Part 2

All this time there was another influence within the Indian country, north and south, that boded good or ill as the case might be. This influence emanated from the religious denominations represented on the various reserves. Nowhere in the United States, perhaps, was the rivalry among churches that had divided along sectional lines in the forties and fifties stronger than within the Indian country. There the churches contended with each other at close range. The Indian country was free and open to all faiths, while, in the states, the different churches kept strictly to their own sections, the southern contingent of each denomination staying close to the institution it supported. Of course the United States government, through its civilization fund, was in a position to show very pointedly its sectional predilections. It will probably never be known, because so difficult of determination, just how much the churches aided or retarded the spread of slavery.[29]

Among the tribes of Kansas, denominational strength was distributed as follows: The Kickapoos[30] and Wyandots[31] were Methodists; but, while the former were a unit in their adherence to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, the latter were divided and among them the older church continued strong. The American Baptist Missionary Union had a school on the Delaware reservation and, previous to 1855, had had one also on the Shawnee, which the political uproar in Kansas had obliged to close its doors. These same Northern Baptists were established also among the Ottawas, as the Moravians were among the Munsees and the Roman Catholics[32] among the Osages and the Potawatomies. The Southern Baptists were likewise to be found among the Potawatomies[33] and the Southern Methodists among the Shawnees. The Shawnee Manual Labor School, under the Southern Methodists, was, however, only very grudgingly patronized by the Indians. Its situation near the Missouri border was partly accountable for this as it was for the selection of the school as the meeting-place of the pro-slavery legislature in 1855. The management of the institution was from time to time severely criticized and the superintendent, the Reverend Thomas Johnson, an intense pro-slavery agitator,[34] was strongly suspected of malfeasance,[35] of enriching himself, forsooth, at the expense of the Indians. The school found a formidable rival, from this and many another cause, in a Quaker establishment, which likewise existed on the Shawnee Reserve but independently of either tribal or governmental aid.

If church influences and church quarrels were discernible among the northern tribes, they were certainly very much more so among the southern. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Congregational) that had labored so zealously for the Cherokees, when they were east of the Mississippi, extended its interest to them undiminished in the west; and, in the period just before the Civil War,[36] was the strongest religious force in their country. There it had no less than four mission stations[37] and a flourishing school in connection with each. The same organization was similarly influential among the Choctaws[38] or, in the light of what eventually happened, it might better be said its missionaries were. Both Southern and Northern Baptists and Southern Methodists likewise were to be found among the Cherokees;[39] Presbyterians[40] and Southern Methodists among the Chickasaws and Choctaws; and Presbyterians only among the Creeks and Seminoles. In every Indian nation south, except the Creek and Seminole,[41] the work of denominational schools was supplemented, or maybe neutralized, by that of public and neighborhood schools.

True to the traditions and to the practices of the old Puritans and of the Plymouth church, the missionaries of the American Board,[42] so strongly installed among the Choctaws and the Cherokees, took an active interest in passing political affairs, particularly in connection with the slavery agitation. On that question, they early divided themselves into two camps; those among the Choctaws, led by the Reverend Cyrus Kingsbury,[43] supporting slavery; and those among the Cherokees, led by the Reverend S. A. Worcester,[44] opposing it. The actions of the former led to a controversy with the American Board and, in 1855, the malcontents, or pro-slavery sympathizers, expressed a desire to separate themselves and their charges from its patronage.[45] When, eventually, this separation did occur, 1859-1860, the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions (Old School) stepped into the breach.[46]

The rebellious conduct of the Congregational missionaries met with the undisguised approval of the Choctaw agent, Douglas H. Cooper,[47] formerly of Mississippi. It was he who had already voiced a nervous apprehension, as exhibited in the following document,[48] that the Indian country was in grave danger of being abolitionized:

If things go on as they are now doing, in 5 years slavery will be abolished in the whole of your superintendency.

(_Private_) I am convinced that something must be done speedily to arrest the systematic efforts of the Missionaries to abolitionize the Indian Country.

Otherwise we shall have a great run-away harbor, a sort of Canada--with "underground rail-roads" leading to & through it--adjoining Arkansas and Texas.

It is of no use to look to the General Government--its arm is paralized by the abolition strength of the North.

I see no way except secretly to induce the Choctaws & Cherokees & Creeks to allow slave-holders to settle among their people & control the movement now going on to abolish slavery among them.

C--

Cooper sent this note, in 1854, as a private memorandum to the southern superintendent, who at the time was Charles W. Dean. In 1859, it was possible for him to write to Dean's successor, Elias Rector, in a very different tone. The missionaries had then taken the stand he himself advocated and there was reason for congratulation. Under such circumstances, Cooper wrote,

I cannot close this report without calling your attention to the admirable tone and feeling pervading the reports of superintendents of schools and missionaries among the Choctaws, and particularly to that of the Rev. Ebenezer Hotchkin, one of the oldest missionaries among the Choctaws, who, in referring to past political disturbances, says: "We have looked upon our rulers as the 'powers that be, are ordained of God,' and have respected them for this reason. 'Whomsoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God' (Romans, xiii, 2). This has been our rule of action during the political excitement. We believe that the Bible is the best guide for us to follow. Our best citizens are those most influenced by Bible truth."

I rejoice to believe the above sentiments are entertained by most, if not all, the missionaries now among the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and that they entirely repudiate the higher-law doctrine[49] of northern and religious fanatics. It is but lately, as I learn, that the Choctaw mission, for many years under the control of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (whose headquarters are at Boston) has been cut off, because they preferred to follow the teachings of the Bible, as understood by them, rather than obey the dogmas contained in Dr. Treat's letter and the edicts of the parent board.

It is a matter of congratulation among the friends of the old Choctaw missionaries, who have labored for thirty years among them, and intend to die with armor on, that all connection with the Boston board has been dissolved. If it had been done years ago, when their freedom of conscience and of missionary action was attempted to be controlled by the parent board, much of suspicion, of ill-feeling, and diminished usefulness, which attached to the Choctaw missionaries in consequence of their connection with and sustenance by a board avowedly and openly hostile to southern institutions, would have been prevented.[50]

In the next year, 1860, Cooper was still sanguine as to affairs among the Indians of his agency and he could report to Rector, unhesitatingly, as if confident of official endorsement both at Forth Smith and at Washington,[51]

Great excitement has prevailed along the Texas border, in consequence of the incendiary course pursued in that State by horse thieves and religious fanatics; but I am glad to say, as yet, so far as I am informed, no necessity has existed in this agency for the organization of "vigilance committees" ... No doubt we have among us _free-soilers_; perhaps abolitionists in sentiment; but, so far as I am informed, persons from the North, residing among the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who entertain opinions unfriendly to our system of domestic slavery, keep their opinions to themselves and attend to their legitimate business.[52]

George Butler, the United States agent for the Cherokees, seems to have been, no less than Cooper, an adherent of the State Rights Party and an upholder of the institution of slavery. In 1859, he ascribed the very great material progress of the Cherokees to the fact that they were slaveholders.[53] Slavery, in Butler's opinion, had operated as an incentive to all industrial pursuits. To an extent this may have been true, since all Indians, no matter how high their type, have an aversion for work. As Professor Shaler once said, they are the truest aristocrats the world has ever known. But the slaveholders among the great tribes of the South were, for the most part, the half-breeds, the cleverest and often, much as we may regret to have to admit it, the most unscrupulous men of the community.

Butler's commission as Indian agent expired in March, 1860, and he was not reappointed, Robert J. Cowart of Georgia[54] being preferred. This man, illiterate and unprincipled, immediately set to work to perform a task to which his predecessor had proved unequal. The task was the removal of white intruders from the Cherokee country. For some time past, the southern superintendent and the agents under him, to say nothing of Commissioner Greenwood and Secretary Thompson, the one a citizen of Arkansas and the other of Mississippi, had resented most bitterly the invasion of the Cherokee Neutral Lands by Kansas free-soilers and the division of it into counties by the unlawfully assumed authority of the Kansas legislature. The resentment was thoroughly justifiable; for the whole proceeding of the legislature was contrary to the express enactment of Congress; but no doubt, enthusiasm for the strict enforcement of the federal law came largely from political predilections, precisely as the Kansan's outrageous defiance of it came from a deep-rooted distrust of the Buchanan administration.

There were, however, other intruders that Cowart and Rector and Greenwood designed to remove and they wanted to remove them on the ground that they were making mischief within the tribe and interfering with its institutions, or, more specifically, with slavery. The intruders meant were principally the missionaries against whom Greenwood had even the audacity to lay the charge of inciting to murder. Newspapers of bordering slave states were full of criticism,[55] just before the war, of these same men and, notably, of the Reverend Evan[56] and John Jones, the reputed ringleaders. The official excuse for removing them is rather interesting because it is so similar to that given, some thirty years earlier, in connection with the removal from Georgia. Ulterior motives can so easily be hidden under cold official phrase.

That the cause of slavery within the Cherokee country was in jeopardy in the spring and summer of 1860 can not well be denied. To the men of the time the evidence was easily obtainable. Almost as if by magic, a "search organization" started up among the full-bloods, an organization profoundly secret in its membership and in its purposes, but believed to be for no other object than the overthrow of the "peculiar institution." Its existence was promptly reported to the United States government and, as was to be expected, the missionaries were held responsible for both its inception and its continuance. It was then that Greenwood made[57] his most serious charge against these men and prepared, under color of law, to have them removed. Later, in this same year of 1860, Quantrill, the Hagerstown, Maryland man of Pennsylvania Dutch origin, who afterwards became such a notorious frontier guerrilla in the interests of the Confederate cause, leagued himself with some abolitionists for the sake of making an expedition to the Cherokee country and rescuing negroes, there held in bondage.[58] The timely distrust of Quantrill, however, caused the enterprise to be abandoned even before its preliminaries had been thoroughly well arranged; yet, had the rescue been carried to completion, it would not have been entirely without precedent[59] and its very contrivance indicated an uncertainty and a precariousness of situation south of the Kansas line.

Ever since their compulsory removal from Georgia under circumstances truly tragic, the Cherokees had been much given to factional strife. This was largely in consequence of the underhand means taken by the state and federal authorities to accomplish removal. The Cherokees had, under the necessities of the situation, divided themselves into the Ross, or Anti-removal Party, and the Ridge, or Treaty Party.[60] Removal took place in spite of the steady opposition of the Rossites and the Cherokees went west, piloted by the United States army. Once in the west a new division arose in their ranks; for, as newcomers, they came into jealous contact with members of their tribe who had emigrated many years previously and who came to figure, in subsequent Cherokee history, as the Old Settlers' Party.[61] In 1846, the United States government attempted to assume the role of mediator in a settlement of Cherokee tribal differences but without much success.[62] The old wrongs were unredressed, so the old divisions remained and formed nuclei for new disintegrating issues. Thus, in 1857, there were no less than three factions created in consequence of a project for selling the Cherokee Neutral Lands[63]. Each faction had its own opinion how best to dispose of the proceeds, should a sale take place. In 1860, there were two factions, the selling and the non-selling[64]. This tendency of the Cherokees perpetually to quarrel among themselves and to bear long-standing grudges against each other is most important; inasmuch as that marked peculiarity of internal politics very largely determined the unique position of the tribe with reference to the Civil War.

The other great tribes had also occasions for quarrel in these same critical years. The disgraceful circumstances of their removal had widened the gulf, once simply geographical, between the Upper and the Lower Creeks. They were now almost two distinct political entities, in each of which there were a principal and a second chief. In 1833, provision had been made for the accommodation of the Seminoles within a certain definite part of the Creek country[65]--just such an arrangement, forsooth, as worked so ill when applied to the Choctaws and Chickasaws; but it took several years for the Seminoles to be suited. At length, when their numbers had been considerably augmented by the coming of the new immigrants from Florida, they took up their position, for good and all, in the southwestern corner of the Creek Reserve, a politically distinct community. By that time, the Creeks seem to have repented of their generosity,[66] so, perhaps, it was well that the United States government had not yielded to their importunity and consented to a like settlement of the southern Comanches.[67] It had taken the Chickasaws a long time to reconstruct their government after the political separation from the Choctaws; but now they had a constitution,[68] all their own, a legislature, and a governor. The Choctaws had attempted a constitution, likewise, first the Scullyville, then the Doaksville, set up by a minority party; but they had retained some semblance of the old order of things in the persons of their chiefs.[69]

There were other Indians within the southern division of the Indian country that were to have their part in the Civil War and in events leading up to it or resulting from it. In the extreme northeastern corner, were the Quapaws, the Senecas, and the confederated Senecas and Shawnees, all members, with the Osages and the New York Indians of Kansas, of the Neosho River Agency which was under the care of Andrew J. Dorn. In the far western part, at the base of the Wichita Mountains, were the Indians of the Leased District, Wichitas, Tonkawas,[70] Euchees, and others, collectively called the "Reserve Indians." Most of them had been brought from Texas,[71] because of Texan intolerance of their presence, and placed within the Leased District, a tract of land west of the ninety-eighth meridian, which, under the treaty of 1855, the United States had rented from the Choctaws and Chickasaws. It was a part of the old Chickasaw District of the Choctaw Nation. Outside of the Wichita Reserve and still wandering at large over the plains were the hostile Kiowas and Comanches, against whom and the inoffensive Reserve Indians, the Texans nourished a bitter, undying hatred. They charged them with crimes that were never committed and with some crimes that white men, disguised as Indians, had committed. They were also suspected of manufacturing evidence that would incriminate the red men and of plotting, in regularly-organized meetings, their overthrow.[72]

Although the plan for colonizing some of the Texas Indians had been completed in 1855, the Indian Office found it impossible to execute it until the summer of 1859. This was principally because the War Department could not be induced to make the necessary military arrangements.[73] In point of fact, the southern Indian country was, at the time, practically without a force of United States troops, quite regardless of the promise that had been made to all the tribes upon the occasion of their removal that they should _always be protected_ in their new quarters and, inferentially, by the regular army. Even Fort Gibson had been virtually abandoned as a military post on the plea that its site was unhealthful; and all of Superintendent Rector's recommendations that Frozen Rock, on the south side of the Arkansas a few miles away, be substituted[74] had been ignored, not so much by the Interior Department, as by the War. Secretary Thompson thought that enough troops should be at his disposal to enable him to carry out the United States Indian policy, but Secretary Floyd demurred. He was rather disposed to dismantle such forts as there were and to withdraw all troops from the Indian frontier,[75] a course of action that would leave it exposed, so the dissenting Thompson prognosticated, to "the most unhappy results."[76]

It happened thus that, when the United States surveyors started in 1858 to establish the line of the ninety-eighth meridian west longitude and to run other boundary lines under the treaty of 1855,[77] they found the country entirely unpatrolled. Troops had been ordered from Texas to protect the surveyors; but, pending their arrival, Agent Cooper, who had gone out to witness the determination of the initial point on the line between his agency and the Leased District, himself took post at Fort Arbuckle and called upon the Indians for patrol and garrison duty.[78] It would seem that Secretary Thompson had verbally authorized[79] Cooper to make this use of the Indians; but they proved in the sequel very inefficient as garrison troops. On the thirtieth of June, Lieutenant Powell, commanding Company E, First United States Infantry, arrived at Fort Arbuckle from Texas and relieved Cooper of his self-imposed task. The day following, Cooper set out upon a sixteen day scout of the Washita country, taking with him his Indian volunteers, Chickasaws[80] and a few Cherokees;[81] and for this act of using Indian after the arrival of white troops, he was severely criticized by the department. One thing he accomplished: he selected a site for the prospective Wichita Agency with the recommendation that it be also made the site[82] of the much-needed military post on the Leased District. The site had originally been occupied by a Kechie village and was admirably well adapted for the double purpose Cooper intended. It lay near the center of the Leased District and near the sources of Cache and Beaver Creeks. It was also, so reported Cooper, "not very distant from the Washita, & Canadian" (and commanded) "the Mountain passes through the Wichita Mountains to the Antelope Hills--to the North branch of Red River and also the road on the South side of the Wichita Mountains up Red River."

The colonization of the Wichitas and other Indians took place in the summer of 1859 under the excitement of new disputes with Texas, largely growing out of an unwarranted and brutal attack[83] by white men upon Indians of the Brazos Agency. That event following so closely upon the heels of Van Dorn's[84] equally brutal attack upon a defenceless Comanche camp brought matters to a crisis and the government was forced to be expeditious where it had previously been dilatory. The Comanches had come in, under a flag of truce, to confer in a friendly way with the Wichitas. Van Dorn, ignorant of their purpose but supposing it hostile, made a forced march, surprised them, and mercilessly took summary vengeance for all the Comanches had been charged with, whether justly or unjustly, for some time past. After it was all over, the Comanches, with about sixty of their number slain, accused the Wichitas of having betrayed them. Frightened, yet innocent, the Wichitas begged that there be no further delay in their removal, so the order was given and arrangements made. Unfortunately, by the time everything was ready, the season was pretty far advanced and the Indians reached their new home to find it too late to put in crops for that year's harvest. Subsistence rations had, therefore, to be doled out to them, the occasion affording, as always, a rare opportunity for graft. Instead of calling for bids, as was customary, Superintendent Rector entered into a private contract[85] with a friend and relative of his own, the consequence being that the government was charged an exorbitant price for the rations. Soon other troubles[86] came. The Leased District proved to be already occupied by some northern Indian refugees[87] and became, as time went on, a handy rendezvous for free negroes; but, as soon as Matthew Leeper[88] of Texas became agent, the stay of such was extremely short.[89]