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chapter 8indian removals

Key ThemesConflict and CooperationU.S. government agents use military force to remove the Southeastern Indians to Oklahoma and to make Oklahoma Indians accept the newcomers.

Democracy and Civil RightsThe United States and the Southeastern Indians sign treaties about the terms of the removal.

ObjecTives• Discuss the problems that

Oklahoma’s original peoples faced when emigrants arrived or were moved into Indian Territory

• Describe the internal conflicts within the Five Tribes

• Trace the voluntary and forced removals of the Five Tribes and the routes they took

vOcabulary• assimilated

• removal

• emigrant

• improvements

• subsistence

• lighthorse

• allotments

• annuity

• dragoons

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OverviewEven though the Southeastern Indians generally accept the “civilization” program, both state and national governments insist that they move to Oklahoma, by force if necessary. Indians already living in Oklahoma object to the intrusion, but officials ignore their complaints, setting the stage for conflict.

President Thomas Jefferson, as we have seen, believed that American Indians should be “civilized” and

then assimilated (absorbed) into white society. Yet he also knew that some Indian people would not or could not change their traditional lifestyles. In those cases—far more than he had expected—Jefferson believed that the group should move to a distant, protected region until they were ready to adopt new customs and habits. The place the president had in mind for this removal (resettlement) was Louisiana. In fact, that was one reason why he wanted the United States to buy it in 1803.

While he was president, Jefferson encouraged traditional Indians to move to Louisiana. At his urging, several hundred Delawares and Shawnees moved from Ohio to northeastern Arkansas and from there to Oklahoma. They established villages along the Canadian River near Allen in present-day Pontotoc County. As many as 1,000 Choctaws crossed the Mississippi River to settle in the Red River valley and to hunt as far west as Oklahoma. Chief Tahlonteskee and 300 Cherokees relocated in Arkansas, joining kinsmen who had been living there for more than a decade. By 1817, an estimated 6,000 Cherokees lived west of the Mississippi River, or approximately one-third of the entire tribe.

Key People and Events

1817 Red War for the West is fought

1820s Southeastern Tribes remove voluntarily

1830 Congress passes Indian Removal Act

1830s Forced removal of Southeastern Tribes is carried out

1834 Stokes Commission negotiates boundary lines and goodwill

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The Red War for the WestIn urging eastern tribes to move west, President Jefferson did not fully appreciate that other Indian peoples had prior claim to Louisiana. Among those, of course, were the Wichitas, the Apaches, the Comanches, and the Kiowas (recent arrivals) in the western part of Oklahoma, and the Osages in the eastern part of the state. These tribes viewed the emigrant Indians as intruders at best and as deadly enemies at worst. Competition for control of the same space quickly became a full-scale war. (Emigrants move out of their home region or country.) The Osages felt the brunt of the Indian invasion more than any other western tribe did. The several thousand emigrant Indians claimed to be farmers, but they hunted for bear, deer, and other game in the Ozark Plateau of northwestern Arkansas. When Osage hunting parties encountered these intruders, they attacked, robbed, and

killed them. The Western Cherokees responded with their own attacks, but they also asked the federal government to protect their settlements. For U.S. officials, the conflict was a matter of seri-ous concern. It threatened to ruin all efforts to get east-ern Indians to move west. By treaties in 1808 and 1816 (Lovely’s Purchase), the United States was able to calm the Osages, who gave up large tracts of land for the exclusive use of the emigrants. In return, the Osages received gifts, cash, and cancellations of debts—all of which was meant to compensate for the deaths of warriors in their clashes with the emigrants. Satisfying the Western Cherokees proved more diffi-cult. They insisted that no treaty or payment would make up for the deaths of their kinsmen. Blood revenge was required. In October 1817, about 500 Cherokees, joined

Indian Removal to Oklahoma, 1803–1837: A Chronology

DATE EVENT1803 U.S. government buys Louisiana as a potential home for eastern Indians.1808 Osages cede most of Arkansas and Missouri to the United States.1816 Lovely’s Purchase, from the Osages, provides hunting grounds for the Cherokees.1818 Osages formally cede Lovely’s Purchase to the United States. Quapaws cede all of southern Oklahoma below the Arkansas and Canadian rivers to the United States.1820 Treaty of Doak’s Stand: the Choctaws cede part of Mississippi to the United States and get part of southwestern Arkansas and all of southern Oklahoma below the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers.1825 Osages cede claims to all of Oklahoma above the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers. Choctaws cede back the southwestern quarter of modern Arkansas.1826 Treaty of Washington: Creeks cede Georgia lands in exchange for territory in central Oklahoma.1828 Western Cherokees cede their Arkansas domain for land in northeastern Oklahoma, including the Outlet to the Plains.1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek: Choctaws cede all of their remaining Mississippi lands and remove to Oklahoma.1832 Treaty of Pontotoc: Chickasaws cede all of their remaining Mississippi lands and remove to Oklahoma. Treaty of Washington, D.C.: Creeks cede all of their remaining Alabama lands and remove to Oklahoma. Treaty of Payne’s Landing: Seminoles cede Florida lands for home in Indian Territory.1833 Treaty of Fort Gibson: Seminoles agree to make their home with the Creeks.1835 Treaty of New Echota: Cherokees cede their eastern homeland and remove to the West. Treaty of Camp Holmes: Wichitas, Comanches, and Apaches agree to peace with the emigrant tribes.1837 Kiowas agree to peace with the emigrant tribes. Treaty of Doaksville: Chickasaws agree to make their home with the Choctaws.

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by Choctaws and Chickasaws, marched on Clermont’s village near present Claremore. There they found that the Osage warriors were away on their fall hunt. The Cherokees attacked the settlement anyway, killing 83 Osages and taking 103 women and children as captives. Before leaving, the raiders stole what they could carry, destroyed food supplies, and set fire to the village. The Cherokees had taken their revenge. Although not entirely unhappy about the massacre at Clermont’s village, the United States knew that Osage retaliations could be swift and broad and would further impede eastern Indian emigration. To pre-vent more bloodshed, the secretary of war ordered the U.S. Army to move quickly ahead with its plans to construct a fort on the Arkansas River near the Osage boundary. By December 1817, Major William Bradford had begun building Fort Smith. The presence of Fort Smith did not end the Osage-Cherokee conflict. Despite another treaty in 1818 and promises of peace, the conflict continued, with attacks involving both sides. To watch Clermont’s people more closely, the U.S. Army built Fort Gibson on the Grand River in 1824 and assigned five com-panies commanded by Major Matthew Arbuckle to it. The display of force impressed the Osages. Bowing to the inevitable, in the next year they ceded their claim to all land in Oklahoma and agreed to remove their villages to Kansas. Although Clermont’s people lingered in the state for 14 more years, the worst of the Red War for the West was over.

anglo-american infiltrationConflict between resident and emi-grant tribes was not the only barrier to the Indian removal program. Anglo-American infiltration into the resettle-ment zone was also a major problem. The Western Cherokees, much to their dismay, were incorporated into another

U.S. territory in 1819. This time it was Arkansas. Choctaws and other potential emigrants found that white squatters, robbers, murderers, and moonshiners already controlled much of the Red River valley. Not until 1824, when the U.S. Army built and occupied Fort Towson in present Choctaw County, were these outlaws forced from the region. Not all white infiltrators were riffraff. Some came to offer Euro-American forms of education and religion to

Arranged in a rectangle, Fort Gibson was constructed of wood in 1824. It was one of two forts the U.S. Army built in the Arkansas River Valley to protect traders and control warring Indian tribes. In 1846, the fort was moved to higher ground. Over the next decade its buildings, including the barracks shown here, were reconstructed with stone blocks.

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the tribes. In 1820, the United Foreign Mission Society of New York sent Epaphras Chapman and 17 co-workers to start a Protestant mission among the Osages. Union Mission, as it was known, was built near Mazie in Mayes County. Its school was the first in Oklahoma. The society later founded a second mission, Hopefield, a few miles farther north. Both were abandoned in 1837. At the same time, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) founded Dwight Mission among the Western Cherokees in Arkansas. Under the direction of Cephas Washburn, it was so well received that the board soon opened a second church and school, Mulberry Mission. When the Western Cherokees relo-cated in 1828 to what is now Oklahoma, Washburn rebuilt Dwight Mission at a site northwest of Sallisaw in Sequoyah County. Mulberry Mission was renamed Fairfield Mission and rebuilt just southwest of present Stilwell in Adair County.

Removal by enticementWhile the U.S. Army struggled in Oklahoma to eliminate barriers to the removal program, other government offi-

cials tried to implement it. Like President Thomas Jefferson’s successor James Monroe, most believed that “civilizing” the Indians could not be done in their homelands. Yet few offi-cials wanted to forcefully eject the tribes from their ancestral homes. That would be, said Monroe, “revolting to human-ity and utterly unjustifiable.” Rather, they hoped to entice Native Americans to move to the West voluntarily.

But how could they persuade the Indians to move? Monroe and his associates began by offering an exchange of land. Under this plan, eastern tribes would give up a portion of their domain in return for a larger estate in the West. By and by, the U.S. officials believed, the traditional tribespeople would naturally migrate to those lands,

which were beyond the influence of white authority. Their progressive kinsmen would then be free to open their ancestral domain to Anglo-American settlement and to assimilate into “civilized” society.

CherokeesRemoval by enticement was first tried on the Cherokees. The several thousand Cherokees who had migrated to Arkansas at the encouragement of the United States lived on lands to which they had no legal claim. Government officials assigned a clear title to them in 1817, but the Western Cherokees never had undisturbed possession of the land. After their land was included in the Territory of Arkansas two years later, daily disputes with land-hungry white settlers occurred. A new centralized government led by Principal Chief John Jolly, the brother of Tahlonteskee, enabled the Western Cherokees to defend themselves effectively in these controversies. But it was a frustrating struggle, and not one that encouraged Eastern Cherokees to move to the West. U.S. officials tried to address the problem in 1828. That year the Western Cherokees exchanged their Arkansas lands for territory that now encompasses 13 counties in

Established in 1824, Fort Towson was part of a network of forts protecting the United States from Mexican forces in Texas. It was also an important destination for Choctaws moving from Mississippi to southeastern Oklahoma. The Sutler’s house, dating from about 1834, was a store where both soldiers and Choctaws could buy food and dry goods, among other things.

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northeastern Oklahoma. In addition, they received a per-manent outlet, 57 miles wide, that extended to the modern western border of Oklahoma, giving access to the buf-falo herds on the Southern Plains. This new domain was to belong to the Cherokees “forever” and was never to be “placed . . . [under] the jurisdiction of a Territory or State.” The Treaty of 1828 provided other benefits. The United States promised to remove all white persons from the new Cherokee Nation, to compensate the Western Cherokees for their Arkansas improvements (buildings, roads, and other additions to land that increase its value), and to pay for the inconvenience of moving. The government also agreed to buy the nation a printing press with Sequoyahan type and to grant the Western Cherokees money for 10 years to support tribal schools. Finally, the treaty pro-vided that, for any Eastern Cherokees who wished to migrate west, the United States would pay the cost of removal and subsistence (basic food and clothing needs) for one year. Most of the 3,000 or so Western Cherokees moved to northeastern Oklahoma within a year. They made homes along the Illinois River and established their capital at Tahlonteskee, just east of present Gore. Sam Houston joined them there and for a while lived with a Cherokee woman before he moved on to Texas. Sequoyah also

came, to share with them the good news of his “talking leaves.” Other Eastern Cherokees came for visits or short stays, but only a few were enticed to move to Oklahoma permanently.

ChoctawsIn the meantime, federal officials were trying to induce the Choctaws to exchange a part of their eastern domain for a tract in the West. In 1820 the officials finally suc-ceeded. Tribal leaders at the Treaty of Doak’s Stand agreed to exchange 5 million acres of their Mississippi lands for 13 million acres in what is now the southern half of Oklahoma and the southwestern corner of Arkansas. Besides educational benefits and funds to support the lighthorse (a mounted police force), the treaty provided for a resident agent in the West and promised assistance to Choctaws who emigrated to the new domain. The treaty outraged the citizens of Arkansas. The part of their state assigned to the Choctaws was already heav-ily settled by whites and was even organized into coun-ties. Intense political pressure caused federal officials to renegotiate the eastern boundary of the Choctaws’ domain in 1825, setting it at a line due south from the Arkansas River, beginning at a point 100 paces east of Fort Smith. The next year, the federal government appointed an

agent for the Choctaw Nation West. He constructed buildings for his agency about 15 miles southwest of Fort Smith at what was later known as Skullyville, in LeFlore County. He and other officials encouraged scat-tered Choctaw bands living in Louisiana and Arkansas to reassemble in the new tribal domain. By 1829, only about 150 Indians had accepted the invitation.

CreeksRemoval officials had more suc-cess with the Creeks. At first, the Creek leaders rejected all pro-posals that they exchange east-ern for western lands. In fact, in 1824 the National Council of the Creek confederation

Upon settling in Oklahoma in 1828, the Western Cherokee established their capital at Tahlonteskee just east of Gore. The reconstructed courthouse and living quarters (pictured here) are near the site of the original structures. A reminder of the governmental sophistication of the Western Cherokees, the building reflects the architectural style of the 1820s and 1830s.

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adopted a law imposing the death penalty on any person who signed away tribal lands without council approval. But pressure to do so was intense, especially in Georgia. In response, William McIntosh, a chief of the Lower Creek towns, convened a tribal council at Indian Springs in 1825. There U.S. commissioners proposed again that the Creeks exchange their Georgia homelands for land in Oklahoma. The chiefs of the Upper Creek towns, led by Opothleyaholo, rejected the proposal. But McIntosh and other “progressive” chiefs of the Lower Towns signed the treaty. They argued that the salvation of the tribe depended on its moving west. The “traditionalists” were deeply offended, and the law was clear. On April 29, 1825, about 100 warriors surrounded McIntosh’s home and set it on fire. When heat and flames forced the chief to the door, they shot and killed him. When President John Quincy Adams learned of McIntosh’s execution, he refused to proclaim the contro-versial treaty. Instead, in 1826 he called a Creek delega-tion to Washington to renegotiate the matter. This time the National Council authorized its delegation, led by

Opothleyaholo, to cede the Georgia lands if necessary. Perhaps a land exchange would avert a civil war between the supporters of McIntosh and those who had opposed him. At least it would encourage the McIntosh group to remove, which would leave the rest of the tribe in peace. So the delegates agreed to exchange all Creek lands in Georgia for land in Oklahoma between the Arkansas and Canadian rivers. The federal government would pay the expenses of those who moved west. They also would receive an additional $100,000 in compensation, and a full-service agency would assist them when they arrived. Because of the tension among the Creeks, removal to the West happened quickly. Within two years, almost 2,400 emigrants, mostly from the Lower Towns, settled near present Tullahassee in Wagoner County. The gov-ernment bought A. P. Chouteau’s trading post on the Verdigris River to house the agency. But the goods that the treaty had promised to the Indians were not delivered for two years, causing unnecessary hardship among the emigrant party.

CHOCTAW CREEK

CHEROKEE

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CreekAgency

Trails of Tears1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

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Removal by forceBy 1830, the government’s program of removal by enticement had attracted no more than 6,000 members of the Five Tribes to Oklahoma. That response was neither what federal officials had expected nor what white set-tlers in the southern states had demanded. A new presi-dent, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, resolved to address the problem. In 1830, he had Congress pass legislation known as the Indian Removal Act. It provided for the relo-cation of eastern tribes to the West. It made no difference to President Jackson that the Cherokees, the Choctaws, and others of the Five Tribes were rapidly adopting the lifestyles and institutions of the whites. Assimilation of the Indians was no longer the goal. Taking their ancestral land was.

Choctaw RemovalPresident Jackson first applied the Indian Removal Act to the Choctaws. Under the leadership of David Folsom and other progressives, the Choctaws had adopted Euro-American lifestyles, opened schools, centralized their government, and supported Christianity. But Mississippi authorities saw all of that as a threat to their power. They declared that tribal government was abolished and that the tribespeople were subject to the laws of the

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Under control of Mexico until 1836Under control of Texas from 1836 to 1850 when

relinquished to the United States

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David Folsom (1791–1847), a prominent Choctaw leader, cham-pioned education and Christianity. He opposed tribal removal until pressure from federal and state governments forced him to con-sent at the treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830. After removal to Oklahoma, he focused on economic development rather than politics.

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state. Weary of Mississippi’s harassment, the Choctaw leaders met with U.S. commissioners at Dancing Rabbit Creek in 1830 to discuss removal. The result of the negotiations was predictable. The Choctaws agreed to cede all of their remaining ances-tral lands and move to the Choctaw Nation West in Oklahoma. They received no payment for giving up their land, but the government promised to give them compensation for improvements, payment for transpor-tation costs to the West, food for a year, and support for education. The United States also guaranteed that in the West the Choctaws would never be included within the limits of any state or territory and would be free to govern themselves. The main Choctaw removals to Oklahoma took place during 1831, 1832, and 1833. Directed by government agents and contractors, the Choctaws made their way to the Mississippi River by wagon, horseback, or foot. There they were put on steamboats and taken to points on the Arkansas, Ouachita, and Red rivers. Then they proceeded overland to Fort Smith or Fort Towson. Low

water and cold weather plagued the first party of emi-grants. Limited transportation, insufficient food, and cholera decimated the second group. In all, the estimated 11,000 Choctaws who removed during those three years suffered immeasurable misery, uncounted loss of lives, and ruinous destruction of property.

Chickasaw RemovalU.S. commissioners did not reach agreement with the Chickasaws on their removal until the Treaty of Pontotoc in 1832. The tribe ceded its domain to the U.S. government, which was to survey and sell the land, paying the proceeds to the tribe. The Chickasaws would remove to the West at their own expense, but only after they located a suit-able new home. Although it took five years, they found that home among the Choctaws. For a payment of $530,000, the Choctaws admitted the Chickasaws to full citizenship in their nation. They also set aside a district for the new-comers in the western portion of their domain, the title to which would be held by both tribes. Removal of the Chickasaws began almost immediately.

The Trail of Tears, as painted by Choctaw artist Doug Maytubbie, captures the sadness of people forced to leave their homeland and go to a strange land.

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THE REST OF THE STORY

A Creek Response

When we left our homes the great General Jesup told us that we could get to our country as we wanted to. We wanted to gather our crops, and we wanted to go in peace and friendship. Did we? No! We were drove off like wolves . . . lost our crops . . . and our people’s feet were bleeding with long marches. . . . We are men . . . we have women and chil-dren, and why should we come like wild horses? (Members of Kasihta town)

SOURCE: Grant Foreman, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indians (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972), 176.

A Choctaw Response

We have gone to the WestYou will say tis for the best,We shall never think it soWe shall never think it so.

Chief Peter Pichlynn

SOURCE: W. David Baird, Peter Pitchlynn: Chief of the Choctaws (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972), 48.

A Cherokee Response

We are now about to take our final leave and kind farewell to our native land[,] the country the Great Spirit gave our Fathers. . . . We are forced by the authority of the white man to quit the scenes of our child-hood, but stern necessity says we must go. . . . We know that it is a laborious undertaking, but with firm resolutions we think we will be able to accomplish it, if the white citizens will permit us. (George Hicks to Chief John Ross)

SOURCE: Gary Moulton, ed., The Papers of Chief John Ross, vol. 1 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1985), 687.

A Chickasaw Response

With the exception of the Creek nation I expect there never has been such frauds imposed on any people as the Chickasaws, but we look with confidence to the President of the United States to see that every treaty stipulation is com-plyed with. (James Colbert)

SOURCE: Foreman, Indian Removal, 202.

Two Seminole Responses

I concluded to die, if I must, like a man. (Abraham)

Give me a jug of whisky for I have lost sight of the last hummock on my land. (A chief on his way to Arkansas)

SOURCE: Virginia Bergman Peters, The Florida Wars (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1979), 137, 235.

Indian Responses to Removal

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At least two groups crossed the Mississippi River at Memphis. Because those groups traveled with a great deal of livestock (including 5,000 horses in one herd), they went overland to the Choctaw Nation. Another large party went by steamboat up the Arkansas River to Fort Coffee. By early 1838, almost all of the 4,900 Chickasaws and their 1,150 slaves had relocated in Oklahoma. They took up their new homes along the western border of the Choctaw Nation near present Boggy Depot.

Creek RemovalFederal officials had long harassed the Creeks to give up their remaining lands in Alabama. Fed up and disheart-ened, Opothleyaholo and other Creek leaders negotiated the Treaty of Washington in 1832 with U.S. commission-ers. The treaty dissolved the Creek Nation in Alabama and gave tribal members the option of either joining their kinsmen in Oklahoma or staying in Alabama. If they went

west immediately, the government would pay removal and subsistence expenses. If they stayed in Alabama, they would live under state law on specific land allotments (assignments of land up to a square mile in size). The Creeks could sell those tracts whenever they wished and move west at their own expense. By staying on the allot-ments for five years, they would receive full title to them. The treaty also granted the Creek tribe $125,000 to cover national debts and an annu-ity (yearly payment) that totaled $210,000 over a period of 20 years. The annuity was intended to pay for the education of Creek youth and for other things.

Most Creeks elected to take allotments and stay in Alabama. That turned out to be a disas-trous decision. Not understanding what it meant to own land individually, they were soon dispos-sessed of it. After four years of abuse, 84-year-old Chief Eneah Emathla led a protest rebellion that left some white settlers dead and a lot of property destroyed. To bring peace to Alabama, President Jackson sent the U.S. Army.

The so-called Creek War of 1836 lasted only a few months. The rebels quickly surrendered or joined the Seminoles in Florida. Those who gave up were placed in chains and, with their families, marched 90 miles to board steamboats bound for Oklahoma. At dockside, one man cut his throat in despair. The remaining Creeks, who

had not supported the rebels, were forced to remove to Oklahoma too. No tribe endured more than the Creeks on the trek west. Some went in chains, and all suffered from extreme heat and cold, inadequate clothing, dysentery and chol-era, food shortages, and overcrowding. When one small boat sank, 311 Creeks died. As many as 3,000 others died during the removal. Nearly 15,000 Creeks made it to Oklahoma in 1836. They were met by about 2,500 McIntosh Creeks (the Lower Creeks), who had started farms along the Arkansas River northwest of Muskogee. The newcomers, mostly Upper Creeks, settled along the Canadian River and agreed to join in the existing political and social structure.

Seminole RemovalThe same year that the Creeks and Chickasaws signed treaties of removal, so did the Seminoles. The Seminoles

Micanopy (1780s–1848) was the hereditary chief of all the Seminoles in their Florida homeland. In 1826, he and other tribesmen visited Washington, D.C., when this portrait was painted. He objected to removal of the Seminoles to Oklahoma, leading his people into armed rebellion. He was captured under a flag of truce and then deported from Florida in 1838. Ten years later he died near Fort Gibson.

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U.S. Marine Corps Lieutenant J. T. Sprague had responsibility for conducting a party of 2,287 Creeks of the Kasihta and Coweta towns to Oklahoma in the fall of 1836. The party set out from Chambers County, Alabama, on September 5. It arrived at Fort Gibson on December 10. Including 45 wagons and 500 ponies, the train covered 800 miles by land and 425 by water. Along the way, 29 people died, half of whom were small children. Sprague’s final report of his assignment is a fascinating document. Following are some excerpts from it.

The necessity of their leaving their coun-try immediately was evident to every one; although wretchedly poor they were growing more so every day they remained. A large number of whitemen were prowling about robbing them of their horses and cattle and carrying among them liquors which kept up an alarming state of intoxication. . . .

The marches for the first four or five days were long and tedious and attended with many embarrassing circumstances. Men, who had claims upon these distressed beings, now preyed upon them without mercy. Fraudulent demands were presented and unless some friend was near, they were robbed of their horses and even clothing. . . .

[O]ur marches were long, owing to the great scarcity of water; no one time, how-ever, exceeding twenty miles. The Indians in large numbers straggled behind, and many could not get to Camp til after dark. . . .

At Memphis we remained from the 9th of October until the 27th. The assembling of thirteen thousand Indians at this one point, necessarily made our movements slow. This detention was of advantage to the Indians as it gave them rest and afforded the sick and feeble an opportunity to recover. . . .

A mutual agreement was effected . . . to take the party up the Arkansas river to Little Rock. . . . The boats stopped at night for them to cook and sleep, and in the morn-ing, resumed the journey.

The sufferings of the Indians [after leav-ing Little Rock] were intense. With nothing more than a cotton garment thrown over them, their feet bare, they were compelled to encounter cold, sleeting storms and to travel over hard frozen ground. . . .

We arrived at Fort Gibson on the 10th inst. By the order of Brigadier General Arbuckle I encamped the party in the vicinity of the Fort. . . . After the Indians had received their blankets in compliance with the treaty, I proceeded with the larger portion of them to the country assigned them. Thirty five miles beyond Fort Gibson I encamped them upon a prairie and they soon after scattered in every direction, seeking a desirable location for their new homes.

Source: Grant Foreman, Indian Removal: The Emigration of the Five Civilized Tribes (Norman: University of Okla-homa Press, 1972), 166–75.

Removal as Observed by One of the Removers

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were closely related to the Creeks and probably once were a part of the Creek confederation. Living in Florida, southern Georgia, and Alabama, they were town dwellers with chiefs and councils. Usually adjacent to each town was a settlement of “black Indians” whom the Seminoles claimed as slaves but treated as equals. In 1832, thirteen years after the Seminoles came under U.S. jurisdiction, federal offi-cials persuaded them to sign the Treaty of Payne’s Landing. Its terms obligated the tribe to move to Oklahoma when a suit-able home could be found, but within three years. The federal government agreed to compensate the tribe $15,400 for the land they surrendered in Florida and to pay their removal costs, a year’s subsistence, and a $3,000 annuity for 15 years. A delegation of Seminole chiefs and other leaders went to Oklahoma the next year. The McIntosh Creeks, prodded by the Stokes Commission (see below), invited the Seminoles to live along the western border of their nation. Although the delegation agreed that the land was suitable, it apparently did not intend for the Seminoles to move there. But federal officials interpreted the marks of the del-egation members on a vague Fort Gibson document as a firm commitment to make the move. The majority of the Seminoles did not see it that way. Osceola, for example, had no intention of leaving Florida. He and his followers killed one signer of the Fort Gibson agreement and ambushed a U.S. Army patrol, killing 110 soldiers. By doing that, Osceola triggered a Seminole war that lasted until 1842. During that war, he was taken prisoner—in violation of a truce agreement—and died in chains. Wildcat and Billy Bowlegs continued the struggle, to no avail. Between 1836 and 1842, about 3,500 Florida Seminoles, both black and white, removed to Oklahoma. Under Chief Micanopy, aided by his shrewd black interpreter, Abraham, the Seminoles settled in villages near Fort Gibson. Almost a decade later, they moved to what are now western Hughes and Okfuskee counties.

Cherokee RemovalThe last of the Five Tribes to sign a removal treaty was the Cherokees. The tribe’s progressive leaders—John Ross, Major Ridge, and Charles Hicks—had hoped to avoid removal by changing the tribe to match the image of white society. Instead of impressing the Georgians, the tribe’s rapid acculturation irritated them. The state leg-islature abolished the tribal government and declared all Cherokees subject to state law. It also required all white people living among the Cherokees to hold state per-

Osceola (1804–38), a Creek Indian by birth, joined the Seminoles in Florida about 1819. In 1826, he accompanied a Seminole delegation to Washington, D.C., when this portrait was painted. Elected war chief in 1832, Osceola resisted all removal treaties, killing another Seminole leader who favored them. He agreed to peace negotiations with the United States in 1837, but he was betrayed and arrested by U.S. Army general Thomas Jessup. He died a year later in prison.

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mits. But none of this caused the Cherokees to consider removal. In 1831, Georgia arrested ABCFM missionaries Samuel A. Worcester and Elizur Butler for not having permits to teach and preach among the Cherokees. The state court quickly convicted and imprisoned them. The mission-aries appealed their case to the United States Supreme Court. The next year, Chief Justice John Marshall issued his famous Worcester v. Georgia decision, supporting both the missionaries and the Cherokees. The state, said Marshall, had no authority to apply its laws within an Indian nation protected under the treaty clause of the U.S. Constitution. Because the court’s decision put an Indian tribe beyond the reach of a state law, President Jackson refused to enforce it. The Cherokees were heartsick, but they still refused to consider removal. Ignoring the Supreme Court’s decision, the State of Georgia surveyed the Cherokee domain and then gave away the best properties by a lottery. Tribal leaders lost their homes to lucky ticket winners. The Georgia mili-

tia also marched to the offices of the tribal newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, and smashed the printing press. With those outrages, some Cherokees began to consider removal. Leaders like Major Ridge, his son John, and his neph-ews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie realized that the continued harassment by Georgia and the United States would destroy the Cherokees as a people. “We can never forget these homes,” Major Ridge told the National Council, “but an unbending, iron necessity tells us we must leave them . . . and go beyond the great Father of Waters.” On December 29, 1835, Major Ridge and 19 of his supporters signed the Treaty of New Echota. The Cherokees agreed to sell their eastern lands for $5 mil-lion. They were given joint ownership with the Western Cherokees in the tribal estate in Oklahoma, and they had to move there within two years. The treaty required the federal government to pay for removal and for subsis-tence on arrival. It also directed the purchase of a strip of

Major Ridge (1770–1839), also known as the Ridge, was a warrior as a young man. He later supported Cherokee modernization and assimilation into white culture. A planter, slave owner, ferry operator, and storekeeper, Major Ridge signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835. Two years later he moved to Oklahoma, and two years after that he was killed for signing the treaty. This 1834 portrait was made when he visited Washington, D.C., with a Cherokee delegation.

John Ross (1790–1866) was the most prominent Cherokee statesman in the nineteenth century. As principal chief, he strongly opposed the removal of Cherokees from their homeland in the southeast. When that effort failed, he accompanied his people west on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma.

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land in present southeastern Kansas to be known as the Cherokee Neutral Lands. Chief John Ross and his traditionalist followers consid-ered the treaty a work of treason and refused to recognize it. Even when some 2,000 members of the Ridge party migrated peacefully to Oklahoma, Chief Ross told his sup-porters that they would not have to go. As the two-year deadline got closer, the Ross party had made no prepara-tions to remove. President Martin Van Buren ordered fed-

eral troops to round up the Cherokees and forcibly move them to Indian Territory. Gathering the Indians into stockades at three collec-tion points was a nasty business, for both the army and the Cherokees. Not until then did Chief Ross and other traditionalist leaders accept that the federal government was deadly serious about removal. Ross quickly pro- posed that the Eastern Cherokees be responsible for their relocation to Oklahoma. Even though the costs would

THE REST OF THE STORY

In 1818, Millie Francis was a spirited and attrac-tive preteen. She was playing with her older sister near her Florida home when she heard the excited whoops of Seminole warriors. They had taken Sergeant Duncan McKrimmon of the Georgia Militia as captive. In the middle of the village, they had stripped him naked, blackened his face, and were about to kill him. Millie saw McKrimmon try-ing to cover himself and begging with his eyes that someone speak for him. She rushed to her father, who was known to his Creek and Seminole follow-ers as Hillis Haya and to white opponents as Josiah Francis, and pled for the sergeant’s life. Haya—a Creek medicine man, a silversmith, a follower of Tecumseh, a Red Stick traditionalist, and a speaker for his people at the royal court in England—and the sergeant’s captors granted Millie’s wish, but only if McKrimmon would shave his head and live among the tribespeople. The sergeant complied, living quietly with the Creeks. Two years later, he was traded to white mer-chants in Florida for a barrel of whiskey. After a few months, he returned to the village and asked Millie to marry him, not so much for love but for saving his life. Millie declined. In the meantime, General Andrew Jackson had defeated local Indians in the so-called First Seminole War and had hanged leaders of the Creek Red Sticks, including Millie’s father.

By the time the Creeks removed to Oklahoma, Millie’s story was well known. But being a celebrity did not prevent her removal. Along with the rest of her people, Millie went to Oklahoma, making her home just north of Muskogee. In 1842, Major Ethan Allen Hitchcock visited her. She had not lost her beauty or spirit, but she was very poor and six of her eight children had died. He was so touched that he reported her circumstances to the secretary of war in Washington, D.C., who sent the report to the U.S. Congress. Two years later, Congress authorized an annual pension of $96 for Millie and ordered that a medal be struck and given to her. Sadly, no one thought to present the pension and medal to Millie until May 1848. By then, she was on her deathbed. Her eldest son accepted the medal in his mother’s behalf, proud that she was the first Oklahoman, and one of the few women in history, to receive a medal through a special act of Congress.

Sources: Grant Foreman, ed. and annotator, A

Traveler in Indian Territory: The Journal of Ethan Allen

Hitchcock, foreword by Michael D. Green (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996), 102–107; and J. Leitch Wright, Jr., Creeks and Seminoles:

Destruction and Regeneration of the Muscogulge

People (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 201, 312.

Oklahoma’s Pocahontas

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double and the government would lose control of expen-ditures, the army agreed. Ross organized the 13,149 Cherokees into 13 travel parties of approximately 1,000 each and sent them overland to Oklahoma. Most left in September 1838.

For the Eastern Cherokees, the march west was truly the Trail of Tears. Along the way they were harassed by whites, they suffered much from lack of food and clothing, and they were ravaged by sick-ness. About 13 percent died on the jour-ney, mostly the very old and the very young. The greatest loss of life occurred in the year after removal, however, as the people struggled to adapt to a new and not always friendly land. But their ordeal was not unique. The Choctaws, the Creeks, the Seminoles, and, to a lesser extent, the Chickasaws had also followed Trails of Tears to Oklahoma.

Pacifying Contrary neighborsMaking Oklahoma a resettlement zone for eastern Indians was not a simple job for the federal government. Boundaries between tribes were often fuzzy, the Plains tribes did not like having thousands of emigrants as neighbors, and Clermont’s Osages refused to abandon their villages on the Verdigris. To address the problems and the ongoing removal process, President Jackson appointed a three-member com-mission in 1832 and sent it immediately to Indian Territory.

The Stokes CommissionChaired by Montfort Stokes of North Carolina, the new commission to settle removal problems arrived at Fort Gibson early in 1833. The U.S. Army placed at its disposal three companies of Mounted Rangers commanded by Major Henry Dodge. One of the companies had just returned from a patrol of the Cimarron and Canadian rivers. Unknown to the commissioners, that patrol was going to

receive worldwide attention. Three civilians who accom-panied it published accounts of it: noted American writer Washington Irving and two prominent Europeans, Charles Latrobe and Count Albert-Alexandre de Pourtales. For the time being, the Stokes Commission

Born in Indiana, Henry Dodge (1782–1867) served with the U.S. military in the War of 1812 and the Black Hawk War (1832) and then in Indian Territory (1833–36), out of Fort Gibson. The latter service helped establish peaceful relations in Oklahoma between the emigrant tribes from the East and the Plains tribes of the West. Later he became governor and a territorial delegate of Wisconsin Territory. When Wisconsin became a state, he was elected as a U.S. senator (1845–57).

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left the rangers in their barracks and turned their attention to the matters at hand. Among these was the question of the over-lapping borders of the domains granted by treaties to the various tribes. For example, the Senecas and the Shawnees, two Ohio tribes, had been assigned lands that fell within the Cherokee Nation. The commis-sion renegotiated their earlier treaties and placed them in the northeastern corner of present-day Oklahoma. The commission also finalized a treaty with the Quapaws of Arkansas, granting them lands north of the Senecas and the Shawnees. In addition, the commission persuaded the Cherokees and the Creeks to define their common bound-ary to the satisfaction of both parties. Working with the Osages was much more difficult. Contrary to treaty provisions, Clermont’s people refused to join their kins-men in Kansas. Their presence irritated the Cherokees and the Creeks, who complained that the Osages stole their horses and vandal-ized their property. But the Osages rejected every attempt by the Stokes Commission to get them to remove to Kansas. Indeed, in the middle of discussions, they nonchalantly packed their belongings and went west to hunt buffalo. On their hunt, they took more than meat. Coming upon a Kiowa trail, Osage warriors followed it to Cutthroat Gap in the Wichita Mountains in northwestern Comanche County. There they found a vil-lage with only women, children, and old men present. The warriors ransacked and burned the village, then killed and scalped 100 Kiowas. They beheaded the dead and placed the heads in brass kettles around the campsite. They took other Kiowas as captives. The success of their raid on the Kiowas did not make Clermont’s people any more willing to leave their Verdigris homes. But it did provide the Stokes Commission with an opening to the tribes on the Southern Plains. The com-mission purchased a captive Kiowa girl and a Wichita boy in order to return them to their tribes. That gesture of goodwill, the commission hoped, would encourage the Kiowas, the Wichitas, and the Comanches to sign

peace treaties with the United States and the emigrant Indians.

The Leavenworth-Dodge ExpeditionTo stress the seriousness of its mission, the commis-sion decided to take a large military column with it when it returned the two captive children. Commanded by General Henry Leavenworth, the troops were a new kind of mounted infantry known as dragoons. The unit was impressive in both appearance and leadership. Gold epaulets and braid, patent leather belts, and plumed hats accented the blue-and-gray uniforms. Henry Dodge,

In 1834, these three Osage men scouted for the Leavenworth-Dodge expedi-tion that traversed much of southwestern Oklahoma, looking for Wichitas, Comanches, and Kiowas at the request of the Stokes Commssion. Their dress, ornaments, and weapons, as well as their physical bearing, reflected the pride, power, and confidence of the Osage people.

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Stephen Watts Kearny, Nathan Boone, Jefferson Davis, and David Hunter served as Leavenworth’s junior officers. Five hundred young soldiers, the pride of the U.S. Army, rode out of Fort Gibson in June 1834. The scorch-ing heat quickly took its toll. By the time the column had reached the Washita River in present Marshall County, nearly half of the command was ill, including General Leavenworth. Leaving the sick behind, about 250 troop-ers went on, led by Colonel Dodge. Artist George Catlin accompanied them. Catlin would provide the earliest visual record of Oklahoma and its people. On July 21, the expedition finally reached the large Wichita village at Devils Canyon, southeast of Lake Altus in Kiowa County. The Wichitas, Kiowas, and Comanches were impressed by the dragoons, even though the command had shrunk

to less than 200 by then. They were overjoyed when Dodge ceremoniously returned the two captive children he had brought to them. After further negotiations, the leaders of the three tribes promised to maintain the peace and to come to Fort Gibson for formal treaty negotia- tions. That pledge made the mission a success, but it had been achieved at a high price. Some 150 dragoons had died in the Oklahoma heat, including General Leavenworth. The Wichitas and the Comanches, true to their promises, came to Fort Gibson in the fall. Treaties with them and other Plains tribes were signed the next year at Camp Holmes, near present Lexington in Cleveland County. By those agreements, the Plains tribes promised to live in peace with their new neighbors, the Five Southeastern Tribes, and to allow traders to cross the buffalo range on their way to New Mexico. The Kiowas signed the same treaty two years later. The task of the Stokes Commission and the men of Fort Gibson was to make Oklahoma safe for the peaceful resettlement of Indians from east of the Mississippi River. When Clermont’s people finally dismantled their lodges and moved northward into Kansas in 1839, the commis-sion’s task was complete.

Why is This Part of the Story important?One and a half centuries later, it is hard to view the removal epoch as anything other than an example of man’s inhumanity to man. In Oklahoma history, it is that, but it is also much more. Every society has at least one creation account, a story that helps define it to itself and to others. The removal epoch is one of Oklahoma’s three creation accounts, along with the Land Run of 1889 (see chapter 15) and the oil boom (see chapter 20). The removal epoch marks the beginning of many of those qualities that characterize Oklahomans as a people: gen-erosity, resiliency, and hope, as well as greed, fraud, and insensitivity. The removal epoch also speaks to how Oklahoma is perceived by the world at large. United States officials saw it as a place that could serve the interests of the federal government by providing a resettlement zone for eastern Indians. Oklahoma was considered a resource to be used, in much the same way that England used the American colonies. That view of Oklahoma may still exist.

The First U.S. Dragoon Regiment, 1834–51, stationed at Fort Gibson, was the most powerful force that the United States had ever sent onto the southern plains. It helped negotiate a peace between resident and emigrant tribes in Oklahoma during the 1830s.

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