Indian Removal, Forced Migration & Racial Reclassification

---

During the early 19th century, Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern United States faced systematic displacement through federal policies designed to remove Native populations from their ancestral homelands. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 authorized the forced relocation of Indigenous nations, resulting in widespread loss of land, life, and community stability. 

The forced migrations collectively known as the Trail of Tears impacted multiple Indigenous nations, including Creek (Muscogee), Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, and related communities. Families were removed under military supervision, often without regard for treaties, land tenure, or humanitarian conditions. 

While many Indigenous families were physically removed, others remained on or near their ancestral lands. These families frequently faced new forms of administrative control through taxation, property regulation, and census classification designed to dissolve Indigenous political identity without formal removal. 

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, state and federal record-keeping systems increasingly reclassified Indigenous individuals under racial categories such as “Mulatto,” “Negro,” or later “Black.” These classifications were administrative constructs and did not reflect Indigenous kinship systems, cultural identity, or ancestral continuity. 

The 1924 Racial Integrity Act and similar state laws codified rigid racial categories that prohibited recognition of Indigenous identity for many families. These laws were influenced by eugenics ideology and were used to sever Indigenous peoples from treaty protections, land rights, and legal recognition. 

Despite these policies, Indigenous families preserved lineage through family records, oral tradition, land occupancy, church records, and Bureau of Land Management land patents. These records demonstrate continuity of presence and identity even when official classifications attempted to erase Indigenous status. 

The Sharakhi Indigenous Tribal Nation preserves this historical record to document the long-term effects of removal, reclassification, and erasure while affirming the survival and continuity of Indigenous peoples. These histories are maintained for education, historical clarity, and the preservation of ancestral truth.