A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 8

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

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abound with young cane, a most nourishing forage for cattle at this season of the year. It would now take us several days to arrive there, and in the meantime many of our horses would give out. It was time, too, when the hunting parties of the Indians set fire to the prairies. . . . We had started too late in the season, or loitered too much in the early part of our march, to accomplish our originally intended tour. It was determined, therefore, to give up all further progress, and, turning our faces to the southeast, to make the best of our way back to Fort Gibson.

"After proceeding a few miles, we left the prairie, and struck to the east, taking what Beatte pronounced an old Osage war track. This led us through a rugged tract of country, overgrown with scrubbed for- ests and entangled thickets, and intersected by deep ravines and brisk-running streams, the sources of Little river [which are in the present Cleveland county]. . . In the course of the [following] morning we arrived at the valley of the Little river, . where it wound through a broad bottom of alluvial soil. At present it had overflowed its banks and inundated a great part of the valley.

"The country through which we passed this morning [ Nov. 2] was less rugged and of more agreeable aspect than that we had lately traversed. At eleven o'clock we came out upon an extensive prairie, and about six miles to our left beheld a long line of green forest, marking the course of the north fork of the Canadian. On the edge of the prairie, and in a spacious grove of noble trees which overshadowed a small brook, were the traces of an old Creek hunting camp. . . We forded the north fork of the Canadian.

"We set forward at an early hour the next morning, in a northeast course, and

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came upon the trace of a party of Creek Indians which enabled our poor horses to travel with more ease. We entered upon a fine champaign country. From a rising ground we had a noble prospect, over ex- tensive prairies, finely diversified by groves and tracts of woodland, and bounded by long lines of distant hills, all clothed with the rich mellow tints of autumn.

"We halted for the night in a spacious forest, beside a deep narrow river, called the Little North Fork, or Deep Creek. . As this stream was too deep to be forded, we waited until the next day to devise means to cross it. [A day or so more brought them in the vicinity of the Arkansas. Both men and animals were almost exhausted by the hardships and pri- vations of travel.] In this way we crept on until, turning a thick clump of trees, a frontier farm house suddenly presented itself to view. It was a low tenement of logs, overshadowed by great forest trees, but it seemed as if a very region of Co- caigne prevailed around it. Here was a stable and barn, and granaries teeming with abundance, while legions of grunting swine, gobbling turkeys, cackling hens and strut- ting roosters, swarmed about the farm yard. . . : I sprang off my horse in an in- stant, cast him loose to make his way to the corn crib, and entered this place of plenty. A fat, good-humored negress re- ceived me at the door. She was the mis- tress of the house, the spouse of the white man, who was absent. . . In a twinkling she lugged from the fire a huge iron pot, that might have rivalled one of the flesh-pots of Egypt, or the witches' cal- dron in Macbeth. Placing a brown earthen dish on the floor, she inclined the corpulent caldron on one side, and out leaped sundry great morsels of beef, with a regiment of turnips tumbling after them, and a rich

cascade of broth overflowing the whole. This she handed me with an ivory smile that extended from ear to ear; apologizing for our humble fare, and the humble style in which it was served up. Humble fare! Humble style! Boiled beef and turnips, and an earthen dish to eat them from! To think of apologizing for such a treat to a half-starved man from the prairie's; and then such magnificent slices of bread and butter !"

Dodge . Expedition from Fort Gibson in 1834

In the summer of 1834, Col. Henry Dodge, commanding a regiment of dra- goons, with S. W. Kearney second in com- mand, undertook an expedition from Fort Gibson to the Pawnee Pict Village and through the Comanche country. This was the expedition that George Catlin, the por- trait painter, accompanied, and M. Beyrich, the Prussian botanist, was another of the party. Some interesting notes on the coun- try are found in the journal of the cam- paign, kept by Lieut. T. B. Wheelock (Amer. State Papers, Mil. Affairs, Vol. V, P. 373).

George Catlin, the English portrait painter and sketch artist who accompanied the ex- pedition, gathering material for his studies and sketches of North American Indians, has left many sketches, aside from those drawn by his pen, descriptive of this coun- try.1 In the course of the campaign he was in constant association with the officers of the regiment, as a guest of honor, and through him we get a closer acquaintance with some of the first commanders who campaigned over the southwestern country. He speaks of General Arbuckle, in com-

1 " Letter and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians," by George Catlin (London, 1841).

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mand of the Seventh Regiment at Fort Gibson at the time, "one of the oldest offi- cers on the frontier, and the original builder of the post." Before leaving Fort Gibson another noted veteran, General Leaven- worth, arrived at this post, superseding Arbuckle in command. It is an attractive scene from the Indian country three-quar- ters of a century ago that is pictured in the following description of a review of the troops at Fort Gibson: "Both regiments were drawn up in battle array, in fatigue dress, and passing through a number of the maneuvers of battle, of charge and repulse, etc., presented a novel and thrilling scene in the prairie to the thousands of Indians and others who had assembled to witness the display. The proud and manly de- portment of these young men remind one forcibly of a regiment of Independent Vol- unteers, and the horses have a most beauti- ful appearance from the arrangement of colors. There is a company of bays, a com- pany of blacks, one of whites, one of sor- rels, one of greys, one of cream color, etc., etc., which render the companies distinct, and the effect exceedingly pleasing."

Of the commander of the expedition and its objects, Catlin says: "This regiment goes out under the command of Colonel Dodge, and from his well tested qualifica- tions, and from the beautiful equipment of the command, there can be little doubt but that they will do credit to themselves and an honor to their country. The object of this summer's campaign seems to be to cul- tivate an acquaintance with the Pawnees and Camanchees. These are two extensive tribes of roaming Indians, who, from their extreme ignorance of us, have not yet rec- ognized the United States in treaty, and have struck frequent blows on our frontiers and plundered our traders who are travers- ing their country. For this I cannot so

much blame them, for the Spaniards are gradually advancing upon them on one side, and the Americans on the other, and fast destroying the furs and game of their country."

The eight companies, leaving Camp Ren- dezvous (about twenty miles west of Fort Gibson) on June 21, marched toward the Washita on a new road made by General Leavenworth. Marching west by south, about 85 miles from Fort Gibson, they reached the Canadian river near the mouth of Little river, where General Leavenworth was encamped. At this point Lieutenant Holmes of the Seventh Infantry had just be- gun the building of a fort and quarters for two companies (Fort Holmes). The expedi- tion reached the Washita about July Ist. "The 'note of preparation' is now heard over the camp; all are engaged in making ready for the Pawnee chase." The hot weather, poor water, and the exposures of the march had caused much sickness, and the active force that set out against the Pawnees consisted of about 250 men. To add to their troubles, one night while en- camped, a stupid sentinel mistook a horse for a hostile Indian, and not receiving the countersign in answer to his challenge, shot the poor creature. This alarmed the .camp and set off in stampede the rest of the horses, which were recovered with diffi- culty. "The men of the regiment are ex- cellent material, but unused to the woods."

One of the objects of this expedition was the investigation and punishment of the murder of a white hunter, who had been slain while hunting in the Comanche coun- try. "Judge Martin," said Catlin, "was a very respectable and independent man, living on the lower part of Red river, and in the habit of taking his children and a couple of black men servants with him, and a tent to live in, every summer, into

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these regions; where he pitched it upon the prairie, and spent several months in killing buffalo and other wild game for his own private amusement. The news came to Fort Gibson but a few weeks before we started, that he had been set upon by a party of Indians and destroyed. A detach- ment of troops was speedily sent to the spot, where they found his body horribly mangled, and also one of his negroes; and it is supposed that his son, a fine boy of nine years of age, has been taken home to their villages by them. Where they still retain him, and where it is our hope to recover him."

From the mouth of the Washita the course of the expedition was west, along the divide between the Washita and Red rivers, across what is now southern Okla- homa, toward the Wichita mountains. "The country over which we passed from day to day, was inimitably beautiful; being the whole way one continuous prairie of green fields, with occasional clusters of timber and shrubbery, just enough for the uses of cul- tivating man, and for the pleasure of his eyes to dwell upon." Over this region through which the expedition passed, along a route that would now afford almost a con- tinuous view of cultivated fields, of cattle pastures, and towns, at that time herds of buffalo and wild horses were the principal possessors. The hunting of buffalo was a sport in which Catlin and his friends en- gaged with much pleasure and the hired hunters of the expedition furnished the en- tire command with buffalo meat. But the wild horses were not so easily approached or captured, and only once did the artist succeed in getting a close view of a herd at rest.

On the fourth day of the march from the mouth of the Washita, a band of Comanche warriors was met, and after considerable

maneuvering Colonel Dodge succeeded in convincing them of pacific intentions, and a general shaking of the hands and smoking of a peace pipe introduced a talk by Colonel Dodge, in which he explained to the sav- ages the friendly motives of the campaign, "that we were sent by the president to reach their villages, to see the chiefs of the Camanchees and Pawnee Picts, to shake hands with them, and to smoke the pipe of peace, and to establish an acquaintance, and consequently a system of trade that would be beneficial to both." The Comanches then undertook to guide the troops to the: principal villages, which lay to the west among the mountains of the Wichita range. Many hard and tedious days of travel brought them within view of the village. "Having led us to the top of a gently rising elevation on the prairie," says Catlin, "they pointed to their village at several miles' distance, in the midst of one of the most enchanting valleys that human eyes ever looked upon. The general course of the valley is from N. W. to S. E., of several miles in width, with a magnificent range of mountains rising in distance beyond; it be- ing, without doubt, a huge 'spur' of the Rocky Mountains [?], composed entirely of a reddish granite or gneis. . In the midst of this lovely valley, we could just discern among the scattering shrub- bery that lined the banks of the water- courses, the tops of Camanchee wigwams, and the smoke curling above them. The valley, for a mile distant about the village, seemed speckled with horses and mules that were grazing in it."

Their introduction into the village was made an occasion of great ceremony, and the whites were the objects of constant curiosity and admiration on the part of the inhabitants. The state of the Comanches at that time was of the rudest and most

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transitory, they lived in skin-covered lodges that could readily be folded up and carried along with change of abode, their subsist- ence was mainly on the results of the chase, though they also to some extent cultivated corn. Though primarily an artist, Catlin was careful to make estimates of the con- dition and number of the tribes that he met. He was much impressed by the num- bers and prowess of the Comanches, but could form no reliable estimate of their strength. "Taking their own account of villages they point to in such numbers, south of the banks of Red river, as well as those that lie farther west, and undoubtedly north of its banks, they must be a very numerous tribe."

From the Comanche villages the cam- paigners next turned toward the Pawnees. "We were four days traveling over a beau- tiful country, most of the way prairie, and generally along near the base of a stupen- dous range of mountains of reddish granite, in many places piled up to an immense height, without tree or shrubbery on them; looking as if they had actually dropped from the clouds in such a confused mass, and all lay where they had fallen. Such we found the mountains enclosing the Paw- nee village, on the bank of Red river, about ninety miles from the Camanchee town. . We found here a very numerous village, containing some five or six hundred wigwams, all made of long prairie grass, thatched over poles which are fastened in the ground and bent in at the top; giving to them, in distance, the appearance of straw beehives. . To our very great surprise we have found these people culti- vating quite extensive fields of corn, pump- kins, melons, beans and squashes; so, with these aids, and an abundant supply of buf- falo meat, they may be said to be living very well."

In the Pawnee village it was supposed the perpetrators of the murder of Judge Martin would be found, and after the for- mal peace negotiations had been concluded, diligent inquiry was made concerning the deed. The Pawnees at first denied any knowledge or complicity in the affair, but finally a negro living among the Indians gave information that a white boy was be- ing kept prisoner. Colonel Dodge with great show of anger then broke off the con- ference with the chiefs, and refused further dealings with them until the boy was brought in, offering in exchange two Paw- nee prisoners whom the commander had procured from the Osages, for the very purpose of forwarding negotiations with their countrymen. Therewith the Paw- nees, satisfied with the sincerity of the Americans, had the white boy brought in from the middle of the corn field, where he had been kept secreted. At the inquiry what was his name, he promptly replied, "My name is Matthew Wright Martin." The soldiers carried him back to Fort Gib- son, and eventually he was restored to the arms of his disconsolate mother. After this exchange of prisoners the council with the Pawnees proceeded with great good will, and later the Kiowas and Wacos, who lived to the west, were also brought into conference.

From the Comanche village the troops turned to the upper courses of the Cana- dian river, where, among the many herds of grazing buffalo, a grand hunt was started and meat secured for the rest of the cam- paign. Over this high plains country be- tween the Red and Canadian rivers, the dragoons found the difficulties of marching and subsisting most trying, and not a few of those brave fellows died en route and their bodies were left to decay on the prai- ries. Writing from "Camp Canadian,

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Texas," Catlin says: "From the Caman- tance of fifty or sixty miles, where his ill- chee village to this place the country has been entirely prairie; and most of the way high and dry ground, without water, for which we sometimes suffered very much. From day to day we have dragged along, exposed to the hot and burning rays of the sun, without a cloud to relieve its intensity, or a bush to shade us, or anything to cast a shadow, except the bodies of our horses. The grass for a great part of the way was very much dried up, scarcely affording a bite for our horses; and sometimes for the distance of many miles the only water we could find was in stagnant pools, lying on the highest ground, in which the buffaloes have been lying and wallowing like hogs in a mud puddle. . . . . This poisonous and indigestible water, with the intense rays of the sun in the hottest part of the summer, is the cause of the unexampled sickness of the horses and men. Both ap- pear to be suffering and dying with the same disease, a slow and distressing bilious fever, which seems to terminate in a most frightful and fatal affection of the liver."

History should not fail to record some of the victims of this campaign. Day after day a brief military honor was paid to some poor soldier who had given up his life in campaigning against the climate rather than against hostile Indians. A military figure of even national prominence was also sacri- ficed during this expedition. While the remnant of the expedition were recuper- ating at Camp Canadian, an express ar- rived with the tidings of the death of Gen- eral Leavenworth, Lieutenant McClure and ten or fifteen of the men who had remained at the mouth of the Washita. General Leav- enworth, who had been in command of the expedition up to that point, had, after the departure of the main body of troops, fol- lowed on to the "Cross Timbers," a dis-

ness proved fatal. Catlin states his belief that the general died from the effects of a fall received during a chase after buffa- loes. He says: "My reason for believing this is, that I rode and ate with him every day after the hour of his fall; and from that moment I was quite sure that I saw a different expression in his face from that which he naturally wore." One day. Catlin remarked: "General, you have a very bad cough." "Yes," he replied, "I have killed myself in running that devilish calf; and it was a very lucky thing, Catlin, that you painted the portrait of me before we started, for it is all that my dear wife will ever see of me."

Henry Leavenworth, who died July 21, 1834, in the Cross Timbers of Indian Ter- ritory, aged fifty-one, had been a soldier since the war of 1812, when he gave up a law practice to enter the army, was suc- cessively promoted, until in 1824 he was brevetted brigadier general "for ten years' faithful service in one grade." During the last ten years of his life he was engaged in campaigning on the western frontier, and founded the post in Kansas which has since borne his name.

Out of the four or five hundred men who started on the campaign, nearly a third were swept away by disease. Without the inde- fatigable leadership of Colonel Dodge and Lieutenant Kearney it is doubtful if the ex- pedition would ever have accomplished so much and returned. Another who gave up his life was the Prussian botanist, M. Bey- rich, who had received the fatal illness during the march and died at Fort Gibson.

The licensed trader system as a part of the scheme by which the government sought the regulation of the wild Indian tribes was severely and justly, it seems, criticised by Catlin ("Letters and Notes," Vol. II, p.

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83). He refers to the arduous campaign of Colonel Dodge and his dragoons through southwestern Indian Territory in the sum- mer of 1834, and after praising the achieve- ment of bringing the unknown tribes to an acquaintance and a general peace, ex- presses his doubts of the resulting benefits to the Indians, "unless with the exercised aid of the strong arm of the government they can be protected in the rights to which, by nature, they are entitled." The Co- manche, Pawnee and other chiefs, after be- ing entertained at Fort Gibson, and partici- pating in the general peace conference, de- parted for their homes, followed by a com- pany of eighty traders and trappers. These licensed agents of civilization were the first, Catlin says, to penetrate the Indian country along the headwaters of the Red and Cana- dian rivers, and from the revenues of their trading house and their trapping, etc., stood in a position to realize a fortune.

"I have traveled too much among Indian tribes," is Catlin's comment, "not to know the evil consequences of such a system. Goods are sold at such exorbitant prices' that the Indian gets a mere shadow for his peltries, etc. The Indians see no white people but traders and sellers of whisky ; and, of course, judge us all by them-they consequently hold us, and always will, in contempt; as inferior to themselves, as they have reason to do-and they neither fear nor respect us. When on the contrary, if the government would promptly prohibit such establishments, and invite these In- dians to our frontier posts, they would bring in their furs, their robes, horses, mules, etc., to this place, where there is a good market for them all . where there is an honorable competition, and where they would get four or five times as much for their articles of trade as they would get. from a trader in the village, out of the

reach of competition, and out of sight of the civilized world.

"At the same time, as they would be continually coming where they would see good and polished society, they would be gradually adopting our modes of living- introducing to their country our vegetables, our domestic animals, poultry, etc., and, at length, our arts and manufactures; they would see and estimate our military strength and advantages, and would be led to fear and respect us. In short, it would undoubtedly be the quickest and surest way to a general acquaintance-to friendship and peace, and at last to civilization. If there is a law in existence for such protec- tion of the Indian tribes . it is a great pity that it should not be rigidly en- forced in this new and important acquaint- ance, which we have just made with thirty or forty thousand strangers to the civilized world; yet (as we have learned from their unaffected hospitality when in their vil- lages), with hearts of human mould, sus- ceptible of all the noble feelings belonging to civilized man."

Military Posts of Indian Territory

Some of the old maps of Indian Terri- tory, before it was opened to white settle- ment, are marked by the sites of military posts that have been more or less famous in military operations of the West and are connected intimately with the early history of the territory. Concerning the posts in- dicated on a map issued by the Bureau of Engraving at Washington in October, 1866, the records of the war department give the following information [from data in the Oklahoma Historical Society's col- lection ] :

Fort Smith, which, though located on the south bank of the Arkansas river in the state of Arkansas, played a conspicuous

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part in the affairs of Indian Territory, was established at the mouth of Poteau river in 1817; named in honor ot Brig .- Gen. Thomas A. Smith; was finally abandoned in August, 1871.

Fort Gibson, on the left bank of the Neosho (or Grand) river, 21/2 miles from its confluence with the .Arkansas, was es- tablished in April, 1824; named in honor of Col. George Gibson, then commissary general of subsistence; finally abandoned October 1. 1890.2

Fort Coffee, at Swallow Rock on the Arkansas, about 12 miles south of Fort Smith, was established April 22, 1834; named in honor of Gen. John Coffee, Ten- nessee Militia; abandoned October 19, 1838.

Fort Wayne, on the Illinois river in Cherokee nation, was established October 29, 1838; named in honor of Anthony Wayne; abandoned May 26, 1842.

Fort Towson, in Choctaw nation, 6 miles northwest of Red river, was established in May, 1824; named in honor of Col. Nathan

" Early in 1834 the legislature of Arkansas memorialized Congress to cause the removal of the troops from Ft. Gibson to the western bound- ary of Arkansas. After considering the memorial the committee of military affairs reported a bill favoring the request of the legislature, and in reporting the bill the following reasons were as- signed for such action:

Before Arkansas was formed into a territorial government the protection of our citizens induced the government to establish a military post at the junction of the Poteau and Arkansas rivers. This post was called "Fort Smith," and for sev- eral years was entirely west of the settlements of the citizens of the United States. After the western boundary of Arkansas was fixed (in 1825) at a point 40 miles west of Fort Smith, the troops were removed, Fort Smith was aban- doned, and Fort Gibson established. "And all the intermediate country thus acquired or added to Arkansas was organized into counties by the legislature of Arkansas and settled by our citi- zens. Afterwards, in 1828, the government, in

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A history of the state of Oklahoma, Volume I, Part 8

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