Joe and Dillard Perry
Petition to Transfer Database
Applications to Change from Freedmen to Citizens by Blood, 1905–1907. Choctaw & Chickasaw Nations, Indian Territory. Searchable genealogical database of 2,224 lineal descendants of Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians who petitioned for recognition of their blood citizenship rights.
| DB # | Last Name | First Name | Case File | Tribe | Actions |
|---|
Applications to Change from Freedmen to Citizens by Blood, 1905–1907
National Archives Identifier (NAID): 650073 · Local Identifier: NRF-75M-90C
Record Group: 75, Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Creator: Department of the Interior, Office of Indian Affairs, Office of the Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes (1893–1914)
Entry: 90C · Location: National Archives at Fort Worth, Texas
Volume: 250+ case files · 7,000+ digitized images · 2,224 named applicants
The Joe and Dillard Perry Petition to Transfer Database is one of the most important genealogical and legal records ever compiled for African-Native American families in Indian Territory. It contains the only sustained documentary record of African-Chickasaw and African-Choctaw lineal descendants formally asserting, before a federal body, under oath, with attorneys and witnesses, that they were the biological children and grandchildren of recognized Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians.
For the approximately 1,600 to 2,000 families represented in this collection, this database is often the single richest surviving record of their family structure, parentage, birth information, enslaver relationships, and tribal connections. The Dawes enrollment cards for Freedmen frequently omit or suppress Indian ancestry information. The Perry transfer files, by contrast, were specifically created to document that ancestry, making them irreplaceable for genealogical research.
The records also have enduring legal and political significance. The petitioners were lineal descendants of Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians. They were not freedmen by heritage, but Indians by blood whose classification as freedmen was the direct result of the antebellum slavery system and the racial policies of the Dawes Commission. Their descendants today remain affected by these enrollment decisions, as the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations continue to base tribal citizenship on the Final Dawes Rolls, from which these families were wrongly excluded.
The collection takes its name from the citizenship case of Joe Perry (born March 20, 1892) and Dillard Perry (born May 5, 1894), the sons of Charley Perry, a recognized Chickasaw citizen by blood, and Eliza James Perry, a Chickasaw freedwoman. After Charley's death in February 1896, the children were enrolled as Chickasaw freedmen rather than citizens by blood. Their mother Eliza first asserted their blood citizenship claim in August 1903, after the December 24, 1902 deadline imposed by Section 34 of the Act of July 1, 1902.
The case moved through multiple layers of federal review. The Assistant Attorney General initially ruled in Joe and Dillard's favor on February 21, 1905, finding they were "shown to be descendants of Charley Perry, a recognized citizen of the Chickasaw Nation." The Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations moved for reconsideration, and on November 11, 1905, the Assistant Attorney General reversed, denying enrollment not on the merits of their Indian ancestry (which was conceded), but solely because their application was filed after the statutory deadline.
The legal precedent established in the Perry case, that a missed statutory deadline barred even an otherwise meritorious blood citizenship claim, was then applied to deny every one of the approximately 1,600 to 2,000 transfer petitions that followed. The case thus became the legal foundation for the systemic denial of blood roll recognition across the entire community of African-Chickasaw and African-Choctaw descendants.
Attorneys, commissioners, and officials whose decisions shaped the outcome of these 2,224 lives.
| Name | Role | Significance |
|---|---|---|
| Assistant Attorney General (unnamed in record, signed J.R.W.) |
U.S. Dept. of Interior | Issued the February 21, 1905 opinion in favor of Joe and Dillard Perry, finding they were descendants of a recognized Chickasaw citizen. Reversed his own ruling on November 11, 1905 after reconsideration motion by the Nations' attorneys, denying enrollment solely on the basis of the missed December 1902 deadline. His final opinion established the legal precedent applied to deny all subsequent transfer petitions. |
| Secretary of the Interior Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1899–1907) |
Secretary, Dept. of Interior | The final authority on Dawes Commission enrollment decisions. The November 11, 1905 opinion was approved by the Secretary on the same date. All enrollment decisions, including denials of the Perry transfer petitions, were made under his authority. Acting Secretary Thos. Ryan handled several intermediate decisions in 1904, including ordering the case reopened after Eliza Perry's petition. |
| Tams Bixby | Acting Chairman, Dawes Commission | Acting Chairman of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes at the time most of these transfer petitions were processed. Bixby signed the August 21, 1902 certificate confirming that a thorough search of tribal rolls of the Chickasaw Nation had been made, used to establish that family names did not appear on any blood roll. This certification became a standard tool for denial across all transfer cases. |
| W. A. Jones | Commissioner of Indian Affairs | Commissioner of Indian Affairs who, on August 24, 1904, recommended that Eliza Perry's petition for a reopening of her children's case be allowed, citing the circumstances under which the initial deadline was missed (notice mailed to wrong address). His recommendation was accepted, temporarily reopening the case before it was ultimately denied on the December 1902 deadline grounds. |
| A. C. Tonner | Acting Commissioner, Indian Affairs | Acting Commissioner who, on August 1, 1904, recommended that the enrollment of Joe and Dillard Perry as Chickasaw freedmen "be allowed to stand" after the 30-day opportunity to present testimony expired without appearance. His recommendation was initially affirmed by the Department, before the case was reopened following Eliza Perry's petition. |
| Mansfield, McMurray & Cornish | Attorneys for the Nations | The law firm that represented the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations throughout the Perry proceedings and the broader Equity Case 7071 litigation. They filed the motion for reconsideration of the February 1905 opinion, argued the December 1902 deadline as an absolute bar, and submitted the "Synopsis of Oral Argument" preserved in the case files. Their argument, that freedmen were non-citizens and their applications were therefore barred by the enrollment deadline, became the legal framework for denying all transfer petitions. Attorney G. Rosenwinkel signed the affidavit of service on the oral argument brief. |
| Chester Howe | Attorney, Washington D.C. | Washington-based attorney who received copies of the Choctaw-Chickasaw Nations' legal briefs by registered mail during the Perry proceedings. His role suggests the case had active legal representation in Washington, D.C., in addition to the local Indian Territory attorneys. |
| S. T. Wiggins | Attorney for Eliza Perry | Attorney representing Eliza Perry (mother of the applicants) who was notified on June 1, 1904 of the hearing deadline. Eliza stated the notice was mailed to her at Center, Indian Territory while she was living at Wewoka, Seminole Nation. She did not learn the deadline had expired until August 1, 1904, providing the basis for her petition to reopen the case. |
| King & Turner / "King Tcarné" | Attorneys for Applicants | The attorneys who signed the applicants' brief in the Perry case, with their signatures on the final page of the Brief of Applicants preserved in the case file. They argued the validity of the Charley Perry marriage, the children's legitimate descent from a recognized Chickasaw citizen, the Joe N. Love precedent, and that the mother's negro blood was irrelevant to the children's rights derived through their Indian father. |
| Albert J. Lee | Attorney for Freedmen Petitioners | Attorney who represented Russell Franklin (F-126) and other Freedmen petitioners in the transfer proceedings. Lee submitted the formal petition to the Commissioner and Secretary of the Interior on behalf of Franklin, articulating the multi-generation Chickasaw blood pedigree. He was one of several attorneys representing the broader community of transfer petitioners. |
| Judge of the Citizenship Court T. J. Minor Jr., Case No. 117, Nov. 28, 1904 |
Choctaw-Chickasaw Citizenship Court | The Choctaw-Chickasaw Citizenship Court (CCCC), established by Congress and operating 1902–1904, heard 256 citizenship cases involving 3,487 people. The T. J. Minor Jr. case (No. 117, decided November 28, 1904) was cited by the applicants' attorneys as evidence that transfers from the freedmen roll had been made even after the 1902 deadline had expired, directly challenging the Nations' argument that the deadline was an absolute bar. |
| Judge Michael Burrage | Federal Judiciary | Presided over the "Oversight Hearing on Select Provisions of the Reconstruction Hearing of 1866" (July 27, 2022, Senate Committee on Indian Affairs). His statement during that hearing, that because applicants were not on the Final Rolls, "that ends the matter," has been cited by researchers as emblematic of the continued use of flawed Dawes-era enrollment decisions to deny present-day claims of lineal Chickasaw and Choctaw descendants. |
| Henry L. Dawes | Chairman, Dawes Commission (1893–1899) | Former U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, author of the Dawes Act of 1887, and first chairman of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes (appointed November 1, 1893). The Commission bearing his name created the Final Rolls that form the basis of present-day tribal citizenship. The enrollment policies the Dawes Commission applied, including the matrilineal rule and the denial of Indian blood claims by freedmen, were formalized under his leadership and continued by his successors. |
The 2,224 applicants in this database were not strangers to the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations. They were born inside them, raised inside them, and in many cases spoke the tribal languages, practiced tribal customs, and were the biological children of recognized tribal citizens. They were lineal descendants of the tribes in the most direct possible sense: their fathers and grandfathers were Chickasaw and Choctaw Indians enrolled or recognized by the tribal governments themselves.
The evidence of lineal descent documented in these files is extensive and multi-generational:
• Major James Colbert (Chickasaw), father of Lanie Colbert, ancestor of the Colbert and Stevenson families
• Suckatubbee (Sakktabbi) (full-blood Chickasaw), grandfather of Wiley Newberry and great-grandfather of Lydia Newberry
• Thomas Love (Chickasaw), great-grandfather of Lydia Newberry and grandfather of Caldonia Love Newberry
• Ben Love (Chickasaw, signed removal treaties), father of Caldonia Love Newberry
• Edmond Perry (full-blood Chickasaw), grandfather of Russell Franklin
• Isom Chawanochubby alias Newberry (Chickasaw), father of Mason Clark and Samuel Chawanochubby
• Green Colbert (full-blood Choctaw), great-grandfather of Sam Wright
• Sampson Gunn (Chickasaw), maternal great-grandfather of Sam Wright
• Cornelius Pickens (Chickasaw), father of William Alexander
• Charley Perry (recognized Chickasaw citizen by blood), father of Joe and Dillard Perry
• Jackson Kemp / Louis (Chickasaw), enslaver and paternal grandfather in the Kemp family
• Tecumseh Brown (Chickasaw), ancestor of the Brown family
Full-blood recognized Chickasaw citizens testified on behalf of these families before the Dawes Commission. Mason Clark testified entirely in the Chickasaw language, requiring a certified interpreter. Mollie Porter, a full-blood Chickasaw citizen, appeared to affirm that Samuel Chawanochubby and his sister Mason were the children of a Chickasaw Indian. Rhoda Howell testified that she had known Lanie Colbert's father James Colbert to be a full-blood Chickasaw Indian for over 60 years, and that Lanie "was all that time considered an Indian entitled to the right of an Indian."
The Treaty of 1866, signed by both the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations as a condition of readmission to the Union after the Civil War, explicitly required the nations to adopt their Freedmen as citizens and grant them the same rights as other citizens. Neither nation ever honored this provision. That failure made it impossible for Freedmen or their Indian fathers to appear on tribal rolls, and the Dawes Commission then used the absence of names from those rolls (rolls that never existed) as the legal justification for denial. It was a circular impossibility built on a broken treaty.
2. The Tribal Roll Impossibility. The Commission denied claims because applicants' Indian fathers did not appear on "tribal rolls of citizens by blood." No such roll existed before the Dawes Commission created it. The Nations never honored the 1866 Treaty adoption requirement, making it structurally impossible for these families or their Indian fathers to have ever been enrolled. The Commission used an impossibility of its own creation as grounds for denial.
3. The December 1902 Deadline. Section 34 of the Act of July 1, 1902 required enrollment applications within 90 days of ratification (September 25, 1902), making the deadline December 24, 1902. Most petitioners did not assert blood citizenship claims until 1903–1907 because they had been enrolled as Freedmen and did not know they needed to reassert a different status. The deadline was applied as an absolute bar even in cases where the underlying Indian ancestry claim was conceded.
4. Deliberate Erasure of Genealogical Evidence. Dawes Commission clerks routinely summarized Freedmen interviews without recording stated Choctaw or Chickasaw blood connections, effectively erasing the genealogical claim from the official record. That absence was then used as grounds for denial. Researchers have documented this pattern across hundreds of files in this collection.
To obtain copies of digitized case files: contact the National Archives at Fort Worth at ftworth.archives@nara.gov or call 817-551-2051. A CD of all digitized files is available for $20.00. Many files are also available directly through the NARA Catalog link above.