Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: June 6, 1938
Name: Susan Colbert
Post office: Poteau, OK
Residence Address: Name
Date of Birth: Dec 6, 1866
Place of birth: Near Hugo, Choctaw County, Okla.
Father: Bob Parrot
Place of Birth: Texas
Information on Father: Cherokee Indian
Mother: Mary Ann McCoy
Place of Birth: Mississippi
Information about Mother: Ex-slave owned by Billy McCoy
Field Worker: Gomer Cower
Susan Colbert was born in
what is now Choctaw County. Her Mother, Mary Ann McCoy, was a
ex-slave and her father, Bob Parrot, was a Cherokee Indian and
was presumably, a part of that band of Cherokees who settled in
Northeast Texas under the terms of a treaty made with the
Republic of Texas during its brief existence. This band later
returned to the Indian Territory.
Prior to the removal period,
Susan Colbert's mother and grandmother were owned by the
Greenwood family in Mississippi and, with several other slaves,
were traded to Bob Shields, one of the emigrating Choctaws, for
land which he owned in Mississippi. These slaves were brought by
Bob Shields to the new Indian Territory. Upon the marriage of
one of his daughters to Billy McCoy, Mary Ann, later the mother
Susan Colbert, was given to the newly married McCoy's and was
owned by them until emancipation. Hence, the name McCoy by which
she was known until her death near the McCoy plantation.
Her father, Bob Parrot, the
Cherokee Indian to whom reference has been made, had he lived
until the time of enrollment as a citizen would have conferred
upon her all the rights and privileges of a Cherokee citizen.
However, his death which occurred in 1870, many years before the
enrollment was made, rendered it impossible for her to prove her
Cherokee percentage, with the result that she was granted the
privileges of a freedman only.
Her mother resided on and
near the McCoy plantation for several years after the freedom of
the negroes was proclaimed and was at all times given the
necessary assistance by the McCoy's in rearing her family after
the death of her husband which occurred in 1870; as stated. The
relationship between the former slaves and their former owners
remained much the same as it was before the slaves were given
their freedom.
In 1885, Susan Colbert was
united in marriage to Tom Smith, who was a mixture of Choctaw
and negro, a gay adventurer who left her to shift for herself
within a short time after their marriage.
Some years later, she was
married to I. C. Colbert, a Choctaw Indian, with whom she lived
until his death, which occurred on September 21, 1935.
She now resides with a
daughter at Poteau. Upon being asked if she had been granted the
rights of a citizen through her Indian relationship father and
two husbands- she replied that she had not; that the enrollment
regulations prohibited the recognition of Indian and negro
marriages so far as establishing rights of citizenship was
concerned, and that she was granted the rights of a freedman and
not the rights of a Choctaw or Cherokee citizen.
This brief story of the life
and reminiscences of the daughter of an ex slave is of interest
in that, among other things, it accounts for the manner in which
some of the slaves came into possession of the emigrating
Choctaws when they were about to leave their former Mississippi
homes to carve out new abodes in a new land which they had been
led to believe would be theirs for all time to come, and at
their death would be handed down to their children from
generation to generation.
It also accounts for and
brings out in a most forceful manner, the many perplexing
situations which thrust themselves upon the attention of the
various enrolling committees for solution. The wisdom of Solomon
could not have devised a more effective provision for the
protection of the Choctaw citizens than that which withheld
recognition of marriages between the Indian and negro races. Had
such marriages been sanctioned and accepted as a proof of the
rights of citizenship, innumerable bogus claims for enrollment
would have been made and real justice would have been thwarted.
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