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 17
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"Colonel Burleson, who was then collecting a force on the Colorado to operate against other Indians, was directed to march
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his troops lower down, so as to be ready on the shortest notice to enter the Cherokee territory. In the meantime the government came in possession of the papers of Manuel Flores, including let- ters addressed to Big Mush and Bowles, the chiefs of the Cherokees. On their reception, Burleson was ordered to increase his force to 400 men and march into the Cherokee nation. He reached the east bank of the Neches on the 14th of July, and about the same time Colonel Landrum's regiment from eastern Texas arrived there. The Nacogdoches regiment under General Rusk had arrived some days before and taken position near the Cherokee village. The entire force was placed under the command of Brigadier-General Douglass. Commissioners had, for some days, been in conference with the Cherokees to effect, if possible, their peaceful removal. The commissioners offered to pay them fairly for their improve- ments, but we have no information that any offer was made for their lands. The Indians were required to surrender their gun- locks and remove to their brethren in Arkansas. At noon, on the 15th of July, all further attempts to make a treaty were abandoned and General Douglass was directed to put his troops in motion. The council ground was about five miles below the Indian camp. When the Texans arrived there the Cherokees had retreated about seven miles farther up the 'river. They were pursued and a com- pany of spies, which first came in sight of them, was fired on. The Indians displayed their forces on the point of a hill, having a ravine and thicket on the left. General Rusk motioned to them to come on; they advanced and fired four or five times, and immedi- ately occuped the ravine and thicket on the left. The main body of Texans coming up in the open prairie now formed, and the action became general. The Texans charged the ravine and ad- vanced up from the left. A portion of the Indians, who were attempting to approach the troops on the right flank, were repulsed. The Cherokees fled when the charge was made, leaving eighteen dead on the ground. The Texans had three killed and five wounded. The engagement commenced a little before sunset and the pursuit ended at night.
"On the morning of the 16th the troops proceeded on the trail made by the Indians the night previous. In the afternoon they were found strongly posted in a ravine half a mile from the Neches, and seemed eager for a fight. While the Texan advance was dismounting, the Indians commenced the action, killing several . horses and one man before their opponents could form, but they were soon driven by the advance into the ravine. The Indians
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were protected by a ravine and a thicket in the rear, while the Texans had to advance upon them through an open wood and down a hill. The main body coming up was formed, and firing com- menced at the distance of one hundred and fifty yards. The Tex- ans kept advancing and firing until within fifty yards of the ravine when, upon a signal, they charged. When they reached the ravine, the Indians fled and retreated into the dense thicket and swamp of the Neches bottom. The charge was gallantly continued into the swamp, but the enemy made no stand. Thus ended the conflict of the 16th. It lasted an hour and a half and was well contested by the Indians. The Texans lost five killed and twenty- seven wounded. The loss of the Cherokees was probably a hundred killed and wounded, and among the former was their distinguished chief, Bowles. In the official report of the action he was styled 'the long-dreaded Mexican ally, Colonel Bowles.' In these two contests there were engaged about five hundred Texans and eight hundred Indians.
"The trail of the retreating Cherokees was followed for some days. Several Indian villages were passed, their extensive corn- fields cut down and their houses burned. On the evening of the 25th, further pursuit being useless, the secretary of war, who accompanied the expedition, directed the troops to be marched to their homes and mustered out of service. 'For eighteen months afterward,' says a worthy officer in these engagements, 'the Indians came back in small parties, and committed fearful depredations upon the lives and property of the people on the frontiers.'
"In the march of General Douglass he passed the villages of nearly all the civilized Indians. He says: 'The Cherokees, Dela- wares, Shawnees, Caddoes, Kickapoos, Biloxies, Creeks, Ouchies, Muskogees and some Seminoles had established during the past spring and summer many villages and cleared and planted ex- tensive fields of corn, beans, peas, etc., preparing evidently for an efficient cooperation with the Mexicans in a war with this country.' It was very natural to infer from these agricultural labors, that the Indians were preparing for a war against Texas; but neither their plans nor their crops were permitted to mature. He speaks also of the Indian territory through which he marched and says that 'in point of richness of soil and the beauty of situation, water and productions, it would vie with the best portions of Texas.'
"Thus the vexed question with regard to the civilized Indians was settled, and there could be no hindrance to surveyors or settle- ments on their fine lands. The previous administration had en-
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deavored by treaties and presents to eoneiliate all the frontier Indians; this, had pursued a sterner poliey. It had, in all the conflicts, killed about three hundred warriors, leaving five thou- sand more, all exasperated against Texas, and ready to unite with her great enemy against her. However, the main point was to secure the rights, property and lives of the Texans; and if that was more thoroughly effected by war, so mueh the better for the republic. As to the rights of the Indians, mueh has been said and written in regard to them. Perhaps the exeuse offered by Cieero for the extension policy of Rome is the best for us-that 'no people have a right to the soil who do not know the use of it.' "
THE INTRODUCTION OF SLAVERY
One of the indirect results of the removal of the Indian tribes from the states of the South was the introduction of negro slavery into the Indian Territory. Although comparatively few of the full- blood Indians were slave owners, many of the people of mixed Indian and white deseent, as well as some of the intermarried whites, were slave owners and these brought their slaves with them to the new reservation in the West. The slaves were useful in the work of opening up new farms and plantations in the wilderness. While it is not probable that slavery was as profitable among the Indians as it was among the whites in the southern states, yet it became rec- ognized as an established institution in the Indian Territory from the arrival of the very first immigrants representing the tribes of the South.
Just how many slaves were brought to the Indian Territory by the Indians of these tribes is not definitely known. The eensus of the Cherokees still remaining in their old home country in 1835, showed that there were nearly 1,600 slaves owned by members of the tribe at that time. The Western Cherokees, who were already settled in the Indian Territory, also ineluded some that were slave owners. The number of negro slaves owned by members of the Chickasaw, Choetaw and Creek tribes was proportionally as great as that of the Cherokees, so the total number of slaves brought into the Indian Territory by the original immigrants must have been between 3,000 and 5,000.
CHAPTER XXII
INDIAN PEACE COUNCILS
In addition to the treaties which have been mentioned during the course of this period, practically all of which pertained to the five civilized tribes, a number of treaties were negotiated with other tribes. Some of these, such as those which were entered into with the wild tribes of the Plains Region, were merely treaties of peace and friendship. Others, made with tribes which were still living in the East, were made for the purpose of bringing about the re- moval of such tribes to new reservations in the Indian Territory.
The peace couneil which was held at Fort Gibson, immediately after the return of the Leavenworth-Dodge Expedition, was largely for the purpose of gaining the confidence and good will of the visit- ing representatives of the Plains tribes. No treaties were negotiated or signed at that time. Indirectly, however, it resulted in the hold- ing of other councils at which treaties of peace and amity were signed with the chiefs and headmen of a number of tribes and band from the Southern Plains Region.
SENECAS
The Senecas of Sandusky were known as such only after they settled on the Sandusky River, about 1785. Prior to that time, when they were living in the region of the Upper Ohio, they were known as the Mingoes. In reality they were probably descendants of a remnant of the ancient Erie Tribe, augmented later by a few Mohawks and Cayugas. A part of the Seneeas of Sandusky with- drew from the main body of the tribe and became confederated with a small band of Shawnees and were thereafter known as the Mixed Senecas and Shawnees.
A delegation representing the Senecas of Sandusky visited Washington City, early in 1831. While there the members of this delegation entered into a treaty with James B. Gardiner, commis- sioner representing the Government, by the terms of which they
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ceded all of their lands in Ohio and agreed to accept a reservation in the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. The lands thus relinquished in Ohio amounted in all to 40,000 acres and it was stipulated that the new reservation should consist of 67,000 acres, located west of the State of Missouri and north of the Cherokce country. The Government was to defray the expenses of removal, furnish food and supplies for one year, erect and equip a grist mill, sawmill and blacksmith shop on the new reservation.
SENECAS AND SHAWNEES
At Lewiston, Ohio, the chiefs and headmen of the Mixed Senecas and Shawnees signed a treaty, relinquishing all of their lands in Ohio, embracing two small reservations aggregating about 46,000 acres in all and agreeing to accept in exchange therefor a new reser- vation of 60,000 acres adjoining that which had already been as- signed to the Senccas of Sandusky. James B. Gardiner was the Government's representative in the negotiation of this treaty.1 The stipulations as to expense of removal, supplies and equipment were practically identical with those of most of the removal treaties of that period.
Both the Senecas of Sandusky and the Mixed Senecas and Shaw- nees were transported to their new reservations within a year fol- lowing the ratification of the treaties. At the Seneca Agency, on Cowskin River, Indian Territory, Commissioners Henry L. Ells- worth and John F. Schermerhorn concluded a supplemental treaty with the representatives of both tribes, whereby it was provided that the two might be merged as one nation. It does not appear that the plan thus contemplated was ever carried out.
QUAPAWS
Under the terms of the last land cession treaty with the Quapaws (November 15, 1824), the members of that tribe were obligated to move to the valley of the Red River, in Northern Louisiana, and settle among the Caddoes. This they did with disastrous results.
1 James B. Gardiner negotiated similar treaties with the Wyan- dottes, Ottawas and other tribes which were prevailed upon to re- linquish lands in that part of the country during that period. The Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork and Roche de Boeuf complained that underhand means were used to secure the signatures of some of their chiefs to the treaty.
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The lands assigned to them by the Caddoes proved to be subject to periodical and destructive overflows and, moreover, the climate proved to be a very unhealthy one for the Quapaws, one-fourth of their entire number dying during the time they were living there. The Quapaws therefore returned to their old homes on the Arkansas and appealed to the Government for relief from their distressed condition. Commissioner John F. Schermerhorn accordingly vis- ited them and held a council with them as a result of which they relinquished their right to live in the Caddo country and were
MONTFORT STOKES
granted a new reservation of 160 square miles, situated north of the reservations of the Senecas and Shawnees.
The Senecas, the Mixed Senecas and Shawnees and the Quapaws still live on the lands which were assigned to the people of their respective tribes more than eighty years ago.
COMANCHES AND WICHITAS
A peace council was held with the representatives of the Co- manche and Wichita tribes at Camp Holmes,2 on the Canadian
2 Camp Holmes was the site of a temporary military camp occu- pied by troops under the command of Lieut .- Col. R. B. Mason, of ""ol. I-10
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River in the summer of 1835, the Government being represented by Gen. Matthew Arbuckle, Maj. F. W. Armstrong and Governor Montfort Stokes 3 as commissioners. A treaty was drawn up and signed-the first that was ever entered into between the Government and these tribes. The various clauses of this treaty related to the es- tablishment of friendly relaions between these tribes and the Gov- ernment, the right of passage through the country occupied by them, with simple provisions for regulating intercourse between their people and those of the United States. This treaty was signed August 24, 1835, and was indirectly one of the results of the Leav- enworth-Dodge Expedition of the previous year.
KIOWA, KATAKA AND TAWAKARO
In the spring of 1837 a delegation representing the Kiowa, Kataka (Apaches of the Plains) and Tawakaro (Tawakony) tribes visited Fort Gibson where they participated in a peace council, the Goverment being represented by Governor Montfort Stokes and Col. A. P. Chouteau as commissioners. The terms of this treaty were practically identical with those of the treaty made with the Co- manches and Wichitas in 1835 and, like it, resulted from the visit of Colonel Dodge's command to the country of these tribes. Like tlie treaty made with the Comanches and Wichitas, this was also the first treaty ever made between these tribes and the Government.
the Dragoon Regiment. It was located near the mouth of Little River, in Hughes County. From 1835 to 1838 it was occupied by Col. A. P. Chouteau as a trading post. It then became the home of Jesse Chisholm. It was also called Fort Edward and is so desig- nated on some of the earlier maps.
3 Montfort Stokes was born in Wilkes County, North Carolina, in 1760. He served in the infant American Navy during the Revo- lutionary War. He held a number of positions of trust and honor in his native state and was a member of the United States Senate for one term-1817-1823. In 1830-31 he was governor of North Carolina, which office he resigned to accept an appointment as one of the commissioners to superintend the removal of the Cherokee and other Indians west of the Mississippi. Subsequently he was appointed as tribal agent for the Cherokee by President Jackson, a position which he continued to hold until his death, which occurred at the Cherokee Agency, near Fort Gibson, November 4, 1842. He is supposed to have been buried at the Agency, but, if so, all trace of his grave has been lost. As he was the only veteran of the Ameri- can Revolution who is known to have died in the State of Oklahoma it is a matter of regret that his grave has not been positively identi- fied and marked by an appropriate monument.
CHAPTER XXIII
MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES
Missionaries had been laboring among the Indians of all of the tribes of the South before they were removed to the Indian Terri- tory. Throughout all the time of trouble which preceded the movement to the West, these missionaries had remained the firm friends and faithful counselors of the Indians among whom they had chosen to spend their lives in unselfish service. When the Indians moved westward, the missionaries moved with them and strove to encourage them in their afflictions and to help them in the hour of adversity. As soon as possible after their arrival in the Indian Territory, new mission stations were established and schools were opened for the Indian children and youth. The mis- sion stations in the old reservations, east of the Mississippi, were supported by several missionary societies, namely, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational and Presbyterian), the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church and that of the Baptist General Convention. Of these, the work of the American Board was first in the point of priority of establishment as it was also the strongest and most abundantly supported, though the Baptist missions were organized shortly afterward.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had established the Dwight Mission among the Western Cherokees. in Arkansas, in 1821, and, in 1829, this mission was moved and re-established in the new Cherokee Reservation in the Indian Ter- ritory. The American Board had also located and established a second mission among the western Cherokees the year before their removal. It was located at Mulberry and, when it was transferred to the' new Cherokee country, in 1829, it was renamed and was thenceforward known as the Fairfield Mission. The work of the United Foreign Missionary Society was consolidated with that of the American Board in 1826, so that in reality the first work of the American Board in the Indian Territory was the Union and
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Hopefield Mission stations, which were established by the former society during the latter part of the previous period.1 The third mission established by the American Board in the Cherokee Nation was the one located at the forks of the Illinois River, in 1830. Six years later this one was moved to Park Hill, a few miles south of Tahlequah, and was thenceforward known as the Park Hill Mission.
BUILDING AT DWIGHT MISSION
Dwight Mission (or New Dwight, as it was sometimes desig- nated in contradistinction from the original Dwight Mission, in Arkansas) was located in the western part of the present Sequoyah County. Rev. Cephas Washburn,2 who had helped to found this mission in Arkansas, continued as its superintendent after it was
1 By this consolidation the American Board also assumed charge of the Harmony and Boudinot Mission Stations, among the Osages of Southern Kansas. All four of these stations were abandoned in 1836-37.
2 Rev. Cephas Washburn was born at Randolph, Vermont, July 24, 1793; graduate of the University of Vermont, Burlington, 1817; ordained at Braintree, Vermont, June, 1818; appointed a missionary September 23, 1818: left Randolph, October 7, 1818, and went to Georgia. Stayed there till October, 1819, then pro- cecded to Brainerd. He labored among the Cherokees of the Arkan- sas till March, 1841, when he was honorably released. He died March 17, 1860, at Little Rock, Arkansas. He visited the United States in April, 1835, returning December, 1835. He married Miss Abigail Woodward, October 6, 1818.
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transplanted to the Indian Territory. Fairfield Mission was located northeast of Dwight and within the limits of the present Adair County. Dr. Elizur Butler,3 a medical missionary, who had entered the work among the Cherokees in Georgia in 1821, and who was one of the missionaries who suffered imprisonment in the Georgia penitentiary for the technical violation of the arbitrary laws of that states, came west with the migration of the main body of the Cherokees, in 1838-39, and was thercafter stationed at Dwight. Rev. S. A. Worcester,4 who had also suffered imprisonment in the Georgia penitentiary because of his devotion to duty and his refusal to take an oath of allegiance which seemed to conflict therewith, came West in 1836 and assumed the superintendency of the Park Hill Mission at the time of its establishment. The Park Hill Mission was the largest and most important institution of its class in the Indian Territory, including the buildings of the mission and schools, the homes of the several missionaries, teachers and em- ployes, boarding hall, a grist mill, shops, stables, barns (for an extensive farm was conducted in conjunction with the mission sta- tion) and printing office and book bindery. Much of the mission printing not only for the Cherokees but also for the Choctaws and Creeks, was done at the Park Hill Mission press-the first printing press in Oklahoma.
The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions had also carried on an extensive work among the Choctaws and Chickasaws before they were removed to the West. For nearly twenty years after their arrival in the West, these two tribes were
3 Elizur Butler, M. D., was born at Norfolk, Connecticut, June 11, 1794; professed religion January, 1816; educated at no college ; departed for the mission October, 1820; arriving at Brainerd Jan- uary 10, 1821; stationed there till 1824; then at Creek Path till. 1826; went back to Brainerd February 14, 1834; visited the United States April 16, 1834, returning October 13, 1834; stationed at Red Clay, September, 1835; ordained at Kingston, Tennessee, April 4, 1838; was released August 17, 1852; died in 1857. He was married twice; first to Miss Esther Post in 1820 who died in 1829, then to Miss Lucy Ames in 1830.
+ Samuel A. Worcester was born at Worcester, Massachusetts. January 19, 1798; professed religion September, 1817; graduated from the University of Vermont in 1819 and Andover Seminary in 1823; ordained in Park Street Church, Boston, August 25, 1825; departed from Boston for the mission August 31, 1825, arriving at Brainerd October 21, 1825 ; stayed there till 1828. then to Park Hill December 2, 1836; died April 20, 1859. He married Miss Anna Orr July 19, 1829.
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practically regarded as one. Between 1832 and 1837, inclusive, no less than ten mission stations were located in the Choctaw Na- tion by the American Board. Of these, Bethabara, Clear Creek, Bok Tucklo and Bethel did not prove to be permanent (probably because of the unsettled condition among the Indians who had but recently migrated), the periods of their existence varying from two to five years each. Wheelock (1832), Pine Ridge (1835), Greenfield (1836), Stockbridge (1837), Mountain Fork (1837) and Good Water (1837) were all in operation in 1840. Rev. Loring S. Williams and Rev. Alfred Wright 5 were the leaders who estab- lished the first of the missions of the American Board in the Choc- taw Nation. When Mr. Wright selected the site for a mission eighteen miles east of Fort Towson, he named it Wheelock in mem- ory of the first president of Dartmouth College. The American Board also supported several day schools in addition to the schools which were operated at the mission stations. Some of these had native teachers. Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury and Rev. Cyrus Byington, two of the oldest and most influential missionaries among the Choctaws were the last to leave the old Choctaw country for the new reservation west of the Mississippi, being detained in the set- tlement of the secular affairs of the missions which had to be aban- doned there when the Indians moved west. Mr. Byington was engaged in compiling a dictionary and a grammar of the Choctaw language. Mr. Wright was actively engaged in translating the Bible into the Choctaw language.
The work of the American Board among the Creeks was much more limited than that which it maintained among the Cherokees and the Choctaws, and the work among the members of that tribe was continued only from 1833 to 1837.
5 Alfred Wright was born at Columbia, Connecticut, March 1, 1788; graduated from Williams College in 1812, and Andover Seminary 1814; went to North Carolina in 1815, resided three years in Raleigh, ordained as an evangelist with Jonas King in Charles- ton, South Carolina, December 17, 1819: shortly after received an appointment from the board as a missionary among the Choctaws; returned to New England in 1820, stationed at Goshen, August 1, 1823. Missionary operations were interrupted by the removal of the Choctaws across the Mississippi so he left that region October 27, 1830, visited New England and continued North till 1831; he then went to Little Rock, Arkansas, February 18, 1832. On Sep- tember 14, 1832, he went to Wheelock where he died March 31, 1858. Hc married Miss Harrict Bunce in 1825.
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Although the work of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was jointly supported by the Congregational and . Presbyterian denominations and a large percentage of the mission- aries sent to the Indian Territory were from the Congregational Church, all of these missions were organized according to the forms of the Presbyterian denomination and eventually all of the work passed into the hands of the mission board of the Presbyterian Church. More than half of the missionaries sent to the Indian Territory by the American Board were natives of Massachusetts. Vermont and Connectieut were also well represented. The states of New Hampshire, Maine, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio were also represented by a few workers in this field.
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