I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land

by Alaina E. Roberts

Perhaps no other symbol has more resonance in African American history than that of “40 acres and a mule”—the lost promise of Black reparations for slavery after the Civil War. In I’ve Been Here All the While, we meet the Black people who actually received this mythic 40 acres, the American settlers who coveted this land, and the Native Americans whose holdings it originated from.

Through chapters that chart cycles of dispossession, land seizure, and settlement in Indian Territory, Alaina E. Roberts draws on archival research and family history to upend the traditional story of Reconstruction. She connects debates about Black freedom and Native American citizenship to westward expansion on to Native land. As Black, white, and Native people constructed ideas of race, belonging, and national identity, this part of the West became, for a short time, the last place where Black people could escape Jim Crow, finding land and exercising political rights, until the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Indigenous, Race, Native American, American History, Anti Racist

224 pages, Hardcover

First published April 9, 2021

About the author

I am a historian and professor at the University of Pittsburgh. I write about the connections between Black and Native American people from the nineteenth century to the modern-day because of my own family history and search for identity.

If I'm not writing, researching, or teaching, I'm probably eating a baked good... or weightlifting or running so that I can continue to eat baked goods.

Reviews

[Tina Loves To Read · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a Non-Fiction about Black Freedom and Native American's Land. I have to say I found parts of this book very interesting, but I found a lot of this book to just be a list of facts which made it boring to read. I do not read a ton of non-fiction, so maybe that is part of the reason I found the way this book was written was hard to read at times. I think the writing style of the book took a lot away from the story for me. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher or author (Alaina E. Roberts) via NetGalley, so I can give honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a deeply personal, well-researched, and well-articulated book that presented a more accurate history of the Civil War and Reconstruction in nineteenth century "Indian Territory" (modern-day Oklahoma state). The author Alaina Roberts has a family history in the area, which spurred her to want to find out more details as well as tell that story in a broader societal context.

In a way, a kind of micro-history, looking at a particular area of land from just before the Civil War up to just after the first World War, it tells the story of the Five Tribes; how they invested in settler colonialism--including chattel slavery--in order to realize their own visions of freedom; how they had already been displaced and in turn displaced other indigenous groups to occupy Indian Territory; and how that willingness to buy into settler colonialism came back to bite them. It also tells the story of those former slaves of Native tribe members, drawing a line between those folks, who Roberts calls "Indian freedpeople," and African Americans, as the two groups had startlingly different experiences in a post-Civil War America, and were often placed in tension and competition with each other. She explores westward expansion and the traditional and almost heroic narratives that have been created around that, all with a familiar aim: the uplifting of white supremacy.

An extraordinarily dense read, Roberts covers a lot of ground and concepts in a relatively small package. With clarity and intention, she considers how oppressed people can in turn oppress other people, how siding with your oppressors never really works out for you in the end (but also, how many alternatives are available?), how we confront and address our unknown or unrecognized legacies, and the deep and ingrained prevalence of capitalistic and individualistic ideals, even 150 years ago.

This work is fascinating and made all the more impactful by the personal connection the author has to the history. It's obviously quite academically minded, as the author is a professor and it was published by a university press, but it still feels quite accessible for anyone who might be interested in learning more about this specific topic. Overall, it introduces a complexity and nuance that is starkly lacking from not only long-established teachings of history, but also is a struggle to find in current discourse. It was a breath of fresh air in that way, and I would recommend for anyone curious to learn more about former Indian Territory.

Many thanks to University of Pennsylvania Press, the author, and Netgalley for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

[Anita · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the premise of this book more interesting than the delivery. Learning about Indian freedmen - what the author labels freed slaves of Native Americans rather than white settlers/colonialists, and their history on Native lands during reconstruction and after - sounded interesting to me. I've never read anything on this specific topic before, however I do hope to explore it further. Unfortunately, the book reads like a long list of government acts that led from one event to the next starting with Native removal and segueing into the civil war, theough many different acts and legislation.

Roberts uses an interesting "settler colonist" lens to look at how the different demographics in this history use the same tactics to try and be on the winning side of the "us v them" mentality used by the ruling class in American history. The Five Nations tried used it to distinguish themselves from the rest of the (100+) tribes in efforts to hold on to land and rights in treaties with the American government. Indian Freedmen used it to distinguish themselves from the Natives in efforts to endear themselves as American citizens rather than Natives - deemed wild and uncivilized.

Though I still found the thesis interesting, ufortunately in this case, a dry delivery took away from a very interesting topic.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital copy.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

a forced read for my woke professor, but honestly still a pretty good book. the best part: unlike most history texts, this book was concise and well organized 😮‍💨

[Charlotte Capuano · Rating 4 out of 5]

(had to write a review for my class lol)
Roberts started this book ready to convince the reader that Reconstruction should be redefined as a concept as well as a time period. She uses a swath of sources that show the freedoms experienced by freedpeople within these territories and the reversal of these freedoms once other settlers showed up. Given that this topic is at several intersections of different communities, Roberts uses secondary literature from historians who study a plethora of topics. Roberts does an amazing job of showing the exchange of power within these spaces and how it was the only space where African Americans and Indian freedpeople could experience agency. She makes it very clear that this was due to the government’s unsympathetic nature towards the Native peoples in this space. Overall, Roberts proves her argument. This part of the country’s history should be included within the era of Reconstruction and in doing that Reconstruction’s end date should be extended to 1907. Despite the compact nature of the monograph, Roberts is able to get her point across without leaving the reader confused.
Roberts is able to prove her argument fully and well; however, the focus seems to be on settler colonialism more than the main argument. Every single person in this book falls victim to it and eventually it becomes repetitive. Settler colonialism is an effective way to explain the sense of belonging several outsiders feel within a culture, but it can be reductive of the harsh realities that many of these groups had to face. Many African Americans couldn’t have land that wasn’t sharecropping outside of the Indian Territory, and freedpeople using the Dawes act was a way for them to have land that was theirs. Roberts’ use of the settler colonialism framework deflects the blame away from white supremacy and the United States government and redirects it onto those who are also othered within the culture. This can be harmful because this history is relatively unstudied by many. Since this will probably be a jumping off point for the historian who decides to investigate this space next, this framework could taint any future scholarship. Other than this, Roberts' book is an interesting addition to African American and Native history. She also engages it in a unique way by bringing in her ties to this history, which makes it even more interesting. I’ve Been Here All the While is an engaging and interesting book that will expand any reader's view of U.S. history as well as the African American experience of Reconstruction.

[Janilyn Kocher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roberts contributes to a lesser known part of western and black history: those who lived in Indian Territory. It’s an intriguing read how former enslaved people of the Native American tribes were impacted by political policy and Reconstruction. She also intersperses her own family history within the parameters of the story. I have not read much about this topic so I found the history very interesting. The only thing that surprised me was how brief the book was. Although, the author’s copious footnotes comprise about the last third of the book. Thanks to NetGalley and the University of PA press for the early copy.

[David Nichols · Rating 5 out of 5]

While settler colonialism is usually associated with white Europeans, Alaina Roberts argues here that marginalized or subaltern groups can also become active participants in the colonial enterprise, and indeed can serve settler governments as vanguards of their own subsequent expansion. In Indian Territory, the setting of Roberts’s monograph, both Native Southeasterners and African Americans served, perhaps not altogether self-consciously, as “sub-imperial” agents of the United States. Members of the Five Civilized Tribes, forced to resettle in Indian Territory in the 1830s, used the discourse of civilization to separate themselves from the “wild” Plains nations and to take land from those nations for their own use. The most important proof that the Five Tribes provided of their superior status was their ownership of enslaved African-Americans, and the “elite economic success” (28) that stemmed from exploitation of their labor.

The American Civil War ended the Five Tribes’ de facto autonomy and freed their former bondsmen, who as freedmen became colonizers themselves. While Native freedmen faced hostility from their former enslavers, and discrimination from the Five Tribes’ governments - none included Black men and women in annuity payments, and the Chickasaws excluded them from citizenship - most stayed in the nations where they had lived before the war. Like free persons of color elsewhere, they established their own churches and schools, worked for wages or as tenant farmers, and endeavored, by purchase or allotment, to acquire their own land. Native Southeasterners generally did not bar them from achieving the latter goal. One might say that Reconstruction in Indian Territory lasted from 1866 until statehood in 1907.

Freedmen’s successes in Indian Territory attracted African American emigrants from states where Reconstruction had ended prematurely and violently. Tens of thousands of Black Americans moved to the territory in the closing decades of the nineteenth century. Many, following the example of Black settlers before the Civil War, founded all-Black towns like Boley (in the Creek Nation), usually on land owned by Indian freedmen. Twenty-eight such towns adorned the territory by 1907; most survived until at least the 1920s.

White Americans, recognizing that Indian Territory was rich in pasturage, timber, and oil, had no intention of leaving it to its Native American owners or allowing it, as some African American editors proposed, to become an all-Black state. Mainstream American newspapers characterized the territory as a nest of bandits, an “unprecedented carnival of crime” (100), implying that only white rule would end the threat it posed to national order. Indian Territory’s white population grew steadily from 1870 to 1900, soon outstripping the Native and Black populations. Some came to lease land from Native Southeasterners or marry American Indian women (which allowed them later to claim land allotments). Many simply squatted on Indigenous land and defied tribal policemen to remove them. To their demographic power whites added overwhelming legal power following statehood. White judges used guardianships to take land and oil from “incompetent” Native owners, and the new Oklahoma legislature immediately enacted Jim Crow legislation and restricted Black voting through literacy tests. Whites also destroyed African Americans’ autonomy through racial terror, most notably during the 1921 massacre of Tulsa’s Black community.

Roberts frames her study two ironic observations: the only group of African Americans who received even partial compensation for their servitude were Native Southeastern freedmen, and they were paid in stolen property. Her narrative thereby challenges us to think more critically about the ideology of settler-colonialism, which made possible the growth of Native American slavery and of a financially-independent class of freedmen. In Indian Territory there were two non-white settler groups (Removed Native Southeasterners and Black freedmen) who intended to replace the Indigenous population with themselves, and to replace local Indigenous sovereignty with institutions modeled after those of the United States - constitutional tribal governments, Protestant churches, etc. In the end, however, racial ideology and oligarchy triumphed over settler solidarity. The white “Sooners” violently deposed both their Native Southeastern and African American predecessors, and then they too were subjugated by the railroads and the oilmen and the banks. The Sooners of 1900 became the Okies of 1935, driven from the promised land by debt and hunger. This larger story of winners and losers is familiar to readers of the New Western History created by Patricia Limerick, William Cronon, and Richard White. What Roberts adds to the New West paradigm is, simply, the realization that even temporary winners never acknowledged that there was strength in numbers, and that solidarity with some of the losers would help one group of winner defend themselves against more powerful predators. In the end, everyone wants to be the lone hero on horseback.

[al · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5

[Marty Mangold · Rating 3 out of 5]

My three stars combine 5 stars for the topic, 4 for the writing, and 1 for the audio recording. At first, the word majority pronounced to rhyme with maturity was a slight annoyance, but as this repeated mercilessly, and I began to cringe at every polysyllabic word, as the accents landed correctly only by accident. The prize for Worst Moment in Narration was hearing that "Statehood would exasperate the issues" and knowing it was written "Statehood would exacerbate...."

The topic is fascinating, and I appreciated gaining a sense of the Five Tribes and the differences among them, the fact that the Five Tribes themselves were forced into this area, displacing their predecessor tribes, and of course, the underlying wallop that the Five Tribes embraced African Slavery and the rhetoric the American government to establish their own situations. This is a difficult and enriching adventure.

It seems to me that the publisher assigned this reader to this book at arm's length from both the reader and the book, and the audio version was edited by nobody. Even the best reader in the world can "fog out" reading something more academic than what they are comfortable with. A mismatch like this can be excused, but to publish this many errors without listening is simply not right.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alaina E. Roberts’ I’ve Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land is a history of slaves owned by members of the Five Civilized Tribes, forced out of Southeastern and Appalachian states, and relocated to Indian Territory, roughly the Eastern portion of today’s Oklahoma. These tribes—the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole—had, to varying degrees, adopted many of the white man’s ways, for example establishing businesses, printing newspapers, and running cotton and tobacco plantations where the most affluent used slave labor. Forced off their lands by the Indian Removal Act, they brought their slaves with them to Indian Territory, land promised to them forever.

A University of Pittsburgh Assistant Professor, Roberts frames her extensive scholarly research with her personal family history. As she puts it, “I feel so fortunate to have been born into a story so rich I can barely believe it at times. I know that I was gently led to this scholarship by my ancestors, and I hope that I have done justice to their stories and to the stories of the millions of African, African American, and mixed-race people who shared similar experiences.”

In her Introduction, Roberts defines several terms as she will use them and sets forth key arguments that largely redefine portions of U.S. history. Although driven from their homelands because white settlers wanted their lands, Roberts argues that the tribes, along with the enslaved people brought along to Indian Territory, became part of our history of settler colonialism. Like whites who displaced them, they, too, were displacing less “civilized” native tribes forced further west. Additionally, the author argues, when the “Indian freedpeople” received land allotments from the U.S. government, that action merits another look at the dates traditionally assigned to the Reconstruction: 1863-1867. Instead, she believes, the end date should be extended to 1907, the year of Oklahoma statehood. After the Dawes Act resulted in the division of Indian Territory lands into allotments assigned to tribal members and to their former slaves, with significant areas of unassigned lands open to white settlers, the Indian freedpeople temporarily prospered from their land allotments and their new freedom to establish their own black towns. Yet, after granting statehood only a few years later, the U.S. government no longer intervened to help the freedpeople in any way, thus signaling an end to Reconstruction. The new state’s increasing restrictions, which soon led to Jim Crow laws and racial violence, began eating away at the opportunities and hopes of the Reconstruction period.

However, Roberts doesn’t stop with the end of Reconstruction. She takes her history through the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, the centennial of which will be commemorated just over two months after the publication of her book. Indian freedpeople, their descendants, and African Americans moving in from other areas retained sufficient self-determination for a time that their new black towns could prosper. The pinnacle of their success was almost certainly the development of a close-knit and financially successful African American community in Tulsa’s Greenwood district, which would earn the nickname Black Wall Street. Unfortunately, as Roberts writes, “Settler colonialism and Reconstruction shared the same end: white Americans and their rights and goals were now the U.S. government’s only concern. No one in the federal government cared when white Tulsans, many of whom were less prosperous and resentful, invaded, looted, and burned Greenwood to the ground following a young white elevator operator’s charge that a young black man had acted inappropriately in a department store elevator—charges she never upheld. The loss was much greater than that of its homes and businesses. Roberts explains how the Tulsa Race Massacre destroyed not only “Black wealth but also the Oklahoma Black memory of self-sufficiency and economic success and racial coalition.” Because so many Greenwood residents fled the city and never returned, to this day no one knows how many people died that night.

In the book’s epilogue, Roberts explains how she grew up in California with little knowledge of the family history she eventually learned from her Oklahoma cousin Travis Roberts. He eventually shared what he had learned of the family’s mixed-race history, first in Mississippi and then in Indian Territory and early Jim Crow Oklahoma. The author was able to hear his stories and visit places relevant to her research. She writes of the world’s familiarity with white American cowboys, strong pioneer families, and Plains Indians but not with the diverse history, such as Oklahoma’s, that is an important part of the true American story. “The book is about the meaning of freedom,” she writes, “about hopes—both dashed and realized—and about identity.”

Roberts’ scholarly accomplishments are many. She has packed her book with solid research, thoroughly documented her sources, and supplemented her source citations with additional facts and explanations. The family history that apparently led her to this study is a priceless treasure happily preserved for all who read her book. My one regret is that the rigors of scholarly research have resulted in large portions written in a dry, formal academic style. While meeting rigorous university demands for publications is a fact of academic life, now and then Roberts demonstrates the human passion and stylistic spark that would capture and hold the interest of a broader audience.

This retired Oklahoma professor thanks NetGalley, the University of Pennsylvania Press, and Alaina E. Roberts for an advance reader copy in exchange for an unbiased review.

[Pandaduh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is where we are at. This is where our state is. A complicated history of this land. Such an eye-opening and important and, quite frankly, timely book. She, you could argue, traces the connection of the Five Tribes' own participation in the settler colonial process and their attempts at assimilation through their adoption of chattel slavery and siding with the Confederacy all the way to the Tulsa 1921 Race Massacre and her own dot on the timeline, situating not only her family but perhaps an entire country to start asking questions.

[Matthew Rohn · Rating 5 out of 5]

In I’ve Been Here all the While Alaina Roberts provides a compelling and accessible history of the land which from 1834-1907 was officially known as Indian Territory, and which today is the state of Oklahoma. Over this period many different groups of people came to the land – some by force and some by choice – and attempted to claim the land as their own, seeing landownership as a critical part of their freedom. Roberts centers this history on settler colonialism as the throughline connecting the Five Tribes, Indian Freedpeople, and both Black and white settlers coming from eastern U.S. states as each group made their own claim to the land in succeeding periods. In defining her use of the term, she writes that settler colonialism “could be wielded by whoever sought to claim land; it involved not only a change in land occupation but also a transformation in thinking about and rhetorical justification of what it meant to reside in a place formerly occupied by someone else.” This is critically important as Roberts seeks to use this series of attempts at land dispossession between a range of different groups in order to disentangle experiences of settler colonialism from the particularities of white-indigenous conflict through which it is often examined.
The rhetorical justifications which Roberts mentions in her definition are a continuous theme across all sections of the book, because they are a major source of connection between each group trying to make claims to the land and the U.S. federal government which had the power to legitimize and enforce those claims. From the entire period from westward removal of the Five Tribes to white settlement and statehood, the power of the U.S. federal government has been a constant presence in the political life of Indian Territory and later the Oklahoma Territory. Each group attempted to court federal power towards their interests through a rhetoric of “civilization” and productive use of the land. The exact meaning of civilization changed over time and depending on whether native, Black, or white settlers were making the claim, but every group sought to situate themselves as an indispensable part of the forward march of progress whom the U.S. government could see as fit custodians for this land.
Since Tiya Miles’ Ties that Bind was published in 2005 there has been a wave of historical research on African descended people in the Oklahoma and Indian Territories, often with a focus on Native nations’ regimes of enslavement and on the social history of people with mixed Afro-Indigenous ancestry in these territories. As Roberts herself notes, David Chiang’s The Color of Land is the book bearing the strongest similarities with its focus on land dispossession, but Roberts’ book is a distinct and important step forward in this literature for two key reasons. First, it is quite a policy oriented history, drawing constant connections between the people in this territory and U.S. government policy towards western settlement, Native American rights, and Reconstruction. Second, the author consistently tries to integrate the story she is telling here with broader narratives in American history, rather than allowing it to be a niche interest for specialists and interesting trivia for lay readers. The section on how the treaties of 1866 served as an early model for the Reconstruction amendments in a territory with fewer constraints on federal power is perhaps the strongest example of how Roberts is building this book as part of an integrated curriculum in American history.
At just 141 pages Roberts has put together a remarkably concise history book for all of the topics that it addresses. I’ve Been Here All the While is argument driven, well written, and makes effective use of primary sources, even when they can be limited in the earlier periods she is examining. While the However, the book does successfully highlight how the political and social rights of Black Americans and native people, both deeply tied up with questions of land ownership, were frequently pitted against each other by federal policy in the late nineteenth century. This book covers a lot of ground quickly, and specialists will likely find many places where they wish that the author had continued longer a topic of interest, but this quick pacing combined with broad coverage is a large part of what will also make many instructors find I’ve Been Here All the While a useful book for students who are getting introduced to many topics in nineteenth century U.S. history, including native land dispossession, inter-tribal indigenous conflict, emancipation, reconstruction, and U.S. western expansion. I'll definitely be using this book, or sections of it, when teaching in the future.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read a handful of books on the Five Tribes and the so called Black Indians (those of mixed African American and Native American heritage). But All the While informed me about some aspects of their history which I had not known before. For example, upon forced relocation to Indian Territory in the late 1830’s the Creeks, Cherokees, et al displaced other Native Americans who already lived there. The leaders of these newly arrived tribes called upon the US government for ‘protection against the uncivilized savages’ whom they were displacing. How ironic that they employed the same arguments of ‘settler colonialism’ against other Native Americans!

There were many other things about the NA slaves who were freed after the Civil War (called the Freed People), the social and political dynamics of allotment through and after Reconstruction, and the impact of Oklahoma statehood in 1907 which were well explained in depth. For example, after the Civil War the Freed People were awarded land from their former masters by the federal government largely because the government wanted to take the land away from the Creeks, Cherokees, etc. In their appeals to the government for the land the Freed People used the same arguments that the White did: that the Native Americans were uncivilized, lazy, etc.

The 53 pages of notes at the end of the book confirmed that Roberts had done a thorough review of dozens of primary and secondary sources. It was readily readable and understandable because she organized and presented her arguments clearly and in a prose utilizing a preponderance of direct, declarative sentences. A number of photos and a few maps also helped make it more engaging. So did Roberts’ discussion and use of her family’s history as Freed People.

To her credit, in the first chapter the author provided some context to the arrival of the Five Tribes in Indian Territory. Although this was adequate for a reader like me with some knowledge of this, those less familiar with this aspect of Native American history might find this lacking. Additionally, she observed that Native Americans generally had a spiritual as well as a physical and economic connection to their lands. Thus, forced displacement caused ‘spiritual uprooting.’ As the narrative text is only 130 pages long a few more paragraphs, if not pages, would have made these issues more informative but still kept All the While reasonably brief.

For those who wish to hear the author give a well organized and informative talk about the book:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9nGzqZi...

I can recommend the following for those who wish to read more about these so called Black Indians. Black, White, and Indian by Claudio Saunt discusses how race affected one particular Creek family from the mid 19th until the early 21st centuries. Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy is historical fiction about the experiences of one African American slave family in the Creek Nation. Finally, Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society is an excellent introduction to the history of slavery in this one particular Native American nation.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a thoroughly excellent book. Roberts uses her own family's history as a framing device to understand the relationship between Black and Indian people in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). But her individual story soon disappears into the larger story of the interconnectedness of the Indian peoples who lived west of the Mississippi before the removals of the 1830s, the five "Civilized Tribes" removed to Oklahoma amidst US expansion, their enslaved Black people, White settlers and enslaved and freed African American people.

It's a book that takes a piece of history that sits at the very corner of my consciousness and keeps drawing attention to itself, demanding to be considered. I have a feeling that this book will speak to me long after I've read it. A few of my takeaways were: the ways that Indians and Indian freed peoples used the process of settler colonialism to establish land claims; the role that the Civil War played in renegotiating land treaties between the US and the "Civilized Tribes"; the ways that Indian freed people were beneficiaries of reparations for slavery in the form of land grants, particularly via the Dawes Act; and the ways that statehood reordered the relationship between all of these groups again.

It's short, it's easy to follow, with a narrative thread wrapped around clear arguments. I highly recommend this book.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unbeknownst to me, Native American tribes were encouraged to have Black slaves as part of their integration into "civilization." And many of the tribes, Ms. Roberts focuses on the big 5, viewed them in different ways, including one tribe that let the Blacks live on their own and manage their own affairs with servitude consisting of paying a portion of their crop. But after the Civil War, the tribes were told their slaves were now free. Going even farther, the US government forced the Native Americans to give their former slaves land. But only the former slaves of the tribes got land, not the millions of slaves that had been freed in the South! Once again, White Americans used one minority to help subrogate another minority, as this weakened the tribes and allowed an opening for White settles to move in to their territories. I enjoyed how Ms. Roberts intertwined her personal family history throughout her retelling of history, both former slaves and Native Americans. The book felt a bit surface level but that was because Ms. Roberts chose to include substantial information in the notes following the text itself. This made for a quicker but less detailed read.

Thanks to NetGalley and University of Pennsylvania Press for a copy of the book. This review is my own opinion.

[Maxine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've Been Here All the While by Alaina E Roberts looks at the little known history of First Nations Americans and enslaved Black people they owned during and after Reconstruction. Using secondary sources as well as stories from her own family, she shows the waves of movement westward and how it affected both those who headed west whether forced or voluntary and how it affected both them and those dispossessed from the land including the forced movement of slave-owning tribes and the dispossession of other tribes, the impact of Reconstruction on both and how it offered a chance for Black freedmen to gain land and escape Jim Crow until Oklahoma gained statehood.

This is fairly short but very well-documented and important book about a a part of American history that deserves to be better known. But despite its length, Roberts avoids easy judgments but shows the complexity of the issue and how it affected not only the people in the time period but their descendants.

Thanks to Netgalley and University of Pennsylvania Press for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review

[Jo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don’t let the slenderness of this volume lead you to think that Alaina E. Roberts has written a cursory account of post-emancipation life for Black people enslaved by the Five Tribes who had been forcibly removed to Indian Territory, taking the human beings they owned with them. On the contrary: by not wasting a single word, Roberts packs a lot in, giving us a work that deals with some very complex history and using an analysis of settler colonialism as her framework.

Reading this book, I learned a great deal about how Indian freedpeople navigated through post-Civil War Native American nations and about how several groups of people - the Five Tribes, Indian freedpeople, formerly enslaved African Americans, and white settlers - all participated in settler colonialism as they sought to carve out space for themselves in the territory that became Oklahoma.

[Bill O'driscoll · Rating 3 out of 5]

A look into a fascinating but seldom-explored corner of U.S. history: The fact that a number of Native Americans enslaved Black Americans, and what became of the latter after Emancipation, in the pre-statehood Oklahoma Territory, which is where those Natives were exiled out of the Southeast ca 1820s. It's a complex story that Roberts does a good job of unpacking, inspired in part by the fact that her own ancestry includes both Native enslavers and some of the enslaved folks. (The book has its roots in family histories she was told growing up in California.) Falls on the side of an academic history rather than a popular one, and is sometimes a bit dry, but the wealth of information and analysis makes it worthwhile.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is brilliant. Roberts weaves her family's own story throughout the history she tells of Indian removal to Oklahoma and the multiple waves of settlement by the Five Tribes, followed by Freedpeople and black people from the US after the Civil War, and then eventually white folks, the land rush, and Oklahoma statehood. I learned so many details about the conflicts that happened in Oklahoma - from the way the Five Tribes [attempted] to use the American military against Plains Indians, the fact that Freedpeople got land they might not have otherwise received under the Dawes Act, and a tracing of the way that settler colonialism and anti-Blackness made the Tulsa Massacre an inevitability. This book is informative, illuminating, and extremely readable.

[Zach Van Tol · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was fascinated by the history this story told. I was ignorant of how white settler colonialism infiltrated Indian nations and freed blacks alike to spread the U.S.'s thirst for taking land. In a book about space, race, and belonging, Roberts tells a definitive story about how different groups utilized land to assert authority during reconstruction. Despite the heavy reference to citations, the book reads easily and is accessible to anyone, regardless of their knowledge of colonialism or American history.

[Everett F. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very interesting book. Despite the occasional wokeness, this was a great read, and poses many, many good questions with respect to the histories of black, Native, and white people in America as a whole. Five stars overall, and I also liked the way Alaina Roberts used the history of her paternal family as a framing device in helping to tell this very important, little-known, story of our country. A more formal review (and questions) will follow soon enough. A great read that I heartily enjoyed! Brief, too!

[Bridget S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Succinct and well researched. Again, American history that should have actually been taught in schools but wasn’t/isn’t. A really important book to read if you subscribe to blind patriotism. Informative and compelling (inspiring then deeply tragic) section on Black Wall Street and the Tulsa Massacres. Wish there would have been a deeper dive into Edward McCabe and his demise, but still good info and there are other books to seek out to learn more about him if wanted.

[Dom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid. Maybe a bit more academic/dry than I expected. But it does help complicate the story of the American West which I think is good. It made me think of how we can “diversity” our way out of white supremacy and settler colonialism. “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” and all that was, I think, the main takeaway from this book.

[Kisha · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’VE BEEN HERE ALL THE WHILE: ⭐️⭐️🌗

I wanted to like this so much, but it just felt extremely dry at times and was hard to hold my attention. The concept is fascinating though.

NOTE: I was provided an arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Doris Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A history of the settler movement making its way to Oklahoma . Enslaved peoples belonging to Native American tribes make their way across to Indian Territory now known as Oklahoma. A heart breaking history of these people.

[Alec · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prob one of my favorite academic books i’ve read. Concise yet powerful argument about settler colonial technologies and the ways they’re wielded by numerous groups (including the oppressed) in order to survive

[Kayla Dae Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was super informative and I highly recommend it.

I only put 4 stars because I wanted more! I understand that a longer length would deter readers but I personally would go for a book on this topic that is twice as long. haha

[Judi Ring]

I think anyone who grew up in OK should read this. This goes so much deeper than anything we ever learned in OK history. As Roberts says at the end. . ."it is only by knowing where we came from. . .that we can truly know where we are going." (141)

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is both an exquisitely well-researched book and engaging to read. I had the good fortune to hear Dr. Roberts speak on this subject at a conference a couple of years ago and am so glad to have finally had the chance to read more about this part of history.

[Satya Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does a great job explaining and parsing through the complex ideas of colonialism within indigenous and black communities. I think this book would fair well as an introduction towards this topic for high school students, as this is not often taught within the high school curriculum (though I believe it should be).