USA > Oklahoma > A standard history of Oklahoma; an authentic narrative of its development from the date of the first European exploration down to the present time, including accounts of the Indian tribes, both civilized and wild, of the cattle range, of the land openings and the achievements of the most recent period, Vol. I > Part 14
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44
The Indians of the tribes from the South were not nomadic savages. On the contrary, they lived in settled homes and tilled the . soil for a livelihood. Every hill and vale of their home land had its place in their affections. Peculiarly venerated by the people of some of these tribes were the places where their loved ones were buried. When the time came to take their leave of the country to which they were thus attached the very thought of going was revolt- ing. There, for generations past had their fathers hunted and fished ; there, they had gathered in council and had witnessed the solemn ceremonial rites; there, the ashes of their dead reposed, and, there, and there only, they wished to live undisturbed and to be permitted to die in peace. But no such kindly fate was in store for them. The same mysterious influences which could cause those in power to wring a reluctant treaty from an unwilling people could also call to their aid the forces necessary to put the treaties into execution.
Most of the Choctaws were moved to the Indian Territory during the years 1832-3-4. Some of them came across the country in wagons. Others were transported by steamboats, up the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers, and were landed at Fort Coffee, near Skulla- ville. Heartbroken and homesick, as well as worn out with the ex-
107
108
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
posure and privations of the journey, an unduly large proportion of the members of the immigrating tribes siekened and died and were buried in unmarked graves by the wayside, while their sorrowing friends and loved ones resumed their travels toward the destina- tion which meant nothing short of a life-long exile for them.
The Choctaws and Creeks were tardy enough in the matter of preparing for their removal to the West, but, to the last, the Chero- kees remained firm in their determination not to leave their old homes. After the treaty of New Echota had been ratified by the Senate (by a bare majority of one vote), the Cherokees gathered in many places and denouneed the means to which the government had resorted in order to seeure sueh a pretended agreement and declar- ing the same to be null and void. A copy of the resolutions adopted by some of these councils was forwarded to President Jackson by General Wool, who had been sent to the Cherokee country in com- mand of the troops stationed there to overawe the people of that tribe. The President reprimanded General Wool for forwarding it and gave directions that a copy of his letter should be transmitted to John Ross and that, thereafter, there should be no further com- munications, either verbal or written, with the latter concerning the treaty.
The officials of the government, both civil and military, who were sent into the Cheokee eountry to arrange for the removal of the Cherokees, soon found that their task was not only a delieate one but an extremely unpleasant one as well. Some of these, aeting, as they were, under authority of commissions granted by the Presi- dent, wrote letters, describing conditions then existing among the Cherokees, which were scarcely less pointed than the protests of Ross. Even Major Ridge, who had been the head of the treaty party, found it expedient to write to President Jaekson and enter a vigorous protest against the excesses of land grabbers and speeu- lators who were overrunning the Cherokee country and treating the Cherokee people to all sorts of indignities and abuses.1
President Jackson's proclamation of the treaty of New Echota was issued May 23, 1836. By its terms, the Cherokees were to be allowed two years from that date in which to remove to the West. In February, 1837, Gen. John E. Wool was placed in command of the military forees stationed in the Cherokee country for the pur-
1 See extraets from letters of Maj. W. M. Davis, Gen. John E. Wool and Major Ridge, quoted by James Mooney in "Myths of the Cherokee," Nineteenth Annual Report, Bureau of Ameriean Eth- nology, pp. 126-128.
-
109
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
pose of enforcing the terms of the treaty and prevent any opposi- tion thereto. Vague rumors gained currency to the effect that the Cherokees were planning an uprising and a force of Tennessee militia was called out, only to discover that the story was a base- less fabrication. General Wool asked to be relieved of the command of the troops in the Cherokee country, in May, 1837, and was suc- ceeded by Col. William Lindsay. The latter was ordered to arrest John Ross and turn him over to the civil authorities if he gave fur- ther evidence of opposing the enforcement of the treaty. John M. Mason, Jr., was sent into the Cherokee country as a confidential agent of the secretary of war and in September he wrote that the Cherokee people, with the exception of 300 who belonged to the Treaty party, were practically a unit in support of Ross and his policy of opposition to removal.2
The end of President Jackson's administration and the acces- sion of Martin Van Buren to the presidency seemed to augur favorably for the Cherokees. The new President expressed a will- ingness to postpone the enforced removal to the West. At this juncture, however, Governor Gilmer, of Georgia, interposed with a threat that there would be a collision between the military forces of that state and those of the Federal Government if the treaty was not promptly enforced by the latter. The matter attracted a great deal of attention in Congress and among those who denounced the palpable injustice of the treaty of New Echota in scathing terms were Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Henry A. Wise and David Crockett. The Cherokees sent their final protesting memorial to
2 Undaunted by threats of arrest and imprisonment, John Ross called a general council of the Cherokee people, which met the last of July. John M. Mason, Jr., confidential agent of the secretary of war, was present as a representative of the Government. In his report to the head of the War Department, Mr. Mason wrote in part as follows : "The officers say that, with all his power, Ross cannot, if he would, change the course he has heretofore pursued and to which he is held by the fixed determination of his people. He dislikes to be seen in conversation with white men, and particu- larly with agents of the Government. Were he, as matters now stand, to advise the Indians to acknowledge the treaty, he would at once forfeit their confidence and probably his life. Yet, though unwavering in his opposition to the treaty, Ross's influence has constantly been exerted to preserve the peace of the country, and Colonel Lindsay says that he (Ross) alone stands at this time be- tween the whites and bloodshed. The opposition to the treaty on the part of the Indians is unanimous and sincere, and it is not a mere political game played by Ross for the maintenance of his ascendancy in the tribe."
110
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
Congress in the spring of 1838, only to have it laid on the table by vote of the Senate. Gen. Winfield Scott had been ordered to take command of the troops in the Cherokee country and to superintend the preparations for their removal. Immediately after his arrival he issued a proclamation calling upon the Cherokee people to abide by the terms of the treaty and enroll themselves for removal. Chief Ross, finding that the President was evidently determined to enforce the terms of the treaty, then proposed a new treaty. In reply, he was informed that, though the Government was prepared to construe with utmost liberality the treaty already proclaimed, it could not consider the negotiation of any substitute for it. Having thus exhausted every expedient and every means of peaceable re- sistence, most of the Cherokees still remaining in the East bowed to the inevitable and gave up all hope of remaining in their old homes.3
With about 7,000 troops, composed of infantry, cavalry and artillery-regulars, militia and volunteers-under his command, General Scott began the work of assembling the Cherokees for transportation to the West. The story of the eviction and exile of the Cherokees is not a pleasant one for a white man to read, much less to write. As James Mooney truthfully comments, "Even the much-sung exile of the Acadians falls far behind it in its sum of death and misery." Under the orders of General Scott, the troops were distributed in small detachments throughout the Cherokee country and every cabin and copse and cove in the mountain valleys was searched for Indians who were supposed to be hiding. As fast as they were apprehended they were driven in and confined in stockaded enclosures, where they were held until the caravans could be organized to start to the West. Most of them submitted quietly, though with evident reluctance. A few offered violent resistance and these were dealt with very sternly.4 The looting
3 Over 2,000 Cherokees had grown weary of the constant harry- ing and had moved to the West without waiting to be driven out, most of them going in 1837 and the early part of 1838.
+ A Georgia volunteer, afterward a colonel in the Confederate service, said : "I fought through the Civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee re- moval was the cruelest work I cver knew."
To prevent escape, the soldiers had been ordered to approach and surround each house, so far as possible, so as to come upon the occupants without warning. One old patriarch, when thus sur- prised, calmly called his children and grandchildren around him, and, kneeling down, bid them pray with him in their own language,
111
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
rabble was seldom far behind the arresting soldiery. Often, indeed, as the saddened exiles turned to take a last view of the humble cabins which had been their much loved homes, it was to behold them in flames, while their stock was being driven away by the despoilers.
During the summer of 1836 several parties of Cherokees, aggre- gating in all about 6,000 people, were started on their westward journey under the supervision of army officers. Most of thesc made the journey by boat down the Tennessee and Ohio rivers to the far side of the Mississippi, whence they finished the trip over- land to the Indian Territory. Much of the sickness and suffering being due to the effect of trying to travel in the hottest season of the year, the Cherokee council submitted a proposition to General Scott to remove themselves in the fall, after the sickly season had
while the astonished soldiers looked on in silence. Then rising, he led the way into exile. A woman, on finding the house surrounded, went to the door and called up the chickens to be fed for the last time, after which, taking her infant on her back and her two other children by the hand, she followed her husband with the soldiers.
All were not thus submissive. One old man named Tsali, "Charley," was seized with his wife, his brother, his three sons and their families. Exasperated at the brutality accorded his wife, who, being unable to travel fast, was prodded with bayonets to hasten her steps, he urged the other men to join with him in a dash for liberty. As he spoke in Cherokee, the soldiers, though they heard, understood nothing until each warrior suddenly sprang upon the one nearest and endeavored to wrench his gun from him. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that one soldier was killed and the rest fled, while the Indians escaped to the mountains. Hun- dreds of others, some of them from the various stockades, managed also to escape to the mountains from time to time, where those who did not die of starvation subsisted on roots and wild berries until the hunt was over. Finding it impracticable to secure these fugi- tives, General Scott finally tendered them a proposition, through (Colonel) W. H. Thomas, their most trusted friend, that if they would surrender Charley and his party for punishment, the rest would be allowed to remain until their case could be adjusted by the Government. On hearing of the proposition, Charley voluntarily came in with his sons, offering himself as a sacrifice for his people. By command of General Scott, Charley, his brother and the two elder sons were shot near the mouth of the Tuckasegee, a detach- ment of Cherokee prisoners being compelled to do the shooting in order to impress upon the Indians the fact of their utter helpless- ness. From these fugitives, thus permitted to. remain, originated the present eastern band of Cherokees .- James Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee," Nineteenth Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology.
112
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
ended. This was accepted conditionally and the remainder, which numbered about 13,000 (including negro slaves) set out on their long journey late in the fall. There were 645 wagons, in which the sick, the aged, and the smaller children rode with the baggage and other belongings; all of the rest walked or rode on horses.5
It was impossible to state positively the number of deaths that occurred among the Cherokees during the course of this migration, though conservative estimates have placed the total at about 4,000. The 13,000 who came west under the leadership of their own chiefs are known to have lost over 1,600 on the way and the proportion of deaths among those who were transported in the summer season under the direction of the army officers was much greater. Besides
5 It was like the march of an army, regiment after regiment, the wagons in the center, the officers along the line and the horsemen on the flanks and at the rear. Tennessee River was crossed at Tuck- er's Ferry, a short distance above Jolly's Island, at the mouth of the Hiwassee. Thence the route lay south of Pikeville, through McMinnville and on to Nashville, where the Cumberland was crossed. Then they went on to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the noted chief, White-Path, in charge of a detachment, sickened and died. His people buried him by the roadside, with a box over his grave and poles with streamers around it, so that others coming on behind might note the spot and remember him. Somewhere along that march of death-for the exiles died by tens and twenties every day of the journey-the devoted wife of John Ross sank down, leaving him to go on with the bitter pain of bereavement added to heartbreak at the ruin of his nation. The Ohio was crossed at a ferry near the mouth of the Cumberland, and the army passed on through Southern Illinois until the great Mississippi was reached, opposite Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It was now the middle of winter, with the river running full of ice, so that several detach- ments were obliged to wait some time on the castern bank for the channel to become clear. In talking with old men and women at Tahlequah, the author found that the lapse of over half a century had not sufficed to wipe out the memory of the miseries of that halt beside the frozen river, with hundreds of sick and dying penned up in wagons or stretched upon the ground, with only a blanket over- head to keep out the January blast. The crossing was made at last in two divisions, at Cape Girardeau and at Green's Ferry, a short distance below, whence the march was on through Missouri to the Indian Territory, the later detachments making a northerly circuit by Springfield, because those who had gone before had killed all the game along the direct route. At last, their destination was reached. They had started in October, 1838, and it was now March, 1839, the journey having occupied nearly six months of the hard- est part of the year .- James Mooney, "Myths of the Cherokee," Nineteenth Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 132-133.
113
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
these, there were hundreds who died in the stockades and detention camps before they were ready to start west.
Although the story of the removal of the Cherokees is a longer one than that of the Choctaws, Creeks and Chickasaws, for the reasons that the Cherokees offered more determined resistance and had farther to travel as well as the fact their tribe was larger in numbers than either of the others mentioned, the accounts of their removal to the Indian Territory are scarcely less harrowing and pathetic. Their attachment to the land of their birth was fully
ONLY REMAINING BUILDING AT OLD FORT COFFEE
equal to that of the Cherokees and they were equally loath to leave when the time came for them to depart. The hardships expe- rienced on their migratory journeys to the West, though not so extended, were not less trying than those of the Cherokees.
Small bands of Choctaws and Creeks migrated to the Indian Territory before 1830, but most of the people of those tribes came west later, the Choctaws between 1832 and 1838, and the Creeks between 1836 and 1840. Some of the Choctaws were transported by steamboats, being landed at Fort Coffee,6 near the tribal agency
6 Fort Coffee was established on the south bank of the Arkansas River, and about fifteen miles above Fort Smith, in 1834, Fort Smith being abandoned at the same time. The change from Fort Smith to Fort Coffee was due to political influence rather than mili- tary expediency, however. Maj. William Armstrong, of Tennessee, had been appointed superintendent of Indian affairs for the tribes Vol. I-8
114
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
at Skullaville. Others came across the country with wagons. More than fifty years after the Choctaw migration, the traces of the road over which large parties of Choctaw immigrants had entered the Indian Territory, in the eastern part of what is now LeFlore County, were still pointed out as the "Trail of Tears," thus bearing evidence of the fact that the Choctaws who came west at that time regarded themselves as exiles. Like the Chero- kees, the other tribes lost many of their people by death as the result of the migration-in the concentration camps where they were gathered together before starting, on the road, and also during the first few weeks after their arrival in the Indian Territory. Over 2,000 Choctaws are said to have died during the removal and immediately after arriving in the new reservation and the loss among the Creeks was probably proportionally as great.
from the South. His brother, Gen. Robert Armstrong, was a promi- nent Tennessee politician, and was sent by President Jackson as United States consul to Liverpool. Major Armstrong was not only superintendent of Indian affairs, but also tribal agent of the Choc- taws and Chickasaws, the location of his agency and office being at Skullaville, distant four or five miles from the river at Fort Coffee. The post was named in honor of Gen. John Coffee, another close friend of President Jackson and one who had effectively aided in the prosecution of his Indian policy. The post was abandoned in 1838-the year after the end of the Jackson administration-and Fort Smith was again garrisoned at the same time.
The site of Fort Coffee was a romantic one. It occupied a high hill which ended in a rocky promontory or cliff, the foot of which is washed by the waters of the Arkansas River. The summit of the hill, upon which the hewed log buildings of the post were erected, is over 100 feet above the level of the river. The buildings were one story in height, with battened doors and window-shutters, porches in front and rear and with rough stone fire-place and chimney at each end. They were arranged in the form of a hollow square, the inside measurement of which was 100 feet. One side, facing the river, was left open except that it was occupied by one small build- ing which was used as a magazine. There was a heavy growth of forest trees upon the site originally, including a number of varieties, among which red cedar seemed to predominate. After the post was occupied, the trees were thinned out, together with all of the underbrush, and trees left standing were carefully trimmed, the ground beneath being seeded to blue grass. The guard-house was perched in a picturesque position on the top of the rocky promontory and was surmounted by a tower which commanded a fine view of the river. Five years after its abandonment Fort Coffee was occupied by a Choctaw academy for boys and as such it was used until after the outbreak of the Civil war. But one of the original buildings is still standing (1914).
115
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
Upon their arrival in the West, the immigrants of these tribes were welcomed by their fellow tribesmen who had come into the country before them and who had become settled and more or less prosperous. Indeed, the Western Cherokees had so many horses, cattle and hogs that the Government was enabled to purchase from them enough animals to aid the more numerous recent arrivals in stocking their farms. The settlements of the earlier immigrants were few and small. Most of the country was covered with a forest growth, interspersed with prairies of varying size and extent. It abounded in wild game, including scattering herds of buffalo and elk. Deer, wild turkeys and small game were everywhere very plentiful. As the people scattered out in the wilderness to select sites for their homes and to open up clearings and erect log cabins, the Government furnished provisions and seeds as well as the few simple tools and implements which were needed.
In the case of the Cherokees and Creeks who had settled on the new reservations several years prior to the arrival of the rest of their people, tribal organizations had been formed and this led to some factional differences at first. The Creeks who had come west under the leadership of Roly McIntosh hesitated about receiving the later arrivals until they were assured that the latter would accept the tribal organization already established, and abide by the laws which it had enacted. When the main body of the Cherokees arrived, its members and leaders refused to recognize the tribal organization which had been established by the Western Cherokees and proceeded to assert the supremacy of authority of the council and chiefs of the newly arrived Cherokee Nation. The Western Cherokees, who were henceforth known as the "Old Settler" party, naturally resented the slight that was thus put upon them and, in the troublous times which followed soon after, they made a com- mon cause with the Ridge, or "Treaty" party against the Ross, or "National" party.
In concluding the account of the westward migration of the Indians of the tribes from the South, it is but fair to comment briefly upon the differences of opinion among the leaders of the several tribes concerning the wisdom and expediency of such a movement. There is no doubt as to the patriotism and tribal fidelity of such leaders as John Ross of the Cherokees, and Opothileyohola, of the Creeks, who were bitterly opposed to the proposition of the Government to remove their people to the West. On the other hand, none can deny that such leaders as William McIntosh among the Creeks, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot among the Cherokees, and
116
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
Greenwood LeFlore among the Choctaws, took a farsighted view of the situation when they supported the unpopular cause of re- moval to the West, and history has vindicated their judgment even though it cannot acquit the white men who were responsible for the conditions which led up to it." The Indians were naturally intense in their attachment and alignment in a matter of suclı seemingly irreconcilable differences. It was perhaps only to have been expected that factionalism should follow, as it did, and that it should have been projected in one form or another until the end of the tribal regime.
7 Elias Boudinot, who had been editor of the Cherokee Phoenix and who was one of the ablest leaders in the Cherokee Nation, justi- fied his attitude on the proposed removal in a few words, as follows : "We cannot conceive of the acts of the minority to be so repre- hensible and so unjust as represented by Mr. Ross. If one hundred persons are ignorant of their true situation and are so completely blinded as not to see the destruction that awaits them, we can see strong reason to justify the action of a minority of fifty persons to do what the majority would do if they understood their condition, to save a nation from political thralldom and moral degradation."
1
:
CHAPTER XIX
WASHINGTON IRVING'S VISIT
In the autumn of 1832 Oklahoma was visited by Washington Irving, the premier American story writer. Irving was in St. Louis, where he met Col. Auguste P. Chouteau, the trader who was also tribal agent for the Osages. Whether Colonel Chouteau per- suaded Irving to take the trip to the Indian Territory does not appear, but it seems probable that he may have done so. At any rate, Irving set forth in company with Charles Joseph Latrobe, an English tourist, and by appointment they met Colonel Chouteau at Independence, Missouri, to which place the latter had ascended from St. Louis by steamboat, while Messrs. Irving and Latrobe traveled overland. From Independence they started on a journey to Fort Gibson. Irving's description of his visit to Oklahoma, which is charmingly told in his "Tour on the Prairies," does not relate this preliminary part of his experience in visiting Oklahoma, but Mr. Latrobe's book, "The Rambler in North America," does tell of it in some detail. After crossing what is now Southeastern Kansas, the party entered the valley of the Neosho (or Grand) River which was followed southward. Finally, the party reached the Chouteau Trading Post, or, as Latrobe called it, "the Saline." He describes their brief stay there in the following words :
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.