Mulroy, Kevin

English

ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst

African Diaspora Archaeology NewsletterVolume 10Issue 4 December 2007 Article 1712-1-2007The Seminole Freedmen: A HistoryKevin MulroyClaremont Colleges, kevin.mulroy@gmail.comFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adanThis New Books is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in African DiasporaArchaeology Newsletter by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contactscholarworks@library.umass.edu.Recommended CitationMulroy, Kevin (2007) "The Seminole Freedmen: A History," African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter: Vol. 10 : Iss. 4 , Article 17.Available at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/adan/vol10/iss4/17New Book The Seminole Freedmen: A History. By Kevin Mulroy 446 pages, ISBN-13: 978-0806138657. University of Oklahoma Press, 2007. Description from the publisher: Popularly known as "Black Seminoles," descendents of the Seminole freedmen of Indian Territory are a unique American cultural group. Now Kevin Mulroy examines the long history of these people to show that this label denies them their rightful distinctiveness. To correct misconceptions of the historical relationship between Africans and Seminole Indians, he traces the emergence of Seminole-black identity and community from their eighteenth-century Florida origins to the present day.  Arguing that the Seminole freedmen are neither Seminoles, Africans, nor "black Indians," Mulroy proposes that they are maroon descendants who inhabit their own racial and cultural category, which he calls "Seminole maroon." Mulroy plumbs the historical record to show clearly that, although allied with the Seminoles, these maroons formed independent and autonomous communities that dealt with European American society differently than either Indians or African Americans did.  Mulroy describes the freedmen's experiences as runaways from southern plantations, slaves of American Indians, participants in the Seminole Wars, and emigrants to the West. He then recounts their history during the Civil War, Reconstruction, enrollment and allotment under the Dawes Act, and early Oklahoma statehood. He also considers freedmen relations with Seminoles in Oklahoma during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.  Although freedmen and Seminoles enjoy a partially shared past, this book shows that the freedmen's history and culture are unique and entirely their own. Volume 2 in the Race and Culture in the American West Series. Kevin Mulroy is Associate Executive Director for Research Collections and Services at the University of Southern California and author of Freedom on the Border: The Seminole Maroons in Florida, the Indian Territory, Coahuila, and Texas. 1Mulroy: The Seminole Freedmen: A HistoryPublished by ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst, 2007

The Seminole Freedmen: A History

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The Seminole Freedmen: A History

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