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Enrolling as Cherokee Freedmen: Social Networks of Rejected Applicants

Johnson Whitmire

Many witnesses in Martha Albert's case recall a large number of names of the enslaved people of Johnson Whitmire. These include, Dicy, Nancy, Emma, Rachel, Amy, Myra, Hannah, Sookey, Nannie (daughter of Sookey Smith, married to Mose Smith), Kizzey, Mike, Dick, Martin, Mose, Saphronie, Rachel, Charlotte, Liza, Aby, Frank, Hannah, Fronie, Rachel, Ibby, Mary (who had Bass and Tom), Em, Fronie, Charlotte, old aunt Temptie, Artie, Celia, and Mark.

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Harry Still 9 Cherokee Freedman; Roll #4206, Census #876 plain 2025-03-04T00:26:15+00:00
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.↵
Martha Albert
Rose Rogers attested that Martha Albert (Freedmen applicant) was born to Nancy Whitmire and Charles Boland (Charley Bowen/Bolden), and raised on Barron Fork. Nancy was enslaved to Johnson Whitmire (Cherokee), and Martha’s status was the same as her mother’s. Martha testified that at the beginning of the Civil War, she was in the Goingsnake district, and then later taken out as far as the Red River in the Choctaw Nation with Cornelius Wright’s daughters. She reflected that she had never crossed the river into Texas before returning to the Cherokee Nation; however, there are contradictory testimonies that put this in doubt.

Martha asserted that she married Colly Albert on Red River around the last year of the war, when she was thirteen or fourteen years old. However, according to Colly Albert, they were officially married around three years after they returned to the Cherokee Nation. This seems to be the true account, since the oldest daughter they had before their marriage was born in Sequoyah, in January 1867. At the birth, Mandy Benton’s mother attended on Martha. The couple had six children in total, two of whom were born before their marriage.
There is some confusion regarding the time period of Martha’s move south. Some witnesses attested that she was sold to Dillingham with her mother, and others stated that she went to Texas with Cornelius Wright. The presence of two Marthas living at Johnson Whitmire’s place at the time seems to have created this confusion. A. J. Alberty (Cherokee by blood) was acquainted with Johnson Whitmire and his enslaved people, and remembered there being both a Big Martha and a Little Martha. He recalled Little Martha as the daughter of Nancy, and Big Martha (Martha Williams) as the daughter of Dicy Whitmire. He remembered that two to three years before the war, both Big Martha and Dicy were sold to Dillingham, a white US citizen living in Arkansas. This Martha was called to court, but was unable to travel due to sickness. While he was aware that the enslaved people were sold to Dillingham, he was unsure if Nancy was one of them, but remembered Martha Albert moving out of the Cherokee Nation with Cornelius Wright, who was in charge of taking out Whitmire’s enslaved Black people. He was certain that Nancy and Martha were living with Johnson Whitmire when the war began.

On the other hand, J. W. Alberty (Cherokee by blood) attested that George and Johnson Whitmire sold Nancy Whitmire and her whole family to Dillingham when they divided up the property in 1847 or 1848. He stated that Dillingham bought them and lived close by him for two to three years until they moved to Texas. He recalled Charles Boland, free Afro-Cherokee, following the family as a free man when Dillingham moved off to Texas with Nancy in 1850, and only remembered a boy named Ellis and not Martha. He testified that he knew more about Nancy after Dillingham bought her. Cornelius Wright’s son Cale Wright’s testimony seems to support this account. Cale stated that when he followed his father south, Nancy and Martha were not among them. He further claimed that none of the Whitmires’ enslaved people arrived with his father. Cale’s cousin, Charles Whitmire, son of George Whitmire, testified to the same. He went to school from Johnson Whitmire’s house and was familiar with Cornelius Wright, but testified that he was not acquainted with Nancy, Martha, or Charley, and denied that Wright took Johnson Whitmire’s enslaved people down south. However, Cale and Charles were rather young at this time, still attending school, and might have had limited memory.

There is additional misunderstanding about the number of Marthas at Johnson Whitmire’s place. Aaron Whitmire, a Cherokee Freedman formerly enslaved by George Whitmire, alleged that there was only one Martha. He remembered that this Martha was the daughter of Dicy, who had died before the war. He also recalled that Nancy was sold to Dillingham. From his memory, none of Johnson Whitmire’s slaves went to Texas; rather, all the women, except the older women, Amy and Myra, went north with the soldiers. Watt Whitmire, Johnson’s son, also remembered Nannie and another girl named Mary, but did not recollect the name of Nancy or Martha. Likewise, Jeff Catcher (Tik-nee-sky; Cherokee) attested to knowing all the older slaves, but not Martha or Nancy.

In her testimony, Martha Albert recounted that she returned to the Cherokee Nation with Ellis Harlin in the fall of 1866. Upon her return with her sister, Jenny/Jennie Barnes, and their father in August, they first relocated to Caleb Starr’s place near Cherokee Station in Sequoyah. They later rented the place and stayed there for two years while Martha worked on the farm. She testified that there were no people of color at the place besides her family, who included Colly Albert, Jennie and her husband Sam Barnes, and her father. Cale Starr was not living at the place, but “Old Man” Ellis Harlin, Emma, Ruth, and a boy named Oce were there. John Melton, a Cherokee Freedman, remembered how Colly Albert told him in 1866 that Martha was living at Harlin’s place. Henry Brown also attested to having seen Martha at the Old Jack Campbell’s Colored Church house in Jack Town, Sequoyah, which was located by the Cherokee Junction in August of 1866; he specifically remembered her being pointed out as one of “Whitmire’s darkies,” whom she was with at the time.

However, these testimonies to Martha’s return with Ellis Harlin in 1866 clash with those of others. While her presence at the Harlin place was confirmed by multiple people, the Harlins denied any memory of Martha and Colly returning to the Cherokee Nation with them. Nevertheless, Ellis and Nancy Harlin’s daughter Emma Finley remembered seeing Martha Albert at their place on the last of March or first of April in 1867. She testified that the Alberts had moved all their possessions, including one horse they had in Arkansas, to the Harlin place. Emma’s sister, Ruth, also attested that some formerly enslaved people returned to the Cherokee Nation with her father, but stated that Colly and Martha were not among them. Ruth also remembered Colly being hired by her father the summer they came back and attested to seeing his wife, Martha, at that time.

Despite the differing witness accounts concerning the whereabouts of Martha right after the war, Martha (Mattie), Elijah, and Ida are recognized in the Kern-Clifton Roll. They are missing from the rolls of 1880 and 1896. When she was asked by a commissioner, “What is the reason your name aint [sic] on the roll of 1880?,” Martha answered in a distressed tone, “I don’t know; you know how ignorant people was, didn’t know how to go at such business.” During her second appearance at court on April 27, 1905, when she was further asked when it was that Cornelius Wright’s wife Sarah died, Martha argued, “You must recollect that I was a child and don’t remember lots of things. You must give me a chance the same as anybody else. You folks didn’t give us n— no education so we could know and remember things like that.” When asked whether the name of Wright’s wife was Sarah, she responded, “I said I thought it was. What did us n— know about that. All we could call them was Mistress, and most always that was all we knowed about their names.” Her answer when asked about the number of children of Johnson Whitmire and his wife, Temple, reveals similar discomfort: “I will tell you the truth, and I wouldn’t swear a lit to get on this roll. I don’t know their names—none but one. I knowed Watt, and that is the only one.” She continued, “If you had been raised up a slave in the backwoods like us you would not know your playmates’ names.” Commissioner Hastings doubted the veracity of this, as he called Watt as a witness against Martha in the case.

The resentment detected in these answers reflects how the formerly enslaved people were victims of racial derogation that dispossessed them of education and a sense of personal and social knowledge. These scenes provide a more picturesque image of their enslaved lives that would not have been recorded in a tabulated census roll.

Martha applied for enrollment in the Dawes Roll for herself and her children; additionally, she testified for her niece, Lula Knalls, and nephew, Robert Barnes.

This page references:

1860 Slave schedule of Johnson Whitmire