When the enslaved Africans of De Allyon and De Soto's expeditions fled their Spanish masters, they found refuge among the Native peoples of the American Southeast. In so doing, they found a people not unlike themselves. The peoples of West Africa and the peoples of the American Southeast possessed similar worldviews rooted in their historic relationship to the subtropical coastlands of the middle Atlantic.18 Though somewhat different in physical appearance, these first runaway slaves found that the similarities between themselves and those who provided them sanctuary far outweighed their differences.
There is every possibility that the relationship between Africans and Native Americans stretches much further back than many historians are willing to acknowledge. Though it is a highly controversial topic, it seems unlikely that the first contact between Africans and Native Americans occurred within the contexts of European colonial expansion in the early sixteenth century.19 This discussion has been accentuated by the recent discovery in Brazil of a "Negroid" skull dating back some 11,500 years. "Luzia," as she has been called, could transform thinking about the peopling of the Americas. "We can no longer say that the first colonizers of the Americas came from North of Asia, as previous models have proposed, says Dr. Walter Neves, discoverer of the skull.
Though most texts detailing red/black relations in North America begin with Africans among the explorations of de Allyon, de Soto, Ponce de Leon, and Panfilo Narvaez, there is the possibility that contact could have occurred much earlier. Jack Forbes, in his work, Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples, cites myths from South America detailing a close cooperative relationship between the spirit-powers of Africa and of the Americas. He concludes his discussion of this relationship by stating, "Thus in spiritual as well as secular sense, the American and African peoples have interacted with each other in a variety of settings and situations. These interactions may well have begun in very early times."20
Long before Christopher Columbus, Africans may have been using favorable sea currents and small boats to come to the Americas.21 One of the reasons Columbus was sent on his return voyage was "a report of the Indians of this Espaniola who said that there had come to Espaniola from the south and south-east, a black people who have the tops of their spears made of a metal which they call `guanin' (gold)."22 The Canary Current, which runs off the coast of Senegal and then turns into the Atlantic to the Caribbean, is strong enough to carry vessels from Africa to the Americas.23 Thor Heyerdahl, in his Kon Tiki and RA expeditions, proved that even the smallest boats could make this passage.24
There is also evidence of pre-Columbian contact with Africans in a variety of settings in Mesoamerica. The African characteristics of Olmec sculptures, similarities between African pyramids and reed boats and their counterparts in Mesoamerica, and pictographic/linguistic similarities between Northern African and Native American cultures all offer evidence to support the idea of ancient contact.25 William Bartram, an early botanist who spent time among the Southeastern Indians, also noted that in this land, there were "great pyramidical, or Conical Mounds of Earth, Tetragon Terraces & Cubican Yards." 26 James Adair, an early trader among the Creek and Cherokee, described the "state houses and temples" that he encountered as "following the Jerusalem copy in a suprizing manner" and having a "strong imitation of Solomon's temple."27 Upon observing the Olmec sculptures in Mexico in 1869, Dr. Jose Melgar y Serrana reported, "As a work of art, it is without exaggeration a magnificent sculpture, but what astonished me was the Ethiopic type represented. I reflect that there had undoubtedly been Negroes in this country."28
In the nineteen twenties, Dr. Leo Wiener proposed that African traders from Guinea founded a colony near Mexico City from which they exerted a cultural and commercial influence extending north to Canada and south to Peru. He also suggested that indigenous cultures, including the Maya, Aztec, and Inca civilizations, were strongly influenced through contact with African civilization.29 Historians and scientists from Augustus Le Plongeon in the nineteenth century to Barry Fell in the latter half of the twentieth century have asserted possible African contact with ancient America.30
Le Plongeon offers a much more intriguing proposition, "I will try to trace their origin, step by step, to this continent which we inhabit, -- to America - from where Maya colonists transported their ancient religious rites and ceremonies, not only to the banks of the Nile, but to those of the Euphrates, and to the shores of the Indian Ocean, not less than 11,500 years ago."31 What was it that Le Plongeon was trying to trace? "I will endeavor to show you that the sacred mysteries...date back from a period far more remote than the most sanguine students of history ever imagined."32 It was Le Plongeon's theory that the religious traditions of Western civilization had their origins among the ancient civilizations of the Americas and that these ideas were spread from Mesoamerica throughout the world. Whatever the truth is, it is certain that along the coastal rim of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, early explorers encountered numerous African-Indians and tri-racial mixtures.33
When the indigenous peoples of the American Southeast first encountered those seeking refuge from the Spanish among themselves, they may have reflected upon their previous experiences with these voyagers from a distant land. They may have seen these people as being different from themselves, but they probably did not think about these differences in terms of "race." There was not an understanding of difference based upon the concept of "race" within the indigenous worldview.34 "Race" was not a component within the culture of this community nor was it a factor in social interaction; even into the nineteenth century the Cherokee were noted for their cultural accommodation.35 An historian of the Cherokee, William McLoughlin, stressed the importance of clan relationships or larger collective identities (e.g., Ani-Yunwiya, Ani-Tsalagi, Ani-Kituhwagi) within indigenous societies as being the critical components in their interactions with outsiders.36 Claudio Saunt, whose research focuses upon the Mvskoke, agrees that it was foreignness and not race that was a key determinant, "Like most Southeastern Indians, they often believed that outsiders, whether European, African, or Native American were the equivalent of `dunghill fowl.'"37
In her pivotal work, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866, Theda Perdue states that the Cherokee regarded the Africans that they encountered "simply as other human beings," and, "since the concept of race did not exist among Indians and since the Cherokees nearly always encountered Africans in the company of Europeans, one supposes that the Cherokee equated the two and failed to distinguish sharply between the races."38 Kenneth Wiggins Porter, an historian of African American/Native American relations, concurs with this conclusion: "[we have] no evidence that the northern Indian made any distinction between Negro and white on the basis of skin color, at least, not in the early period and when uninfluenced by white settlers."39
Early ethnologist James Adair agrees, "Their own traditions record ...no variegation of colour in human beings; and they are entirely ignorant which was the first or primitive color."40 In Cherokee cosmology, there is no mention of race; in fact, the myth of Selu and Kana'ti -- the first humans, is the story of a common human origin. Only many years later, following the introduction of Christian traditions and the ideology of race as a component within human interactions, would a Cherokee myth of multiple origins and racial hierarchy be developed. In the 1720's-30's as the Cherokees adapted their traditional color symbolism to create categories of difference that they linked to differences in skin color. As with the development of the idea of race among Europeans, the Cherokees' main intent seems to have been to define their relationship with the European's "other."41
Within the "old ways" of Cherokee traditional culture, there were great affinities with West African traditional culture and religion. Each emphasized the powerful nature of sacred relationships - both with the environment and within one's community; both stressed the importance of sacred order and the power of ritual to affect and overcome disorder; both attached great significance to kinship in their social organization; and both were rooted in communal economy based on subsistence agriculture.42 West Africans and Cherokee placed a premium on harmony and "ideal balance" -- "the ideal for them has been ... `conformity to the life led by one's fellows, seeking to gain little or no wealth or position' in a carefully egalitarian world where personal gain above the level of the accepted norm would be a source of unhappiness or danger, since exceptional achievement could be only at the expense of one's neighbors." 43
Just as in the "old ways"of Cherokee society, order in African traditional culture came from structured community:
...social order and peace are recognized by African peoples as essential and sacred. Where the sense of corporate life is so deep, it is inevitable that the solidarity of the community must be maintained, otherwise there is disintegration and destruction. This order is conceived of primarily in terms of kinship relationship, which simultaneously produces many situations of tension since everyone is related to everybody else and deepens these sense of damage caused by the strain of such tensions.44
Kinship was also the basis of African society, "Indeed, this sense of kinship binds together the entire life of the "tribe," and is even extended to cover animals, plants, and non-living objects through the "totemic" system."45 For John Mbiti, kinship is one of the strongest forces in traditional African life.46
In both African and Native American societies, relationships of power had to do with the relationships between kinship groups and the individual. Within traditional African culture where kinship rules determined social placement as well as personal identity, the lack of kinship ties was a distinct liability.47 Within West African society, "slavery" existed for a variety of reasons but it was never permanent nor transgenerational; most often it was the result of conflict between peoples of different nations48 and it was dramatically different than that which they were to encounter in the new world.49 Though not chattel, these individuals remained on the periphery of society if they were not adopted into a kinship group; as outsiders, they were not enfranchised into the political and social structures of the tribe. In a very real sense, they lacked even personal identity within the community; they were rootless.50
Thus, when the Cofitichiqui and the Cherokee first encountered the runaway Spanish slaves, they did so within the framework of the traditional worldview. Slavery as a phenomenon was not unknown to the Cherokee Nation or to other Native Americans. However, it was distinctively different in both content and context as the Europeans practiced it. Rudi Halliburton in Red Over Black, an extensive work on slavery in the Cherokee Nation, concludes "slavery, as an institution, did not exist among the Cherokees before the arrival or Europeans." 51 Booker T. Washington argued similarly, "The Indians who first met the white man on his continent do not seem to have held slaves until they first learned to do so from him."52 Though it is not exactly correct to say that the Cherokee did not hold slaves, it is correct to say that the institution of slavery as it would be practiced by Europeans did not exist within the Cherokee Nation.53
The Cherokee atsi nahtsa'i, or "captives without clans,"54 were individuals captured or obtained through warfare with neighboring peoples and often given to clans who had lost members in the conflict.55 It was up to the clan-mothers, or "beloved women" of the nation to decide upon the fate of these individuals; they could "by the wave of a swan's wing, deliver a wretch condemned by the council, and already tied to the stake."56 Once rescued, these persons owed their life to the Nation. To the extent that these individuals existed outside of the clan structure, they were in essence "outsiders" who lived on the periphery of Cherokee society. If they accepted these "outsiders" as replacements for those individuals who had lost their lives in battle, these individuals became members of the clan and thus the nation. If the "outsiders" were not accepted into the clan, then they served as the "other" in promoting clan self-understanding and solidarity. Though not members of the Cherokee Nation, neither were they considered to be a commodity.57
Women were in control of the system of indigenous slavery prior to contact with European society. It was a council of women who decided if the captive prisoners were to be tortured or executed in order to exact vengeance, or if they should be spared and delivered instead into a life of service. 58 In "slavery" according to the traditions of the "old ways," the question of social equality did not determine the relationship of the master and the slave. Indian slaves were always considered to be eligible for adoption into the clan as actual members in order to accommodate losses due to war, famine, disease or disaster. Among the Southern indigenous peoples, slaves often dressed better than their owners and were allowed to marry among themselves. Their children were considered free and in every way equal to their parent's masters.59 Most importantly, slavery played little role in the economic well being of either the person or the community.
On the eve of contact with Europeans, the Cherokee inhabited nearly forty thousand square miles of the Southeastern United States -- most of the southern Appalachian mountain system and parts of the central portions of the Appalachian valleys into the Piedmont plateau.60 James Mooney gives an estimate of their population in the seventeenth century at 22,000.61 For thousands of years the Cherokee and their neighbors in the Southeastern United States lived in sacred relationship with the land and with the other inhabitants in their environment. Prior to their contact with the forces of civilization, the Cherokee people defined themselves in accord with ancient traditions that provided structure for their community and meaning for their individual existence.62 This web of identity for Cherokee society is a system of interdependent relationships. Integral to Cherokee identity was a relationship with the land, "...like a mother, it shapes and teaches our species and according to the particularity of the area, produces certain basic forms of personality and social identity that could not be produced in any other way...To find a "southern" identity without understanding the unique characteristics of the southeastern lands is to vest in the memories of our species a shaping ability that does not exist." 63
In addition, this relationship of mutual responsibility extended to others that share their immediate environment including non-human species. Mutually dependant relationships are partnerships of equality; the respect given to each creature's contribution imbues a profound recognition of the dignity of even the smallest of creations. This dignity demands an ethical response from each of the participants in the relationship; the ethical response should be commensurate to the partner's expectation. This is the core of the traditional relationship with the environment.64
Thus, the center of Cherokee existence was "harmony" - a balance and order created from an interconnected network of mutuality.65 Robert K. Thomas, an Eastern Cherokee, describes the Cherokee "harmony ethic" as one's "trying to maintain harmonious interpersonal relationships with his fellow Cherokee by avoiding giving offense on the negative side, and by giving of himself to his fellow Cherokee in regard to his time and his material goods on the positive side."66 Conservative Cherokee also understand themselves as "being oriented" rather than "becoming oriented" and see themselves in proper relationship with all things in their immediate environment. They recognize that all situations that confront them are a part of the natural order.67 According to John Loftin, "the natural rhythms and forms of their world point beyond themselves to levels of ultimacy and transcendence. Their land, their life, and their religion are one."68
A structured system of dynamically interactive relationships lies at the basis of the indigenous worldview and promotes a cohesive social system, an inclusive political structure, an egalitarian economic commonwealth, and an environmentally sound interaction with nature. Identity came from knowing one's place in this network of dynamically interconnected relationships and understanding one's role and contributions to the enhancement and advancement of the cycles of existence. Existence outside of the network is anomie; disruption of this system of order creates chaos and destruction leading to the end of the cycle.69
The interconnected network of mutuality and the recognition of the need of harmonious intercourse all worked to promote a collective worldview that is known as the "old ways." At the root of this collective identity was a integrative culture that centered upon the land, the family, language, spirituality, community, and ultimately upon Ani-Kituhwagi - the Cherokee people as a "beloved community."70 Its leaders were known as "beloved men" and beloved women." At the dawn of contact with "civilization," to be an Ani-Kituhwagi was to be one whose identity rested in their ties to the "old ways." In the holistic worldview of the Cherokee people, the term Ani-Kituhwagi is more than just a political or national identity; it is also a sacred one. At the root of this sacred Cherokee identity are the "old ways."
18 William Willis, "Anthropology and Negroes on the Southern Colonial Frontier," in James Curtis and Lewis Gould, eds., The Black Experience in America (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), 47-48. 19 "An Ancient Skull Challenges Long-Held Theories," New York Times, 10/26/99. See also Marc Stiegel, The Diffusionists Have Landed, The Atlantic Monthly, 01/01/2000, 35-48. 20 Jack Forbes, Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 6-7. For an extended discussion of pre-European contacts between African and Native American, see chapter one of this work. 21 R. A. Jairazbhoy, Ancient Egyptians and Chinese in America (London: George Prior Associated Publishers, Ltd., 1974), 13-16; Harold G. Lawrence, "Mandinga Voyages Across the Atlantic," in Ivan Van Sertima, African Presence in Early America (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 1993), 169-214 22 John B. Thacher, Christopher Columbus, Volume III (New York, 1903), 379. 23 Chris Lowe, "The history of slavery, the slave trade, abolition and emancipation" SLAVERY@LISTSERV.UH.EDU, Wed, 08 Mar 2000. 24 Ivan Van Sertima, They Came Before Columbus (New York: Random House, 1976), 57-67. 25 R. A. Jairazbhoy, Ancient Egyptians and Chinese in America (London: George Prior Associated Publishers, Ltd., 1974), 28-48; Samuel Marble, Before Columbus: The New History of Celtic Phoenician, Viking, Black African and Asian Contacts and Impacts in the Americas before 1492 (South Brunswick: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1980), 117-154. 26 William Bartram, "Observations on the Creek and Cherokee Indians" in Gregory A. Waselkov and Kathryn E. Holland Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), 141. 27 James Adair, Adair's History of the American Indians, edited by Samuel Cole Williams, (Johnson City, Tenn: Watauga Press, [1775] 1930), 118. Adair was one of the many figures in American history that believed the indigenous peoples of the Americas to be of the "Lost Tribe of Israel." The largest part of his History of the American Indians is an attempt to prove that the "`American Indians' being derived from the Jews." 28 Reader's Digest, Mysteries of the Ancient Americas: The New World Before Columbus (Pleasantville, N.Y.: Reader's Digest Association, 1986), 132. 29 Leo Wiener, Africa and the Discovery of America (Philadelphia, 1920), 263-270. 30 Barry Fell, America BC (New York: Quadrangle, New York Times Book Company, 1976). 31 Augustus Le Plongeon, Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years ago, Their Relation to the Sacred Mysteries of Egypt, Greece, Chaldea, and India (Savage, Minn: Wizard's Bookshelf, 1886, 1973), 22. 32 Ibid. 33 J. Leitch Wright, Creeks and Seminoles (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 77. 34 Jack D. Forbes, "The Use Of Racial And Ethnic Terms In America: Management By Manipulation" Wicazo Sa Review 1995 11(2): 53-65. 35 Tom Hatley, The Dividing Path: Cherokees and South Carolinians through the Revolutionary Era ( New York; Oxford University Press, 1995), 233. 36 William G. McLoughlin, The Cherokee Ghost Dance: Essays on the Southeastern Indians (Atlanta: Mercer University Press, 1984), 260-265. 37 Claudio Saunt, A New Order of Things: Property, Power, and the Transformation of the Creek Indians, 1733-1816 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 112. 38 Theda Perdue, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1979), 36. 39 Kenneth W. Porter, Relations Between Negroes and Indians Within the Present United States (Washington, D.C.: The Association for Negro Life and History, 1931), 16. 40 Adair, 3. 41 Nancy Shoemaker, "How Indians Got To Be Red" American Historical Review 1997 102(3): 625-644. For the later period in Cherokee history, see William G. McLoughlin, and Walter H., Conser, Jr. "`The First Man Was Red': Cherokee Responses To The Debate Over Indian Origins, 1760-1860" American Quarterly 1989 41(2): 243-264. 42 John S. Mbiti, African Religions and Philosophies (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1970), 141; Roger Bastide African Civilizations in the New World, 23-89. 43 Basil Davidson; The African Genius: An Introduction to African Cultural and Social History (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1969), 66. 44 Mbiti, 267. 45 Mbiti, 135. 46 ibid. 47 Melville Herskovitz, The Human Factor in Changing Africa (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1962), 107-108; Davidson, 57. 48 John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the New World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 107. 49 Olaudah Equiano in Philip D. Curtain, Africa Remembered, Narratives of West Africans from the Era of the Slave Trade (Madison: University of Wisconsin Pres, 1967), 78. 50 Perdue, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 44. 51 Rudi Halliburton, Red Over Black: Black Slavery Among the Cherokee Indians (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1977), 6. 52 Booker T. Washington, The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery Vol. 1 (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1909), 141 53 Theda Perdue, "People Without A Place: Aboriginal Cherokee Bondage," Indian History 1976 9(3): 31-37. 54 Perdue, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society, 12. 55 John Reed, A Law of Blood: The Primitive Law of the Cherokee Nation, (New York: New York University Press, 1970), 192. 56 Henry Timberlake, Lieutenant Henry Timberlake's Memoirs, 1756-1765, ed. Samuel Cole Williams (Marietta: GA: Continental Book Company, 1948), 94; See also Richard Satler, "Muskogee and Cherokee Women's Status" in Laura Klein and Lillian Ackerman, Women and Power in Native America (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 222; Paula Gunn Allen, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986), 36. 57 Perdue, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866, 12-18. 58 XXXXXXXXXXDe Brahm's, 109; Timberlake, 94; Almon Lauber, Indian Slavery in Colonial Times within the Present Limits of the United States (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1933), 40. 59 Lauber, 42-43. 60 Gary C. Goodwin, Cherokees in Transition: A Study of Changing Culture and Environment prior to 1775 (Chicago: University of Chicago Department of Geography. 1977), 9-11. 61 James Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokees" (Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1900), 11. 62 Charles Hudson, "Cherokee Concept Of Natural Balance" Indian Historian 1970 3(4): 51-54; Thomas P Hilton, "The Effect Of The Cherokee Ethos On Their Utilization Of Economic Resources" Chesopiean 1979 17(4-5): 77-81. 63 Vine Deloria, "Native American Spirituality" in For This Land: Writings on Religion in America (New York: Routledge Press, 1999), 131. Perhaps the best work on the Cherokee and their relationship to the environment is Sarah Hill's Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and their Basketry (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997). 64 ibid. 65 John Loftin, "The `Harmony Ethic' of the Conservative Eastern Cherokees: A Religious Interpretation" in Journal of Cherokee Studies (Spring, 1983): 40-44 66 Robert K. Thomas quoted in Loftin, 41. 67 John Gulick, ed., Cherokees at the Crossroads (Chapel Hill: Institute for Research in the Social Sciences, 1960), 146-150. 68 Loftin, 42. 69 ibid. 70 I use these words in a conscious relationship between the Cherokee ideal of harmony and Martin Luther King's notion of the "beloved community" which he expressed in his 1958 work Stride Toward Freedom. Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Towards Freedom: The Montgomery Story (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1958), 219-220.