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Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen: Social Networks of Rejected Applicants

Harry Still

Harry Still was a Cherokee Freedman who testified for Martha Albert, Katie Thorton, and Betsy Reed in this collection. He was enslaved to George Whitmire, brother of Johnson Whitmire. He was enslaved to George Whitmire, brother of Johnson Whitmire. Bill Madden asserted that the Thortons sold their place to Harry, who later sold it to Madden.

Investigation for the Kern-Clifton Roll found that Harry Still collected the names of Freedmen on behalf of Robert H. Kern. Kern had offered to represent the Freedmen as their attorney, charging five dollars per capita to protect their interests when the rolls and land allotment were complete. Still was to receive a commission of twenty-five cents for each name he collected.1 He later became considered one of the “professional witnesses” for allegedly testifying in between two hundred and four hundred cases applying for enrollment in the Dawes Roll.2 

Footnotes

  1. Daniel F. Littlefield, The Cherokee Freedmen: From Emancipation to American Citizenship (Greenwood, 1978), 199. ↵
  2. Littlefield, Cherokee Freedmen, 229.↵

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