Uploaded September 2011 | Updated September 2026, 2 hours ago
This video replaces the video entitled "Amazing Grace in Cherokee". It was removed after consideration of a wise friend's comments regarding black slavery and a recent decision by the Cherokee Nation to discriminate against black descendants who were once slaves of the nation. In respect to the cause of freedom and in protest to racial bigotry, I removed the video, Amazing Grace in Cherokee.
While the overwhelming majority of U.S. slave owners were white, some free blacks owned slaves, as did some Native Americans. The Cherokee Nation is among the American Indian groups that engaged in slave ownership. In 1866, a treaty between the Cherokees and the U.S. government granted citizenship to the slaves the tribe once owned and to their descendants.Since then, blacks have been an active part of the Cherokee Nation. That threatened to change in 2007 when the nation amended its constitution so that only blood descendants of the Cherokees qualified for membership - that decisioin by the Chrokee Nation barred black descendants from tribal membership.
In my own ignorance of this fact, I put together the video with the music, Amazing Grace in Cherokee, which was originally written by a slave ship captain, John Newton, who had a spiriatual ephipany during a violent storm at sea. He referred to that event as his " great deliverance". Indeed, it is a sad irony to post a video of Amazing Grace sung in Cherokee.
In honor of this great song and with respect to racial freedom, I removed the video Amazing Grace in Cherokee and have replaced it with this video entitled, "Voice of the Wind".
I harbor no disrespect for those in the Cherokee Nation that would honor the tribal membership of the descendants of black slaves, but I cannot condone the recent decision made by the Cherokee Nation to reject these blacks from tribal membership.
This Spadecaller video features the artwork and photography of Matthew Schwartz and the paintings of Frederic Remington with music by Ah-Nee-Maa - composed by David and Diane Arkenstone.
This video replaces the video entitled "Amazing Grace in Cherokee". It was removed after consideration of a wise friend's comments regarding black slavery and a recent decision by the Cherokee Nation to discriminate against black descendants who were once slaves of the nation. In respect to the cause of freedom and in protest to racial bigotry, I removed the video, Amazing Grace in Cherokee.
While the overwhelming majority of U.S. slave owners were white, some free blacks owned slaves, as did some Native Americans. The Cherokee Nation is among the American Indian groups that engaged in slave ownership. In 1866, a treaty between the Cherokees and the U.S. government granted citizenship to the slaves the tribe once owned and to their descendants.Since then, blacks have been an active part of the Cherokee Nation. That threatened to change in 2007 when the nation amended its constitution so that only blood descendants of the Cherokees qualified for membership - that decisioin by the Chrokee Nation barred black descendants from tribal membership.
In my own ignorance of this fact, I put together the video with the music, Amazing Grace in Cherokee, which was originally written by a slave ship captain, John Newton, who had a spiriatual ephipany during a violent storm at sea. He referred to that event as his " great deliverance". Indeed, it is a sad irony to post a video of Amazing Grace sung in Cherokee.
In honor of this great song and with respect to racial freedom, I removed the video Amazing Grace in Cherokee and have replaced it with this video entitled, "Voice of the Wind".
I harbor no disrespect for those in the Cherokee Nation that would honor the tribal membership of the descendants of black slaves, but I cannot condone the recent decision made by the Cherokee Nation to reject these blacks from tribal membership.
This Spadecaller video features the artwork and photography of Matthew Schwartz and the paintings of Frederic Remington with music by Ah-Nee-Maa - composed by David and Diane Arkenstone.
