An Ancestral Poem - Their Story Has Not Yet Been Told......

">



I was inspired after attending the storyteller's conference that more than ever, we, who descend from those Africans enslaved in the Five Tribes, we should tell the stories---the stories of what happened to them, the stories of how they survived, and the stories that helped them to thrive.  


All of the stories from the historic to the folklore, contain a rich cultural tradition of the African mixed with the Indian cultures in which so many were immersed.  It was after all, the only land, and the only world that our grandparents knew.   I therefore felt compelled to share this video and the accompanying poem that I wrote 


An Ancestral Poem

I know where my ancestors come from

But their story has not yet been told.

           

From a warmer land, suddenly taken,

Home no more forever forsaken.

In 1830 with Choctaws they came,

By '65 they remained still in chains.

I know where my ancestors come from.

But their story has not yet been told.

When Dancing Rabbit made the Choctaws leave,

they came too, once again so bereaved.

When Treaty of Doaksville brought the Chickasaws west

My people came---some purchased in haste.

I know where my ancestors come from

But their story has not yet been told.

They were Chahta Lusa in towns like Skullyville

Chicksa Lusta some were called in Doaksville.

In towns of both nations, their life was all toil.

But in '66, they stood on free soil.

I know where my ancestors come from

But their story has not yet been told.

Many clans they formed when finally freed

New settlements formed as free air they now breathed.

To Congress they wrote for the right just to learn

In bosom’s breast to live freely, they yearned.

I know where my ancestors came from

But their story has not yet been told.

Stevensons, Cheadles, Shoals and Kemps,

Christians, and Jones and Ligons and Camps

Eubanks families near Cavanaugh Hill

Came Waltons, and Burris and sons of Darneal

In towns like Berwyn, Milo, Poteau, and Howe,

McAlester, Idabel, and Ardmore, they’d vow

To live on the land and finally own

40 acre allotments forever their own.

 I know where my ancestors come from

But their story has not yet been told.

To those who dismissed them as slaves, of no worth

Our fathers and mothers who lost twice on this earth

These men, and women and children did thrive.

No more can the state, nor these nations hide

Their brethren, -- once family-- still part of the tribe. 

I know where my ancestors come from

And their story is NOW being told.


© Angela Y. Walton-Raji 2009