Part 29

Having learned on the 15th of Feb{y} last from rumor the person appointed as Com{r} had been sent by Gov. Rector of the State of Arkansas to the Indian tribes upon our frontier for co-operation in secession movements, and the same being in violation of treaty stipulations and the laws enacted by Congress regulating trade and Intercourse, I addressed a letter of inquiry to John Ross principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in relation to the same, which letter accompanies this with his reply--The letter to me I think was intended to be confidential from its language and from my conversation with the messenger who was the bearer of it to me, of this however I cannot positively judge and have thought best to forward the same. John Ross was unable to give me an imediate answer as he was not personally advised of the subject matter. But upon the return of Mr W. P. Ross who was a delegate from the Cherokees to a General Council being held of the tribes West of Arkansas in relation to their own international policy, he became advised of the matter of inquiry and for the purpose of furnishing the required information sent Mr W. P. Ross the bearer of this letter to Van Buren that he might fully communicate with me in the matter. I learn from him that one Dr J. J. Gains late editor of a secession sheet at Little Rock, did attend the said Council held by the Indian tribes west of Ark{s} in the Choctaw Nation, and that said Gains announced to the Council his mission to be that of a Com{r} from Arkansas accredited by the Gov{r} to consult with them in relation to co-operation with the seceding States--That he submitted a written Statement to them in reference to their interests and future relations in the event of a dissolution of the Union--but that he was guarded in his propositions--You will learn from M{r} John Ross' letter that he informs me officially that the present (agent) of the Cherokees "is officiously advocating the secession policy of the southern States and that his endeavoring to influence the Cherokees to take sides and act in Concert with the Seceding States."--I can state from my own information that when said Agent is in Ark{s} he is invariably to be found upon the stump "open-mouthed and--" for disunion, to the great anoyance of the good people of the Country. These people should be heard and their grievances redressed and the causes removed, and some man of correct constitutional morals appointed in his stead. We have hosts of such men in this State, and as the Incoming Administration are not advised of persons in this country, allow me to suggest that on application to the Hon. A. B. Greenwood now of Washington the selection of a suitable person could be named. I have no doubt, that would be satisfactory--pardon this apparent officiousness--At this time my great anxiety for the preservation of the Union must be my apology for what I have said.

I also enclose you a copy of a permit furnished me by M{r} Ross issued by said agent.--Indian Office, General Files, _Cherokee, 1859-1865_, O32.

_Inclosures_

1. John Ogden to John Ross, February 15, 1861.

2. John Ross to John B. Ogden, February 28, 1861.

3. CHEROKEE AGENCY, near Tahlequah, C. N.

Isaac G. Freeman, a citizen of what was formerly the United States and a farmer by occupation has permission to remain with J. C. Cunningham near Park Hill in said Nation and labor for the said Cunningham for twelve months from this date subject to be removed by the Agent at any time for cause.

R. J. COWART, U. S. Cherokee Agent.

[Endorsement] A true copy from the original as taken by me March 1st 1861

WILL P. ROSS

4. Newspaper clippings, one containing the Choctaw resolutions of February 7, 1861, and the other this:

Dr. J. J. Gains, (an old editor) dropped in upon us, last week, on his way to Little Rock, from the Indian country. His mission was one of peace, and not to "_incite rebellion_" as was telegraphed to Washington City, by some officious person. We were glad to learn from him, that our border friends are all right.

[180] General Files, _Cherokee, 1859-1865_, C515; _Official Records_, first ser., vol. xiii, 491-492.

[181] Stephens says they were almost equally divided on the question of secession [_Constitutional View of the Late War between the States_, vol. ii, 363].

[182] On April 20, 1861.

[183] Stephens, _op. cit._, vol. ii, 375; _Official Records_, first ser., vol. i, 674, 687.

[184] _Official Records_, first ser., vol. i, 686.

[185] _Journal_, Arkansas Convention, 369.

[186] The importance of such an alliance seems never to have been lost sight of. In his message of May 6, 1861, Governor Rector called attention to the fact that Arkansas was the most exposed state in the Union, because of the Indians on the west [_Journal_, 153]. In various ways, he emphasized the strategical value of Indian Territory [_ibid._, 156].

[187] _Journal_, Arkansas Convention, 183.

[188] See page 183.

[189] _Journal_, Arkansas Convention, 189.

[190] --_Ibid._, 295.

[191] N. Bart Pearce had just been created by the convention "brigadier-general of Arkansas, to command the Western frontier."

[192] On the thirteenth of May, the Confederate War Department had assigned Ben McCulloch to the command of the district embracing Indian Territory.

[193] _Journal_, Arkansas Convention, 369.

[194] _Official Records_, first ser., vol. i, 691.

[195] These resolutions are found in the _Official Record_, first ser., vol. iii, 585-587 and are as follows:

_Resolutions of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Chickasaw Legislature assembled_, May 25, 1861: Whereas the Government of the United States has been broken up by the secession of a large number of States composing the Federal Union--that the dissolution has been followed by war between the parties; and whereas the destruction of the Union as it existed by the Federal Constitution is irreparable, and consequently the Government of the United States as it was when the Chickasaw and other Indian nations formed alliances and treaties with it no longer exists; and whereas the Lincoln Government, pretending to represent said Union, has shown by its course towards us, in withdrawing from our country the protection of the Federal troops, and withholding, unjustly and unlawfully, our money placed in the hands of the Government of the United States as trustee, to be applied for our benefit, a total disregard of treaty obligations toward us; and whereas our geographical position, our social and domestic institutions, our feelings and sympathies, all attach us to our Southern friends, against whom is about to be waged a war of subjugation or extermination, of conquest and confiscation--a war which, if we can judge from the declarations of the political partisans of the Lincoln Government, will surpass the French Revolution in scenes of blood and that of San Domingo in atrocious horrors; and whereas it is impossible that the Chickasaws, deprived of their money and destitute of all means of separate self-protection, can maintain neutrality or escape the storm which is about to burst upon the South, but, on the contrary, would be suspected, oppressed, and plundered alternately by armed bands from the North, South, East, and West; and whereas we have an abiding confidence that all our rights--tribal and individual--secured to as under treaties with the United States, will be fully recognized, guaranteed, and protected by our friends of the Confederate States; and whereas as a Southern people we consider their cause our own: Therefore,

_Be it resolved by the Chickasaw Legislature assembled_, 1st. That the dissolution of the Federal Union, under which the Government of the United States existed, has absolved the Chickasaws from allegiance to any foreign government whatever; that the current of the events of the last few months has left the Chickasaw Nation _independent_, the people thereof free to form such alliances, and take such steps to secure their own safety, happiness, and future welfare as may to them seem best.

2d. _Resolved_, That our neighboring Indian nations--Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks, Seminoles, Osages, Senecas, Quapaws, Comanches, Kiowas, together with the fragmentary bands of Delawares, Kickapoos, Caddoes, Wichitas, and others within the Choctaw and Chickasaw country who are similarly situated with ourselves, be invited to co-operate, in order to secure the independence of the Indian nations and the defense of the territory they inhabit from Northern invasion by the Lincoln hordes and Kansas robbers, who have plundered and oppressed our red brethren among them, and who doubtless would extend towards us the protection which the wolf gives to the lamb should they succeed in overrunning our country; that the Chickasaws pledge themselves to resist by all means and to the death any such invasion of the lands occupied by themselves or by any of the Indian nations; and that their country shall not be occupied or passed through by the Lincoln forces for the purpose of invading our neighbors, the States of Arkansas and Texas, but, on the contrary, any attempt to do so will be regarded as an act of war against ourselves, and should be resisted by all the Indian nations as insulting to themselves and tending to endanger their Territorial rights.

3d. _Resolved_, That it is expedient, at the very earliest day possible, that commissioners from other Indian nations for the purpose of forming a league or confederation among them for mutual safety and protection, and also to the Confederate States in order to enter into such alliance and to conclude such treaties as may be necessary to secure the rights, interest, and welfare of the Indian tribes, and that the co-operation of all the Indian nations west of the State of Arkansas and south of Kansas be invited for the attainment of these objects.

4th. _Resolved_, That the Chickasaws look with confidence especially to the Choctaws (whose interests are an closely interwoven with their own, and who were the first through their national council to declare their sympathy for, and their determination, in case of a permanent dissolution of the Federal Union, to adhere to the Southern States), and hope they will speedily unite with us in such measures as may be necessary for the defense of our common country and a union with our natural allies, the Confederate States of America.

5th. _Resolved_, That while the Chickasaw people entertain the most sincere friendship for the people of the neighboring States of Texas and Arkansas, and are deeply grateful for the prompt offer from them of assistance in all measures of defense necessary for the protection of our country against hostile invasion, we are desirous to hold undisputed possession of our lands and all forts and other places lately occupied by the Federal troops and other officers and persons acting under the authority of the United States, and that the governor of the Chickasaw Nation be, and he is hereby, instructed to take immediate steps to obtain possession of all such forts and places within the Choctaw and Chickasaw country, and have the same garrisoned, if possible, by Chickasaw troops, or else by troops acting expressly under and by virtue of the authority of the Chickasaw or Choctaw nations, until such time as said forts, Indian agencies, etc., may be transferred by treaty to the Confederate States.

6th. _Resolved_, That the governor of the Chickasaw Nation be, and he is hereby, instructed to issue his proclamation to the Chickasaw Nation, declaring their _independence_, and calling upon the Chickasaw warriors to form themselves into volunteer companies of such strength and with such officers (to be chosen by themselves) as the governor may prescribe, to report themselves by filing their company rolls at the Chickasaw Agency, and to hold themselves, with the best arms and ammunition, together with a reasonable supply of provisions, in readiness at a minute's warning to turn out, under the orders of the commanding general of the Chickasaws, for the defense of their country or to aid the civil authorities in the enforcement of the laws.

7th. _Resolved_, That we have full faith and confidence in the justice of the cause in which we are embarked, and that we appeal to the Chickasaw people to be prepared to meet the conflict which will surely, and perhaps speedily, take place, and hereby call upon every man capable of bearing arms to be ready to defend his home and family, his country and his property, and to render prompt obedience to all orders from the officers set over them.

9th [8th]. _Resolved_, That the governor cause these resolutions to be published in the National Register, at the Boggy Depot, and copies thereof sent to the several Indian nations, to the governors of the adjacent States, to the President of the Confederate States, and to Abraham Lincoln, President of the Black Republican Party.

Passed the House of Representatives May 25, 1865.

A. ALEXANAN, Speaker House Representatives.

Attest: C. CARTER, Clerk House Representatives

Passed the Senate.

JOHN E. ANDERSON, President of Senate.

Attest: JAMES N. MCLISH, Clerk of Senate.

Approved, Tishomingo, May 25, 1861.

C. HARRIS, Governor.

[196] See _footnote_ 175.

[197] General Files, _Cherokee, 1859-1865_, C515; _Official Records_, first ser., vol. xiii, 492.

[198] General Files, _ibid._; _Official Records_, first ser., vol. xiii, 492-493.

[199] The text of this is to be found in various places. The most convenient of such places are, _Official Records_, first ser., vol. xiii, 489-490 and Moore's _Rebellion Record_, vol. ii, 145-146. A manuscript copy of the proclamation may be found in General Files, _Cherokee, 1859-1865_, C515; and a synopsis of its contents in Moore's _Rebellion Record_, vol. ii, 1-2.

[200] Ross gave the citizens of Boonsboro their direct answer, May 18, 1861 [General Files, _Cherokee, 1859-1865_, C515; _Official Records_, first ser., vol. xiii, 494-495].

[201] The official list of members of the Confederate congresses can be found in _Official Records_, fourth ser., vol. iii, 1185-1191.

[202] Provisional Congress of the Confederate States, _Journal_, vol. i, 70.

[203] --_Ibid._, 81.

[204] Under the second section of the law of February 21, 1861, Indian affairs had been left for general supervision to the War Department [_Provisional and Permanent Constitutions of the Confederate States and Acts and Resolutions of the First Session of the Provisional Congress_, 48]. The Bureau of Indian Affairs, created by the law of March 15, 1861, was made a bureau of the War Department.

[205] Provisional Congress _Journal_, vol. i, 142; Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Confederacy_.

[206] _Provisional and Permanent Constitutions_, 133-134.

[207] Provisional Congress _Journal_, vol. i, 154.

[208] Hubbard had occupied other and earlier positions of importance; but it must certainly have been upon the basis of the experience gained in filling this one that his nomination for commissioner of Indian affairs was made. Hubbard had been a state senator, a representative in the twenty-sixth and in the thirty-first United States congresses, and presidential elector on the Democratic ticket in 1844 and on the Breckinridge and Lane ticket in 1860 [_Biographical Congressional Directory_, _1774-1903_, 608].

[209]

The Bureau of Indian Affairs ... has been organized.... So far this Bureau has found but little to do. The necessity for the extension of the military arm of the Government toward the frontier, and the attitude of Arkansas, without the Confederacy, have contributed to circumscribe its action. But this branch of the public service doubtless will now grow in importance in consequence of the early probable accession of Arkansas to the Confederacy; of the friendly sentiments of the Creeks, Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, and other tribes west of Arkansas toward this Government; of our difficulties with the tribes on the Texas frontier; of our hostilities with the United States, and of our probable future relations with the Territories of Arizona and New Mexico.--Extract from the Report of Secretary Walker to President Davis, April 27, 1861 [_Official Records_, fourth ser., vol. i, 248].

[210] Davis would have preferred to have had Toombs for secretary of the treasury [Rhodes, _History of the United States_, vol. iii, 295, _note_ 7].

[211] _Journal_, vol. i, 105.

[212] Both Pike and Toombs reached in time the thirty-second degree, or Scottish Rite. Note Pike's glowing tribute to Toombs, quoted in Richardson, _Messages and Papers of the Confederacy_, vol. ii, 142.

[213] _Journal_, vol. i, 205.

[214] --_Ibid._, 225.

[215] Just what particular sets of resolutions those were I have no means of knowing. The most important set of Chickasaw resolutions, those issued under date of May 25, 1861 [_Official Records_, first ser., vol. iii, 585-587] had not yet been passed. The Choctaw resolutions presented may have been and very probably were those of February 7, 1861 [_ibid._].

[216] On the twenty-first of May, President Davis approved "An Act for the protection of the Indian Tribes" [_Journal_, 263], it having gone through its various stages of amendment and having passed Congress, May seventeenth [_ibid._, 244]. Adjutant-general G. W. Andrews reports, November 4, 1912, that nothing additional concerning the text of this law is to be found in the Confederate archives.

[217] _Journal_, vol. i, 244.

[218] Governor Clark of Texas, also, at this time displayed great interest in the matter. On the fifteenth of May, he wrote to President Davis that he was constituting James E. Harrison, a man thoroughly conversant with the whole subject, "the duly accredited agent of Texas to convey" the Report of April 23, 1861 to Richmond [_Official Records_, fourth ser., vol. i, 322].

[219] See letter from Pearce to President Davis, May 13, 1861 [_ibid._, first ser., vol. iii, 576].

[220] _Official Records_, fourth ser., vol. i, 572-574.

[221] Pike was appointed under authority of a resolution passed by Congress, March 5, 1861. See Message of President Davis, December 12, 1861 [_ibid._, fourth ser., vol. i, 785].

[222] To-day he is, perhaps, best known by his parody on "Dixie" and by his singularly beautiful and pathetic "Every Year" [_Poems_, Roome's edition, 31-34].

[223] See _Journal of Proceedings_, no. 273 of Johns Hopkins University Civil War Pamphlets.

[224] Bishop, _Loyalty on the Frontier_, 148-151.

[225] The poem is printed entire in Bishop's _Loyalty on the Frontier_, 149-150. The first two stanzas are here given:

DISUNION

Ay, shout! 'Tis the day of your pride, Ye despots and tyrants of earth; Tell your serfs the American name to deride, And to rattle their fetters in mirth. Ay, shout! for the league of the free Is about to be shivered to dust, And the rent limbs to fall from the vigorous tree, Shout! shout! for more firmly established, will be Your thrones and dominions beyond the blue sea.

Laugh on! for such folly supreme, The world has yet never beheld; And ages to come will the history deem, A tale by antiquity swelled; For nothing that time has upbuilt And set in the annals of crime, So stupid and senseless, so wretched in guilt, Darkens sober tradition or rhyme. _It will be like the fable of Eblis' fall, A by-word of mockery and horror to all._

[226] _Official Records_, first ser., vol. iii, 580-581.

[227] In a letter to Commissioner D. N. Cooley, under date of February 17, 1866, Pike said that Toombs requested him in May of 1861 to visit the Indian country as commissioner. I have not been able to find out whether Toombs made his request in writing or verbally. The correspondence of Toombs recently edited by U. B. Phillips does not furnish any additional information on this point.

[228] On one very important occasion, Albert Pike was not strictly fair to the Indians. That occasion was after the war when the United States Indian Office was endeavoring to make a settlement with the Cherokees on the basis of their adherence to the Confederate cause. Pike was appealed to and threw the weight of his influence against John Ross, but most unjustly as it would seem. The letter embodying his views is a narrative of the events of 1861 as they happened in the Indian country under his scrutiny, and may as well be inserted here in full. It is to be found in the Indian Office in a bundle labeled, "Loyalty of John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokees: Letter of Albert Pike (original), Feb. 17, 1866--and _Copies_ of several of Ross' letter--relative to his _loyalty_ in 1861 & 1862, etc."

5. _Albert Pike to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs_

MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, 17th February 1866.

SIR: I have received, to-day, a copy of the "Memorial" of the "Southern Cherokees," to the President, Senate and House of Representatives, in reply to the Memorial of other Cherokees claiming to be "loyal."

It is not for me to take any part in the controversy between the two portions of the Cherokee People, nor have I any interest that could lead me to side with one in preference to the other. Nor am I much inclined, having none of the rights of a Citizen, to offer to testify in any matter, when my testimony may not be deemed worthy of credit, as that of one not yet restored to respectability and creditability by a pardon.

But, as I know it to be contemptible as well as false, for Mr. John Ross and the "loyal" Memorialists to pretend that they did not voluntarily engage themselves by Treaty Stipulations to the Confederate States, and as you have desired my testimony, I have this to say, and I think no man will be bold enough to deny any part of it.

In May, 1861, I was requested by Mr. Toombs, Secretary of State of the Confederate States, to visit the Indian Country as Commissioner, and assure the Indians of the friendship of those States. The Convention of the State of Arkansas, anxious to avoid hostilities with the Cherokees, also applied to me to act as such Commissioner. I accordingly proceeded to Fort Smith, where some five or six Cherokees called upon General McCulloch and myself, representing those of the Cherokees who sympathized with the South, in order to ascertain whether the Confederate States would protect them against Mr. Ross and the Pin Indians, if they should organize and take up arms for the South. We learned that some attempts to raise a Secession flag in the Cherokee Country on the Arkansas had been frustrated by the menace of violence; and those who came to meet us represented the Pin Organization to be a Secret Society, established by Evan Jones, a Missionary, and at the service of Mr. John Ross, for the purpose of abolitionizing the Cherokees and putting out of the way all who sympathized with the Southern States.