The Creek Freedmen

Featured Creek Freedmen Descendant Testimony, our stories

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Our Stories

Please send us your stories, family history and photos, we will post them on the web site.

On-onvkv (read our stories)

LucindaDavis.jpg
Lucinda Davis
Creek Freedmen and former slave of Tuskaya-hiniha (Gouge).
Photo provided by the Library of Congress

Mary Grayson, OWP slave narrative, click here

Phoebe Banks, OWP slave narrative, click here

Nellie Johnson, OWP slave narrative, click here

Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938, Oklahoma Narratives, Vol XIII, click here

ParoBruner.jpg

Paro Bruner, the first Creek Freedmen to enroll with the Dawes Commission.
Mr. Bruner was given the number 1 for his Dawes roll number. He was a former slave of a Creek Indian named Wash Barnett. After the Creek Nation was forced to emancipate their African slaves in 1866, Paro Bruner became a prominent Creek leader by serving as a elected Creek Council member in the House of Warriors for many years. He represented the Canadian Colored Tribal Town. He was the son of William and Affie Bruner, both slaves of Tom Bruner. Paro Bruner was married to Aggie Laudrum, who was listed as number 2 on the Dawes Roll. (This picture provided by the Oklahoma Historical Society Research Library and was taken around 1900.) He was at-least 75 years old at the time of this photo. There are many descendants of Paro Bruner today. The Creek Freedmen hope to hear their family stories as this site reaches out to them through the Internet world.

James Coody Johnson, click here

MaryCunninghamfamily.jpg

My name is Mary Ann (Wells) Cunningham. I am a descendant of both Creek Freedman and Creek by blood. I was always told of my ancestry, admittedly mostly oral history.

This is no longer accepted as valid by the Creek Nation unlike the olden years when basically oral history was all we had for both the Creek freedman and by blood.

I lived in the state of Oklahoma, McIntosh County. Born and reared.

About 7 years ago, I decided to make application for citizenship in the Muscogee (Creek) Nation. I was told by the Creek citizenship office the enrollment was only for descendants of the by blood Creeks.

It did not matter that all my ancestors both freedmen and blood were natives of Indian Territory and citizens of Creek Nation. Legally enrolled and admitted as citizens.

The earliest documents I have of my fore parents are from the 1800's.

I have old documents stating that two of grandmothers were enslaved by the Creek Grayson family when in reality they were their relatives. On one census it shows that they were owned by Watt Grayson. One of my grandmothers, who was owned by the Grayson family, married into their family. Thus, my grandmother Judy carried the Grayson name.

Judy Grayson had a daughter named Louisa who married a full blood Creek (Haynes) and they produced five children. One of her daughters was my great grandmother Delilah Haynes Hutton.

In books by Claudio Saunt and the GW Grayson Bio, they only stated that one of Robert Grierson’s sons married one of his Negro slaves, using no name. But only the names Delilah and one of Delilah’s grandsons is mentioned by name. Various accounts have been written about my family, but never written using first names. These writers and researchers knew the given names yet deliberately chose not to use them. Strangely, always nouns and never proper nouns.

This has been a weary journey and a tedious task. It is a path littered with distorted history, destroyed documents, racial prejudice and injustice and misspelled words.

If it is to stripe a person of their citizenship for no justifiable reason, the Creek Nation should not be allowed or permitted to do so. Knowing the history of the Creeks, their hardships, misuse, abuse and all the other horrors they endured, to think that the Nation now have become exact copies of the people who inflicted their pain, tore their families apart, and taken their promised land.

Evidence show that many of my ancestors were citizens long before the Dawes enrollment.

Fact: The community, in which I live, Huttonville, was settled by my family and others before the Dawes enrollment or any of the other roll or Oklahoma statehood.

My Freedmen family was very much a part of the Creek Nation, not just a part in. They were Creek Nation citizens in every sense of the word.

These are the surnames of my family: Grayson, Haynes, Huttons, Greirsons, Berryhills, Bruner, Ross, McNac, Sears, Hope, Holt, Spencer/Wolfe, Perryman, all Creek family names.

 Sincerely,
Mary Ann Cunningham
ps. The people on the picture are my siblings and I enjoying a Oklahoma day.

Creek Freedmen Voices

Corbray Hill, Indian Pioneer Papers, A must read, click here

John Harrison, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Elsie Edwards, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Arron Grayson, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Adam Grayson, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here (talks about Bass Reeves

Mamie Elizabeth Crew, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Jake Simmons, Indian Pioneer Papers, great read, click here

Nancy Grayson Barnett, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Burial Ground, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Lee Hawkins, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Grayson Cemetery, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Sonny Jackson, (on Crazy Snake) Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Elzonra L. (Fulsom) Lewis, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

George McIntosh, Indian Pioneer Papers, clcik here

Philip A. Lewis, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Jones Louis Puckett, Indian Pioneer Papers, click here

Sam Todd on Suger George, Indian Pioneers Papers, click here

Creek Freedmen Descendants be sure to compare your notes on the 'Genealogy' page of this website.

Please review all the Creek Freedmen webpages of this site.