so we don't, at least -- we recognize there were many african-americans on the removal of the five tribes, but unfortunately there's not a lot of documentation or stories with them. and we would like to include more of those stories as we find them. thank you. thank you. you're watching a special edition of american history tv. during the week while members of congress are in their district due to the coronavirus pandemic. tonight programs on the 25th anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing. beginning at 8:00 p.m. east earn with an hour long program looking back at the attack, the investigation and the arrest of the perpetrators and how the attack has been remembered. american history tv, now and over the weekend on cspan3.

every saturday night american history tv takes you to college classrooms around the country for lectures in history. >> why do you all know who lizzie boardon is and raise your hand if you had heard of this trial before this class. >> the deepers cause where we'll find the true meaning of the revolution was in the transformation that took place in the minds of the american people. we'll talk about both of these sides of the story here, the tools, the techniques of slave owner power and also talk about the tools and techniques of power that were practiced by enslaved people. >> watch history professors lead discussions with their students on topics ranging from the american revolution to september 11th. lectures in history on cspan3 every saturday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. and also available as a podcast.

find it where you listen to podcasts. and now a conversation on slavery and native american displacement. university of richmond professor edward airs discusses how the expansion of slavery affected native americans before the civil war, moving them further and further from their ancestral lands. if you want more information about the trail of tears, there is a national trail of tears association. it's a partnership with the national park service. and local communities that are telling the story. so google national trail of tears association, and it will get you to the website. is that -- >> yes. >> got that right. okay. well, thank you for your rapt attention this morning, and i think you're in for more surprises this afternoon. our first speaker is ed ayers, i feel like he's a gentleman that needs no introduction to the

richmond community but i'll still introduce him. he was named national professor of the year, he's received the national humanities medal from president obama at the white house. served as president of the organization of american historians, and won the bankroft prize for distinguished writing in american history. served on the board of the american civil war museum. eds the future of america's pasts, it visits sites of memory and meets the people who keep those memories alive. he's the executive director of the new american history and we all know him from when we're driving around in our cars as one of the american histories guys. an online project design that has promoted the student in all of us to divide into history and to see it in new and unexpected

ways. he is a university professor and president ameritus at the university of richmond. please welcome ed ayers. >> hello, everybody. so i see myself as a kind of hinge for the day. we've had these wonderful talks by my former student lindsay robertson, i wanted to be sure to claim that, since you did a good job. and so we're going to go back to the late 18th century and come up to today in my talk. we're also going to try to cover to try to integrate native history, african-american history and white southern history in a way that it's not usually done. we usually separate our histories out by ethnicity rather than weaving them

together. i have not given this talk before, we'll see how it works. this is the idea we're going to cover all of this land. the one thing we have in common fr is this landscape. these are the different soils of the south. and here's the thing, is that the south expanded with a speed and size few could have imagined in 1790 when lindsay and ken started our stories. three migrations created the south over the next 70 years. tens of thousands of indigenous people driven from ancestral lands, millions of white farmers filling an enormous expanse larger than continental europe and millions of enslaved people moved to new plantations. the paths began from many sources and flowed in many directions at the same time. if we can trace those paths maybe we'll be able to see how

these stories wove together. so what we'll see is that slavery defined much of what's happening in this story. slavery concentrated on the richest land and yet spread everywhere in the south. most white southerners did not owned enslaved people yet it went everywhere white settlers went. the migration of nonslave holders allowed the slaved south to expand as fast as the north. this is what we have to try to figure out, is how does the displacement and the survival of native americans fit into this story. in 1790, after centuries of continual conflict and change, indigenous peoples remained a presence in every part of the southeast of north america from atlantic to the gulf to the plains. some reduced to small and

isolated groups, some bound themselves with others to form new alliances. neighboring towns often spoke different languages incorporating words from one another. they regularly communicated, traded and worked with one another, often across great distances on well defined and heavily travelled routes. the purple arrows -- it's not that native people are waiting for the white people to show up, they had their own history living and breathing and moving, and all this is happening as the american revolution is being fought. you got to keep everything in movement all along. and some of these people enslaved one another, they found ways to live amid loss and gain and threat from a growing relentless population of spanish and english and french, and then americans. and with the pressures from the

white settlers, the tensions within and among the native peoples grew more urgent. while some indigenous men and women embraced ideas of private property and some became christianes, others embraced older ways, more traditional ways of life. so mobility defined the lives of these folks and increasingly they defined themselves however in terms of sovereignty, in terms of territory and boundaries. those are ideas created in tandem with the people who are moving under their lands. so the cherokees, the choctaws, chickasaws and the seminoles are the main people we'll focus on today. what we see is that the first settlement of the south began in kentucky. and here to, let me tell you how

to read these, these are new kinds of maps, i can't move from the microphone, areas in shades of blue is where people are decreasing. varying shades of brown is where people are increasing. the brighter the blue, the more people are leaving, the brighter the brown, the more people are going. you'll see we have these broken down by different racial groups. that's as white population changed, the first decade of the nation, and what you see is that virginia, you'll see virginia is blue from beginning to end here. people are fleeing virginia and most of the white people are going to the north. here in the first decade, they go down the valley into east tennessee, hang a hard right up the road to central kentucky. so this is the first frontier of the south. at the same time this is the first decade of cotton's expansion, they are moving to

the up country of south carolina. you will recognize from the earlier talks that we've had, that this is land as occupied by the cherokee. you can see, but all the lands that have diagonal lands on them are lands still in native possession in 1790. this as the black population changes at the same time. we'll toggle back and forth. see white people are not moving to the same places they are taking enslaved people. enslaved people are moving to the piedmont of virginia and what becomes georgia and south carolina at the same time they're moving enslaved people to the bluegrass region of kentucky. in the next decade what you see is how rapidly this is growing. this is where andrew jackson would be moving into, as part of this bright line -- bright pattern, because he moves from western north carolina into

central tennessee, central tennessee like blue crass of kentucky is growing. look at georgia, land say was telling us about georgia. what you see is white people are moving up to the boundary of the cherokee land. and they are pushing into it as hard as they can. but you'll also see in this first decade, they're moving to the mississippi river, to louisiana. and so, we sometimes think of this, especially those of us from virginia as westward migration. but migration is moving in multiple directions at once. this is black population change at the same time. so what you'll see is that black people are being concentrated. this is the pattern we'll see all along. the trade of enslaved people is relentless and it is very efficient. so you are seeing down in mississippi, which had been a french town, beginning to grow. and this is the beginning of the sugar trade in louisiana. and we'll see later, this has

enormous consequences. but you'll also see up country south carolina and this helps explain, too, some of the pressure on the cherokee, because they are living where the cotton kingdom is expanding. this is 1810, 1820, the black population change, you can see already that no sooner do white people take black people into areas then they start moving them. see now, look at southern alabama. so we know this is occupied by native peoples but already white people are taking black people into that area. so here's the thing to understand about all of this. is that even while the laws that lindsay is telling us about are being framed. white people are not waiting. they're pushing. they're infiltrating lands owned by native peoples and they are taking slavery with them wherever they go. so this is 1810 to 1820, what

we're seeing here, this is the decade that embraces the war of 1812. this is when andrew jackson first surges into prominence, of course, by freeing new orleans but by taking millions and millions of acres of land from indigenous people as a result of that war. so some of the native people, ally with the british, or the spanish, as ways to protect themselves. when the americans win, what they find is that they are forced treaties, you heard about the treaty of dennis and rabbit creek. it's sort of a consequence of all this. you're seeing white people are still moving into the upper south. black population is far more concentrated in the plantation districts. so you have to picture all of that. what we're talking about here, this is something happening

globally. this is the creation of what's called a settler society. these are english speaking colonies and former colonies around the world and the idea is that white people claim the right to take land from indigenous people as a destined path towards civil lags. it's a settler society because they are displacing native people through forced migration or death rather than incorporating them as you might find in other societies, if you think of england or india for example. so australia, new zealand, south afri africa, canada and the united states, depend on breakneck demographic growth. i'm showing these maps, which is what underlies everything else. we talked in the first lecture from dr. butterfield about the enormous doubling natural growth of the white population but it's also the case of the african-american population. this is the only enslaved

society, the western hemisphere where the enslaved population biologically reproduces itself. so the internal slave trade is closed but the enormous population of african-american people is within the south. the united states is unusual because you don't have to come from england to australia or new zealand. these are people generally moving within the south. you have cheap land, valuable commodities, high profits, assumed racial and cultural superiority, drove and justified the migrations of millions of english speaking people in every hemisphere of the 19th century. here's the main difference for the south. this is the only place where the white settler society possessed control over a third ethnicity to use in their expansion.

all those other places white people come and displace the indigenous people, in the american south they displace indigenous people and bring people with them. it feeds this feverish growth, expansion and a lot of the legal cases you heard about this morning. the american south is not the only slave society in the hemisphere of course, jamaica, brazil and cuba, but unlike those places where white settlers stayed on big plantations, here this is the only ruling class, and virginia is a great example of this, that uproots itself that moves and' creates the society over again. that's what most of the south is, it's that white people moving across the south and recreating the south. the south is completely a unique element, a different combination. it has the energy of the

american north but the power of the enslaved population it controls. so as we've seen -- think about how short a period this is, people talk about the old south. at the time of the civil war, most of the south is about as old as subdivisions in chesterfield county. this is 1820, we're only 40 years from the war. look how little of mississippi has been settled by white or black people. not to mention texas or arkansas. okay. so this idea of the old south we can say it here, 1831, you heard just how old we are. but most of the south is not old at all, but is the product of the vast expansion. what you're seeing, too, is that this is not just the result of the cotton gin which our textbooks act like descends and causes american history. these white people who own enslaved people, are going to find something to do with the slaves they control, whether it's sugar in louisiana, raising

cattle in southern alabama. the main crop of kentucky and tennessee is livestock and hemp. this is not the cotton south, it's barely beginning here. so the idea that it's cotton that causes it, no it's people who are causing it. all fired up. so what we see is that as this cotton frontier expands this gives us a clear idea -- again, look at georgia. white people have brought back people to the very edge of the land they can claim. so there are treaties with the cherokee in georgia, almost every four or five years as this pressure, they take more and more and more of the land. and a lot of times it's before it's taken it's infiltrated. so you have people coming in many, trying to few fangle their

way into the lands, sometimes intermarrying with them, sometimes illegally tradesing with them and so forth. so you have the pressure building up of white settlers out of enslaved population. now, you've seen this map, versions of it, very -- so if you go back to 1790 and remember how much of that land was occupied by native people, how rapidly it is that this map, which is now i think in every presentation so far, and will be later, is -- what the situation is by 1830. sets up a lot of the scenes of the drama that lindsay has told us about. starting in 1830, this does not slow down. you can see the cherokee being surrounded now on every direction by the enslaved population from the south and the east. look at mississippi and alabama beginning. so it's the choctaw and the

chickasaw. you can see western tennessee is being infiltrated by slavery as well. so at the same time that all the thing that is we're talking about are happening to native peoples, it's slavery that's driving this relentless push. this is white population change. and this shows you something else. you can see them moving in georgia. but look at them already leaving up country south carolina. why? they've already used up the land. look how fast this is happening. and so that white people are -- no sooner are they settling in a place, look at the bluegrass of kentucky, remember that was 30 years ago they were settling it. now they're leaving and moving to places that are new. we're living in the least mobile

time in american history right now. our population is moving less right now than it ever has in american history. this is moving as fast as it ever does. we think about westward migration, but look how the south is being defined during this time. you can see that white people are moving and then the richest of them are taking enslaved people with them. so you've seen this map before, a version of it, you know the story, the 1830s, of how these folks are being driven from their homes. given some sense of the total numbers of all of this. in 1830, the native people still occupy about 25 million acres of ancestral lands. about 60,000 live between the appalachian mountains and mississippi river and would not move willingly as you heard. those that occupied north

carolina, georgia and tennessee, fought through legal means, through inventing printed languages, newspapers. they also often converted to christianity or turned lands in private property or instituted gender roles more like that of european than native families and purchased african-american enslaved people. but every strategy failed. whites impeded on their land in 1817, 1828, 1820 and 1829. now, faced with such relentless pressure some cherokees decided they would do better farther west before removal. some moved to arkansas, missouri and texas in the 1820s. but most held on in the 1820s. and andrew jackson, i'm assuming

this is an accurate quote, build a fire under them he told white georgians in 1830. when it gets hot enough they'll move. settlers did not wait for land issues to be determined by law before they moved in. so the 1830s culminated the displacementle of indigenous people that had already taken 100 million acres from them in the south. most of the native people lived directly in the path of the richest cotton lands. why? because they knew where the rich land was, they had their own farms, they're along the rivers that are necessary for the transportation of cotton. you see this is the growth of slavery in the 1830s. now look at virginia. sometimes we talk about shock, here's a remarkable fact, look how many black people are taken from throughout virginia and yet

virginia remains the largest slave state all the way till the civil war. more people held in bondage here than anywhere else and also more people sold out of virginia than

were moved within the south in these decades. two million. americans moving other americans. okay? so -- but can you see now how the displacement of the american indians is tied to this voracious expansion of slavery and of the south. this is white population changed in the same decade. one thing you'll notice, they're not the same. most white people don't own slaves. you can't afford the land where the big slave owners were in alabama and they take the 12 enslaved people and you go somewhere else and you're in up country. and the native-americans are driven away. you can also see the band onmabt

of land they occupied a few decades earlier. can you see expanding into texas after the war with mexico into arkansas. now south carolina is kind of picking back up again. 1850s. this is slavery at the full peak. look how fast texas has filled in with enslaved people. so as we put all these pictures together and see how the upper south is depleted of enslaved people. why? because they're being shipped to the south. so as we picture all of these histories in motion and interaction, we have to see how the relentless pressure against native peoples is a part of the

he creation of the very south. this is not a marginal story. it doesn't deserve to be a couple pages. this is central to the creation of the united states. and central to the creation of the american south. now here's something that is interesting to think about. the thousands of native people's removed in the 1830s, thousands remained. though most lost their land, other managed to hold on to theirs. though white people proclaimed their differences with and superiority to indigenous people's, many intermarried with those who had american indian ancestry. though black people were held in bonds of law and surveil anlanc they, too, found companions among native people's. the people remained in virginia. the cherokee of georgia, north carolina, seminoles of florida demonstrated one generation after another the flexibility

and fluidity of american indian life. durability of people self understanding and identity with one another and their past. the federal census is no help because i can't make these kinds of maps for american indians because this is all from the census and the census did not count them in the same way. so it's very frustrating to make the maps in which indians are defined by that territory. because they are throughout all of this history, even when after the removing to oklahoma. after the removal to oklahoma in the 1850s, you heard earlier the horrific losses of people once they arrived in indian territory, disease killed up to a third of the native people that survived the forced

marches. each of the nations settled in the eastern part of the territory where the landscape resembled those driven east of the mississippi. the three largest nations, claimed about 13,000 people each in 1860. there were 4260 people and seminoles, 2630. each of the native-american peoples owned large numbers of enslaved african-americans. the cherokee and chalk toctaw register second down 300 respectively or 15% of the total population. enslaved people encounted for a larger share of the populations of the seminoles with nearly a third of the total seminoles held in slavery. so we know what happens after this. the white south says, okay, it's clear what we got to have. the right to keep expanding. it's a direct result of this

expansion. the leadersst would be nations of the confederacy demanded the right to take the human property into yet more territory to be taken from yet more native people. they gambled everything on that vision of the future, a vision based on generations of migration and the defeat of the con fed arecy and end of slavery transformed the south from a unique settler society to a new society one without a blueprint or example to follow. they had aligned with a confederacy. the members of the five tribes were forced to relinquish rights to railroads. the territory took on the new name of oklahoma, red people in the language of the choctaw.

think reserve for native peoples until a small portion of the land remained in their hands. white officials and reformers worked to dissolve tribal bonds and make american indians independent citizens. sovereignty shifted from the focus of the land they occupied to membership in a particular native people. this transition alienated american indians from the land even as it made their bodies the vehicle of their identity. now this is particularly dangerous in the south at a time when legal segregation is gripping the region and overt racial prejudice filled the nation. white southerns were suspecting they were so-called colored people by association with african-americans. so claiming membership at a tribe granded some security as a citizen as well as claims to tribal identity.

they maintain the identity as american indians. they kept roles as tribal citizens. they had generated conflict within the american indian tribes and white officials and claimants. now the lives of the american indians -- you can see where most people live in the south in 1860. it's where slavery is strong. now we're switching to the 1910 to 1920. we start seeing a national pattern. and what we're seeing here, you can see oklahoma now and you can see in 1910 and 1920 that the south is actually growing pretty well among white people. that same decade, what's this? this is the great migration. okay? this is when african-american people finally have a chance to make lives in the north.

and you can see where they're leaving. they're leaving the very places they've been held in slavery much it's very interesting to think about that today. the political futurest nation is going to be determined in south carolina. which is a direct consequence of all of this migration. and they're going to determine who can win the vote to be president of the united states? a lot will determine on the demographic patterns created right here. under slavery and then in the jim crow south. during this period, the lives of american indians with roots in the south changed in dramatic ways in these decades as well. so there were 1920 to 1930 white people. that's the population we recognize today of the so-called

urban population. that's black people leaving large parts of the united states with the cities of the south but also the city of the north. the new deal offered opportunities for the native people. world war ii saw more than 25,000 native people fight for the united states. think pushed them off tribal lands and into cities. by 1970, half of all native people lived in urban places. as tribal identity became disconnected from alotments, american indians including those with ancestoral ties to the south became more determined to maintain their ties to one another. the civil rights act and the black freedom struggle inspired activism among american indians. some tribes could open gambling casinos, native people sought federal recognition to share in that opportunity. to protect their tribal lands,

and to declare their pride and ancestries. there was a broad array of strategies to determine who belonged to the people, depending on their own histories and situations. we have seen in virginia where we heard people he will consequently before 400 years ago the objects of attempts at displacement are still here and still have identity. here's a remarkable vent we'll end with. american indians registered a 39% increase in the federal census between 2000 and 2010. growing fast -- twice as fast as the national population as a whole. the parent resurgence is a product of recession. americans were first presented the opportunity to self identify

with more than one race. that tells you a lot about american history that you do before then. half that claimed american indian and las can native identity claimed it with another racial identity. two-thirds of race was white and black ancestries or who claimed to be white, black, and native. of those americans who claim native backgrounds and combination with other backgrounds, the south tied with the west at about a third of the population. this history we're talking about today echos as we'll see. the south share grew relative to the rest of the country, advancing at 48%. the three state with the most rapid growth were southern,

texas, north carolina, and florida. the tribe with the largest self identified population was the cherokee with 819,000 people. so let's look at the maps from the reflection of self identification. this is showing white people leaving. this is self identified seminole people in 2000. both anchors in florida but also in oklahoma. the creek. self identified choctaw people. now this is -- i look forward to talking to people who know a hot more about this than i do. i'm covering all of 230 years of southern history for everybody who lived there. its hard to -- but what is

striking is not surprising that the anchors in the choctaw in oklahoma but the places where they were before removal. you're seeing some of the same patterns. the people were not moved but still in north carolina. so what you're seeing is even though people are removed, they're still there. how was it that this happens. it reminds us that arrows from the little green boxes are missing part of the history of people who maintain a spiritual and physical connection with the land who found ways to maintain their connection with these places in the south from which they were displace bed by slave and white mobility. so what do we make of this? this is a strange turn in southern history.

people are eager to a connection to people they drove from their homes. on one hand this is arguably a heartening change from most of american history. on the other hand, the claim of widespread self identification is a major political problem for native people themselves who establish citizenship standards within their own nations. while some claimants may express sincere beliefs, others may seek to leverage that identity for material social gain. so you can see the ironies of all of this. this is my main point. the history of the law very important. these are histories of millions of people who are enacting, acting on what that law is saying. they don't fit into the neat

categories that we often try to fit it and they're not in the categories that the census is trying to force them. and they recognize that americans have more connections among themselves than we might have realized. so on one hand this is politically problematic. on the other hand, it suggests that maybe people are beginning to understand that american history is native-american history. is african-american history. without understanding all of this, you can't understand any of this. that's my message for today. thanks very much. it looks like that torrid pace left five minutes. so who would like to ask an easy question? yes. here is a microphone. please -- it's coming -- from both directions. >> do you have a map of the population of self identified

chaer k cherokee people. i do and it didn't make night the slide. i'll tell what you it shows, a vast area. there are more self identified cherokee people across the country than anywhere -- than any other people. i don't know how this didn't make it into the slides. but this will be in my book that is out this fall. and it will make -- it's a wonderful gift for any holiday occasion. you will see a pattern of it being anchored in oklahoma. but it's across the south that people are self identifying as cherokee. and we all remember the presidential candidate who identifying as cherokee and all that. it is the group, it's my understanding, who most often other people imagine themselves belonging to through blood or some connection, right? so if i showed it, the map would be far more than any of the other native groups that i've shown. i was hoping nobody would notice that. so thank you for your attention,

especially there on c-span. who else do we have? do we have another question? >> you mention the frontier. within the context, how do you define frontier? >> if i said that word i didn't really mean to. because i don't think that's actually a good way of thinking about it. you know, we look back on when all this is being first created -- >> you mentioned in regard to -- [ inaudible ] >> yeah. and the first slides i'm showing is that there is no such thing as an empty space, right? kentucky, the people who were first moving up actually from where i'm from, kingsport, tennessee, long island and cumberland gap, the cherokee are trying to fight them off and saying we don't want you here. fwhaut would be the area. there's nowhere in the south that was empty frontier. it was all created by displacement of various sorts. the question is were there

native villages or were the areas hunting grounds which were not to wide eyes as deeply occupied. but, yeah, kentucky is the first place that this -- the pattern of the south re-creating itself as fast as it possibly can create. so you think about this. basically people are making small versions of virginia all across the south. when you get enough money to build a plantation house, you're kind of mimicking eastern virginia. i'm not sure if that's what you're getting at or not. >> typically -- [ inaudible ] the frontier. >> that's reason -- if i said that word, i regret it. i don't actually -- [ inaudible ] >> you should. that's the reason we started with all the indigenous people that lived here for 10,000 years. white people are -- relate and scattered arrivals.

but relentless. if you think of all the millions of people the dots represent, you know what it suggests is it's a demographic tidal wave. you know? and you can see that the accomplishment of many people is to hold that at bay as long as they did is actually what this story tells me. is there another question? is there one? >> yes, sir. >> all the way back in the dark. >> yes, thank you. i enjoyed your presentation very much. >> thank you. >> i read recently in a local paper that there is a cherokee tribe that is local and they're seeking virginia recognition. are you involved in those efforts? >> there are people that know a lot more than such things than i do. would anyone like to answer that question? does anybody want to answer that question? >> cherokee never lived in

virginia, final story. [ inaudible ] they never lived in virginia. we don't live here now. >> i see one more question since zri i didn't have to answer that one. >> there is a group of cherokees off osborne turnpike and have a museum out there. it is a small museum. win the there on a drumming on thursday night and took my grandchildren out. they are very friendly. they're trying to get some recognition. >> and i know nothing about it. so i kind of hate to end my presence on the stage by admitting ignorance. i think -- kidding aside, i've had to learn about a lot of this in order to write this book. it's humbling the complexity of the history of these peoples. and trying to wrap your mind and to say anything that is true about all of them is really

challenging except what is amazing to me is their determinati determination to endure. we're richer as a result of that determination. thanks, everybody. >> you're watching a special edition of american history tv during the week while members of congress are in their districts due to the coronavirus pandemic. tonight, programs on 25th anniversary of the oklahoma city bombing beginning at 8:00 p.m. eastern with an hour long program looking back at the morning of the attack. and how the attack has been remembered. american history tv, now and over the weekend on c-span3. >> every saturday night, american history tv takes you to