Reunion in the Black Hills

At the end of the Civil War, for a variety of reasons, many African Americans left white society to enter Indian Nations. Thousands stayed to marry Indian woman or men, raise children, and make their living in an accepting culture that was not burdened down with hatreds based on skin color...

The first mention of African and Indian interaction in a report was in about 1503, in which it was stated that Africans commingled with Indians to avoid capture. Indians who escaped generally knew the surrounding area, avoided capture, and returned to help free African slaves.

Europeans feared an Indian-African alliance regardless of where slavery existed. The government negotiated treaties with Indian tribes that included promises by the Indians to return escaped slaves. However, while many tribes who had such clauses in their treaties with the American government harbored many slaves, they returned none.