Choctaw Confederates by Fay Yarbrough

Thank you again for so many wonderful birthday greetings!  I finished this late last night, after my husband and son took me out to dinner.  A little too late to write the review!

I honestly learned SOOOOOOO much in reading this.  I want our History classes to read it or at least excerpts.  

It is perhaps an assumption many make that Native American Indians were against slavery having suffered themselves at the hands of White policy.  However, some Southern tribes were staunchly in favor of States' rights and had enslaved people of African descent.  The Choctaw had written law and policy regarding slavery and support of the Southern cause.  Many of these reflected those of the Southern states: preventing the enslaved from learning to read or write, prohibiting interracial marriage with those of African descent, and banning the employment of free Blacks.  

What I found most fascinating were the personal quotes obtained through painstaking research.  This is as much a book about history and race as it is on research methods.  Primary source documents like military records, artwork, letters, journals, and oral traditions are just as important, if not more so, than a textbook. 

I am happy to say this book has already been checked out to its next reader...my son.  When he returns it, it will be a part of our Indigenous sub collection.

All opinions expressed on this blog are solely those of Mrs. W.