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Title
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Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen: Social Networks of Rejected Applicants
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Read Online
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Abstract
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Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen traces the social networks of formerly enslaved Black individuals and their attempts to enroll as Cherokee citizens after the American Civil War. The book charts the history of slavery in the Cherokee Nation and Cherokee Freedmen—the people of African descent who were formerly enslaved by the Cherokees—by examining personal histories of the rejected Freedmen applicants through their interview transcripts and visualizations of their social networks. The selected Black individuals featured in this publication were ultimately rejected from enrollment. Nonetheless, the documentation and records of their attempts at enrollment, including photos and digitized archival material of their oral testimonies, reveal the social networks that supported them before and after their bids for enrollment. The project also contextualizes the goals, process, and limitations of the Cherokee census rolls to explore how the Cherokee Freedmen status was determined by racial, economic, and bureaucratic dynamics within the Cherokee Nation. Coupling a chronological examination of the Cherokee Freedmen history with personal histories and non-linear data visualizations , this project revitalizes the rejected Cherokee Freedmen applicants who are multiply marginalized from the Cherokee Nation, the United States, and the Cherokee Freedmen community. Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen illustrates the Cherokee Freedmen applicants’ social networks are proof of their broad and interracial relationships in the Cherokee Nation, regardless of their legal recognition as citizens.
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Keywords
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Cultural Studies, Historical Studies, African Diaspora/Global Black Studies, Archives, Documents, Visualizations
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Author
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Hai In Jo
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Bio
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Hai In Jo is a Ph.D candidate in the English department at Texas A&M University. Her research focuses on race and data in nineteenth-century American literature and culture, with a special interest in the intersections of slavery and digital humanities as critical theory. Her dissertation explores the role of African American writers as pioneers in innovative and ethical data practices that challenge the reduction of human lives to mere data points. Through her work, she aims to maximize the insights drawn from the limited archive of slavery and contribute to broader conversations on ethical data use, highlighting how African American literature has creatively paved that path. She is also thrilled to be expecting her first child alongside the publication of this book.
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Platform
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Scalar
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Bibliographic Citation
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Jo, Hai In. "Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen: Social Networks of Rejected Applicants." Illinois Open Publishing Network, 2025. https://doi.org/10.21900/pww.26
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Review
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“These denied enrollment narratives will become an important resource for scholars and non-academics engaged in the study of Black Cherokee people’s collective pursuit for legal belonging and self-making. They point to new avenues of study for Black Cherokee histories but also for Black Native experiences in the four other Southeastern Nations (Choctaw, Muscogee/Creek, Seminole, and Chickasaw Nations). Hai In Jo’s Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen is a needed addition across Black Studies and Native and Indigenous Studies, and because it presents new intertextual possibilities for the reexamination of Black Native peoples’ experiences, the project will be useful for multiple communities engaged in the study of Black social and political life.”
Eve Eure, Lehman College, CUNY
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