Testimony of Isaac Rogers
Before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee-1885
Contained in the following testimony of Isaac Rogers before a Senate Indian Affairs Committee investigating the "Indian Tribes" in Indian Territory, are statements that support the argument that the formerly enslaved people were in fact, citizens of the Cherokee Nation. With the contemporary issues of citizenship, non-Indian Freedmen who have or don't have Cherokee (Indian) blood as an excuse for their removal, the ROGERS' testimony offers more insight that should illustrate the unjust treatment today. The Cherokee "Freedmen" and their descendants have a history among this tribe as well as the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek (Muscogee) and Seminoles. Sadly much of their history depicts the same second class citizenship that would eventually find them no longer welcomed among people they share a remarkable history.
Clearly the date of 1885 is significant since this was the year the Choctaw Freedmen and their descendants received citizenship in the nation of their birth. Yet from what we can see through the Rogers testimony the treatment by freedmen in the Cherokee Nation has been an ongoing attempt to deprive them of their basic rights as citizens, and is instrumental in their eventual transformation of identity from Cherokee National to "African-American.
Testimony of Isaac Rogers
ISAAC ROGERS sworn and examined
By the CHAIRMAN:
Question. What is your full name —Answer. My name is Isaac Rogers.
Q. Where do you reside?—A. I am a resident of time Cherokee Nation.
Q. How long have you lived in the Cherokee Nation? —A. I have lived in the nation for about thirty-six years.
Q. Were you born in the nation? —A. Yes, sir.
Q. Were you a slave at the time of the making of the treaty iii 1866 by which the slaves were made free?—A. I was a slave when I was a boy.
Q. You are a freedman now —A. Yes, sir.
Q. Will you tell us how the freedmen have been treated by the Cherokee Nation? We want all the information you can give us upon that subject.—A. We have been recognized under that treaty as citizens only in part, but never in full according to the terms of the treaty; that is, we have been allowed to live in the country, and we have been allowed to vote, &c.; hut in such thing enjoying the full privileges of the schools we have, we have not been treated as the other people in the nation. There are a great many colored people who came here before the treaty was made, and who were here at the making of the treaty, can produce evidence that they came in the limit of time, have been worked against through the census-takers, and have been treated as intruders.
Q. Have you any certificate of citizenship? —A. No, sir; but I have never been denied my rights of citizenship until this money matter came up.
Q. What money matter?—A. The distribution of the $300,000 appropriated into the Cherokee treasury to be distributed among the people.
Q. Were you ever before any of the commissioners that have been here to examine the matter of citizenship—A. They had courts here before this time, and they called up persons who were born and raised here to certify to their citizenship; I have done that.
Q. Were you never examined by any commission before?—A. No, sir.
Q. Have they ever summoned you before them?—A. No, sir.
Q. They never revoked your citizenship?—A. No, sir.
Q. You never had any trouble except about school and money matters?—A. No, sir.
Q. Have you any children? A Yes, sir; I have children.
Q. Do you have primary schools? Yes, sir; we have had primary schools since 1872. We have been here nineteen years—seventeen years, anyway—but we haven’t got a colored citizen into the Cherokee schools yet.