The slave revolt started on November 15, 1842, when a group of 20 African-Americans enslaved by the Cherokee escaped and tried to reach Mexico, where slavery had been abolished in 1829.
Although an Indian party had captured and killed some of the slaves near the beginning of their flight, the Cherokee sought reinforcements.
[1] But, in the aftermath of this escape, the Cherokee Nation passed stricter slave codes, expelled freedmen from the territory, and established a 'rescue' (slave-catching) company to try to prevent additional losses.
Prior to European contact, the Cherokee had a practice of enslaving prisoners of war from other Indian tribes.
[2] Another code declared that a fine of fifteen dollars was to be levied for masters who allowed slaves to buy or sell liquor.
[3] Slaves worked primarily as agricultural laborers, cultivating both cotton for their master's profit and food for consumption.
They developed robust farms, salt mines, and trading posts created with slave labor.
At the time of the Civil War, a total of more than 8,000 slaves were held in all of the Indian Territory, where they comprised 14 percent of the population.
[1] Most of the 20 slaves were from the plantations of "Rich Joe" Vann and his father James; they gathered and raided local stores for weapons, ammunition, horses, and mules.
Escaping from Webbers Falls without casualties, the slaves headed south for Mexico, where slavery had been prohibited since 1836.
(The resolution also relieved the government of the Cherokee Nation of any liability if the slaves resisted arrest and had to be killed.)
In the past, some of these people had struggled to eat, while slave-owning families flourished in a market economy driven by slave labor.
After the American Civil War, planters and the upper class of the Cherokee Nation shifted from plantation agriculture to developing manufacture of small-scale products, which were sold internally, instead of being exported.
Even 50 years later, when the Fort Smith Elevator of Arkansas published an anniversary article about the escape, the account had a kind of mythic power.