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Archival Descriptions
Texas A&M University, Libraries, Cushing Memorial Library & Archives African Americans
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William Harrison Mays Papers

  • US TxAM-C C000003
  • Collection
  • 1866-1982

This collection contains a variety of documents related to William Harrison Mays, an African American cowboy living in Corpus Christi, TX during the late 19th and early 20th century, and his family. The collection consists of tax receipts, promissory notes, land deeds, and receipts for lumber and building loan payments, photographs, and correspondences from which the researcher is able to track the development of a family over the course of three generations.

Of particular interest is a letter written by W. H. Mays' grandson, Roby Williams, dated September 12, 1982, in which he claims that his grandfather, "was a gun toten cow puncher with the Kings and Kennedys who used to ride over the border and steal Mexican's cattle and bring them back to Kings ranch and brand them KR. Grandpa knew he was living such a hard and risky life, he knew he was subject to being killed on some of these adventures and cattle drives up to Abilene, Kansas, so he didn't buy anything in his name. If he was arrested for cattle rustling, they couldn't take his property." One of the deeds dated 1872 may dispute this claim as it conveys to "Harrison Mays, Colored" a property in Corpus Christi for the sum of twenty-five gold dollars. However, all the tax receipts thereafter for the property are made out to a Clarissa Sinclair (also known as Alice Sinclair, William Harrison Mays' wife).

Other items of interest include a photograph, circa 1865, of two African-American men each standing with a leg up on a wooden box with a large bag marked "$1,000." The handwritten caption on the back reads: "Uncle Willie Cox on left. Just after a win in a cock's fight. Bag contains $1,000.00 in gold. San Luis Portisi, Mexico."

Mays, William Harrison

J. B. Rayner Letter

  • US TxAM-C C000572
  • Collection
  • 1900-10

The collection contains a letter written by J. B. Rayner announcing a forthcoming visit to Edna, Texas, dated October 19, 1900 (envelope included), and a handbill announcing Rayner's talk on October 27, 1900.

Rayner, John Baptis

Imamu Amiri Baraka Collection

  • US TxAM-C C000570
  • Collection

This collection contains over 100 items, primarily books that are cataloged and available via the Libcat system. The manuscript and drawings are also cataloged and available via the Libcat system.

Baraka, Amiri, 1934-2014

Cherokee Freedman Collection

  • US TxAM-C C000304
  • Collection
  • 1900-1907

The Cherokee Freedmen Collection housed at Cushing Memorial Library and Archive is composed of written interviews of African Americans and Native Americans conducted by the United States Department of the Interior’s Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes. The Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes also became known as the Dawes Commission, after its chairman Senator Henry Dawes of Massachusetts. The interviews, testimonies, and affidavits relate to the applications of African Americans that were denied enrollment as Cherokee Freedmen during the Dawes Commission. The collection encompasses over 500 documents from 30 different applications affecting over 100 people. Most of the documents are filed with their original envelopes. The documents in the Cherokee Freedmen Collection are dated from 1900 to 1907. Most of the hearings were conducted at Fort Gibson or Muskogee, Oklahoma. There is a high degree of intertextuality between the files regarding people and places mentioned.

In addition to the interviews, there are also interdepartmental letters between various commissioners and the Secretary of the Interior, and notices to applicants and their lawyers. The collection offers a primary source on the arbitration involved in the decision of who did and did not count as Cherokee Freedmen, as well as frontier life in general both before and after the war. The language used vividly reveals the prevailing racial attitudes of the day, chiefly toward African Americans and Native Americans; casual use is made of pejorative terms, and open prejudice is occasionally voiced. All of the applications that are contained within the Cherokee Freedmen Collection housed at Cushing Library were rejected, denying the applicants citizenship to the Cherokee Nation.

In 1866, each of the Five Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles) that had sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War entered treaties with the United States to abolish slavery in the Native American Territory and established provisions that addressed the status and rights of the freed slaves and people of African descent that lived among the Five Tribes. Since the Cherokee Nation sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, the United States’ punishment for the Cherokee Nation was to give “all the rights of a native Cherokee” to all freed slaves who still lived within the Cherokee Nation.

In 1877, the Dawes Act (also called the General Allotment Act) was passed under President Grover Cleveland, allowing the federal government to break up tribal land to try to force Native Americans to assimilate. The federal government took the 150 million acres of land that was already controlled by the tribes. The commission's mission was to divide tribal land into 160-acre plots which were then divided among the members of the tribe. As part of this process, the Commission either accepted or rejected applicants for tribal membership based on whether the tribal government had previously recognized the applicant as a member of the tribe and other legal requirements. Applicants were categorized as Citizens by Blood, Citizens by Marriage, Minor Citizens by Blood, New Born Citizens by Blood, Freedmen (African Americans formerly enslaved by tribal members), New Born Freedmen, and Minor Freedmen. Once the land was divided amongst the citizens of the Native American Nations, the United States government sold the surplus tribal lands to non-Native Americans for a profit.

Many of the testimonies include personal histories, sometimes dating as far back as the 1830s, and great detail is given on the moving of slaves to and from the Cherokee Nation during the Civil War. Notable pieces include accounts of runaway slaves returning to their separated families, individual reactions to Emancipation, and a letter directly to the Secretary of the Interior personally written by an applicant, requesting that her case be re-opened. The letter, polite and heartfelt but clearly frustrated, is spelled phonetically. Many of the applicants in the collection are related to one another. For example, Henry Albert is the son of Martha Albert, who was a freed slave of the Cherokee Nation. Henry Albert was over the age of 21, he had to apply to be enrolled as a Cherokee Freedmen for himself and his children. Since Henry was born free, most of the information contained within the file is based on his mother, Martha Albert’s testimony, and other witnesses who testified on her behalf or on behalf of the Cherokee Nation. The investigation on whether Martha Albert was truly a freed slave of the Cherokee Nation or not determined whether or not her children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews would also be eligible to be enrolled as Cherokee Freedmen. The files of Henry Albert, Barnes Family, and Lula Knalls all contain copies of Martha Albert’s testimonies. Another interesting letter that allowed for the subject listing to include "Leonid Meteor Showers" refers to one elderly woman's age which was determined by the fact that she was 16 "the year the stars fell". The commissioner noted that that was in 1832, and he was there himself. The following year, '33, was the year that the Leonid shower was officially "discovered” and caused something of a panic in the eastern US; no one knew what meteors were, yet!

Several of the locations mentioned were Fort Gibson, Oklahoma, Muskogee, Oklahoma, and Fort Smith, Arkansas. As well as Tahlequah, Oklahoma, the capitol of the Cherokee Nation, and Goingsnake District, now Adair County, Oklahoma, which was the location of the Goingsnake Massacre. Occasionally the communities cited in the interviews have since become ghost towns, been absorbed into larger cities, or changed names. Many of the testimonies also included interviews with both Confederate and Union soldiers.

A few historical figures were involved in the Cherokee Freedmen trials. Namely, Ethan Allen Hitchcock served as the United States Secretary of the Interior under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt from 1899 to 1907. Also, the attorneys for the Cherokee Nation, James Davenport and W.W. Hastings (in all likelihood, William Wirt. referenced as "W. W. Hastings" in transcripts, but a William Wirt Hastings, of Cherokee heritage and from Oklahoma, was an attorney who worked in private practice, as the attorney general for the Cherokee Nation, and then as the national attorney for the Nation from 1907. The dates do match up, and there is a W. W. Hastings Hospital in Tahlequah, given by William Wirt when he was in Congress, as a gift) both of whom later served as U.S. Representatives for Oklahoma.

The affidavits, correspondence, and any support materials are arranged in alphabetical order by the surname of the applicant. Note: File 22 is in critical need of preservation.

United States. Department of the Interior.

Black Superheroes, Sidekicks, and Characters Comic Book Collection

  • US TxAM-C C000561
  • Collection

These comics were created in countries that were ruled by colonial powers in Africa, namely Italy, France, Belgium, and Spain. The comics are both individual copies and bound volumes with numerous copies. They date from around 1926 to 1973.

Afro-American Society Collection

  • US TxAM-C C000555
  • Collection
  • 1967-1968

Original black students' association charter. Authored by Ken Lewallen and Antwine Jefferson in Fall 1967-68.

African American Southern Family Scrapbook

  • US TxAM-C C000557
  • Collection
  • 1900

This collection consists of a photo scrapbook with six small charcoal images that depict African-American life in the rural south with an unrelated pictorial on-lay on the upper cover, all tied together with string.

African American Illustrated Postcards (Down in Sunny Dixie) Collection

  • US TxAM-C C000565
  • Collection
  • 1938

This collection consists of an illustrated mailer postmarked New Orleans, and hand-addressed to Toledo OH, containing 18 accordion-folded 6in x 4in color photos purporting to show (stereotypical happy variety) black life in the south, with two songs, "Dixie Land" and "Dixieland for M" printed on the inside of the mailer with a cypress tree on one side of the fold and a photo of a black man and woman next to the address label.

These were reproduced from hand-tinted black and white originals. Postcard-size images, but double-sided without space for messages.

Abolitionists' Archive

  • US TxAM-C C000553
  • Collection
  • 1795-1910; Undated

The collection contains over 100 rare letters, autograph quotations, and photographs from 50 major figures in the American antislavery struggle, including several rare autographs from key British abolitionists. Many of the individuals noted provided selfless support, financially, morally, and wrote on behalf of the abolishment of the 'peculiar' institution of slavery. Some of the well-known abolitionists include Henry Ward Beecher, Blanche K. Bruce, William Channing, William Lloyd Garrison, Joshua R. Giddings, the Grimke sisters, Gerrit Smith, Thaddeus Stevens, Charles Sumner, and Lewis Tappan, one of the leading financial supporters of the Amistad Africans.

The collection contains photographs and newspaper clippings of these 50 prominent abolitionists.