that subject in the Southeast and in Indian Territory. Yet, the subject
of black slavery among the Cherokees is all but omitted. Annie H. Abel
excellent work, The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist,
admirably treats Indians as secessionists but devotes very little attention
to slaveholding in general and barely mentions the institution among the
Cherokees. ³

This paucity of information, however, has not hindered the growth
of unsubstantiated generalizations and numerous outright myths. From
the Europeans' first meetings with the American Indians until the present,
the Indian has been a familiar--yet unknown and sometimes unreal--
person to most whites and blacks. That which is "known" about the
Indian, including the Cherokees, is often at best superficial and distorted
or at worst, utterly false. It is often alleged that the lives of black slaves
owned by the Cherokees were considerably easier than those owned by
white masters. Moreover, it has frequently been reported that the Indians
regarded their black slaves as family members and as fellow human beings,
that their slaves enjoyed much more "freedom," that slave families were
not broken up, and that intermarriage was not uncommon. One author
maintained that Cherokee slaves were so pampered that they were not
marketable in the United States. ⁴ There appears to be little evidence to
support such commonly accepted conclusions.

Slavery is at least as old as recorded history and appears to have been
practiced throughout most of the world at one time or another. The
Cherokees practiced slavery, yet there are no words for "slave" and
"Negro" in their language. The Cherokee Indians belong to the greater
Iroquoian language stock and once referred to themselves as Ani Yunwiya
("principal people"). They were also known at one time as Kituhwagi,
from the name of an ancient town near the center of their country. The
name Cherokee may be derived from a Choctaw term that signified the
inhabitants of a cave country. ⁵

The Cherokees resided in the southeastern portion of what is now the
United States and had a semi-sedentary hunting, fishing, gathering, and
agricultural economy when Europeans and Africans first appeared among
them. The tribe possessed a vast region in the southern Appalachians
where they had lived for as long as archaeological evidence can determine.
Fields of corn, squash, pumpkins, peas, gourds, beans, and tobacco were
regularly cultivated. One distinguished American historian has written:

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