“One of the frequently practiced forms of slave resistance involved the theft of goods and property, including food, clothing, animals, and other commodities. As was the case for slaves in the southeastern United States, enslaved people in the Cherokee Nation stole an array of items from their owners. These acts served to protest vile treatment and harsh conditions, as well as to provide necessities for themselves and their families. Cherokee freedwoman Sarah Wilson recalled that her aunt "was always pestering around trying to get something for herself."
However, one day while cleaning the yard, their master (Mr. Johnson) saw her "pick up something and put it inside her apron. He flew at her and cussed her, and started like he was going to hit her but she just stood right up to him and never budged, and when he come close she just screamed out loud and run at him with her fingers stuck out straight and jabbed him in the belly . . .. He seen she wasn't going to be afraid, and he set out to sell her."[11]'
Such actions contested owners' sweeping control over enslaved people's daily lives. Most owners expected obsequious behavior from their slaves and those in their surrounding Cherokee communities; instead of complying with her master's expectations of submissiveness, Wilson's aunt communicated, through her words and actions, no such deference for her master's authority.
In response to her offenses, Ben Johnson utilized one of his primary privileges as master and attempted to sell Wilson's aunt—a particular course to penalize those deemed "troublesome property."
Like other masters in the Cherokee Nation and in southeastern states, Ben Johnson recognized that such misconduct not only served to defy his authority but also encouraged others along a similar path of rebelliousness.
Just as the presence of fugitive slaves in the vicinity of plantations vexed Cherokee slaveowners, so, too, did private and public acts of rebellion on their farms prove economically and emotionally taxing to owners in Indian Territory.”