Emancipation Day (August 4th)

January 30, 2007 
/ Contributed By: Gary Zellar

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Emancipation Day event flyer

Public domain image

On August 4, 1865, the Loyal Creek Council formally declared that African Creeks would be considered full citizens of the Creek Nation.  African Creeks soon designated August 4th “Emancipation Day” and organized celebrations, including picnics, parades and speakers beginning as early as 1867, which continued through the Territorial days and early years of Oklahoma statehood.  The celebration fell into disuse as the African Creeks and other Indian freedpeople were increasingly marginalized in the twentieth century.  The celebrations have been revived recently as the freedpeople of the various Indian nations struggle for tribal recognition.  The action of the Creek Council was nearly a year before the Creek Treaty of 1866 was ratified.  Under Article II of that treaty, African Creeks were given full citizenship rights, including “rights to the soil” and the right to share equally in the division of tribal monies.

The 1866 Treaty was the culmination of a process that began in the summer of 1861 when Opothleyahola, an Upper Creek leader, declared that any slave who joined his party in opposing the Creek Confederate treaty would be considered free.  The Loyal Creeks had also negotiated an earlier treaty with the United States in the summer of 1863 with essentially the same language as the 1866 treaty regarding African Creek rights.  The Creeks finally rejected that treaty after the U.S. Senate altered it with unacceptable amendments regarding a proposed land cession.

About the Author

Author Profile

Gary Zellar received both his B.A. and M.A. in history at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. He did his doctoral work in the Race and Ethnicity of the American West under Elliott West at the University of Arkansas, and worked closely with Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., one of the pioneers in the study of African-Indian relations at the Native American Press Archives at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. His dissertation, “‘If I Ain’t One, You Won’t Find Another One Here:’ Race, Identity, Citizenship and Land: The African Creek Experience in the Indian Territory, 1830-1910,” won both the Oklahoma Historical Society’s 2004 award for the best dissertation and the Phi Alpha Theta /Westerners International award for the best dissertation in History of the American West for 2004. His African Creeks: Estelvste and the Creek Nation was published by the University of Oklahoma in 2007. In addition, Zellar has published several articles and given numerous presentations dealing with the history of the estelvste. He is currently teaching as an adjunct history instructor for Montgomery College and Angelina College in Texas and is at work on a manuscript dealing with the Civil War in the Indian Territory.

CITE THIS ENTRY IN APA FORMAT:

Zellar, G. (2007, January 30). Emancipation Day (August 4th). BlackPast.org. https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/emancipation-day-august-4th/

Source of the Author's Information:

Gary Zellar, African Creeks: Estelvste and the Creek Nation (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007).

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