A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 5

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

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corresponded in area with what had origi- nally constituted the west half of the Ar- kansas territory, as already described. Con- cerning the Indian inhabitants the original bill said: "But nothing in this act is to be construed to impair the rights of persons or property now pertaining to the Indians in that territory, so long as such rights shall remain unextinguished by treaty

or to include any territory which, by treaty with any Indian tribe, is not, without their consent, to be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any state or terri- tory."

This last provision was inserted to safe- guard the elaborate privileges guaranteed under some of the early Indian treaties." The treaties stood in the way of the adop- tion of the bill as first reported. On Jan- uary 23, 1854, Senator Douglas, in pre- senting the report of the committee on terri- tories,1º said that the attention of the com- mittee had been called to the fact that the boundary of the proposed territory of Nebraska, as in the original bill, would divide the Cherokee country, "whereas by taking the parallel of 37 degrees north lati- tude as the southern boundary, the line would run between the Cherokee and Osage. We have concluded, therefore, to vary the southern boundary in order not to divide the Cherokee nation."

Thus because the United States had agreed to "possess the Cherokees forever" of some land extending half a degree north of the Missouri Compromise line, it became necessary that the southern boundary of Kansas should follow the 37th parallel of latitude, and in this manner was the north- ern boundary of Indian Territory fixed.

' Strictly speaking, the part of Texas relinquished to the United States by the compromise of 1850 did not become a portion of the Indian country, since, by the terms of that compromise, its title

was vested in the United States and therefore "public domain.".

.See Chapter IV.

" Congressional Globe, 33d Cong., 1st Sess., p. 221.

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

But one of the results of the action of the committee on territories was probably overlooked at the time, and, if not, was probably considered unimportant. A strip of land over one hundred and fifty miles long and nearly forty wide, situated beyond the limits of settlement, was of relative un- importance in those days. In fact little attention was paid to the oversight, if such it was, for many years, until it became necessary to provide a legal status for the people of the country. Between the south-

" There is some reason to infer that the framers of the Kansas-Nebraska bill were unconscious of the omission of this strip as a piece of country entirely separate from and unconnected with con- tiguous territory. The act of 1834, setting aside Indian country, had declared all territory of the United States west of Missouri and Arkansas sub- ject to the provisions made for the Indians. When the strip north of Texas was not included within the Kansas-Nebraska territory, it is a reasonable inference that it was not distinguished from the rest of the country to the south of the parallel of

ern boundary of Kansas and the north line of the Texas Panhandle lay a strip of land that was part of the Texas cession of 1850. By that cession it belonged to the United States. The government did not (as it might easily have done in the act of 1854 just referred to) provide for the annexation of this strip to the Indian Territory. Hence, through lack of formal recognition, this strip became "No Man's Land," with a very interesting and dramatic history all of its own.11

37°. On the official maps of the general land office the strip was designated as a part of Indian Territory until 1869. This was done without ex- press authority. It was through lack of positive enactment in regard to this land that its dispo- sition became a matter of interpretation. Had the exact status of the strip been decided twenty years before it was, before the advance of the land- seekers into this region, it is not improbable that the claim of the Cherokee Indians to this piece of out-of-the-way country would have been confirmed without objection.

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CHAPTER IV

ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN COUNTRY.

Writing shortly after the Purchase of Louisiana in 1803, Thomas Jefferson ex- pressed his opinion as to the disposition of the acquired territory. "Above all, the best use we can make of the country for some time to come will be to give establishments in it to the Indians of the east side of the Mississippi in exchange for their present country. When we shall be full on this [east] side, we can lay off a range of states on the western bank, from the head to the mouth, and so range after range, advancing compactly as we multi- ply."

Jefferson, as the leader of the political party that became dominant with his first election and continued to control the gen- eral government for several decades, has been given credit for many of the policies inaugurated by the nation during that period. There is no question that he ex- erted a powerful influence in molding the public opinion of the time and directing political action. Hence it is natural to at- tribute to him the beginning of many poli- cies that were features of the national ad-

' In his second inaugural address (1805), Jeffer- son reminded the country of its duty to the Indians: "The aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded with the commiseration their history inspires. Endowed with the facul- ties and rights of men, breathing an ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed, the stream of overflowing population from other regions directed itself on these shores; without power to divert or, habits to contend against it, they have been overwhelmed by the current, or driven before it; now reduced within

ministration during the first half century, and his writings and public addresses are often quoted for this purpose. Whether he originated the paternalistic system of gov- ernment control of the Indians is probably of not sufficient importance to inquire here, but his public expressions on this subject are of the highest authority and interest since, while he was president, the trans- Mississippi country was designated as the proper abode for the concentration of the Indian peoples.1

Jefferson's ideas were embodied prac- tically in the act of Congress, March 26, 1804, by which the Louisiana Purchase was divided, the president being authorized to stipulate with any Indian tribes owning lands east of the Mississippi river for an exchange of their lands and removal to designated lands west of the river. So far as can be learned, this was the first official declaration that part of the Louisiana ter- ritory should be used as Indian country. Within a few years the plan was given prac- tical operation.

Why the Indians were eventually con-

limits too narrow for the hunter's state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture and the do- mestic arts; to encourage them to that industry which alone can enable them to maintain their place in existence and to prepare them in time for that state of society which to bodily com- forts adds the improvement of the mind and morals. We have therefore liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry and house- hold use; we have placed among them instructors in the arts of first necessity, and they are cov- ered with the ægis of the law against aggressors from among ourselves."

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

centrated mainly along the courses of the Arkansas and Red rivers is a question largely of academic interest, but it comes as a natural query why the first tribes of the east, in exchanging their land, selected new hunting grounds largely in the country that is now Oklahoma.

Before the plan for removing the Indians was set in operation, an expedition had been made that resulted in a vast addition to the world's accurate knowledge of the Louis- iana country in general, and the reports of the explorers were no doubt eagerly studied by Jefferson and his associates and afforded them many suggestions for their future guidance in disposing of this great public domain.

While the intrepid Lewis and Clark set off, under Jefferson's instructions, to ex- plore the Missouri river to its source, an- other equally brave explorer, Zebulon M. Pike, started from the Missouri to visit the regions along the Osage and Kansas rivers and explore to the sources of the Arkansas, at the same time treating with the Indians along those rivers. The narrative of the expedition, largely told by Lieutenant Pike himself, is one of the classics of western American history.2 His explorations of the Louisiana country took place largely dur- ing 1806, and by the summer of the follow- ing year his official reports were in the hands of the administration at Washing- ton. One cannot read the following para- graphs of his description of the country along the Arkansas without thinking there is some connection between the explorer's suggestions and the recommendation of

" " An account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Missisippi and through the Western Parts of Louisiana," etc., published at Philadelphia, in 1810.

" When Pike's expedition reached the Arkansas river, at a point in Kansas where the Kansas and Arkansas rivers are separated by a narrow

President Jefferson, in 1808, that the Chero- kee Indians look for suitable homes along the Arkansas river. The information placed before the world by Pike's expedition had some definite influence on the formation of the "Indian country." Jefferson and others would have pondered well over these lines : "The borders of the Arkansas river may be termed the paradise (terrestrial) of our ter- ritories, for the wandering savages. Of all the countries ever visited by the footsteps of civilized man, there never was one prob- ably that produced game in greater abund- ance, and we know that the manners and morals of the erratic nations are such . . . as never to give them a numerous popula- tion; and I believe that there are buffalo, elk, and deer sufficient on the banks of the Arkansas alone, if used without waste, to feed all the savages in the United States territory one century."

Then, after describing the barren plains of the west, and predicting that they might "become in time equally celebrated as the sandy deserts of Africa," he concludes that "from these immense prairies may arise one great advantage to the United States, viz : The restriction of our population to some certain limits, and thereby a continuation of the union. Our citizens being so prone to rambling and extending themselves, on the frontiers, will, through necessity, be constrained to limit their extent on the west. to the borders of the Missouri and Missis- sippi, while they leave the prairies incapable of cultivation to the wandering and uncivil- ized aborigines of the country."3

An important step in the concentration

watershed, Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson was detached with a small company to descend and explore the Arkansas to its mouth, while Pike, with the main party, proceeded west to the sources of the river. Wilkinson parted from Pike on October 28, 1806, and in canoes began the voyage down the river. Wilkinson was not the first white

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

of the Indians in the west was the Osage cession of 1808. It had the double result of opening up a large area of the country west of the Mississippi for white settlement, and at the same time providing a free do- main where the government, in pursuing its Indian policy, might locate those tribes that gave up their homes in the east. Pierre Choteau, acting under the instructions of Governor Lewis of Louisiana territory, called together the Osage chiefs at Fort Clark (in southwest Missouri), and by treaty dated November 10, 1808, extin- guished Indian title to all the Osage 'land

man to explore the regions of the Arkansas in what is now Oklahoma, but his journal report of his voyage (dated at New Orleans, April 6, 1807) is the first reliable description of the re- gion.

He was more than a month in descending the river to the point where it enters Oklahoma. His journal commentaries on the country and inhabi- tants along the river within the limits of Okla- homa are as follows:

"The night of the 2d of December was in- tensely cold, but hunger obliged me to proceed, and we fortunately reached the mouth of the Neskalonska [Salt Fork of the Arkansas] river without accident or injury. The Neska- lonska is about 120 yards wide, shoal and narrow at its mouth. On this stream the Grand and Little Osages form their temporary fall hunt- ing camps and take their peltries.

"On the 10th [December] about noon, I passed the Grand Saline, or the Newsewketonga [Cimar- ron river], which is a reddish color, though its water is very clear. About two days' march up this river you find the prairie grass on the S. W. side incrusted with salt, and on the N. E. bank, fresh water springs, and lakes abounding with fish. This salt the Arkansaw Osages obtain by scraping it off the prairie with a turkey's wing into a wooden trencher. The river does not de- rive its name from its saline properties, but the quantities that may always be found on its banks, and is at all seasons of the year potable.

"On the 20th, in the afternoon, we passed an- other saline with water equally as red as the Newsewketonga, and more strongly impregnated with salt.

"After encountering every hardship to which a voyage is subject in small canoes, at so in- clement a season of the year, I arrived on the

between the Arkansas river on the south to the Missouri river on the north; and from the Mississippi west to a line running due north and south from Fort Clark to the Arkansas. By this cession the entire coun- try between the Missouri and Arkansas westward to within thirty or forty miles of the west line of the present states of Missouri and Arkansas was opened to occu- pation and disposal by the government. Within this ceded area the government granted the first Indian reservation in ex- change for lands east of the Mississippi.

The first movement of Indians beyond the

23d inst. [December] in a storm of hail and snow, at the wintering camp of Cashesegra, or 'Big Track,' chief of the Osages, who resides on Verdi- grise river. On the following day I gave him your talk he had been informed the United States intended erecting factories on the Osage river, and that he was anxious to have one near to his own village. . A factory with a garrison of troops stationed there would answer the double purpose of keeping in order those Indians, who are the most desperate and profligate part of the whole nation, and more fully impress- ing them with an idea of our consequence ..

It also would tend to preserve harmony among the Chactaws, Creeks, Cherokees and Osages of the three different villages, who are in a constant state of warfare. .

"On the 27th I passed the mouths of the Verdi- grise and Grand rivers, the former being about a hundred, and the latter one hundred and thirty yards wide; those streams enter within a quarter of a mile of each other.

"About fifty-eight or sixty miles up the Verdi- grise is situate the Osage village. . . . Though Cashesegra be the nominal leader, Clermont, or the Builder of Towns, is the greatest warrior, and most influential man, and is now more firmly attached to the interests of the Americans than any other chief of the nation. He is the lawful sovereign of the Grand Osages, but his hereditary right was usurped by Pahuska, or White Hair, whilst Clermont was an infant. White Hair, in fact, is a chief of Choteau's creating, as well as Cashesegra, and neither have the power or dis- position to restrain their young men from the perpetration of an improper act, fearing lest they should render themselves unpopular.

"On the 29th I passed a fall near seven feet perpendicular [Webber's, opposite mouth of Elk

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Mississippi with which the government was officially concerned was the Cherokee migra- tion of 1809. In the preceding year the deputies from the lower towns of the Chero- kees had made known their wish to continue the hunter life, and since game was scarce and their lands restricted on the east side of the Mississippi, had indicated their desire to move west. Accordingly the president, in January, 1809, recommended that an ex- ploring party of these Indians should recon- noitre the country on the waters of the Arkansas and White rivers and find an un- occupied country suited to their needs.

"And whereas the Cherokees

did explore the country on the west side of the Mississippi and made choice of the country on the Arkansas and White rivers,

creek], and at evening was visited by a scout from an Osage war party, and received from them in- formation of a man by the name of McFarlane, who had been trapping up the Pottoe. We passed about noon this day, the mouths of the river des Illinois, which enters on the N. E. side, and the Canadian river, which puts in from the S. W. The latter river is the main branch of the Arkan- saw, and is equally as large.

"On the 31st I passed the mouth of the Pot- toe," and thus his narrative, so far as it pertains to the Oklahoma country, closes.

In summarizing the results of his expedition, Pike has this to say about the Osages of the Arkansaw:

Osage Indians on the Arkansas in 1806.

"The Osage Indians appear to have migrated from the north and west, and from their speak- ing the same language with the Kans, Otos, Mis- souries, and Mahaws, together with the great simi- larity of manners, morals and customs, there is left no room to doubt but that they were origin- ally the same nation. The Osage nation is divided into three villages. the Grand Osage, the Little Osage and those of the Arkan- saw. The Little Osage separated from the Big Osage about one hundred years since. ·

The Arkansaw schism was effected by Mr. Pierre Choteau, ten or twelve years ago. [Having the privilege of trade on the Arkansas, and his rival, Manuel Lisa, having similar privileges on the Osage, Choteau had induced a portion of the Osages to remove to the Arkansas, and 'thereby nearly

and settled themselves down on United States' lands, to which no other tribe of Indians have any just claim,‘ and had noti- fied the president of this fact and their de- sire to negotiate a treaty for exchange of lands,"-in consequence of this preamble, the representatives of the Cherokees entered into the treaty of July 8, 1817, by which they ceded to the United States an area on the east of the Mississippi for a grant of equal area on the Arkansas and White rivers.5 As a result of this treaty, in which it is recited that a part of the Cherokees desire to continue their residence in their old homes, while another part desired to continue the hunter life, there were estab- lished the two subdivisions of Cherokees, known as the Eastern and the Western

rendered abortive the exclusive privilege of his rival.'] . Every reason induces a belief that the other villages are much more likely to join the Arkansaw (which is daily becoming more powerful) than the latter to return to its ancient residence. For the Grand and Little Osage are both obliged to proceed to the Arkansaw every winter, to kill the summer's provision; also all the nations with whom they are now at war are situated to the westward of that river, and from whence they get all their horses. Those induce- ments are such that the young, the bold, and the enterprising are daily emigrating from the Osage village to the Arkansaw village. In fact, it would become the interest of our government to encourage that emigration, if they intend to encourage the extension of the settlement of Upper Louisiana; but if, on the contrary (their true policy), every method should be taken to prevent their elonga- tion from the Missouri." (Appendix to Part II.) 'Cherokee treaty, 1817.

" The boundaries were: "Which [the land] is to commence on the north side of the Arkansas river, at the mouth of Point Remove or Bud- well's Old Place; thence, by a straight line, north- wardly, to strike Chataunga mountain, or the hill first above Shield's Ferry on White river, running up and between said rivers for complement, the banks of which rivers to be the lines · . ·

and all citizens of the United States, except Mrs. P. Lovely, who is to remain where she lives dur- ing life, removed from within the bounds as above described."

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HISTORY OF THE STATE OF OKLAHOMA

Cherokees. Although geographically separ- ated, the Cherokees were treated as a unit in the distribution of annuities and other relations, and all property owned by them was treated as common property.º

The country granted to the Cherokees by the treaty of 1817 was in the present state of Arkansas, included between the Ar- kansas and White rivers as two boundaries, and on the east by the line running from near the present town of Morrillton in Con- way county northeastwardly to the site of Batesville. The Cherokees claimed that the west boundary of their cession began at Fort Smith on the Arkansas and ran paral-

' In 1819, they were estimated at 15,000 in number. By a treaty made in 1819, the formal census was dispensed with (which had been re- quired by the treaty of 1817), and for the pur- pose of distribution it was assumed that one-third had moved west, and that two-thirds were yet remaining east of the Mississippi river. Upon the basis of this estimate of numbers, in lieu of a census, annuities were distributed until the year 1835.

Thomas Nuttall, who traveled along the Ar- kansas in 1819, gave some valuable historical and descriptive notes on the Cherokee settlements through which he passed. After passing the boundary line at Point Remove, he came to the first Cherokee village in "the Galley hills." "Here the Cherokees had a settlement of about a dozen families, who, in the construction and furniture of their houses, and in the management of their farms, imitate the whites, and appeared to be progressing toward civilization, were it not for their baneful attachment to whiskey."

"Along either bank the lands are · . pretty thickly scattered with the cabins and farms of the Cherokees, this being the land allotted to them by Congress, in exchange for others in the Mississippi territory, where the principal part of the nation still remain. The number who have now emigrated hither are about 1,500." ("A Journal of Travels into the Arkansa Ter- ritory during the year 1819. With occasional ob- servations on the manners of the Aborigines. By Thomas Nuttall, F. L. S., etc., Philadelphia, 1821.")

""The unsettled limit of their claim in this country has been the means of producing some dissatisfaction, and exciting their jealousy against

lel with the eastern line to the White river. Such a line would intersect the Osage boun- dary fixed in 1808. And in passing through the Osage territory in order to reach the western hunting grounds, the Cherokees also came into collision with the Osages. Troubles ensued almost from the beginning of the Cherokee removal."

The western line of the Cherokee country was finally surveyed, in 1825, running from Table Rock Bluff above Fort Smith to the mouth of Little North Fork of White river In the same year, by a treaty dated June 2, 1825, the Great and Little Osage tribes relinquished to the United States all their

the agents of the government. One of their prin- cipal chiefs had said that rather than suffer any embarrassment and. uncertainty he would proceed across the Red river, and petition land from the Spaniards. [Texas was then Spanish territory.] The Cherokees, with their present civilized habits, industry and augmenting population, would prove a dangerous enemy to the frontiers of the Arkansa Territory. As they have explicitly given up the lands which they possessed in the Mississippi Ter- ritory, in exchange for those which they have chosen here, there can be no reason why they should not immediately be confirmed, so as to pre- clude the visits of land speculators, which ex- cite their jealousy."-Nuttall's Journal, p. 124.

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 5

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