USA > Oklahoma > A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I > Part 22
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The next Indians to avail themselves of the privileges of Cherokee citizenship were the Shawnees. By the treaty of 1825 (Treaty of November 7, 1825, in United States Statutes at Large Vol. VII) a re- serve had been granted them covering an area in the richest portion of what is now the state of Kansas 50 by 120 miles in ex- tent. By a subsequent treaty in 1854, they
ceded in deference to the demands of en- croaching civilization, all of this immense tract except 200,000 acres. Among those who so elected, the greater portion of this diminished reserve was divided into indi- vidual allotments of 200 acres each. Pat- ents were issued to the head of each family for the quantity thus allotted to the mem- bers of his or her family, with the power of alienation, subject to such restrictions as the secretary of the interior might pre- scribe. In course of time alienation was made by these allottees of the greater por- tion of their land; the money thus received was squandered with the thriftless prodi- gality that characterizes barbarous semi- civilized tribes the world over, and their improverished condition was rendered still more uncomfortable by the seeming deter- mination of the rapidly increasing white set- tlers to take possession of their few remain- ing lands.
In this unfortunate condition of affairs they turned their eyes for relief toward the country of the Cherokees. Negotiations were entered into which resulted in the conclusion of an agreement, under date of June 7, 1869, and which received the ap- proval of President Grant two days later. By the terms of this compact, the Shawnees then residing in Kansas, as well as their absentee brethren in the Indian Territory and elsewhere, who should enroll them- selves and permanently remove within two years to the Cherokee country, upon unoc- cupied lands east of 96°, should be incor- porated into, and ever after remain a part of the Cherokee Nation, with the same standing in every respect as native Chero- kees. In consideration of these benefits the Shawnees agreed to transfer to the Cherokee national fund a permanent an- nuity of $5,000 held by them under previ- ous treaties, in addition to the sum of $50,-
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000 to be derived from the sale of the ab- sentee Shawnee lands provided for by the resolution of Congress approved April 7, 1869. Under the provisions of this agree- ment, seven hundred and seventy Shawnees removed to and settled in the Cherokee country, as shown by the census roll filed (August 14, 1871) with the commissioner of Indian affairs.
The Osages, about whom so many of the early events of the Indian country revolved, after their removal from the dangerous proximity with the Creeks and Cherokees, were Kansas Indians until after the war. The treaty with the Cherokees in 1866 opened the way for the location of several Kansas tribes on the ceded territory west of the 96th meridian. The act of Congress, July 15, 1870, directed that the lands of the Great and Little Osages in Kansas should be sold and that the tribe should move to a part of the former Cherokee possessions, a part of the proceeds from the sale of the Kansas lands being devoted to the purchase of suitable lands. The pro- visions of the act were carried out, and the Osages took possession of their new lands. After they had lived there a year or so and had, it was claimed, built homes and made many valuable improvements on their lands, an accurate survey showed that the most
' It is hereby ordered that the following de- scribed tract of country in the Indian Territory, viz .: Commencing at the point where the Deep Fork of the Canadian river intersects the west boundary of the Sac and Fox Reservation; thence north along said west boundary to the south bank of the Cimarron river; thence up said Cimarron river to the Indian meridian; thence south along said Indian meridian to the Deep Fork of the Canadian river; thence down said Deep Fork to the place of beginning, be, and the same hereby is, set apart for the permanent use and occupation of the Iowa and such other Indians as the secretary of the interior may see fit to locate thereon.
' It is hereby ordered that the following de- scribed tract of country in the Indian Territory,
valuable portion of the Osage lands lay on the east side of the 96th meridian. In con- sequence an act of Congress, June 5, 1872, directed that a tract of country west of the 96th meridian, bounded "on the east by the 96th meridian, on the south and west by the north line of the Creek country and the main channel of the Arkansas, and on the north by the south line of Kansas," should be assigned as the permanent home of the Osages, with the proviso that the Kansas Indians should have a home in this tract.
The Iowas were assigned lands under executive order, dated August 15, 1883. Their lands lay west of the Sac and Fox reservation, bounded north by the Cimar- ron, south by the Deep Fork of the Ca- nadian, and west by the Indian meridian.ª
On the same date another executive order defined the Kickapoo reserve, which lay di- rectly south of the Iowa reserve, between the Deep Fork and the North Fork of the Canadian.º
Under provisions of the act of Congress approved March 3, 1881, the Otoe and Mis- souria tribes were assigned a reserve ag- gregating about 130,000 acres, lying south- west of the Arkansas river and east of the Indian meridian.1º
The Nez Perces, who occupied a block of
viz .: Commencing at the southwest corner of the Sac and Fox Reservation; thence north along the western boundary of said reservation to the Deep Fork of the Canadian river; thence up said Deep Fork to the point where it inter- sects the Indian meridian; thence south along said Indian meridian to the North Fork of the Canadian river; thence down said river to the place of beginning, be, and the same hereby is, set apart for the permanent use and occupation of the Kickapoo Indians.
" The lands of the Otoe and Missouria were thus described : T 22 N, R 1 E; T 23 N, R 1 E; T 22 N, R 2 E; T 23 N, R 2 E; T 22 N, R 3 E; and all of T 23 N, R 3 E, lying west of the Arkansas river.
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land on both sides of the Arkansas (con- sisting of four townships) just west of the Indian meridian, were northern Indians and under the act of March 3, 1885, were re- moved to reservations in Washington Ter- ritory and Idaho. Their homes and fields were then assigned to a remnant of the
" Beginning at the northwest corner of section 28, township 13 north, range 8 west of the Indian meridian, and running thence east to North Fork of the Canadian river; thence down this stream to the range line between ranges 7 and 8 west of the Indian meridian; thence south on said range line to the southeast corner of section 36, town- ship 13 north, range 8 west of the Indian meri- dian; thence east to the northeast corner of town- ship 12 north, range 8 west of the Indian meri-
once numerous Tonkawa tribe of Texas, who had been removed from that state to the Iowa reserve in October, 1884.
Fort Reno Military Reserve was set apart in accordance with a request approved July 17, 1883, containing about ten thousand acres.11
dian; thence south to the southeast corner of. sec- tion 12 of said township; thence west to the southwest corner of section 9 of said township; thence north to the northwest corner of section 4 of said township; thence west to the southwest corner of section 33, township 13 north, range 8 west of the Indian meridian; thence north to the point of beginning, containing an area of about 14 5-6 square miles, or 9,493 acres.
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PART III THE FORCES OF DISINTEGRATION
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CHAPTER XII
REVIEW OF WESTWARD EXPANSION
During the first four decades of the nine- teenth century the "Indian country" meant a large and broadly defined area west of the tier of states bordering the Mississippi river. The ten years before the Civil war · and the events of that war resulted, as we have seen, in a gradual concentration of In- dian population, until by 1870 the only large territory, with definite boundaries, belong- ing to the Indians, was the "Indian Terri- tory," as it was thereafter generally known until the state of Oklahoma was created.1
Having brought the account of this his- torical evolution to a point where "Indian Territory" is apparently segregated from the forces of American enterprise and civili- zation, it is now proper to review the events and influences that tend to break down the barriers around this Indian asylum, and that eventually overwhelmed and meta- morphosed the Indian under a more vigor- ous and productive race of American in- truders.
Jefferson and his contemporaries saw the solution of the Indian problem of their day in erecting an Indian reservation or state far beyond the western limits of civilization. Ideally they planned the raising of barriers around this Indian country beyond which the whites might never go, and doubtless were sincere in their expectation that the
1 The name "Indian Territory" was applied to the Indian country in official records at an early date. But it was not until after the state lines of Kansas had been drawn that the name acquired the geographical significance as describing a por- tion of the United States in distinction from other
tribes might thus be isolated and protected from the sinister influences of civilization until Indians had advanced to a degree of independence and culture where they would readily enter the Union on equal footing with other states.
Settlement overtook the retreating tribes before a single generation had passed in their new homes, and Indian Territory lay like a barren island dividing the currents of migration this side and that, until the time came when it was engulfed by the streams of white population that surged around.
No fault can be attributed to Jefferson that he could not foresee the rapid expan- sion of the settled country up to and be- yond the region designed for the Indians. In 1800 American population had advanced westward only a little beyond the line of the original colonies, except that Kentucky and other portions of the Ohio valley had received large bodies of pioneers following .in the wake of Boone. By 1810 the Missis- sippi was the westernmost limit of popula- tion. St. Louis, from a fur-trading post, has become an important center of settle- ment, population having spread northward above the mouth of the Missouri and south- ward along the Mississippi to the mouth of the Ohio. On the Arkansas, near the mouth, is a similar body of settlement.
political divisions. Though never a regularly or- ganized territory, the name was accepted and used in official records and in the geographies until "Indian Territory" passed out of existence on November 16, 1907.
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By 1820 the first assignment of lands in the Indian country had been made. East of the Mississippi nearly all the land has been occupied by settlement and divided up and admitted as six or seven states. Also Louisiana had been admitted, and north of that Missouri territory organized. Up the course of the Arkansas and the Missouri population had advanced in solid front, un- til in 1830 it had reached the first barrier of the Indian country, and paused in the river valleys to gather power for next move to the west.
During the decade preceding 1840 many important changes have occurred. From Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians have finally vacated their lands to the whites, and in the states north of the Ohio river many other tribes have been persuaded to abandon their lands and seek new homes in the Indian country. By 1840 population has crossed the Mississippi river into Iowa territory, and occupies a broad belt up and down that stream. In Missouri the settlements have spread northward from the Missouri river nearly to the boundary of the state, and southward until they cover most of the southern portion, and make connection in two places with the settle- ments of Arkansas. In Arkansas the set- tlements remain sparse, but have spread widely away from the streams, covering much of the prairie parts of the state. In 1840 as also in 1850 the western boundaries of Arkansas and Missouri mark the west- ern limits of any considerable population. South of Red river, with the admission of Texas to the Union, population had crowded along that river and by 1850 a considerable population lived along the south border of Indian Territory, from the vicinity of Gainesville, Sherman and Dal- las, east to the state line.
Between 1850 and 1860, before the out- break of the Civil war, many important changes were made in the geography of the west. The territory of New Mexico had been created, California and Oregon had been admitted as states, Utah and Washing- ton territories were formed, Minnesota had become a state, and, specially noteworthy, the Indian Territory had been decreased by the formation from that portion lying north of the 37th degree of latitude of the Kansas and Nebraska territories. In 1860 . the first extension of settlements is noted beyond the line of the Missouri river (the settlement of the Pacific coast region not being considered in this connection). Even before the war and the building of the first railroad to the far west, the march of set- tlement up the slope of the great plains had begun. By 1860 population was found west of the 97th meridian in Kansas and Nebraska, and in Texas the western ad- vance was even further.
Some momentous changes occurred in the situation during the decade from 1860 to 1870. The advance of population was very much interrupted during the war, but the progress during the years immediately following was facilitated by the opening of the first transcontinental railroad and by a general era of speculation and devel- opment after the close of the war. It is of particular interest to note that at the time the civilized nations of Indian Territory agreed to surrender most of their lands lying west of the 96th meridian, the line of settlement on the north, in Kansas, and on the south, in Texas, had already crossed that meridian, and the process of surround- ing Indian Territory with well settled states was rapidly being accomplished.
The forces operating to break down the barriers of isolation set up by the govern- ment around the Indian country are referred
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to by the commissioner of Indian affairs in his report of 1859.2 The commissioner says that most of the border tribes in Kansas and Nebraska were removed there from homes east of the Mississippi under assurances that they would have a permanent home. Vari- ous causes operated to render their isola- tion impossible. "Amongst the most mis- chievous and fatal of which were their pos- session of too great an extent of country, held in common, and the right to large money annuities; the one giving them ample scope for indulgence in their unsettled and vagrant habits and preventing them from acquiring a knowledge of individuality in property and the advantages of settled homes; the other fostering idleness and want of thrift, and giving them the means of gratifying their depraved tastes and ap- petites. And though located separate and apart by themselves, they were yet in con- tact or within easy communication with a border population, and so constantly ex- posed to the examples of the various vices from which it was intended to shield them.
"Then came the acquisition of our new possessions west of them [by the Mexican war], and the consequent, inevitable and continued sweep of emigration thereto, through every portion of their country. Thus was the barrier of separation swept away, and they became subject to constant contact. Their best interests, if not their very existence, rendered an entire change of policy toward them necessary, viz .: their concentration on small reserva- tions, to be divided among them in sev- eralty, where they could be protected and compelled to adopt habits of industry.
The conditions brought about by this in-
'Sen. Doc. 1st Sess., 36th Cong., Vol. I, p. 379. ""The great and sudden influx of population into Kansas, embracing a large class of persons Vol. 1-10
vasion and breaking up of the old Indian country led to the act of 1853, authorizing negotiations "with the Indian tribes west of the states of Missouri and Iowa, for the purpose of securing the assent of said tribes to the settlement of the citizens of the United States upon the lands claimed by said Indians, and for the purpose of ex- tinguishing the title of said Indian tribes, in whole or in part, to said lands."
The creation of the Kansas and Nebraska territories was the greatest factor in pre- venting the consummation of the plan of Indian concentration proposed by Monroe and Calhoun. The influences set in motion by the colonization of Kansas might be traced to their final result in the opening of Oklahoma. The aggressive character of the movement, by which Kansas was won to the Union, was later continued in the organized invasion of Payne and his followers and in the persistent agitation for the opening of the Indian lands to settle- ment. Speaking, in 1873, of some phases of this question, Gen. Francis A. Walker said : "In 1855-56 occurred the great move- ment, mainly under a political impulse, which carried population beyond the Mis- souri. In two or three years the tribes and bands which were native to Kansas or Nebraska, as well as those which had been removed from states east of the Mississippi, were suffering the worst effects of white intrusion. Of the free-state party, not a few zealous members seemed disposed to compensate themselves for their benevolent efforts on behalf of the negro by crowding the Indian to the wall; while the slavery propagandists steadily maintained their con- sistency by persecuting the members of both the inferior races."3
having but little regard for the obligations of law, and none whatever for the rights and welfare of the Indians, has rendered the administration of
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"In 1867-8," continues the author just quoted, "the great plough of industrial civilization drew its deep furrow across the continent, from the Missouri to the Pacific, as a sign of dissolution to the immediate possessors of the soil. Already [1874] the Pacific Railroad has brought changes which, without it, might have been delayed for half a century. Not only has the line of settle- ment been made continuous from Omaha to Sacramento, so far as the character of the
the affairs of this branch of the public service in that Territory peculiarly embarrassing."-From report of the commissioner of Indian affairs, 1859.
soil will permit; but from a score of points upon the railroad population has gone north and gone south, following up the courses of the streams, and searching out every trace of gold upon the mountains, till recesses have been penetrated which five years ago were scarcely known to trappers and guides. . The lapse of another five years will find every reservation be- tween the Mississippi and the Rocky moun- tains surrounded and to a degree penetrated by prospectors and pioneers, miners, ranch- men, or traders."
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CHAPTER XIII
THE CATTLE INDUSTRY AND INDIAN TERRITORY
The range cattle industry in Texas dur- ing the years following the Civil war was among the most powerful agencies, if not the chief force, in dissolving the solidarity of the Indian country. This fact has not been generally apprehended, but sufficient arguments, it is believed, are at hand to prove the assertion.
Cattle raising in Texas at the middle of the last century was largely confined to the southern and eastern parts of the state, and, compared with the business of later years, only a small quantity left the state for outside markets. New Orleans was the principal cattle market before the war, though during the latter fifties St. Louis and Memphis also received some large herds of Texas beeves.
The commencement of hostilities broke all commercial relations between the north and south, cattle drives across the country stopped, the blockade of gulf ports ended the foreign export business, and the Texas herds were scattered over the plains and running wild among the mesquite and buffalo-grass pastures, multiplied until mil- lions of mavericks, it was estimated, roamed the deserted ranges. The revival of the cattle business after the war was swifter than that which followed in other industries. Many poor but enterprising cowmen col- lected and branded the half-wild cattle of the plains, and in a short time Texas was ready to supply an enormous quantity of beef to the northren markets. The fact that war-time prices prevailed in those mar- kets for some time after the war gave a cheaper and more advantageous in every 147
decided impetus to Texas stock-raising. Thousands of cattle were driven across Red river during 1866.
Then in 1867 a new status was given the cattle traffic. Up to that time the Missouri river had furnished the nearest and most convenient shipping points for Texas cat- tlemen. In that year the Kansas Pacific Railroad reached out through central Kan- sas, and at the station of Abilene, Joseph G. McCoy built immense cattle pens and planned a shipping point at which the cattle trails from the south and southwest should converge and disgorge the long-traveled herds into cars, thence to be hurried over steel rails to the abattoirs and packing houses of the east. By 1868 Abilene had not only gained a reputation as "the wick- edest and most God-forsaken place on the continent," but had won the favor of many cattlemen as a convenient shipping point, so that the trail-herds were pointed in in- creasing number toward Abilene. Along with more favorable marketing conditions, came an advance of the cattle industry into western Texas, the result of which was further to extend the activities of the white race around the Indian Territory. It is estimated that 300,000 head of cattle were driven from Texas, across the Indian Ter- ritory, to Kansas points in 1870, and twice that number went in the following year.
Up to this time not a single line of rail- road directly connected the cattle ranges of Texas with the markets of the Mississippi valley and the north, and yet it was much
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way to drive the herds along the trails to the north than to send the cattle out through the gulf ports. But with the year 1872 came a change. The Santa Fe reached the Colorado line in that year, traversing southern Kansas and establishing such shipping points as Dodge City. In the same year the M. K. & T. built its line through eastern Indian Territory to Den- ison, Texas. About the same time the Texas and Pacific was being extended from Texarkana across northern Texas toward El Paso. Thus on the north, east and south, Indian Territory was hemmed in by the greatest instrument of civilization, the railroad, and directly through the country of the five nations one line had cut a chan- nel from which the influences of the enter- prising white race were bound to pervade its tributary region.
But the railroad across the Indian coun- try was only the successor and partial sub- stitute for the route that had already been defined and much used by the cattlemen. Following about the course now made a permanent highway by the M. K. & T. Railroad, the cowboys during the sixties drove their herds over what was generally called the "Baxter Springs Trail." Indian Territory was marked by the most famous of the old cattle trails. West of the Baxter Springs route was the "Shawnee trail," passing through the Osage nation to Abi- lene, which was much used during the ascendancy of Abilene as a shipping cen- ter. Further to the west than either of these was the famous "Chisholm" or "Chisum" trail, which took its name from Jesse Chisholm, a half-breed Indian, and one of the earliest stockmen of the Terri- tory. This trail came into prominence after the custom had been established of trans- ferring the southern cattle to the northern ranges, there to be held and fattened for
market. Beginning at the Red river, it crossed the western portion of the present Oklahoma into Kansas, and during the sev- enties so many cattle were driven this way that it presented the appearance of a wide, beaten highway stretching for miles across the country.
From this brief outline of the Texas cattle industry it is easy to understand how Indian Territory was directly affected. South of the Territory were the greatest cattle ranges of the country, with their thousands or cattle to be marketed an- nually. In the north and east were the markets. Indian Territory lay directly in the path of the herds, whether they were driven to market or to northern ranges. Under these circumstances, it was almost inevitable that the cattle trails wound across the Indian reservations, and that in time railroads were built along the same general routes and made permanent connection be- tween the grazing grounds of Texas and the packing centers of the Missouri river. At the same time, Indian Territory offered as fine range for cattle as Texas, and not only did the herds graze broadly over the several trails across the Territory, but the opportunity of fine pasturage and easy leasehold was seized by many cowmen who used the Indian lands as a breeding ground. How long could the barriers around the Indian nations obstruct the invading whites, when an army of cowboys each season lingered along the trails, resting their herds on the best pastures and often wintering their cattle in the valleys?
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