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. II > Part 10
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"I trust that I may be pardoned for stating that it appears to me that the fundamental difficulty in our relations hitherto with Indians has been the want of a well-defined, clearly-understood, persistent purpose on the part of the Government. Indian affairs have hitherto been managed by the application of mere temporary expedients in a fragmentary and disjointed manner. For a hun- dred years the United States has been wrestling with the 'Indian question,' but has never had an Indian policy. The only thing yet done by the Government in regard to the Indians which seems to have been permanent and far-reaching in its scope and purpose, is the dedication of the Indian Territory as the final home for the race. Surely it is time that a policy should be determined on, which shall be fully understood by the Government, the people and the Indians. We cannot afford to allow this race to perish without making an honest effort to save it. We cannot afford to keep them in our midst as vagabonds and paupers."
In discussing the conditions existing in the Indian Territory, Commissioner Smith continued :
"Affairs in the Indian Territory are both complicated and em- barrassing. By treaty, the Government has ceded to the so-called civilized tribes, the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks and
1 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1876, pp. x-xii.
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Seminoles, a section of country altogether disproportionate in amount to their needs. The Cherokees number about 13,000 and own 5,031,351 acres, or 2791/2 acres to each person. The 16,000 Choctaws have an average of 418 acres to each person; the 6,000 Chickasaws, an average of 775 acres; 2 the 13,000 Creeks, an aver- age of 247 acres, and the 2,438 Seminoles, an average of eighty- two acres. In the aggregate, for a population of 55,438 persons there are set apart 20,784,309 acres, or an average of 375 acres for each individual-an area nearly equal to the state of Indiana for a population not much greater than that of many agricultural counties in the eastern or middle states.
"No doubt a large portion of the land in each reservation is unsuitable for tillage, but most of it is valuable for grazing, and the amount susceptible of cultivation must be manyfold greater than can ever be cultivated by the labor of the Indians. But the Indians claim, it is understood, that they hold their lands by sanctions so solemn that it would be a gross breach of faith on the part of the Government to take away any portion thereof without their consent; and that consent they apparently propose to with- hold. The question is thus directly raised whether an extensive section of fertile country is to be allowed to remain for an indefinite period practically an uncultivated waste, or whether the Govern- ment shall determine to reduce the size of the reservations.
"The question is plainly a difficult one, and should be con- sidered with calmness and a full purpose to do no injustice to the Indians. Any opinion thereon is ventured with hesitancy on my part; but I cannot but believe that public policy will soon require the disposal of a large portion of those lands to the Government, for the occupancy either of other tribes of Indians or of white people. There is a very general and growing opinion that observ- ance of the strict letter of treaties with Indians is in many cases at variance both with their own best interests and with sound public policy. Public necessity must ultimately become supreme law; and, in my opinion, their highest good will require these people to take ample allotments of land in severalty (to be inalien- able for at least twenty years and then only among Indians), and to surrender the remainder of their lands to the United States
2 The commissioner's statements as to the number of the Chero- kees and the separate holdings of the Choctaws and Chickasaws would seem to indicate a lack of knowledge of the subject under discussion.
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Government for a fair equivalent. Upon these lands thus sur- rendered, other Indians should be located as rapidly as possible, and should be given allotments under the same restrictions.
"From the recommendations above made, it must not be under- stood to be either the policy or the purpose of this office to in any way encourage the spirit of rapacity which demands the throwing open of the Indian Territory to white settlement. That country was set apart, half a century ago, as the home of the Indians. The eastern and better portion contains sufficient room for all the In- dians now there, and all who will ever remove thither. The true way to secure its perpetual occupancy by Indians is to fill it up with other Indians, to give them lands in severalty, and to provide a government strong and intelligent enough to protect them from any and all encroachments on the part of the whites."
The pet scheme of Commissioner Smith was, therefore, the consolidation of tribes and the concentration of most, if not all, of the Indians in one commonwealth, namely, the Indian Territory. In line with this policy, he endeavored to merge the Quapaws with the Osages,3 and arbitrarily forced the removal of the Ponca Tribe from Dakota to the Indian Territory, where an effort was made to settle them on the Quapaw Reservation.4 Both efforts resulted in failure, however.
The Pawnee Indians were the first to remove to the Indian Territory during this period. Their home had been in Nebraska. Three hundred of them had come to the territory in 1873; part of these went out on the buffalo range as the guests of the Osages. There, in the Valley of Eagle Chief Creek, north of the Cimarron River, they were met by a large band of Cheyenne warriors. An exciting scene followed, as the Pawnees were the hereditary enemies of the Cheyennes, as they had been of the Osages also, and the Cheyenne warriors wanted to deal summarily with them. Ka-ke-ga Tonga, the Osage chief, was firm in his contention that the Pawnees were his guests and as such they should not be harmed. This, with the calmness of Big Bear, the Pawnee chief, and his followers, finally resulted in the Cheyennes accepting the intercessory sug- gestions and persuasions of the former and they agreed to make peace with the Pawnees.5 The 300 Pawnees went to the reserva-
3 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1876, pp. xviii-xx.
4 Ibid., pp. xvi-xvii.
5 Personal information secured by the writer from Cyprian Tarian, who was present and witnessed the threatening attitude of the Cheyennes and the negotiations which followed.
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tion of their kinsmen, the Wichitas, where they remained until 1875, when the main body of their tribe removed to the new reser- vation, which was located between the Cimarron and Arkansas rivers, in the Cherokee Outlet, east of the 97th Meridian. The new Pawnee Reservation contained 391,000 acres.
The Ponca Indians originally lived in Northeastern Nebraska and Southeastern Dakota. In 1858 their claims to the ownership of the lands in the forks of the Missouri and Niobrara rivers were formally recognized by the Government. Ten years later (April 29, 1868), at a council held with the Sioux at Fort Laramie, the same lands were granted to them as a part of their reservation, though the Poncas had ceded but a small fraction of the same to the Government. Knowing that a mistake had been made, the Poncas lived in hope that the Government would rectify the same, but nothing was done in regard to the matter. The Sioux, be- lieving that the Government had acted in good faith, resented the presence of the Poncas on the lands that had been granted to them and, as the Poncas made no effort to move-indeed, had no other lands to which they might move-the Sioux made war on them. As the Sioux were much more numerous and warlike than the Poncas, the Government decided to remove the latter to the Indian Territory. A delegation of Poncas was sent with the tribal agent and an Indian inspector to visit the territory and choose a loca- tion. Accounts differ as to what followed, one stating that the members of the delegation who refused to approve of the plans proposed by the Government officials who accompanied them were left without transportation or subsistence to make their way home as best they could," while another states that eight of the ten mem- bers of the delegation became dissatisfied and started home on their own initiative.7 After examining the country in the Valley of the Arkansas River, adjacent to the Osage and Kaw reservations, the agent, the inspector, with the two remaining members of the Ponca delegation, visited the Quapaw Reservation in the northeastern corner of the territory, where it was decided to remove all the Poncas.
The journey of the Poncas from their agency on the north bank of the Niobrara to the Quapaw country, in the Indian Territory, was made during the months of May, June and July, 1877. The
" "History and Stories of Nebraska" (Sheldon), pp. 171-2.
7 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1877, p. 21.
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season was unusually wet, the roads were in bad condition and the Poncas were worn out, disheartened and miserable when they arrived. Nine of their number had perished on the road and were buried by the way. After their arrival there was a great deal of sickness among them, malaria and homesickness especially, and the net decrease in the number of members of the tribe during the first year was nearly 11 per cent. In addition to having their reser- vation arbitrarily taken from them and forcing them to remove to a strange land, the Government also made frequent administrative changes in the case of the Poncas, as they had no less than five agents in less than four years-1875-8. A year after their en- forced migration to the territory, they were again transferred, a reservation having been selected for them at the mouth of the Salt Fork of the Arkansas (Nescatunga), in the lands of the Cherokee Outlet.
"Six months after the Poncas were settled on their new reser- vation on the Arkansas, Standing Bear, who was a prominent leader among them, with about thirty followers, started north to- ward their old homeland on the Niobrara in defiance of the au- thority of the Government, for the avowed purpose of burying the remains of his son, which were transported in a wagon. Arriving at the reservation of their kinsmen, the Omahas, they met a sym- pathetic welcome and were given lands and seeds for planting. However, they were soon arrested by a force of Government troops to be returned to the Indian Territory. An Omaha newspaper man interviewed Standing Bear and the publication of his pathetic story aroused instant interest and sympathy. A public meeting was held in a church, at which the Indian repeated his story and plead for the rights of a freeman. Leading attorneys volunteered their services in his behalf. The Government contended, in oppo- sition to the application for a writ of habeas corpus, that Indians were 'not persons within the meaning of the law.' Judge Dundy, of the Federal Court, ruled that an Indian was 'a person within the meaning of the law' and ordered that Standing Bear should be set at liberty, and eventually a home was provided for Standing Bear and his people on the lands of their old reservation on the Niobrara. At the present time about one-third of the Ponca people are living in their old homeland, on the Niobrara, and the rest are in Kay County, Oklahoma."
About the year 1835, the Cheyenne Indians, who were then living in the region of the Upper Platte Valley, separated into two tribes, one of which continued to dwell in the region between
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the Platte and the Black Hills, while the other division drifted southward to the Valley of the Upper Arkansas. More than thirty years later, the latter, properly known as the Southern Cheyennes, were settled with the Southern Arapahoes, on a reservation in Western Oklahoma. The Northern Cheyennes were associated with the various divisions of the Sioux in their wars against the whites, including that of 1876, in which a large part of the command of General Custer (Seventh United States Cavalry) was annihilated. The following winter the Northern Cheyennes were overtaken by Col. R. S. McKenzie, with a command consisting of ten troops of cavalry, who drove them from their village and destroyed it with all its contents. Shortly afterward, the Cheyennes, scantily clothed and almost starving, made their way to the nearest agency and surrendered.
It was decided by the Government authorities that the Cheyenne Tribe should be reunited by settling the captive members of the northern division among the Cheyennes of the Darlington Agency, in the Indian Territory. Although it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find a more pronounced type of the high-spirited, independent and defiant American Indian than the Northern Cheyennes, they were not consulted in regard to the proposed extinction of their separate tribal existence. In the light of subse- quent events, it seems possible that the results might have been more satisfactory had there been some cffort put forth in the line of persuasion rather than depending exclusively upon arbitrary power on the part of the Government. The first party of Northern Cheyennes, numbering over 900 people, was brought to Fort Reno, from Fort Robinson, Nebraska, in the summer of 1877, arriving August 5th.
"In order to impress the Indians with the superior valor and ability of the white soldiers, the military escort for the party of over 900 captives consisted of but seventeen cavalry troopers under the command of Lieut. Henry W. Lawton, of the Fourth U. S. Cavalry. The transportation consisted of a pack train accom- panied by twenty civilian employes. The journey southward was made from one military post to another, stops being made at Fort McPherson (Nebraska), Forts Wallace and Dodge (Kansas) and Camp Supply (Indian Territory) for needed provisions en route. Sixty-six of the captive Northern Cheyennes had been sworn in as Indian police and each of these had been given a cavalry horse and accoutrements and a Springfield carbine with three rounds of ammunition. The Northern Cheyennes were never tractable at best, but Lieutenant Lawton handled them tactfully and had no
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signs of serious insubordination until after he had reached a point within a few days' journey of his destination.
"Shortly after leaving Camp Supply and crossing Wolf Creek, a herd of buffalo was encountered. It was surrounded by Indians of the various tribes from the reservations in Western Oklahoma and by white hunters. The sixty-six Northern Cheyenne police- men then made a demand on Lieutenant Lawton for the issue of more ammunition, ostensibly to enable them to kill buffalo. The Lieutenant was warned by his interpreter, and also by George and Robert Bent, who happened to be present, that their real design in demanding more ammunition was to enable them to make an at- tempt to defy the escort and retrace their steps toward the north. The demand for more cartridges was therefore refused. The mem- bers of the police then withdrew to a position at some distance from the escort and pack train, where they held a pow-wow over the matter. Finally, a messenger was sent to Lieutenant Lawton, stating that if he did not comply with the demand for ammunition, they would take it by force. Lawton was standing out in front of his little command when this ultimatum was delivered. Pointing to a buffalo path a few yards in front of him, he turned to his interpreter and said :
" 'Tell him that I will kill the first man who tries to cross that path.'
"With his light campaign hat tilted back on his head and with an army revolver in each hand, he looked as if he meant it. Then, as the messenger galloped back toward the mutinous group, he half turned toward the troopers and civilian employes and said :
" 'Get behind your horses and mules, men.'
"When his reply to the final demand was delivered, there was an angry howl from baffled police and they began to ride back and forth in apparent confusion. Soon, however, they formed in line with evident intention of charging the little band of troopers and civilian packers. As they started, Lieutenant Lawton cautioned his men to be cool, adding the injunction not to shoot until he did. The charging line came on like the wind and a few seconds brought it within two rods of the buffalo path, yet so sharply did each steed swerve to the right or left that never a hoof crossed the dead line. The band of malcontents soon scattered among their people and the mutiny was ended. Lawton's nerve had saved the day." 8
8 Personal information secured by the writer from one of the civilian employes who accompanied the escort commanded by Lieut. Henry W. Lawton.
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Three days after their arrival at Fort Reno the Northern Chey- ennes were turned over to the Government agent of the Southern Cheyenmes and Arapahoes, at Darlington. They were dissatisfied from the beginning and were inclined to be very unruly in some instances. About one-third of the members of this band went north on the Dull Knife raid in the autumn of the following year. In December, 1878, another band of Northern Cheyennes, under the leadership of Little Chief, was brought to the Darlington Agency. Most of the Northern Cheyennes continued to be dissatisfied and held themselves aloof from the Southern Cheyennes. They also plead incessantly to be permitted to return to the North. The Government eventually became impressed with the apparent futility of trying to get them to reunite with the Southern Cheyennes. Little Chief who, though always dissatisfied, was always tractable, was permitted to return to the North with 250 of his people, in October, 1881. The rest of the Northern Cheyennes returned to Dakota in the summer of 1883. The Northern Cheyennes were later settled on a reservation in Montana.
The Nez Perce Indians were indigenous to Northeastern Oregon and the adjacent parts of Washington and Idaho. They were al- ways friendly with the whites until they were forced into hostili- ties by various aggressions, in 1877. The campaign then conducted by their leader, Chief Joseph, was one of the most remarkable in the annals of Indian warfare, not only because of his skillful gen- eralship but also because of the forbearance and fortitude of his followers. After they were captured, they were sent to Fort Leavenworth where they were held in an unhealthy camp for some months. In the middle of July, 1878, they were removed to the Modoc Reservation in the northeastern part of the Indian Terri- tory, where arrangements were made to purchase a tract of 7,000 acres from the Peorias and Miamis for their occupancy. They then numbercd 391 souls. They were greatly dissatisfied, however, and, eleven months later, they were removed to a new reservation con- sisting of four townships at the confluence of the Chikaskia and the Salt Fork (Nescatunga), in what is now Kay County. There they remained until the spring of 1885. The climate did not agree with them and they constantly pined for their old homeland in the Northwest to which they were finally permitted to return. They decreased in numbers more than 25 per cent during the seven years that they were kept in the Indian Territory.
A band of Iowa Indians came from Nebraska to the Sac and Fox Agency, in 1879, where they remained until August, 1883,
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when they were assigned a reservation adjoining the Sac and Fox Reservation on the west and lying between the Cimarron and the Deep Fork of the Canadian. In the autumn of 1884, the remnant of the Tonkawa Tribe with a fragment of the Lipan Tribe, was transferred from Fort Griffin, Texas, to the Iowa Reservation. As the Iowas objected to their presence there, these people were settled on the abandoned Nez Perce Reservation, in June, 1885.
A band of 200 members of the affiliated Oto and Missouri tribes came to the Sac and Fox Agency in 1880, without permission. A reservation was assigned to them in the Cherokee Outlet in 1881 and their Nebraska lands having been sold, they were joined by the rest of their people.
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CHAPTER LVI
INDIAN OUTBREAKS AND TROUBLES
Although the Indian war of 1874 was the last general outbreak in Oklahoma, there were numerous disturbances during the years immediately following. Though the Cheyennes and Comanches were at peace, some of the more turbulent members of those tribes were difficult to restrain. The Quahada Comanches and the white buffalo hunters engaged in active hostilities in the Texas Panhandle country in the spring of 1877.1 The most serious event of this entire period was the sudden outbreak of a portion of the Northern Cheyennes, which occurred in September, 1878, about thirteen months after their removal to the Indian Territory.
Most of the Northern Cheyennes made a display of their irre- concilability in being located with their kinsmen in the Indian Territory but it was noticeable that the members of one band, under the leadership of Dull Knife, Wild Hog, Crow and American Horse, were particularly bitter and that they persistently held themselves aloof from association with the Southern Cheyennes. The party which broke away from the reservation and started north consisted of eighty-nine warriors and 246 women and children and, although promptly pursued by troops from Fort Reno, they made good their escape. They had been permitted to hold their arms as the result of an agreement made at the time of their sur- render, a year and a half before. Two young cattlemen were killed on a ranch in the Cherokee Outlet. After crossing the Kansas boundary their line of march was marked by plundering, murder- ing and other atrocities. Although troops were sent to intercept them from half a dozen different posts, they succeeded in eluding or fighting off all for a distance of fully 600 miles before surrender- ing to Major Carlton, in the sand hill region of Western Nebraska, six weeks after leaving Darlington.
It is worthy of note that the Northern Cheyennes turned out of their course to visit their vengeance upon the settlers of Sappa
1 "Dodge City, the Cowboy Capital," pp. 192-3.
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Creek, in Decatur County, Kansas, where a small band of Northern Cheyennes had been massacred by troops and buffalo hunters less than three and a half years before-an incident. that was char- acteristic of warfare between the whites and the Indians, the inno- cent suffering for the misdeeds of the guilty.
Many of the Northern Cheyennes eventually lost their lives as the result of trying to break away from the military rather than be returned to the Indian Territory. There was a dispute as to the cause of the outbreak; the Indians claimed that they found the country was unhealthy, that there was a scarcity of game and that their rations were insufficient. The army officers shared in this opinion and blamed the Interior Department for the trouble.2 The tribal agent, on the other hand, claimed that the Northern Chey- ennes had drawn rations in excess of their actual requirements.3 However, this discrepancy was but another phase of the old feud between the War Department and the Interior Department concern- ing the management of the Indians.
In August, 1880, many of the Southern Cheyennes at Darling- ton became greatly dissatisfied with the course of their agent. In his annual report to the adjutant general of the army, Gen. John Pope, the department commander, gives the following version of the affair : 4
"In so far as the Indians were concerned, there was but one troublesome and, at one time, dangerous affair, and that was due, as usual, to a dispute about food. On the 16th of August the Southern Cheyennes made claims upon Indian Agent Miles for back rations which they asserted were due them, but which the agent refused to assent to. The Indians, about 300 in number, became violent and threatened to kill Miles and sack his agency. Indeed, they pulled him off his horse and compelled him to give them the order for rations which he had refused. Subsequently, they dragged him out of his office and, but for the presence and influence of Captain Randall, Twenty-third Infantry, commanding at Fort Reno, would probably have killed him. Captain Randall marched a large part of his command to the point where the In- dians were assembled and insisted upon their keeping the peace
2 Report of the Secretary of War for 1878, Vol. I, pp. 40-1 and 44-50.
3 Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1878, pp. xxii-xxiv.
4 Report of the Secretary of War for 1880, Vol. I, pp. 89-90.
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and submitting to the orders of Agent Miles. At one time the situation was very eritical and but for the judicious and firm atti- tude and conduet of Captain Randall and the resolute presence of his command, it is more than likely that serious hostilities would have been begun by the Indians. Too much commendation cannot be bestowed upon Captain Randall for his prompt and judicious aetion and for the respect for and confidenee in himself with which he has impressed the Indians near his post. The effect of this faith in him was as great in keeping the peace as the presence of a military force prepared for action.5 Little Chief, of the Northern Cheyennes, rendered most efficient serviee to Captain Randall, not only in restraining his own people, but in siding cordially and openly with the military authorities. I desire to bring to the atten- tion of the Secretary of the Interior the admirable behavior of Little Chief and venture to express the hope that his painful long- ing to go back to the north, which he honestly believes to be his right, may be considered favorably by the Interior Department. Certainly his conduct on this occasion merits very great considera- tion.
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