Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 96

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032

USA > Mississippi > Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II > Part 96

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Governor Scott, in 1833, vetoed a bill for the division of Yazoo county, asserting the principle of the national constitution that treaties are the supreme law of the land. It was expressly stipu- lated in the treaty of 1830 that the Choctaws might in part remain until the fall of 1833, and that the lands within the Choctaw dis- trict should not be sold until then, with the obvious intention of preventing settlements until that date. But the legislature passed the bill almost unanimously over the veto.

The treaty of 1830 with the Choctaws was made at the council ground between the two prongs of Dancing Rabbit creek (Chukfi ahihla bok, literally, Rabbit-there-dances creek) in what is now the bounds of Noxubee county. The spot was about a hundred yards west of the well-known spring that bears the same name as the creek. The Chickasaw trail to the southern Choctaw towns (Six towns) ran by this spring, and Tecumseh traveled that way in 1811. This was the first Indian treaty at which the United States commissioners arrived in carriages. Maj. John H. Eaton and Gen. John Coffee, of Tennessee, close friends of President Andrew Jackson, were the commissioners, and they were in- structed by the president to fail not to make a treaty. Gen. George S. Gaines was the commissary, and collected provisions for three thousand persons for one week. On their arrival the commis- sioners found a large number of Choctaws assembled, and the Indians continued to come and go throughout the negotiations, the estimate being that from first to last there were six thousand in camp, bringing with them many supplies, as the Indians were very sensitive about their independence. The people of the three mingoes, Leflore, Moshuli-topee and Nittakechi, were given sep-

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arate camps. Leflore was attired in citizen clothes, which made some of the more ignorant Indians imagine he was in collusion with the whites; Moshuli-topee wore a new blue uniform presented by General Jackson; Nittakechi was glorious in hunting shirt and leggins, a bright colored shawl, silver bands and gorgets. The Christian party, under David Folsom, spent the evenings in sing- ing and prayer; more sought the gambling tables and drinking places opened by the white rabble that followed the commissioners. "By a strange paradox in the nature of the Choctaws, than whom no more chaste race ever existed, there was no licentiousness what- ever at Dancing Rabbit." The commissioners went to great trouble to drive away the missionaries and allowed the faro tables to remain unmolested. The talk began September 18, Eaton do- ing most of that work, and John Pitchlynn serving as interpreter. It is unnecessary to detail what was said. It was a repetition of - what had been said in previous treaties, reinforced by the threat that if the Choctaws did not now make an arrangement with the United States they would be left to the laws of Mississippi, or to escape therefrom at their own expense.

At their first consideration of the proposition, Little Leader proposed to make war to hold their lands; other chiefs recited the stories of the wars they had fought for the United States and the injustice of the present demand, and only one councilman, Killi- hota, who was in fact an agent of the government, voted for re- moval. Eaton's intemperate reply to this decision caused many of the Indians to leave the camp and go home. There was a small party, however, disposed to make the best of necessity, the leader of these being Greenwood Leflore, who took part in framing an- other proposition, which after some stormy discussions, was made ready to sign September 27th. When it was presented, the In- dians refused to sign, and Eaton made the greatest effort of his life, in an eloquent portrayal of the situation of the Choctaws. He was successful, thus, in causing the chiefs and headmen to affix their names, in a panic, after which there was tremendous excite- ment, and threats of personal violence upon the commissioners. Colonel Gaines was called upon as a pacificator, and he agreed to act as exploring agent in the west for the Choctaws, and join with Reynolds the Chickasaw agent, in persuading that nation to go west and live with the Choctaws. The commissioners beat a hasty retreat and Gaines was able to reduce the excited red men to a condition of quiet despair at last. It was Lincecum's testimony that "no treaty could have been made but for the solemn assur- ances of the commissioners that all might stay and keep their homes who did not wish to go, and the Indians distinctly under- stood that this was put down as part of the treaty."

The treaty was finally signed September 27, 1830, and among other provisions recited that, "the United States under a grant specially to be made by the President of the U. S. shall cause to be conveyed to the Choctaw Nation a tract of country west of the Mississippi river, in fee simple to them and their descendants, to

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inure to them while they shall exist as a nation and live on it, beginning near Fort Smith where the Arkansas boundary crosses the Arkansas river, running thence to the source of the Canadian Fork, if in the limits of the United States, or to those limits; thence due south to Red river, and down Red river to the west boundary of the Territory of Arkansas; thence north along that line to the beginning the Choctaw nation of Indians con- sent and hereby cede to the United States, the entire country they own and possess, east of the Mississippi river; and they agree to move beyond the Mississippi river, early as practicable, and will so arrange their removal, that as many as possible of their people not exceeding one-half of the whole number, shall depart during the falls of 1831 and 1832; the residue to follow during the suc- ceeding fall of 1833. Then ensued certain stipulations providing that self-government should be secured to the Choctaws within their western limits, subject only to the constitution, laws and treaties of the U. S .; that the United States yield the same protec- tion to the Choctaws that it gives to the citizens of the U. S. ; that offenders within the nation be delivered up to the U. S. authori- ties for punishment when the rights of a U. S. citizen is involved ; that offences against the Choctaws by U. S. citizens be referred to the president for equitabe adjustment ; that only duly authorized traders shall be permitted within the nation; that all navigable streams shall be free to the Choctaws; that postoffices, military post roads, and posts, as deemed necessary, may be established within the nation by the U. S .; that all intruders shall be removed from the nation; that the right of private property shall be always respected, and only taken for public purposes on the payment of due compensation to the owner, and that a qualified agent be ap- pointed for the Choctaws every four years, who shall fix his residence convenient to the great body of the people, respect to be paid the wishes of the Choctaw nation in the selection of said agent immediately after the ratification of the treaty. Article XLV declared: "Each Choctaw head of a family being desirous to remain and become a citizen of the United States, shall be per- mitted to do so, by signifying his intention to the Agent within six months from the ratification of this treaty, and he or she shall thereupon be entitled to a reservation of one section of six hundred and forty acres of land, to be bounded by sectional lines of sur- vey ; in like manner shall be entitled to one-half that quantity for each unmarried child which is living with him over 10 years of age, to adjoin the location of the parent. If they reside upon said lands intending to become citizens of the States for five years after the ratification of this treaty, in that case a grant in fee simple shall issue ; said reservation shall include the present improvement of the head of the family, or a portion of it. Persons who claim un- der this article shall not lose the privilege of a Choctaw citizen, but if they ever remove are not to be entitled to any portion of the Choctaw annuity." The succeeding article made special reservations of four sections of land to each of the principal chiefs ;

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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 have 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, 709), "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.

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Mississippi : comprising sketches of towns, events, institutions, and persons, arranged in cyclopedic form Vol. II, Part 96

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association Number of Pages: 1032

Author: Rowland, Dunbar, 1864-1937, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: Atlanta, Southern Historical Publishing Association
Number of Pages: 1032