A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 3

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

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The Indian Territory was the largest undertaking of local government ever at- tempted by the federal power, and to judge of the results by the plans and hopes ex- pressed at the beginning, it must be called a colossal failure. Yet for years public opinion and government action were di- rected to the great philanthropy of main- taining the integrity of the Indian race behind the boundaries placed around it. Such barriers proved powerless to restrain

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

the greed of individual whites, the commer- cial enterprise that took profit from In- dians, and the criminal element that found refuge with barbarism, until finally, one after another, these barriers were thrown down and the superior race rushed in to occupy and assimilate and create a state that is magnificent in its wealth and activities.

As prefacing the chapters that follow, a brief outline will indicate the history of Oklahoma through the various stages of its evolution to statehood.

It was of no material consequence that Coronado and his army of conquest marched into the wild and scantily popu- lated region now included in Oklahoma. That was in the sixteenth century. The grass and flowers trampled beneath the feet of these adventurers revived and bloomed again after their passage, and the only local traces of that romantic event were the frag- mentary traditions that survived among some of the Indians who had gazed in won- der at the European invaders. During the seventeenth century the Oklahoma land- scape flourished in its wildness as it had in centuries before the discovery of America. Interesting and valuable though the re- searches may be by which the archeologist seeks, with partial success, to restore to human records the life of these pre-historic ages, the scope of this work must pass them by as affording no light on the evolution of Oklahoma.

A paragraph will suffice to describe an- other phase of history introducing the main narrative. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the French established a powerful colony at the mouth of the Mis- sissippi, and by their rivalry with Spain extended their commercial enterprise along the courses of the western rivers tributary

to the Mississippi. Throughout that cen- tury the trappers, hunters and traders in French employ explored and carried their occupation up the Red and Arkansas rivers. Among other things they accustomed the wild tribes then living about those rivers to their first intercourse with civilization, but the only permanent result of their pres- ence here may be noted in the French names that, often in corrupted form, still cling to the streams and some of the conspicuous spots in eastern Oklahoma. Poteau, Verdigris, Cavanol and other simi- lar names recall the French forest rovers who first exploited the resources of this country.

With that historic forced sale known as the "Louisiana Purchase" the real history of Oklahoma begins in substantial form. With that vast territory at its disposal, the United States soon found a solution of its Indian problem. The greater part of this domain was unpeopled, and to Jefferson and his associates it seemed a wise and permanent provision to set aside a portion of the purchase as a refuge of barbarism. In one of the following chapters the sub- ject of boundaries has been discussed to show the successive causes which fixed the outside limits of this state, and, as next in order, the process of the division, among the principal Indian tribes, of the country that once constituted the "Indian Terri- tory." All this was preliminary to the re- moval of the Indians, which is the central event in the history of Indian Territory in the first half of the last century. With the collocation of the Indian tribes in their own country, their history, so far as it can be said to have a national aspect, begins. Coincident with the great Indian migration, Congress passed the intercourse laws by which the relations of the Indians with their neighbors would be governed.

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

The status of the Indian country, estab- lished after the removal of the tribes, for a period of years continued unchanged ex- cept by the progress and improvement of the various nations. The antagonisms within each nation (the Cherokee in partic- ular) were gradually composed, and besides an increasing degree of national prosperity, it may be noted that there were evidences of greater friendliness and even indications of political cohesion among the tribes that dwelt side by side in the Indian country. From 1846 until 1860 was an era of gen- eral peace and material prosperity.

The Civil war brought to a close the period of history of which the "Indian country" is the central theme. The war, in addition to dividing the Indians among themselves and desolating their country, brought in its train attendant results that gave a new direction to the destiny of the Indians as a peculiar people. Up to that time the old policy of isolating the Indians had been fairly well adhered to, not so much because it was a policy of recognized wisdom, but because no untoward circum- stances had made a different policy im- perative. But the close of the war brought the Indian problem once more into eco- nomic relations with the American people. Rather than maintain the old system under which the Indians were scattered over vast areas, which they only partly occupied and utilized, the government quickly determined that the territory once granted in per- petuity to the five civilized tribes was suf- ficient to accommodate nearly all the In- dians in the United States. The result was that within a few years a complete rear- rangement of boundaries was effected in the Indian Territory, and many tribes that had formerly lived in Kansas, Texas and elsewhere were removed to this country. But still the old theory of isolation, though

modified, was respected, and in collocating the Indians it was believed that the ultimate outcome would be an Indian state.

But it was foreseen, even before this plan was put in execution, that certain forces were working steadily for the disintegra- tion of the Indian country. While some men supported with enthusiasm the project to make the isolation of the Indians com- plete, others were directing their influence to the end that the Indian Territory might be utilized to the full extent of its resources as a productive territory in the American sense. Still others understood that the In- dians stood at the parting of the ways. Either the federal power must enact and enforce stricter measures to preserve these people in their seclusion, or the Indians would have to surrender their segregate ex- istence and accept their proper place in the nation of which they were a territorial part, at the same time assuming new responsi- bilities and opening their country to a freer intercourse with surrounding peoples.

"The forces of disintegration," which are successively reviewed in the third part of this history, were: I. Those that devel- oped as a result of the westward expansion of the American people. 2. The cattle in- dustry, which, reaching enormous propor- tions soon after the war, extended its op- erations to the fertile ranges of Indian Ter- ritory and, partly under the protection of the Indians themselves, flourished until its power became a menace to its protectors and was regarded with increasing jealousy on the part of land-hungry white settlers who found themselves shut out from the enjoyment of a country where "cattle barons" grew rich. 3. The numerous class of whites known as "intruders," including both the cattlemen mentioned above and an increasing number of individuals who gained permission, in various ways, to live

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

among the Indians, and, by reason of their superior intelligence and enterprise, pos- sessed themselves of a large part of the productive resources of the country and seemed likely to gain a dominating control in all tribal affairs. 4. The railroads, which, once having penetrated the forbid- den land, brought civilized institutions and methods, and made inevitable the final ab- sorption of the Indian country in the rest of the Union. 5. And finally, a reversal of policy on the part of the government itself, as a result of which the Indians were no longer to be treated with as a sovereign people, but, so far as consistent with pre- vious guarantees, would be dealt with ac- cordingly as a beneficent government might see fit.

The inevitable tendency of these forces, thus generalized, was an overthrow of the system of Indian isolation; that country could not remain an obstacle to American civilization, but must open its gateways to free commerce and intercourse with the rest of the nation, and its people had the alternative either to take advantage of the opportunities of a greater civilization or, continuing in their former condition, to permit a superior race to possess the coun- try and establish its supremacy in govern- ment and all material affairs.

The rest of the story is familiar. The first prize sought by the invading whites was the "Oklahoma country," consisting of the lands ceded by the Creeks for the occu- pancy of friendly tribes. Instead of Indian Territory gradually filling up with an in- filtration of whites, an organized invasion was started, and the more or less unsuc- cessful and Quixotic incursions of Payne and his associates were the superficial show of well laid plans that had their source in the higher spheres of political and business life. Congress finally yielded to the per-

sistent pleadings of the "boomers," and in 1889 the heart of the old Indian Territory was given to the thousands who on an eventful day in April gathered to receive their share of the surplus lands that this nation has from time to time bestowed upon its citizens.

After the opening of Oklahoma, there followed the organization of a territorial government, and at different intervals, the opening of other lands to settlement. As a territory Oklahoma continued its existence seventeen years. In the meantime the five civilized tribes had experienced a complete transformation in methods of holding land, and the federal government had been suc- cessfully working to a final dissolution of all tribal governments. In part five, the history of this movement is told, and with the close of the principal work of the Dawes Commission, both the Indian Territory and Oklahoma were prepared for the final issue of statehood.

Beginning with the organization of Okla- homa Territory in 1890, the two territories lead a nominally separate existence for sev- enteen years. It is necessary to describe the working out of the peculiar problems of the eastern half of the state separately from the development and growth of Okla- homa Territory during these years. But many interests of the two territories were identical, and from the first there was a strong influence for a final union of the two territories. Statehood came to Oklahoma only after many years of waiting, and the history of the establishment of a state gov- ernment requires a review of political and economic conditions from time to time dur- ing the past sixteen years. This history of Oklahoma, as elsewhere stated, comes to a close with the statehood movement. Its purpose is to trace the gradual evolution of an American state. In many ways Okla-

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

homa is the last fruit of American expan- sion, and has developed from the most peculiar conditions ever existent on any portion of American soil. Oklahoma as a state has a history which may be studied

with profit by all who claim the state as a home and by those whose interest has at various times been attracted to this remark- able country of the southwest.

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PART I THE INDIAN COUNTRY

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CHAPTER II

THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE

The history of the various transactions by which the territory of North America was exchanged by wholesale among the different world powers several times during the period of exploration and conquest in the new world needs only such reference in the history of Oklahoma as will preface and afford the proper setting for those events which actually concern this state. Okla- homa having once been territorially a part of the French and Spanish Louisiana, which came to our nation under the name of the "Louisiana Purchase," a 'brief account of that territory up to the purchase will intro- duce the more specific history of the "In- dian country."

The title of France to the Mississippi val- ley, particularly the region in which we are interested, originated in the daring and am- bitious explorations and schemes of empire- building of LaSalle, who of all the French- men of his time has left the most enduring impress on American history. In 1684 he endeavored to found a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi, but missing his destina- tion, built Fort St. Louis on the Texas coast. His enterprise was disastrous, and he himself perished at the hands of assas- sins while endeavoring to find his way to the Mississippi river and bring succor from the French settlements in Illinois. On his futile attempt the French based, in part,

" The words of the grant were: "His Most Christian Majesty cedes in entire possession, pure- ly and simply, without exception, to his Catholic Majesty and his successors in perpetuity, all the

their claim to the region west of the Mis- sissippi, and in sending an expedition from Mexico to thwart his colony the Spanish took the first step in the contest for this intermediate country that was not finally settled until the treaty between the United States and Mexico in 1848. However, the French confined their actual efforts at oc- cupation to the mouth of the Mississippi. A settlement was effected in the vicinity of Mobile bay in 1699, and twenty years later New Orleans had become the principal town of the colony.

The French retained "La Louisiane" until 1763. Four years before, General Wolfe's victory on the Plains of Abraham at Quebec had broken French power in America, and the treaty of Paris, at the close of the Seven Years' war in Europe, closed the French era in the history of the new world. By that treaty all the country east of the Mississippi, except the Floridas, passed to England, and in turn, except Canada, after the American Revolution, became the new nation of the United States. But to the west of the Mississippi, in the treaty of 1763, the French ceded all their claims to Spain as reward for the latter's alliance during the Seven Years' war.1

From 1763 practically until the Louisiana Purchase, the western half of the Missis- sippi valley, including the present Okla-

country known under the name of Louisiana, well as New Orleans and the island in which that place stands."

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

homa, was Spanish territory, and Spanish laws and civilization prevailed and long left their impress on the country about the mouth of the Mississippi. In the meantime Daniel Boone and other frontiersmen had piloted the American pioneers from the original colonies across the mountains to the Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio country, and before the close of the century the Spanish on the west of the Mississippi were confronted by the determined front of the American colonists on the east bank. The demands of the Kentucky colonists for the free use of the river, including commercial privileges at the Spanish town of New Orleans, almost brought on war between America and Spain. The Jay treaty of 1795 was only a temporary stay to the American advance westward, and the con- tinued presence of a foreign power on the other side of the river would have resulted in a conflict between the two civilizations. As it was, the Louisiana Purchase merely delayed the contest until it was involved in the Texas question; otherwise, a war of conquest against the Spanish territory of the southwest might have preceded the ac- quisition of the Oklahoma country instead of a peaceable bargain of sale.

Louisiana, at the time of its transfer to the United States, was not actually in the possession of the French-a fact that is not generally recognized by most persons who refer to "our purchase of Louisiana terri-

""Napoleon did not have possession of Louisi- ana when he sold it to the United States, or even, for that matter, when the ratifications of the treaty were exchanged at Washington." Chan- ning, The Jeffersonian System, pp. 81, 82.

'De Marbois, one of the negotiators of the treaty effecting the Louisiana Purchase, in his History of Louisiana (1828), attributed to Na- poleon these reasons for disposing of the ter- ritory: "I know the whole value of Louisiana, and I wish to repair the fault of the French negotiator who abandoned it in 1763. Some lines

tory from France in 1803."? The inordi- nate ambitions of Napoleon, whose posi- tion as master of Europe was assured by the end of the eighteenth century, involved the recovery of the territory of Louisiana lost to France by the cession of 1763 and the reconquest of Santo Domingo, which had revolted against French rule under the leadership of Toussaint L'Ouverture. In exchange for an Italian kingdom the king of Spain signed away, at the treaty of San Idlefonso, October 1, 1800, the territory of Louisiana to Napoleon with the same limits it had had before 1763. The treaty was secret, and its provisions were not known for a certainty in America for nearly a year. In the meantime a French army proceeded to Santo Domingo. Following the con- quest of that island, it was the intention to extend the French occupation to Louisiana and re-establish New France in western America. The army was beaten down by the genius of the negro Toussaint and the scourge of fever. Hard pressed by his ene- mies at home, and unable to continue a war in a distant island, Napoleon had to witness the complete collapse of his schemes for a western empire, and in the possession of Louisiana had a title that he could never reinforce by actual occupation. Further- more, he feared that England's navy might, without obstacle, seize the territory and gain a vast addition to its growing world empire.ª

of treaty have restored it to me, and I have scarcely recovered when I must expect to lose it. But if it slips from me it will one day cost dearer to those who oblige me to deprive myself of it than to those to whom I wish to deliver it. The English have successively taken from France, Canada, Isle Royal, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the richest parts of Asia. They are at work to agitate St. Domingo. They shall not have the Mississippi, which they covet. Louisiana is nothing in comparison with their acquisitions throughout the globe, and yet the jealousy which

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

This was the situation when Jefferson and his administration became factors in the disposition of this territory. The Mis- sissippi settlers, already irritated by their contact with a Spanish government, were not less displeased when they learned that Louisiana had been turned over to the French. The Spanish authorities at New Orleans, in 1802, by again closing the port to American commerce, kindled indignation throughout the west, and Jefferson, whose political support was strongest among the Kentuckians, at once took measures to re- move the dangers that threatened either political disruption of the west or an inter- national war. The negotiations cannot be described in detail, however interesting the story is as a part of American history. Napoleon was willing to sell for a few mil- lion francs territory that he could not pro- tect. Jefferson was convinced of the polit- ical wisdom, regardless of constitutional restrictions, of securing the port of New Orleans to the free use of American com- merce. . Negotiations were undertaken in Paris between Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe, the American representa- tives, and Marbois, the agent of Napoleon.

the return of this colony under the French do- minion causes them proves to me that they desire to get possession of it, and it is thus they will begin the war. They have twenty vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. They overrun those seas as sovereign, whilst our affairs in St. Domingo grow worse and worse since the death of LeClerc. The conquest of Louisiana would be easy if they only took the trouble of making a de- seent there. I have not a moment to lose in putting it out of their reach. I do not know whether they are not there. It is according to their practice, and were I in their place I would not have waited. I wish, if there is yet time for it, to take from them even the idea of ever possessing the colony. I think of ceding it to the United States. I can scarcely say that I cede it to them; for it is not yet in our possession. If I leave ever so little time to our enemies I shall only transmit an empty

For the sum of fifteen million dollars the western half of the most valuable river val- ley in the world. was ceded to the United States, the treaty being dated April 30, 1803." On the following November 30, Napoleon's agent, Laussat, received posses- sion of the territory from the Spanish gov- ernor. For seventeen days only the nominal possession to the territory rested in France, and then, (Dec. 16, 1803), William C. C. Claiborne accepted it in turn under the dominion of the stars and stripes.5

The limits of the Louisiana Purchase were never definitely defined. By the treaty of 1800, Spain ceded to Napoleon "the col- ony or province of Louisiana, with the same extent it now has in the hands of Spain, and that it had when France possessed it, and such as it should be after the treaties subsequently entered into between Spain and other states." This clause was copied into the convention with the United States. What extent the purchase had neither the American embassadors knew, nor could they find out from the French. It remained for a subsequent treaty with Spain to define the western boundary as the Sabine and Red rivers. All of the present state of

title to these republicans whose friendship I seek. They only ask of me one town [New Orleans] in Louisiana, but I already consider the whole colony as entirely lost, and it appears to me that in the hands of this growing republic it will be more useful to the policy and even to the com- merce of France than if I attempt to retain it."

"After he signed the treaty, Livingston is re- ported to have said, as he took the hand of Marbois, "We have lived long, but this is the noblest work of our lives."

'During the brief period of French occupancy, a code of French laws was published for the government of Louisiana. Though it contained many features of provisions of the celebrated Code Napoleon, that system as such never did pro- vail as a basis for legal procedure, since the Code was not promulgated in France until March, 1804.

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Oklahoma except the strip on the north of the Panhandle of Texas was bought in the memorable Louisiana Purchase.

Though the fact has no bearing on the subsequent history of Louisiana and the states into which the territory was divided, it is well to remember that Spain ceded the territory to Napoleon with the express stipulations that it should not be alienated to any other power, and that in case Napol- eon himself did not occupy it, Louisiana

should be returned to Spain. Morally, if not legally, therefore, Napoleon could not sell Louisiana to the United States. Had there existed, in 1803, an international court like the Hague tribunal, it is not unlikely that it would have annulled the whole trans- action. The purchase of Louisiana not only was a breach of international etiquette, but also seriously strained the American consti- tution.

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TO NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

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CHAPTER III

BOUNDARIES OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA.

The history of the formation of Okla- homa's boundaries is unlike the history of the limits of any other state. More than in the case of any other state, perhaps, can it be said the boundaries are the result of events and circumstances which, but for this one reason, would hardly be mentioned in the history of Oklahoma. States and terri- tories, one after another, were carved out from the southwestern country, and then what was left over, being the home of the Indians and generally known as "Indian country," was finally named the "Indian Territory." In more respects than one, Oklahoma has been a "remnant" in the his- tory of the nation.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 3

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