CHAPTER V

THE INDIAN COUNTRY A REFUGE OF BARBARISM

   Though exploration of the western country during the years subsequent to the Louisiana Purchase had resulted in a large amount of information concerning its geography and inhabitants, many years passed before really definite and detailed knowledge of the country set aside for the Indians was possessed by any outside the hunters and trappers whose occupation gave them skilled familiarity with the region. About the time the Indians began moving to their western homes, several expeditions were undertaken largely for the purpose of bringing this country and its inhabitants into closer touch with the government and nation at large, and as a result of those adventures into the wilderness much is known that helps to form a picture of the Indian country as it existed three quarters of a century ago, while still a refuge of barbarism.
    Lewis Cass, while secretary of war, on July 14, 1832, issued instructions to the commissioners (William Carroll, Montford Stokes and Robert Vaux) who had been appointed to visit the Indian country to negotiate with the tribes. Proceeding to Fort Gibson, they were to make themselves acquainted with the claims of the western Creeks and Cherokees, and settle their conflicting interests, if possible, by compromise, (see preceding chapter). "I feel confident," says the secretary, "that the country extending from the Red river north of the reservation called the Perpetual Outlet, and bounded on the east by the territory of Arkansas and on the west by the Mexican line, is amply sufficient for all the Creeks and Cherokees in the United States. . . . There are probably 20,000 Creeks in Alabama, 4,000 Seminoles who are connected by consanguinity and manners with the Creeks, and about 10,000 Cherokees in Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee and North Carolina, who are yet to emigrate. It is the intention of the government that the different parts of the same tribe should be united together in their new country, so that the Creeks and Cherokees would each form but one people.
   "The Chickasaws, amounting to about 4,000, are yet to emigrate; but the site of their location is not determined upon, though it is believed an agreement will be made with the Choctaws for the reception of all the Chickasaws among them in the country assigned to the former, between the Red river and the Canadian." In case this plan failed, the commissioners should look out for a suitable location. The Seminole delegation, searching for a location, would also be in the territory and would confer with the commissioners. Various tribes north of the Ohio were also to be assigned locations.
   The Osages had been a source of trouble from the first, and the secretary, for that reason and to make room for other tribes, considered "it expedient to effect a removal of the Osage Indians from their present reservation to a district adjoining the Kansas. You will open a negotiation for that purpose. . . . By the treaty concluded

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with the Osages June 2, 1825, certain reservations were granted to the individuals therein mentioned. As these reservations interfere with the permanent location of the Indians, and as complaints upon that subject have already been made, it is desirable to extinguish the titles thus created."
   "It is an important object with the government," continues Secretary Cass, "to establish a permanent peace among all the tribes west of the Mississippi. The fear of hostilities arises from the habits and manners of the Panis, Comanches, and their kindred tribes. . . . The whole subject is referred to you."
   "A part of the mounted rangers recently authorized to be raised by an act of Congress will be ordered to repair to Fort Gibson to attend you in the execution of your duties."
   The commission thus created began its duties in the Indian country in the fall of 1832. A distinguished guest of the party in its movements over the country now embraced in Oklahoma was Washington Irving, whose marvelous descriptive power was thus turned to a narration of the principal events and a description of the region traversed in the course of the expedition. "A Tour of the Prairies," as Irving called the sketch detailing his experiences, is a classic writing on early Oklahoma. The following quotations are selected to describe, from this writer's observations, the country and inhabitants as he found them in 1832.
   "It was early in October, 1832, that I arrived at Fort Gibson, a frontier post of the Far West, situated on the Neosho or Grand river, near its confluence with the Arkansas. I had been traveling for a month past, with a small party from St. Louis, up the banks of the Missouri, and along the frontier line of agencies and missions, that extends from the Missouri to the Arkansas. Our party was headed by one of the commissioners appointed by the government of the United States to superintend the settlement of the Indian tribes migrating from the east to the west of the Mississippi. In the discharge of his duties he was thus visiting the various outposts of civilization. . . .
   "Having crossed the ford [of the Verdigris] we soon reached the Osage agency where Col. Choteau has his offices and magazines, for the dispatch of Indian affairs, and the distribution of presents and supplies. It consisted of a few log houses on the banks of the river, and presented a motley frontier scene. . . . Nearby was a group of Osages: stately fellows; stern and simple in garb and aspect. They wore no ornaments; their dress consisted merely of blankets, leggins and moccasins. In contrast to these was a gayly dressed party of Creeks. There is something, at the first glance, quite oriental in the appearance of this tribe. . . . Besides these there was a sprinkling of trappers, hunters, half-breeds, creoles, negroes of every hue; and all that other rabble rout of nondescript beings that keep about the frontiers, between civilized and savage life, as those equivocal birds, the bats, hover about the confines of light and darkness.
   "The little hamlet of the agency was in complete bustle; the blacksmith's shed, in particular, was a scene of preparation; a strapping negro was shoeing a horse; two half-breeds were fabricating iron spoons in which to melt lead for bullets. . . .
   "Our route lay parallel to the west bank of the Arkansas. . . . For some miles the country was sprinkled with Creek villages and farm houses; the inhabitants of which appeared to have adopted, with considerable facility, the rudiments of civilization, and to have thriven in consequence. Their farms

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were well stocked, and their houses had a look of comfort and abundance.
   "Our plan was to cross the Arkansas just above where the Red Fork [Cimarron] falls into it, then to keep westerly, until we should pass through a grand belt of open forest, called the Cross Timber, which ranges nearly north and south from the Arkansas to the Red river; after which we were to keep a southerly course toward the latter river. . . .
   "The conversation now turned [after crossing the Arkansas above the Red Fork] upon the Pawnees, into whose hunting grounds we were about entering. There is always some wild untamed tribe of Indians, who form for a time the terror of a frontier, and about how all kinds of fearful stories are told. Such, at present, was the case of the Pawnees, who rove the regions between the Arkansas and Red river, and the prairies of Texas. . . . . . They roam the great plains that extend about the Arkansas, the Red river, and through Texas, to the Rocky mountains; sometimes engaged in hunting the deer and buffalo, sometimes in warlike and predatory expeditions. . . . .
   "[The party crossed the Red Fork about seventy-five miles, as they supposed, above its mouth, and then entered the Cross Timber.] It was the intention of the captain to keep on southwest by south, and traverse the Cross Timber diagonally, so as to come out upon the edge of the great western prairie. . . . The plan of the captain was judicious; but he erred from not being informed of the nature of the country. Had he kept directly west, a couple of days would have carried us through the forest land, and we might then have had an easy course along the skirts of the upper prairies, to Red river; by going diagonally, we were kept for many weary days toiling through a dismal series of rugged forests. The Cross Timber is about forty miles in breadth and stretches over a rough country of rolling hills, covered with scattered tracts of post-oak and black-jack; with some intervening valleys, which at proper seasons would afford good pasturage. It is very much cut up by deep ravines, which in the rainy seasons are the beds of temporary streams, tributary to the main rivers, and these are called 'branches.' The whole tract may present a pleasant aspect in the fresh time of the year, when the ground is covered with herbage; when the trees are in their green leaf, and the glens are enlived by running streams. Unfortunately we entered it too late in the season. The herbage was parched; the foliage of the scrubby forests was withered; the whole woodland prospect, as far as the eye could reach, had a brown and arid hue. . .
   "A consultation was now held as to our future progress. We had thus far pursued a western course, and, having traversed the Cross Timber, were on the skirts of the Great Western Prairie. We were still, however, in a very rough country, where food was scarce. The season was so far advanced that the grass had withered, and the prairies yielded no pasturage. The peavines of the bottoms, also, which had sustained our horses for some part of the journey, were nearly gone, and for several days past the poor animals had fallen of wofully [woefully], both in flesh and spirit. The Indian fires on the prairies were approaching us from north and south and west; they might spread also from the east, and leave a scorched desert between us and the frontier, in which our horses might be famished.
   "It was determined, therefore, to advance no further westward, but to shape our course more to the east, so as to strike the north fork of the Canadian as soon as

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possible, where we hoped to find abundance of young cane; which, at this season of the year, affords the most nutritious pasturage for the horses, and at the same time attracts immense quantities of game. Here then we fixed the limit of our tour to the Far West, being within little more than a day's march to the boundary line of Texas. [In reality they were about 150 miles from the Panhandle of Texas.]
   ". . . . Resuming our march, we forded the North Fork [of the Canadian], a rapid stream, and of a purity seldom to be found in the rivers of the prairies.
. . . . . After crossing the river we again ascended among hills, from one of which we had an extensive view over this belt of Cross Timber, and a cheerless prospect it was,—hill beyond hill, forest beyond forest, all of one sad russet hue, excepting that here and there a line of green cottonwood trees, sycamores and willows marked the course of some streamlet through a valley. A procession of buffaloes, moving slowly up the profile of one of those distant hills, formed a characteristic object in the savage scene. To the left, the eye stretched beyond this rugged wilderness of hills, and ravines, and ragged forests, to a prairie about ten miles off, extending in a clear blue line along the horizon. It was like looking from among rocks and breakers upon a distant tract of tranquil ocean.
. . . . "After proceeding . . . we emerged from the dreary belt of the Cross Timber, and to our infinite delight beheld 'the great Prairie,' stretching to the right and left before us. We could distinctly trace the meandering course of the Main Canadian, and various smaller streams, by the strips of green forests that bordered them. . . .
   "We had hoped, by pushing forward to reach the bottoms of the Red river, which abound with young cane, a most nourishing forage for cattle at his season of the year. It would now take us several days to arrive there, and in the meantime many of our horses would give out. It was time, too, when the hunting parties of the Indians set fire to the prairies. . . . We had started too late in the season, or loitered too much in the early part of our march, to accomplish our originally intended tour. . . . It was determined, therefore, to give up all further progress, and, turning our faces to the southeast, to make the best of our way back to Fort Gibson. . . .
   "After proceeding a few miles, we left the prairie, and struck to the east, taking what Beatte pronounced an old Osage war track. This led us through a rugged tract of country, overgrown with scrubbed forests and entangled thickets, and intersected by deep ravines and brisk-running streams, the sources of Little river [which are in the present Cleveland county.] . . . . In the course of the [following] morning we arrived at the valley of the Little river, where it wound through a broad bottom of alluvial soil. At present it had overflowed its banks and inundated a great part of the valley. . . .
   "The country through which we passed this morning [Nov. 2] was less rugged and of more agreeable aspect than that we had lately traversed. At eleven o'clock we came out upon an extensive prairie, and about six miles to our left beheld a long line of green forest, marking the course of the north fork of the Canadian. On the edge of the prairie, and in a spacious grove of noble trees which overshadowed a small brook, were the traces of an old Creek hunting camp. . . . We forded the north fork of the Canandian. . . .
  "We set forward at an early hour the next morning, in a northeast course, and

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came upon the trace of a party of Creek Indians which enabled our poor horses to travel with more ease. We entered upon a fine champaign country. From a rising ground we had a noble prospect, over extensive prairies, finely diversified by groves and tracts of woodlands, and bounded by long lines of distant hills, all clothed with the rich mellow tints of autumn. . . .
   "We halted for the night in a spacious forest, beside a deep narrow river, called the Little North Fork, or Deep Creek. . . . . As this stream was too deep to be forded, we waited until the next day to devise means to cross it. [A day or so more brought them in the vicinity of the Arkansas. Both men and animals were almost exhausted by the hardships and privations of travel.] In this way we crept on until, turning a thick clump of trees, a frontier farm house suddenly presented itself to view. It was a low tenement of logs, overshadowed by great forest trees, but it seemed as if a very region of Cocaigne prevailed around it. Here was a stable and barn, and granaries teeming with abundance, while legions of grunting swine, gobbling turkeys, cackling hens and strutting roosters, swarmed about the farm yard. . . . . . I sprang off my horse in an instant, cast him loose to make his way to the corn crib, and entered this place of plenty. A fat, good-humored negress received me at the door. She was the mistress of the house, the spouse of a white man, who was absent . . . . In a twinkling she lugged from the fire a huge iron pot, that might have rivalled [rivaled] one of the flesh-pots of Egypt, or the witches' caldron in Macbeth. Placing a brown earthen dish on the floor, she inclined the corpulent caldron on one side, and out leaped sundry great morsels of beef, with a regiment of turnips tumbling after them, and a rich cascade of broth overflowing the whole. This she handed me with an ivory smile that extended from ear to ear; apologizing for our humble fare, and the humble style in which it was served up. Humble fare! Humble style! Boiled beef and turnips, and an earthen dish to eat them from! To think of apologizing for such a treat to a half-starved man from the prairies; and then such magnificent slices of bread and butter!"

Dodge Expedition from Fort Gibson in 1834

   In the summer of 1834, Col. Henry Dodge, commanding a regiment of dragoons, with S. W. Kearney second in command, undertook an expedition from Fort Gibson to the Pawnee Pict Village and through Comanche country. This was the expedition that George Catlin, the portrait painter, accompanied, and M. Beyrich, the Prussian botanist, was another of the party. Some interesting notes on the country are found in the journal of the campaign, kept by Lieut. T. B. Wheelock (Amer. State Papers, Mil. Affairs, Vol. V, p. 373).
   George Catlin, the English portrait painter and sketch artist who accompanied the expedition, gathering material for his studies and sketches of North American Indians, has left many sketches, aside from those drawn by his pen, descriptive of this country.¹ In the course of the campaign he was in constant association with the officers of the regiment, as a guest of honor, and through him we got a closer acquaintance with some of the first commanders who campaigned over the southwestern country. He speaks of General Arbuckle, in command

[Footnote]

   ¹"Letter and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition of the North American Indians." by George Catlin (London, 1841)

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of the Seventh Regiment at Fort Gibson at the time, "one of the oldest officers on the frontier, and the original builder of the post." Before leaving Fort Gibson another noted veteran, General Leavenworth, arrived at this post, superseding Arbuckle in command. It is an attractive scene from the Indian country three-quarters of a century ago that is pictured in the following description of a review of the troops at Fort Gibson: "Both regiments were drawn up in battle array, in fatigue dress, and passing through a number of the maneuvers of battle, of charge and repulse, etc., presented a novel and thrilling scene in the prairie to the thousands of Indians and others who had assembled to witness the display. The proud and manly deportment of these young men remind one forcibly of a regiment of Independent Volunteers, and the horses have a most beautiful appearance from the arrangement of colors. There is a company of bays, a company of blacks, one of whites, one of sorrels, one of greys, one of cream color, etc., etc., which render the companies distinct, and the effect exceedingly pleasing."
   Of the commander of the expedition and its objects, Catlin says: "This regiment goes out under the command of Colonel Dodge, and from his well tested qualifications, and from the beautiful equipment of the command, there can be little doubt but that they will do credit to themselves and an honor to their country. The object of this summer's campaign seems to be to cultivate an acquaintance with the Pawnees and Camanchees. These are two extensive tribes of roaming Indians, who, from their extreme ignorance of us, have not yet recognized the United States in treaty, and have struck frequent blows on our frontiers and plundered our traders who are traversing their country. For this I cannot so much blame them, for the Spaniards are gradually advancing upon them on one side, and the Americans on the other, and fast destroying the furs and game of their country."
   The eight companies, leaving Camp Rendezvous (about twenty miles west of Fort Gibson) on June 21, marched toward the Washita on a new road made by General Leavenworth. Marching west by south about 85 miles from Fort Gibson, they reached the Canadian river near the mouth of Little river, where General Leavenworth was encamped. At this point Lieutenant Holmes of the Seventh Infantry had just begun the building of a fort and quarters for two companies (Fort Holmes). The expedition reached the Washita about July 1st. "The 'note of preparation' is now heard over the camp; all are engaged in making ready for the Pawnee chase." The hot weather, poor water, and the exposures of the march had caused much sickness, and the active force that set out against the Pawnee consisted of about 250 men. To add to their troubles, one night while encamped, a stupid sentinel mistook a horse for a hostile Indian, and not receiving the countersign in answer to his challenge, shot the poor creature. This alarmed the camp and set off in stampede the rest of the horses, which were recovered with difficulty. "The men of the regiment are excellent material, but unused to the woods."
   One of the objects of this expedition was the investigation and punishment of the murder of a white hunter, who had been slain while hunting in the Comanche country. "Judge Martin," said Catlin, " was a very respectable and independent man, living on the lower part of Red river, and in the habit of taking his children and a couple of black men servants with him, and a tent to live in, every summer, into

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these regions; where he pitched it upon the prairie, and spent several months in killing buffalo and other wild game for his own private amusement. The news came to Fort Gibson but a few weeks before we started, that he had been set upon by a party of Indians and destroyed. A detachment of troops was speedily sent to the spot, where they found his body horribly mangled, and also one of his Negroes; and it is supposed that his son, a fine boy of nine years of age, has been taken home to their villages by them. Where they still retain him, and where it is our hope to recover him."
   From the mouth of the Washita the course of the expedition was west, along the divide between the Washita and Red rivers, across what is now southern Oklahoma, toward the Wichita mountains. "The country over which we passed from day to day, was inimitably beautiful; being the whole way one continuous prairie of green fields, with occasional clusters of timber and shrubbery, just enough for the uses of cultivating man, and for the pleasure of his eyes to dwell upon." Over this region through which the expedition passed, along a route that would now afford almost a continuous view of cultivated fields, of cattle pastures, and towns, at that time herds of buffalo and wild horses were the principal possessors. The hunting of buffalo was a sport in which Catlin and his friends engaged with much pleasure and the hired hunters of the expedition furnished the entire command with buffalo meat. But the wild horses were not so easily approached or captured, and only once did the artist succeed in a close view of a herd at rest.
   On the fourth day of the march from the mouth of the Washita, a band of Comanche warriors was met, and after considerable maneuvering Colonel Dodge succeeded in convincing them of pacific intentions, and a general shaking of the hands and smoking of a peace pipe introduced a talk by Colonel Dodge, in which he explained to the savages the friendly motives of the campaign, "that we were sent by the president to reach their villages, to see the chiefs of the Camanchees and Pawnee Picts, to shake hands with them, and to smoke the pipe of peace, and to establish an acquaintance, and consequently a system of trade that would be beneficial to both." The Comanches then undertook to guide the troops to the principal villages, which lay to the west among the mountains of the Wichita range. Many hard and tedious days of travel brought them within view of the village. "Having led us to the top of a gently rising elevation on the prairie," says Catlin, "they pointed to their village at several miles' distance, in the midst of one of the most enchanting valleys that human eyes ever looked upon. The general course of the valley is from N. W. to S. E., of several miles in width, with a magnificent range of mountains rising in distance beyond; it being, without doubt, a huge 'spur' of the Rocky Mountains [?], composed entirely of a reddish granite or gneis. . . . In the midst of this lovely valley, we could just discern among the scattering shrubbery that lined the banks of the water-courses, the tops of Camanchee wigwams, and the smoke curling above them. The valley, for a mile distant about the village, seemed speckled with horses and mules that were grazing in it."
   Their introduction into the village was made an occasion of great ceremony, and the whites were the objects of constant curiosity and admiration on the part of the inhabitants. The state of the Comanches at that time was of the rudest and most

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transitory, they lived in skin-covered lodges that could readily be folded up and carried along with change of abode, their subsistence was mainly on the results of the chase, though they also to some extent cultivated corn. Though primarily an artist, Catlin was careful to make estimates of the condition and number of the tribes that he met. He was much impressed by the numbers and prowess of the Comanches, but could form no reliable estimate of their strength. "Taking their own account of villages they point to in such numbers, south of the banks of Red river, as well as those that lie farther west, and undoubtedly north of its banks, they must be a very numerous tribe."
   From the Comanche villages the campaigners next turned toward the Pawnees. "We were four days traveling over a beautiful country, most of the way prairie, and generally along near the base of a stupendous range of mountains of reddish granite, in many places piled up to an immense height, without tree or shrubbery on them; looking as if they had actually dropped from the clouds in such a confused mass, and all lay where they had fallen. Such we found the mountains enclosing the Pawnee village, on the bank of Red river, about ninety miles from the Camanchee town. . . . . We found here a very numerous village, containing some five or six hundred wigwams, all made of long prairie grass, thatched over poles which are fastened in the ground and bent at the top; giving to them, in distance, the appearance of straw beehives. . . . To our very great surprise we have found these people cultivating quite extensive fields of corn, pumpkins, melons, beans and squashes; so, with these aids, and an abundant supply of buffalo meat, they may be said to be living very well."
   In the Pawnee village it was supposed the perpetrators of the murder of Judge Martin would be found, and after the formal peace negotiations had been concluded, diligent inquiry was made concerning the deed. The Pawnees at first denied any knowledge or complicity in the affair, but finally a negro living among the Indians gave information that a white boy was being kept prisoner. Colonel Dodge with great show of anger then broke off the conference with the chiefs, and refused further dealings with them until the boy was brought in, offering in exchange two Pawnee prisoners whom the commander had procured from the Osages, for the very purpose of forwarding negotiations with their countrymen. Therewith the Pawnees, satisfied with the sincerity of the Americans, had the white boy brought in from the middle of the corn field, where he had been kept secreted. At the inquiry what was his name, he promptly replied, "My name is Matthew Wright Martin." The soldiers carried him back to Fort Gibson, and eventually he was restored to the arms of his disconsolate mother. After this exchange of prisoners the council with the Pawnees proceeded with great good will, and later the Kiowas and Wacos, who lived to the west, were also brought into conference.
   From the Comanche village the troops returned to the upper courses of the Canadian river, where, among the many herds of grazing buffalo, a grand hunt was started and meat secured for the rest of the campaign. Over this high plains country between the Red and Canadian rivers, the dragoons found the difficulties of marching and subsisting most trying, and not a few of those brave fellows died en route and their bodies were left to decay on the prairies. Writing from "Camp Canadian,"

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Texas," Catlin says: "From the Camanchee village to this place the country has been entirely prairie; and most of the way high and dry ground, without water, for which we sometimes suffered very much. From day to day we have dragged along, exposed to the hot and burning rays of the sun, without a cloud to relieve its intensity, or a bush to shade us, or anything to cast a shadow, except the bodies of our horses. The grass for a great part of the way was very much dried up, scarcely affording a bite for our horses; and sometimes for the distance of many miles the only water we could find was in stagnant pools, lying on the highest ground, in which the buffaloes have been lying and wallowing like hogs in a mud puddle. . . This poisonous and indigestible water, with the intense rays of the sun in the hottest part of the summer, is the cause of the unexampled sickness of the horses and men. Both appear to be suffering and dying with the same disease, a slow and distressing bilious fever, which seems to terminate in a most frightful and fatal affection of the liver."
   History should not fail to record some of the victims of this campaign. Day after day a brief military honor was paid to some poor soldier who had given up his life in campaigning against the climate rather than against hostile Indians. A military figure of even national prominence was also sacrificed during this expedition. While the remnant of the expedition were recuperating at Camp Canadian, an express arrived with the tidings of the death of General Leavenworth, Lieutenant McClure and ten or fifteen of the men who had remained at the mouth of the Washita. General Leavenworth, who had been in command of the expedition to that point, had, after the departure of the main body of troops, followed on to the "Cross Timbers," a distance of fifty or sixty miles, where his illness proved fatal. Catlin states his belief that the general died from the effects of a fall received during a chase after buffaloes. He says: "My reason for believing this is, that I rode and ate with him every day after the hour of his fall; and from that moment I was quite sure that I saw a different expression in his face from that which he naturally wore." One day Catlin remarked: "General, you have a very bad cough." "Yes," he replied, " I have killed myself in running that devilish calf; and it was a very lucky thing, Catlin, that you painted the portrait of me before we started, for it is all that my dear wife will ever see of me."
   Henry Leavenworth, who died July 21, 1834, in the Cross Timbers of Indian Territory, aged fifty-one, had been a soldier since the war of 1812, when he gave up a law practice to enter the army, was successively promoted, until in 1824 he was brevetted brigadier general "for ten years' faithful service in one grade." During the last ten years of his life he was engaged in campaigning on the western frontier, and founded the post in Kansas which has since borne his name.
   Out of the four or five hundred men who started out on the campaign, nearly a third were swept away by disease. Without the indefatigable leadership of Colonel Dodge and Lieutenant Kearney it is doubtful if the expedition would ever have accomplished so much and returned. Another who gave up his life was the Prussian botanist, M. Beyrich, who had received the fatal illness during the march and died at Fort Gibson.
   The licensed trader system as a part of the scheme by which the government sought the regulation of the wild Indian tribes was severely and justly, it seems, criticised by Catlin ("Letters and Notes," Vol. II, p.

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83). He refers to the arduous campaign of Colonel Dodge and his dragoons through southwestern Indian Territory in the summer of 1834, and after praising the achievement of bringing the unknown tribes to an acquaintance and a general peace, expresses his doubts of the resulting benefits to the Indians, "unless with the exercised aid of the strong arm of the government they can be protected in the rights to which, by nature, they are entitled." The Comanche, Pawnee and other chiefs, after being entertained at Fort Gibson, and participating in the general peace conference, departed for their homes, followed by a company of eighty traders and trappers. These licensed agents of civilization were the first, Catlin says, to penetrate the Indian country along the headwaters of the Red and Canadian rivers, and from the revenues of their trading house and their trapping, etc., stood in a position to realize a fortune.
   "I have traveled too much among the Indian tribes," is Catlin's comment, "not to know the evil consequences of such a system. Goods are sold at exorbitant prices that the Indian gets a mere shadow for his peltries, etc. The Indians see no white people but traders and sellers of whiskey; and, of course, judge us all by them—they consequently hold us, and always will, in contempt; as inferior to themselves, as they have reason to do—and they neither fear nor respect us. When on the contrary, if the government would promptly prohibit such establishments, and invite these Indians to our frontier posts, they would bring in their furs, their robes, horses, mules, etc., to this place, where there is a good market for them all . . . . where there is an honorable competition, and where they would get four or five times as much for their articles of trade as they would get from a trader in the village, out of the reach of competition, and out of sight of the civilized world.
   "At the same time, as they would be continually coming where they would see good and polished society, they would be gradually adopting our modes of living—introducing to their country our vegetables, our domestic animals, poultry, etc., and, at length our arts and manufactures; they would see and estimate our military strength and advantages, and would be led to fear and respect us. In short, it would undoubtedly be the quickest and surest way to a general acquaintance—to friendship and peace, and at last to civilization. If there is a law in existence for such protection of the Indian tribes . . . it is a great pity that it should not be rigidly enforced in this new and important acquaintance, which we have just made with thirty or forty thousand strangers to the civilized world; yet (as we have learned from their unaffected hospitality when in their villages), with hearts of human mould, susceptible of all the noble feelings belonging to civilized man."

Military Posts of Indian Territory

   Some of the old maps of Indian Territory, before it was opened to white settlement, are marked by the sites of military posts that have been more or less famous in military operations of the West and are connected intimately with the early history of the territory. Concerning the posts indicated on a map issued by the Bureau of Engraving at Washington in October, 1866, the records of the war department give the following information [from data in the Oklahoma Historical Society's collection]:
   Fort Smith, which, though located on the south bank of the Arkansas river in the state of Arkansas, played a conspicuous

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part in the affairs of Indian Territory, was established at the mouth of Poteau river in 1817; named in honor of Brig.-Gen. Thomas A. Smith; was finally abandoned in August, 1871.
   Fort Gibson, on the left bank of the Neosho (or Grand) river, 2 1/2 miles from its confluence with the Arkansas, was established in April, 1824; named in honor of Col. George Gibson, then commissary general of subsistence; finally abandoned October 1, 1890.²
   Fort Coffee, at Swallow Rock on the Arkansas, about 12 miles south of Fort Smith, was established April 22, 1834; named in honor of Gen. John Coffee, Tennessee Militia; abandoned October 19, 1838.
   Fort Wayne, on the Illinois river in Cherokee nation, was established October 29, 1838; named in honor of Anthony Wayne; abandoned May 26, 1842.
   Fort Towson, in Choctaw nation, 6 miles northwest of Red river, was established in May, 1824; named in honor of Col. Nathan Towson, then paymaster general; abandoned June 8, 1854.
   Fort Holmes, on the left bank of the Canadian river. Work commenced on this fort in June, 1834, but it was never completed or occupied by U. S. troops.
   Fort Arbuckle (old), at the confluence of the Red Fork (or Cimarron river), 70 miles northwest of Fort Gibson, was established June 24, 1834; named in honor of Col. Matthew Arbuckle, 7th Infantry; abandoned November 11, 1834.
   Camp Arbuckle, on the right bank of and one mile from the Canadian river, was established August 22, 1850, and abandoned April 17, 1851.
   Fort Arbuckle, 4 miles south of Washita river and 76 miles northwest of its junction with Red river, was established April 19, 1851, and abandoned June 24, 1870.
   Fort Washita, near the False Washita, in the Chickasaw district, was established April 23, 1842, and abandoned May 1, 1861.
   Fort Cobb, at the junction of Pond creek

[Footnotes]

   ²Early in 1834 the legislature of Arkansas memorialized Congress to cause the removal of the troops from Ft. Gibson to the western boundary of Arkansas. After considering the memorial the committee of military affairs reported a bill favoring the request of the legislature, and in reporting the bill the following reasons were assigned for such action:
   Before Arkansas was formed into a territorial government the protection of our citizens induced the government to establish a military post at the junction of the Poteau and Arkansas rivers. This post was called "Fort Smith," and for several years was entirely west of the settlements of the citizens of the United States. After the western boundary of Arkansas was fixed (in 1825) at a point of 40 miles west of Forth Smith, the troops were removed, Fort Smith was abandoned, and Fort Gibson established. "And all the intermediate country thus acquired or added to Arkansas was organized into counties by the legislature of Arkansas and settled by our citizens. Afterwards, in 1828, the government, in opposition to the firm and spirited remonstrance . . . . ceded the country aforesaid to the Cherokee Indians." At the same time, says the committee's report, the line of Arkansas was "brought back" and permanently fixed (near Fort Smith). "The garrison, however, has not been brought back with the line. The troops intended for the protection of the citizens of Arkansas are still stationed at Fort Gibson, in the midst of the Cherokee nation.. . . The garrison, situated where it now is, can afford but little protection to the citizens of Arkansas . . . As the present western boundary line is fixed by treaty and probably will never be extended further west; and as the policy of the government has been and will be to settle various tribes of Indians permanently on that frontier; and as, on that account, there will ever be a necessity to keep up a garrison there for their protection, the committee have no hesitation in recommending the removal of the garrison from Fort Gibson to some eligible point on the Arkansas river, near the western boundary of Arkansas."

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and the Washita river, was established October 1, 1859, and finally abandoned March 12, 1869.
   Fort Cobb was selected by Major W. H. Emory. His report to the war department, October 3, 1859, says: "I have selected the site for Fort Cobb, west of the Texas Indian reservation. . . . Fort Cobb is accessible by a good road from Belknap and Camp Cooper [in Texas] made by the reserve Indians; also by a road, excellent in dry seasons, made by my command, from Fort Arbuckle, and I expect to open a better communication than the last directly with Fort Smith, by intersecting the ridge or Whipple road to the north of this post."
   Camp Radzminski, on Otter creek, at the base of the Wichita mountains, was established September, 1858, and abandoned December 6, 1859; named in honor of 1st Lieut. Charles Radzminski, 2d Cavalry.