No richer or more colorful life could have been lived than that of John Horse, whose life began as a slave in Florida, took him to Indian Territory as a young man, to Mexico as a leader of his people, and then back and forth from Mexico to Indian Territory,” begins one biography. Born in 1812 of a Black mother and Indian father, he was 6 feet tall, powerfully built and an expert marksman who could “follow a trail by moonlight at a gallop over a burnt prairie.” As leader of the Black Seminoles, John Horse struggled for almost half a century to obtain land and a permanent home for his people. Learn more at www.johnhorse.com.

Little doubt remains that people will be gathering together on the date that Euro-Americans call "Thanksgiving" in remembrance of all they are thankful for. I ask that you dedicate at least a portion of this day to being thankful for all that we have learned in recent years about our ancestors and to learning, acknowledging, discussing, conversating and making peace with the fact that a rather large percentage of the Aboriginal First People of the Americas were ethnic Black Indians affected by foreign invasion, the Trail of Tears and Indian removal, as well as having been impacted by the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the Black holocaust.

I am thankful for what I have been able to uncover of the Black Indian holocaust and first terrorist acts committed in the Americas upon its Aboriginals, our ancestors.

In the West the ancient ones, Autochthonic Indigenous Black Natives - Austronesian or Australo-African in ancestry - who resided historically from Lagoa Santa, Brazil, 10,000-plus miles south of the Bering Strait and produced older bones than Bering Strait arrivals, the Mexican mainland, Loreto, Mexico, Baja, California, to La Jolla, San Diego, Imperial Valley, up to the northernmost tip of California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska . They also filled the interior Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico areas and resided as the Anasazi, Pima Mandinka, Folsoms, Pericu, San Diegitos, Yacquis and others. Their bones and archaeological science confirms their presence. Notes found from the Mission priests and the director of the Museum of Man in 1958 referred to the ancient Natives as "like Australian Blackfellows."

In the Eastern Aboriginal Indian Country, ethnic Natives emigrated from the Canary Islands, Africa and Spain (Moors), Canada, Maine, Rhode Island, Delaware, Virginia and Maryland down to the tip of Florida. This is not to say that ethnic Autochthons did not also reside in these areas. Indeed Owsley, an archaeologist associated with the Smithsonian Institution, reclassified bones dredged up from a Native American burial as having been phenotypically African upon review - despite the Native American clothing and burial ways.

The Eastern and Western ethnic Aboriginals converged in a myriad of ways in America's interior and they resided in the Carolinas, now known as North and South Carolina, and what has become known as the American Black Belt - Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama. They outflowed into Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas.

Of course every one of us remembers the stand taken by the free Black Seminoles who signed a treaty in Florida, which brought them to Oklahoma in the 1830s and 1840s to make new settlements at Wewoka, Deep Fork and other places. The treachery of the U.S. Solicitor reached an all time high, when he rendered a decision that the free Black Seminoles would be reduced to a condition of slavery to the Creeks in Oklahoma. They had been free from Slavery to the Creeks for 100 years prior to traveling to Oklahoma.

Upon hearing this news, the Black Seminoles felt they would rather die than be slaves to any man, so they self-emigrated to Mexico in the winter of 1849, where they were allowed to live in freedom upon a reservation granted to the Black Seminoles by the Mexican central government in 1850.

The remaining Seminoles in Oklahoma were quarantined - placed in a concentration camp - to prevent them from joining the Black Seminoles of Texas and Mexico. The two bands of Black Indians remaining in Oklahoma are still tenuously attached to the Seminole Nation today, despite attempts to exile them in recent years also. However, they are not eligible for the same benefits, treaty rights and entitlements available to Red Indians because of unequal rules of federal access to loans, along with other programs available to Indians, accessed through the Indian Reorganization Act.

All attempts to compel the United States government to correct the equal and racially discriminatory disparities have been met with disinterest and half-hearted attempts to feign fleeting interest that dies with our outcries that have been drowned out by wag the dog incidents and the continuing faux war on terror.

Black Indians are caught between a massive "rock" and a "hard place."
Native America is afraid that Black Indians will awaken African Americans, who likely have Native American ancestry and the same valid a claim as Black Indians to what has been stolen from them.

The other problem is the failure of Black Indians in defeating the media traps that will not allow us to let African Americans know how big a stake they have in righting the wrongs committed upon Black Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes. Because of the media disconnect, African Americans have not expressed solidarity with Black Indians in demanding redress for governmental ineptitude. Neither have the majority of the Native American populace, who seem to believe that all Black Indians want is what little bit the Indians have.

In reality, Native Americans should be joining Black Indians in forcing the U.S. government to deal fairly with Black Indians who have legitimate treaty rights, to fund their own sovereign nations, which takes the stress off of the parent tribal nations in having to deal with the throngs of Black Indians who are truly eligible as lineal descendants and heirs of their Native American ancestors. Black Indian tribal governments can deal with dispensing tribal programs and funds to their own people. This is the answer to the ills facing Black Indians and African Americans in general.

Upon the continuance of forced exile of Black Indians from the former Indian Territory from 1924 to the 1960s, our Indian ancestors continued their great Western migration into the Central Valley of California and points south - San Diego, Compton, Los Angeles, Inglewood - and points north - Sacramento Valley, Fresno, Oakland and San Francisco.

I don't ask that you simply take my word for it. Use your good sense, open mind and newly aroused visual senses to take in the truth behind the truth on this day. Black Indians have an aboriginal claim to the lands of the Americas and as such have as much right and entitlement as Red people, our relatives, and mixed breeds, to part and parcel of the lands of our ancient fathers.

Our people were decimated by illegal European aliens in aboriginal Indian Country and their manifest destiny and foreign diseases nearly destroyed the majority of Aboriginal America, including the Creator's favored ethnic Aboriginals. However, we live to tell the story of our beginnings and our present plight, which includes waging an epic struggle to reclaim our stolen lands, treaty rights and to rebuild our aborted economic infrastructure.

Because of America's penchant for avoiding the truth, its deceit and selective amnesia, many of our people believe they are solely African American. America has a vested interest - to the tune of billions of dollars in land, mineral rights, oil, natural gas, coal and other revenues - in keeping you blind and unknowing of your true ancestral past and wants you to think that you are a transient people having no claim to the aboriginal soil of America.

They have treated us and continental Africans like our African blood makes us ineligible for anything, especially aboriginal claims. Not even eligible for life itself. We have survived purposeful ethnic reclassification, our ancestors' histories have been whitewashed - obliterated in many cases - and we have been alienated from the truth of our ancestral origins and we have been lied to about our true nationality. There are not many people who know that Black Indians - specifically those hailing from Oklahoma Indian Territory, have no other nationality than Native American.

We have been covered by treaties exclusively and, as residents of Indian Country, were not the beneficiaries of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation intended to benefit those in U.S. held states. Since Oklahoma never adopted or ratified the 14th Amendment - because it was Indian Territory - our people were not covered by the citizenship granted persons in the states in 1865. The lineal descendants of America's ethnic Black Indians are each invited to come and learn about your true history at Leona Mitchell Southern Heights Heritage Center and Museum in Enid, Oklahoma.

I invite you to take this day to learn about the groups that are fighting to restore our treaty rights, citizenship rights, land rights and more. Learn about the class action claim of Black Indians and Freedmen, a legal fight taken on by Harvest Institute Freedmen Federation of Washington, D.C., Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund of Enid, Oklahoma, and Chief William Warrior of the United Warrior Band of the Seminole Nation, the lineal descendants of John Horse's Seminole Negro Scouts.

Learn about the numerous Freedmen bands of Black Indian tribal nations arising from the parent tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole Nations. Learn about the United Ishtehotopih Band of the Chickasaw Nation, the United Tuscaloosa Band of the Choctaw Nation, the United Warrior Band of the Seminole Nation, the Chunchula Alabama Band of the Mississippi Choctaw Nation, the Kelly-Carolina Cherokee-Blackfeet Band of the Cherokee Nation, the United Loyal Muscogee Creek Band of the Creek Nation and others as they fight for independent sovereign rule of their people, free from the tyranny and oppression of their parent tribes who have each abdicated their 1866 treaty mandated fiscal and legal responsibilities for Native American citizens having African blood.

Learn about the illegal application of blood quantum in the 20th century as a tool of exclusion. Learn about the revised exclusionary tribal constitutions of the parent tribal nations of the Five Civilized Tribes. Learn about how the United States federal government dropped the ball in their 1866 federal treaty mandate to provide for the ethnic protectorate of the tribes in equity and fairness.

You also need to learn who is supporting Indian Freedmen and ethnic Black Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes in our monumental struggle and the surprising list of those who are not supporting Ethnic Black Indians of the Five Civilized Tribes in the fight to reclaim, maintain and sustain our indefeasible treaty rights as heirs, beneficiaries and assigns of our ethnic Black Indian ancestors.

Above all, learn how and why you should support all of the following Indian Freedmen and Black Indians entities, organizations, tribal bands and attorneys: Harvest Institute Freedmen Federation of Washington, D.C.; Black Indians United Legal Defense and Education Fund of Enid, Oklahoma; Sen. Diane Watson's HR 2824; J.C. Watt's Native American Reconciliation Campaign; attorney Percy Squire; attorney Jon Velie; United Ishtehotopih Band of the Chickasaw Nation; United Tuscaloosa Band of the Choctaw Nation; United Warrior Band of the Seminole Nation; Chunchula Alabama Band of the Mississippi Choctaw Nation; Kelly-Carolina Cherokee-Blackfeet Band of the Cherokee Nation; United Loyal Muscogee Creek Band of the Creek Nation; the Cherokee Freedmen Nation of Oklahoma; and the Indigenous Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole Nations.

Use the day called Thanksgiving wisely by discussing the following:

1. Black Indian signatories and representatives in the Treaties of 1865.

2. Indian Freedmen specifically mentioned in the Treaties of 1866.

3. Continuing treaty rights for Red Indians, but discontinued treaty rights for Black Indians - stemming from the same treaty.

4. Black Indian nationality - covered by historic Indian jurisdiction, geographical boundaries, residence, adoption and treaty guarantees beginning with 1785 Treaty of Hopewell (South Carolina).

6. Indian Nation sovereignty vs. citizenship and nationality guarantees by treaty and adoption.

7. Black Indians did not live in U.S. states but in Indian Country, territory, reservations and districts.

8. Legality of being stripped of nationality without having committed treason, sedition, or overthrow of government.

9. Should Black Indians be timed barred or restricted from reclaiming their treaty rights if their was malice involved, preventing their gaining access to information about their rights?

10. Is the U.S. government justified in denying Black Indians access to lands and tribal trust funds set-aside for their exclusive use and benefit, simply because their claim was not made within some arbitrary 20th century - a six-year statute of limitations?

11. Should the Cherokee Nation support the treaty rights of their Black Indians or help the U.S. government deny treaty rights to a rightfully entitled group just because they also have African ancestry or were formerly enslaved?

For more information, check out Black Indians United at http://home.kc.rr.com/blackindiansunit.

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