Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 97

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020

USA > Mississippi > Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II > Part 97

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Greenwood, Leflore, Moshuli-topee, and Nittakechi, together with small annuities to continue 20 years; also made special provision in money and clothing to certain of the lesser chiefs, captains and warriors. Then ensued certain articles relating to the removal of the Indians by the U. S., food supplies, payment for cattle, sur- vey of the ceded lands, reservations of land to specific classes of individuals, particularly to those who had certain acres under cul- tivation, orphans, etc. The United States further agreed to edu- cate forty Choctaw youths for twenty years; to erect a Council House for the Nation; a house for each chief, and a church and schoolhouse in each district; to provide teachers for 20 years; blacksmiths for 16 years; a mill-wright for five years, and to fur- nish 2,100 blankets, a rifle to each warrior who emigrated; 1,000 axes, ploughs, hoes, wheels and cards each; and 400 looms; also one ton of iron and 200 weight of steel annually to each District for 16 years. The day following. September 28, certain supple- mentary stipulations were agreed to and signed. These stipula- tions chiefly related to special reservations of lands to specified individuals, among whom were two children of the U. S. interpre- ter John Pitchlynn, and John Donly, for 25 years mail carrier through the Choctaw nation; provided for an exploring party of Choctaws to examine the new country; also for the payment of certain debts due Allen Glover and George S. Gaines, licensed traders. (See Indian Affairs, Vol. 2, Treaties; also Story of the Treaty, by H. S. Halbert, Publ. Miss. Hist. Soc., VI, 373; also articles on Choctaw Land Frauds.)

In accordance with this treaty Congress in March, 1831, appro- priated $80,248 for the Choctaws-$9,593 for salaries for chiefs, suits of clothes and broadswords for 99 captains; $12,500 for the cattle arrangement ; $10,000 to build council house, chiefs' houses and churches in the west; $5,500 for teachers and industrial out- fits ; $27,650 for blankets, rifles, agricultural implements, etc., and $5,000 for transportation. The annual appropriation for the Choc- taw nation in 1832 and succeeding years was $66,000 in addition to various extra allowances.

Treaty of Doak's Stand, 1820. On December 1, 1818, Mr. Poin- dexter, chairman of the congressional committee on public lands, made a report regarding the right of the Choctaw Indians to emi- grate and settle west of the Mississippi river. Their disposition to do this, at least to cross the Mississippi to hunt, had been manifested in a much earlier period, because their own country seemed to be insufficient. This tendency must have increased at this time, when they had given up a vast region in the south and everything east of the Tombigbee river. Poindexter reported that for several years past the Choctaws, "to whom has been allotted a vast and fertile territory east of the Mississippi to live and hunt on . haye gradually migrated to the west, and formed con- siderable settlements for hunting and even for agricultural pur- poses, on the lands of the United States, . in direct violation of the treaty of Hopewell," etc. This was one way to

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put it. It could not be endured long, of course, that the remaining Choctaw country in Mississippi, including the central third of the State, should remain the roaming place of a few red men. If the Choctaws could be prevented from obtaining sustenance across the river, and the spirit of emigration encouraged by prohibiting it, the prospect would be better for obtaining the relinquishment of more land east of the Mississippi and the gradual transfer of the nation to the west. During the session of congress of 1817-18 the president had appointed three commissioners to treat with the Choctaws on the subject, and propose an exchange of lands, but the Choctaw chiefs refused to make such an arrangement. Con- sequently Poindexter reported a bill to confine this nation to its bounds in Mississippi until it should acquire other lands by treaty.

In March, 1819, James Pitchlynn wrote that he "had got several families of the Choctaws who are willing to move west of the Mis- sissippi," and he believed if there were a treaty a third or a half would move in the fall. But he found that all the rich white men in the nation opposed the project and gave "bad talks."

In April Gen. Andrew Jackson received a commission to treat with the nation, his associates being Col. John McKee, agent, and Col. Daniel Burnet. He advised McKee to warn the Choctaws that the next congress would probably pass the law recommended by Poindexter, to bring back the Indians that had gone west, then the nation would be in a bad situation. "You may say to the chiefs that we are instructed not only to be liberal to the nation, but to them individually." So McKee met a council of the Choctaw na- tion in August, 1819, at which the two great medal chiefs, Mushula-tubbee and Pooshamataha, signified their sentiments. They were sorry they could not comply with the request of their father. "We wish to remain here, where we have grown up as the herbs of the wood, and do not wish to be transplanted to another soil. Those of our people who are over the Mississippi did not go there with the consent of the nation; they are considered as strangers, they are like wolves," and they were quite willing to have them ordered back. "I am well acquainted with the country contemplated for us," said Pooshamataha; "I have often had my feet bruised there by the rough lands." They had decided they had no land to spare. If a man gave half his garment the other half would be of no use to him. "When we had land to spare, we gave it, with very little talk, to the commissioners you sent to us at Tombigbee, as children ought to do to a father." They hoped for the continued protection of their father. "When a child wakes in the night he feels for the arm of his father to shield him from danger." McKee and Pitchlyn were sorely disappointed by the result. They were confident the Six Towns were ready to move, except a few half breeds that made trouble. These were then trying to raise money to send a delegation to Washington.

In 1820 congress made an appropriation of $20,000 for the pur- pose of a treaty, and the Mississippi delegation in congress proposed that Gen. Jackson and Gen. Thomas Hinds should be

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entrusted with the negotiations. In accepting, because he could not refuse Mr. Monroe or Mississippi, Jackson asked that he be authorized to show the Choctaws the actual bounds of the new home where their father proposed to settle and perpetuate them as a nation. "This is a chord I mean to touch."

John Pitchlyn and his son exerted themselves to encourage a favorable sentiment, and reported to Jackson that Mushula-tubbee and Pooshamataha were delighted that he would meet them. The government authorized the promise of a portion of the Quapaw cession in Arkansas Territory. The great council was called to meet October 1st, at a council ground on the Robinson road (be- tween Natchez and Tennessee), near Doak's stand, a tavern about four miles north of Pearl in what is now the southeast corner of Madison county. William Eastin was appointed commissary and Samuel R. Overton secretary, and Jackson and suite set out from Nashville September 14, 1820, reaching Doak's stand on the 28th, where they were joined two days later by Hinds and McKee and a squad of soldiers under Lieut. Graham. The commissioners removed to the treaty ground, about half a mile below Doak's, October 2, and a few Indians came in that evening. There was soon evidence that some white man and half breeds had formed a combination to prevent a treaty and Jackson and Hinds sent out a talk urging the nation that they must come and hear the talk from their father or he might never speak again.

Puckshenubbee and his men were particularly offish. Mushula- tubbee was on hand, but with few followers. Gradually a better feeling grew, and after a great ball game, October 9, the talk was begun. Three formal talks were made by Gen. Jackson; the In- dians were in long and confused deliberation by themselves, and finally on the 18th the treaty prepared by Jackson was accepted and signed by the mingoes, headmen and warriors present. The old chief Puckshenubbee was the last to yield, and an attempt was made by some of his people to depose him. "Donations" of $500 each were made to him and the other two mingoes and John Pitchlyn, and smaller amounts to others of influence, amounting to $4,675, of which the ball-players got only $8. October 22 Jack- son and his party started on the return to Nashville.

The treaty was made, as appears from the preamble, to promote the civilization of the Choctaws by the establishment of schools, and to perpetuate them as a nation by exchange of a part of their land for a country beyond the Mississippi. The nation ceded all within the following limits: "Beginning on the Choctaw bound- ary east of Pearl river, at a point due south of the White Oak spring, on the old Indian path ; thence north to said spring ; thence northwardly to a black oak standing on the Natchez road, about four poles eastwardly from Doak's fence, marked A. J. and blazed, with two large pines and a black oak standing near thereto and marked as pointers; thence a straight line to the head of Black creek or Bogue Loosa; thence down Black creek to a small lake ; thence a direct course so as to strike the Mississippi one mile

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below the mouth of the Arkansas river; thence down the Missis- sippi to our boundary ; thence round and along the same to the beginning." Roughly speaking, this is the west half of the middle third of the State, including the south part of the Yazoo delta, estimated at 5,500,000 acres in all. In consideration the United States ceded to the Choctaws a region in the west. The Cherokees had already been traded lands in that quarter, and the Choctaw east line was to run from their corner on the Arkansas river to a point three miles below the mouth of Little river on the Red. West of this the Choctaw domain would extend, between the Red and Canadian, to the source of the latter. It was provided that the boundaries established east of the Mississippi "shall remain with- out alteration, until the period at which said nation shall become so civilized and enlightened as to be made citizens of the United States; and congress shall lay off a limited parcel of land for the benefit of each family or individual in the nation." Aid was to be given poor Indians who wished to move; an agent, etc., was to be provided in the west; fifty-four sections (square miles) were to be laid off in the Mississippi land ceded, to be sold to raise a fund for the support of Choctaw schools on both sides of the Mis- sissippi river; there was another reservation promised to make up for the appropriation by some of the chiefs of the $6,000 educa- tion annuity for the past sixteen years. All who had separate set- tlements, within the area ceded, might remain as owners of one mile square, or sell at full appraised value; compensation was to be made for buildings; the warriors were to be paid for their services at Pensacola; $200 was promised each district for the support of a police; Mushulatubbee was guaranteed an annuity the same as had been paid his father.

At the next session of congress, $65,000 was appropriated to carry this treaty into effect, and in March, 1821, John C. Calhoun, the secretary of war, notified the Choctaw agent at that time, Maj. William Ward, that he was to superintend the emigration of the Indians. Blankets, rifles, etc., for 500 were sent to Natchez. Edmund Folsom, interpreter for the Six Towns, had been selected by Jackson and Hinds to collect those who were willing to go, and conduct them to the promised land. Henry D. Downs, of Warren county, was appointed to survey the land in the west, and he re- ported in December, that he had run the east line of the tract. The war department was already made aware that there were a large number of white settlers in the tract. Downs proposed that the line be moved west to the junction of the Arkansas and Cana- dian rivers, to accommodate 375 families of "squatters." This matter had been discussed at the council of 1820. The chiefs knew there were white settlers on the land, and when Jackson was told of it, he had replied that the arm of the government was strong, and they should be removed. Jackson was sincere in this. In 1819 he had ordered the commandants at Fort Smith and Nachi- toches to remove all settlers west of the Poteau and Kiamsha rivers, which was done, in some cases houses being burned and

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crops destroyed, and the order was renewed after the running of Downs' line, which induced the settlers to move back. But Fol- som was instructed to discuss this matter on the basis that the white settlers must not be disturbed, and consequenly he reported in November that after eight months' effort he had "gained the ill- will of the Choctaw Indians, and made my friends my foes. They have threatened to drive me out of the nation, and some of their leaders have called me a liar and a carrier of lying talks." His life had been threatened, and all this time he had not been paid a cent by the government, except $20 to start with.

As soon as the treaty of Doak's Stand became known in Arkan- sas a great protest was made. Congress yielded to it and diverted the appropriation of $65,000 to the making of a new treaty to change the line to one due south from the southwest corner of Missouri. This had hardly been done, when Arkansas asked a further extension, and an act was passed to move the line forty miles west. But the Choctaws stood firmly on the treaty Jackson had made, and the result was the treaty of Washington (q. v.) in 1825. (American State Papers, Ind. Affs., II.)

Treaty of 1826. Hardly had the complications following the Treaty of 1820 been arranged by the Treaty of Washington, 1825, when the Choctaws were requested to give up more land in Mis- issippi. On March 18, 1826, the Mingoes Mooshela-topee, Robert Cole and Tapeau-homa, successor of Pooshamataha, signed a letter to the secretary of war, saying, "We having heard a prop- osition for a further cession of our land beyond the river Missis- sippi, have come to a conclusion that we will sell no more land on any terms." They asked, also, that white intruders be moved off their land in the west, which they were expected to find homes upon.

May 20, 1826, Congress appropriated $20,000 for the expenses of a treaty with the Chickasaws and Choctaws to secure their re- linquishment of their remaining lands in Mississippi, and Gov. William Clark, Gen. Thomas Hinds and Gen. John Coffee were appointed to make the negotiation. They met the head men of the Choctaws at the "treaty ground near Wilson's," and the coun- cil began November 10, 1826, when Tapeau-homa welcomed the commissioners, asked them to put their propositions in writing, to be considered by an Indian committee of thirteen. These were Gen. Humming Bird. Ahchelata, Red Dog. Lewis .Perry, P. P. Pitchlyn, M. Foster, J. L. McDonald, Nettuckachee, Eahoka-topee, John Garland, Jesse Brashears, Joel H. Nail and Israel Folsom. After some preliminary sparring. Gen. Coffee delivered his talk, which was, in brief, that the land in Mississippi was needed by the white people, and as the Choctaws had already been traded lands west of the river five times as extensive as they were now living on. it was the interest of the Indians to give up their remaining land in Mississippi, for which the United States would pay $1.000.000. and would reserve 300,000 acres for such as wished to remain as citizens, and would also give liberal supplies to each emigrant.

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There was a discussion for several days, but the answer of the Choctaws was to recite the various treaties which they had made. each time under a promise that they should never be asked for any more land. They would now give up no more, "Where shall we stop? Where shall we find a resting place? We ought to be per- mitted at least to breathe a while and look around us." Brashears favored the treaty, and was in danger of violence. Pitchlyn and Mackay were also favorable, but a systematic effort had been made by others to defeat the project. Mooshela-topee and Robert Cole would have agreed to the cession. "It was therefore resolved to remove them from office." said the commissioners in their report (Amer. State Papers, Ind. Affs. II, 209), "and put David Folsom and Greenwood Leflore in their places-two mixed-blood young men, who were known to be unfriendly to a cession." The three ruling mingoes were young men, and so were the majority of the thirteen. The nation was fast declining in wealth except a few half-breeds settled on the road to Tennessee and reaping a harvest from it.

The same commissioners began negotiations at the Chickasaw council house October 22. Levi Colbert, Martin Colbert, J. Mc- Clish, Emmubbia, and Ashtamatutka acted as commissioners on behalf of the nation. The king was present, but Tishomingo. it seems, kept in the background. They heard all the arguments for removal and confuted them, and ended with, "It is true we are poor for money, but we love our lands better." They even refused to send agents to examine the land in the west.

Treaty of Fort Adams. This convention was concluded at Loftus Heights (Fort Adams). December 12, 1801. between Gen- eral Wilkinson, Benjamin Hawkins and Andrew Pickens, with the Choctaw nation, which was represented mainly by "Tuskonahopia, of the Lower towns, Mingo, Poos Coos, of the Chickasaw Half town, Oakchuma, Puckshumubbee and Elatalahoomuh of the Upper towns, Buckshumabbe, factor of a Mobile merchant, and Mingo Homassa-tubbe." The gifts were $2,000 in value. The treaty provided that a road should be opened on the Natchez trace through the Choctaw country, as had been recently agreed by the Chickasaws, and that the old British line of Natchez district should be resurveyed and marked as a boundary line of the lands open to white settlement. The commissioners also proposed a road to the settlements on the Tombigbee and Mobile. but did not press it. as it would run through the lands of the Six towns, a people friendly to Spain, whose head men were then in conference with the Spanish governor at New Orleans. The commissioners reported that "The Choctaw nation, in point of physical powers, is at least on a level with its neighbors, and its dispositions, in re- lation to the whites, are more tractable and less sanguinary than those of its kind, yet it has long been buried in sloth and ignor- ance." On account of the destruction of game, the Choctaws seemed to be turning to agriculture and a very few families had begun the culture of cotton. Edmond Fulsom and Robert Mic-

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Clure, white Choctaws, asked for cards and gin, and a blacksmith shop.

Treaty of Fort Confederation. This treaty was concluded at Fort Confederation, the old French Fort Tombecbe, on the Tom- bigbee river, October 17, 1802, by General Wilkinson, with eighteen hundred representatives of the whole Choctaw nation. It was a provisional convention for a resurvey of the north line of the old British line of the district of Mobile, or Charlotte county, so far as it lay above the Ellicott line, between the Chickasawhay and Tombigbee rivers. The rectification of the Natchez district frontier was also discussed. All of the land south of his north line, between the Chickasawhay and Tombigbee-Mobile, was then open to settlement, so far as the Indian title was concerned, through the withdrawal of the Spaniards, and this was the only land east of the Natchez district, and south of Tennessee, as far as the Oconee in Georgia, not in the possession of the Indians.

The line was surveyed by Wilkinson and Mingo Poos Coos and Alatala Hooma, and ratified by them as commissioners plenipo- tentiary, at Hobuckintupa, August 31, 1803. The boundary was described as beginning on the Spanish line, in the Hatchee Comeesa or Wax river, up said river to the confluence of the Chickasawhay and Buckhatannee; up the latter to Bogue Hooma or Red Creek, up the latter to a pine tree near the trading path from Mobile to the Hewhannee towns, thence in various courses to Sintee Bogue or Snake creek, and down the same and the Tom- bigbee and Mobile to the Spanish line.

Treaty of Ghent. In the negotiation of the treaty of Ghent, 1814, making peace after the war that involved the Indians of the South, the British commissioners asked as a sine qua non of peace, that "the Indian nations who have been, during the war, in alli- ance with Great Britain, should, at the termination of the war, be included in the pacification. It is equally necessary that a defin- ite boundary should be assigned to the Indians, and that the con- tracting parties should guarantee the integrity of their territories by a mutual stipulation not to acquire, by purchase or otherwise, any territory within the specified limits." When the American commissioners absolutely refused this, the British replied that "The American government has now for the first time, in effect, declared that all Indian nations within its limits of demarcation are its subjects, living there upon sufferance on lands which it also claims the exclusive right of acquiring, thereby menacing the final extinction of those nations. Against such a system the under- signed must formally protest." The Americans showed that the right complained of was asserted in the treaty of Greenville. But the United States was compelled to accept the ultimatum of Eng- land, which was embodied in the treaty, viz .: a promise to "put an end immediately after the ratification of the present treaty, to hostilities with all the tribes or nations of Indians with whom they may be at war at the time of such ratification, and forthwith to restore to such tribes or nations respectively, all the possessions,

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rights and privileges which they may have enjoyed or been entitled to, in 1811, previous to such hostilities."

Treaties of Hopewell and Seneca. Great Britain and the United States made peace in 1783 without providing for the Indian nations who had been allies of the king. At first each State made some attempts at an understanding with the Indians on its frontiers. Thus Georgia treated with the Creeks at Augusta, in 1783, pro- viding for peace and a cession of land. But it did not seem effec- tive. In 1785 Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, Joseph Martin and Lachlan McIntosh were appointed commissioners plenipoten- tiary of the United States to make peace with all the Indians of the south, to settle the international status of the red men and arrange satisfactory limits. Georgia and the Carolinas were very jealous of this, and it was made difficult for the commissioners to do business. McGillivray, of the Creeks, after much delay, re- ceived the invitation to treat, and replied, September 5, in a diplo- matic note that apparently meant that he had already made a treaty with Spain, and the United States were too late. Only two towns of the Creeks were represented at Galphinton, where they were invited. After the American commissioners refused to do business with so few, the Georgia agents, present to protest against the United States commissioners treating on limits, made with them a treaty purporting to open the Tallassee country to settle- ment. The commissioners went to the Keowee river to treat with the other nations, who were invited by Col. John Wood. "The agents of Georgia and North Carolina attended the treaty, as will appear by their protests herewith enclosed."-(Report to Presi- dent R. H. Lee.) A treaty with about a thousand Cherokees was concluded November 28, at Seneca, defining limits and recogniz- ing the supremacy of the United States. December 26 the Choctaw chiefs arrived, at Hopewell, "a seat of General Pickens," after a journey of seventy-seven days, "the whole of them almost naked." The Creeks had stolen their horses and done all they could to hinder the journey, but the Choctaws "have apparently a rooted aversion to the Spanish and Creeks, and are determined to put themselves under the protection of the United States." "They are the greatest beggars, and the most indolent creatures we ever saw," said the commissioners after a more protracted acquaint- ance. "Their passion for gambling and drinking is very great;" when given blankets they would trade them for a pint of rum, or lose them at play, when they knew they had five hundred miles to travel home, with only a shirt on their backs. But they were in earnest about seeking alliance with the United States. The chiefs brought their British medals and commissions, to exchange for American, of which, unfortunately there were none, and asked for three stand of colors. John Pitchlyn, "a very honest, sober young man," who had lived twelve years in the nation, was ap- pointed interpreter to the board. The treaty made with the Choctaws, January 3, 1786, was of friendship and alliance and confirmation of the bounds they had in 1782. The Chickasaws

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Encyclopedia of Mississippi History Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons, Vol. II, Part 97

Author: Dunbar Rowland Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant Number of Pages: 1020

Author: Dunbar Rowland
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Madison, Wis. : S.A. Brant
Number of Pages: 1020