WATCH NIGHT: I Know Where My Ancestors Come From

Video: I Know Where My Ancestors Come From

This video was created in honor of my ancestors enslaved in Indian Territory. They lived in the Choctaw Nation most of the time and briefly in the Chickasaw Nation.

* * * * *

On my father's side is a unique history--that of slaves born in Indian Territory, taken west by the Indian Tribes that were relocated in the west.

I knew one of them Sallie, my gr. grandmother. I have told her story already. But there were others about whom so little is known.  I found some of these storied embedded in other documents, and other related files. Sallie was born during the Civil War, but her mother Amanda, lived a good portion of her life enslaved. And quite accidentally I also learned the name of Amanda's mother- Kitty Perry, a slave of the Perry clan from Mississippi, a large Choctaw family.

Though they are names without faces they belong to me, nevertheless. Amanda, Sallie's mother did live to see freedom as she died in 1898. But little is known about her mother Kitty. Amanda also had a brother Jackson Crow.  He too was born enslaved, and he died in 1888. But as much or as little is known, I am still compelled to say their names, so that they shall not be forgotten:

On this day, I honor these ancestors, who were not freed by the Emancipation, for the lived outside of the boundaries of the United States---they lived in Indian Territory.  Freedom would come three  years later with the Treaty of 1866. But because the lived under the same institution of enslavement--they are  honored here as well.  Their story is part of my story, and I call their names:

Sallie Walton

Amanda Perry

Kitty Perry

Joe Hunt Perry

Jackson Crow

Indiana Perry

They honor them on this day, commemorating the Emancipation Proclamation, for they too were slaved and they two lived to breathe the sweet air of freedom.