Part 11

... Our soil has not been invaded, our peace has not been molested, nor our rights interfered with by either Government. On the contrary, the people have remained at home, cultivated their farms in security, and are reaping fruitful returns for their labors. But for false fabrications, we should have pursued our ordinary vocations without any excitement at home, or misrepresentations and consequent misapprehensions abroad, as to the real sentiments and purposes of the Cherokee people. Alarming reports, however, have been pertinaciously circulated at home and unjust imputations among the people of the States. The object seems to have been to create strife and conflict, instead of harmony and good-will, among the people themselves, and to engender prejudice and distrust, instead of kindness and confidence, towards them by the officers and citizens of the Confederate States....

... The great object with me has been to have the Cherokee people harmonious and united in the full and free exercise and enjoyment of all their rights of person and property. Union is strength; dissension is weakness, misery, ruin. In time of peace, enjoy peace together; in time of war, if war must come, fight together. As brothers live, as brothers die. While ready and willing to defend our firesides from the robber and murderer, let us not make war wantonly against the authority of the United or Confederate States, but avoid conflict with either, and remain strictly on our own soil. We have homes endeared to us by every consideration, laws adapted to our condition of our own choice, and rights and privileges of the highest character. Here they must be enjoyed or nowhere else. When your nationality ceases here, it will live nowhere else. When these homes are lost, you will find no others like them. Then, my countrymen, as you regard your own rights, as you regard the welfare of your posterity, be prudent how you act. The permanent disruption of the United States is now probable. The State on our border and the Indian nations about us have severed their connection from the United States and joined the Confederate States. Our general interests are inseparable from theirs, and it is not desirable that we should stand alone. The preservation of our rights and of our existence are above every other consideration. And in view of all the circumstances of our situation I do say to you frankly that in my opinion the time has now come when you should signify your consent for the authorities of the nation to adopt preliminary steps for an alliance with the Confederate States upon terms honorable and advantageous to the Cherokee Nation.[438]

After having received this most solemn of warnings, "and a few pertinent and forcible remarks from Colonel Crawford," the meeting organized with Joseph Vann as president and William P. Ross as secretary. To effect a reconciliation between the contending factions and to decide upon some national policy that should be acceptable to the majority of the people, were, undoubtedly, the objects sought and so, after much discussion, a series of resolutions was adopted in which these ideas were given prominence as well as some of kindred importance. The resolutions asserted the legal and constitutional right of property in slaves and, in no doubtful terms, a friendship for the Confederacy. Yet the convention itself took no definite action towards consummating an alliance but left everything to the discretion of the constituted authorities of the nation, in whom it announced an unwavering confidence.

Whereas we, the Cherokee people, have been invited by the executive of the Cherokee Nation, in compliance with the request of many citizens, to meet in general meeting, for the purpose of drawing more closely the bonds of friendship and sympathy which should characterize our conduct and mark our feelings towards each other in view of the difficulties and dangers which have arisen from the fearful condition of affairs among the people of the several States, and for the purpose of giving a free and frank expression of the real sentiments we cherish towards each other, and of our true position in regard to questions which affect the general welfare, and particularly on that of the subject of slavery: Therefore be it hereby

_Resolved_, That we fully approve the neutrality recommended by the principal chief in the war pending between the United and the Confederate States, and tender to General McCulloch our thanks for the respect he has shown to our position.

_Resolved_, That we renew the pledges given by the executive of this nation of the friendship of the Cherokees towards the people of all the States, and particularly towards those on our immediate border, with whom our relations have been harmonious and cordial, and from whom they should not be separated.

_Resolved_, That we also take occasion to renew to the Creeks, Choctaws, Seminoles, Chickasaws, and Osages, and others, assurances of continued friendship and brotherly feeling.

_Resolved_, That we hereby disavow any wish or purpose to create or perpetuate any distinctions between the citizens of our country as to the full and mixed blood, but regard each and all as our brothers, and entitled to equal rights and privileges according to the constitution and laws of the nation.

_Resolved_, That we proclaim unwavering attachment to the constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation, and solemnly pledge ourselves to defend and support the same, and as far as in us lies to secure to the citizens of the nation all the rights and privileges which they guarantee to them.

_Resolved_, That among the rights guaranteed by the constitution and laws we distinctly recognize that of property in negro slaves, and hereby publicly denounce as calumniators those who represent us to be abolitionists, and as a consequence hostile to the South, which is both the land of our birth and the land of our homes.

_Resolved_, That the great consideration with the Cherokee people should be a united and harmonious support and defense of their common rights, and we hereby pledge ourselves to mutually sustain our nationality, and to defend our lives and the integrity of our homes and soil whenever the same shall be wantonly assailed by lawless marauders.

_Resolved_, That, reposing full confidence in the constituted authorities of the Cherokee Nation, we submit to their wisdom the management of all questions which affect our interests growing out of the exigencies of the relations between the United and Confederate States of America, and which may render an alliance on our part with the latter States expedient and desirable.

And which resolutions, upon the question of their passage being put, were carried by acclamation. JOSEPH VANN, President.

Wm. P. Ross, Secretary. Tahlequah, C. N., August 21, 1861.[439]

In making his plans, prior to the Battle of Wilson's Creek, for effecting a junction with Price and coöperating with him and others in southwest Missouri, McCulloch acted, not under direct orders from Richmond, but from his own desire to take such a position opposite the Cherokee Neutral Lands, once so outrageously intruded upon by Kansas settlers and now being made the highway of marauders entering Missouri, as would make it appear to the Cherokees that he was there as their friend and as the protector of their interests. After the battle, he refused, and rightly in view of his own special commission, to accompany Price in his forward march towards the Missouri River. Instead he drew back into the neighborhood of the Cherokee boundary and there developed his plans for attacking Kansas, should such a course be deemed necessary in order to protect Indian Territory.

It was at this juncture that the Cherokees as a nation expressed their preference for the South and for the southern cause, moved thereto, however, by the peculiarities and the difficulties of their situation. The Executive Council lost no time in communicating[440] to McCulloch the decision of the Tahlequah mass-meeting and their own determination to carry out its wishes by effecting an alliance with the Confederacy "as early as practicable." They realized very clearly that this might "give rise to movements against the Cherokee people upon their northern border" and were resolved to be prepared for such an emergency. They, therefore, authorized the raising of a regiment of mounted men, home guards they were to be and to be so designated, officered by appointment of the principal chief, Colonel John Drew being made the colonel. It would appear that the nucleus of this regiment, and with a strong southern bias, had made[441] its appearance prior to the Tahlequah meeting and the circumstance gave rise to the suspicion that the Cherokees had not been acting in good faith. After the war, the suspicion concentrated, very unjustly, upon John Ross and was made the most of by Commissioner Cooley at the Fort Smith conference; in order to accomplish, for reasons dishonorable to the United States government, the aged chief's deposition.

Drew's regiment of home guards was tendered to McCulloch and he agreed to accept it[442] but not until after a treaty of alliance should have been actually consummated between the Cherokees and the Confederate States. Pending the accomplishment of that highly desirable object, McCulloch promised to protect the Cherokee borders with his own troops and confessed[443] that he had already authorized the enlistment of another force of Cherokees under the command of Stand Watie, which had been designed to protect that same northern border but "not to interfere with the neutrality of the Nation by occupying a position within its limits."

It is not easy to decide just when or by whom the use of Indians by the Federals in the border warfare[444] was first suggested. As late as May twenty-second, Governor Charles Robinson of Kansas, in a letter[445] to Superintendent Branch, protested against even so much as arming them, which would certainly indicate that a general use of their services had not yet been thought of or resorted to; but, in August, when Senator James H. Lane was busy organizing his brigade of volunteers for the defense of Kansas, he resolved,[446] rather officiously, one might think, upon using some of the Kansas River tribes in establishing "a strong Indian camp near the neutral lands to prevent forage into Kansas" and arranged for a conference with the Indians at Fort Lincoln, his headquarters. Soon, however, a stay of execution was ordered[447] until the matter could be discussed, in its larger aspects, with Commissioner Dole, to whom courtesy,[448] at least, would have demanded that the whole affair should have been first submitted.

Dole was then in Kansas[449] and before long became aware[450] that General Frémont was also favoring the enlistment of Indians, or, at all events, their employment by the army in some capacity. He had approached Agent Johnson on the subject, his immediate purpose being to request Fall Leaf, a Delaware, "to organize a party of 50 men for the service of" his department. Agent Johnson called the tribe together and discovered that the chiefs were much averse to having their young men enlist. Dole inquired into the matter and assured[451] the chiefs that a few braves only were needed and those simply for special service and that there was no intention of asking the tribe, as a tribe, to give its services. The chiefs refused consent, notwithstanding; but Fall Leaf and a few others like him did enlist.[452] They were probably among the fifty-three Delawares, subsequently reported[453] as having been employed by Frémont to act as scouts and guides. Fall Leaf attained the rank of captain.[454] Superintendent Branch,[455] be it said, and also Commissioner Dole,[456] at this stage of the war, were strongly opposed to a general use of the Indians for purposes of active warfare. They knew only too well what it was likely to lead to. Indeed, the most that Dole had, up to date, agreed[457] to, was the supplying the Indians with the means of their own defense when United States troops had shown themselves quite unavailable.

Dole's opinion being such, it is scarcely to be supposed that he could have considered favorably Senator Lane's idea of an Indian camp in the Cherokee Neutral Lands or the one, developed later, of an Indian patrol along the southern boundary of Kansas. Lane's troubles, quite apart from his Indian projects, were daily increasing; and, considering the method of warfare indulged in by him and encouraged in his white troops, the same one that pro-slavery and free-state men had equally experimented with in squatter-sovereignty days, it would have been simply deplorable to have permitted him the free use of Indian warriors. Complaints[458] of Lane and of his brigade, of their jayhawking and of their marauding were being made on every hand. Governor Robinson[459] reported these complaints and endorsed them. Secretary Cameron, while making his western tour of investigation, heard[460] them and reported them also. Lane attributed[461] them to personal dislike of him, to envy, to everything, in fact, except their true cause; but we know now that they were all well-grounded. Yet, remarkable to relate, Lane's influence with Lincoln and with the War Department suffered no appreciable decline. His suggestions[462] were acted upon; and, as we shall presently see, he was even permitted to organize a huge jayhawking expedition at the beginning of the next year.

The mention of Lane's jayhawking expedition calls to mind the conditions that made it seem, at the time, an acceptable thing and takes us back in retrospect to Indian Territory and to the events occurring there after the Tahlequah mass-meeting of the twenty-first of August. As soon as the meeting had broken up, John Ross despatched[463] a messenger to Albert Pike to inform him of all that had happened and of the Cherokee willingness, at last, to negotiate with the Confederacy. It was arranged that Pike should come to the Cherokee country, taking up his quarters temporarily at Park Hill, the home of Ross near Tahlequah, and that a general Indian council should be called. A special effort was made to have the fragmentary bands of the northeast represented and Pike sent out various agents[464] to urge an attendance. John Ross was also active in the same interest. He, personally, communicated with the Osages[465] and with the Creeks[466] by letter; but the Creeks,[467] like Evan Jones,[468] seem to have been incredulous as to Cherokee defection. They seem to have doubted the genuineness of the letter sent to them and made inquiries about it, only to be assured[469] again and again by Ross that all was well and that he wished the Indians en masse to join the Southern States.

The council at Tahlequah, viewed in the light of its immediate object, was unusually successful. Four treaties were negotiated, one[470] at Tahlequah itself, October seventh, with the Cherokees and three at Park Hill. Of these three, one[471] was with four bands of the Great Osages, Clermont's, White Hair's, Black Dog's, and the Big Hill, October second; another[472] with the Quapaws, October fourth; and the third,[473] on the same day, with the Senecas[474] (once of Sandusky) and the Shawnees (once of Lewistown and now of the mixed band of Senecas and Shawnees). Hereditary[475] chiefs alone signed for the Great Osages, the merit chief, Big Chief, being, apparently, not present. The notorious ex-United States agent, J. W. Washbourne,[476] was very much in evidence as would most likely also have been the equally notorious and disreputable Indian trader, John Mathews,[477] had he not recently received his deserts at the hands of Senator Lane's brigade.

An accurate and connected account of the occurrences at the Tahlequah council, it is well nigh impossible to obtain. Some intimidation[478] seems to have been used, and there was a report of a collision[479] between the Ross and Ridge factions some days previous to the meeting. Drew's regiment, which, when organized, had been placed as a guard[480] on the northern border, escorted[481] Commissioner Pike to Park Hill and later took up its station on the treaty ground. Some of Stand Watie's Confederate forces were also in the neighborhood.[482] In 1865, at the Fort Smith Council, held for the readjustment of political relations with the United States government, the Indians of the Neosho Agency gave[483] a rather picturesque description of the way they had been prevailed upon to sign the treaty with the Confederate States. The real object of the Tahlequah meeting was evidently not revealed to them until they had actually reached the treaty ground. Agent Dorn had told them that they had to go to the meeting. They went and were there taken in hand by Pike who said,

If you don't do what we lay before you, we can't say you shall live happy.

The Indians

feeling badly, just looked on, and the white man went to work, got up a paper and said I want you to sign that. The Indian did not want to, but he compelled him. You know yourself that, under such circumstances, he would do anything to save his life....

Now that the history of the diplomatic relations between the Indian tribes and the Confederacy has been brought thus far, nothing seems more fitting than to return to the consideration of the Federal government and its representatives, its purposes, and its plans, beginning the account with the Indian Office and Commissioner Dole. Dole's early attempt to prevail upon the War Department to resume its occupation of Indian Territory was followed up by the convincing letter of the thirtieth of May in which he likened the Indians to the Union element in some of the border states and ended by throwing the full responsibility for any disloyalty that might appear among them upon the Federal authorities; inasmuch as they had neglected and were still neglecting to give the support and protection that any ordinary guardian is bound in honor to give to his wards. Dole said in writing to Secretary Smith,

... Experience has shown that the presence of even a small force of federal troops located in the disaffected States has had the effect to preserve the peace, encourage the friends of the Union, and induce the people to return to their allegiance.

That this same result would be produced in the Indian country I cannot doubt, as they can have no inducement to unite with the enemies of the United States unless we fail as a nation to give them that protection guaranteed by our treaty stipulations, and which is necessary to prevent designing and evil-disposed persons from having free intercourse with them, to work out their evil purposes....[484]

Nothing came of Dole's application and thus was exemplified, as often before and often since, a very serious defect in the American administrative system by which the duty of doing a certain thing rests upon one department and the means for doing it with quite another. It is surely no exaggeration to say that hundreds and hundreds of times the Indians have been the innocent victims of friction between the War and Interior Departments.

But if the authorities at Washington were indifferent to the Indian's welfare, Senator Lane was neither indifferent to nor ignorant of the strategical importance of Indian Territory. With him the defence of Kansas and the means of procuring that defence were everything. Indian Territory and the Indian tribes came within the scope of the means. And so it happened that, while he was organizing his Kansas brigade, he commissioned[485] a man, E. H. Carruth, who had formerly posed as an educator[486] among the Seminoles, to communicate with the various tribes for the purpose of determining their real feelings towards the United States government and of obtaining, if possible, an interview between Lane and some of their accredited representatives. The interview was to take place "at Fort Lincoln on the Osage or some point convenient thereto."[487]

Now a considerable portion of the Creek tribe was in just the right mood and in just the right situation to receive such overtures in the right spirit. That portion consisted of those who, after the treaty of July tenth had been negotiated in the manner already described, had rallied around Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la; and who, in a Creek convention that had been called for August fifth had declared that the chiefs, who had signed a treaty outside the National Council, had violated a fundamental law of the tribe and had thereby forfeited their administrative rank. The criticism applied to Motey Kennard and to Echo Harjo, the principal and the second chief respectively. Kennard, as we have seen, was the leader of the Lower Creeks and Harjo of the Upper. A further division in Creek ranks was now inevitable and it came forthwith, the Non-treaty Party, made up mostly of Upper Creeks, proceeding to recognize[488] Ok-ta-ha-hassee Harjo (better known as "Sands") as the acting principal chief of the tribe. It also betook itself westward so as to be as much as possible out of the reach of the secessionists. When once in a position of at least temporary security, it despatched Mik-ko Hut-kee (White Chief), Bob Deer, Jo Ellis, and perhaps others to Washington to confer with the "Great Father."[489]

The Creek delegates, Mik-ko Hut-kee and his companions, went, on their way to Washington, northward through Kansas, saw Superintendent Coffin[490] and, later, Lane's agent, E. H. Carruth. This was about the second week of September and Carruth was at Barnesville, Lane's headquarters. Carruth received the Creeks kindly, read sympathetically the letter[491] that they brought from their distressed chiefs, Sands and Opoeth-le-yo-ho-la, assured the equally distressed delegates of the continued fatherly interest of the United States government, and sent them on their way, greatly comforted. It was while these Creek delegates were lingering at Barnesville that Carruth made a special effort to induce the southern Indians generally to send representatives for an interview with Lane. He wrote personally to Ross,[492] to the two Creek chiefs,[493] and to the Wichita chief, Tusaquach,[494] and, in addition, wrote to the Seminole chiefs and headmen[495] and to the "loyal" Choctaws and Chickasaws.[496]