Talk:Five Civilized Tribes

Colonists' slavery customs

many Western customs (including the ownership of plantations and slaves)

Actually slavery was not a custom of most of the western people. There were no slavery in most parts of Europe. Western people in America were an exeption to have slavery. 193.65.112.51 00:24, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the Indians had slaves long before the arrival of Europeans, but it was Western Europeans who instituted black slavery in the Americas. OKtag 14:48, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

That's a good point, I changed it to "black slaves".

Oklahoma Land Run

The Oklahma land run was on october 22, 1992!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!hahaha! The people that went in before the run were called "Sooners" the Oklahoma University name for its sports teams. I do not know whether the run opened up the whole state of Oklahoma or just the northern part which was called Oklahoma Territory. The southern part was called Indian Territory. Russ Singleton An Okie —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.8.255.201 (talk) 01:16, 5 March 2007 (UTC).

social exclusion

the relocation is a notorious naked social exclusion. any other similar cases? Jackzhp 15:34, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Ah-ni-yv-wi-ya

"Cherokee" should redirect to Anivuia. It seems discriminatory to refer to some group as "a people" rather than "a nation" or "tribe" also.

To me it would read: The Anivuia, known by their neighbors as Chilukibi or "Cherokee", were a people with a well-developed world-view which included an integrated account of religion and society.

This has the advantage of representing a people without immediate reference to the forced placement of the historically "white" representation of indigenous people. This article is rife with such things, as are many of the articles on indigenous groups in the so-called "Americas". —Preceding unsigned comment added by Euanthes (talk • contribs) 18:51, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Aye, it probably should, but not a lot of people know the name Anivuia, while the word Cherokee is almost universally recognized. Wiki appeals to the masses.

Inaccuracies on the article about Five Civilized Tribes

I have (and have had ever since I first encountered the article six months ago) several problems with the first paragraph, which I have attempted to remedy, and have had both attempts reverted completely within 12 hours of my attempt to fix them. My probems are as follows: A)the term "Native American" as that term refers to anyone born in America, not just the aboriginal Americans (not to mention I know several people of aboriginal descent who find that term offensive), but I have left this alone to focus on my next problem. B) The way "civilized" is defined in this paragraph, it reads more like a political speech than an encyclopedia article. Civilized, in its most basic form, means that the culture resides in clusters that can be called cities, and because they know how to farm, not all the members are needed to procure food, as is often the case in hunter-gatherer tribes, some people are free to pursue other pursuits to advance knowledge of the whole group. This is what a civilization is, and because these five tribes, among many others throughout the Americas (hence why they are also called The Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma, but since I couldn't find a quick source for this, I'll let this one go), met this basic criteria, they were deemed civilized. Lastly, C) I have a problem with the term "white settlers" since not all the first immigrants were "white" per se. I offered two links, one to a site from a university that had a basic explanation of what civilization was, and one to the homepage for the intertribal council's homepage, and the explanation offered with the reversion (as far as I could understand) was that these were inapproprate citations, and I don't understand why. Yes, I am new, but I would like to see articles here be as accurate as possible. Many of the facts I know I don't know how to cite because they are text referances, not web ones, and I am not sure how to cite these sources, or if they would be acceptable. Can someone please help me fix my problems with the article, and let me know what I have done wrong and how I could improve? Swatfoot (talk) 23:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if I can address all your questions at once, so I'll limit my initial response to what I had proplems with.

First, "Native Americans" is the current accepted term for what used to be called "American Indians". This usage is explained in the article Native Americans in the United States. Any person born in the USA is a "native American", but not a "Native American"! Given the USA's constant changing of terms for ethnic groups, especially in the age of Political Correctness, there will propbably be a new term for this people group at some point in the near future. For the long term, trying to get a term widely used in Wikipedia changed in one article is a very inefficient way to accomplish your goal, as so many other articles use the term. If you have a problem with "Native Americans"'s usage, I suggest you take up the issue at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America. This way, any decisions or changes taken there will affect a wide range of articles on Wikipedia, not just one.

Second, the "The Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma" seems to me to be a misleading term, especially since, if I recall correctly, they were called "The Five Civilized Tribes" while still in the southeastern USA (an area I have lived in at various times). I have no problem with the term being applied to the group after they moved to Oklahoma, but it seems silly to call them that when the lived in Georgia, Tennessee, and so on.

Third, I couldn't tell you exactly why the other editor reverted your sources, other than to say the sources were probably not considered reliable, objective, or neutral. One major requirement on Wikipeida is that all sources be from verifiable, reliable published sources. "Published" in this context meaning having some sort of editorial control, but it can be print or internet. The main page regarding these policies is WP:Attribution. Please take a look at it and the other pages referenced there. If you still have questions at that point, feel free to ask, and we'll try to point you to an answer. - BillCJ (talk) 02:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

I understand that Native American is a widly accepted (if inaccurate) term for the aboriginal Americans (one that is already changing, incidentally), which is why I've left this alone in my attempts to edit. Secondly, since I couldn't confirm or refute what I had learned back in my Oklahoma History class quickly, I dropped the part about them being "of Oklahoma." All I found was the homepage of the Inter-Tribal Council of the Five Civilized Tribes, where one can see that at least some of the tribes have added the appelation "of Oklahoma" to their tribe name.

The main problem I want to see fixed is the problem with the apparent mis-understanding of why these tribes are called "civilized." As I have stated before, the way it is defined on the page makes the first paragraph look like a political soapbox for some aboriginal Americans, but yet Wikapedia is a source many people trust for the truth (hence how I accidentally came across this article initially. I was at the library in a foreign country, and I was asking if they had any children's books with stories from or about one or more of the five civilized tribes, and they handed me a printout of that article so I could 'learn' about the tribes). There is a good explanation of what a civilization is at the University of Richmond. The pages were originally created by students for a course they were in, and are maintained by a professer there. Although it talks about Greek and Roman civilization primarily, the definition still applies (Afterall, the word 'civilization' comes from the latin civis meaning citizen, or person who lives in a town). Some definitions I have seen state that the development of writing is an important criteria in being considered 'civilized,' but not all definitions include this, including the definition provided at Encarta. Any one of the definitions found there could be used to describe these tribes. The one singularly uniting criteria that most of the definitions I have encountered have is the fact that the people are organized into towns, ergo they are setteled down primarily into one place, ergo they need a reliable means to procure food, which would quickly run out if they just went out to hunt and gather what was available on the landscape, ergo they know how to farm. I could go into a detailed explanation of how the tribes learned to farm while they were still hunter-gatherers, but I don't think that is necessary. I am a bit cautious to attempt to correct the gross inaccuracy in the article (and there are others in later paragraphs, but minor in comparison to this one, IMNSHO) as I am not convinced it is likely to stay fixed. It has been wrong for at least six months, afterall. Thank you for your quick reply to my initial inquiry. They were helpful, and I will look into how and what to cite in more detail. I still do not completely understand how to even include external links into articles, as they do not appear as I expect when I type what I think the help screen said was the proper way to do it. If you could help me organize the information I have gathered into an "acceptable" way to improve this article, I would also be most grateful. I made an edit on another article on here, and when I went back to check the next day, it too had been modified, but only to make it mesh into the article more smoothly. That delighted me, and I am not sure how to effect that here (to create something that gets smoothed over, rather than getting yanked out in its entirety) Swatfoot (talk) 10:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

An addendum to my previous post. I found an explanation of what civilization is here on Wikapaedia. I would like to point out that that page states, among other things, that "civilization" was not used to mean "not savage" until the 18th century, which I believe (though haven't verrified yet) is after these tribes were deemed "The Five Civilized Tribes" if they were indeed called that before their removal to Oklahoma. Even if they weren't, they likely would have been labeled as civilized or not by the people who first encountered them before this revision in the definition, and therefore became the "Five Civilized Tribes" simpily because they were the five tribes involved in the Trail of Tears. Swatfoot (talk) 11:15, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Native Americans refer to the original people of North America at the year of discovery: 1492. Native American is highly accurate as is the term Europen American accurately discribes the former term white American (i.e. European Americans like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Donald Trump, Pat Tillman, Dolly Parton, Walt Disney, Don Johnson etc...) Native American is not used to describe European Americans whether born or emmigrated on/in North America or any other emmigrated race from the old world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.244.197.54 (talk) 02:13, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Reverted change

I reverted the change to: The Chickasaws were one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" who sold their country to be moved to the Indian Territory from The Chickasaws were one of the "Five Civilized Tribes" who were forcibly removed to the Indian Territory

The top version seems controversial; needs citations. It's pretty widely acknowledged that the removal to Indian Territory was under duress. -- phoebe / (talk) 18:55, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

All deracinations are under duress; however, compared to the Cherokee and Seminole removals there were no armies sent to forcibly remove the Chickasaw. The Chickasaw moved at their own cognizance. There was no great loss of life by their removal because of their competence. Rob (talk) 14:07, 15 July 2008 (UTC)