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INDIAN TERRITORY, 1836-1856
CHAPTER IV
ORIGIN OF THE INDIAN COUNTRY
Writing shortly after the
Purchase of Louisiana in 1803, Thomas Jefferson expressed
his opinion as to the disposition of the acquired
territory. "Above all, the best use we can make
of the country for some time to come will be to give
establishments in it to the Indians of the east side
of the Mississippi in exchange for their present country.
. . When we shall be full on the [east] side, we can
lay off a range of states on the western bank from
the head to the mouth, and so range after range, advancing
compactly as we multiply."
Jefferson, as the leader of the political
party that became dominant with his first election
and continued to control the general government for
several decades, has been given credit for many of
the policies inaugurated by the nation during that
period. There is no question that he exerted a powerful
influence in molding the public opinion of the time
and directing political action. Hence it is natural
to attribute to him the beginning of many policies
that were features of the national administration
during the first half century, and his writings and
public addresses are often quoted for this purpose.
Whether he originated the paternalistic system of
government control of the Indians is probably of not
sufficient importance to inquire here, but his public
expressions on this subject are of the highest authority
and interest since, while he was president, the trans-Mississippi
country was designated as the proper abode for the
concentration of the Indian peoples.1
Jefferson's ideas were embodied practically
in the act of Congress, March 26, 1804, by which the
Louisiana Purchase was divided, the president being
authorized to stipulate with any Indian tribes owning
lands east of the Mississippi river for an exchange
of their lands and removal to designated lands west
of the river. So far as can be learned, this was the
first official declaration that part of the Louisiana
territory should be used as Indian country. Within
a few years the plan was given practical operation.
Why the Indians were eventually concentrated
[Footnote]
1In
his second inaugural address (1805), Jefferson reminded
the country of its duty to the Indians: "The
aboriginal inhabitants of these countries I have regarded
with the commiserations their history inspires. Endowed
with the faculties and rights of men, breathing an
ardent love of liberty and independence, and occupying
a country which left them no desire but to be undisturbed,
the stream of overflowing population from other regions
directed itself on these shores; without power to
divert or habits to contend against it, they have
been overwhelmed by the current, or driven before
it; now reduced within limits too narrow for the hunter's
state, humanity enjoins us to teach them agriculture
and the domestic arts; to encourage them to that industry
which alone can enable them to maintain their place
in existence and to prepare them in time for that
state of society which to bodily comforts adds the
improvement of the mind and morals. We have therefore
liberally furnished them with the implements of husbandry
and household use; we have placed among them instructors
in the arts of first necessity, and they are covered
with the aegis of the law against aggressors from
among ourselves."
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INDIAN TERRITORY, 1856-1866
24
mainly along the courses of the Arkansas
and Red rivers is a question largely of academic interest,
but it comes as a natural query why the first tribes
of the east, in exchanging their land, selected new
hunting grounds largely in the country that is now
Oklahoma.
Before the plan for removing the Indians
was set in operation, an expedition had been made
that resulted in a vast addition to the world's accurate
knowledge of the Louisiana country in general, and
the reports of the explorers were no doubt eagerly
studied by Jefferson and his associates and afforded
them many suggestions for their future guidance in
disposing of this great public domain.
While the intrepid Lewis and Clark set
off, under Jefferson's instructions, to explore the
Missouri river to its source, another equally brave
explorer, Zebulon M. Pike, started from the Missouri
to visit the regions along the Osage and Kansas rivers
and explore to the sources of the Arkansas, at the
same time treating with the Indians along those rivers.
The narrative of the expedition, largely told by Lieutenant
Pike himself, is one of the classics of western American
history.2 His explorations of the Louisiana
country took place largely during 1806, and by the
summer of the following year his official reports
were in the hands of the administration at Washington.
Once cannot read the following paragraphs of his description
of the country along the Arkansas without thinking
there is some connection between the explorer's suggestions
and the recommendation of President Jefferson, in
1808, that the Cherokee Indians look for suitable
homes along the Arkansas river. The information placed
before the world by Pike's expedition had some definite
influence on the formation of the "Indian country."
Jefferson and others would have pondered well over
these lines: "The borders of the Arkansas river
may be termed the paradise (terrestrial) of our territories,
for the wandering savages. Of all the countries ever
visited by the footsteps of civilized man, there never
was one probably that produced game in greater abundance,
and we know that the manners and morals of the erratic
nations are such. . . . as never to give them a numerous
population; and I believe that there are buffalo,
elk, and deer sufficient on the banks of the Arkansas
alone, if used without waste, to feed all the savages
in the United States territory one century."
Then, after describing the barren plains
of the west, and predicting that they might "become
in time equally celebrated as the sandy deserts of
Africa," he concludes that "from these immense
prairies may arise one great advantage to the United
States, viz: The restriction of our population to
some certain limits, and thereby a continuation of
the union. Our citizens being so prone to rambling
and extending themselves, on the frontiers, will,
through necessity, be constrained to limit their extent
on the west to the borders of the Missouri and Mississippi,
while they leave the prairies incapable of cultivation
to the wandering and uncivilized aborigines of the
country."3
An important step in the concentration
[Footnotes]
2"An
account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi
and through the Western Parts of Louisiana,"
etc., published at Philadelphia in 1810.
3When Pike's expedition reached
the Arkansas river, at a point in Kansas where the
Kansas and Arkansas rivers are separated by a narrow
watershed, Lieutenant James B. Wilkinson was detached
with a small company to descend and explore the Arkansas
to its mouth, while Pike, with the main party, proceeded
west to the sources of the river. Wilkinson parted
from Pike on October 28, 1806, and in canoes began
the voyage down the river. Wilkinson was not the first
white
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25
of the Indians in the west was the Osage
cession of 1808. It had the double result of opening
up a large area of the country west of the Mississippi
for white settlement, and at the same time providing
a free domain where the government, in pursuing its
Indian policy, might locate those tribes that gave
up their homes in the east. Pierre Choeau, acting
under the instructions of Governor Lewis of Louisiana
territory, called together the Osage chiefs at Fort
Clark (in southwest Missouri), and by treaty dated
November 10, 1808, extinguished Indian title to all
the Osage land between the Arkansas river on the south
to the Missouri river on the north; and from the Mississippi
west to a line running due north and south from Fort
Clark to the Arkansas. By this cession the entire
country between the Missouri and Arkansas westward
to within thirty or forty miles of the west line of
the present states of Missouri and Arkansas was opened
to occupation and disposal by the government. Within
this ceded area the government granted the first Indian
reservation in exchange for lands east of the Mississippi.
The first movement of Indians beyond
the
[Footnotes]
man to explore
the regions of the Arkansas in what is now Oklahoma,
but his journal report of his voyage (dated at New
Orleans, April 6, 1807) is the first reliable description
of the region.
He was more than a month in descending
the river to the point where it enters Oklahoma. His
journal commentaries on the country and inhabitants
along the river within the limits of Oklahoma are
as follows:
"The night of the 3d of December
was intensely cold, but hunger obliged me to proceed,
and we fortunately reached the mouth of the Neskalonska
[Salt Fork of the Arkansas] river without accident
or injury. . . . The Neskalonska is about 120 yards
wide, shoal and narrow at its mouth . . . . On this
stream the Grand and Little Osages form their temporary
fall hunting camps and take their peltries . . . .
"On the 10th [December] about noon,
I passed the Grand Saline, or the Newsewketonga [Cimarron
river], which is a reddish color, though its water
is very clear. About two days' march up this river
you find the prairie grass on the S. W. side incrusted
with salt, and on the N. E. bank, fresh water springs,
and lakes abounding with fish. This salt the Arkansaw
Osages obtain by scraping it off the prairie with
a turkey's wing into a wooden trencher. The river
does not derive its name from its saline properties,
but the quantities that may always be found on its
banks, and is at all seasons of the year potable.
"On the 20th, in the afternoon,
we passed another saline with water equally as red
as the Newsewketonga, and more strongly impregnated
with salt.
"After encountering every hardship
to which a voyage is subject in small canoes, at so
inclement a season of the year, I arrived on the 23d
inst. [December] in a storm of hail and snow, at the
wintering camp of Cashesegra, or 'Big Track' chief
of the Osages, who resides on Verdigrise river. On
the following day I gave him your talk . . . . he
had been informed the United States intended erecting
factories on the Osage river, and that he was anxious
to have one near to his own village . . . . A factory
with a garrison of troops stationed there would answer
the double purpose of keeping in order those Indians,
who are the most desperate and profligate part of
the whole nation, and more fully impressing them with
an idea of our consequence. . . . It also would tend
to preserve harmony among the Chactaws, Creeks, Cherokees
and Osages of the three different villages, who are
in a constant state of warfare. . . .
"On the 27th I passed the mouths
of the Verdigrise and Grand rivers, the former being
about a hundred, and the latter one hundred and thirty
yards wide; those streams enter within a quarter of
a mile of each other. . . .
"About fifty-eight or sixty miles
up the Verdigriseis situate the Osage village. . .
. Though Cashesegra be the nominal leader, Clermont,
or the Builder of Towns, is the greatest warrior,
and most influential man, and is now more firmly attached
to the interests of the Americans than any other chief
of the nation. He is the lawful sovereign of the Grand
Osages, but his hereditary right was usurped by Pahuska,
or White Hair, whilst Clermont was an infant. White
Hair, in fact, is a chief of Choteau's creating, as
well as Cashesegra, and neither have the power or
disposition to restrain their young men from the perpetration
of an improper act, fearing lest they should render
themselves unpopular.
"On the 29th I passed a fall near
seven feet perpendicular [Webber's, opposite mouth
of Elk
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26
Mississippi with which the government
was officially concerned was the Cherokee migration
of 1809. In the preceding year the deputies from the
lower towns of the Cherokees had made known their
wish to continue the hunter life, and since game was
scarce and their lands restricted on the east side
of the Mississippi, had indicated their desire to
move west. Accordingly the president, in January,
1809, recommended that an exploring party of these
Indians could reconnoiter the country on the waters
of the Arkansas and White rivers and find an unoccupied
country suited to their needs.
"And whereas the Cherokees . . .
. did explore the country on the west side of the
Mississippi and made choice of the country on the
Arkansas and White rivers, and settled themselves
down on United States' lands, to which no other tribe
of Indians have any just claims,4 and had
notified the president of this fact and their desire
to negotiate a treaty for exchange of lands,"—in
consequence of this preamble, the representative of
the Cherokees entered into the treaty of July 8, 1817,
by which they ceded to the United States an area on
the east of the Mississippi for a grant of equal area
on the Arkansas and White rivers.5 As a
result of this treaty, in which it is recited that
a part of the Cherokees desire to continue their residence
in their old homes, while another part desired to
continue the hunter life, there were established the
two subdivisions of Cherokees, known as the Eastern
and the Western
[Footnotes cont.]
creek], and at evening
was visited by a scout from an Osage war party, and
received from them information of a man by the name
of McFarlane, who had been trapping up the Pottoe.
We passed about noon this day, the mouths of the river
des Illinois, which enters on the N. E. side, and
the Canadian river, which puts in from the S. W. The
latter river is the main branch of the Arkansaw, and
is equally as large.
"On the 31st I passed the mouth
of the Pottoe," and thus his narrative, so far
as it pertains to the Oklahoma country, closes.
In summarizing the results of his expedition,
Pike has this to say about the Osages of the Arkansaw:
Osage Indians on the Arkansas in 1806.
"The Osage Indians appear to have
migrated from the north and west, and from their speaking
the same language with the Kans, Otos, Missouries,
and Mahaws, together with the great similarity of
manners, morals and customs, there is left no room
to doubt but that they were originally the same nation
. . . . The Osage nation is divided into three villages.
. . . the Grand Osage, the Little Osage and those
of the Arkansas. The Little Osage separated from the
Big Osage about one hundred years since. . . . The
Arkansas schism was effected by Mr. Pierre Choteau,
ten or twelve years ago. [Having the privilege of
trade on the Arkansas, and his rival, Manuel Lisa,
having similar privileges on the Osage, Choteau had
induced a portion of the Osages to remove to the Arkansas,
and 'thereby nearly rendered abortive the exclusive
privilege of his rival.'] . . . Every reason induces
a belief that the other villages are much more likely
to join the Arkansas (which is daily becoming more
powerful) than the latter to return to its ancient
residence. For the Grand and Little Osage are both
obliged to proceed to the Arkansaw ever winter, to
kill the summer's provision; also all the nations
with whom they are now at war are situated to the
westward of that river, and from whence they get all
their horses. Those inducementsare such that the young,
the bold, and the enterprising are daily emigrating
from the Osage village to the Arkansaw village. In
fact, it would become the interest of our government
to encourage that emigration, if they intend to encourage
the extension of the settlement of the upper Louisiana;
but if, on the contrary (their true policy), ever
method should be taken to prevent their elongation
from the Missouri." (Appendix to Part II.)
4Cherokee treaty, 1817.
5The boundaries were: 'Which
[the land] is to commence on the north side of the
Arkansas river, at the mouth of Point Remove or Budwell's
Old Place; thence, by a straight line, northwardly,
to strike Chataunga mountain, or the hill first above
Shield's Ferry on White river, running up and between
said rivers for complement, the banks of which rivers
to be the lines . . . and all citizens of the United
States, except Mrs. P. Lovely, who is to remain where
she lives during her life time, removed from within
the bounds as above described.
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Cherokees. Although geographically separated,
the Cherokees were treated as a unit in the distribution
of annuities and other relations, and all property
owned by them was treated as common property.6
The country granted to the Cherokees
by the treaty of 1817 was in the present state of
Arkansas, included between the Arkansas and White
rivers as two boundaries, and on the east by the line
running from near the present town of Morrillton in
Conway county northeastwardly to the site of Batesville.
The Cherokees claimed that the west boundary of their
cession began at Fort Smith on the Arkansas and ran
parallel with the eastern line to the White river.
Such a line would intersect the Osage boundary fixed
in 1808. And in passing through the Osage territory
in order to reach the western hunting grounds, the
Cherokees also came into collision with the Osages.
Troubles ensued almost from the beginning of the Cherokee
removal.7
The western line of the Cherokee country
was finally surveyed, in 1825, running from Table
Rock Bluff above Fort Smith to the mouth of Little
North Fork of White river. In the same year, by a
treaty dated June 2, 1825, the Great and Little Osage
tribes relinquished to the United States all their
[Footnotes]
6In
1819, they were estimated at 15,000 in number. By
the treaty made in 1819, the formal census was dispensed
with (which had been required by the treaty of 1817),
and for the purpose of distribution it was assumed
that one-third had moved west, and that two-thirds
were yet remaining east of the Mississippi river.
Upon the basis of this estimate of numbers, in lieu
of census, annuities were distributed until the year
1835.
Thomas Nuttall, who traveled along the
Arkansas in 1819, gave some valuable historical and
descriptive notes on the Cherokee settlements through
which he passed. After passing the boundary line at
Point Remove, he came to the first Cherokee village
in "the Galley hills." "Here the Cherokees
had a settlement of about a dozen families, who, in
the construction and furniture of their homes, and
in the management of their farms, imitate the whites,
and appeared to be progressing toward civilization,
were it not for their baneful attachment to whiskey."
"Along either bank the lands are
. . . . pretty thickly scattered with the cabins and
farms of the Cherokees, this being the land allotted
to them by Congress, in exchange for others in the
Mississippi territory, where the principal part of
the nation still remain . . . . The number who have
now emigrated hither are about 1,500." (A Journal
of Travels into the Arkansa Territory during the year
1819. With occasional observations on the manners
of the Aborigines. By Thomas Nuttall, F. L. S., etc.,
Philadelphia, 1821.")
7"The unsettled limit of their
claim in this country has been the means of producing
some dissatisfaction, and exciting their jealousy
against the agents of the government. One of their
principal chiefs had said that rather than suffer
any embarrassment and uncertainty he would proceed
across the Red river, and petition land from the Spaniards.
[Texas was then Spanish territory.] The Cherokees,
with their present civilized habits, industry and
augmenting population, would prove a dangerous enemy
to the frontiers of the Arkansas Territory. As they
have explicitly given up the lands which they possessed
in the Mississippi Territory, in exchange for those
which they have chosen here, there can be no reason
why they should not immediately be confirmed, so as
to preclude the visits of land speculators, which
excite their jealousy." —Nuttall's Journal,
p. 124.
"The arrival of the Cherokees in
this country did not fail, as might have been foreseen,
to excite the jealousy of the Osages at the falls
of the Verdigris, and about sixty miles distant from
their village. Some quarrel, however, about two years
ago arising between the two nations, the Osages waylaid
12 or 14 of the Cherokees and killed them. On this
occasion the Cherokees collected together in considerable
numbers, and ascended the river to take revenge upon
the Osages, who fled at their approach, losing about
ten of their men, who either fell in the retreat,
or, becoming prisoners, were reserved for a more cruel
destiny. The Cherokees, now forgetting the claims
of civilization, fell upon the old and decrepit, upon
the women and innocent children, and by their own
account destroyed not less than 90 individuals, and
carried away a number of prisoners."—Ibid,
pp. 135-6.
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lands lying within the state of Missouri
and territory of Arkansas and also all lands west
of this state and territory except a reservation fifty
miles wide situated in what is now southern Kansas.8
Between the Cherokee country and the
old Osage boundary line as established by the treaty
of Fort Clark lay a triangular strip of country that,
since it was not assigned to any Indian tribe, was
claimed to be open for settlement. But for white people
to occupy this country to the west of them would shut
off the Cherokees from an outlet to the hunting grounds
of the west.9 The Cherokees, it seems,
contended strenuously for this free access to the
west from their first occupation of the Arkansas country.
In this we see in another form the
[Footnotes]
8The
reservation was bounded as follows: "Beginning
at a point due east of White Hair's village, and twenty-five
miles west of the western boundary line of the state
of Missouri, fronting on a north and south line, so
as to leave ten miles north and forty miles south
of the point of beginning, and extending west with
the width of fifty miles to the western boundary of
the lands hereby ceded and relinquished by said tribes
or nations [i. e., to a line drawn from the head sources
of the Kansas southwardly through the Rock Saline.]
OSAGE SETTLEMENTS
in 1819
Nuttall,
in his travels up the Arkansas in 1819, gave the following
description of the situation of the Osage settlement
and its inhabitants: "If the confluence of the
Verdigris, Arkansa and Grand rivers shall ever become
of importance as a settlement, which the great and
irresistible tide of western emigration promises,
a town will probably be founded here, at the junction
of these streams; and this obstruction in the navigation
of the Verdigris, as well as the rapids of the Grand
river, will afford good and convenient situations
for mills, a matter of no small importance in the
list of civilized comforts. From the Verdigris to
St. Louis there is an Osage trace, which reduces the
distance of those two places to about 300 miles. .
. The low hills contiguous to the falls of this river,
and on which there exist several aboriginal mounds,
were chosen by the Cherokees and Osages to hold their
council, and to form a treaty of reciprocal amity
as neighbors. This first friendly interview with the
Cherokees was soon after broken through by jealousy,
and accompanied on both sides with the most barbarous
revenge. Scarcely any nation of Indians have encountered
more enemies than the Osages; still, they flatter
themselves by saying that they are seated in the middle
of the world and, although surrounded by so many enemies,
they have ever maintained their usual population,
and their country. From conversations with the traders,
it appeared that they would not be unwilling to dispose
of more of their lands, provided that the government
of the United States would enter into a stipulation
not to settle it with the aborigines, whom they have
now much greater reason to fear than the whites. The
limit of their last cession proceeds in a northeast
direction from the falls of the Verdigris, and enters
the line which was run from Fire prairie, on the Missouri,
to Frog bayou, about 60 miles from the Arkansas. .
. .
"The first village of the Osages
lies about 60 miles from the mouth of the Verdigris,
and is said to contain 700 or 800 men and their families.
About 60 miles further, on the Osage river, is situated
the village of the chief called White Hair. . . .
"The Osages at this time entertained
a considerable jealousy of the whites, in consequence
of the emigration of the Cherokees to their frontiers;
they considered it as a step of policy in the government
to overawe them, and intended to act in concert with
the establishment of the garrison. . . ."—(p.
172, fol.)
9"A number of families were
now about to settle, or, rather, take provisionary
possession of the land purchased from the Osages,
situated along the banks of the Arkansa, from Frog
bayou to the falls of the Verdigris, a tract in which
is embraced a great body of superior alluvial land.
But, to their disappointment, an order recently arrived,
instructing the agent of Indian affairs to put the
Cherokees in possession of the Osage purchase, and
to remove them from the south side of the river. It
appeared, from what I could learn, that the Osages
purposely deceived by the interpreter, at the instigation
of the Shoutous [Choteaus], had hatched up a treaty
without the actual authority of the chiefs, so that
in the present state of things a war betwixt the Cherokees
and the Osages is almost inevitable, unless the latter
relinquish the banks of the Arkansa, as Messrs. Shoutou
wish them. The Osages, in a recent council, said they
would have no objection to dispose of their lands,
provided the whites only were allowed to settle upon
them."—Nuttall's Journal, p. 215.
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main cause of the alleged incompatibility
between the Indians and whites. The restrictions of
state or territorial government and the settled occupations
of white men constrained the Indians in the exercise
of all their nomadic habits and customs. That such
constraint should not be imposed and that a country
should be set aside for the Indians to dwell and work
out their own destiny was the policy adopted by the
government early in the nineteenth century and continued
practically without change until the close of the
Civil war.10
A deputation of Cherokees went to Washington
to protest against their confinement within the limits
of white man's government. In the negotiations that
followed may be found the practical origin of Indian
Territory as a country entirely separate from state
and territorial jurisdiction and subject only to federal
regulations. Although the Indian deputies in Washington
were not clothed with plenipotentiary powers, the
secretary of war, as a final expedient to settle existing
difficulties, offered the chiefs who were present
seven million acres of land in exchange for the lands
that they then owned on the Arkansas (something over
four million acres). Furthermore, in order to avoid
the imposition of any local government that might
conflict with the Indians, the secretary also proposed
that the western boundary of Arkansas (as it existed
then) should be moved east forty miles, and that the
Cherokees should be settled on the strip thus taken
from Arkansas. The negotiations finally resulted in
the signing of the Cherokee treaty of May 6, 1828,
which in many respects is the most interesting of
all such agreements considered in this history.
It opens with the usual expression of
the desire upon the part of the United States to secure
the welfare and promote the contentment of their Indian
wards, by giving them "a permanent home,
which . . . . shall remain theirs forever—a home
that shall never in all future time be embarrassed
by having extended around it the lines, or placed
over it the jurisdiction of a state or territory,
nor be pressed upon by the extension in any way of
any of the limits of any existing territory or state."
After referring to the difficulties of the tribe in
their reservation within the territory of Arkansas
(as assigned by the treaty of 1817) and promising
them a new country beyond the jurisdiction of a territory
or state, the treaty defines the west boundary of
Arkansas and then proceeds to lay off the limits of
the Cherokee Nation to the west of that line.11
The government having agreed to remove
[Footnotes]
10The
policy of concentrating all the Indians in one region
was opposed even then by arguments that seem to have
uncovered some of the vital defects of the plan. Said
Nuttall, in 1819:
"It is now also the intention of
the United States government to bring together, as
much as possible, the savages beyond the frontier,
and thus to render them, in all probability, belligerent
to each other, and to the civilized settlements which
they border. To strengthen the hands of an enemy by
conceding to them positions favorable to their designs,
must certainly be farm removed from prudence and good
policy. To have left the aborigines on their ancient
sites, rendered venerable by the endearments and attachments
of patriotism, and surrounded by a condensed population
of the whites, must either have held out to them the
necessity of adopting civilization, or, at all events,
have most effectually checked them from committing
depradations. Bridled by this restraint, there would
have been no necessity for establishing among them
an expensive military agency, and coercing them by
terror."—Nuttall's Journal, p. 160.
11"The United States agree
to possess the Cherokees, and to guarantee it to them
forever, . . . . of seven million of acres of land,
to be bounded as follows, viz.: Commencing at that
point on Arkansas river where the Eastern Choctaw
boundary line strikes said river, and running thence
with the western line of Arkansas. . . . to the southwest
corner of Missouri, and thence
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30
from this new reservation all white
settlers, placing them on the east side of the new
western boundary of Arkansas, the Cherokees soon began
moving to their home. By the treaty a small military
reservation about Fort Gibson had been defined, the
post itself having been established four years before.
Probably because the treaty of 1828 had not been made
by duly accredited representatives of the Cherokees,
and also because a part of the Creek Nation had settled
within the Cherokee territory, a new treaty was made
at Fort Gibson on February 14, 1833. The limits of
the Cherokee Nation as defined by this treaty were
practically the same as marked the nation until the
obliteration of Indian boundaries by the state government.12
(See map.)
In transferring the lands of the Indian
country to the various civilized tribes, the most
solemn guarantees were given, so that, if a pledge
of a government at one period of national history
is inviolate through subsequent periods, no action
of the government
[Footnote]
with the western boundary
line of Missouri till it crosses the waters of Neasho,
generally called Grand river, thence due west to a
point from which a due south course will strike the
present northwest corner of Arkansas territory, thence
continuing due south, on and with the present western
boundary line of the territory to the main branch
of Arkansas river, thence down said river to its junction
with the Canadian river, and thence up and between
the said rivers, Arkansas and Canadian, to a point
at which a line running north and south from river
to river will give the aforesaid seven million acres.
In addition to the seven millions of acres thus provided
for . . . . the United States further guarantees to
the Cherokee nation a perpetual outlet, west, and
a free and unmolested use of all the country lying
west of the western boundary of the above described
limits, and as far west as the sovereignty of the
Unites States and their right of soil extend."
12The old western boundary
of Arkansas (above referred to) was the starting point,
it being forty miles west of the present Arkansas
line, and for about twenty miles the Cherokee boundary
followed this old territorial line. Until the recent
obliteration of the Indian boundaries, as a result
of statehood, this twenty miles of boundary between
the Creeks and Cherokees remained as a definite reminder
of the time when Arkansas territory projected forty
miles within the present Oklahoma. The description
in article 1 of the treaty follows:
"The United States agree to possess
the Cherokees, and to guarantee it to them forever,
and that guarantee is hereby pledged of seven millions
of acres of land, to be bounded as follows, viz.:
Beginning at a point on the old western territorial
line of Arkansas territory, being twenty-five miles
north from the point, where the territorial line crosses
Arkansas river—thence running from said north
point south on the said territorial line to the place
where said territorial line crosses the Verdigris
river—thence down said Verdigris river to the
Arkansas river—thence down said Arkansas to a
point where a stone is placed opposite to the east
or lower bank of Grand river at its junction with
the Arkansas—thence running south, forty-four
degrees west, one mile—thence in a straight line
to a point four miles northerly from the mouth of
the North Fork of the Canadian—thence along the
said four miles line to the Canadian—thence down
the Canadian to the Arkansas—thence down the
Arkansas to that point on the Arkansas, where the
eastern Choctaw boundary strikes said river; and running
thence with the western line of Arkansas territory,
as now defined, to the southwest corner of Missouri—thence
along the western Missouri line to the land assigned
the Senecas—thence on the south line of the Senecas
to Grand river—thence up said Grand river, as
far as the south line of the Osage reservation, extended
if necessary—thence up and between said south
Osage line, extended west if necessary, and a line
drawn due west from the point of beginning to a certain
distance west, at which a line running north and south,
from said Osage line to said due west line, will make
seven millions of acres within the whole described
boundaries. In addition to the seven millions of acres
of land thus provided for and bounded, the United
States further guarantee to the Cherokee nation a
perpetual outlet west and a free and unmolested use
of all the country lying west of the western boundary
of said seven millions of acres, as far west as the
sovereignty of the United States and their right of
soil extend. Provided, however, that if the saline,
or salt plain, on the great western prairie shall
fall within said limits prescribed for said outlet,
the right is reserved to the United States to permit
other tribes of red men to get salt on said plain
in common with the Cherokees—and letters patent
shall be issued by the United States as soon as practicable
for the land hereby guaranteed."
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in proceeding with the disposal and
partition of Indian lands has been too slow or taken
with too much care and safeguarding of guaranteed
rights. A treaty with the Cherokee on December 19,
1835, supplements the preceding treaties. In it the
United States covenants that the ceded lands should
"in no future time, without their consent, be
included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction
of any state or territory." By this treaty additional
lands were given the Cherokees "situated between
the west line of the state of Missouri and the Osage
reservation, beginning at the southeast corner of
the same and runs north along the east line of the
Osage lands fifty miles to the northeast corner thereof;
and thence east to the west line of the state of Missouri;
thence with said line south fifty miles; thence west
to place of beginning." This tract, containing
about 800,000 acres, was the Cherokee Neutral Lands
in Kansas.
Having carried the history of the Cherokees
along to the point where their permanent home in the
Indian country has been assigned, we now return a
few years and trace the movements of the other Indian
people whose successive assignments of territory are
important events in the story of the formation of
Indian Territory.
As the Osage cession of 1808 had opened
the way for the introduction of a part of the Cherokees,
likewise the Quapaws, who inhabited the country south
of the Arkansa, by a treaty of 1818, restricted their
original territory by ceding to the United States
most of the country on the south side of the Arkansas
from the Mississippi river west to a line running
through the sources of the Kiamichi, a branch of Red
river, and the Poteau, a branch of the Arkansas. The
Indian title having been extinguished, settlers entered
what they considered public land, and within a year
after the treaty had partly occupied the country as
far west as the line defined in the treaty (some distance
west of the present boundary of Arkansas). Some of
the pioneers even continued beyond the west line fixed
by the Quapaw session, but when they were removed
in 181913 they were allowed to settle without
restriction on the lands east of the Kiamichi-Poteau
line. This seemed to confirm the belief of the settlers
that the government intended to dispose of the Quapaw
cession as public domain. A disappointment was in
store for them when it was announced that the government
proposed to set aside the lands relinquished by the
Quapaws as a home for the Choctaw Nation.14
The movement of the Choctaws to the
[Footnotes]
13May
16 [1819]. This morning I left Fort Smith with Major
Bradford and a company of soldiers, in order to proceed
across the wilderness to the confluence of the Kiamesha
and Red river. The object of the Major was to execute
the orders of government, by removing all the resident
whites out of the territory of the Osages; the Kiamesha
river being now chosen as the line of demarkation.
. . . 22d). The people appeared but ill prepared for
the unpleasant official intelligence of their ejectment.
Some who had cleared considerable farms were thus
unexpectedly thrust out into the inhospitable wilderness.
I could not but sympathize with their complaints,
notwithstanding the justice and propriety of the requisition."—Nuttall's
Journal.
Choctaw Treaty of
1820
14"By
a recent treaty, effected through the influence of
General Jackson, the Choctaws are now about to relinquish
the east side of the Mississippi river, and to exchange
their lands for others in the territory of Arkansa,
situated betwixt Arkansa and Red rivers, and extending
from the Quapaw reservation to the Pottoe. In consequence
of this singular but impolitic measure of crowding
the aborigines together, so as to render them inevitably
hostile to each other, and to the frontier which they
border, several counties of the Arkansa territory
will have to be evacuated by their white inhabitants,
who will thus be ruined in their circumstances, at
the very period when the general survey of the lands
had inspired them with the
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Arkansas river country had begun about
1800, and in the report already referred to the number
of Choctaws in the Louisiana country is estimated
at five hundred. In the war of 1812 the Choctaws and
Chickasaws were allies of the United States.15
With the rapid settlement of Mississippi and Alabama
and adjacent territory during the early years of the
century these tribes were unable to hold their own
against the white men. The establishment of state
governments over their country made their situation
worse, since they, "being ignorant of the language
and laws of the white man, can not understand nor
obey them." It seemed impracticable to govern
two widely different races by the same system of laws.
As a result, a treaty was effected, October
18, 1820, between the government and the Mississippi
Choctaws, by which a country larger than many of the
eastern states was granted to the Indians in exchange
for their lands east of the Mississippi. The grant
comprised all that part of the present state of Oklahoma
between the main Canadian and Red rivers, and from
the Texas line on the west to an eastern limit that
extended from the mouth of Little river, in Arkansas,
to the old Cherokee boundary at Point Remove on the
Arkansas. A large portion of western Arkansas, south
of the Arkansas river, was thus included in the Choctaw
reservation.16
When the eastern boundary from Red river
to Point Remove was surveyed in 1821, the surveyor
reported that 375 white families had settled west
of this line and east of the Kiamichi-Poteau line.
The Choctaws who were already resident in the country
refused to move into that part of their country west
of the Kiamichi and Poteau rivers. The situation promised
serious difficulties between the whites and red men.
The contest ended with the Choctaws of January 20,
1825, when the Choctaws ceded to the government, from
the land described in the treaty of 1820, all that
portion "lying east of a line beginning on the
Arkansas, one hundred paces east of Fort Smith, and
running thence due south to Red river." Thus
was defined the southern half of the western boundary
of Arkansas, and finally adopted for that purpose
in 1836. By this
[Footnotes]
confident expectation
of obtaining a permanent and legal settlement."—Nuttall's
Journal, p. 236.
15"The Chickasaws and Choctaws
were fearfully decimated by wars with the Europeans
and other tribes. During the early explorations it
is said that they had 15,000 warriors, while in 1720
the two tribes could muster less than 1,000 fighting
men. The Choctaws allied themselves to the French
in the war against the Natchez, whom the Chickasaws
aided. The two latter tribes were badly beaten. From
1540 to the establishment of the American republic
the Chickasaws and Choctaws were almost constantly
at war. As progress followed the star of empire westward,
the rights of these Indians, as they understood them,
were more and more circumscribed. In 1765 the Chickasaws
made their first general treaty with General Oglethorpe
of Georgia, and in 1786, after the colonies had gained
their independence, both the Chickasaw and Choctaws
made a treaty at Hopewell and were guaranteed peaceable
possession of their lands. From the date of this treaty
the Choctaws and Chickasaws have kept faith with the
federal government. The Chickasaws, in the treaty
of 1834, boast 'that they have ever been faithful
and friendly to the people of this country; that they
have never raised the tomahawk to shed the blood of
an American."—R. W. McAdams, in Extra Census
Bulletin, above mentioned.
16The words of the treaty
define the grant as, ". . . . a tract of country
west of Mississippi river, situate between the Arkansas
and Red rivers, and bounded as follows: Beginning
on the Arkansas river, where the lower boundary line
of the Cherokees strikes the same; thence up the Arkansas
to the Canadian fork, and up the same to its source;
thence due south to the Red river; thence down red
river, three miles below the mouth of Little river,
which empties into Red river on the north side; thence
a direct line to the beginning."
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treaty the Choctaws ceded a large triangular
strip on the east side of their reservation, and in
return the United States agreed to remove all such
white settlers, as were located within the Choctaw
limits.17
As a result of this treaty, and the Cherokee
treaty of 1828 (already described), the two Indian
nations that had first been assigned lands west of
the Mississippi were removed beyond the jurisdiction
of a territorial government. The western line of Arkansas
having been fixed, no state or territorial lines any
longer shut in these nations, and the most solemn
guarantee of the government assured them that no such
lines ever should be extended around them. The history
of the movements by which these two nations were segregated
is the history of the principal events in the formation
of Indian Territory.
After the early treaties above described
had given the Cherokees and Choctaws the country lying
immediately west of Arkansas, the next tribe to receive
an assignment of lands in the Indian country was the
Creeks.18 The first treaty with this confederacy
of tribes looking to a transfer beyond the Mississipi
was made February 12, 1825.
By this treaty, in return for Georgian
lands, the government offered the Creeks land west
of the Mississippi "on the Arkansas river commencing
at the mouth of the Canadian Fork thereof, and running
westward between said rivers Arkansas and Canadian
Fork, for quantity." If the lands thus designated
were not acceptable, the Creeks were given the privilege
of selecting others, anywhere in the Indian country
except the portions assigned to the Choctaws and Cherokees.
This treaty was not ratified by the Creek
council. Its terms were protested by a majority of
the confederacy, and as a result a new agreement was
signed by the chiefs and head men on January 24, 1826.
In return for the cession of the Georgia lands the
United States agreed to pay the nation nearly a quarter
of a million dollars and a perpetual annuity of $20,000.
The followers of "the late General William McIntosh,"
having supported the former treaty and desiring a
new home west of the Mississippi, were promised such
land as their
[Footnotes]
17
Most of the Choctaws had not left Mississippi by 1830,
and in that year, on September 27, another treaty
was made with them by which they agreed to cede all
their possessions of the Mississippi and remove, during
the falls of 1831, 1832 and 181833, to the reservation
already set aside for them by the treaty of 1825.
This treaty guaranteed self-government to the Choctaws,
so far as not inconsistent with the constitution,
treaties and laws of the United States and the position
of the federal government in exercising general supervision
over Indian affairs.
The United States assumed some unusual
obligations by this treaty. Choctaw youths, to the
number of forty, were to be kept in school at the
expense of the national government for a period of
twenty years. The government promised to build a council
house, a house for each chief and a church for each
of the three districts—besides the more usual
gifts and annuities for education and for the industrial
uses of the people.
18In their own language they
were the Muskogee. Because of their residence between
the headwaters of the Alabama and Savannah rivers,
in a country broken by creeks and small streams, the
early settlers gave them the name "Creeks,"
and under that title the nation or confederacy has
been generally known. The Seminoles were part of the
same race and were considered as a part of the Creeks
except in the later treaties. The only serious revolt
the Creeks against the Americans took place in 1813-14,
the Creek war, in which General Jackson took a prominent
part. This ended in a complete defeat of the Indians
and the submission of Weatherford, their leader, followed
by the cession of the greater part of the lands belonging
to those tribes that had arrayed themselves against
the United States. The extended and bloody contest
in Florida, from 1835 to 1843, known as the Seminole
war, secured permanent peace with the southern tribes.
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committee might select in the unoccupied
country west of Missouri and Arkansas. To hasten their
removal within the stipulated twenty-four months,
an additional one hundred thousand dollars was promised
the emigrating party, the greater part to be paid
when the Indians were safely located on the west side
of the river.19
What was known as the McIntosh19
1/2 emigration to the country beyond the Mississippi
began about 1828. But the main body remained in their
former homes, and other treaties, made effective by
action of the military forces, were necessary before
the Creek country became definitely fixed as the home
of the nation. The Creeks, after having been betrayed,
as they believed, by McIntosh in the earlier treaties,
were very suspicious of treaty pledges. Finally, on
March 24, 1832, by treaty, the United States commissioners
offered the most liberal inducements to the remaining
Creeks to remove beyond the Mississippi, and in reassurance
that the new homes of the tribe should not be intruded
upon or in any way jeopardized as they had been in
Georgia, the United States government. . . . "nor
shall any state or territory ever have a right to
pass laws for the government of such Indians."
It was found that the lands assigned
to the Creeks and the Cherokees overlapped, and that
in consequence of the two peoples settling and claiming
the same lands, "difficulties and dissentions"
had been caused. The result was the gathering of the
representatives of the interested tribes at Fort Gibson
and the making of separate agreements with each by
which the boundaries of their nations were defined.
The treaty with the Cherokees has been described.
That with the Creeks was singed the same day (February
14, 1833). A mutual boundary line was created on the
north and east between the two nations as already
described). The northern boundary as fixed by this
treaty has played an important part in the history
of Oklahoma divisions. Extending through Tulsa near
its eastern end it ran west clear to the Mexican line
(or, as now, the Texas Panhandle) and in the original
Oklahoma was the northern line of Payne, Logan, Kingfisher
and Blaine counties. The southern boundary of the
Creek country, by this treaty, was the Canadian river.
All the area between these north
[Footnotes]
19It
was found that the Georgia cessions described in these
treaties did not embrace all the lands of the nation
in that state, and it required another treaty (dated
November 15, 1827) and a payment of nearly $28,000
additional to secure a full relinquishment of Creek
Indian title to Georgia lands.
19 1/2William McIntosh was
a mixed blood-Creek, who, for his activity in behalf
of the government in the treaty of 1825, was sentenced
to death by the tribe and was executed May 1, 1825,
by a chosen party of warriors, who shot him as he
tried to escape from his house. It was claimed that
he had betrayed the Creeks by "selling the graves
of their ancestors." Georgian, having relinquished
title to its Mississippi lands in 1802 on condition
that the government should extinguish all Indian titles
in the state, became increasingly urgent that the
government should fulfill its agreement and remove
the Indians. The Creeks resisted this plan to force
them from their lands and in 1811 forbade the sale
of the remaining lands under penalty of death. McIntosh
was prominent as the leader of the Creek allies of
the Americans during the war of 1812-15, and fought
against the hostile faction of his tribe at Horseshoe
Bend in 1814. The lands of the hostiles were confiscated
by the United States, and the treaties of 1818 and
1821 alienated a large additional areas of the Creek
country. The treaty of the latter year was signed
by McIntosh and twelve chiefs controlled by him, while
thirty-six other chiefs, and head men refused to sanction
the agreement. By 1824 a total of fifteen million
acres had been ceded, and the Creeks retained some
ten million. The Georgian commissioners, appealing
to the avarice of McIntosh, persuaded him and his
followers to sign the treat of 1825, ceding away remainder
of the Georgia lands.
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and south lines, from near the city
of Muskogee on the east to the Texas line on the west,
embracing the greater part of twenty of the present
Oklahoma counties, was guaranteed as the perpetual
home of the Creek tribes.20
One of the provisions of the treaty of
1833 with the Creeks related to the Seminoles, who
were really a part of the Creek nation. It was provided
that a place should be reserved in the Creek Nation
for the Seminoles, and the latter should be considered
"a constituent part of said nation." In
the previous year (May 9, 1832) by treaty, these Florida
Indians had relinquished their lands, and had agreed,
in case they were satisfied with the new country in
the Creek Nation, to remove within three years from
the ratification of the treaty and become a constituent
part of the Creek Nation. By a subsequent confimatory
treaty, signed at Fort Gibson, March 28, 1833, the
Seminoles having accepted the terms of the previous
treaty, were given a home between the north and south
forks of the Canadian river and extending west not
more than twenty-five miles above the mouth of Little
river, including parts of the present counties of
McIntosh, Hughes and Seminole.21
The various treaties above discussed
provided
[Footnotes]
20The
exact boundaries as defined in the treaty of February
14, 1833, were: "Beginning at the mouth of the
North Fork of the Canadian River and run northerly
four miles—thence running a straight line so
as to meet a line drawn from the south bank of the
Arkansas river opposite to the east, or lower bank
of Grand river, at its junction with the Arkansa,
and which runs a course south forty-four degrees west,
one mile, to a post placed in the ground—thence
along said line to the Arkansas, and up the same and
the Verdigris river, to where the old territorial
line crosses it—thence along said line to a point
twenty-five miles from the Arkansas river, where the
old territorial line crosses the same—thence
running a line at right angles with the territorial
line aforesaid, or west to the Mexico line—thence
along the said line southerly to the Canadian river
or to the boundary of the Choctaw country—thence
down said river to the place of beginning. The lines,
hereby defining the country of the Muskogee Indians
on the north and east, bound the country of the Cherokees
along these courses, as settled by the treaty concluded
this day between the United States and that tribe."
21A tract "lying between
the Canadian river and the north fork thereof, and
extending east to where a line running north and south
between the Main Canadian and north branch will strike
the forks of Little river, provided said west line
does not extend more than twenty-five miles west from
the mouth of said Little river."
A revision of relations and boundaries
between the Creeks and Seminoles was effected in the
treaty of August 7, 1856, the respective limits of
the two nations being defined as follows:
Article 1. The Creeks nation doth hereby
grant, cede and convey to the Seminole Indians a tract
of country included within the following boundaries:
Beginning on the Canadian river, a few miles east
of the ninety-seventh parallel of west longitude,
where Ock-hi-appo or Pond Creek empties into the same;
thence due north to the North Fork of the Canadian;
thence up said North Fork to the southern line of
the Cherokee country; thence with that line west to
the one hundredth parallel of west longitude; thence
south along said parallel of longitude to the Canadian
river, and thence down and with that river to the
place of beginning.
Art. 2. The following shall constitute
and remain the boundaries of the Creek country: Beginning
at the mouth of the North Fork of the Canadian river
and running northerly four miles; thence running a
straight line so as to meet a line drawn from the
south bank of the Arkansas river, opposite to the
east or lower bank of Grand river, at its junction
with the Arkansas, and which runs a course, south,
forty-four degrees, west one mile, to a post placed
in the ground; thence along said line to the Arkansas
and up the same and the Verdigris river, to where
the old territorial line crosses it; thence along
said line, north, to a point twenty-five miles from
the Arkansas river, where the old territorial line
crosses the same; thence running west with the southern
line of the Cherokee nation to the North Fork of the
Canadian river, where the boundary of the cession
of the Seminoles defined in the preceding article
first strikes said Cherokee line; thence down said
North Fork to where the eastern boundary line of the
said cession of the Seminoles strikes the same; thence
with that line due south to the Canadian river, at
the mouth of the Ock-hi-oppo or Pond Creek, and thence
down said Canadian river to the place of beginning.
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for the disposition of all the country
between Arkansas on the east and the line of the Mexican
possessions on the west, and from Red river north
to the 37th parallel of latitude. Thus early something
like definite limits had been assigned to the Indian
country. By the treaties with the Choctaws all of
the present state of Oklahoma south of the Canadian
river was assigned to that tribe (part of which was
given the Chickasaws. See Chapter VI). The Creeks
were assigned all the country lying north of the Canadian
as far as that well defined line that runs about the
latitude of Tulsa and marks the dividing boundary
between nine or ten modern counties, and extending
from the west limit of the state to an eastern line
that now corresponds fairly well with the main line
of the M., K. & T. Railroad from Eufaula north
through Muskogee and Wagoner. All of the present state
lying east and north of the Creek country as just
described belonged, by treaties, to the Cherokees,
either as an actual home or as an outlet to the western
hunting grounds. The strip lying west of the 100th
meridian had not yet become United States possession.
As a result of these treaties, the Five Civilized
Tribes possessed, by the year 1835, all the country
now known as Oklahoma, with the exception of the old
public land strip.
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