Oklahoma Genealogy

For many years prior to 1889 the United States District Court of western Arkansas had jurisdiction over the Creek and Cherokee Nations in matters in which non-citizens, i.e., persons not members of the Indian tribes, were interested. Judge Isaac C. Parker, who presided over that court established the reputation of being “a terror to criminals,” it being claimed that during his administration fully one hundred men were sentenced to be hanged. Judge Parker was kind and courteous to attorneys, witnesses and jurors, but he possessed no sympathy for crime or criminals. It was very inconvenient and expensive, however, for lawyers, … Read more

William G. Coffin, superintendent of Southern Indians, in a letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated August 31, 1863, says:  “The contrariness and interference manifested by the military authorities in the Indian country towards those who are having charge of the Indians within the Cherokee Nation is so annoying and so embarrassing that it has become unpleasant, difficult and almost impossible for them to attend to the duties of their official capacities with success. If the military would only make it their business to rid the Indian Territory of rebels, instead of intermeddling with the affairs of the Interior … Read more

On the 20th day of November, 1785, while the American colonists were still operating under the defective Articles of Confederation, the First Treaty was concluded with the Cherokees, known as the Hopewell Treaty. This treaty was made by and between Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, Joseph Martin and Lachlan McIntosh, commissioners representing the Colonies, and the headsmen and warriors of all the Cherokees, thirty-seven in number. Article I provided that the Cherokees should restore to the Colonists all prisoners and property taken by them during the Revolutionary war. Article II provided that the Colonists should restore to the Cherokees all Indians … Read more

Indian Ball Game      The following account of an Indian ball game, played some years ago, has been sent to the writer.       When it was announced that the teams were about to appear, there was some nervousness on the part of most of the spectators. It had been reported that the red men would appear in costumes that would put the sea-side bathing suit to shame and make the average ballet dancer consider her dress fit for the Klondike. Instead of this, however, no one appeared in breech cloth and with the exception of two or three who were … Read more

On November 11, 1896, the International Council, composed of delegates from each of the Five Civilized Tribes, met at South McAlester to consider the matter of treating with the Dawes Commission, looking toward the dissolution of their tribal governments. Captain Standley of the Choctaw Nation was elected president, and Robt. L. Owen of the Cherokee Nation, secretary. After full discussion they adopted resolutions providing:    First: That if compelled to dissolve their tribal governments they would insist upon the prompt payment of all claims due from the United States under treaties or other sources.   Second: That they would insist that … Read more

“Made this 8th day of April, A. D. 1867, between the Cherokee Nation, represented by William P. Ross, principal chief, Riley Keys and Jesse Bushyhead, delegates, duly authorized, parties of the first part, and the Delaware Tribe of Indians, represented by John Connor, principal chief, Charles Journeycake, assistant chief, Isaac Journeycake, and John Sarcoxie, delegates for and on behalf of said Delaware Tribe, duly authorized, witnesses  “Whereas, by the 15th article of a certain treaty between the United States and the Cherokee Nation, ratified August 11, 1866, certain terms were provided, under which friendly Indians might be settled upon unoccupied … Read more

Immediately following the disastrous fire of February 23, 1899, which destroyed nearly all of the business section of Muskogee, the citizens made an earnest appeal to the Secretary of the Interior to appoint a townsite commission to survey and plat the town lots and fix the appraised value thereof, as provided by the Curtis Act of the previous year. Prior to this date a prosperous town of 4,000 inhabitants, with well-built homes and substantial brick store buildings, had been built up, with no one having a valid title to the lot upon which he had made improvements. The fee simple … Read more

“Whereas, our fathers have existed as a separate and distinct nation, in the possession and exercise of the essential and appropriate attributes of sovereignty, from a period extending into antiquity, beyond the records and memory of man; and, Whereas, these attributes, with the rights and franchises which they involve, remain still in full force and virtue; as do also the national and social relations of the Cherokee people to each other, and to the body politic, excepting in those particulars which have grown out of the provisions of the treaties of 1817 and 1819, between the United States and the … Read more

While the Cherokee have retained their distinctive features as an Indian tribe, yet .they have been more liberal than any other tribe in the matter of welcoming outsiders to their midst. They have admitted many Indians of other tribes and more white men than any other tribe to the rolls of their citizenship. Among their families may be traced the blood of the Delaware, Choctaws, Creeks, Shawnees and other Indians, as well as that of the English, Scotch, Irish, German, Swede and American. While it is claimed by some ethnologists that such a mixture of the blood of many nationalities … Read more

“Philadelphia, Pa., 708 Washington Place,April 2, 1863.“Sir:      In addressing you on the present occasion, I have the honor to state, I have been advised that a special session of the national council of the Cherokee Nation was convened at Cow-Skin Prairie in February last, and the following bills were passed: “1st. Abrogating the ‘treaty with the Confederate states,’ and calling a general convention of the people to approve the act. “2nd. The appointment of a delegation, with suitable powers and instructions to represent the Cherokee Nation before the United States Government, consisting of John Ross, principal chief, Lieut. Col. … Read more

That body of land formerly designated Indian Territory is located but a few miles south of the geographical center of the United States. It was a part of the Louisiana purchase by which the United States in 1804 acquired from France about nine hundred thousand square miles of land adjoining the Mississippi River on the west, for the sum of $15,000,000, or slightly more than two and one-half cents per acre. This region was practically unknown at that time to the people of the United States and many New England citizens regarded it as a doubtful bargain. The Mississippi River … Read more

By Mrs. Mabel W. Anderson “Looking backward down the corridor of time through the dim vista of more than half a century of departed years I see again the warlike spirit of the southern Cherokee, from the years of 1861 to 1865. I hear again the blast of Dutch Billy’s bugle. I see the muster, the march and the encounter. I see the brave and fearless Gen. Stand Watie, as colonel of the famous first Cherokee cavalry as he directs and leads his victorious charge at Pea Ridge, Ark. I see Col. William Penn Adair with his long flowing black … Read more

The impartial. student of history, in reviewing the events of 1860-1861, cannot fail to be impressed with the fact that the United States authorities were guilty of nothing less than gross neglect, supineness and ignorance in their treatment of the Indians at the beginning of the Civil war. The Indians were Southerners by birth, by ancestry, by education, by environment. Many of them were slave-holders and large amounts of their trust funds were invested in southern securities. These facts were well known by the Federal Government and should have prompted it to redouble its efforts to preserve the loyalty of … Read more

Mr. J. Harlan, who was United States Indian agent for the Cherokee during the Civil war gives the following account of his stewardship on August 1, 1865 “I was appointed United States Indian agent for the Cherokee on September 19, 186-2, and since that time I have been almost constantly with them. Living most of the time at Fort Gibson, guarded by three regiments of Indians, and in the Indian country where the loyal refugee Indians came for protection, I had many opportunities of seeing and hearing what their wants were. There were about twenty-two thousand Cherokee at the beginning … Read more

The history of the Civil war furnishes no darker page than that which records the suffering and privations of those Indians who, opposing any treaty with the Southern Confederacy, and proclaiming their loyalty to the United States Government, were compelled to leave their homes and seek protection in the North during the cold winter of 1861-62, inasmuch as the Government had failed to furnish them with adequate protection in their homes. It has been deemed advisable to let eye-witnesses tell the story. George W. Collamore was appointed as a special agent by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to visit Southern … Read more

Soon after the Dawes Commission began the immense task of allotting to each individual Indian his proportionate share of tribal lands, the cry was raised that the Territory was being overrun with an army of land-sharks who would use every effort and device to rob the Indian of his land. For many months “The Grafter” was the favorite theme for the sensational news correspondent, until many good people especially throughout the North and East, were led to believe that the great body of white men who had emigrated to the Territory, were organized for the purpose of defrauding the natives … Read more

One of the events which, was the outgrowth of the jealous feeling between the Ft. Smith deputy U. S. marshals and the tribal officials occurred in 1871 and was thereafter known as “The Tragedy of Going Snake.” A bad Indian by the name of Zeke Proctor had become incensed at a white man who was running a little corn mill east of Tahlequah, near the Arkansas state line and decided to kill him. Proctor went to the mill where he found the white man in company with his Indian wife who was a distant relative of Proctor. A brief quarrel … Read more

     For many years, various Federal officials urged the five tribes to agree to the establishment of a Territorial Council to be composed of delegates from each tribe empowered to enact legislation of a general character for the whole territory. The several tribes were inclined to regard the proposition with suspicion, apparently fearing that it might result in their losing some of their tribal rights and authority, or that it might be an attempt upon the part of the Government to cajole them into an agreement to abolish their tribal governments. The various tribes were finally induced to try the … Read more

In many respects, Fort Gibson, located seven miles east of Muskogee, is the most interesting place, from an historic standpoint, in the State of Oklahoma. In 1824, before the Cherokees and Creeks, with the possible exception of a few wandering bands, had been compelled to abandon their Eastern homes and take up their abode in this unknown and uninhabited country, the United States Government sent Matthew Arbuckle, colonel of the Seventh Regiment, United States Infantry, with a battalion of soldiers, to establish a frontier outpost, for the purpose of suppressing the Indian wars and insurrections of the uncivilized tribes that … Read more

For many years prior to 1889 the United States District Court located at Fort Smith, Ark., had jurisdiction over the Indian Territory in cases where white men (non-citizens) were parties, both in civil and criminal cases, but it proved to be very unsatisfactory on account of the distance which litigants and witnesses were compelled to travel. Indians found it to be very burdensome and annoying to have to travel overland 100 miles and be detained at Fort Smith for several days awaiting trial of the cases in which they were interested. As a result of this inconvenience many crimes went … Read more

Quite a spirited and protracted controversy arose over the matter of paying the expenses of the removal of the Cherokees to their new western home. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock was then in charge of military matters in Georgia and he was authorized to employ one or more competent persons to transport the Indians. Numerous persons applied for the contract, making bids ranging from $30 to $75 per head. Many Cherokees seemed to prefer that the contract be awarded to their chief, John Ross, and after quite an extended correspondence upon the subject, General Hancock, on August 2, 1838, entered into … Read more

When it was decreed, in 1838, that the Cherokees should abandon their eastern homes and emigrate to the Indian Territory, about two thousand of them refused to go, and in order to escape from the soldiers who were rounding up the emigrants, they fled to the hills of Tennessee, Georgia and North Carolina. Their reservation was gone but they were permitted to remain in the East upon condition that they settle down and become citizens of the United States. A few years later, a Federal agent by the name of William H. Thomas, conceived the idea of securing a tract … Read more

As an example of the earnest appeals which were repeatedly made by Confederate emissaries to the various Indian tribes to maintain the allegiance with the South the following address is quoted, copies of which were sent by special messengers to all the tribes mentioned. The author of the address, Mr. S. S. Scott, was appointed by Jefferson Davis as a special commissioner to the Indian tribes: “Confederate States of America,“War Department, Bureau of Indian Affairs,“Richmond, Va., December 26, 1862.“To the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, and All Other Indian Nations and Tribes Friendly to the Confederate States:“My Friends:I have just … Read more