Chapter 29: in Caddo.
The Negro slaves were free; but free in a separate Indian country, in the midst of savage Indian camps!In President Lincoln's proclamation not a word was said about the ten thousand Negroes who were then living as slaves on Indian soil. This country lies beyond the Pale. Only ten months after the battle of Pea Ridge the proclamation of freedom came out, but the heat and burthen of the strife had been so great on other fields, that people had forgotten how the war-whoop and the scalping-knife had been employed on Pea Ridge. In fact, the Red man's slaves were overlooked.
Alone with their late owners, and beyond the reach of help from Washington, what were the liberated slaves to do? In theory they were free; in substance they were only free to starve. They had no tents, no guns, no ponies. Not an acre of