Multicultural Roots
of Tulsa Oklahoma
American Studies Project
Thesis: Physical features do not disclose racial or ethnic idenity of Oklahoma's peoples.
This webpage was created by Janna "Jai" Rogers as a digital humanities project. It is the final project for the course "Culture in the Making."
Jai Rogers is an American Studies Honors scholar at Oklahoma State University. She is studying under the direction of Dr. Stacy Takacs and has taken classes with Dr. David Gray and Dr. Najwa Raouda.
CLICK HERE to contact the AMERICAN STUDIES program at OSU.
LINK to Perryman family history in Chronicles of Oklahoma.
*Disclaimer: The Perryman family information found here is [not] intended to be taken without comparison. Rather, appreciate it as an unveiling of how one family exemplifies the multicultural challenges and success of building a multi-racial community.
Native Slavery
The European Slave Trade thrived in North Carolina and in South Carolina long before it reached Oklahoma. The English, of the American colonies, sold Native and African slaves. English captives from Native tribes were sold locally and to slave plantations in the Caribbean. Slavery was a thriving agricultural industry that became a part of Indian communities across the country due to forced assimilation and acculturation.
As tribes became acculturated many native families adopted white customs including slavery. This is commonly found in many histories of Native families in Oklahoma. Tribes that were the earliest to encounter Europeans are some of the most fully assimilated today yet still honor their heritage and many continue to balance both walks of life. Red, Black and White families formed familes which produced communities that grew into statehood. Creolization is the deepest root of Oklahoma history. Over the years racial blending has removed some of the identifiable features once recognized but we know who we are and embrace our multi-cultural history more than ever before.
Future Research
Acculturation
The connection between forced assimilation by white society and adopted oppression are topics Jai continues researching. Jai was born in 1963 and recalls being a little girl going to the cotton fields with her grandmother, Tink Rogers. Tink and the other Indian people worked alongside Black cottonpickers in the fields of Oklahoma.
Although, slavery is researched as an institution of past history Jai argues the psychological affects of slavery and of forced assimilation manifest as racial biases inter-tribally, intra-tribally and remain evident within Oklahoma families and society today.