Under these circumstances, the question presented was, whether the General Government had a right to sustain those people in their pretensions? The Constitution declares, that “no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State,” without the consent of its legislature. If the General Government is not permitted to tolerate the erection of a confederate State within the territory of one of the members of this Union, against her consent; much less could it allow a foreign and independent government to establish itself there. Georgia became a member of the Confederacy which eventuated in our Federal Union, as a sovereign State, always asserting her claim to certain limits; which having been originally defined in her colonial charter, and subsequently recognized in the treaty of peace, she has ever since continued to enjoy, except as they have been circumscribed by her own voluntary transfer of a portion of her territory to the United States, in the articles cession of 1802. Alabama was admitted into the Union on the same footing with the original States, with boundaries which were prescribed by Congress. There is no constitutional, conventional, or legal provision, which allows them less power over the Indians within their borders, than is possessed by Maine or New York. Would the People of Maine permit the Penobscot tribe to erect an Independent Government within their State? and unless they did, would it not be the duty of the General Government to support them in resisting such a measure? Would the People of New York permit each remnant of the Six Nations within her borders, to declare itself an independent people under the protection of the United States? Could the Indians establish a separate republic on each of their reservations in Ohio? and if they were so disposed, would it be the duty of this Government to protect them in the attempt? If the principle involved in the obvious answer to these questions be abandoned, it will follow that the objects of this Government are reversed; and that it has become a part of its duty to aid in destroying the States which it was established to protect.
Actuated by this view of the subject, I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama, that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States; and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi, or submit to the laws of those States.
Our conduct towards these people is deeply interesting to our national character. Their present condition, contrasted with what they once were, makes a most powerful appeal to our sympathies. Our ancestors found them the uncontrolled possessors of these vast regions. By persuasion and force, they have been made to retire from river to river, and from mountain to mountain; until some of the tribes have become extinct, and others have left but remnants, to preserve, for a while, their once terrible names. Surrounded by whites, with their arts of civilization, which, by destroying the resources of the savage, doom him to weakness and decay; the fate of the Mohegan, the Narragansett, and the Delaware, is fast overtaking the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Creek. That this fate surely awaits them, if they remain within the limits of the States, does not admit of a doubt. Humanity and national honor demand that every effort should be made to avert so great a calamity. It is too late to inquire whether it was just in the United States to include them and their territory within the bounds of new States whose limits they could control. That step cannot be retraced. A State cannot be dismembered by Congress, or restricted in the exercise of her constitutional power. But the people of those States, and of every State, actuated by feelings of justice and a regard for our national honor, submit to you the interesting question, whether something cannot be done, consistently with the rights of the States, to preserve this much injured race?
As a means of effecting this end, I suggest, for your consideration, the propriety of setting apart an ample district West of the Mississippi, and without the limits of any State or Territory, now formed, to be guarantied to the Indian tribes, as long as they shall occupy it: each tribe having a distinct control over the portion designated for its use. There they may be secured in the enjoyment of governments of their own choice, subject to no other control from the United States than such as may be necessary to preserve peace on the frontier, and between the several tribes. There the benevolent may endeavor to teach them the arts of civilization; and, by promoting union and harmony among them, to raise up an interesting commonwealth, destined to perpetuate the race, and to arrest the humanity and justice of this Government.
This emigration should be voluntary: for it would be as cruel as unjust to compel the aborigines to abandon the graves of their fathers, and seek a home in a distant land. But they should be distinctly informed that, if they remain within the limits of the States, they must be subject to their laws. In return for their obedience, as individuals, they will, without doubt, be protected in the enjoyment of those possessions which they have improved by their industry. But it seems to me visionary to suppose, that, in this state of things, claims can be allowed on tracts of country on which they have neither dwelt nor made improvements, merely because they have seen them from the mountain, or passed them in the chase. Submitting to the laws of the States, and receiving, like other citizens, protection in their persons and property, they will, ere long, become merged in the mass of our population.
Be it enacted by . . . Congress . . . That it shall and may be lawful for the President . . . to cause so much of any territory belonging to the United States, west of the river Mississippi, not included in any state or organized territory, and to which Indian title has been extinguished, as he may judge necessary, to be divided into a suitable number of districts, for the reception of such tribes or nations of Indians as may choose to exchange the lands where they now reside, and remove there; and to cause each of said districts to be so described by natural or artificial marks, as to be easily distinguished from every other.
SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That in the making of any such exchange . . . it shall and may be lawful for the President solemnly to assure the tribe or nation with which the exchange is made, that the United States will forever secure and guarantee to them, and their heirs or successors, the country so exchanged with them . . . Provided always, That such lands shall revert to the United States, if the Indians become extinct, or abandon the same.
SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That if, upon any of the lands now occupied by the Indians, and to be exchanged for, there should be such improvements as add value to the land claimed by any individual or individuals of such tribes or nations, it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such value to be ascertained . . . and . . . to be paid to the person or persons rightfully claiming such improvements. And upon the payment of such valuation, the improvements . . . shall pass to the United States.
SEC. 5. And be it further enacted, That upon the making of any such exchange . . . it shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such aid and assistance to be furnished to the emigrants as may be necessary and proper to enable them to remove to, and settle in, the country for which they may have exchanged; and also, to give them such aid and assistance as may be necessary for their support and subsistence for the first year after their removal.
SEC. 6. And be it further enacted, That is shall and may be lawful for the President to cause such tribe or nation to be protected, at their new residence, against all interruption or disturbance from any other tribe or nation of Indians, or from any other person or persons whatever.
SEC. 7. And be it further enacted, That it shall be and may be lawful for the President to have the same superintendence and care over any tribe or nation in the country to which they may remove . . . that he is now authorized to have over them at their present places of residence: Provided, That nothing . . . be construed as authorizing . . . the violation of any existing treaty between the United States and any of the Indian tribes.
An Unconquered Indian: Osceola
By Alan Lockwood and David Harris20
Soon after gaining their independence from England many Americans moved westward beyond the narrow coastal plain of the Atlantic. These pioneers braved the wilderness in search of land for farms and plantations. In the Southeast, white settlers steadily encroached on the lands of the Creek Indians.
It was in 1813 that war broke out between the Creeks of Georgia and the United States. The war ended the following year after General Jackson attacked a large Creek force, killing a thousand warriors. Fighting during the war forced migration of the Creeks from Georgia into Florida. There they joined the Seminoles who had migrated to Florida during the previous century. Among the migrating Creeks was a boy, later called Osceola, who was to become one of the most famous figures in Florida history.
Osceola was born in 1804 in Georgia. His mother was a Creek Indian and his father a white trader. Like other Creeks of mixed blood with a Creek mother, Osceola considered himself an Indian. He learned to kill squirrels with a bow and arrow and joined other boys for moonlight hunts after opossums and raccoons. He developed stealth in the woods that served him well in the future as a warrior.
The Creek War came close to young Osceola. He and his mother fled with other refugees from one hiding place to another. By the war’s end they had drifted to Florida and settled among the Seminoles. Osceola grew into manhood as a Seminole living north of present-day Tampa.
Soon after the Creek War ended, the First Seminole War began. A major cause of the war was conflict over black slaves. Many had escaped from plantations to take refuge among the Seminoles in Florida. Southern slaveholders were furious and insisted that the army capture runaway slaves and return them to their owners.
Major Andrew Jackson was dispatched to the scene in March 1818. His troops fought several engagements with the Seminoles in Spanish-owned Florida. The Seminoles were finally driven south to the area around Tampa Bay. Jackson withdrew, ending the war.
After the First Seminole War it became clear to the Spanish that they had little control over Florida. It was turned over to the United States in 1819. Article 6 of the treaty with Spain stated that the inhabitants of Florida were to be “admitted to the enjoyment of all privileges, rights, and immunities of the citizens of the United States.”
United States policy toward the Seminoles was to keep them, at least temporarily, in Florida. Pressure increased on the government to move the Indians westward. White southerners claimed that unless the Indians were driven out of Florida, slaves would continue to join them. This pressure led in 1823 to the Treaty of Camp Moultrie. Under threat of renewed warfare, the leading chiefs, representing a majority of the Seminoles, signed the treaty. It had four major provisions.
1. The Seminoles gave up claim to the whole territory of Florida except for a 4-million-acre reservation.
2. The U.S. government provided a cash payment of $5,000 a year for 20 years, plus livestock and farm implements.
3. The Indians were to prevent runaway slaves from entering the reservation.
4. Whites would not be permitted to hunt, settle, or intrude on the reservation.
The reservation boundaries were cut off from the Florida coasts, so fishing was no longer possible for the Indians. Furthermore, the reservation land was poor for agriculture. A few inches of topsoil covered a base of white sand. If plowed for any length of time the sand became dominant. About a year after the Treaty of Camp Moultrie was signed most Seminoles experienced severe hunger. Some died of starvation.
By this time Osceola had risen to the position of Seminole war chief. He was an outstanding athlete, deeply admired for his physical skills by other Indians. Despite harsh conditions on the Seminole reservation, Osceola was determined to enforce the terms of the Camp Moultrie Treaty. He did not want his people to be forced to move westward. Conditions west of the Mississippi, where traditional enemies of the Seminole lived, would be even worse for his people. With a small band of followers, he began police actions to prevent young Seminoles from harming whites or stealing white people’s property. This he believed necessary if the Seminoles were to avoid being forced out of Florida. Many Seminoles, nearly starving, raided white men’s cattle. Several murders were also committed. Osceola helped bring some of the offenders to justice.
Conflict over land, slaves, and cattle persisted between the Seminoles and the whites. The hatchet descended with Andrew Jackson became President. In May 1830, the Removal Act was passed by congress and signed by the President. The new law provided that the government could trade land in the West for Indian land in the East. Under the law the government could do whatever was necessary to remove the Indians to the new land. The Removal Act was designed to expand white settlement by moving the Indians out of the southeastern states.
In accordance with the Removal Act, a conference was called in 1832 between white officials and Seminoles chiefs. They met at a place called Payne’s Landing, near Fort King, the army post near the Seminole reservation. At the conference a treaty was signed. The Treaty of Payne’s Landing provided that a party of Seminole chiefs would be sent to examine the country west of the Mississippi River. If the chiefs thought the country suitable, they would agree to move their people there to live. Several leading Seminole chiefs did not sign the Payne’s Landing Treaty. It was, however, ratified by the U.S. Senate and proclaimed by President Jackson.
The following year a party of Seminole chiefs examined the proposed reservation beyond the Mississippi and found it to their liking. Upon returning, without consulting the other chiefs, they signed an agreement on behalf of their nation. The agreement stated that they would begin removal to their new homeland as soon as the federal government made arrangements.
When they heard what the delegation of chiefs had agreed to, many Seminole leaders, including Osceola, were outraged. They insisted that the chiefs who agreed to removal had no authority to speak for all Seminoles. The prestige of Osceola increased as resistance to emigration grew. At a private council of Seminole chiefs, he said:
If we must fight, we will fight. . . . I hope we don’t have to fight the white man, but if it happens, every one of our warriors will be ready . . . they white people got some of our chiefs to sign a paper to give our lands to them; but our chiefs did not do as we told them to do.
They did wrong; we must do right.
Osceola had now assumed leadership of the Seminole nation. The chiefs, except those favoring removal, were united behind him.
Because resistance to the Payne’s Landing Treaty grew, the military commander of all troops in Florida called a meeting in 1835. The purpose of the meeting was to gain acceptance for peaceful removal. A large number of Seminole chiefs assembled for the meeting. Most were bitter and defiant. They protested the Payne’s Landing Treaty, claiming it did not represent the desires of the Seminole nation.
After listening to the protests of several chiefs, the U.S. Indian Agent for the Florida Territory, General Wiley Thompson, addressed the chiefs. He picked up a document from the conference table and read it aloud, pausing for the translator. The document asserted that the Payne’s Landing Treaty was valid.
Thompson insisted that the Seminoles had agreed to go West. He demanded that the chiefs confirm the Payne’s Landing Treaty by signing the new document. Eight of the thirteen chiefs around the table signed. Five of the leading chiefs refused. Thompson, red with anger, picked up another paper. It was a list of Seminole chiefs. Seizing the pen, he made five slashes on the roll. He then faced the Indians and said, “I have removed five names from the roll of the chiefs. These men no longer represent the Seminole Nation.” Thompson’s actions made one point clear to the Indians: removal would be enforced with or without their consent.
Thompson’s action of deposing the chiefs was a deadly insult. When his words had been translated, a roar of anger arose from the deposed chiefs. There were wild shrieks from warriors around the meeting tent. Finally, calm was restored by the eight chiefs who had signed.
General Thompson now wanted the subchiefs who were present to sign the document. Some of them came forward and made their marks on the paper. Osceola stood silently with his arms folded. Thompson read his name, signaling that he should step forward to sign. In his graceful catlike manner, he approached the table, gazing sternly into Thompson’s eyes. With a sweeping motion he suddenly drew his hunting knife and stabbed savagely through the paper on the table. With this defiant gesture he cried out, “This is the only way I sign!” Amidst the shock of white officials, Osceola yanked out his knife and calmly walked away. The flash of his knife was a hint of what was to come.
Osceola, more than any other Seminole leader, inspired his people to fight rather than move West. He became a symbol of Indian resistance to white domination. That resistance led to the Second Seminole War, the costliest ever fought against the American Indian. It resulted in fifteen hundred deaths among white soldiers and cost the United States almost 40 million dollars, an enormous sum for the times.
In June 1835, before hostilities broke out, Osceola paid a final visit to Wiley Thompson in his office at Fort King. Osceola had come to complain about the general’s recent ban on the sale of arms and powder to the Indians. Thompson was still angry about Osceola’s refusal to sign the document approving the Payne’s Landing Treaty. An argument broke out. Osceola flew into a flurry and stormed out of the agent’s office. Thompson ordered four soldiers to overtake him. As they dragged Osceola back to the fort he shouted, “I shall remember this hour! The agent has his day, I will have mine!”
Osceola: Seminole Leader
Osceola was placed in irons and confined to the guardhouse. By nightfall his fury abated, and he was able to think clearly. Thompson, he though, must be killed for this terrible insult. Meanwhile he needed a means of being released. He decided to lie. He apologized to Thompson, agreed to sign the paper confirming Payne’s Landing Treaty, and promised to urge other Seminoles to move West. The irons were struck and Osceola left the guardhouse in silence, revenge on his mind.
Matters moved toward disaster. A council of Seminole chiefs met and decided to resist removable forcibly. The chiefs appointed Osceola head war chief. They also decided that those chiefs who favored removal be treated like enemies and killed.
One chief who believed in emigration was Charley Emathla. Osceola led four hundred warriors to Charley Emathla’s village where they surrounded the chief’s lodge. They demanded that the chief pledge himself and his people to resist removal. The chief protested, saying that the only hope of being saved from total destruction was to go West. Osceola and 12 companions ambushed the chief the next day and shot him to death.
Hostilities between Seminoles and soldiers began in December 1835. During the early days of the war, Osceola’s enemy General Wily Thompson, still believed the Indians could be coerced into removal. Midday on December 28, 1935, he walked from his office at Fort King to the officer’s mess for lunch. After a leisurely meal Thompson took a stroll outside the fort. When he did not return, a party was sent out to search for him. His body was found stabbed, scalped, and riddled with fourteen bullets. Osceola had taken his revenge against the Indian agent.
Full-scale warfare was now in progress. Osceola’s grasp of tactics was excellent. Hit-and-run attacks by the Seminoles were successful. The white soldiers were trained for open combat on battlefields. They were unprepared for repeated ambushes by Seminole warriors concealed in the swamps and forests of Florida. In addition to attacks on soldiers, Seminole bands plundered the civilian settlements along the east coast of the peninsula. Plantations were attacked and burned as far south as Miami.
Characteristic of combat early in the war was an incident now known as Dade’s Massacre. On a cold December morning in 1835, 108 men under the command of Major Francis Dade were marching along the Little Withlacoochee River toward Fort King. The soldiers gnawed at cold field rations. They plowed through the mud, often waist-deep in swamp water. Mosquitoes and flies bit their necks. Alligators lay on the surface of adjacent sands. It was a struggle for the soldiers to keep their cartridge boxes and weapons dry. They were also frightened that Seminole warriors might be hiding in the woods, waiting to ambush them.
Suddenly the morning silence was shattered as a single shot rang out in the midst. Major Dade slumped in his saddle. An ear-splitting assault by Seminole warriors followed. The soldiers barely had a chance to return the fire. By the end of the assault 107 soldiers were killed and only 3 Seminoles.
Osceola was winning his war. U.S. generals had been unable to subdue the Seminoles. This gave Osceola little satisfaction, however. He knew that in the long run the superior forces of the whites could overcome his people. His goal was now to secure an honorable peace before the Seminole will to resist disintegrated.
As the war became a stalemate, Osceola decided to discuss a possible peace with General Thomas Jessup, commander of U.S. forces. Jessup had only one goal in mind: stop the war by stopping Osceola. Other Seminole leaders were important, but they were mere shadows when compared to Osceola. Recently Jessup had received a note from Osceola claiming he could holdout against the total forces of the United States for five years.
In October 1837, Osceola arrived near St. Augustine with about one hundred warriors to engage Jessup in peace talks. A white flag of truce flew above the Seminole camp. While they spoke, soldiers encircled the Indian camp and closed it in. No shots were fired. The Seminoles were armed but it was too late to resist. Osceola was captured and placed in a cell at Fort Marion, an old Spanish prison.
Soon after his capture, Osceola had an opportunity to escape with his companions. The Indian prisoners were confined in a small dungeon of the prison lighted only by a small opening in the wall. There were two metal bars across the opening. On the night of October 21, 1837, one of the bars, which was either rusted or loose, was removed by one of the Indians. With one bar removed, the prisoners managed to squeeze with great difficulty through the opening. The sharp stones scraped skin off their bodies. Earlier they had cut up the bags given to them to sleep on. The shredded bags furnished the material for rope which they used to reach the ground below. Twenty Seminoles escaped from their Fort Marion cell that night and made their way safely back to a Seminole encampment. Osceola refused to join his cellmates in their escape. When asked why he had not joined those who escaped, he proudly replied, “I have done nothing to be ashamed of; it is for those to feel shame who entrapped me.”
On January 30, 1838, Osceola died of malaria in prison. Though a few chiefs continued to fight, Seminole resistance began to crumble. By 1842, the war had sputtered to an end. A small number of Seminoles retreated to the Everglades. Most were removed west to Oklahoma.
Cherokees Debate Removal
By Michael P. Johnson21
President Jackson proudly announced to Congress in 1830 that the “benevolent policy of the government . . . in relation to the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a conclusion.” To the Indians being removed, the policy did not appear benevolent. In 1836, Congress ratified the Treaty of New Echota, which provided that the Cherokees would relinquish all claims to land east of the Mississippi in return for land west of the Mississippi, a large cash payment, and help moving to their new homes. The treaty bitterly divided the Cherokees. The largest group, led by the principal chief, John Ross, opposed the treaty and insisted that the Cherokees not give up their lands. A minority group, led by Elias Boudinot, signed the treaty and urged other Cherokees to accept its terms. The following selections from the letters of Ross and Boudinot reveal the clashing assessments among Cherokees about the threats they confronted and how best to respond to them.
John Ross, 1836
Answer to Inquires from a Friend
I wish I could acquiesce in your impression, that a Treaty has been made, by which every difficulty between the Cherokees and the United States has been set at rest; but I must candidly say, that I know of no such Treaty. I do no mean to prophesy any similar troubles to those which have, in other cases, followed the failure to adjust disputed points with Indians; the Cherokees act on a principle preventing apprehensions of that nature—their principle is, “endure and forbear”; but I must distinctly declare to you that I believe, the document [the Treaty of New Echota] signed by unauthorized individuals at Washington, will never be regarded by the Cherokee nation as a Treaty. The delegation appointed by the people to make a Treaty, have protested against that instrument “as deceptive to the world and a fraud upon the Cherokee people.” . . .
With your impressions concerning the advantages secured by teh subtle instrument in question, you will, no doubt, wonder at this opposition. But it possesses not the advantages you and others imagine; and that is the reason why it has encountered, and ever will encounter opposition. You suppose we are to be removed through it from a home, by circumstances rendered disagreeable and even untenable, to be secured in a better home, where nothing can disturb or dispossess us. Here is the great mystification. We are not secured in the new home promised to us. We are exposed to precisely the same miseries, from which, if this measure is enforced, the Untied States’ power professes to relieve us, but does so entirely by the exercise of that power, against our will.
If we really had the security you and others suppose we have, we would not thus complain.
One impression concerning us, is, that though we object to removal, as we are equally averse to becoming citizens of the United States, we ought to be forced to remove; to be tied hand and foot and conveyed to the extreme western frontier, and then turned loose among the wild beasts of the wilderness. Now, the fact is, we never have objected to become citizens of the United States and to conform to her laws; but in the event of conforming to her laws, we have required the protection and privileges of her laws to accompany that conformity on our part. We have asked this repeatedly and repeatedly has it been denied. . . .
In conclusion I would observe, that I still strongly hope we shall find ultimate justice from the good sense of the administration and of the people of the United States. I will not even yet believe that either the one of the other would wrong us with their eyes open. I am persuaded they have erred only in ignorance, and an ignorance forced upon them by the misrepresentation and artifices of the interested. . . . The Cherokees, under any circumstances, have no weapon to use but argument. If that should fail, they must submit, when their time shall come, in silence, but honest argument they cannot think will be forever used in vain. The Cherokee people will always hold themselves ready to respect a
real treaty and bound to sustain any treaty which they can feel that they are bound to respect. But they are certain not to consider the attempt of a very few persons to sell the country for themselves, as obligatory upon them, and I and all my associates in the regular delegation, still look confidently to the effect of a sense of justice upon the American community, in producing a real settlement of this question, upon equitable terms and with competent authorities. But, on one point, you may be perfectly at rest. Deeply as our people feel, I cannot suppose they will ever be goaded by those feelings to any acts of violence. No, sir. They have been too long inured to suffering without resistance, and they still look to the sympathies and not to the fears, of those who have them in their power. In certain recent discussions in the representative hall at Washington, our enemies made it an objection against me and against others, that we were not Indians, but had the
principles of white men, and were consequently unworthy of a hearing in the Indian cause. I will own that it has been my pride, as Principal Chief of the Cherokees, to implant in the bosoms of the people, and to cherish in my own,
the principles of white men! It is to this fact that our white neighbors must ascribe their safety under the smart of the wrongs we have suffered from them. It is in this they may confide for our continued patience. But when I speak of
the principles of white men, I speak not of such principles as actuate those who talk thus to us, but of those mighty principles to which the United States owes her greatness and her liberty. To principles like these even yet we turn with confidence for redemption from our miseries. When Congress shall be less overwhelmed with business, no doubt, in some way, the matter may be brought to a reconsideration, and when the representatives of the American people have leisure to see how little it will cost them to be just, we are confident they will be true to themselves, in acting with good faith towards us. Be certain that while the Cherokees are endeavoring to obtain a more friendly consideration from the United States, they will not forget to show by their circumspection how well they merit it; and though no doubt there are many who will represent them otherwise, for injurious purposes, I can assure you that the white people have nothing to apprehend, even from our sense of contumely [humiliating insults] and unfairness, unless it be through the perverse and the treacherous maneuvers of such agents as they themselves may keep among us.
Elias Boudinot, 1837
A Reply to John Ross
“What is to be done?” was a natural inquiry, after we found that all our efforts to obtain redress from the General Government,
on the land of our fathers, had been of no avail. The first rupture among ourselves was the moment we presumed to answer that question. To a portion of the Cherokee people it early became evident that the interest of their countrymen and the happiness of their posterity, depended upon an entire change of policy. Instead of contending uselessly against superior power, the only course left, was, to yield to circumstances over which they had no control.
In all difficulties of this kind, between the United States and the Cherokees, the only mode of settling them has been by treaties; consequently, when a portion of our people became convinced that no other measures would avail, they became the advocates of a treaty, as the only means to extricate the Cherokees from their perplexities, hence they were called the treaty party. Those who maintained the old policy, were known as the anti-treaty party. At the head of the latter has been Mr. John Ross.
To advocate a treaty was to declare war against the established habits of thinking peculiar to the aborigines. It was to come in contact with settled prejudices—with the deep-rooted attachment for the soil of our forefathers. Aside from these natural obstacles, the influence of the chiefs, who were ready to take advantage of the well-known feelings of the Cherokees, in reference to their lands, was put in active requisition against us. . . .
It is with sincere regret that I notice you [John Ross] say little or nothing about to moral condition of this people, as affected by present circumstances. I have searched in vain, in all your late communications, for some indication of our sensibility upon this point. . . . Indeed, you seem to have forgotten that your people are a community of moral beings, capable of an elevation to an equal standing with the most civilized and virtuous, or a deterioration to the level of the most degraded, of our race. . . . Can it be possible that you consider the mere pains and privations of the body, and the loss of a paltry sum of money, of a paramount importance to the depression of the mind and the degradation and pollution of the soul? That the difficulties under which they are laboring, originating from the operation of the State laws, and their absorption by a white population, will affect them in that light, I need not here stop to argue with you: that they have already affected them, is a fact too palpable, too notorious, for us to deny it: that they will increase to affect them, in proportion to the delay of applying the remedy, we need only judge from past experience. How, then, can you reconcile your conscience and your sense of what is determined by the best interest of your people. . . . How can you persist in deluding your people with phantoms, and in your opposition to that which alone is practicable, when you see them dying a moral death?
To be sure, from your account of the condition and circumstances of the Cherokees, the public may form an idea different from what my remarks may seem to convey. When applied to a portion of our people, confined mostly to whites intermarried among us, and the descendants of whites, your account is probably correct . . . but look at the mass, look at the entire population as it now is, and say, can you see any indication of a progressing improvement, anything that can encourage a philanthropist? You know that it is almost a dreary waste. I care not if I am accounted a slanderer of my country’s reputation; every observing man in this nation knows that I speak the words of truth and soberness. In the light that I consider my countrymen, not as mere animals, and to judge of their happiness by their condition as such, which, to be sure, is bad enough, but as moral beings, to be affected for better or for worse by moral circumstances, I say their condition is wretched. Look, my dear sir, around you, and see the progress that vice and immorality have already made! see the spread of intemperance, and the wretchedness and misery it has already occasioned! I need not reason with a man of your sense and discernment, and of your observation, to show the debasing character of that vice to our people; you will find an argument in very tippling shop in the country; you will find its cruel effects in the bloody tragedies that are frequently occurring in the frequent convictions and executions for murders, and in the tears and groans of the widows and fatherless, rendered homeless, naked, and hungry, but this vile curse of our race. And has it stopped its cruel ravages with the lower or poorer classes of our people? Are the higher orders, if I may so speak, left untainted? While there are honorable exceptions in all classes . . . it is not to be denied that, as a people, we are making a rapid tendency to a general immorality and debasement. What more evidence do we need, to prove this general tendency, than the slow but sure insinuation of the lower vices into our female population? Oh! it is heart-rending to think of these things, much more to speak of them; but the world will know them, the world does know them, and we need not try to hid our shame. . . .
If the dark picture which I have here drawn is a true one, and no candid person will say it is an exaggerated one, can we see a brighter prospect ahead? In another country, and under other circumstances, there is a better prospect. Removal, then, is the only remedy, the only practicable remedy. By it there may be finally a renovation; our people may rise from their very ashes, to become prosperous and happy, and a credit to our race. Such has been and is now my opinion, and under such a settled opinion I have acted in al this affair. My language has been; “fly for your lives”; it is now the same. I would say to my countrymen, you among the rest, fly from the moral pestilence that will finally destroy our nation.
What is the prospect in reference to
your plan or relief, if you are understood at all to have any plan? It is dark and gloomy beyond description. Subject the Cherokees to the laws of the States in their present condition? It matters not how favorable those laws may be, instead of remedying the evil you would only rivet the chains and fasten the manacles of their servitude and degradation. The final destiny of our race, under such circumstances, is too revolting to think of. Its course must be downward, until it finally becomes extinct or is merged in another race, more ignorable and more detested. Take my word for it, it is the sure consummation, if you succeed in preventing the removal of your people. The time will come when there will be only here and there those who can be called upon to sign a protest, or to vote against a treaty for their removal; when the few remnants of our once happy and improving nation will be viewed by posterity with curious and gazing interest, as relics of a brave and noble race. Are our people destined to such a catastrophe? Are we to run the race of all our brethren who have gone before us, and of whom hardly any thing is known but their name, and, perhaps, only here and there a solitary being, waking, “as a ghost over the ashes of his fathers,” to remind a stranger that such a race
once existed? May God preserve us from such a destiny.
Chief John Ross
By John Bartlett Meserve22
It is to the social upheaval and the chaos of religious beliefs which engaged England and all Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, that America is indebted for its first substantial settlement. When the Church of England folk began to oppress the Puritans in the valley of the lower Trent, the Puritans withdrew to Holland and from thence came to Massachusetts. When, under Cromwell's regime, the Roundhead abused the Churchman, the latter sought refuge in Virginia. Likewise later, the persecuted Quaker found a haven in New Jersey and Pennsylvania and the Catholic sought religious tolerance in Maryland. Here each brought his peculiar religious tenets and here they continued to dispute wherever they were afforded an opportunity or could beg one. The Scotch immigrant to the shores of America was influenced by the repeated collapse of his efforts to reestablish the Stuarts upon the throne of England. He was of Calvinistic stock but was less serious minded about laying up treasures in Heaven; his interest was absorbed in the plentitude of golden opportunity among the Indians in the new country. These sturdy, militant folk settled largely in the Carolinas and later in Georgia. The Highlanders, in many instances and quite naturally, headed back into the hill country of these colonies and obviously their immediate contact with the Indians was much more complete than was that of other settlers who lingered in the tidewater regions. The Indians gave a ready response to the fraternal spirit evidenced by the Scottish settlers, the utmost comity prevailed and many of the Highlanders were accorded tribal membership. Numerous Scotch traders and settlers intermarried with the women of the tribes, bequeathing a mental poise to their descendants, many of whom achieved wealth, distinction and influence among the Indians. Scottish surnames became common among the Cherokees, Creeks and Choctaws and the absorption process continued through the years as these racial currents amalgamated. In the political affairs of the Cherokee Nation, Scottish influence began to evidence itself and for upwards of fifty years, the political life of that tribe yielded to the influence of chieftains of Scottish blood.
Among the Scottish immigrants who arrived at Charlestown, South Carolina in 1766, was young John MacDonald, who was born at Inverness, Scotland in 1737. He immediately removed to Savannah, Georgia and became engaged as a clerk in a trading store that did a thriving business with the Indians. The young Scotchman evidenced much finesse in his dealings with the Indian clientele of his employers that resulted in his being sent to Fort Loudon, on the Tennessee River near Kingston, Georgia, to open up a trading post and carry on a trade with the Cherokees. Shortly thereafter, he married Anne Shorey, a daughter of William Shorey and Chi-goo-ie (“sweetheart”) his full blood Cherokee Indian wife and was adopted into the Cherokee tribe. He subsequently removed, with certain of the Cherokees and located near Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, where he resumed his trading operations and where he met and formed the acquaintance of Daniel Ross under circumstances which had a rather romantic denouement.
Daniel Ross was a native of Southerlandshire, Scotland where he was born in 1760 and as a child came with his parents to America in the latter half of the 18th century. His parents settled at Baltimore where young Ross was orphaned about the close of our War of the Revolution. The young man, accompanied by a companion by the name of Mayberry, journeyed to Hawkins County, Tennessee where they constructed a flat boat which they loaded with merchandise and the adventurous pair undertook a trip down the Tennessee River to the Chickasaw country to engage in the fur trade with the Indians. At Sitico, on the Tennessee River near Lookout Mountain, they were detained by the Cherokees and as a consequence, were enforced to remain among the members of that tribe. It was here that young Ross became acquainted with John MacDonald and the members of his family and in 1786, married his daughter Mary. She was born at Fort Loudon, Tennessee, on November 1, 1770 and died at Maryville, Tennessee on October 5, 1808. During the next twenty years, Daniel Ross traveled among and traded with the Cherokee Indians at numerous trading posts that he had established. He enjoyed the highest confidence of these Indians, wielded considerable influence among them and died on May 22, 1830. The children of Daniel and Mary Ross were Jennie, Eliza, John, Susannah, Lewis, Andrew, Annie, Margaret and Marie.
The celebrated Cherokee Chieftain John Ross, son of Daniel and Mary Ross was born at Ross Landing, now Chattanooga, Tennessee on October 3, 1790. There being no schools to accommodate the education of his growing family, Daniel Ross who was then living at Maryville, Tennessee, prevailed upon the Cherokee council, about the closing days of the 18th century, to take its initial steps in the matter of education. The first school was established at Maryville and John Ross was one of the first pupils. He subsequently attended an academy at Kingston where he remained for two or three years and later clerked at a trading post. Independent trading operations were later undertaken by young Ross and his brother Lewis which proved quite successful.
The dawn of the 19th century found the Cherokees, not only the most powerful but also the most civilized of the North American tribes. Their domain covered lands in southern Tennessee, southwestern North Carolina, western South Carolina, northwestern Georgia and northern Alabama. Remarkable progress was being made in education and in the adoption of the civilized methods of the white man. Schools, churches, and asylums were established by leaders who were comparable in ability with that of their white oppressors. By 1822 each family cultivated from ten to forty acres, raising corn, rye, wheat and cotton and much trading was done with their white neighbors. The women spun and wove their own cotton and woolen cloth and blankets and knitted the stockings worn by the family. The Indians lived in cabins built of hewn logs with well-built floors and chimneys. The wealthier members enjoyed fine plantation homes. Hunting shirts, leggings and moccasins along with old customs and religions were rapidly disappearing. Political progress kept apace with education and economic advancement and in 1817, New Echota was made the capital of the nation and by 1820, a modest form of representative government was enjoyed and admirably administered. All savage, nomadic impulses and practices of the red man had been abandoned and the Cherokees lived at peace among themselves and with the adjoining tribes. Missionaries had been a most potent factor in the advancement made by these Indians.
During the years of their progress, the menace of potential eviction from their ancient and hereditary homes ever confronted the Cherokees. They stubbornly parried the earliest efforts of the Government, but as time progressed the menace grew until their peaceful homes were rudely violated and the actual deportation of these unwilling Indians was enforced. The years preceding the removal of the Cherokees to the old Indian Territory were eventful years in their history. The path of exile across the prairies to the West and the struggles during the inceptive years in their new homes, were painful experiences. It was no pageantry of adventure; it was a boulevard of broken dreams. Much dishonor was involved in our early treatment of the Cherokees. Through these uncharted seas, the stricken Indians were extremely fortunate to possess the masterful and unselfish leadership of John Ross, chieftain of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 until his death in 1866. The life story of John Ross covers fifty years of the vital history of the Cherokee Indians with every portion of which his efforts were closely interwoven. These were the years of their greatest distresses and later, of their rehabilitation.
The public service of John Ross began at the age of 19 years when Indian Agent Meigs dispatched him on a mission to the Western Cherokees in Arkansas. He later enlisted and served as an adjutant in his company in a regiment of Cherokee warriors who fought with General Jackson in the Creek War of 1813-14. The young adjutant served with distinction and rendered heroic service at Horseshoe Bend in the spring of 1814, when the recalcitrant Creek were well nigh annihilated. After the war, young Ross and his brother Lewis engaged in the mercantile business and in 1816, he made a business trip to New York.
United States officials in surveying the lands ceded by the Creeks at the conclusion of the Creek War by the Treaty of August 9, 1814, undertook to include a fraction of the Cherokee domain. A protesting delegation, of which John Ross was a member, hastened to Washington and negotiated the Treaty of March 22, 1816 whereby the boundary lines of the Nation were satisfactorily adjusted. With this service was inaugurated a fifty-year period of unremitting devotion to the welfare of the Cherokee Indians by John Ross who was to become a most potent force among them. The political autonomy of the Cherokees was again threatened the following year by the arrival among them of a commission from Washington to open negotiations for the removal of the Cherokees to the West. This commission contacted the Indian leaders at the agency in July 1817 and the task of formulating a response to the demands of the commissioners was delegated to John Ross and Elijah Hicks, his brother-in-law. The response submitted by Ross and Hicks invited attention to the progress being made by these Indians; to the prescriptive rights under which the Indians held title to their lands; expressed disapproval of the removal idea and requested that the tribe be permitted to enjoy a peaceable possession of their domain. This memorial was signed by 67 town chiefs and approved by the Cherokees. Despite the overwhelming opposition of the responsible leaders of the tribe, a few irresponsible town chiefs signed a removal treaty on July 6, 1817. Efforts to enforce this treaty provoked another delegation to Washington, headed by John Ross, the finale of which was the Treaty of February 27, 1819 which effectively put an end to all removal agitation, at least for the present, although the authorities of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee were continually urging the Federal Government to proceed with the deportation of the tribes.
John Ross became president of the National Committee in October 1819, a position he continued to occupy for eight years. The National Committee was, at that time, the designation of the upper house of the legislative branch of the Cherokee national government. The progress made by the Cherokees was greatly augmented in 1821, by the invention of the Cherokee alphabet by Sequoyah, a full blood member of the tribe. The response of the Indians to this innovation was truly phenomenal and in 1823 Sequoyah, with unselfish zeal, carried his invention to the Western Cherokees in Arkansas, where he established his permanent abode. In the fall of that year the Cherokee council, in recognition of the splendid contribution made by Sequoyah, awarded him a silver medal bearing a commemorative inscription. John Ross was delegated to convey this token of regard to Sequoyah and once more he journeyed to his fellow tribesmen in Arkansas.
John Ross: Principal Chief of the Cherokees
The State of Georgia became insistent upon the removal of the Cherokees and continually reminded the Federal Government of the engagements it had made by the Act of Congress of April 24, 1802. On October 4, 1823, United States Commissioners Meriweather and Campbell arrived quite unexpectedly at New Echota to contact the Cherokee council, then in session, to perfect terms for a removal of the tribe to the West. The Indian leaders calmly listened to the overtures of the commissioners, but firmly expressed their resolve not to yield another foot of their domain. It was at this point in the negotiations that the famous McIntosh incident took its place in the pages of Indian history and not altogether to the credit of the United States Commissioners. William McIntosh, a mixed blood of Scottish and Creek Indian descent was, at that time, chief of the lower Creeks and had hitherto enjoyed a high measure of confidence among his Cherokee neighbors. The cunning McIntosh had been a flexible tool in the hands of the commissioners in their dealings with the Creeks and through his skillful manipulations the tribal domain of his people had been entirely dissipated. As a concluding effort in their unsuccessful negotiations with the Cherokees, the commissioners undertook to enlist the assistance and influence of McIntosh, to control the tribal leaders. As a preliminary gesture, but which was quite unfortunate, the wily chief wrote his famous letter of October 21, 1823 to John Ross, in which he expressly agreed to get the commissioners to pay to Ross and his friends, certain, definite sums of money, if they would yield in the negotiations. McIntosh came on to New Echota while the negotiations were pending, to discuss the matter with Ross and requested that he be permitted to address the Cherokee council. Ross easily arranged this engagement but as a preliminary gesture, Ross caused the letter to be read and translated before the council, in the presence of McIntosh. It is unnecessary to state that McIntosh did not address the council, but did barely escape from the hall, mount his pony and ride in haste from the scene of his disgrace. He had misjudged the character of John Ross. Ross sent the letter on to Washington where it may be found today among the archives of the Indian Department. The commissioners returned empty handed and through the adroitness and integrity of John Ross the removal menace again was postponed, although sentiments of uneasiness and uncertainty impelled the council to dispatch another delegation headed by John Ross to Washington, to plead against any further importunities for land cessions.
This delegation grew bolder as it met the demands of Secretary of War Calhoun for the immediate removal of the Cherokees, by a reiteration of their determination to cede no more lands, because the limits as fixed by the treaty of 1819 had left them territory barely adequate for their comfort and convenience. Then in unmistakable terms, the delegation reminded the Secretary that the Indians were the original inhabitants of the country and were unwilling to permit the sovereignty of any state within the boundaries of their domain; they had never engaged to cede their lands to the Federal Government, but, on the other hand, the Government had guaranteed the land to them by solemn treaties which guaranties had been confirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States. Ross and his delegation left nothing to be imagined as to the position of the Cherokee Nation and its people. It was a challenge to the rights of the states and to the bona fides of the Federal Government in the numerous engagements which it had made with the tribe. The challenge was taken up by Gov. George M. Troup of Georgia, who hotly declared that "a state of things so unnatural and fruitful of evils as an independent government of a semi-barbarous people existing within the limits of a state could not long continue" and in a message to his legislature in 1825, he counseled the extension of the laws of Georgia over the Cherokees.
The Cherokees under the inspiration of John Ross, insisted upon their rights as an independent political entity and when the State of Georgia sent surveyors to lay out the course of a canal through the Cherokee country, they were refused permission by the Cherokee council in 1826 with a resolution that "No individual state shall be allowed to make internal improvements within the sovereign limits of the Cherokee Nation."
To more effectively coordinate their political status with the plan of the United States Government, a constitutional convention of Cherokee representatives met at New Echota on July 4, 1827 for the purpose of framing a constitution for the Nation and was organized by electing John Ross as its presiding officer. A constitution was framed, modeled after the Federal constitution with the powers of government carefully distributed into three branches; popular suffrage was ordained and religious freedom guaranteed. Significant was the language of its preamble, "We, the Cherokee people, constituting one of the sovereign and independent Nations of the earth and having complete jurisdiction over its territory to the exclusion of the authority of any other state, do ordain this constitution." The challenge to the states of Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee was complete. It was a noble and appealing gesture, predicated upon historic facts, but was to provoke a tragedy. The so-called inherent rights of the Indian had become more or less legendary. As a matter of fact, the "man on horseback" came to the Indian when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock.
In October 1828, John Ross, the duly elected chief, assumed the duties of chief executive of the newly created Cherokee Republic and immediately proceeded to organize the new government.
The discovery of gold in the Cherokee country in July 1829 excited the cupidity of the whites and provoked drastic legislation by the Georgia legislature which completely nullified the potency of the Cherokee government. Its national council was forbidden to meet save for the purpose of ceding its lands. Cherokee courts were denied the right to convene. Laws denying the right of an Indian to bring suit or to testify against the word of a white man were enacted and these provisions rendered it impossible for the Indian to defend his rights in any court or resist the seizure of his home and property. White persons were denied the right to live within the Cherokee country without a license from the Georgia authorities. This enactment was leveled against the white Christian missionaries who lived among and taught these people and this occasioned the arrest, conviction and prison sentence of Rev. Samuel A. Worcester and Elizur Butler, to be followed by the famous decision of the United States Supreme Court in 1832. Obviously, the purpose of these and kindred laws, equally obnoxious, was to enforce the withdrawal of the Cherokees from the state. The Indian Removal Act was passed at Washington on May 28, 1830 and the Federal Government declared a fixed policy.
Disaffection against the policy of Chief Ross began to develop within the tribe, led by Major Ridge, his son John, and his nephew Elias Boudinot, who formed an opposition party which favored removal to the West. These men were capable, cultured, and patriotic members of the tribe who appraised the hopelessness of the situation and the utter futility of further resistance to the stated purposes of the General Government. The Cherokee council passed a law which made possible the imposition of the death penalty upon any citizen who bartered away any of the tribal domain. Although the laws of Georgia had prohibited assemblages of the council, the council continued to meet at Red Clay and Chief Ross never abandoned his brave protest against the oppressive measures invoked by the State of Georgia and the Federal Government. Numerous delegations were sent to Washington to protest against the aggressions of the Georgia authorities, but were able to accomplish nothing.
The Treaty of February 28, 1835 engineered by Rev. John F. Schermerhorn with the Ridge faction provided for the complete extinguishment of all title to Cherokee lands in the East and the removal of the tribe to the West. This treaty was submitted to and rejected by the council although it had the support of the Ridges and Boudinot who gave it their support in the face of the previous council legislation providing the death penalty. Chief Ross vigorously opposed the adoption of the treaty by the council and prepared to depart at once for Washington to protest again. On November 7, 1835, the eve of his departure, the Chief was seized by the Georgia authorities and held for several days. His private papers as well as the records of the council were rifled. It was evidently thought that with Ross out of the way, the Cherokees could be managed more easily. At the same time, his friend John Howard Payne, who was his houseguest, was also seized and his historical manuscript rifled. Payne was subsequently released and ordered out of the country. A short time before this, the
Cherokee Phoenix and its plant had been seized and removed to Georgia. In the spring of 1834, the comfortable plantation home of Chief Ross and his extensive farm and buildings near Ross Landing had been ruthlessly taken from him by the holder of a lottery ticket, under Georgia law. He and the members of his family were evicted in a most cruel, humiliating, and inhumane manner.
I
n October 1835, aided by a handful of unprincipled, self-styled representatives of the tribe, a treaty of removal was made, ratified by the United States Senate and proclaimed by the President on May 23, 1836. This treaty was an obvious fraud upon the Cherokees and was denied approval by their council. Chief Ross hastened to Washington with a protest signed by over 15,000 members of the tribe, but with no avail. In the fall of 1836, Ross visited the Western Cherokees in Arkansas again and sought to enlist their opposition to the fraudulent treaty. Opposition to the treaty was practically unanimous among the Cherokees as was evidenced by another protest which Chief Ross presented to Congress in the spring of 1838 and which was signed by 15,665 tribal members. These protests accomplished no consideration and with unrelenting severity the Government now hastened to banish the Indians en masse to lands set aside for them beyond the Mississippi.
The removal of the Cherokees came as the culmination of years of imposition upon them. It was a soulless enterprise in which no considerations of humanity were permitted to interfere. The Southeastern States declared a suspension of political ethics and deliverance from the Indians became their chief objective. The Cherokees ultimately yielded their ancient legacies to the despotism of the strong and acquiesced in the tyranny of the more powerful.
In the spring of 1838, the enforced removal of the Cherokees was entrusted to Gen. Winfield Scott and on May 10th, the General established headquarters for his troops at New Echota and the actual deportation by military force, was undertaken. Ross met the situation with a calm dignity which forestalled armed opposition by the Indians, but with a strength of purpose which inspired with confidence the harassed Indians. In the ranks of the opposition to the Indians, Ross was considered the chief adversary. The United States Government and the state authorities declined and refused him all recognition. Straggling bands of the disheartened Indians for months had been wending their way to the West when the military arm of the Government took charge. The Indians were circumvented at every turn but it became evident that the removal of these people could not be accomplished by brute, military force. There were so many pathetic features which challenged the finer sensibilities of even the hardened soldiers who were engaged in the effort. On July 23, 1838, upon request of the Cherokee council, the entire program for the removal of the Cherokees was handed over to the council and to this task, Chief Ross gave his every attention. The famous chieftain, whom the United States Government had declined to recognize and whom the Georgia authorities had attempted to bribe and bulldoze, was now recognized to accomplish the task where the army had failed. Truly, it was a vindication and belated recognition of the masterful leadership of John Ross among his people. The kind, unselfish executive in whom his people so relentlessly believed, patiently regimented the Cherokees and in the winter of 1838-39, led the last remnant of the tribe to the unknown West—the West where the broad, open prairies gather the sunset in their arms until the dark comes. When the agony was over, some four thousand of the more helpless old men, women, and children had perished during the journey, to be buried by the wayside in unknown and unmarked graves. Truly, it was a "trail of tears." Quatie, the Cherokee wife of Chief Ross sickened during the trip and died at Little Rock in March 1839. The brave chief pressed on and into the Territory and shortly thereafter established his famous home at Park Hill some three miles southeast of the present town of Tahlequah.
The Ridges and Boudinot were already in the West and difficulties faced the chief and the council in their new home. Three factions grew out of the discordant elements—the Old Settlers, composed of the Western Cherokees who had voluntarily come west many years before, the Ridge faction who had accepted removal and the Ross Nationals. The Old Settlers and the Ridge adherents combined against Ross but were destined to lose in the conflict. Discord was growing and in some manner which has never been satisfactorily explained, the Ridges and Boudinot, each signers of the removal treaty, were pronounced guilty and the penalty of death cruelly exacted on June 22, 1839 in a savage manner. These men, under the impact of overwhelming odds, had favored removal and signed the treaty which ceded the tribal lands and thus rendered themselves liable to the death penalty. This death penalty was exacted, but not through any pretense of compliance with the orderly processes of the law, but by some sort of concerted action. Quite naturally, the Ridge adherents attempted to fasten the crime upon Chief Ross, who was perfectly innocent. Naturally, the breach widened and quite inopportunely, shortly thereafter, the Ross Nationals met in council and denounced the Ridges and Boudinot as outlaws justly liable to the death penalty and declared the murderers restored to their confidence and good favor.
In September 1839, a new constitution was framed and subsequently adopted and agreed to by all factions and John Ross was elected Principal Chief of the reunited Cherokee tribe, a position he was to hold by successive reelections until his death in 1866 and Tahlequah was made the capital.
It was with courage and finesse that the chief postponed the removal crisis for twenty years and his diplomatic efforts in so doing had won and sustained for him, the highest confidence of his people although their ultimate destiny should have been apparent. The conflicting status provoked by the attempted political autonomy of the Cherokees within the confines of the States was wholly illogical and could have no permanence. Ross, erudite leader that he was must have foreseen the futility of his efforts to preserve for his people, even a semblance of their independent status in the East. He was not a conciliator but shared the fundamental impulses of the Indians. He created for them a social and political condition which set them apart from "barbarians."
The decades of their tribal life in the West were as interludes preparatory to their splendid participation in the social and political life of Oklahoma, but the service of John Ross to these people will never be forgotten. His public life involved his complete personal sacrifice. He was an incorruptible advocate amid environs of bribery, betrayal and graft. A survey of the Indian leaders during the tragic removal years, places John Ross foremost in the ranks of his contemporaries. His career is a study in personal leadership of the highest character.
The Golden Years in the Five Republics
By Arrell Morgan Gibson23
The one bright period in the 19th century for American Indians was the interval between the conclusion of the removals (around 1835) and the outbreak of Civil War in 1861. There were the “golden years” for the Five Tribes, a time when the Indians made remarkable progress in taming the Oklahoma wilderness. They organized constitutional governments and established towns, schools, farms, ranches, and plantations. They published newspapers, magazines, and books.
During these golden years, an extensive educational system, sustained by tribal governments and missionaries, provided noteworthy educational opportunities for Indian youth. In most of the Indian nations it was possible for every child to attend school from kindergarten through the academy (equivalent of high school), and in some cases to complete the first two years of college. From the academies, many bright young men were sent to the eastern colleges of the United States to complete their studies. After 1850, many business, social, and political leaders of the tribes were college graduates.
Students in Indian nation schools were taught vocational subjects (job training) in addition to the traditional subjects such as spelling, biology, history, astronomy, Latin, Greek, English, arithmetic, philosophy, and, in the mission schools, Bible studies. The boys were trained in animal husbandry, agriculture, the mechanical arts, and carpentry, which the girls were instructed in childcare, cooking, sewing, and other domestic arts. “Special Education” is not new in Oklahoma: the Indian Territory educational systems included schools for orphans, the deaf, blind, and mentally ill.
Support came from various sources for the schools of Indian Territory. Congress appropriated an annual sum of $10,000 for the Indian Civilization Fund. But there was much competition for this money among the tribes so the tribes turned to missionary groups to provide educational services for their people. Tribes required that for every preacher allowed into their nations, the missionary group must provide a teacher and school facilities as well. Most of the money the Five Tribes poured into their educational systems came from the annuities (annual payments) from the U.S. government for the sale of their eastern lands. Tribal revenues came from several sources but in no case from taxes on Indian citizens, for there were no taxes in Oklahoma in those times. Land, which is the usual source of tax revenue, was held in common by each tribe and thus could produce no revenue.
Through its richly varied activities, emphasis on learning, and general enlightenment effort, Park Hill Mission School could well qualify for the title of “Athens of the American Southwest.” This mission was the creation of Rev. Samuel Worcester. Following his release from the Georgia state prison in 1834, Worcester and his wife came to Indian Territory. Disasters on their journey slowed them so much that they did not arrive in Oklahoma until 1835. The great teacher had worked long and hard in eastern cities raising money to purchase a printing press, but the steamer carrying their personal effects, supplies, and the press sank in the Arkansas River. All seemed lost to the muddy waters, but Worcester persevered, and finally recovered the press. This piece of equipment became one of the most important devices ever brought to Oklahoma.
Worcester set up his press and published the first two books ever printed in Oklahoma—an eight-page Cherokee language book and a hundred-page translation of portions of the New Testament in Creek. Additionally, Worcester’s press published the first newspaper ever published in Indian Territory: The Cherokee Phoenix.
In 1837, Worcester selected a site five miles south of Tahlequah for his Park Hill Mission School. Under his vigorous and creative leadership, Park Hill became the most important learning center in Indian Territory. In addition to a complex of buildings for classrooms, a church, and dwellings for the missionaries and teachers, the station included a boarding hall and dormitory for students, shops, stables, and barns. Extensive fields were cleared near the station, for Worcester’s goal was to make this a self-sufficient community.
Park Hill became famous for its printing press. The missionary compound finally included a two-story publishing house complete with a bindery. The famous Park Hill Press did a massive volume of work for the Cherokees, numbering more than 14 million pages.
But his great energy began to falter in 1859, and he called a friend and coworker, Charles C. Torrey to Park Hill to succeed him. A few months later in the same year, Rev. Samuel Worcester, the Cherokees’ greatest teacher died.
Economically, the Five Tribes flourished during this period. Slavery was widely practiced among the mixed-blood Indians and they began to rebuild farms and plantations as they had in the Southern states. The more successful planters replaced their log houses with large mansions furnished with carpets, music rooms and libraries, and other elegant fixtures found in many white Southern homes.
The Five Tribes had diversified economies. Their farms, plantations, and mines produced meat, hides, grain, salt, lead and other products. The markets for Indian Territory goods were varied as well. The many military posts and forts in Indian Territory were heavy customers of local produce. Fort Washita alone purchased seven thousand bushels of corn and great quantities of eggs, butter, meat, and vegetables each year from Chickasaw farmers. Their goods were also sold in the growing towns within each nation.
Although water transportation was widely used for moving people and goods in frontier Oklahoma, not all Indian Territory communities wee situated at river landings. The ancestor of today’s highways was the early day network of wagon roads that cut through the wilderness to connect the towns and military posts.
The first road constructed in Oklahoma was the 58-mile wagon road laid out in 1825 to connect Fort Smith and Fort Gibson. All of the earliest roads were created to connect the various military forts. By 1845 eastern and central Oklahoma were laced with roads, traces, and trails linking towns, military posts, missions, and schools situated in the Five Republics.
Some of the most famous highways in the West were built across Oklahoma before the Civil War. The Texas Road crossed through the southeastern corner of Oklahoma and was the principal road for settlers bound for Texas.
The Butterfield Road provided transportation and mail service originating at Tipton, Missouri and on to the Pacific Shore. Customers purchasing one-way tickets paid $200 and road in rode in a stagecoach or spring wagon. Passengers were advised to include the following in there baggage for the journey:
“One Sharp’s rifle and a hundred cartridges; a Colts navy revolver and two pounds of balls; a knife and sheath; a pair of thick boots and woolen pants; a half dozen pairs of thick woolen socks; six undershirts; three woolen over shirts; a wide-awake hat; a cheap sack coat; a soldiers overcoat; one pair of blankets in summer and two in winter; a piece of Indian rubber cloth for blankets.”
Another great early day Oklahoma road was the California Road. The discovery of gold in California set off a feverish rush of gold seekers from the eastern states in 1849. Before the gold fever ended, about 5,000 persons passed through Oklahoma on their way to California. Indian Territory towns became prosperous trade centers, as merchants and traders profited from the business of outfitting emigrant trains with wagons, mules, horses, and oxen, camp equipment and provisions for the crossing. Gold fever hit the Five Tribes too, especially the Cherokees, and several hundred Indians made the trip out west to the golden fields of California.
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