Information in the Dawes Packets

In the early 1900s, Sallie Featherstone applied for benefits available to those of Choctaw blood and as a freed person of color. She and her mother had been the slaves of a Choctaw, Loren Folsom, and then freed because of the Emancipation Proclamation. Although her mother claimed she was the wife of Folsom, witnesses testified that he had only 2 legal wives, neither one of which was his slave Isabelle.

Sallie applied not only for herself but for her children and grandchildren as well, giving all their birth, marriage and death dates and places. She or her attorneys submitted certificates, affidavits, and a census page as proof. You can see some of these by clicking on the attached images. There are a total of 98 pages in this packet. Not all cases in the Dawes Packets contain this number of pages nor this documentation, but all of them ask the claimant to identify him or herself by family affiliation.