Untypical Slave Owners

As I was doing the reading assigned for tomorrow, a rather surprising an unusual fact struck me. The book mentioned that the wealthiest Native Americans, in that case the Cherokee, would sometimes be slave owners too. In an attempt to adapt to white culture, the wealthiest Cherokee would purchase African American slaves and built substantially large cotton plantation. I found this fact so surprising, since when we think of slavery in the US or in the states, we always think of white, upper-class men building large cotton empires on slavery. We would never think that a part (no matter how small) of a group that is oppressed and discriminated against itself (the Native Americans), would aid the repression of another group (African American slaves). Seeing it in the context of an attempt to copy or assimilate white culture in those states makes more sense, but still leaves it a peculiar fact.
Reference: American Passages, p.261