A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 23

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.)
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pubishing Company
Number of Pages: 645

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During the early '8os the range cattle industry reached the climax of its develop- ment.1 The western ranges were occupied with cattle from southern Texas to Mon- tana. A large number of cattle owners of that period thought they had more or less " "Prose and Poetry of the Cattle Industry."

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permanently provided themselves with ranges of the best pasturage to be found in the whole country, by leasing lands from the Indian Territory tribes. This practice was continued until a large part of the In- dian Territory was occupied for maturing herds of Texas stock on the blue grass of the country. Wire fences were first intro- duced about this time, and most of the op- erators in the Territory fenced their leased lands. Their business was controlled almost exclusively by white men who were not con- nected by marriage with any Indian tribe and could not be citizens of the Territory.

The story of the triangular conflict be- tween the cattlemen, the Oklahoma boom- ers, and the Indian citizens reveals, as might be expected, many points of view, and a decision on the merits of the different parties would be difficult to arrive at. In the work, "Prose and Poetry of the Live Stock Industry" (Kansas City, 1904), which presumably states the cattlemen's side of the question, the occupation of In- dian lands and the eviction by executive order in 1885 are described as follows (pp. 689-690) :

"The division of the Territory and the creation of a new territory for white people from its western part had been in contem- plation, and attempts had been made, in anticipation of this, by parties of white men, to settle in districts containing fine agricultural lands; but these attempts had been frustrated by the stockmen. It is to be said to the credit of the latter that they believed the Indian tribes had full power to lease their lands, and therefore that the leases were valid. The govern- ment recognized the cattlemen only as tres- passers and declared their leases to be void, and in August, 1885, President Cleveland issued an executive order directing them to vacate at once.

"The executive order of 1885 caused a profound sensation throughout cattledom in the west, and produced consternation among the stockmen directly affected by it. Their situation indeed was a hard one. The stock business was in a state of collapse, . . the country was full of cattle, the range land everywhere seemed to be crowded. . Hundreds of thousands of cattle had to be taken out of the Terri- tory immediately. The stockmen had sent a committee to Washington to plead for a few months' delay. . The presi- dent's reply was that he had no discretion in the matter, that no modification of the order was possible. . . The cattle- men got out of the Indian Territory in the autumn of that year." The removal at that time, when market was in collapse, entailed " the loss of thousands of cattle on the drives and the sacrifice of great values in disposing of the stock.

"It would seem," continuing the quota- tion, "that proceedings so arbitrary and that worked hardships and losses so great as were imposed upon these trespassing stockmen were unjust, though they were strictly lawful. A few months for prepa- ration for the change could have made no practical difference to the federal govern- ment, nor to the people who were looking forward to the opportunities for acquiring homesteads in the new territory.

These Indian Territory stockmen were 'set out' with as much indifference to the con- sequences as any that has characterized the dispossession of Irish peasantry. It is easy enough to say that the stockmen were tres- passers, but to one familiar with circum- stances and conditions and ways of think- ing in the west at that time, this offhand disposition of the matter will not meet with approval."

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CHAPTER XIV

THE WHITE INTRUSION

"Silent immigration," said John C. Cal- houn over sixty years ago, would save Ore- gon for the American Union. It had saved Texas to the Union, as Calhoun knew. "Silent immigration" has been the instru- ment of the "manifest destiny" of a large part of the Union, and it was the silent immigration of the "white intruders" of Indian Territory that promoted the failure of the original plans for the Indian asy- lum.

The rush of population to the coast after the discovery of gold, the fight for a free- state in Kansas, the cattle traffic, were each in its time a powerful factor in breaking up the Indian reservation system. But all to- gether they could not equal the steady, persistent power exerted by the "intruder" class. For many years intrusion was an in- sidious influence, working with an effect that was not comprehended, and beyond the power of laws to prevent. . No doubt the ideal of those who first planned the coloni- zation of the Indians in a region by them- selves was that in this way the race might be preserved in its original purity. Such an ideal was impossible of attainment. Even before the removal of the tribes to the west, the intermarriage of whites and Indians had given some of the most aristocratic families of the old southern states a trace of Indian blood. And this amalgamation of the races has gone on steadily ever since. White traders, Indian agents, individuals coming to the Indian country either as refugees or led thither by a longing for the

wild life and its occupations, readily took Indian wives, were often adopted into the tribes and became Indian citizens. This mingling of the races, it must be under- stood, began, or rather continued, from the time the Indians were established in the In- dian country. The earliest travelers, whose accounts are elsewhere referred to, mention the presence of white men in this country. The French trappers and hunters, employes of the great fur companies, traversed all the regions about the Arkansas and Red rivers, and left as memorials' of their stay the French names of many streams and locali- ties that are found in Oklahoma geography.

From year to year this intrusion of the members of the alien race continued to bear its fruits. Calhoun invented an apt phrase when he described it as "silent immigra- tion," for only after the lapse of many years can its results be clearly appreciated. În discussing the results of white intrusion in Indian Territory, it is natural to refer to the historic parallel in Texas, where, con- trary to and in spite of the most strenuous opposition of the Spanish and Mexican au- thorities, Americans colonized in Texas in great numbers until finally their strength was sufficient to enable them to assert com- plete independence of the nation under whose authority they had first submitted, and to wrest an entire province from Mex- ico and eventually add it to the American Union. In Indian Territory the invasion was similar, but for many years was unor- ganized, and only when it became sys-

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tematic under the leadership of Payne and Couch did the large results follow which make the historic parallel between the open- ing of Oklahoma and the conquest of Texa

By We Indian intercourse act of 1834, it was made a criminal offense to enter without authority the limits of any Indian reservation. But the penalties prescribed were not sufficient to repel the organized and persistent invasion of later years. Even before the war, the Indian Territory had a large population of the intruder class, and during the decade of the sixties this invasion went on to such an extent as to excite the alarm of the Indians and those charged by the government with caring for the Indians.

In later years, when it was sought to justify the presence of large bodies of white people on Indian lands, it was argued that the Indians themselves were responsible for such a condition, and that they had invited the white settlers to come among them. To a large degree this was true. The Indians did not fail to be attracted by the proposi- tions made by enterprising whites for the use of their lands, and when the cattlemen, in their search for new range, appealed to the Indian's cupidity by offering to lease for what seemed a substantial money con- sideration the vacant Indian pastures, there developed very soon a regular system of leasing and permits which brought an in- creasing number of white men into the Ter- ritory with every year.

The result of the leasing of Indian lands to white settlers in breaking down the iso- lation of the Indian Territory was foreseen in an attempt to secure such a lease in the very beginning of the concentration policy. In the winter of 1836-37, says McCoy, "an attempt, on a small scale, had been made to introduce into the Indian Territory a

principle which, in its effects, would have become subversive of all that gives security to the Indians in the possession of their lands. A man, whose opportunities had given him reputation and influence, con- ceived the idea of improving his circum- stances, which, through bad management, had become much embarrassed, by obtain- ing a location among the Delawares. By his address he had acquired a great influ- ence over them; he professed great regard for them, pointed out ways in which he could promote their interests, and proposed that they should lease to him, for a given length of time, a mile square of land with- in their country. To a measure of this kind the consent of the government of the United States was necessary. Four Dela- wares, therefore, two of whom were chiefs, were induced to accompany him to Wash- ington, to present to the department of In- dian affairs the request that the government would allow the conveyance to be made, to which they attached some other requests. To a general council of the Delawares these matters had been presented in a manner so plausible that the council had agreed to pay the expenses attendant on the journey out of the next annuity which they would receive from the United States. In the meantime their flattering friend was to ad- vance money on loan to them.

"Soon after the departure of the delega- tion, the propriety of what they had done was questioned by the tribe. They in- formed me of the circumstance, and that they had even gone so far as to request the secretary of war to advance to the delega- tion what funds they should need, and de- duct the amount from the annuities due the Delaware nation. They now repented sore- ly of their error, and wrote a letter, through their agent, to the secretary of war counter to the former.

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"It was evident that if the Delawares, or any other Indians, should be allowed the liberty of leasing land to white people, their country would soon be filled with the lat- ter, and they would be crowded out. If liberty should be given to lease for a few years, the same principle would admit of a lease of many years; and if allowed to lease to one man, they would be allowed to do the same to another. The consequence would be that valuable tracts of land would be wrested from them. First, such as lay nearest the white settlements would be se- cured to white men, who, by paying the chiefs liberally, or to their satisfaction, even should the consideration be ardent spirits, would purchase their consent to lease these lands. The principle of leasing would, in fact, be tantamount to the privilege of sell- ing." In this instance the design was frus- trated, because the department of war re- fused to transact any business with the dele- gation.

The intrusion of the white people as the result of which the majority of the popu- lation of the Indian Territory was com- posed of people of white blood a number of years before the Dawes Commission was appointed, came about through a system of permits and the hiring of non-citizens to work and perform the mechanical labor of the Indians. In the laws of the Cherokee Nation for 1875 we find some of the pro- visions by which white citizens legally came into the Territory and secured a foothold from which they could not again be driven. One of these is the so-called drovers' tax by which non-citizens of the Cherokee Na- tion who wished to drive stock through the nation might do so by paying certain fees ranging from one cent a head for lambs and kids to five cents a head for cattle and horses and larger animals. Keeping stock in the nation longer than was necessary

for the passage subjected the drover to an additional tax. A second provision relat- ing to the transaction of mercantile busi- ness in the nation imposed a tax equal to one fourth of one per cent on all bills of purchase by the merchant, and provided a fine for a transaction of such business without license. But the most important of these laws was that which permitted the Indians to hire citizens of the United States. "Any citizen of this nation who shall desire to hire or employ a citizen of the United States as a laborer or mechanic, shall be and is hereby required to obtain therefor a license from the clerk of the district wherein such person may reside. but no permit shall be granted for a longer period than one year." A bond was required for the good behavior of the employee. The Cherokee Laws for 1892 provided a tax of one dollar per head on all cattle brought into the Cherokee Nation east of the ninety-sixth meridian. And by these laws it cost a citizen fifty cents per month to hire a non-citizen, it being stipu- lated that such non-citizens should be em- ployed for some useful purpose.

The Choctaw and Chickasaw nations had similar laws regulating the bringing in of non-citizens and trade and intercourse with- in the limits of their nation. The law of the Chickasaw Nation with reference to the hiring of non-citizens was: "That citizens of any state or territory of the United States wishing to hire or rent land or be otherwise employed in this nation shall be required to enter into a contract with a citi- zen, and after contract was agreed upon the non-citizen shall place in the hands of the citizen a sufficient amount of money to pay permits. (Chickasaw Laws 1876.) The other provisions of the Chickasaw law concerning merchants and residence of non-citizens are similar to

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those already quoted from the Cherokee Laws.1

An analysis of the intruder question was made by the commissioner of Indian affairs in his report for 1892, in which he quotes the following from the report of the agent at Union Agency :

' An interesting account of the origin of the intruder class and their relation with the Chicka- saw and Choctaw nations, was published by R. W. McAdams in 1891. It is evidently written from the standpoint of the intruder class, but in sub- stance its statements are correct. The account follows :

"The abolition of slavery was for many years a block to Chickasaw and Choctaw progress. Be- fore the war such agricultural development as was done was the result of slave labor. With free- dom the ex-slaves became as indolent as the ex- masters. The plow was idle and Texas cattle companies utilized at nominal cost the rich ranges of the prairie lands. Aside from the intermar- ried whites, many of whom were industrious, law- abiding citizens, the class of white people who inhabited or rather sojourned in the Indian coun- try were as a rule interlopers, stock thieves and refugees from justice. It is easy to imagine the state of affairs under such conditions. Contact with this type of civilization did not elevate the Indian. It demoralized him. The Indian Terri- tory and crime became synonymous. Many of the prominent citizens who prior to the war had culti- vated large farms by slave labor, began to realize the necessity of a class of white farm laborers in the country. To induce farmers to settle in the nation a permit law was passed, fix- ing the annual permit at twenty-five cents. The non-citizen paid the fee to his landlord and the landlord procured the permit through the county clerk, the recording fee being twenty-five cents. This law had the desired effect. Hundreds of whites began to emigrate from adjacent states and cultivate land for the Indians under a liberal system of tenancy. The Indians now began to realize that a source of wealth to themselves as individuals and a nation was to be derived from this system. Unfitted by hereditary habit and prejudice for the performance of manual labor, they perceived a simple means of gratifying their idle propensity and amassing wealth at the same time. The rich valleys were gradually cleared and put in cultivation. Log cabins and , rail fences sprang up where had been a primeval wilderness. As settlements became more plenti- ful, the condition of the intermarried citizens and mixed-bloods improved accordingly, as they were

"The intruder seems to flourish princi- pally in the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chick- asaw Nations, there being no intruders at this time among the Seminoles and very few among the Creeks. The Seminoles are seldom troubled with intruders.

"In the Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chick- . the classes most benefited, being the most thrifty and enterprising. A great majority of the full- bloods had neither the foresight nor the energy to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the tenant system, and as a natural conse- quence the shrewder elements mentioned sup- planted them in the possession of the common do- main. About the year 1876, during the adminis- tration of Governor Overton, a radical change in the tribal policy toward non-citizens was adopted. Up to that time many thousands of cattle had been permitted to graze in the country, the for- eign cattle companies evading the cattle tax law by allowing their herds to be held in the name of tribal citizens, who, of course, received fitting remuneration for this deceit. The government, being thus cheated out of its revenue, determined to correct this abuse by driving out the cattle. No revenue arising from the twenty-five cent permit fee, it was determined to raise the fee to twenty-five dollars per annum, which was done by legislative enactment. This action being deemed oppressive and unjust by the non-citizen element, many refused payment when called on for their permits. Now began a vigorous cam- paign on the part of the tribal government against non-permit-paying white tenants and evaders of the cattle tax law. Governor Overton was a man well fitted for carrying out aggressive measures, his hatred of the whites being equaled only by his unscrupulous cupidity. Thoroughly organizing the militia and personally directing its movements through the country, he marched from farm to farm, leaving in his track devastated homes and driving before him like so many cattle the evicted men, women and children with their stock and household effects. The majority of these 'intrud- ers,' rather than be forcibly dispossessed of their homes, paid Overton the extortionate permit fee, which he appropriated for the wages of the militiamen, in direct violation of his own laws. There was no formality in these collections, many of which were never accounted for. Thousands of cattle were driven out of the country, and the majesty of tribal law was completely vindicated. About two years after this raid the injustice of the $25 permit law became so glaring that it was amended so as to reduce the fee to $5. This re- duction served to start the current of white im-

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asaw Nations the intruder question is the most vexatious of all the complications which have arisen among these people, and the situation is constantly becoming more difficult to grasp. The want of any law to punish intrusion has encouraged this nu- merous class in their encroachments upon the Indian lands and in their disregard for Indian rights or the laws of the Indian country. All efforts thus far made to have Congress provide a penalty for this class of lawlessness have been futile. Section 2148, Revised Statutes United States, is a dead letter and can not be enforced. Many persons who have been removed as intrud-

migration again, and the hardy pioneers of civil -. ization began to hew them homes in the sombre forests. The discovery of coal at McAlester (1876) marked an important epoch in the prog- ress of these nations. The development of the mines and the completion of the M., K. & T. rail- road brought many non-citizen laborers to the Choctaw Nation, which in the matter of white emigration was behind the Chickasaw. Up to the date of the construction of the G., C. & S. F. rail- road through the Chickasaw Nation, the develop- ment of the country was steady, but dating from that time (1887) the word most expressive of this progress is 'boom.' Thousands of American citizens poured into the country, allured by the prosperity of those who had gone before. They had heard of the fertile wilderness where crops could be gathered for the planting and taxation and mortgages were but memories of less favored climes. The towns which sprang up along the new railroad grew rapidly, but their pace was none too fast for the progress of the country. Now was the full-blood Indian's chance to become an independent lord of broad acres tilled by Anglo-Saxon husbandmen; but the echoes of prog- ress, if they reached him in his forest retreat, did not awaken a responsive chord in his stolid nature. The citizens who reaped the benefits were generally those who already had as much land as they were entitled to under an equitable allotment. During the spring and summer of 1888 a difficulty arose between the tribal government and many non-citizens, which for a time assumed a serious aspect. In the matter of a cattle tax the Chicka- saws had gone from the extreme of 1215 cents per annum to a law, the enforcement of which meant $1 per head per month. This law was restrictive,

ers have returned even after a second re- moval. Congress ought to amend section 2148, Revised Statutes, so as to provide a penalty of imprisonment and fine, not a judgment of debt which the courts are un- able to collect. Then when removals are made the parties could be kept out or pun- ished as they ought to be for again intrud- ing.

"There are three classes of those denom- inated intruders, divided into, first, non- citizens who are refugees from justice in the states, many under assumed names to hide their identity, who had no regard for the laws of the states from which they fled

and meant to be. Under its operation the non- citizen farmer could hold but five head of milch cows and calves, besides his oxen. As might be supposed, those whose cattle exceeded the limit disregarded the law. Governor Guy took the field with his militia to enforce the collection of the tax. He confiscated enough stock from each farmer's herd to cover the amount of tax due, and rounded them up in the vicinity of Overbrook. The farmers armed and organized for protection. The spirit which animated the 'Boston Tea Party' -a sense of the injustice of taxation without rep- resentation, and resentment of oppressive discrim- ination-fired their hearts. A party of 'rebels' under the command of Capt. George Stewart, marched to where the cattle were held by the tax collector and his posse, and with the stars and stripes floating at the head of their column, de- manded the return of their stock. The collector refused the demand, and the cattle were taken by: the farmers, without resistance, in the sovereign name of American citizenship. The leaders of the non-citizens were taken to Fort Smith for trial, charged with assault with intent to murder, and promptly discharged by the United States commissioner there. Some of the cattle confis- cated during this raid were sold at public sale by the tribal government, as provided by the stock law, the proceeds being appropriated by the nation. The parties buying these cattle shipped them to Kansas City for market, where they were replevied and damages recovered by the lawful owners. It is said many head of cattle thus confiscated and sold were never re- covered by their owners, nor was recompense made for the loss."

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and have none for the Indian laws nor rights, but who engage in whisky peddling, gambling, and various sharp practices to gain a dollar or two. This class is now comparatively small and is not increasing in numbers, because their natural inclina- tion leads to crime and their arrest and imprisonment soon follows. The advent of the United States court in this Territory has made their business and residence inse- cure and many of this class have sought more promising fields in the west.

"The second class is composed of those non-citizens whose inclination is to observe and obey the laws of the country where they live, but who have been forced into the intruder class by the acts of the Indians themselves. There are many of this class in the Chickasaw Nation and few in the other nations. The greater part of the agricultural development of this country has been the work of 'permitted' non-citizens who, under contracts with individual Indian citi- zens, have broken out a stipulated acreage of land, erected fences, houses and outbuild- ings, and in return for their money and labor thus expended under such contracts enjoy the use of these improvements and land for a term of from three to twenty or more years. Although this kind of contract is a violation of the laws, that fact is many times unknown to the non-citizen at the time of making the contract. Often the Indian citizen procures a permit for his leaser for the first year, during which year the non-citizen makes about all of the con- tracted improvements at a cost of hundreds of dollars. In many instances dissensions then arise and the Indian refuses to have the permit renewed, and the non-citizen is placed on the intruder list and his removal demanded. In such cases this agency holds that the Indian ought in equity to pay the non-citizen for his investments before such

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 23

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.) Publication date: 1908 Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pubishing Company Number of Pages: 645

Author: Hill, L. B. (Luther B.)
Publication date: 1908
Publisher: Chicago : Lewis Pubishing Company
Number of Pages: 645