“Until the late eighteen-sixties, a number of tribes had practiced slavery. (The so-called Five Civilized Tribes—Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee Creek, and Seminole—were given that honorific in part because they enslaved people.) In many cases, those freed from slavery were incorporated into tribes as full citizens, known as freedmen. But, when Dawes agents were putting together their lists, freedmen and their descendants were often kept on a separate roll, or not included at all. (This racist past is still alive in present-day tribal policies. Of the five tribes, only the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma allows freedmen descendants to exercise full citizenship rights.)”