Juneteenth: From a Black Indigenous Perspective
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** Happy Juneteenth!
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Today, we celebrate Juneteenth (also known as Jubilee Day, Emancipation Day, or Black Independence Day), a holiday that has been celebrated by Black relatives for generations as well as now a new federal holiday signed into law by President Joe Biden on Thursday, June 17, 2021.

Sache Primeaux-Shaw (Ponca, Yankton-Dakota, Seminole and Chickasaw Freedman) shares in her article,
"Juneteenth: From a Black Indigenous Perspective" ([link removed]) , "Today, my family celebrates Jubilee Day and we also pay homage to our Freedmen ancestors who were not free on this day but on the day that our Treaties of 1866 were signed. It is a complex heritage but one with a shared legacy of being formerly enslaved. One of being both Black and Indigenous and one of being within a sovereign nation where they were once second-class citizens. It’s one that I carry with me and one that I will continue to shed light on."

At Cultural Survival, we recognize that Indigenous sovereignty goes hand in hand with Black liberation. Black lives are sacred, and they too, play an important role in restoring the natural world. When we come together as one, we can collectively transform the world into a more just, equitable, and balanced place for us all! Happy Juneteenth!
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** Juneteenth from a Black Indigenous Perspective
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By Sache Primeaux-Shaw (Ponca, Yankton-Dakota, Seminole and Chickasaw Freedman)

My fourth great-grandmother Betty Shaw, my third great-grandfather John, and his siblings were freed near Honey Grove, Texas on June 19, 1865. My other set of Texas-based ancestors, my fourth great-grandparents Henry and Jane Anderson, my third great-grandmother Maria and her siblings were also among these formerly enslaved African-Americans who would leave their former plantations where they were held in bondage to go West. They were all freed on Juneteenth, also known as Jubilee Day.

John and Maria got married in Fannin County, Texas, and started their family there and migrated up to Indian Territory by 1900. They followed a group of formerly enslaved Black people called the Exodusters. The Exodusters Movement of 1879 encouraged a large migration of formerly enslaved people from the Deep South to states out West including Kansas, Colorado, and present day Oklahoma. John’s mother accompanied them to the Chickasaw Territory where another group of people of African descent resided, the Chickasaw Freedmen.

Many Black Oklahomans who are descendants of formerly enslaved people can trace their lines back to Texas where the Juneteenth holiday originated. On a sweltering summer day in 1865, Union General Gordon Granger traveled to Galveston to give the news that they were free to enslaved people who were unaware of the Emancipation Proclamation that the late U.S. President Abraham Lincoln signed two years earlier, in 1863. The response was not immediate, some stayed on plantations that they were born on to work. They would not find quick work as newly freed people. Then there were some who did not know where to go and were enticed by their former enslavers to stay and work for pennies. Some families, such as my Shaw and Anderson lines, would leave Texas nearly two decades later as they established their homes as free people away from the plantation. Throughout the 1900 census records, one will find many Black Oklahoman families that have Texas ties as a result.

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Cultural Survival advocates for Indigenous Peoples' rights and supports Indigenous communities’ self-determination, cultures and political resilience since 1972. We envision a future that respects and honors Indigenous Peoples' inherent rights and dynamic cultures, deeply and richly interwoven in lands, languages, spiritual traditions, and artistic expression, rooted in self-determination and self-governance.

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