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 38
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the principal shipping center of the range cattle industry, though Dodge City remained its competitor until 1884.
In recent years, since there has been a revival of popular interest in the old trails, there has been considerable tendency on the part of some uninformed persons to dispute the fact that the Chisholm Trail received its name from Jesse Chisholm, the mixed-blood Cherokee trader. Some of these disputants loudly proclaim that a Texas cat- tleman, one Jolin Chisholm, of Grayson County, drove the first herd northward on the trail and that it was named for him in conse- quence. Always such claims are based on hearsay evidence, liow- ' ever. The writer hereof has had occasion to investigate this matter and has succeeded in securing conclusive evidence that should settle it beyond cavil or question. In the first place, it was called the Chisholm Trail from the time of Chisholm's trading trip in the spring of 1865, which was two years before the first herd of cattle was driven northward thereon. The evidence as to this is sup- ported by the written accounts of James R. Mead, of Wichita, and by the verbal statement made to the writer by George Chis- holm, both of which witnesses accompanied Jesse Chisholm on the trip in question. In the second place, there is no evidence to prove that John Chisholm ever drove a herd of cattle up the historic Chisholm Trail, either the first year or any year thereafter. The late Mr. J. P. Addington, of Oklahoma City, who in boyhood and youth was a neighbor of John Chisholm, stated positively that, to his certain knowledge, John Chisholm never drove cattle over the trail to Abilenc or elsewhere in Kansas. Mr. Addington drove cattle over that trail for many years and was personally in a posi- tion to speak authoritatively in such a matter. Col. C. C. Slaugh- ter, of Dallas, Texas, than whom there is no better informed or more reliable authority on the history of the range cattle industry, also asserts that the Chisholm Trail was not named for John Chisholm, of Texas, but for Jesse Chisholm, the Cherokee trader. Finally, Joseph G. McCoy, who was the real pathfinder of the cattle trail, and who piloted the first season's drive, is authority for the statement that the first herd driven northward over the route thus selected was that of a party by the name of Thompson, but that it was sold at some point in its progress through the Indian Territory to Smith, McCord & Chandler, who were northern men and who drove the herd on to Abilene. He then adds: "However, a herd owned by Col. O. W. Wheeler, Wilson and Hicks, all Californians,
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en route for the Pacific states, was stopped about thirty miles from Abilene for rest, and finally disposed of at Abilene, was really the first herd that came up from Texas and broke the trail fol- lowed by the other herds." +
+ "Sketches of the Cattle Trade in the West and Southwest," p. 51.
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CHAPTER XLIV
THE NEW TREATIES
In the spring of 1866, the delegations from the several civilized tribes were invited to visit Washington for the purpose of entering into new treaties with the Government on the lines which had been proposed to them in the council which was held in Fort Smith during the month of September preceding. It will be recalled that the council at Fort Smith had been adjourned by the commis- sioner of Indian Affairs, who was presiding, subject to the call of the Secretary of the Interior.1
Although negotiations were begun with all of the delegations, the new treaties were not all concluded at once. Instead, the first treaty that was signed up was the one which was entered into with the Seminole Nation, in which there was less in the way of obstacles and hindrances; then, at intervals of several weeks, treaties were concluded with (2) the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who were less ready to accede to some of the terms; (3) the Creeks, who were divided into two factions, one of which had supported the Union while the other was attached to the Confederacy, and
1 James Harlan, of Iowa, was secretary of the interior at the time. He had been in the United States Senate and had resigned his seat to accept the portfolio of the Interior Department in the cabinet of President Lincoln a short time before the assassination of the latter. Secretary Harlan believed all of the Indians from the states east of the Rocky Mountains should be gathered in the Indian Terri- tory. It is believed that it was he, rather than President Johnson, who dictated the peace terms which were proposed at Fort Smith and enforced in the treaties made at Washington. It seems probable that he was then entertaining an ambition to secure the republican presidential nomination in 1868 and that he hoped to gain support from Kansas, Nebraska and other western states and territories by bringing about the removal of most if not all of those states to the Indian Territory. The fact that the new commissioner of Indian Affairs (Dennis N. Cooley) and the superintendent of Indian Af- fairs for the Southern Superintendency (Elijah Sells) were both from his state and were both zealously devoted to the execution of his proposed plan, tends to confirm this conjecture.
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(4) the Cherokees, who were not only divided by their alignment during the war and by the feud which dated from the days of the migration, but the situation was still further complicated by the attitude of the Government toward the Cherokees who had sided with the Union from 1862 to 1865 because of the temporary alliance of the dominant (Ross) party in the Cherokee Nation with the Confederacy.
SEMINOLES
The representatives of the Union and Confederate Seminoles had counseled together at Fort Smith and had arrived at a mutual understanding, consequently they were prepared to act in harmony when it came to treating with the Government. Moreover, the question of tribal citizenship for the negro freedmen was the more readily adjusted for the reason that a number of free negroes had been adopted as members of the tribe in Florida and had ac- companied it to the West.2 The treaty with the Seminoles was signed March 21, 1866, and was proclaimed August 16th following.
Among the provisions contained in the new treaty with the Seminoles were the following: Renewed pledges of peace and friendship and a complete amnesty for all offenses arising from the war; slavery was entirely abolished and the freed slaves of the Seminoles were placed upon an equal footing with the remain- der of the people; the Seminoles ceded to the Government the entire domain secured to them by the treaty of 1856 (estimated to contain 2,169,080 acres), for which they were to receive $325,362; they were to receive a new reservation of 200,000 acres between the Canadian River and North Fork, for which they were to pay $100,000; the balance was to be apportioned as follows: $30,000 to establish them on their new reservation; $20,000 to purchase stock, secds and tools; $15,000 for a mill; $50,000 to be invested as a school fund; $20,000 as a national fund; $40,362 for tem- porary subsistence and $50,000 to reimburse the "loyal" or Union Seminoles for losses sustained, to be ascertained and apportioned by a board of commisisoners; a right-of-way was to be granted for the construction of railroads through the reservation; $10,000 or so much as might be necessary was to be expended for agency buildings, on a site to be chosen by the tribal authorities; the
2 Several of the interpreters who accompanied the Seminole delegation to Washington were said to have been men of pure Afri- can blood.
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Seminoles also agreed to grant to Congress the right to erect a ter- ritorial government with an inter-tribal legislative council; 640 acres of land were to be granted to each society which would erect a mission or school, to revert to the tribe, however, in event of abandoment ; annuities under former treaties were to be renewed and continued.
The Seminole treaty commissioners were, John Chup-co, king or head chief; Cho-cote Harjo, counselor; Fos Harjo, chief; and John F. Brown, special delegate of the Southern Seminoles.3
Prior to the outbreak of the Civil war, missionary work was carried on among the Seminole people by the Baptists and the Presbyterians. When the war began, the Presbyterian missionary went north and eventually most of the people who had become affiliated with his church found their way to Kansas as refugees. The Baptist missionary, on the other hand, was a southern man and was appointed as tribal agent of the Confederate Government for the Seminoles. The Baptist Seminoles to a man are said to have sided with the South, while the Presbyterian Seminoles who sided with the South shortly transferred their denominational affili- ations to the Baptist Church. Therefore, when the war ended, the lines of partisan cleavage in the Seminole Nation were identical with those of denominational difference.
CHOCTAWS AND CHICKASAWS
The Choctaws and Chickasaws jointly concluded a new treaty with the Federal Government, April 28, 1866. An amendment was accepted July 2, and it was duly proclaimed July 10, following. The Choctaws and Chickasaws were very anxious to renew treaty relations with the Government but were very loath to extend the privileges and rights of tribal citizenship to their freed slaves, and, in the end, they succeeded in securing a modification of the original stipulation of the Government in that regard. The prin- cipal provisions of the Choctaw-Chickasaw treaty of 1866 were as follows :
Peace and friendship were to be renewed between the Choctaws and Chickasaws on the one part and the Federal Government on the other; amnesty was extended for all offenses committed during the war; slavery was abolished in every form; the Choctaws and
3 John F. Brown, who signed the treaty of 1866 on behalf of the Southern Seminoles, has been for many years and is at present (1916) the able principal chief of the Seminole Nation.
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Chickasaws ceded to the Government the whole of the tract known as the "leased district," bounded by the Canadian and Red rivers and the 98th and 100th meridians, and consisting of 6,800,000 acres; for this the Government agreed to pay $300,000, to be in- vested at 5 per cent interest until laws were passed by the Choctaw and Chickasaw nations providing full rights, privileges and im- munities and granting forty acres of land each to their freedmen, such laws to be passed within two years, in which event the $300,000 witli accumulated interest was to be paid, three-quarters to the Choctaws and one-quarter to the Chickasaws; if such laws were not passed, however, then the $300,000 was to be kept and used by the Government for the benefit of the freedmen; rights-of-way were granted for the building of railroads through the reservations, upon compensation being rendered for damages done to property, with the proviso that the tribes might subscribe for stock in such corporations in land, such subscriptions to be first liens on the property of the same; the provisions concerning the proposed estab- lishment of a territorial form of government for the Indian Terri- tory, with an inter-tribal legislative council, were defined in more detail than in the other treaties and it was stipulated that the pro- posed commonwealth should be called "the Territory of Okla- homa"; the lands of the two reservations were to be surveyed and allotted when desired by their people, Indians from Kansas or elsewhere were to be welcomed to tribal citizenship with full rights and privileges, though not to share in the income from trust funds, and were to pay for land at the rate of $1.00 per acre; members of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes were to be received as competent witnesses in the Federal courts.
The Choctaw-Chickasaw treaty was signed by D. N. Cooley, commissioner of Indian Affairs, Elijah Sells, superintendent of Indian affairs, and E. S. Parker, special commissioner, as commis- sioners on the part of the United States. The Choctaw commis- sioners were Alfred Wade, Allen Wright, James Riley and John Page. The Chickasaw commissioners were Winchester Colbert. Edmund Pickens, Holmes Colbert, Colbert Carter and Robert H. Love. Campbell LeFlore and E. S. Mitchell were respectively secretaries of the Choctaw and Chickasaw delegations. John H. B. Latrobe (attorney), Peter P. Pitchlynn (principal chief of the Choctaw Nation), Douglas H. Cooper (former tribal agent and late brigadier general in the Confederate army), J. Harlan (Sec- retary of the Interior), and Charles E. Mix ( former Commissioner
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of Indian Affairs and seeretary of the Government commission), signed as witnesses.
CREEKS
More difficulty was experienced in negotiating a new treaty with the Creeks than with the Choetaws, Chiekasaws and Semi- noles. The "loyal" or Union Creek delegation arrived on the ground first and readily assented to a new treaty in which it was provided, among other stipulations, that the freed negro slaves of the Creeks should be clothed not only with tribal eitizen- ship but also that they should share equally in the tribal lands and funds. Then the "disloyal," or Confederate Creek delegation arrived and as promptly entered strenuous objections to a eonsum- mation of such an agreement. As the last mentioned delegation represented fully one-half of the Creek people, it was with diffi- culty that an agreement was reached after many weeks of tedious negotiation. Like the Cherokees, the Creeks were arrayed in two faetions that dated back to the time of the removal from the East. The Government commissioners were inclined to yield to the pro- tests of the Southern Creek delegation but the Northern Creek rep- resentatives held out so firmly for full tribal eitizenship and rights for their emancipated slaves that the opposition was finally with- drawn. In brief the principal provisions of the Creek Treaty of 1866 (which was signed June 14, amended July 23d and pro- claimed August 11th) were as follows :
Peace and friendship between the Creek people and the United States was re-established and amnesty deelared for all past offenses ; slavery abolished and freed slaves granted full rights as members of the tribe, ineluding an interest in the lands and funds of the Creek Nation ; the Creek Nation agreed to eede to the Government the west half of its tribal domain, estimated to consist of 3,250,560 acres of land, for which it was to receive the sum of $975,168, to be paid in the following manner-$200,000 to enable the Creeks to reoccupy and restore their farms and improvements, to pay the damages to mission schools, and to defray the expenses of the dele- gations at Washington, $100,000 to be paid for the losses sustained by Creek soldiers in the Federal army and by the loyal refugees and freedmen, $400,000 to be paid per capita to the Creek people as it might accrue from the sale of lands, interest on the last two sums to be computed at 5 per eent and to be expended for the Creeks at the diseretion of the Seeretary of the Interior, the remain-
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ing $275,000 to be invested at 5 per cent and the interest paid to the Indians annually ; the new western boundary was to be surveyed at the expense of the Government which was also to expend a sum not exceeding $10,000 in the erection of new agency buildings; the provisions for a territorial government for the Indian Territory, with an inter-tribal legislative council, were similar to those con- tained in the Seminole treaty; the annuities provided in previous treaties were to be renewed and continued; rights-of-way for the construction of railroads across the tribal domain were to be granted to such companies as might be authorized by act of Congress.
The commissioners who signed the treaty on the part of the Creek Nation were Ok-ta-hars Harjo, Cow-Mikko, Cotch-Chochee, Daniel N. McIntosh and James M. C. Smith. A large number of witnesses also signed, including among others Charles E. Mix, Agent George A. Reynolds, Gen. John B. Sanborn, Chief John Chupco, Gen. Douglas H. Cooper, Richard Fields, William Penn Adair and Saladin Watie, the last three being delegates from the Southern Cherokees.
CHEROKEES
Although difficulty was experienced in negotiating a new treaty with the Creeks, there were even greater obstacles inter- posed in the way of securing an agreement as to terms and details of a new treaty. The bitter enmity between the Northern (Union) and Southern (Confederate) factions in the Cherokee Nation, which had been so manifest during the course of the preliminary negotia- tions at Fort Smith, in September preceding, remained unabated in its intensity. The Northern Cherokees (the National, or Ross Party) had passed an act of council confiscating the property of the Southern Cherokees (followers of Stand Watie and mostly mem- bers of the old Ridge, or Treaty Party). The Southern Cherokees had endeavored to make a conciliatory approach to their brethren of the opposing faction immediately after the end of the war but their advances, were not met with any encouragement. The Southern Cherokees evinced a willingness to accept the result of the issues, as decided by the war, in good faith and to meet the views and wishes of the Federal Government in reconstructing and read- justing the relations between it and the tribes which had been in allianee with the Confederate States. They also asked that the Federal Government should intervene to protect them from
.
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the operation of the confiscation act passed by the tribal legisla- tive council which had been dominated by the Northern Chero- kees, and, in event that this could not be done, they asked that the tribal domain be divided and a part set aside for their exclusive occupaney. The Southern Cherokees pleaded in extenuation for their own course in taking up arms and joining the enemies of the Government that the responsibility rested upon Chief Ross and the national council which was controlled by his followers.+
Chief Ross and his followers on the other hand, held aloof and manifested a spirit of independence which left it in doubt if they would treat with the Government commissioners at all. They claimed that, as a thoroughly loyal people, who had been fighting the battles of the Union and as the lawfully chosen representatives of the majority of the Cherokee citizens, they were entitled to sole consideration and they questioned the right of the Federal Gov- ernment to interfere with the independent action of their national council concerning those of their own people whom they chose to regard as rebellious. Both factions were represented by delega- tions at Washington and, moreover, each employed the most able counsel to assist them in their negotiations. A succession of eon- ferences, first with one party and then with the other, served to keep the Government commissioners busy without enabling them to make much if any progress toward an agreement. New drafts of proposed treaties followed each other but always some new complication arose to still further postpone final action. The South- ern Cherokee delegates insisted that their people must be separated from the rest of the Cherokee people. The Northern Cherokees, on the other hand refused to consider such a division and as their party was officially in control of the Cherokee Nation, their wishes could not be disregarded, even though the Government commis- sioners despaired of ever being able to induce the two irreconcilable factions to enter into any sort of an agreement.
For reasons of their own the Government commissioners con- tinued to refuse to recognize John Ross as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and also sought to discredit the sincerity of his followers who had rendered valiant service to the Union cause
+ The claim that the whole responsibility for the Cherokees be- ing lined up with the Confederacy should rest upon John Ross, was scarcely warranted, as a considerable body of Cherokees, under the leadership of Stand Watic, had openly espoused the Confederate cause some time before John Ross showed any sign of receding from his previously announced policy of neutrality.
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from the summer of 1862 on until the end of the war. In order to more effectively accomplish this end, a sixty-page pamphlet was compiled by the office of the commissioner of Indian affairs, en- titled the "Cherokce Question," for the express purpose of weaken- ing any pleas which the Northern, or "Loyal" Cherokees might make in their own behalf. The matter contained in this pamphlet was so one-sided as to be manifestly unfair. Whatever the under- lying motive may have been, its authors were evidently not proud of it. Within a few days after it was printed Chief Ross, who had accompanied the Northern Cherokee delegation to Washington, died, whereupon it is believed that most of the copics of this pam- phlet werc suppressed, as but few of them are known to be in ex- istence.5
A treaty was finally concluded with the Cherokees, July 19, 1866. Although it was not signed by the members of the South- ern Cherokee delegation, it was accepted by the members thereof, though possibly not wholly satisfactory in all of its details. In- 'deed, it is doubtful if this treaty was satisfactory to cither of the Cherokee factions or to the Government commissioners, yet it was probably the best that could have been done under the conditions then existing. Stated in brief, the principal terms of the new treaty with the Cherokees were as follows:
The treaty entered into with the Confederate States, in 1861, was specifically repudiated and amnesty was granted for all past offenses ; the confiscation laws of the Cherokee Nation were to be repealed and the Canadian District (lying south and west of the Arkansas River) was to be set aside for the settlement of the South- ern Cherokees and also for the freedmen, such district to include at least 160 acres of land for each person, and the inhabitants thereof to have the privilege of electing their own judges and other local officials and to make and enforce their own police regulations and to elect representatives to the national legislative council ; slavery was to be abolished and the full tribal rights of the freed- men were to be recognized; rights-of-way for railroads were to be granted; the proposed inter-tribal legislative council, which was in effect to be the organization of a territorial form of government,
5 The Cherokee Question-Report of the Commissioner of In- dian Affairs to the President of United States, June 15, 1866; be- ing supplementary to the report of the commissioners appointed by the President to treat with the Indians south of Kansas, which assembled at Fort Smith, Arkansas, in September, 1865.
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was assented to; it was agreed that friendly Indians might be set- tled on Cherokee lands by cither one of two methods, namely (1) by abandoning their own tribal organization, becoming incorpo- rated as a part of the Cherokee Nation and settling east of the 96th meridian, or (2) by retaining their tribal organization and settling west of that line and, in cither event, paying for such lands a price to be agreed upon between the Cherokees and the Gov- ernment ; the Cherokee lands in Kansas (800,000 acres) were to be sold and the proceeds of the same were to be invested for the Chero- kees for the purposes indicated-35 per cent for education, 15 per cent for an orphan fund and 50 per cent for the national fund.
The introductory clause, preceding the preamble of the new Cherokee treaty, contains the names of the persons who signed that instrument. It was as follows:
"Articles of agreement and convention at the city of Wash- ington, on the nineteenth day of July, in the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Sixty-six, between the United States, represented by Dennis N. Cooley, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Elijah Sells, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Superintendency, and the Cherokee Nation of In- dians, represented by its delegates, James McDaniel, Smith Chris- tie, White Catcher, S. H. Benge, J. B. Jones and Daniel H. Ross, John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokees, being too unwell to join in these negotiations."
From the concluding reference to John Ross it may be reason- ably inferred that the Government commissioners decided to withdraw their objections to the recognition of Ross, cither because he was too feeble and infirm to be in their way or else for the purpose of securing some concession from his followers. In this connection it is perhaps significant that Col. Ely S. Parker, an educated Seneca Indian, who, as a commissioner, had signed the treaties made with the other four tribes, did not join in signing the treaty with the Cherokees.
THE NAMING OF OKLAHOMA
As already stated, the new treaty between the Government and the Choctaws and Chickasaws, which was signed in Washington, in 1866, provided for the organization of the Indian Territory and that incidentally it should be known as the "Territory of Okla- homa." The circumstances under which this incidental provision was incorporated in the treaty were as follows:
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