Part 25

(a) The Choctaws, it is understood, are prepared to receive and assent to the provisions of a bill introduced three years since into the Senate by Senator Johnson of Arkansas, for the creation of the Territories of Chah-la-kee, Chah-ta, and Muscokee, and it is greatly to be hoped that that or some similar bill may be speedily enacted.... Their country, a far finer one than Kansas.... The Choctaws have adopted a new constitution, vesting the supreme executive power in a governor.... It is understood that this change has been made preparatory to the acceptance of the bill already mentioned.

The foregoing is taken from the _Annual Report_ of the southern superintendent for 1857 and in that report, Elias Rector who was then the superintendent, having taken office that very year, argued that all the five great tribes ought to be allowed to have delegates on the floor of Congress and to be made citizens of the United States; for the constitutions of the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws would compare favorably, said he, with those of any of the southwestern states [Senate _Documents_, 35th congress, first session, vol. ii, 485].

(b) The Fort Smith _Times_ of February 3, 1859 printed the following:

SAM HOUSTON AND THE PRESIDENCY

The following we take from a printed slip sent to us by our Doaksville correspondent, who informs us that it was sent to that office just as he sends it. We presume that it is the programme laid down by some of the Texas papers, friendly to the election of Sam Houston to the Presidency....

_Re-organization of the Territories_

1. The organization of the Aboriginal Territory of Decotah, from that part of the late Territory of Minnesota, lying west of the State of Minnesota.

2. To fix the western boundaries of Kansas and Nebraska, at the Meridian 99 or 100; and to establish in those Territories, Aboriginal counties, for the exclusive and permanent occupation of the Aboriginal tribes now located east of that line and within those Territories; also to provide, that said Territories shall not be admitted into the Union as States unless their several Constitutions provide for the continuation of the Federal regulations adopted for better government and welfare of the Aboriginal tribes inhabiting the same.

3. To organize the Indian territory lying west of Arkansas, as "the Aboriginal Territory of Neosho," under regulation similar to those proposed by Hon. Robert W. Johnson of Arkansas in 1854 for the organization of the Indian territory of Neosho.

4. To purchase from the State of Texas all that portion of the State lying north of the Red river and include the same in the Aboriginal territory of Comanche or Ouachita.

5. The territory of New Mexico.

6. From the western portion of New Mexico to take the Aboriginal territory of Navajoe.

7. From the western portion of Utah, to take the Aboriginal territory of Shoshone.

Re-organize the eastern part of Utah, (the Mormon country), as an Aboriginal territory.

Organize the western territory of Osage.

From Nebraska, west of the M.100, and south of the 45th parallel take the Aboriginal territory of Mandan.

Organize the eastern half of Oregon, as the Aboriginal territory of Umatilla.

Washington east of the M.118 to be the Aboriginal territory of Okanagan.

Nebraska, north of the 45th parallel to be the Aboriginal territory of Assinneboin. Emigration into these territories to be prohibited by law of Congress, until the same shall have been admitted into the Union as States.

In each territory, a resident Military Police to preserve order....

(c) Henry Wilson, in the _Rise and Fall of the Slave Power_, vol. ii, 634-635 says,

In the Indian Territory there were four tribes of Indians--Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks. Under the fostering care of their governments slavery had become so firmly established that slaveholders thought them worthy of political fellowship, and articles in favor of their admission began to appear in the southern press. "The progress of civilization," said the New Orleans "Picayune," "in several of the Indian tribes west of the States will soon bring up a new question for the decision of Congress.... It cannot fail to give interest to this question that each of the Indian tribes has adopted the social institutions of the South." To concentrate and give direction to such efforts, a secret organization was formed to encourage Southern emigration, and to discourage and prevent the entrance into the Territory of all who were hostile to slaveholding institutions. It was hoped thus to guard against adverse fortune which had defeated their purposes and plans for Kansas....

[19] With reference to the proposed organization the subjoined documents are of interest:

C. STREET, July 2.

MR. MIX,

Dear Sir, Please have the western boundary of Mis. laid down on this map, and the _outline_ of the Pawnee, Kanzas & Osage purchases, and the reservations, as they now stand within that _outline_. You need not show each purchase, but the _outline_ of the whole. Yours truly

THOMAS H. BENTON.

Letter of July 2, 1853, Indian Office _Miscellaneous Files, 1851-1854_.

WASHINGTON CITY, August 5th, 1854.

Hon. G. W. MANYPENNY Esq., Com Indian Department, Washington City.

Dear Sir, Many people of Ohio, as well as of the states west of it, have for a long time been most anxious to learn through your Department, the nature of the several treaties made by yourself in behalf of the Government, with the several tribes of Indians occupying the Territories of Nebraska & Kansas: particularly as to the _reservation_ of _land_ made by such Tribes, _its extent_, _where_, _when_, & how to be _located_, & _within what time_,--and also what lands in both of said Territories by virtue of said treaties _are now subject to location_?

I regret to inform you that much censure has attached to your Department, in consequence of the delay which has attended the promulgation of the above information, but which from my long knowledge of you personally, and of the very prompt manner in which you have invariably discharged your public duties, I believe to be most unjust.

I seek the above information, not only for myself (contemplating a removal to Kansas) but also in behalf of many persons in the western states, who have solicited my intervention in that matter on my visit to this City. Very respectfully your friend

S. W. WHITE

Indian Office _Miscellaneous Files, 1851-1854_.

C. STREET, Aug. 19, '53.

To GEO. W. MANYPENNY ESQ., Com. of Indian Affairs,

Sir, I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of yesterday with the accompanying copy of a letter to the Hon. Mr. Atchison, and make my thanks to you for this mark of your attention. The reply will be immediately forwarded to Meas Ami, to be published in the same paper in which your note to me covering the map on which the Indian's cessions & reserves west of Missouri, was published. Very respectfully, Sir, Yr. obt. servant,

THOMAS H. BENTON.

Indian Office _Miscellaneous Files, 1851-1854._

[20] Ray, _op. cit._, 86; Connelley, in Kansas Historical Society, _Collections_, vol. vi, 102; Connelley, _Provincial Government of Nebraska Territory_, pp. 24, 30 _et seq._

The Wyandots took an active part in the Kansas election troubles. For some evidence of that, see, House _Reports_, 34th congress, first session, no. 200, pp. 22, 266.

[21] By the treaty of 1837 [Kappler, _op. cit._, vol. ii, 486], the Choctaws, for a money consideration as was natural, agreed to let the Chickasaws occupy their country jointly with themselves and form a Chickasaw District within it that should be on a par with the other districts (Moo-sho-le-tubbee, Apucks-hu-nubbe, and Push-ma-ta-ha), or political units, of the Choctaw Nation. The arrangement meant political consolidation, one General Council serving for the two tribes, but each tribe retaining control of its own annuities. The boundaries of the Chickasaw District proved the subject of a contention, constant and bitter. Civil war was almost precipitated more than once. Finally, in 1855, the political connection was brought to an end by the terms of the Treaty of Washington [Kappler, _op. cit._, vol. ii, 706], negotiated in that year.

[22] See Report of C. C. Copeland to Cooper, August 27, 1855.

[23] A secret society is said to have been formed in Missouri for the express purpose of gaining the Shawnee land for slavery.

[24] Dean wrote to Butler, November 29, 1855 [_Letter Press Book_] saying that the disturbed state of things in Kansas was having a very serious effect upon the Cherokee Neutral Land. Early in 1857, Butler reported that he had given notice that if intruders had not removed themselves by spring he would have them removed by the military [Butler to Dean, January 9, 1857]. Manypenny approved Butler's course of action which is quite significant, considering that the federal administration was supposed to be unreservedly committed to the pro-slavery cause and the intruders were pro-slavery men from across the border.

[25] Andrew Dorn took charge of the Neosho Agency, to which these reservations as well as the Quapaw, Seneca, and Seneca and Shawnee belonged, in 1855 and regularly had occasion to complain of intruders. White people seem to have felt that they could with impunity encroach upon the New York Indian lands because they were only sparsely settled and because the Indian title was in dispute.

[26] Apart from any sectional desire to obtain the Indian country, would-be settlers seem to have been attracted thither from a mistaken notion that there were mines of precious metals west of Missouri [Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1858].

[27] As early as 1857, the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri were reported as looking for a new home to the southward, in a less rigorous climate, and, with that purpose in mind, they visited the Cherokees. When the Delaware treaty of 1860 was being negotiated, the Delawares expressed themselves as very anxious to get away from white interference, to leave Kansas. The Ottawas thought and thought rightly, forsooth, judging from the experience of the past, that removal would do no good. They declared a preference for United States citizenship and tribal allotment [Jotham Meeker, Baptist missionary, to Agent James, September 4, 1854, also Agent James's _Report_, 1857]. At this same period, Agent Dorn reported that the Kansas River Shawnees were desirous of joining those of the Neosho Agency. Greenwood replied, January 18, 1860, that the subject of allowing the northern Indians to go south was then under consideration by the department [Letter to Superintendent Rector].

[28] The evidence of this is to be found in a letter from W. G. Coffin to Dole, June 17, 1861 [_Neosho Files, 1838-1865_, C1223].

[29] For information on this subject, see Carroll's _American Church History_, 19, 93, 253-254, 302.

[30] Feeling that, under the treaty of 1854, they were free to choose whatever denomination they pleased to reside among them, the Kickapoos expressed a preference for the Methodist Episcopal Church South, but the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions was already established among their neighbors of the Otoe and Missouria and Great Nemaha Agencies, their own agent, Mr. Baldwin, was a Presbyterian, and so, before long, in some almost unaccountable way, they found that the Presbyterians (Old School) had obtained an entry upon their reserve and had established a mission school there. The Kickapoos were indignant, as well they had a right to be, and made as much trouble as they possibly could for the Presbyterians. In 1860, the Presbyterian Board vacated the premises and the Methodist Episcopal Church South took possession, Agent Badger favoring the change. The change was of but short duration, however; for, in 1861, the Southern Methodists, finding the sympathy of the Kickapoos was mainly with the federal element, took their departure.

[31] Ray, _op. cit._, 86, footnote 107.

[32] The most flourishing schools seem to have been the Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholics did not greatly concern themselves, as a church organization, with the slavery agitation, and St. Mary's Mission and the Osage Manual Labor School were scarcely affected by the war and not at all by the troubles that presaged its approach.

[33] The Baptist school among the Potawatomies closed in 1861. See Appendix.

[34] House _Report_, 34th congress, first session, no. 200, pp. 14, 18, 94, 425.

[35] See Indian Office, _Special File, no. 220_.

[36] The work of the American Board among the Cherokees was discontinued just before the war [_Missionary Herald_, 1861, p. 11; American Board _Report_, 1860, p. 137].

[37] The four were: "Park hill, five miles south from Tahlequah; Dwight, forty-two miles south-southwest from Tahlequah; Fairfield, twenty-five miles southeast from Tahlequah; Lee's creek, forty-three miles southeast from Tahlequah"--Commissioner of Indian Affairs [_Report_, 1859, p. 173]. There had been a fifth, an out station.

[38] The Congregational schools among the Choctaws were: Iyanubbi, near the Arkansas line; Wheelock, eighteen miles east of Doaksville; and Chuahla, one mile from Doaksville.

[39] The Southern Baptist Convention had not been long in the county prior to the Civil War. The Methodist Episcopal Church South had no schools but several missionaries. The American Baptist Missionary Union had a number of meeting-houses.

[40] The Presbyterians (Old School) established Wah-pa-nuc-ka Institute for young women, forty miles north of Red River and one and one-eighth miles west of the Choctaw and Chickasaw line; but differences arose between the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and the Chickasaw authorities, neither institutional nor sectional, but purely financial, which caused the Presbyterians to abandon the school in 1860 [C. H. Wilson, attorney for the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, to Cooper, April 16, 1860]. The Presbyterian schools among the Choctaws were: Spencer Academy, "located on the old military road leading from Fort Towson to Fort Smith, about ten miles north of Fort Towson," and Koonsha Female Seminary. Both of them were under the Presbyterian Board. A third institution, Armstrong Academy, belonged to the Cumberland Presbyterians. The Southern Methodists had Bloomfield Academy, Colbert Institute, and the Chickasaw Manual Labor School among the Chickasaws; and the Fort Coffee and New Hope academies, for boys and girls respectively, among the Choctaws.

[41] The Seminoles were late in manifesting an interest in education, and, when interest did arise among them, John Jumper, the chief, declared for boarding-schools and asked that such be established under the Presbyterian Board, the same that had influence among their near neighbors, the Creeks.

[42] The American Board itself was inclined to be non-committal and temporizing [Garrison, op. cit., vol. iii, 30]. The _Missionary Herald_, so valuable an historical source as it proved itself to be for Indian removals, is strangely silent on the great subject of negro slavery among the Indians. Its references to it are only very occasional and never more than incidental.

[43] Kingsbury was superintendent of the Chuahla Female Seminary.

[44] Worcester died, April, 1859 [_Missionary Herald_, 1859, p. 187; 1860, p. 12].

[45] _Missionary Herald_, 1859, pp. 335-336; 1860, p. 12; The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, _Report_, 1856, p. 195.

[46] Report of C. C. Copeland, 1860.

[47] Cooper was also Chickasaw agent. On the fifth of October, 1854, some of the principal men of the Chickasaw Nation, Cyrus Harris, James Gamble, Sampson Folsom, Jackson Frazier, and D. Colbert, petitioned President Pierce for the removal of Agent Andrew J. Smith on charges of official irregularity and gross immorality. A year later, Superintendent Dean reiterated the charges. Smith's commission was revoked, November 9, 1855; and, in March, 1856, Cooper was assigned the Chickasaws as an additional charge. Henceforth, the two tribes had an agent in common.

[48] This note itself bore no date but there is documentary proof that it was received at Fort Smith, November 27, 1854. It is to be found in the Indian Office among the _Fort Smith Papers_.

[49] The allusion is, of course, to the "higher law" doctrine expressed in Seward's Senate Speech of March 11, 1850.

[50] Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1859, pp. 190-191.

The letter of Dr. Treat referred to by Agent Cooper is herewith given. It is accompanied by the letter that covered it and that letter, as it is found among the _Fort Smith Papers_ in the United States Indian Office, bears a record to the effect that the copy of it was transmitted by the southern superintendent to Washington, November 28, 1855.

FORT TOWSON Nov. 16, 1855

SIR: I have the pleasure to forward a copy of letter, addressed to the Rev{d} S. B. Treat, Corresponding Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, by C. Kingsbury and others--Missionaries among the Choctaws--and request the same may be transmitted to the Hon Comr of Indian Affairs for the information of the Government of the United States.

The letter as you will perceive refers to an exciting and highly important subject--in which the States adjoining the Indian Territory are deeply & directly interested, as well as the Choctaw People.

I cannot refrain from the expression of my gratification at the position assured in this letter by the old and valued Missionaries among the Choctaws. The copy was handed to me by Rev{d} Cyrus Kingsbury, one of the signers to the original letter. Respectfully

DOUGLAS H. COOPER, U. S. Agent for Choctaws

Hon. C. M. Dean, Supt. Indian Affairs, Ft Smith.

[_Inclosure_]--_Copy_

PINE RIDGE, CHOC. NA. Nov. 15, 1855.

REV. S. B. TREAT, Cor. Secretary of the A.B.C.F.M.

Rev. & Dear Brother, When the Rev. G. W. Wood visited us as a deputation from the Prudential Committee, he treated us, our views, and _our practice_ so kindly, and spoke to us so many encouraging words, that we were constrained to meet him in a similar spirit of concilliation. We were willing to re-examine the difference in views on the subject of slavery, which for a long time had existed between the Committee and ourselves, and to see if there was not common ground on which we could stand together.

At the opening of the meeting at Good Water, Mr. Wood laid aside the letter of June 22nd '/48. This was a subject we were not to discuss. He then introduced, by way of compromise, as we understood it, certain articles to show that there were principles, or modes of expression, in relation to slavery, in which there was substantial agreement. To these articles, though not expressed in every particular as we could have wished, (and after some of them had been modified by oral explanations,) we gave our assent, for the sake of peace. We hoped it would put an end to agitation on a subject which had so long troubled us, and hindered us in our work. We took it for granted that the Committee had yielded certain important points, insisted on in the letter of June 22nd '/48. This gladdened our hearts, and disposed us to meet Mr. Wood's proposal in a spirit of concilliation and confidence. We are not skilled in diplomacy, and had no thought that we were assenting to articles which would be considered as covering the whole ground of the letter of June 22nd. The first intimation that we had been mistaken, was from a statement made by Mr. Wood, in New York, that the result of the meeting at Good Water "_involved no change of views or action_ on the part of the Prudential Committee and Secretaries."

In Mr. Wood's report to the Pru. Com. which was read at Utica, the Good Water document was placed in such a relation on to other statements, as to make the impression that we had given our full and willing assent to the entire letter of June 22d. The Com. on that Report, of which Dr. Beman was chairman, say, "The great end aimed at by the Pru. Com. in their correspondence with these missions for several years; and by the Board at their last annual meeting; has been substantially accomplished."

This is a result we had not anticipated. We can not consent to be thus made to sanction principles and sentiments which are contrary to our known, deliberate, and settled convictions of right, and to what we understand to be the teachings of the word of God. We are fully convinced that we can not go with the Committee and the Board, as to the manner in which as Ministers of the Gospel and Missionaries we are to deal with slavery. We believe the instructions of the Apostles, in relation to this subject, are a sufficient guide, and that if followed the best interests of society, as well as of the Church, will be secured.

We have no wish to give the Com. or the Board farther trouble on this subject. As there is no prospect that our views can be brought to harmonize, we must request that our relations to the A.B.C.F.M. may be dissolved in a way that will do the least harm to the Board, and to our Mission.

We have endeavored to seek Divine guidance in this difficult matter, and we desire to do that which shall be most for the glory of our Divine Master, and the best interests of his cause among this people. We regret the course we feel compelled to take, but we can see no other relief from our present embarassment. Fraternally and truly yours,

(Signed) C. KINGSBURY C. C. COPELAND C. BYINGTON O. P. STARK E. HOTCHKIN

[51] That the Buchanan administration did endorse pro-slavery policy and actions requires no proof today. The findings of the Covode committee of investigation, 1860, are in themselves sufficient evidence, were other evidence lacking, of the intensely partisan and corrupt character of the Democratic régime just prior to the Civil War. Of the officials, having Indian concerns in charge, the Secretary of the Interior and the Commissioner of Indian Affairs are, for present purposes, alone important. Buchanan's Secretary of the Interior was Jacob Thompson, who had formerly been a representative in Congress from Mississippi and had thrown all the weight of his influence in favor of the Lecompton constitution for Kansas [Rhodes, J. F. _History of the United States_, vol. ii, 277]. After his retirement from Buchanan's cabinet, Thompson served as commissioner from Mississippi, working in North Carolina for the accomplishment of secession [Moore's _Rebellion Record_, vol. i, 5]. A. B. Greenwood of Arkansas was Commissioner of Indian Affairs in Buchanan's time. He also had been in Congress and, while there, had served on the House Committee of Investigation into Brooks's attack upon Sumner. He formed with Howell Cobb of Georgia the minority element [Von Holst, vol. v, 324].

[52] Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1860, p. 129.

[53] Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1859, p. 172.

[54] Greenwood to Rector, March 14, 1860 [Indian Office, _Letter Book_, no. 63, p. 128]; Greenwood to Cowart, March 14, 1860 [_ibid._, 125].

[55] Commissioner of Indian Affairs, _Report_, 1860. See also additional documents in Appendix B.

[56] The following extract from the _Fort Smith Times_ of February 3, 1859 makes particular mention of the Reverend Evan Jones: