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 15
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"This was an estate situated on the romantic bank of the Neosho, about fifty miles above Fort Gibson. It was the property of the Colonel, whose welcome home amid a crowd of Negroes, In- dians of divers tribes and of both sexes, dogs, pigs, cats, turkies, horses, ducks, all looking fat and happy, was an extremely amusing sight.
"We were his guests for a day or two, long enough to see that we were on a fine state, producing but little surplus after feeding the biped and quadruped 'varmint' living upon it. * We then proceeded by way of Union (Mission) to the Western Creek Agency on the river Verdigris, not far distant from the Fort (Gibson)."
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Hon. Henry L. Ellsworth, one of the commissioners of the United States for the removal of the Indian tribes to the West, had also accompanied the party from the Missouri River. Upon his arrival at Fort Gibson he learned that a company of rangers had been dispatched westward a few days before, whereupon he sent a runner after them with an order from the post commander at Fort Gibson, directing that they await the arrival of the commissioner and his party, Messrs. Irving and Latrobe having decided to join him on his trip into the wilderness. Proceeding with an escort from the garrison at Fort Gibson, the party overtook the company of rangers in camp, at a point distant two days' journey from Fort Gibson in a northwesterly direction. The route followed led them across the present counties of Wagoner, Rogers, Tulsa and Osage to the mouth of the Cimarron, a short distance above which the Arkansas River was crossed. Thence, westwardly and south- westwardly, the expedition proceeded across the present counties of Pawnee, Payne and Logan and, apparently somewhere near the boundary line between Logan and Oklahoma counties, the direc- tion of the line of march was changed to the south. From Irving's narrative, it is evident that the members of the expedition killed elk in Pawnee County, hunted buffalo in Payne County, and saw a beaver dam in Logan County. The story of "the Ringing of the Wild Horse," which used to appeal so strongly to the imagination of the pupils who perused it in the old school readers of two gen- erations ago, aptly described a scene that was witnessed by Irving and Latrobe in the valley of the North Canadian River, in what is now Oklahoma County. Shortly after crossing the North Cana- dian, a party of Osage warriors was met. Irving described his observations and impressions as follows :
"After traveling for two or three hours, as we were traversing a withered prairie, resembling a great brown heath, we beheld seven Osage warriors approaching at a distance. The sight of any human being in this lonely wilderness was interesting; it was like speaking a ship at sea. One of the Indians took the lead of his companions and advanced toward us with head erect, chest thrown forward, and a free and noble mien. He was a fine-looking fellow, dressed in scarlet frock and fringed leggings of deer skin. His head was decorated with a white tuft and he stepped forward with something of a martial air, swaying his bow and arrows in one hand.
"We held some conversation with him through our interpreter, Beatte, and found that he and his companions had been with the
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main part of the tribe hunting the buffalo, and had met with great success; and he informed us that, in the course of another day's march, we would reach the prairies on the banks of the Grand Canadian, and find plenty of game. He added that, as their hunt was over, and the hunters on their return homeward, he and his comrades had set out on a war party, to waylay and hover about some Pawnee camp, in hopes of carrying off scalps or horses.
"By this time his companions, who at first had stood aloof, joined him. Three of them had indifferent fowling-pieces; the rest were armed with bows and arrows. I could not but admire the finely shaped heads and busts of these savages, and their graceful attitudes and expressive gestures, as they stood conversing with our interpreter and surrounded by a cavalcade of rangers. We endeavored to get one of them to join us, as we were desirous of seeing him hunt the buffalo with his bow and arrow. He seemed at first inclined to do so, but was dissuaded by his companions.
"The worthy commissioner (Ellsworth) now remembered his mission as pacificator, and made a speech, exhorting them to abstain from all offensive acts against the Pawnees; informing them of the plan of their father at Washington (the President) to put an end to all war among his red children; and assuring them that he was sent to the frontier to establish universal peace. He told them, therefore, to return quietly to their homes, with the certainty that the Pawnees would no longer molest them, but would soon regard them as brothers.
"The Indians listened to the speech with their customary silence and decorum; after which, exchanging a few words among them- selves, they bade us farewell and pursued their way across the prairie.
"Fancying I saw a lurking smile in the countenance of our interpreter, Beatte, I privately inquired what the Indians had said to each other after hearing the speech. The leader, he said, had observed to his companions that, as their great father intended so soon to put an end to all warfare, it behooved them to make the most of the little time that was left them. So they had departed, with redoubled zeal, to pursue their project of horse-stealing."
After this the command paused several days, during which most of the time was spent in hunting buffalo on what Irving called "the grand prairie," which is supposed to have been immediately south of Oklahoma City a few miles. As the season was growing late, the expedition finally headed toward Fort Gibson for the return march by a route as direct as it was possible to take. The
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account of this outing which was written by Latrobe is fully as sprightly and interesting as that which was penned by Irving. The two narratives have many points in common, though differing much in detail. Irving's narrative has been read by thousands of Oklahoma people and largely on this account, ward school build- ings in a number of Oklahoma cities and towns bear his name, yet Latrobe's name is almost unknown in Oklahoma and few of its people have ever read his narrative of a most interesting and adventurous trip over a large section of their state, more than three-quarters of a century ago.
CHAPTER XX
THE LEAVENWORTH EXPEDITION
There were no Government exploring expeditions in the Indian Territory during the period between 1825 and 1840, though the mil- itary expedition commanded by Gen. Henry Leavenworth and Col. Henry Dodge, which was undertaken for a very different purpose, really resulted in some exploration in the southern and southwestern parts of the territory. It was by far the most for- midable expedition ever organized within the present limits of Oklahoma up to that time and some of its results were of permanent importance.
In the autumn of 1833 an Osage war party discovered a Kiowa village near the mouth of Rainy Mountain Creek, in Kiowa County. Nearly all of the warriors of the village were absent on an expedition against the Utes, and there were but few to defend the women and children except the old men and boys. Signs of the skulking Osages were found and the lodges of the village were hastily dismantled, part of its people fleeing up the valley of the creek and over the divide to the headwaters of Otter Creek, where they went into camp in the neighborhood of Saddle Mountain. There they were surprised at daybreak the next morning and, as they had believed themselves beyond pursuit they were utterly unprepared for defense. A number of the Kiowas were killed and several prisoners were taken, of whom two, a boy and a girl who were brother and sister, were carried back to the Osage country on the Verdigris.
Up to this time the Government had never had any official rela- tions with the Kiowas, Comanches, Wichitas or other tribes who then ranged over Western Oklahoma. The presence of these Kiowa children as captives among the Osages seemed to offer a favorable opportunity to open negotiations with these wild tribes in a region which as yet had not been visited by American traders. Steps were at once taken to secure the release of the captive Kiowa chil-
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dren and also of two Wichita girls who were held by the Osages and all of them were taken to Fort Gibson to be cared for until an cx- pedition could be organized to return them to their own people. Gov. Montfort Stokes, who was one of the commissioners for the removal of the Cherokees and other tribes of the South to the West, was much interested in the matter for the reason that he was anxious to insure peace between the Indians of the immigrant tribes and those of the wild tribes of the plains with whom they would probably come into contact occasionally. In his efforts to this worthy end he had the sympathy and active co-operation of Col. Auguste P. Chouteau, who was the tribal agent for the Osages and was also engaged in trading with the Indians of several tribes. Elaborate arrangements were made for the expedition, to the com- mand of which Gen. Henry Leavenworth was assigned.
The expedition was organized at Fort Gibson, though the troops from Fort Towson did not join the command until it reached the southern part of the state, near the mouth of the Washita River. The First Regiment of Dragoons, which had been organized shortly before at Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, marched across the country to Fort Gibson to form a part of the command, the rest of which were composed of companies of the Third and Seventh Infantry regiments from the garrisons of Forts Coffee, Gibson and Towson. Altogether, it made a very imposing array and one well calculated to inspire in the minds of the untamed tribes of the plains a feeling of respect for the Government which it repre- sented.1
1 A number of noted people were with the Leavenworth expedi- tion to the Wichita Mountains, including Gen. Henry Leavenworth, Col. Henry Dodge, Lieut .- Col. Stephen W. Kearney-all three of whom were seasoned veterans of the War of 1812-Major Richard B. Mason (who became a general during the Mexican war), Cap- tains Edwin V. Sumner, David Hunter, and Lieut. Philip St. George Cooke-all of whom were generals in the Federal Army during the Civil war-and Lieut. Jefferson Davis, who later attained fame as a soldier in the Mexican war, as a senator, a cabi- net officer, and as the administrative head of the Confederate States. There were, in addition to these men of military rank and station, several noted civilians who accompanied the expedition, including Special Commissioner Montfort Stokes (who had had a distinguished career as a statesman in North Carolina), Col. Au- guste P. Choteau (the trader and Indian agent), and George Catlin (the painter who made a specialty of Indian scenes and portraits). Maj. William Armstrong, superintendent of Indian Affairs and
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The route which it was planned to follow was not a direct one. For some reason it was decided to march first to the mouth of the Washita and, for the purpose marking the most feasable route for a road, a company of pioneers was sent ahead, to blaze the trees, clear away obstacles and choose suitable fords across the streams. The route thus marked out by the axmen of the pioneer company of the Leavenworth expedition, and which was followed by the troops on the march, was the beginning of a great highway which afterward became known as "the Texas Road," over which much of the emigrant travel from Missouri and other western states found its way to the Lone Star State. Nearly forty years afterward, when the first railway was built across the Indian Territory, the route selected followed very closely the trace of the trail thus marked and made by the Leavenworth expedition.
From the mouth of the Washita the route of the expedition turned and followed the valley of that stream upward to a place in the vicinity of the present town of Davis, where a halt was made because of the serious illness of so many of the officers and men, the list including the commander of the expedition. There a hos- pital camp was established and it was finally decided that all of the infantry companies should remain there and take care of the sick, while the effective men of the Dragoon Regiment, under the command of Colonel Dodge, should proceed to fulfill the mission of the expedition.2 Upon resuming the march, the command of Colonel Dodge took a westerly course, leaving the valley of the Washita, passing through the southern part of Garvin County and the northern part of Stevens County, where they met a Comanche war party, by whom they were conducted to a large Comanche village, located ten or twelve miles north of the site of Fort Sill. After camping near the Comanche village for several days, the march was resumed, westward toward the village of the Pawnee Picts (Wichitas) .3
agent for the Choctaws, was also with the expedition. One of the dragoon companies was commanded by Capt. Nathan Boone, young- est son of the great pioneer, Col. Daniel Boone. There were about thirty Osage, Cherokee, Delaware and Seneca (Mingo) scouts and hunters with the command.
2 The dragoon command passed through great herds of buffalo and also saw many bands of wild horses. Catlin made numerous sketches, not only of Indians, but also of these splendid wild ani- mals as he saw them.
3 The Wichitas were commonly referred to as Pawnees at that time. It was the people of the Wichita tribe to whom Irving re-
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At the Wichita Village, which was located in the southwestern part of Kiowa County, on the North Fork of the Red River (Mobecteh), Colonel Dodge, Governor Stokes and Major Arm- strong held councils with the Wichita, Waco and Kiowa tribes.+ They restored the captive Kiowa and Wichita girls to their families and secured the release of a white boy, who had been carried away into captivity when his father was killed while on a hunting ex- cursion in the lower valley of the False Washita the year before. The return of the captive children who had been carried off by the Osages made a profound impression upon the minds of the In- dians.
After considerable persuasion, in which the officials were ably seconded by the visiting Osages, Cherokees, Delawares and Senecas, the Wichitas, Wacoes, Comanches and Kiowas were induced to send representatives back to Fort Gibson with the returning expedition. (Most of the members of the Comanche delegation turned back after starting, saying that they were afraid to travel through a timbered country.) At Fort Gibson an important inter-tribal peace council was held. As a result of this expedition and of the peace council which followed, neither the Osages nor any of the immigrant tribes from the South were ever again at war with the Wichitas, Kiowas or Comanches. Moreover, the last mentioned tribes entered into their first treaties of peace with the United States as the direct result of this expedition. General Leavenworth did not live to learn of the successful outcome of the expedition, as he died at the hospital camp on the False Washita, the day after the Dragoons resumed their march, July 21, 1834.
Another important result of this expedition was the beginning of trade relations with the Kiowas, Comanches and other tribes of the Upper Red River. A party of traders accompanied the visiting chiefs back to the Red River country after the conclusion
ferred when he had occasion to mention Pawnees in his "Tour on the Prairies." The confusion of the two tribes was doubtless due to the French traders and trappers, who called the Wichitas "Pawnee Piques," i. e., "Tattooed Pawnces," hence the corrupted American term, Pawnee Pict.
4 Catlin describes the Wichitas as an agricultural people, who cultivated considerable fields of Indian corn, besides pumpkins, squashes, melons and beans. They lived in commodious lodges which were built of dome-shaped frames of timber and thatched with coarse grass. One of their old men informed the officers that the village had been located there for seventy years at that time.
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of the council at Fort Gibson. The next year (1835), Col. Auguste P. Chouteau established a trading post at Camp Holmes (some- times called Fort Edward), near the mouth of Little River, in Hughes County. Three years later, at the urgent request of the Comanches and Kiowas (who disliked to travel through a timbered country to reach the trading post), Colonel Chouteau built a new trading post on a small creek in the southern part of Cleveland County, about five miles northeast of Purcell. In 1837 he also had a temporary trading station in the valley of Cache Creek, be- tween the sites of Lawton and Fort Sill.5
5 Auguste Pierre Chouteau, son of John Pierre Chouteau, was born in St. Louis, Missouri, May 9, 1786. His father was one of the original Chouteau brothers who were so prominent in the ear- lier history of St. Louis, and who were the founders and first own- ers of Chouteau's trading post on the Grand River, in Mayes County. He had several brothers, of whom one, Pierre Chouteau, Jr. (1789-1865), always lived in St. Louis, where he was regarded as the most distinguished member of the family. Another brother, Paul, was associated with Auguste P. in the Indian trade and spent much of his time in the Indian Territory and Southern Kansas. Auguste P. Chouteau entered the United States Military Academy in 1804 and was commissioned as an ensign in the First United States Infantry in 1806. He resigned in 1809 and returned to St. Louis, where he married and became a member of the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company. He only remained with this company for a year, however. During the War of 1812, when the whole Missis- sippi Valley was fearful of an Indian uprising, he served as a cap- tain of militia. Immediately after the close of the war, in 1815, he formed a partnership with Julius DeMunn for the purpose of engaging in traffic with the Indians of the region of the Upper Arkansas and the Upper Platte. The venture ended disastrously. First their expedition was forced to take refuge on an island in the Arkansas River (near the present town of Hartland, Kansas,) where they were attacked by a large band of Indians, presumably Comanches, which they defeated. Then they went to Santa Fe, where they entered into negotiations with the Spanish authorities for permission to trade in New Mexico. They were arrested and imprisoned for a time, their goods being confiscated, and finally they were expelled. Auguste P. Chouteau probably came to Okla- homa to take charge of the Chouteau trading post, on Grand River, shortly after the death of Joseph Revard-1819 or 1820. Accord- ing to Irving and Latrobe, he was agent for the Osages and had his agency at the Lower Falls of the Verdigris in 1832. He was de- scribed by Latrobe as "a fine, good-humored, shrewd man of French descent, with claims to both fortune and family in Mis- souri," courteous, well informed, widely experienced in frontier life, possessed of great courage and regarded with the utmost re-
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The mysterious epidemic which broke out among the troops composing the command of General Leavenworth and the large pro- portion of deaths resulting therefrom were largely chargeable to the fact that the start was made in midsummer. Had the expedition set forth six or eight weeks later in the season, it is probable that very little trouble would have been experienced from such a source. As it was, the expedition proved to be a costly one, measured in the value of human lives. A number of the men died at Fort Gibson after the expedition had returned.
Several accounts of this expedition have been published, of which those of Lieut. T. B. Wheelock " and of Catlin," the artist, seem to have been the most generally disseminated. The next year (1835) a book entitled "The Dragoon Campaign," was published anonymously. Its title-page contained no publisher's imprint. Its authorship was never disclosed. Professedly it was written by a private soldier, whose identity was concealed for disciplinary reasons.8
spect by the Indians, especially the Osages, among whom he exerted a powerful influence. His death occurred at Fort Gibson, shortly after the establishment of the new trading post on the Canadian in the winter of 1838-39. He has descendants among the members of the Osage tribe of Indians.
" American State Papers, Military Affairs, Vol. V, p. 373.
7 Catlin's narrative of the expedition states that over a hundred lives were lost, including those of several officers. Gen. Philip St. George Cooke's book, "Scenes and Adventures in the Army," states that at one time the hospital camp was seriously menaced by a large body of hostile Indians, the meditated attack being pre- vented by the resourceful action of Lieut. James F. Izard, who was the officer in command of the effective troops guarding the camp. Lieutenant Izard died of wounds received in action with the Semi- noles, in Florida, in March, 1836. It is worthy of note that Governor Stokes, the special commissioner of the Government, who accom- panied the expedition, made the entire trip, took part in the coun- cils with the Indians and returned to Fort Gibson none the worse for the hardships experienced, though he was then nearly seventy-five years old.
8 The author of "The Dragoon Campaign" claimed to have been a farmer's son from Western New York. He also claimed to have had as a comrade a non-commissioned officer who had seen service in the British Army. The aptness with which he criticised the military shortcomings of his superiors, including the commissioned officers, was such as to suggest to the mind of the reader that the real author must have been a man of much more experience than would have been likely in the case of the rustic recruit fresh from
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a rural region in Western New York. Further reading tends to con- vince the reader that the real author must have been none other than the dashing young Briton, who, because of previous military ex- perience, had received a warrant as a non-commissioned officer. Sev- eral years later, a young Scotchman, evidently of gentle birth and breeding, who had been an enlisted man in the Dragoon Regiment, was mustered out and discharged, after which he settled among the Cherokees. In the course of time he became quite prominent and influential in the Cherokee Nation. He passed under the name of William L. G. Miller, or William L. Gordon Miller. He was always reticent as to his antecedents. It has been surmised by some who knew him well in later years that his real name was William L. Gordon, that he had once been an officer in one of the crack corps of the British Army and that some escapade had caused him to hide his true identity, far from the heaths and hills of his native land, among a people who prized him for his real worth, regardless of the past. The natural query as to whether Miller, or Gordon, was the author of "The Dragoon Campaign," is unanswerable, and must remain another interesting mystery in the romances of the Chero- kee Nation.
CHAPTER XXI
THE CHEROKEE FEUD
The feeling of enmity which was aroused in the hearts of many of the full blood Cherokees toward those who assumed the responsi- bility of entering in the New Echota treaty, under the terms of which the greater part of their tribe was forcibly driven from their old homes east of the Mississippi, culminated in the simultane- ous assassination of a number of the leaders of the Treaty party, including Major Ridge, John Ridge and Elias Boudinot,. on the morning of June 22, 1839.1 When the Cherokces from the East
1 That the killing of the Ridges, father and son, and of Boudi- not was the result of a carefully laid conspiracy, is fairly evidenced by the fact that they were all killed at the same hour, though many miles distant from each other. Boudinot was killed near his home at Park Hill. Major Ridge was shot while on his way to Fort Smith and Van Buren. John Ridge was called to the door of his home near the eastern boundary of Delaware County and killed, his assassins, it is said, having been especially charged to have no parley with him lest his powers of persuasion, for which he was noted, might result in defeating their object.
Major Ridge was a full-blood Cherokee, born at Hiawassee, Georgia, about 1771. He was said to have joined a war party on an expedition against the white settlements when he was only fourteen years old. At the age of twenty-one he was a member of the Cher- okee national council. His Cherokee name was Gu-nun-da-le-gi, which signified "he who follows the ridge." When he adopted the ways of civilization, he chose the name of Ridge as a partial trans- lation of his Indian name. During the second war with Great Britain he was active in his support of the Americans and was largely instrumental in the recruiting of a regiment of Cherokees which served under General Jackson in the Creek war. It was because of his service as an officer of that regiment that he was ever after known as Major Ridge.
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