Where African-American and Native Americans Collide

Let’s talk about the Intersectionality of African American and Native American communities, and how they’re different from each other but also have many similarities. That is where they not so much collide as intersect. That intersection is the origin story for my novel, SEEDS OF DECEPTION.

I was thrilled that the Afro-Amerindian Research & Cultural Center invited me to talk about just that on a Facebook Live. The AARC is nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization designed to create research & cultural outreach initiatives for and about African American and Native American communities. In this video, we highlight the historical gaps between the two,  and concentrate on the connections as well.

If you’re interested in genealogy and researching your own family’s history, we talk about that and give tips on research as well.

Enjoy!

TRIGGER WARNING

TRIGGER WARNING:

Cease and desist from scrolling if you are faint of heart.

That being said, do you have an ancestor who was brutally murdered? Did you ever find out the circumstances of that death? 

I do, and I did. Here’s what I know. It was quite treacherous living on the frontier of Indian Territory in the early 1900s as Oklahoma was becoming a state. My Great Grandfather Amos Rolland, a Muskogee Creek, sold his “Indian Allotment” of land for an undisclosed amount of money. Said land became the start of the town of Haskell, Oklahoma as evidenced by this excerpt from the Chronicles of Oklahoma.

 Word on the street was that my G-Grandfather didn’t believe in banks and so carried large sums of his money on his person at all times. Safest place, no? Presumably SOMEone in the town knew of his practice.

Enter an unsavory character or characters who confronted him with a hatchet. Irony to kill a Native American with a hatchet? Or maybe the perpetrator chose that weapon to throw suspicion to indigenous peoples living in the area.

They struck the hatchet down the center of his head, deep enough to disable him while they stole his money.

 However, he didn’t die right away. Family lore has it that he walked around town like this, made his own funeral arrangements, bought a suit to be buried in, then died three days later.

Someone at the funeral captured the aftermath with a camera. The only solace I can take from this tragedy is the pride in knowing of Amos Rolland’s part in the history of Oklahoma.

In my own way, I honor my ancestors by using some of their names as characters in SEEDS OF DECEPTION, so that their names can live on and keep their memory alive for future generations. Taking it a step even further, I also used the details of my Great Grandfather’s murder as the basis for a similar situation with one of my characters, Tiger Tee Hee, in SEEDS OF DECEPTION.

Ancestors can continue to live on as long as we talk about them.

How I Found My Ancestor's Slave Owner

Did you ever learn something that blew your mind? Left you speechless? Made you want to know more?

Same thing happened to me!

It is no small feat for Black people to find the name of their ancestor’s slave owner. It is the proverbial brick wall genealogists ram into head first because no records were kept on a slave beyond name, age and gender. Even a slave’s surname was not their own, but that of their owner.

Native Americans, however, had extensive records kept on them by the U.S. Government.

That was my silver lining in researching my family tree. You see, my GG-Grandmother was enslaved not by white people, but by Indigenous people. That’s right, Cherokee Indians owned African slaves. That fact blew my mind. How had I not known about this? Because it’s not taught in history class. It is just more untold American history. I was so stunned that I decided to make that fact the backdrop of my novel SEEDS OF DECEPTION.

Did you know that after the Civil War, the Cherokee signed the Treaty of 1866 wherein they promised their former slaves full citizenship rights in the tribe, which included an allotment of land? But it wasn’t automatic. Slaves had to prove they had been slaves.

I know. it sounds incredulous, right?

How does one go about proving that? Well, you bring in witnesses and hold a trial. That is what the former slaves —now called Cherokee Freedmen— had to go through.

At the National Archives in D.C., I found the official transcript of my GG-Grandmother’s trial. In it was a treasure trove of information. It was there that I also learned she didn’t know how old she was, but she did know who her owner had been. From that 32-page document, I learned that she had been married three times, who her children were, who her parents were, how she was homeless upon being granted her freedom and how she wandered from place to place working for whoever would or could feed her.

Please check out the excerpt below. And yes, she was finally granted her land, and a piece of it is still in the family today. More on that in a future post, because tons of other freedmen lost their land.

What about you? What have you learned about your family history that blew your mind?

Leave your answer in the comments below.

I'm Black...but my ancestor fought for the Confederacy.

It is odd to be a descendant of slaves, yet have an ancestor who fought for the Confederacy.

Such is the case with my GG-Grandfather Goliah Rolland, a Creek Indian. That is not, however, why I named the villain in my novel SEEDS OF DECEPTION after him. He was not a slave owner, but there were more than a few Indigenous tribes that owned African slaves just like their white neighbors.

The only saving grace for me in regards to this particular ancestor is that —as you can see from the document above — he only fought for the Confederacy for four months before deserting. Not before he marked his “X” to collect his $75 pay, though. (Pictured below)

It is no badge of honor to have any ancestor who deserted his soldierly duty, but family lore says that he realized who he was fighting for (or against?), then he joined the right side, the noble side, the Union Army. Others say he was a double agent.

All that means is that I must continue my research, as the job of a family historian is an ongoing saga.

Stay tuned!

Writer Tip Wednesday

Set Your Table With Food For Thought

Nubian Queens Literary Book Club of Southern California

One of the perks of being an author has been, for me, connecting with other readers and their book clubs.

I had the privilege of receiving an invitation to join the Nubian Queens Literary Book Club of Southern California as they discussed SEEDS OF DECEPTION. And you all know I love nothing better than bringing to light little-known history. It’s what I live for.

These well-read ladies asked the most thought-provoking questions so I knew they’d devoured the book and all of its nuances. We wondered what it would have been like had newly freed slaves been granted a small allotment of the land which they’d worked and built up for their enslavers. What made one oppressed people - Native Americans- oppress another people? How often the “big secret” contained in the novel happened in real life. Probably more frequently than anyone realized.

It was a deep discussion, and I relished every minute of it. It is, in fact, part of the reason I wrote the novel: to set the table with food for thought. I just hope they enjoyed it as much as I did. 

If you’d like me to join your book club discussion, you can contact me here, or simply email me at arlenewalkerauthor@gmail.com.

There's no place like home!

I recently had the opportunity to go back home where it all began for me, and I didn’t even need to click my red sequined heels together to get there.

This writing journey I’m on brought me full circle back to the starting line, the Alma Reaves-Woods Branch of the Los Angeles Public Library. Or as it was known when I was nine years old, The Watts Branch Library.

The Watts Branch Library was the closest library to the Jordan Downs Housing Projects where I was born. That first library library card opened up a whole new world for me, one I could travel to in books where I couldn’t travel to in person, read about people, places and things that a child of the inner city would not have been exposed to otherwise.

This library is where my reading life was born, and my love of reading is what led me to become a writer.

Through the Perform at LAPL program, I got the chance to speak about my novel SEEDS OF DECEPTION and the untold history that underlies it all.

When I first got the gig, I felt like I’d sold the movie rights to my novel. That’s how thrilled I was. I didn’t care if ANYone showed up, I would just talk to myself. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see some faces I didn’t know as well as some I did. I even raffled off a free copy to Valerie, a regular attendee at the library. I didn’t have permission to post Valerie’s picture, but a few of my classmates and a former teacher stayed afterwards for a “class” pic.

I want to thank all who came out to support, but most of all I’d like to thank the Los Angeles Public Library system. Where would I be without them?

Book Clubs Feed the Soul!

The D.I.V.A.S.!

(Exclamation mark required)

What author doesn’t enjoy talking about their book?

Well, I was blessed with the opportunity to meet with these ladies and do just that with SEEDS OF DECEPTION. What a delightful group!

Their book club has been together 20+ years, and when you see them together, you’ll know why. They started out as friends who always ended up discussing what one another was reading, and decided they should just start a book club. But this fun-loving bunch also travel together, attend the theater together, and discuss movies together. I guess that’s why they’re called The D.I.V.A.S.

Thanks ladies for the stimulating conversation, the delicious food, and the fascinating company! You are a book club to emulate!

So if you don’t already have a book club, get on that! BE the one to start one. The camaraderie will feed your soul.

Seeds of Deception at CSUN

I get a kick out of speaking to the next generation!

I was recently invited by Dr. Cedric Hackett to do just that. I spoke to his Cultural Studies class at CSUN about my novel SEEDS OF DECEPTION and the untold history behind it. The students were engaged and inquisitive. They asked great questions and even shared some of their own family history. I couldn’t have asked for more than that. It was quite the opportunity!

I LOVE BOOK CLUBS!

Before I was a writer, I was a reader.

Readers are the. . . what’s the opposite of “bane of my existence?!” Oh, right! The joy of my life. Readers are the joy of my life. They are, for the most part, introspective, learned, reflective. And by “reflective,” I don’t mean they glow in the dark. Although, folks who read do have a certain glow about them. I can spot one from across the room.

Fortunate for me, I was in a room full of them this weekend, and I was blinded by their glow as we discussed my debut novel Seeds of Deception.

The ladies were smart, kind, and generous. And why wouldn’t they be?

Pages Book Club has been turning pages together since 1994! That’s 25 years of reading enlightenment. Their group was so large we had to take TWO photos to get everyone in the pic.

Thanks for the lovely time, Ladies! You were awesome.

***Ms. Walker is available for appearances via Skype, FaceTime, speakerphone, Facebook or Twitter online events, or even in-person attendance within a reasonable radius of her home in Los Angeles, California.

Pages Book Club

BOOK LOVERS WANTED!

Lovers of books will not want to miss the Leimert Park Village Book fair on Saturday, August 24, 2019 from 10am to 5pm.

Every kind of book you could ever imagine will be available, and Laila Ali will make a special appearance with her book Food For Life.

Also signing her book SEEDS OF DECEPTION will be moi, Arlene L. Walker. So if you have a copy previously purchased or want to buy one for yourself or a friend, come on down! I’ll be happy to sign any and all copies.

Book Launched!

FREE HARDCOVER COPIES!

According to Two Bird, one of the characters in Seeds of Deception, “A butterfly cannot do the job of a buffalo.”

While that may be true, you CAN enter for a chance to win one of ten autographed copies of Seeds of Deception.

Just click this link and enter to win the Goodreads.com giveaway!

My Journey

It happened around the same time that my mother died.

Why is it that we wait too late to be curious about our parents’ past? Is it because they never talk about the things that happened to them, their parents, or their great-grandparents? Many family secrets are taken to the grave this way.

It wasn’t until my mother began to get sick, that I began to wonder about her life, her family’s story of origin.

So I began my research into our family tree. My mother’s branch was easy to trace with her being Native American of Creek and Cherokee descent. The U.S. Government kept meticulous records on who they were allotting land to, which made it easy for them to know who to steal land from. There were many rolls for the Cherokee from Early Settler’s to the Dawes Indian Roll. Although, I have blood ancestors on both Cherokee and Creek rolls, I chose to enroll officially in the Muscogee Creek Nation.

My African-American father’s line was a bit more difficult to trace as genealogists usually hit a brick wall called slavery where records were kept on slaves, yes, but as property. Often, they were only listed by first name, and sometimes just by gender and age. There were no avenues to discover their ancestry beyond that.

Or so I thought.

A couple of weeks after my mother’s death, and after many months of research, I finally found my father’s great-grandmother enumerated on the Dawes Indian Roll.  You see, my G-G-grandmother Nancy Shepherd was listed there because during enslavement, she had been owned by Cherokee Indians. That’s her in the picture above, last woman on the right.

That surprising fact gave me pause.

It was the first time I’d ever heard that Indians (and I use that term here because it was used back then) had owned slaves. Why would one oppressed people turn around and oppress another people? This was one tiny part of volumes of African-American history that to this day remains largely untold. It is not taught in schools and is almost never mentioned in books. I thought to myself someone should write a novel about this.

No one had.

So I followed Toni Morrison’s advice to “write the book you want to read.”

Although Seeds of Deception is fiction, the spine of the book is comprised of facts. Such as the way Cherokee Freedmen (the term for former slaves of Cherokee Indians) lived in Indian Territory (now known as Oklahoma), the various and sundry rolls Washington D.C. used to count and keep up with Indians, the contentious relationship between the tribe and their former slaves that to this day still exists. Try Googling “Cherokee Freedmen.”

The flesh of the novel, however, is pure fiction, a dark tale from my twisted imagination. As a nod to my forebears, I’ve used some of my ancestor’s real names as characters’ names, i.e., Goliah, Sput Louie, McClendon, and Archie. This is not their story, though, but mine.