losses Suffered during the Civil War, Submitted under Provisions of the Treaty of March 21, 1866," National Archives Microfilm Publication M574, roll 11, file 87, claims 292, 291, 285, 290, 274.
7. Kevin Mulroy, The Seminole Freedmen: A History (Norman, OK, 2007), 120, 195, 219, 267-71.
8. Phil Wilkes Fixico, interview by author, Los Angeles, 11 November 2005.
9. Seminole freedman census cards 717-21, 740, 698, 699, 777, 694, 704, 715, and Newborn Seminole freedman census card 41, NARG, M1186, roll 93; Will of Caesar Bruner, 18 September 1918, Seminole County Probate Case 2869.
10. Seminole Indian census card 453, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
11. Seminole Indian census card 26, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
12. Josiah W. Washbourne to Charles W. Dean, 24 January 1856, and M. Thompson to J. Thompson, 6 December 1858, National Archives Microfilm Publications M234, Office of Indian Affairs, Letters Received 1824-81, roll 802, Seminole Agency 1856-58, D92-56, T346-58.
13. On this mixed-race Factor family, see Daniel F. Littlefield Jr., Africans and Seminoles: From Removal to Emancipation (Jackson, MS, 2001 [1977]), 30, 53-55, 65-67n60.
14. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 11, 132-33, 234, 332n22.
15. "Benjamin F. Bruner Obituary"; IPP, vol. 89, int. 12836, Ben F. Bruner, 259-60.
16. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 89-90, 182, 188, 196, 207, 248, 254, 258-59, 261.
17. Richard A. Sattler, "Siminoli Italwa: Socio-Political Change among the Oklahoma Seminoles between Removal and Allotment, 1836-1905," PhD diss., University of Oklahoma, 1987, 207.
18. Seminole freedman census cards 699, 810, 828, and Newborn Seminole freedman census card 78, NARG, M1186, roll 93.
19. Seminole Indian census card 26, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
20. Claudio Saunt, Black, White, and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family (New York, 2005).
21. Seminole Indian census card 26, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
22. Affidavit of Aaron Sanco, 11 December 1869, receipt issued by John W. Wright, Cherokee Nation, 2 May 1866, and T. A. Baldwin to Ely S. Parker, 15 December 1869, M234, roll 804, Seminole Agency, 1868-71, B506-69 and encs.; Seminole freedman census cards 713, 813, NARG, M1186, roll 93.
23. Seminole Indian census card 26, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
24. Fixico and Bruner family information provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico in personal communications (formal interviews, in-person and telephone conversations, and correspondence), summer 2005 to fall 2007, notes and copies in possession of the author (hereafter, Fixico-Bruner family information).
25. Phil's information has been enhanced by knowledge and memories shared by Charlesetta Bruner McMillon, daughter of Pompey's half brother Wellington Bruner, and Frank "Buck" James, grandson of Rosa Fay and half nephew of William Alexander Crain. Phil's knowledge also draws heavily on the experience of other Bruner descendants within the West Texas and Oklahoma Seminole freedman communities.
26. Seminole Indian census card 263, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
27. Sattler, "Siminoli Italwa," 449, 458.
28. Seminole Indian census cards 26, 263 and Seminole freedman census card 740, NARG, M1186, rolls 92, 93.
29. Antoinette C. Snow Constant, "Modern Witchcraft," holographic manuscript, Antoinette C. Snow Constant Papers, Section X, Indian Archives, Oklahoma Historical Society.
30. Lincoln University, College and Theological Seminary, Biographical Catalogue, 1918 (Lancaster, PA, 1918), 24, 26, 30.
31. Statistical Catalogue of the Students of the Collegiate and Theological Departments of Lincoln University, 1912, lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/alumnimagazine/1912.pdf (accessed 27 September 2007), 8, 22.
32. J. Read Moore, Moore's Seminole Roll and Land Guide (Wewoka, OK, 1915), 12, 13.
33. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 214-15, 238, 269, 271, 283, 285-87, 301, 384n59; Newborn Seminole census card 23, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
34. Mary Walker, "Caesar Bruner," unpublished typescript, 1956, based on interviews with individuals who knew Bruner (copy in author's possession).
35. Seminole Indian census card 263, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
36. On the use of "slave names" and other naming practices among the Seminole maroons, see Rebecca B. Bateman, "Naming Patterns in Black Seminole Ethnogenesis," Ethnohistory 49 (2002): 227-57.
37. Rebecca B. Bateman, "'We're Still Here': History, Kinship, and Group Identity among the Seminole Freedmen of Oklahoma," PhD diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1990, 343-54.
38. See also Mischa B. Adams, "Naming Practices among the Black Seminole of the Texas-Mexico Border Region," Journal of the Big Bend Studies 11 (1999): 119-44.
39. Moore, Seminole Roll and Land Guide, 12.
40. On the mixed-race Noble family, see Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 240-43.
41. Moore, Seminole Roll and Land Guide, 15.
42. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 211.
43. Seminole Indian census card 263, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
44. W. N. Stokes to Lafayette Walker, 12 July 1916, Walker to Stokes, 15 July 1916, H. H. Milks to Secretary of the Interior and to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 26 June 1931, NARG 75, Department of the Interior, BIA, Five Civilized Tribes Agency, Case Files on Individual Indians, 1910-1952, Probate Case Files on Pompey Bruner Fixico, 967204 and 967205, National Archives and Records Administration, Fort Worth, TX (hereafter Fixico probate files).
45. For background on the Crain family, see Carolyn T. Foreman, "Dr. and Mrs. Richard Moore Crain," Chronicles of Oklahoma 35 (1957): 72-79.
46. Information on the mixed-race Coody family derives from Seminole Indian census cards 303, 314, 343, 354, 592, Seminole freedman census cards 625, 645, 652, 664, 737, and Creek freedman census cards 259, 1290, NARG, M1186, rolls 92, 93, 85, 88.
47. Annual Report of the United States Inspector for Indian Territory 1901 (Washington, DC, 1901), 47-48.
48. Mel H. Bolster, Crazy Snake and the Smoked Meat Rebellion (Boston, 1976).
49. Mel H. Bolster, "The Smoked Meat Rebellion," Chronicles of Oklahoma 31 (1953): 37-55.
50. Commissioner to Five Civilized Tribes to Secretary of the Interior, 18 September 1909, NARG 75, Records of the BIA, Records of the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, Letters Sent to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs or Secretary of the Interior Relating to the Commission's Activities, September 1907-May 1911, 3 vols., National Archives and Records Center, Southwest Region, Fort Worth, TX, 2:152-53.
51. Mace Davis, "Chitto Harjo," Chronicles of Oklahoma 13 (1935): 139-45.
52. Doris Duke Oral History Collection, 55 vols., Library Division, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, int. T-280, Primus Dean, 43:20.
53. D. C. Gideon, Indian Territory: Descriptive, Biographical, and Genealogical, Including the Landed Estates, Country Seats, etc., with a General History of the Territory (New York, 1901), esp. 121.
54. IPP, vol. 6, int. 5358, Wm. Frank Jones, 34; IPP, vol. 18, int. 5340, Nettie Cain, 94; IPP, vol. 31, int. 7014, Henry Jacobs, 100-103; IPP, vol. 39, int. 12091, Dora P. Parnell, 112-14; IPP, vol. 70, int. 7306, Louis Rentie, 477; IPP, vol. 82, int. 7873, D. L. Stipes, 425; IPP, vol. 86, int. 7617, Wm. Jones, 66; IPP, vol. 89, int. 13504, Billie Brant, 140-42.
55. William F. Jones, Experiences of a Deputy U.S. Marshal of the Indian Territory (n.p, 1937), 7-9.
56. Daniel F. Little field Jr., and Lonnie E. Underhill, "The Crazy Snake 'Uprising' of 1909: A Red, Black, or White Affair?" Arizona and the West 20 (1978-79): 307-24.
57. John B. Meserve, "The Plea of Crazy Snake (Chitto Harjo)," Chronicles of Oklahoma 11 (1933): 899-911.
58. Helen Starr and O. E. Hill, Footprints in the Indian Nation (Muskogee, OK, 1974), 30-47.
59. C. Guy Cutlip, "History of Seminole County," typescript, n.d., C. Guy Cutlip Collection, Manuscripts Division, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, box 2, 15-17; Daily Oklahoman, 5 December 1926; Holdenville Tribune (Creek Nation), 20 April 1905; obituary of J. Coody Johnson, Wewoka Capital-Democrat, 3 March 1927; J. B. Shoenfelt to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 7 January 1904, Seminole delegation to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 12 January and 6 February 1904, NARG 75, Letters Received by the BIA 1881-1907, 3772-04, 9621-04 and enc.; South McAlester Capital (Choctaw Nation), 1 December 1904; South McAlester Capital, 30 March 1905.
60. Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1905, part 1 (Washington, DC, 1905), 11.
61. Virgil Berry, "Experiences of a Pioneer Doctor in the Indian Territory," typescript, 1947, Virgil Berry Collection, Manuscripts Division, Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries, 17; Frank M. Campbell to Secretary of the Interior, 22 July 1905, NARG 75, Records of the BIA, Records of the [Dawes] Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, Seminole file, 1897-1905, Indian Archives, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, 8182-05; Creek freedman census cards 85, 966, and Seminole Indian census cards 9, 302, NARG, M1186, rolls 85, 87, 92; Holdenville Tribune, 20 April 1905; Holdenville Tribune, 11 May 1905; IPP, vol. 1, int. 52, F. G. Alex, 76; Muskogee Democrat (Creek Nation), May 6, 1905; South McAlester Capital, 30 March 1905; Sulphur Post (Chickasaw Nation), 27 April 1905.
62. Michael Welsh, "The Missionary Spirit: Protestantism among the Oklahoma Seminoles, 1842-1885," Chronicles of Oklahoma 61 (1983): 40.
63. J. G. Wright to Secretary of the Interior, 29 June 1905, NARG 75, Records of the BIA, Records of the U.S. Inspector for the Indian Territory, Letters Sent to the Department of the Interior, 14 June 1899 to 23 January 1906, 8 vols., National Archives and Records Center, Southwest Region, Fort Worth, TX, 7:279-85.
64. Moore, Seminole Roll and Land Guide, 12, 27; Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 297-98; Seminole freedman census card 843, NARG, M1186, roll 93.
65. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 297-98.
66. Newborn Seminole census card 94, NARG, M1186, roll 93.
67. Seminole Indian census card 8, Seminole freedman census cards 641, 694, and Newborn Seminole freedman census card 35, NARG, M1186, rolls 92, 93.
68. Fixico-Bruner family information.
69. On the development of Afro-Seminole Creole among the maroons, see Ian F. Hancock, Creole Features in Afro-Seminole Speech, Society for Caribbean Linguistics Occasional Paper no. 3 (Mona, Jamaica, 1975).
70. Ian F. Hancock, Further Observations on Afro-Seminole Creole, Society for Caribbean Linguistics Occasional Paper no. 7 (Mona, Jamaica, 1977).
71. Ian F. Hancock, "Maroon Societies and Creole Languages," in 1992 Festival of American Folklife, ed. Peter Seitel (Washington, DC, 1992).
72. Ian F. Hancock, "Texas Gullah: The Creole Language of the Brackettville Afro-Seminoles," in Perspectives in American English, ed. Joseph L. Dillard (The Hague, 1980), 305-33.
73. Ian F. Hancock, The Texas Semi noles and Their Language, African and Afro-American Studies and Research Center, ser. 2, no. 1 (Austin, TX, 1980).
74. Moore, Seminole Roll and Land Guide, 12.
75. Malcolm E. Rosser to J. H. Finley, 7 September 1933, Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 22 September 1933, Fixico probate files; Seminole freedman census card 740, and Newborn Seminole freedman census card 41, NARG, M1186, roll 93.
76. Seminole freedman census card 715, NARG, M1186, roll 93.
77. Rosser to Finley, 7 September 1933, Fixico probate files.
78. News report of Raymond Jackson's death, Oklahoma Almanac, 1930, rootsweb.com/~okbits/almanac.html (accessed 27 October 2007).
79. Milks to Secretary of the Interior and to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 26 June 1931, Rosser to Finley, 7 September 1933, Fixico probate files.
80. Moore, Seminole Roll and Land Guide, 12.
81. Seminole freedman census card 674, Creek freedman census card 586, NARG, M1186, rolls 93, 86.
82. Paul J. Wall to Peter Deichman, 15 May 1929, Wilbur H. Jones, Application in the Matter of the Guardianship of Frances Fixico, Linwood Fixico, Thelma Fixico, and Rudolph Fixico, Probate Court of Sedgwick County, KS, 28 August 1933, Fixico probate files; Linwood Bruner Fixico, Application for Social Security Account Number, 8 June 1942, and Mariah Fixico Stevens to Census Bureau, 22 October 1942, copies provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico; Fixico-Bruner family information.
83. Wall to Deichman, 15 May 1929, Wall, Brief in Support of Application of Mariah Fixico Stevens in the Matter of the Estate of Pompey Fixico Deceased, n.d., Milks to Secretary of the Interior and to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 26 June 1931, Rosser to Finley, 7 September 1933, and Rosser to A. M. Landman, 16 February 1934, Fixico probate files; Mariah Fixico Stevens to Census Bureau, 22 October 1942, copy provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico.
84. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 299, 304-5.
85. Bateman, "We're Still Here," chaps. 3-4.
86. The best overview of the illicit dealings of land sharks and grafters among the Five Tribes in Oklahoma remains Angie E. Debo, And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes (Princeton, NJ, 1940).
87. Violet P. Crain to Secretary of the Interior, 8 May 1906, Smn. 2-7, sec. X, file 2, Indian Archives, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City.
88. Witty Cudjo to Secretary of the Interior, 18 April 1906, Smn. 2-7, sec. X, file 2, Indian Archives, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City; Seminole freedman census card 715, NARG, M1186, roll 93.
89. Bruner Cemetery, findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GScid=98044&CR id=98044&pt=Bruner%20Cemetery& (accessed 8 November 2007); Fixico-Bruner family information.
90. Rebecca B. Bateman, two personal communications, 22 October 2007.
91. Seminole County News, 26 February 1925.
92. Seminole County News, 19 March 1925.
93. Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to Wall and Winsor Attorneys, 18 May 1931, Fixico probate files; U.S. Census, Population Schedule 1920, National Archives Records Administration, Washington, DC, microfilm roll T625-1475, Oklahoma ED 153, 3A.
94. Sarah Porter v. Carrie Bratton et al., U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Oklahoma, Equity No. 3567, 22 March 1928, Wall, Brief in Support of Applica tion of Mariah Fixico Stevens, Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 22 September 1933, Beulah Allen, Guardian of Fredrica [sic] Bruner v. Sarah Fixico et al., U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Oklahoma, Equity No. 4338, 25 September 1933, Fixico probate files; Seminole Indian census card 453, NARG, M1186, roll 92.
95. Rosser to Finley, 22 August 1933, Fixico probate files; Fixico-Bruner family information.
96. Superintendent of Five Civilized tribes to Wade Hampton, 1 March 1926, John M. Milner to Deichman, 28 July 1927, Sarah Porter v. Carrie Bratton et al., U.S. District Court for Eastern District of Oklahoma, Equity No. 3567, 22 March 1928, Wall to Deichman, 9 May 1929 and 9 May 1931, Wall, Brief in Support of Application of Mariah Fixico Stevens, Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to Wall and Winsor, 18 May 1931, Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 22 September 1933, Rosser to Landman, 16 February 1934, Fixico probate files.
97. Wall to Deichman, 15 May 1929, Fixico probate files.
98. On the Seminole maroon experience during the Civil War period, see Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, chap. 6.
99. Fixico-Bruner family information.
100. Copies of census materials, genealogies, and legal documents relating to the Rogers family provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico.
101. Wall, Brief in Support of Application of Mariah Fixico Stevens, Fixico probate files.
102. Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, September 22, 1933, Mariah Fixico Stevens to Landman, May 17, 1934, Landman to Fixico Stevens May 22, 1934, Fixico probate files.
103. Wall, Brief in Support of Application of Mariah Fixico Stevens, Fixico probate files.
104. Rosser to Finley, 7 September 1933, Fixico probate files.
105. Rosser to Landman, 16 February 1934, Fixico probate files.
106. Wall, Brief in Support of Application of Mariah Fixico Stevens, Fixico probate files.
107. Mariah Fixico Stevens, signed settlement agreement, 18 May 1934, John Collier to Secretary of the Interior, 24 May 1934, Wall, receipt, 18 June 1934, Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to M. S. Robertson, 21 June 1934, Robertson to Landman, 22 June and 2 October 1934, A. B. Melzner to Morrison Shafroth, 27 July 1938, Fixico probate files.
108. Isparhecher Stevens, Creek freedman enrollee 2140, NARG 48, Records of the Department of the Interior, Indian Division, Final Rolls of Citizens and Freedmen of the Five Civilized Tribes in Indian Territory, 1907, Microfilm Publication T529, roll 3, Creek and Seminole Rolls; Superintendent of Five Civilized Tribes to Robertson, 21 June 1934, Fixico probate files; Linwood Bruner Fixico, Application for Social Security Account Number, 8 June 1942, Mariah Fixico Stevens to Census Bureau, 22 October 1942, copies provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico; Fixico-Bruner family information.
109. Copies of census information, genealogies, legal documents, photographs, and ephemera relating to the Rogers and Wilkes families provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico; Fixico-Bruner family information.
110. Copy of Philip Vincent Wilkes's birth certificate provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico; Fixico-Bruner family information.
111. Fixico-Bruner family information.
112. For a recent study of blacks in postwar Los Angeles, see Josh Sides, L.A. City Limits: African American Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present (Berkeley, CA, 2003).
113. Copies of certificates, contracts, scripts, artwork, original writings, CDs, DVDs, VHS tapes, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, and ephemera provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico; Fixico-Bruner family information.
114. Bateman, "Naming Patterns," 238.
115. Bateman, "We're Still Here," 332-33.
116. Mulroy, Freedom on the Border, 177.
117. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 140.
118. Fixico-Bruner family information; copies of "Why I Would Like to Change My Name" (21 April 2001), petition for legal name change, affidavits, and decree provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico.
119. Copies of certificates, magazine and newspaper articles, publicity materials, photographs, video recordings, artwork, original writings, scripts, information packages, and ephemera provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico; Fixico-Bruner family information.
120. Phil Wilkes Fixico, "Semiroon," unpublished statement, copy provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico.
121. Phil Wilkes Fixico, "Seminole Maroon Peace Belts," unpublished statement, copy provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico; see also Phil Wilkes Fixico, "The Descendants' Creed," unpublished statement, copy provided by Phil Wilkes Fixico.
122. Sattler, "Siminoli Italwa," 336-37.
123. Bateman, "We're Still Here," 254-55.
124. Mulroy, Seminole Freedmen, 236-37, 375-76nn40-41.
125. Richard A. Sattler, personal communication, 20 November 2007.
126. This conclusion is based on the author's extensive genealogical research on Indian, freedman, and mixed-race families in the Seminole Nation prior to Oklahoma statehood.
127. Circe Sturm, "Blood Politics, Racial Classification, and Cherokee National Identity: The Trials and Tribulations of the Cherokee Freedmen," in Confounding the Color Line: The Indian-Black Experience in North America, ed. James F. Brooks (Lincoln, NE, 2002), 240.
128. Katja May, African Americans and Native Americans in the Creek and Cherokee Nations, 1830s to 1920s: Collision and Collusion (New York, 1996), 176-78, 197-98, 257.
129. Saunt, Black, White, and Indian, 4.
130. Misty in Roots, "Man Kind," Live at the Counter Eurovision (album), People Unite Publications, 1979; re-released on Roots Controller CD, One People, 2002.