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 17
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not receive serious consideration, even though it was expected that the Cherokee Nation might later be forced to sell the lands to the United States for a much smaller price.
The question of the ultimate acquisition of the lands of the Cherokee Outlet by the Government for the purpose of throwing the same open to settlement under the homestead laws, still continued to attract much attention. The opening of the lands of the unas- signed district caused thousands to pass across the outlet, thus advertising their attractions to prospective settlers still further. After the lands of the Oklahoma country were settled, there was much talk of "boomers" settling in the Cherokee Outlet. While the bill for the organization of the Territory of Oklahoma was under consideration in Congress, and when it became known that the Cherokee Outlet was to be included within its limits, many prospective settlers jumped at the conclusion that it was to be opened to homestead entry immediately. In order to set at rest any such erroneous ideas, President Harrison found it expedient to issue a proclamation, March 15, 1890, calling attention to the fact that the lands in question were not open to settlement and forbid- ding any attempts to effect settlements thereon.
While the Oklahoma bill had been under discussion during the latter part of the previous congressional session (February, 1889), a member of the Cherokee delegation, whichi was then in Washing- ton, suggested the appointment of a commission for the purpose of negotiating the purchase of the Cherokee Outlet by the Govern- ment. Accordingly, one section of the Oklahoma amendment to the Indian Appropriation Bill (by the terms of which the Oklahoma lands were thrown open to settlement) provided for the appoint- ment of a commission to enter into negotiations with the Cherokee Nation and with other tribes and nations of Indians for the cession of surplus lands lying west of the 96th meridian. In July follow- ing, President Harrison appointed Gen. Lucius Fairchild (ex-gov- ernor of Wisconsin), Gen. John F. Hartranft (ex-governor of Pennsylvania), and Hon. Alfred M. Wilson, of Arkansas, as mem- bers of this commission, which was popularly styled "the Cherokee Commission."
This commission met at Tahlequah, July 29, 1889, where it sought to open negotiations with the Cherokee Nation for the re- linquishment of its title to the outlet. The members of the com- mission soon left Tahlequah, with the expectation of returning at the time set for the convening of the Cherokee Council, in November. In the meantime, the death of General Hartranft (in October) had Vol. II- 12
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led to the appointment of Hon. W. G. Sayre, of Indiana, as a mem- ber of the commission. The members of the commission visited Tahlequah again in November as previously planned. Two months were spent in fruitless endeavors to induce the Cherokee Council to enter into negotiations, after which the commission adjourned to meet in Washington City, in January, where its first formal report was rendered. No further efforts were made to negotiate with the Cherokees until after the passage and approval of the Organic Act, with which this period closes.
CHAPTER LXII
SOCIAL CONDITIONS AND INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT
The beginning of this period found the people of the Indian Territory in a fairly prosperous condition, having largely recov- ered from the effects of the Civil war. To be sure, slave labor was a thing of the past, so conditions had undergone a great change, with part of the population, at least. But the ranges were restocked with cattle and hogs and these with the products of the tilled fields sufficed to make the Indian Territory of that day a land of plenty if not one of surplus. The number of white people in the territory began to increase very measurably in the early part of this period. Many of these came in under the guise of tenants of some of the more enterprising and progressive Indians or mixed-blood citizens. The culture of cotton on a commercial scale was probably largely responsible for this white tenant farmer immigration.
LAWLESSNESS
While education and culture were not lacking in some quarters and schools and churches were common, social conditions were far from being ideal. The illicit whisky peddler was incessantly active, in spite of the prohibitory laws and the vigilance of both Federal and tribal officials to the contrary, and whisky always brought trouble in its wake. The Indian Territory was regarded as the Mecca of renegades, outlaws and fugitives from justice in the states, who naturally fled to its fastnesses in search of a refuge and the ranks of this undesirable class were always recruited more or less from among the shiftless or untractable young men who had grown up in the territory in the midst of such unfavorable environments. Under such circumstances, it was customary for most men to go armed and, with the individual as with the state or nation, armed preparedness sometimes led to clashes and tragedies that might not otherwise have happened. In the press of the Indian Territory of that period scarcely an issue appeared that did not chronicle, with more or less harrowing details, one or more murders. Some of
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these were bloody feuds in which whisky-crazed men had no appar- ent inotive save that of sheer blood-thirstiness, while in others per- sonal hatred or the spirit of revenge was apparent, and murders for robbery were by no means rare. Mystery surrounded the killing of some men or the sudden disappearance of others, but it is doubt- ful if the perpetrators of such deeds ever escaped the retribution of the desperado, for most of them eventually died with "their boots on," either at the end of the hangman's noose or by the bullet of a marshal or posseman.
Fugitives from justice in the states were sufficiently numerous that it was not considered polite to manifest curiosity as to the part of the country whence another man hailed. Rev. Dr. Theo. F. Brewer, the well known missionary and educator, who was so long stationed at Muskogee, tells of one of these unknown fugitives and his dramatic end as follows: A white man of unknown antecedents was employed by an Indian citizen who had a ranchi some twenty miles from Muskogee. In the course of time this white man was arrested on the charge of stealing livestock, was taken to Fort Smith, tried, convicted and sentenced to a term in an eastern peni- tentiary. A year or two later he was pardoned in a dying condi- tion, having contracted pulmonary tuberculosis. Without a friend in the world, his pitiful condition was made known to his former employer, the Indian citizen, who at once offered to take him in and care for him if brought back to Muskogee. When he arrived there he was too weak to walk and was taken to a nearby lodging house to stay until his former employer could come or send for him. As he was rapidly losing strength, he requested that a clergyman be asked to call. A messenger was sent for Mr. Brewer, who immedi- ately answered the summons. After talking with him, the man expressed a desire to be baptized. Preparations having been made for the administration of the rite, the minister read the introductory part of the service, asked the usual questions to which satisfactory responses were made and was proceeding to pronounce the name by which the man had hitherto been known when he suddenly threw up his hand in a gesture of dissent and exclaimed : "Wait! Wait! I want to be baptized under my own name." The minister saw in the man's face the evidence of a determination to tell the story of the past which had so long been concealed, but, even as he would have made his confession, there came another paroxysm of coughing and he settled back on the pillow, dead, with his identity, real name, antecedents, home and life story buried in the oblivion froin which he had been too late in seeking to emerge.
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The existence of such conditions, and the difficulties expe- rienced in restraining the turbulent element, sometimes gave rise to circumstances which clouded the lives of honest and law abiding men with the shadow of suspicion for which there were no real grounds in fact. Such was the misfortune of a well known and highly esteemed citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Rev. Thompson Mckinney, who was a minister of the Presbyterian Church.
In the summer of 1887, Mr. Mckinney went to Paris, Texas, upon an official errand which called for trustworthiness and responsibility of the highest order, namely, to bring a sum of
U. S. JAIL AT FORT SMITH One of the buildings of the Military Post
money amounting to several thousand dollars, and belonging to the school fund of the Choctaw Nation, for disbursement by the tribal authorities. With the money in his saddle pockets, he was waylaid, at a lonely place in the road, and robbed by Belle Starr, the notorious female bandit (who was dressed in male attire), and a male accomplice. The robbers were not recognized by Mr. Mckinney and he was suspected of being in collusion with them, the Choctaw Council refusing to accept his story of the loss thus sustained. With his whole life and life work thus suddenly blighted by misplaced suspicion, the accused minister withdrew from active work in the church and with a degree of patience and forbearance that was remarkable, refrained from any show
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of resentment at the inferences and aspersions thus unjustly cast upon him. A year and a half later, after the death of Belle Starr, there was found in her own writing a memorandum list of her escapades and deeds of outlawry. In this had been entered a brief statement of the robbery of the trusted messenger of the Choctaw Nation, Rev. Thompson Mckinney, who was thus exon- erated and restored to the confidence of his fellow tribesmen, though not until a noble spirit, which was as proud and sensitive as it was blameless, had been deeply and needlessly wounded.
Until 1883, all criminal cases arising in the Indian Territory in which the accused were white people, and all cases wherein it was charged that offenses had been committed by an Indian against the laws of the United States, were tried before the United States District Court at Fort Smith, Arkansas. For fifteen years before the opening of the Oklahoma country to white settlement, Judge I. C. Parker had presided over that court. Judge Parker was known as "the hanging judge," because of the number of convicted murderers from the Indian Territory upon whom he had occasion to pass the death sentence. Between January 1, 1873, and July 1, 1891-within a period of eighteen and one-half years-no less than 125 persons from the Indian Territory were convicted of capital crimes and were sentenced to death by the Federal District Court at Fort Smith and, of these, no less than seventy-five met their fate on the gallows. In several instances, as many as five or six convicted murderers were hung on the gallows of the Federal jail at one time. Others had their sentences commuted to life imprisonment and a few to definite terms of varying lengths; two were pardoned and one was killed while trying to escape. 1
After 1883, the court jurisdiction in the Indian Territory was divided between Fort Smith, Wichita (Kansas) and Paris (Texas), and many malefactors were taken to the Federal courts at the two last mentioned courts to be tried, though neither of the latter tribunals was ever able to equal the record of the Fort Smith court in the number of legal executions. The stories of outlaws and outlaw life in the Indian Territory would of them- selves fill volumes if recorded in detail. However, it seems best that most of them should be forgotten. If any of them are to be preserved at all, it should be rather as a part of the folklore
1 Hearings on House Bill No. 4,629, Fifty-second Congress, first session, pages 38-41.
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of the state, for it is manifestly true that but few of them have a rightful place in its history.
CHURCHES AND SCHOOLS
The Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist denominations had promptly resumed their work in the Indian Territory after the war, though even at the beginning of this period they had scarcely recovered from the demoralization which had been the logical spiritual outcome of that struggle. The Moravian mission in the Cherokee Nation also survived. The Catholic Missions among
RUINS OF THE CHEROKEE FEMALE SEMINARY, PARK HILL
the Osage, Pottawatomie and Quapaw tribes, the first to be planted by that denomination in the Indian Territory, had been estab- lished during the later years of the preceding period. Mission schools and academies and tribal district schools, academies and seminaries were maintained among each of the five civilized tribes and Government schools at the agencies of each of the other tribes. The male and female seminaries of the Cherokee Nation, which had been closed for lack of funds several years before the outbreak of the Civil war, were not reopened until 1875. They were operated regularly thereafter until the spring of 1887, when the building of the Cherokee Female Seminary, located at Park Hill, was burned. A year later, the corner-stone of a new edifice was laid at Tahlequah, the building being completed and dedi-
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cated in May, 1889. The two Cherokee seminaries were of higher grade than that of any other tribal schools in the territory and, being wholly under the administrative control of the Cherokee authorities, instead of largely if not altogether under that of some one of the various mission boards, they contributed greatly to the spirit of independence and enterprise which made the Cherokee Nation a leader among the other Indian tribes.
Life at the various Indian agencies in the western part of the territory during this period was one of isolation and, in some of them, there was a spice of danger at times. Each of these com- munities-Darlington, Anadarko, Pawhuska, Sac and Fox, Fort Sill, Ponca and Pawnee-was socially a little world within itself. The agent and the employes, with their families, and the teachers in the agency school, saw and heard little of the outside world save the tidings brought by the mail rider once or twice a week or by the stage line if they were so fortunate as to be situated on one of the trails over which stages ran on a regular schedule. Yet life was far from monotonous, and, isolated as they were, the social side of life was not neglected. There was usually a round of entertainments during the winter season, including school exhibitions, amateur theatricals, parties, etc., and at other seasons there were hunting, camping and picnicking excursions. "The Peak Sisters," "Ten Nights in a Bar-room," and similar enter- tainments were sure to play to crowded houses, for cowboys from the ranches and soldiers from the nearest military post would ride miles to see such entertainments.
FIRST EDUCATIONAL CONVENTION IN THE INDIAN TERRITORY
The following account of the first territorial educational meeting ever held in the Indian Territory is excerpted from the issue of Our Brother in Red for October, 1884 :
"After earnest work on the part of some, a meeting of the friends of education was called and met in the M. E. Church, South, in Muskogee, September 29, 1884. Rev. W. A. Duncan was called to the chair and Prof. S. S. Stephens acted as secretary. A com- mittee of five was appointed to draft a constitution and by-laws for the association, consisting of Rev. T. A. Sanson, Rev. Theo. F. Brewer, Rev. W. A. Duncan, Prof. Robert L. Owen and Prof. S. S. Stephens.
"The following officers were then elected: President, Rev. W. A. Duncan ; vice-presidents, Rev. Theo. F. Brewer for the Creek
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Nation, Rev. Allen Wright for the Choctaw Nation, Hon. B. C. Bur- ney for the Chickasaw Nation, Gov. John F. Brown for the Seminole Nation, and Miss Ada Archer for the Cherokee Nation; treasurer, Prof. Robert L. Owen; secretary, Miss Alice Robertson ; executive council, Prof. S. S. Stephens for the Cherokee Nation, Hon. David M. Hodge for the Creek Nation, Rev. John Edwards for the Choctaw Nation, Hon. B. W. Carter for the Chickasaw Nation and Rev. J. R. Ramsey for the Seminole Nation.
"Resolutions were passed calling the attention of the United States Government to the importance of establishing in the Indian Territory an industrial and mechanical school similar to those estab- lished at Hampton, Virginia, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and Lawrence, Kansas.
"By resolution the various councils of the five civilized tribes were requested to aid in procuring the establishment of said school and that all possible influence be brought to bear on the Congress of the United States to effect the abolishment of the military post in Fort Gibson and that the Government buildings at said post be turned over to said school to be used for educational purposes.
"The Association, after adopting by-laws and constitution and discussing many important matters relating to the educational inter- ests of the Indian Territory, adjourned to meet in Muskogee, on the Tuesday before the third Sunday in August, 1885."
RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION
Nearly ten years elapsed after the completion of the line of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company across the Indian Territory before further railway construction was undertaken within its limits. The St. Louis & San Francisco Railway Com- pany's extension from Vinita, southwestward to Tulsa and Red Fork, was built in 1882 and 1883.
An amusing story is told in connection with the beginning of the extension of the railroad from Vinita to Tulsa. A former employe of the railroad company (section foreman) had married a young Cherokee woman, thus becoming an adopted citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Now it was the privilege of every citizen of the Cherokee Nation, whether a Cherokee by descent or adop- tion, to select and appropriate to his own use a site for a home ' and also as much land as he could farm, provided that the bounds of the latter did not approach nearer than a quarter of a mile to the fenced limits of the lands similarly improved and used by
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some other tribal citizen. Incidentally, it may be stated that, instead of "possession being nine points in the law," it was a common saying that "possession is eleven points in the law in the Cherokee Nation." Availing himself of the privileges accorded to adopted citizens, he selected and improved a piece of property at the end of the railroad track and, whether purposely or not, built his house directly in front of the same, on ground over which the track would have to be laid if the contemplated exten- sion was built. When the railroad company was ready to begin operations he was notified that his house stood upon the right-of- way which had been set aside for that purpose by Congressional enactment. The owner of the domicile (who was a Hibernian) stood insistently upon his rights as a Cherokee citizen and, when the railroad construction gang attempted to go upon the premises by force, he drove the men off with the aid of half a dozen heavily armed assistants who stood behind a barricade or defensive work, made by piling up railroad cross-ties at the disputed point on the right-of-way. Then the railroad company sought to resort to a legal expedient in order to move the obstructor from the right-of-way. In those days, in the Cherokee Nation, clergymen of recognized religious denominations, judges of the tribal courts and mayors of incorporated towns were authorized to perform the marriage ceremony, but there was no provision for keeping records of such marriages and, in many cases at least, no mar- riage certificate was issued. So, in order to gain time sufficient to remove the house from the right-of-way and presuming the lack of tangible proof, either by witness or documentary evidence, the railway authorities decided to question the validity of the alleged marriage between the obstructive former employe and the Cherokee woman, the effect being to destroy his right as an adopted citizen of the Cherokee Nation. Unfortunately for the success of such a plan, the latter got an inkling of it from some source, so he promptly called upon Rev. J. W. Scroggs, pastor of the Union (interdenominational) Church, whom he surprised with a bland request to officiate in a ceremony uniting himself and his wife in the holy bonds of matrimony! Incidentally, he explained that they had been married some years before, but that there was neither record nor certificate to that effect nor did he know where witnesses might be found and that, "for the sake of the children," he thought best to have another ceremony performed. Unsuspi- cious as to the real motive which inspired this sudden zeal for conformity with the (conventions of society, the minister was
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conducted to the railroad section house, where the ceremony was duly performed, a sumptuous dinner served and a generous fee received. A great light dawned upon his understanding an hour or two later, however, when the agent of the railway company called upon him and upbraided him for spoiling its carefully laid plans by performing the ceremony, reminding him at the same time that he had been the recipient of complimentary transporta- tion and other favors for several years past. The identity of the party who revealed the railway company's plans was never dis- covered. The wedding was held on railway property to add insult to injury. The company had to come to terms with its former employe.
In 1884, the Southern Kansas Railway Company and the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company (both subsidiary corpora- tions of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway Company) projected a line southward from Arkansas City, across the Indian Territory to Gainesville and Fort Worth. 2 The Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe built northward from the Red River to the Canadian, at Purcell, while the Southern Kansas built southward from the Arkansas River to the same point in 1885-6. In 1886, the St. Louis & San Francisco extended its Fort Smith line southwest- wardly, across the Choctaw Nation, to Paris, Texas. The St. Louis & Iron Mountain (Missouri Pacific) projected a line up the valley of the Arkansas River from Van Buren, Arkansas, to Fort Gibson, and thence to Coffeyville, Kansas. This line was built in 1887-8-9. The Panhandle Division of the Santa Fe was built from Kiowa, Kansas, southwestwardly across the Cherokee Outlet, to Canadian and Amarillo, Texas, in 1887-8. The Choctaw Coal & Railway Company's line was projected over a route extending eastward from Fort Reno to a point on the Arkansas boundary south of Sugar Loaf Mountain, in 1887-8, and active work was begun on the construction of the same in 1889. The Chicago, Kansas & Nebraska (Rock Island) built its line southward from Caldwell, Kansas, to El Reno, in 1889-90.
2 When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe sought to reach an agree- ment with the Chickasaw Nation for the purpose of securing per- mission to build a line of railway through its jurisdiction, the Chick- asaw authorities insisted upon a stipulation to the effect that the company should establish and maintain a division within the limits of the Chickasaw Nation; otherwise, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe and the Southern Kansas would have formed a junction at the crossing of the North Canadian instead of at that of the South Canadian, as was done.
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The first telegraph lines in the Indian Territory were built with the first railways, of course. A military telegraph line, from Wichita, Kansas, to Fort Reno, was the first telegraph line in the western part of the territory, being constructed and put into operation two or three years after that post was established. The first telephone line to be built and operated in Oklahoma was the one between Fort Reno and Darlington, in 1884. Two or three years later a telephone line was constructed between Muskogee and Tahlequah.
Steamboats still continued to ply the Arkansas River, though the building of the Iron Mountain Railway line during the latter part of the period practically put an end to the river traffic. In 1878, a small steamboat, the "Aunt Sallie," from the Lower Arkansas, ascended the river as far as Arkansas City, Kansas.
The Indian International Fair Association held an exposition at Muskogee in the autumn of each year, from the beginning of this period for a dozen years. During the latter half of the period an annual fair was also held at Vinita.
THE PRESS
The press of the Indian Territory began to develop during this period. The Cherokee Advocate, which had been re-estab- lished in 1870, was burned out in 1876 and, when equipped with a new plant a few months later, again started with a new volume and number. As before, it was printed partly in English and partly in Cherokee, and was the official organ of the Cherokee Nation. The Indian Journal was established at Muskogee in 1876. A number of years later it was moved to Eufaula, where it is still published and, since discontinuance of the Cherokee Advocate with the advent of statehood, it has been the oldest journal in the state. Other periodicals established during this period were: The Indian Chieftain, at Vinita; The Indian Champion, at Atoka ; The Telephone, at Tahlequah; The Indian Arrow, at Fort Gibson; Our Brother in Red (Methodist), at Muskogee; The Indian Mis- sionary (Baptist), at Atoka; The Enterprise, at Pauls Valley ; The Indian Citizen, at Atoka; The Register, at Purcell, and The Courier, at Ardmore.
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