In the 1830s , all of the Five Civilized Tribes were relocated , many of them forcibly to the Indian Territory ( later , the state of Oklahoma ) . The incident is known as the Trail of Tears , and the institution of owning enslaved Africans came with them . Of the estimated 4,500 to 5,000 blacks who formed the slave class in the Indian Territory by 1839 , the great majority were in the possession of the mixed bloods . Tensions varied between African Americans and Native Americans in the south , as each nation dealt with the ideology behind enslavement of Africans differently . In the late 1700s and 1800s , some Native American nations gave sanctuary to runaway slaves while others were more likely to capture them , and return them to their white masters or even re-enslave them . Still others incorporated runaway slaves into their societies , sometimes resulting in intermarriage between the Africans and Native Americans , which was a common place among tribes like the Creek and Seminole . Although , some Native Americans may have had a strong dislike of slavery , because they too were seen as a people of a subordinate race than white men of European descent , they lacked the political power to influence the racialistic culture that pervaded the Non-Indian South . It is unclear if some Native American slaveholders sympathized with African-American slaves along racial lines . Missionary work was an efficient method the United States used to persuade Native Americans to accept European methods of living . Missionaries vociferously denounced Indian removal as cruel , oppressive , and feared such actions would push Native Americans away from converting . These same missionaries reported that Native American slave owners were brutal masters , even though accounts of Indian freedmen gave different accounts of being treated relatively well without tyrannical treatment . Traditionalist groups , such as Pin Indians and the intertribal Four Mothers Society , were outspoken opponents of slavery during the Civil War . The Five Civilized Tribes allied with the Confederates during the American Civil War , in part because they resented the US government 's having forced them out of the Southeast . The Confederates suggested they might establish a Native American-controlled state if victorious , but it had been their settlers that had earlier pushed for the removal of the Native Americans from the Southeast
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
Slavery among Native Americans in the United States