Fragment of a bill of sale of a slave girl, May 21, 1831

Fragment of a bill of sale of a Negro slave girl names Lisey from John McIntosh of the Cherokee Nation to James McDaniel for $250.00. Folder 16

This archival document demonstrates the level to which some Cherokee had adopted the cultural practices of their white neighbors. While the “common” or average Cherokee struggled to survive as subsistence farmers, there were others who assimilated to Euroamerican culture and amassed personal wealth with slave labor. Prior to the Civil War, the majority of wealth in the United States was tied up in human property; so in that time, some of the Cherokees’ most valuable possessions that they brought to the West were the people they owned. Cherokee slave ownership reveals the incredibly complex web of race relations in nineteenth-century America.

From the exhibition: After Removal: Rebuilding the Cherokee Nation, August 25, 2017 - January 21, 2018. Curated by Dr. Duane King & Dr. Natalie Panther, 2017.