“...who descended from slaves of wealthy Cherokee Indians before the Civil War.”
I am familiar with Cherokee script, but not wealthy Cherokee Indians.
There were quite a few blacks who owned slaves in the South. I am certainly not going to track it out, but I have read that the percentage of blacks who owned slaves in New Orleans in 1860 exceeded the percentage of whites who owned slaves.
“I have read that the percentage of blacks who owned slaves in New Orleans in 1860 exceeded the percentage of whites who owned slaves.”
Not sure about percentages, but I do know there were a LOT of freedmen & -women living prosperously as artisans, shopkeepers, & courtesans in New Orleans even before the Emancipation.
There are, or were (prior to Katrina flooding) a lot of records of slaves & free blacks in New Orleans historical archives.
Author Anne Rice researched those archives & has written about the peculiar tendency of some freed slaves to purchase their own relatives— and then keep them enslaved & even in some instances to abuse them.
That may be technically true, but if it is, then it isn't what you think. It cost money to go to the courthouse and formally manumit a slave. Sometimes freed black men would buy their wives and children and just never bother with the formalities.