My Great Grandmother was A Cherokee Slave Along With Her Family of Six Siblings, Georgia, Snow, Whispering Corn Mary, Tina Blue Duck, Jessie Lee Cravens, Jessie Lee and Rachel, or Nelly as Her Owner Nicknamed Her. Her Owner's Name was Robert Moffet. My Great Grandfather, also named Jessie Lee Cravens Land Deed on the Cherokee Reservation was located and recorded as “Land Owner”, Land Given “Back” to Him by the American Government After it was Stolen from his Tribe. My Great Grandfather is Related to Jessie Lee Craven of the Lakota Sioux Tribe in South Dakota who Fought in The Battle Of Wounded Knee, this Relative and Cousin With Our Family Name Leads Me to Believe that We Were Most Likely Lakota Sioux Before Migrating South to Etna Oklahoma Where We Eventually Became Cherokee, also Where We Were Purchased Before Abolitionism. My Great Grandmother Married into the Famous Quaker Family, the Sidwell’s, who were Instrumental in Freeing Not Only Native American Slaves, but in the Emancipation and Freeing of African American Slaves. The Sidwell’s Started the Seminal Education Program, The Sidwell School in Washington D.C. Prior To My Family’s Migration from the Lakota, Many Years Ago, Like Many Native People, We Migrated From Siberia on Down To Alaska Where We Were a Small Coastal Fishing Alaskan Tribe. When I Saw My Grandfather’s Land Deed From Oklahoma and Realized How Recent My Own History Is in Proximity to My Lineage, I was Deeply Moved, However When My Aunt and I Stumbled On Our Family’s Historical Record and Saw With Our Own Eyes the Name and Ages of All Of Our Family Members and Their Ages and Financial Worth Recorded Along Side The Name Of Our Owner, I Had The Most Profound Sense of Shock and Horror. This Project, Still in Progress and Yet To Be Resolved is a Series of Portraits of Native American Mannequins, Stuck, Frozen in Time as Static Reminders of Fictitious Family Members Photographed in Stasis, as Historical Document, Going Either Backwards, or Possibly Forward With A Narrative Undisclosed, Frozen and Makes Me Wonder, If My Family Members Were Photographed Then, What Would Their Photographs Look Like?

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