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 27
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At this council these bands agreed to bury the tomahawk and scalping knife and try to become an agricultural people. (The Wichitas, Caddoes and several of the smaller tribes had been rais- ing corn from time immemorial.) All the chiefs marched to a ravine near by, cast into it a tomahawk and a scalping knife and covered them with rock and earth, up even with the surface, plant- ing at the same time an ear of corn. This was in token of their sin- cerity in their promise to bury all weapons of death and barbarism forever and that they should henceforth try to live in peace and secure their subsistence by the cultivation of the soil.
These chiefs and most of their warriors ever afterward remained true to that treaty and to that ceremony, even during the trouble on the Brazos Reserve in 1859. At that time there were several families of white people living near Fort Belknap, who became alarmed and were preparing to move away; but Jose Maria, chief of the Anadarkoes, though he had had a son killed by the partisans of Bayor (with Choctaw Tom's hunting party) sent word to them not to be alarmed or afraid, that he did not make war on women and
worked over and published in various periodicals, but most of them remained untouched at the time of Major Vore's death a few years later. When the writer secured trace of this interesting and valu- able material a few years ago, a prompt effort was made to locate it. His search was soon ended by learning that the desired manuscript notes had been burned a few years before, a most regrettable and irremediable loss to local history.
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children and that he and the other chicfs had not forgotten the cere- mony on the Concho.
In July, 1853, Agent Thomas G. Fitzpatrick, as commissioner on the part of the Government, negotiated a new treaty with the Comanches, Kiowas and Apaches of the Plains,8 in a council held at Fort Atkinson, on the Arkansas River.º
A notable inter-tribal council was held by the representatives of the civilized tribes in 1859, at North Fork Town (Eufaula), in the Creek Nation, for the purpose of discussing the increasing intrusion of white men and of devising some means of putting a stop to it.
The council at North Fork Town was held, as was the custom, in the open air, beneath the shade of the forest trees. The pipe of friendship was lighted and passed around the council circle with all of the solemnity and ceremony incident to such gatherings. After a number of the representatives of the different tribes had spoken, Opothleyohola, the Creek chieftain, arose to speak. Unlike most of those present, he did not dress after the manner of the white man. His form was draped in a blanket which hung as gracefully as the toga of a Roman senator. A brightly colored shawl encircled his head like a turban. He was a man of large frame and imposing presence and, as an orator, was said to have had but few equals and no superiors among his own people. He was unlettered and could speak only in the tongue of the Muskogees, so his speech had to be interpreted into the Cherokee, Choctaw and English languages, in order that all present might understand it. In a most impressive address, Opothleyohola said :
"My Brothers, many, many years ago, when I was a child, there was a beautiful island in the Chattahoochee River. It was covered with stately trees and carpeted with green grass. When the Indian was hungry and could not find wild game elsewhere, he could always go to that island and kill a deer. An unwritten law forbade the killing of more than one deer, and, even then, the hunter might resort to the island only when he had failed elsewhere. But the banks of that island were of sandy soil. As the floods of the river rolled on this side and on that, the banks wore away and the island shrunk in size. When our people left that country, the island had
8 Niles' National Register, Vol. LXX, pp. 229-30 and 257-8.
9 Fort Atkinson was a sod-walled cantonment situated in the val- ley of the Arkansas River, a few miles west of the site of Dodge City, Kansas. It was a temporary military post, garrisoned for a brief period in the carly '50s to afford a measure of protection to the overland travel and traffic on the Santa Fe Trail.
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become so small that there was only room for two or three of the great trees and most of the green grass was gone. The deer, once so plentiful there, had entirely disappeared.
"I have since learned that there is a kind of grass which, if it had been planted on the banks of that beautiful island, might have saved it. This grass strikes its roots deeply into the sandy soil and binds it so firmly that the waters of the flood cannot wear it away.
"My Brothers, we Indians are like that island in the middle of the river. The white man comes upon us as a flood. We crumble and fall, even as the sandy banks of that beautiful island in the Chattahoochee. The Great Spirit.knows, as you know, that I would stay that flood, which comes thus to wear us away, if I could. As well might we try to push back the flood of the river itself. -
"As the island in the river might have been saved by planting the long-rooted grass upon its banks, so let us save our people by educating our boys and girls and our young men and young women in the ways of the white man. Then they may be planted and deeply rooted about us and our people may stand unmoved in the flood of the white men.'' 10
10 Personal information secured from Rev. Dr. Joseph S. Mur- row, who, as a missionary to the Creeks, was present at the council and listened to this remarkable Indian leader who, conscious of his own deficiency in learning, was wise enough to discern the need of education for his people.
CHAPTER XXXIII
DEVELOPMENT OF SLAVERY IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY
Negro slaves were brought to the Indian Territory by the very first Indian immigrants from the southern states. As a rule, the slave-owning members of the Indian tribes were people of mixed Indian and white blood, though some of the full blood Indians also became possessed of negro bondmen in the course of time. The cul- ture of cotton was common in all of the states from which these tribes came and cotton made slavery a profitable institution. The Choctaws and Chickasaws came from the cotton country in Missis- sippi. Those of the members of these two tribes who engaged in growing cotton, on a large scale, after coming to the West, settled in or near the valley of the Red River, consequently there were many more plantations operated by slave labor in that part of the territory than any other. The Creeks also owned many slaves, though they did not engage so largely in the culture of cotton as the Choctaws and Chickasaws. The full blood Cherokees were a race of mountaineers and negro slavery never flourished in mountain regions. Cotton was grown to some extent in the central part of the territory, but more often for domestic purposes than on a commer- cial scale. Many of the wealthier mixed-blood Cherokees were slave owners. In their removal to the West, the Seminoles were accom- panied by a number of free (or refugee) negroes who had fled from bondage and had been adopted as members of the tribe while it was still located in Florida.1
1 Among the Indians who were owners of many slaves might be mentioned Peter P. Pitchlynn and "Bob" Love, in the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations; Daniel N. McIntosh and Opothleyohola, in the Creek Nation; Joseph Vann, of Webbers Falls, and John and Lewis Ross, in the Cherokee Nation. Lewis Ross, who operated the salt works at the old Chouteau trading post (Salina), had upward of 200 slaves and worked several shifts of forty-five men each. Joe Vann's steamboat, the Lucy Walker, which was destroyed by an explosion on the Ohio River, near Louisville, Kentucky, in 1844, was entirely manned by negro slaves from his own plantation in the Indian Territory.
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Slavery, as it existed in the Indian Territory was not materially different from slavery in the states. There were humane owners and masters and there were occasionally some of the brutal, cruel type as well. There were well marked instances of servile devotion and
$20 REWARD.
.
ANAWAY on the 21st September last, from the subscriber, living on Grand river, near the mouth of Honey ererk, Cherokee , Nation, a negro man named Al.,EN, who is about 25 years eld: about 5 fret 2 or 8 inches high; very black; has very white eyes; rather a stop- prive in his speech when speaking, and & wen under bis thigh. When he left ho is on a plan shirt and copperes colored photoloons; and also, marks of the whip, wifiend before he came into my posses-
Any person arresting and returning the Kui magro to me or lodging him in jail so that I on get him, will receive a reward oftwouns dollars.
PETER HU.DEBRAND .:
Cherokee Nation, Oct. 22-2w,
NOTICE.
#THERE will be sold to the higliest
.
hidder, on Saturday, the fifteenth of Dorember next; at Wchber's Salt Works, the following named NEGROES, to wit: CHARLOTTE; MARY AND HER TWO CHIL- DRES; RACHAEL AND HER CHILD,and oug Negro Man. All of which will be soll for the purpose of making an equal divi- sion ofthe proceeds of said negroes among the heirs of Ruth Phillips, deceased. 0) Terms of sale Cash. Sale to com- mence at 12 o'clock.
LOONEY PRICE ELLIS PHILLIPS.
Sept. 18, 1545.
SLAVE ADVERTISEMENTS
fidelity and there were not lacking other instances in which the faithlessness and depravity of the slave was made manifest. As a rule, they were devoted to their masters.
Benson, in his book, "Life Among the Chocatws," mentions the loyal devotion of a slave who belonged to one of the immigrant Choctaws, who settled between Skullaville and Fort Smith. This
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Indian established a ferry across the Poteau River, a few miles above its mouth. The ferry boat was operated by a slave named Uncle Phil, who had been brought from Mississippi by his master. The master and mistress both died, leaving four orphaned ehildren, whose ages ranged from four to ten years. There seemed to be no near relatives neither was there as yet any court to appoint a guardian for the children. Uncle Phil might easily have absconded (for there was no fugitive slave law in the Indian Territory to be invoked in his case) but, instead of seeking his liberty, he remained with the helpless children of his deeeased Indian master, provided them with clothes and food, worked the little farm and kept the ferry as faithfully as when the master and mistress were alive and, seemingly, was as careful of every interest involved as a guardian eould have been.
A NEGRO UPRISING
William J. Weaver (Fort Smith Elevator, February 12, 1897), tells of a negro uprising that occurred along the valley of the Arkansas River in the Cherokee and Creek nations in 1842. Niles' National Register (August 7, 1841), relates a similar ineident, prob- ably identieal. According to Niles' Register, the leaders or instiga- tors were probably renegade negroes who had eome West with the Seminoles and who were naturally unruly and impatient of re- straint. It was planned that a large number of slaves from various plantations on both sides of the river should make a break for liberty together. They had heard in some vague way that there was a set- tlement of free negroes on the Rio Grande, in what was still Mexi- ean territory at that time. Without knowing anything of the direc- tion or distanee to such a settlement, these Indian Territory slaves decided that they would band themselves together for the purpose of running away from their masters and going to that far away place where negroes were free.
The center of the plot was said to have been at Webbers Falls but it extended from the state line clear up into the lower valleys of the Grand and Verdigris rivers. The plans were earefully laid and a day was set for making the attempt. One morning at 4 o'clock, they locked their overseers in their cabins while still asleep. The negroes then took all of the horses, mules, firearms and provi- sions they could find and, at daylight, started toward Mexieo. (Niles' Register states that they went to the valley of the Red River ; Weaver says they went West on the Canadian River Road; there is
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also a discrepancy as to the number of negroes that took part in the movement, Weaver stating it at 250, while Niles' Register places the estimate as high as 600.)
The negroes pursued their journey to a point in the Red River country where buffalo might be found. There they proceeded to fortify themselves in a defensive work composed of earth and logs. As they did not succeed in killing many buffalo, they soon began a series of predatory raids on the flocks and herds, and poultry roosts and corn cribs of the Chickasaws and Choctaws. Three troops of Dragoons were sent after them but, as the commander of the de- tachment found them well armed and strongly intrenched, he sent to Fort Towson for reinforcements, which came in the form of a company of infantry and two pieces of field artillery. When the artillery began to batter the protecting barrier, the runaways soon deserted it and were then charged by the Dragoons who killed and wounded a number and captured the rest, who were soon headed for the settlements. A few of the ring-leaders were hanged; others were whipped, and thus ended the only negro slave uprising of any importance during the days of slavery in the old Indian Territory.
ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY
Although the Indian Territory was far removed from the centers of agitation for the abolition of slavery, the security and peace of mind of the slave owners were disturbed from time to time by rumors of the activity of anti-slavery agitators in their midst. That there was ground for such apprehensions, there can be no doubt. "Life Among the Choctaws," the book written by Rev. Henry C. Benson (the Methodist missionary who left the mission field in the Indian Territory, in 1845, after his church had divided on sectional lines because of the slavery issue), abounds in expressions of opinion concerning "the peculiar institution," as it was often called. A great majority of the mission workers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational-Presbyterian) as well as all of the moral influence of the sustaining society, under whose auspices they were laboring, was known to be opposed to slavery. In the course of time, pressure was put upon these men to openly oppose slavery and slave holding by the Indian people among whom they were working. In the Cherokee country, the Baptist mission work (confined, as it was, largely to the full blood element), under the direction of Rev. Evan Jones and his son, Rev. John B. Jones, made no secret of its propaganda for the cause of abolition.
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It was charged that the younger Jones was engaged in organiz- ing a secret society among the full blood Indians, which was re- puted to be hostile in its designs concerning the mixed blood Chero- kees as well as strongly in favor of frecing the slaves. There was considerable excitement over the matter, not only in the Indian Territory but also in the neighboring State of Arkansas. In the meantime, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions (which had its headquarters in Boston) withdrew its support from the missions, first in the Choctaw Nation (in 1859) and then in the Cherokee Nation (in 1860), really because of embarrassments growing out of the slavery question, though some other reasons were also assigned. A few of the missionaries championed the cause of the slave owners and withdrew from connection with the patroniz- ing society.2 Others became so outspoken in their anti-slavery senti- ments that it became expedient for them to leave the country. In the case of the Methodist missionaries, there was no such conten- tion for the reason that they all belonged to the southern branch of the church as the result of the division caused by differences of opinion on the slavery question in 1844-5.
The tribal Indian agents appointed by the Government during the years immediately preceding the Civil war, were all from the South and several of them were keenly apprehensive of the influ- ence of some of the anti-slavery missionaries who were laboring among the Indians.3 On the other hand, it has been charged that a rival secret society, known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, and presumed to be paving the way for disunion and the disruption
2 Among those missionaries who were not in harmony with the attitude of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions in regard to the slavery question was Rev. Dr. Elizur Butler, one of the veteran mission workers, who had suffered imprisonment in the Georgia penitentiary because of his devotion to the Cher- okees when they were being persecuted for the purpose of inducing them to emigrate. When he was directed to withhold the ordinances of the church from those who owned slaves, he is said to have writ- ten in response : "I have members, who are slaveholders, who are nearer the Kingdom than I am and I hereby tender my resigna- tion." He was shortly afterward commissioned as superintendent of education for the Cherokee Nation by Chief John Ross.
3 Letters of Agent Douglas H. Cooper, Choctaw and Chickasaw Agency, Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1859, pp. 190-1, and in the report of the same office for 1860, pp. 129-30; also the letter of Maj. Elias Rector, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Superintendency, Ibid., pp. 115-6.
·
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of the Federal Government, was actively pushing its propaganda in the Indian Territory, though this is doubtful.4
Under the head of "Something for Abolitionists to Read," the Fort Smith Herald of January 17, 1852, printed the following story of the return of a runaway slave :
"About four years ago, two negro men belonging to Mrs. Ridge, now dead, and then the widow of Major Ridge, of the Cherokee Nation, ran away. Nothing had been heard from them since they left until a few days ago, when one of them, a large, likely fellow by the name of William, stepped into the house where he had left his old mistress and voluntarily surrendered to Mr. Stand Watie, its present occupant, and administrator of the estate of Mrs. Ridge. Mr. W. was very much surprised to see him, nor did he know that he was in the neighborhood until he walked into the house and fell upon his knees. It appears that he had been a part of the time in Iowa, a free state, and came immediately from that place home. Here is an instance of a negro preferring slavery to freedom in a free state."
The following, under the caption of "Secret Society Among the Cherokees," was published in the Fort Smith Times, of April 26, 1860 :
"We learn from good authority that between 100 and 150 full- blood Cherokee Indians, in Flint District, a few days ago, held a meeting on a high mountain, where they could see any approach from a distance, to initiate a number of Indians into their secret society. The full-bloods appear to be banding themselves together for some purpose and many of the half-breeds are becoming uneasy. This new society is somewhat on the plan of the Kansas Aid Society and perhaps came from that country. The half-breeds say that John Jones, son of Evan Jones, is at the head of it. There is trouble brewing among these Indians, and there is no telling where and when the first blow will be struck. The abolitionists are at work among the Cherokees."
In its next issue, a week later, the Fort Smith Times mentioned the same matter again, under the heading of "Trouble Brewing Among the Cherokees-What Does It Mean?" as follows :
4 The charge that the organization known as the Knights of the Golden Circle was active in the Indian Territory was made by some of the Federal authorities but it is not believed that there is any evidence to substantiate it; certainly there is none to indicate that there was such an organization in the territory prior to the Civil war.
Vol. I-17
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"We noticed a week or two ago that there was a secret organiza- tion going on in the Cherokee Nation and that it was among the full-blood Indians alone. We are informed by good authority that the organization is growing and extending daily and that no half or mixed-blood Indian is taken into this secret organization. The strictest secrecy is observed, and it is death by the order, to divulge the object of the society. They hold meetings in the thickets and in every secret place to initiate members. We are told that the mixed- bloods are becoming alarmed, and every attempt to find out the object of this secret cabal has thus far proved abortive. The Jonescs are said to be the leaders in this work, and what those things are tending to, no one can predict. We fear that something horrible is to be enacted on this frontier, and that this secret work will not stop among the Cherokees, but will extend to the other tribes on this frontier. The Government should examine into this matter before it becomes too formidable."
TROUBLE CAUSED BY A RUN-AWAY SLAVE
Rev. C. C. Torrey, who was in charge of the Fairfield Mission for a time, related in his reminiscences of life in the Cherokee Na- tion an incident in which he was blamed for instigating a slave to run away, although he not only had nothing to do with encouraging the run-away but also would have been the loser as the result of mis- placed confidence had the slave succeeded in making good his escape. Mr. Torrey's account of the affair was as follows:
"In July, 1856, we had in our employ a slave, David, by name, who was hired from his mistress. We were obliged to hire such help, if any, and we always gave them money for their services beside what we paid their master, or mistress. David was a Chris- tian, a member of our church at Fairfield. He found that he was to be taken from us and sent elsewhere. He did not know whether he would be kindly treated by his new masters and dreaded the change, so he determined to run away. He asked to borrow my horse to go to Park Hill. He did not stop there, however, but kept on toward Kansas. He was overtaken, arrested and brought back and Doctor Worcester and I were charged with instigating and planning the escape, furnishing him with money and a horse for the purpose.
"This stirred up a general disturbance throughout the country. It was taken up in the legislature (council) and there was an effort
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made to secure my removal. I made an affidavit as to the real facts in the case, showing that I knew nothing whatever of David's plans. Then they tried to pass an act requiring all missionaries to appear before the United States agent and give an account of themselves, but this also failed."
CHAPTER XXXIV
SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC CONDITIONS
Life in the Indian Territory during the period immediately before the Civil war, might be likened to that of the latter part of the colonial era in several of the thirteen original states. There were few towns in the territory and these were mere hamlets. Most of the people, therefore, whether rich and influential, or poor and humble, lived amid rural environments and associations. There was a wide diversity in the character and composition of the popu- lation, varying as it did from the educated, enlightened and thor- oughly aggressive mixed-blood tribesman or inter-married white man on the one extreme to the non-progressive full-blood Indian who was content to live under very primitive conditions. The wealthy class was not a large one, however, and most of the people were in moderate circumstances, though even a poor man was in a measure independent in those days.
The farms of the poorer full-blood Indians were unpretentious. The fields which they had cleared and fenced were small, com- monly from three to ten acres in extent. These had to be securely fenced with rails, for all stock ran at large. In such fields they raised crops of corn, beans, squash, melons, sweet potatoes and a few other vegetables. They lived in cabins having log walls, chinked and daubed with stones and clay. The door was sometimes the only means of lighting the interior as well as of ingress and egress. The fireplace and chimney, at one end of the structure, was sometimes built of stone, and sometimes of clay and sticks. The floor was of earth and the furnishings of the simplest forms and largely of home manufacture.
Most of the mixed-blood citizens and the inter-married whites had larger farms, with several fields and more and better buildings. The homes of the people of this class were not infrequently of the double log cabin type, with an open gallery or passage between the two sections and with spacious porches in front and rear. The domestic establishments of wealthier class were still more preten- tious. In some instances the amount of land fenced in was equal to
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