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 16
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
John Ridge, son of Major Ridge, was born in Georgia, about the year 1801. His education was begun in the schools conducted by the Moravian missionaries and was continued in an academy at Knox- ville, Tennessee. In 1818, at the instance of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. he was selected with two other
128
-
.
129
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
arrived, they were warmly welcomed by their kinsmen, the Western Cherokees. The latter, who had been settled on the reservation for nearly if not quite ten years, had a regularly organized tribal
MAJOR RIDGE
government of their own and which they were anxious that the newly arrived Cherokees from the East should recognize. The tribal organization of the latter had been maintained throughout
Cherokee youths to attend school at Cornwell, Connecticut. While he was there as a student he became acquainted with Miss Sarah B. Northrop, whom he afterward married. He was a talented man, of strong personality and winning address. Although his father and his cousin, Elias Boudinot, were both men of ability and magnetism it is probable that John Ridge was the most influential leader of the group. So pronounced was his persuasive eloquence that it is said that those who plotted his death especially charged his assassins to allow no words of parley with him lest he dissuade them from their fell purpose. Vol. I- 9
130
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
all of the troubles which the Eastern Cherokees had experienced and, with John Ross at the head, their tribal council was disposed to insist that as the governing body of the major portion of the reunited Cherokee Nation, its authority and jurisdiction should supersede that of the Western Cherokecs. A general national council was called for the purpose of adjusting this dispute but its efforts were fruitless, neither side being disposed to yield. In this contention, the members of the Treaty party threw the weight of their influence into the scale in favor of the Western Cherokees, or "Old Settlers," as they were called. This course exasperated some of the members of the Anti-Treaty party still further and it
John Ridge left several children and a number of his descend- ants still live in Oklahoma and others in California. One of his sons, John Rollin Ridge, born in 1826, went to California in 1851 and made his home there until his death, which occurred in 1867. He gained distinction as a writer of verse, his literary productions evidencing a true poetic mind as well as a remarkable individuality. A volume of his poems was published in 1868.
Elias Boudinot, a nephew of Major Ridge, was born in Georgia about the year 1802. His Cherokee name was Ga-la-gi-na, which meant "buck deer." The name of his father (a brother of Major Ridge), was Uweetie, and the son was sometimes called Buck Watie. Stand Watie was a younger brother. In 1818 he entered school at Cornwell, Connecticut, where he adopted the name of the noted publicist and philanthropist who was his patron. In collaboration with Rev. S. A. Worcester, he began the translation of the New Testament into the Cherokee language in 1823. Under the direc- tion of the Cherokee National Council, he began the publication of the Cherokee Phoenix in 1827, which was the forerunner of the Cherokee Advocate of a later period. In 1833 he wrote a book entitled "Poor Sarah, or the Indian Woman," which was published in the Cherokee language. A second edition of this book, printed at Park Hill in 1843, is believed to have been the first book ever printed and published in Oklahoma. Being a man of marked abil- ity, he exerted great influence among his people until he espoused the cause of the unpopular Treaty Party in support of the proposed plan to sell the tribal domain and move to the wilderness of the West. This made him very unpopular and ultimately led to his assassination by some of the more vindictive partizans of the oppo- sition. He was not a full-blood Indian, his maternal grandfather having been a white man.
Elias Boudinot married Miss Harriet Gold, of Cornwell, Con- necticut, by whom he had several children. His son, Elias Cornelius Boudinot, was one of the most prominent Cherokees of the next generation, while another son, William P. Boudinot, was scarcely less gifted. The Boudinot family is still a prominent one in the Cherokee country.
131
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
was shortly after the adjournment of this council (which had been in session for nearly two weeks) that these assassinations took place. Chief Ross was charged with having instigated the killing of the leaders of the Treaty party, but it would seem improbable that he had any knowledge of the conspiracy, though there can be
JOHN RIDGE
no doubt that all of those concerned were numbered among his followers.2 Feeling ran high in the Cherokee Nation and a civil war within the tribe seemed imminent. The tribal agent, Governor Montfort Stokes, and Col. Matthew Arbuckle, the commander at
2 In his report concerning the affair to the secretary of war, Agent Stokes expressed his opinion concerning the alleged com- plicity of John Ross in the conspiracy resulting in the killing of the Ridges and Boudinot, as follows: "This murder taking place within two miles of the residence of John Ross, his friends were apprehensive it might be charged to his connivance, and, at this mo-
132
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
Fort Gibson, were very active in trying to preserve the peace. Mem- bers of the Treaty, or Ridge, party, who had signed the Treaty of New Echota and who had escaped assassination, fled to Fort Gibson and asked protection at the hands of the military authorities.3 The life of John Ross was threatened in retaliation and he was urged to scek safety in flight, but he refused to do so, reiterating his inno- cence of complicity in the killing of the leaders of the Ridge faction. His house was constantly guarded by his followers, however.
The national council was busy during the weeks which followed the slaying of the Ridges and Boudinot. First a decree was adopted declaring that the signers of the removal treaty had outlawed themselves by the course which they had pursued, though amnesty was to be extended to the survivors upon certain conditions. The same decree declared the slayers to be guiltless of murder. In August another decree repudiated the treaty of New Echota and reiterated the claim to the title of the old Cherokee country in the East. Still later another decree ordered the appearance of the signers of the treaty to answer for their conduct under penalty of outlawry. The officials of the United States Government then in- tervened and threatened John Ross with arrest for complicity in the killing of the Ridges.
During this time the Old Settlers and the Ross, or National party had been composing their differences, which at first seemed so irreconcilable. On July 12th, a general convention of the Old
ment I am writing there are six hundred armed Cherokees around the dwelling of Ross, assembled for his protection. The murderers of the two Ridges and Boudinot are certainly of the late Cherokee emigrants, and, of course, adherents of Ross, but I cannot yet believe that Ross has encouraged the outrage. He is a man of too much good sense to embroil his nation and, besides, his character, since I have known him, which is now twenty-five years, has been pacific.".
3 Stand Watie, who was a younger brother of Boudinot, was also said to have been marked for assassination but received a timely warning and guarded against attack. Later on in the day, learning that his brother had been killed, he rode to the home of the latter at Park Hill, though warned that there were many enemies there. He found the yard of his brother's house filled with armed men, who fell back and made way for him as he rode up to the porch, where the body of the slain brother lay. Lifting the cloth which covered the face of his brother, he gazed at it long and intently. Then, turning and facing the crowd of hostile spectators, he said : "I will give ten thousand dollars for the names of the men who did this." Not a word was spoken in reply, nor did any one offer to molest him as he put spurs to his horse and rode away.
1
133
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
Settlers and the newly arrived emigrants from the East was held at the Illinois camp grounds. After due deliberation, this con- vention adopted a formal "act of union," whereby the Eastern and Western Cherokees were declared to be "one body politic, under the
ELIAS BOUDINOT
style and title of the Cherokee Nation," thus succeeding both of the tribal organizations.+ A convention met at Tahlequah in Sep- tember following and framed a new tribal constitution. Most of the delegates in this convention were numbered among the newly
4 The "act of union" was signed by John Ross, principal chief ; George Lowrey, president of the National Committee; Goingsnake, speaker of the Council, and by thirteen others on behalf of the East- ern Cherokees. On behalf of the Old Settlers, it was signed by John Looney, acting principal chief; George Guess (Sequoyah), president of the Council, and by fifteen others.
134
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
arrived emigrants from east of the Mississippi, but the constitution thus formulated and adopted was aceepted by a convention of the Old. Settlers which was held at Fort Gibson, June 26, 1840.5 Thence- forth the history of the Cherokees is that of the one reunited tribe.
THE TEXAS CHEROKEES
The Government had negotiated a treaty with the Western Cherokees (i. e., those who had settled in Arkansas) in 1817. As was frequently the case, Congress was tardy in making the neces- sary appropriations for the compliance with the terms of the treaty. In consequence of this delay a part of the Western Cherokees be- eame dissatisfied and, under the leadership of the chief known as Bowl (who had led a party westward to the Arkansas country more than twenty years before, while it was still under the dominion of the Kingdom of Spain), they left Arkansas and journeyed to Texas, whieli was then a Spanish-Mexican Province. After the treaty of 1828, by the terms of which the Western Cherokees were to relinquish their lands in Arkansas, another party, which was dissatisfied with this proposed change, moved to Texas and joined their kinsmen who had previously migrated under the leadership of Bowl." Settled with these Cherokees in Eastern Texas were
5 The Cherokees had drawn up and adopted a constitution in 1827. This first Cherokee constitution was modeled largely after the constitution of the State of Mississippi.
" Tahchee, better known to the whites as "Captain Dutch," was the leader of the band of Cherokees which migrated to Texas in 1829. Having moved to Texas, he did not feel bound by the terms of the treaties which had ended the hostilities between the Cherokees and the Osages, and he led several raids into the Osage country from south of the Red River. Once a band of Osages came back to their former homes on the lower Verdigris, for the purpose of visiting the tribal agent, Col. A. P. Chouteau, who had a trading house at the lower falls of the Verdigris (probably the same post that had been previously operated by Charles Bougie). One even- ing they held a war dance in the open space between the store and the river.
Extending around in a circle about forty feet in diameter were a number of small fires, at each of which were two or three Osage warriors when not engaged in the danee. The fires gave forth but feeble, fliekering lights. The dance was performed by all of the daneers forming in single file and close order, tramping and stamp- ing around the cirele to the time of a tom-tom drum with the accom- paniment of yells and other voeal expressions that no syllable of the English language can imitate. Now and then a dancer would strike
135
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
several Caddoan tribes and also bands of Delawares, Shawnees, Kickapoos and other tribes from further south who had voluntarily migrated from the United States to escape the restrictions and an- noyances by which they had been surrounded. The Cherokee con- tingent being the strongest and most influential, its chief, Bowl, was regarded as the leader of the confederation.
The Cherokees in Texas sought to secure a title to their lands from the Mexican authorities. The Texas Revolution put a new aspect on affairs. The Cherokees had one staunch friend in the Texan councils in the person of Gen. Samuel Houston, who had lived among their fellow tribesmen in Tennessee and also in the new Cherokee country in the Indian Territory. Largely through his influence, the Texan convention authorized the holding of a
a blow on a log or stump, whereupon the dance would cease for a time, the dancers retiring to the fires to listen to the speech which the one making such a signal proposed to make. Unknown to the dancers, a party of Cherokee warriors were secreted on the eastern bank of the river, watching the dance, which was easily visible from their position, Captain Dutch being their leader.
After the Osage dance had proceeded for some time and the dancers had warmed up to a heroic pitch, Captain Dutch, stripped to his belt and armed only with his pipe-hatchet and hunting knife, slipped into the river and quietly swam over to the other side. Watching for his opportunity, from the cover of a high bank, and at a moment when an Osage warrior was making a grandiloquent speech, in which he boasted of the heroic acts he had performed and of the number of scalps which he had taken from the enemy, Captain Dutch sprang into the circle and, with one blow of his hatchet, brought the boaster to the ground, after which, deftly using his knife, he secured the scalp lock in an instant, turned, sprang out, over and down the bank of the river, where he plunged in and swam safely back to his comrades on the other bank. The Osages were so surprised at the scene which had been enacted before their very eyes that, before they could recover from their astonish- ment, the daring and impudent foe was giving vent to his derisive and triumphant yells.
It is worthy of remark that, at the time of this incident, a reward of $500 had been offered by Colonel Arbuckle, in command at Fort Gibson, for the apprehension of Captain Dutch, so this exploit, per- formed as it was, in the immediate vicinity of that post, was an evident defiance of the proclamation. Subsequently the offer of such a reward was withdrawn and Captain Dutch came to the Cherokee Nation and with his followers settled near the Canadian River. It may also be well to state that he and Colonel Arbuckle became the best of friends and are said to have had their portraits painted together in the act of shaking hands.
136
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
treaty council with the Cherokees and the affiliated tribes and he was named as one of the treaty commissioners. The treaty thus negotiated met with many objections and, ultimately, in 1837, was rejected by the Texas Senate, though General Houston, who was then president of the Texas Republic, used all of his influence to secure its ratification. The Cherokees were accused of having con- spired with the Mexicans to drive the Americans out of Texas but it is doubtful if the accusation had any foundation in fact. But public sentiment is not always as discriminating as it should be and there is no doubt but that it was adversely influenced by the story of the Cherokees being in league with the Mexicans. Then, General Houston was succeeded by Mirabeau B. Lamar, a Georgian, who seemed to have brought with him a full measure of the antip- athy toward the Cherokees which had been so manifest in his native state. One of the first acts of President Lamar was to carry ยท into execution the policy which he had announced in his inaugural address (December, 1838), namely the forcible expulsion of every Indian tribe from the dominions of the new republic.
The Cherokees were notified that they must prepare to abandon their farms in the valleys of the Angelina and Neches rivers and leave the country in the following autumn. While facing this dire ex- tremity, they received an invitation from certain Mexicans, who were dissatisfied with Texan rule, to join them in an uprising against the authorities of the republic. When the latter were informed of this, a commission (consisting of the secretary of war and the vice president of the republic) was sent to demand the immediate removal of the Cherokees from the dominions of the Texan republic. When the Cherokees declined to comply to this demand they were immediately attacked by a superior force of Texas troops and, in two engagements (July 14-15, 1839), they were defeated and dis- persed with the loss of a large number in killed and wounded, Bowl and Hard-Mush, the two leading chiefs, being among the number who were killed.
Although some of the Cherokees who were thus driven from their homes scattered and remained for a time in Texas, eventually most of them rejoined the main body of the tribe on the new reser- vation in the Indian Territory. A small band crossed the Rio Grande and took refuge in Mexico, where their descendants still live.7
7 According to James Mooney (Nineteenth Annual Report, Bu- reau of American Ethnology, pp. 146-148) the Cherokees who re- turned to the main body of the tribe, after being driven from Texas,
1
137
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
The following account of the expulsion of the Cherokees from Texas is quoted verbatim' from a "History of Texas." Vol. II, pp. 263-71, by H. Yoakum, published in 1856 :
"The treachery of Cordova, and the warlike' demonstrations of the Indians in Eastern Texas in 1838, are already before the reader, and their causes known. The president in his message of the 21st of December, 1838, assumed the position that the immigrant Indian tribes had no legal or equitable claim to any portion of the territory included within the limits of Texas; that the federal government of Mexico neither conceded nor promised them lands or civil rights; that it was not necessary to inquire into the nature and extent of the pledge given to the Cherokees by the consulta- tion of 1835 and the treaty of February, 1836, consequent upon it, for the treaty was never ratified by any competent authority.
"Now, the facts are that in 1822, long before any colonist had settled in Eastern Texas, or any colony contract had been made for that section, the Cherokees emigrated to Texas. They estab- lished a village north of Nacogdoches-the town, at that time, being a waste, lately swept by the forces of Long and Perez. On the 8th of November of that year the Cherokees, by Captain Richard and others of their head men, entered into an agree- ment with the government of Texas, by which it was stipulated that certain Cherokee chiefs should proceed with their interpreters to Mexico, to treat with Iturbide for the settlement of their tribe where it was then located. In the meantime, the agreement guar- anteed to the Cherokees the free and peaceful right to cultivate their crops, and the privileges of natives. The chiefs proceeded to Mexico, and the imperial government having satisfied them- whether verbally or in writing is immaterial-they returned. An order from the supreme government was despatched to the com- mandant-general of the eastern provinces, and by him to the governor of Coahuila and Texas, dated August 15, 1831, and by the latter to the political chief of Bexar, dated September 1, 1831, directing a compliance with the promise made by the supreme government to the Cherokees. The governor states in his com-
brought with them a blood-stained canister which contained the patent for their Texas lands. This document was said to have been carried about by Bowl ever since the treaty with Houston and it was on his person when he was killed. (Bowl is said to have been brutally assassinated while lying wounded on the field.) The can- ister and the deed to the Cherokee lands in Texas are said to be still in existence in the old Cherokee country, in Eastern Oklahoma.
-
138
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
munication that for the preservation of peace with the agricultural tribes he had offered them their establishment on a fixed tract of land, and that they had selected it. He requested the political chief to put them in possession, with corresponding titles. The political chief, on the 25th of September, replied that the matter should be attended to in accordance with the prescribed forms. Again, on the 22d of March, 1832, Colonel Piedras was commissioned by the political chief to put the Cherokee families into individual pos- session of the lands they possessed. Whether there was any actual, written title, is unknown and immaterial. In the empresario con- cession afterward made to David G. Burnet, and including part or all of their settlement, the lands already appropriated were excepted from those to be occupied by the colonists under Burnet. "For fourteen years the Cherokees had occupied this land, holding it in quiet and undisputed possession. They were not intruders on the whites, for they were there first. The Mexican authorities recognized them as an agricultural tribe, with Mexican privileges, and Colonel Bean was official agent for them, in com- mon with other tribes. No voice had been raised against their title. It was deemed by all both legal and equitable. To give weight and dignity to his title, the consultation of November, 1835, at a time when Texas was weak, when a heavy cloud hung over her hopes and her liberties were suspended upon a most unequal and unjust war, made a very solemn pledge to these Indians, acknowledging their just claim to their lands, setting forth the boundaries thereof, and saying further: 'We solemnly declare that we will guaranty to them the peaceable enjoyment of their rights to their lands, as we do our own. We solemnly declare that all grants, surveys, or locations of lands, within the bounds herein- before mentioned, made after the settlement of the said Indians, are, and of right ought to be, utterly null and void.' To make it, if possible, still stronger the consultation resolved that each mem- ber sign it as a 'pledge of the public faith, on the part of the people of Texas.' And they did sign it; the names of Wharton, Waller, Martin, Houston, Zavola, Patrick, Henry Smith, Grimes, J. W. Robinson, Mitchell and Millard, among others of the dis- tinguished worthies of the Revolution, were placed by themselves to that pledge. Surely, they did not intend to deceive the Indians by thus purchasing their neutrality until the war was over, when they, having no further 'need of them, would declare that the Indians had no title, either legal or equitable. The suggestion that the consultation had no power to make such pledge is preposterous.
139
HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA
The members of it had power to adhere to the constitution of 1824, or to sever from it; the assembly was organic, primitive, revolu- tionary. Twenty or thirty thousand people were defending them- selves against eight millions. They met, by their representatives, for general consultation. They found a nation of Indians in their midst, advanced in civilization and having influence over other tribes. These Indians had occupied the country first and it was important to conciliate them. This was done by the pledge given. It is a rule in ethics that the promiser is bound by what he believed the promisee understood by the promise. No mental reservation or technical objection can avoid this moral conclusion. From all which, the result is that President Lamar's message, in this respect, is unsupported by history, as by the good faith of Texas toward these Indians.
"On the other hand, it was impossible that the Indians should have an independent government within that of Texas. They must necessarily come under the laws of the latter, or emigrate. It was not proposed to them that they should come under the Texan laws as citizens. The great object of many was to get their lands, for they were located in a fine and desirable country. The Texans were the first violators of the pledge of 1835. The ink was scarcely dry on the paper when locators and surveyors were seen in their forests; and this, too, notwithstanding the consultation, by the decree of November 13, 1835, had ordered such locations and sur- veys to cease all over Texas.
"But it is useless to dwell further upon the subject. The Cherokees were charged with the plunder and murder of many of the inhabitants residing among them and in their vicinity. . The Killough family were cruelly massacred; only three or four es- caped, and they were brought into the settlements by the Cherokees, who by their 'cunning representations,' says the secretary of war, charged these acts upon the prairie Indians' and the treacherous Mexicans. To prevent such occurrences, Major Waters had been ordered with two companies to occupy the Neches Saline, not only to watch the Cherokees, but to cut off their intercourse with the Indians of the prairies. Bowles, the Cherokee chief, notified Major Waters that he would repel by force such occupation of the Saline. As the major's force was too small to carry out his orders, lie established his post on the west bank of the Neches, out of the Cherokee territory.
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.