The Inconvenient Indian

The Inconvenient Indian

by

Thomas King

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on The Inconvenient Indian makes teaching easy.
The Cherokee Freedmen is a term that refers to people who were formerly enslaved by the Cherokee people and their descendants. They were of African and mixed African and Cherokee ancestry. Under a treaty the Cherokee signed with the U.S. government after the Civil War, people formerly enslaved by the Cherokee were given the same rights as other Cherokee, including Cherokee citizenship and voting rights. A substantial number of Cherokee have not been happy to have Freedmen included in the Cherokee Nation and have brought a number of cases to the Cherokee Supreme Court to challenge the regulation.
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Cherokee Freedmen Term Timeline in The Inconvenient Indian

The timeline below shows where the term Cherokee Freedmen appears in The Inconvenient Indian. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 7. Forget about It
History and Mythology   Theme Icon
Racism and Systemic Oppression  Theme Icon
Sovereignty  Theme Icon
...choice to be objective, though, addressing “Native failings,” such as the racist treatment of the Cherokee Freedmen . Since the 1800s, Cherokee have been involved in a debate about who is Cherokee... (full context)
Sovereignty  Theme Icon
A lot of Cherokee disagreed with the ruling that Cherokee Freedmen had access to the same rights as other Cherokee. In the 1970s, Ross Swimmer, Principal... (full context)