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Black Ozarkers
Inhabitants of African descent in the Ozarks Mountain region / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Black Ozarkers,[1] who have also been referred to as Ozark Mountain Blacks,[2] are Afro-Americans who are native to or inhabitants of the once isolated Ozarks uplift, a heavily forested and mountainous geo-cultural region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas.[3] They are mostly descendants of the enslaved from America's upper south and Appalachian region of Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina,[4] being brought by European American slave owners in the Western expansion beginning in the early 19th century.[5] Some are also descendants of Black people brought to the region enslaved by Native Americans on the Trail of Tears or up the Mississippi River by the French to work on small farms and in mineral mines during the French and Spanish colonial period.[6] There was also a number of families that voluntarily migrated into the region and settled before and after the Civil War. All are of African descent with many also having biracial heritage being of both African and European or African and Native American descent,[7][8] some like the Black Ozark folk artist Joseph Yoakum were of tri-racial heritage, descending from all three.[9]
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