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Introduction

This webpage reproduces a chapter of
The Five Civilized Tribes

by
Grant Foreman

University of Oklahoma Press
Norman, Oklahoma, 1934

The text is in the public domain.

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Chapter 2

[ Choctaw ]

 p17  Chapter one
Problems of a New Home

As our aborigines are disappearing into oblivion a few of them have tenaciously retained a place in the progress and culture of the country. Five great tribes of Indians from time immemorial occupied the land that now comprises most of what are known as the Southern States. At an early day white settlers from the East coveting this beauti­ful country began pushing their settlements into it. Treaties were negotiated from time to time by which the whites were established in the country of the Indians who were thus subjected to a progressive divestiture of their country and corresponding limiting of their habitable domain. As the movement gathered momentum the resistance of the Indians began to take form and manifested itself by an intelligent demonstration of their rights. But this unequal conflict of interests resulted in the inevitable decision — the subjugation and spoliation of the weaker race of people who were driven from their ancestral domain to find homes in a wilderness region west of the Mississippi river lately acquired from France.

These Indians, the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole, through their contact with the white settlers and infantries, the struggle to retain their homes, and their innate intelligence, had acquired the rudiments of the white man's culture and were making amazing progress in civilized ways when this achievement was wrecked by the ruthless expulsion from their homes during the decade following the year 1830. But even after this desolating experience their courage and fortitude and resource­fulness enabled them to mend their broken institutions and renew their progress towards an enlightened and cultured existence.

 p18  The Choctaw Nation included a few leading men who entertained advanced ideas on the subject of education and industry long before the tribe emigrated from Mississippi. In 1801 the chiefs of the tribe requested to be furnished agricultural implements, to have a blacksmith settled among them, and instructors employed to teach their women to spin and weave; one chief asked for cotton cards, as his people already made cloth; and another complained that a cotton gin which he had applied for the year before had not been sent to him.1 Doctor Morse furnishes an interesting picture of the Choctaw people in 1822: Within a few years, he says, they had made great advances in agriculture and other arts of civilized life. They raised corn, pulse, melons, and cotton. In one year they spun and wove 10,000 yards of cotton cloth. An ingenious Choctaw for a series of years raised cotton and with cards and spinning wheels made by him, he spun and wove it, and then made it into clothing. The Choctaw also raised a great many cattle. "They are friendly to travelers, for whose accommodation they have established a number of public inns, which for neatness and accommodation actually excell many among the whites."2

At this period the Choctaw Indians were coming under the influence of the missionaries to whom they were indebted for much of the progress that characterized their condition. In August, 1818, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established a missionary station in the Choctaw Nation, which they named Elliott after the celebrated New England missionary. Rev. Cyrus Byington was one of their earliest missionaries and many years later he wrote an account for the purpose of comparing their early condition with their improved state in 1852:3

"There was a period, previous to the time when the missionaries went among them, that the Choctaws used the teeth of beaver, and the outer bark of cane and reed dried hard for knives. They made bags of the bark of trees, twisted and woven by hand. Ropes were made of the bark of trees. Blankets were made of turkey feathers. Fire was formerly produced by friction. Two dried pieces of ash wood were  p19 rapidly across each other till fire was produced. When they planted corn, it was not secured by any fence, nor was the land plowed — it was dug up with hoes, and planted without rows, or any order. This labor was performed by the women. The men were hunters, and followed various amusements, talked, smoked, and danced, and attended councils and feasts, weddings and funerals. The women also attended these.

"When the missionaries arrived in 1818, it was a rare thing to see a Choctaw warrior wear a hat, pantaloons, or shoes. Inquiry was made, and but very few were found who would not get drunk, when whisky was offered them. In very few houses were there floors, windows, tables, beds or chairs. The principal articles of food were corn, sweet potatoes and beans. A species of hominy called tamfula was prepared from their corn, and served up in an earthen bowl with one spoon in it, made of the buffalo horn or of iron. The men ate first, and by themselves. The women and children ate afterwards. At times they had bear meat, venison, wild turkeys and pork for food.

"But many families suffered much for want of food. Their fields were small and poorly cultivated. There were few among them who could read. . . . The late Dr. Cornelius passed through the Choctaw Nation in 1817, and preached at the Agency. A white man who attended the meeting has since stated to the writer, that he had then resided among the Choctaws seven years, and during that time had not heard a sermon preached, a prayer offered, or a blessing asked at table. They had at that time no written form of government, no written laws, no trial by jury. The widow had no dowry, and children no inheritance in their father's property."

In another account written by Mr. Byington descriptive of the early condition of the Choctaw people,4 he said

"they were ignorant of religion, and letters. Some eight or ten men had been partially educated, when we came here. They could read and write, and some of them understood figures a little. I do not remember a native Choctaw woman who had learned to read before the missionaries came to the nation. They were a nation of drunkards. Only one man was pointed  p20 out as an exception, when the first missionary came. We found three more afterwards.

"They were very indolent, poor, wretched, sickly, and dying very fast. They indulged in gross sensual vices. They were guilty of some destructive crimes such as infanticide and murder. They were given up to believe in witchcraft, which they punished with death. Hundreds have been killed for this belief. They were a very superstitious people; believing in signs, birds, dreams, ghosts, wood-nymphs, conjurors, spectres, and the like. They had been greatly reduced in numbers by the small pox, measles, and other diseases. They had never had a missionary located among them, from the foundation of the Christian Church, that we know of, till Brother Kingsbury came.

"They had been compelled to sell tract after tract of their lands, and were broken hearted. In 1830 their ancient inheritance all went at once. While moving west, hundreds perished on the road, and their property was lost. And thousands have died since. We rarely meet an old man or woman now."

The bright side of the picture when Mr. Byington describes the amazing progress and improvement of these people in their western home, will be given in its place.

Soon after the missionary influence began to manifest itself, the chief of the Six Towns division of the Choctaw tribe enacted some wholesome laws, that an early observer believes to have been the first printed laws of the Choctaw people:5

"Six Towns, Choctaw Nation, October 18, 1822. 'Hoolatohooma (or red fort,) Chief of the Six Towns, to the Society of good people, who send Missionaries to the Choctaws:'

"Brothers: — The first law I have made is, that when my warriors go over the line among the white people and buy whiskey, and bring it into the nation to buy up the blankets and guns and horses of the red people and get them drunk, the whiskey is to be destroyed. The whiskey drinking is wholly cast among my warriors. The Choctaw women have long been in the habit of destroying their infants, when they did not like to provide for them. I have made a law to have them punished, that no more innocent children be destroyed. The Choctaws formerly stole hogs and cattle, and killed them. I have appointed a  p21 company of faithful warriors, to take every man who steals, and tie him to a tree, and give him thirty-nine lashes.

"It has been the custom of the Choctaws, where there are three or four sisters, and they marry, that they all live together in one house. I do not want it to be so any longer. I have told them to move away from each other and settle by themselves, and work and make fields and raise provisions. The Choctaws have taken each others wives, and ran away with them. We have now made a law, that those who do so shall be whipt thirty-nine lashes. And if a woman runs away from her husband she is to be whipt in the same manner.

"The Choctaws some of them go to Mobile and New Orleans. I have told my warriors to stay home and work; and if they go and do not get back in time to plant their corn, their corn is to be burnt down. The number of men, women, and children in the Six Towns is 2,164.

"I want the good people send men and women to set up a school in my district. I want them to do it quick. I am growing old. I know not how long I shall live; I want to see the good work before I die. We have always been passed by, and have no one to assist us. Other parts of the nation have schools; we have none. We have made the above laws, because we wish to follow the ways of the white people. We hope they will assist us in getting our children educated. This is the first time I write a letter. Last fall is the first time we make laws. I say no more. I have told my wants. I hope you will not forget me. 'Hoolatahooma'."

This letter, evidently written with the aid of an amanuensis, was regarded by the contributor as having an important connection "with the Mission at Goshen in the old nation and at Wheelock in this land. In looking at the history of the Choctaw Nation it appears that the Rev. Alfred Wright went to Goshen, August 1, 1823, the next year after the above letter was written. In the spring of 1826, Jeremiah Evarts, Esq., from Boston, and Corresponding Secretary of the American Board, in passing by Redforts house, called in to see him; the Rev. C. Kingsbury, Samuel A. Worcester and C. Byington were with him. But the chief was very infirm and made hardly any conversation with his visitors. Not long after, he died. The company pursued their way to Goshen, which place they reached at a late hour in the night."

In 1830 the Choctaw people "were spinning and making their own clothing of good homespun cloth. I have myself bought many yards  p22 of cloth from full-blood Indians of their own make." At a recent camp meeting they observed good order and "were dressed many of them in cloth of their own manufacture — all clean and decent."6

Before the enactment by Congress in 1830 of the measure known as the Indian Removal Bill, there were about 2,000 Choctaw Indians scattered through Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas Territory.7 A treaty had been made with those living in their eastern home in 1820, by which they were given a vast domain west of the Mississippi river, including the southern half of the present State of Oklahoma. The next year George Gray of Natchitoches was appointed agent for the western Choctaw Indians and he established his agency on the Sulphur Fork near Long Prairie. After the Treaty of 1825 Maj. William L. McClellan of Mississippi, formerly of Tennessee was appointed Choctaw agent and he located his agency at the abandoned Fort Smith in 1826. Vain efforts were then made to induce the Choctaw Indians both east and west, to remove to their new country. Finally the Choctaw treaty of September 27, 1830, known as the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, provided the means for effecting the removal of the tribe from the East. A few emigrated that winter but the movement was organized the next year and by 1833 a majority of the tribe had reached their new home in the West.8

Some of the immigrants who arrived in 1832 applied themselves industriously and raised a surplus of corn which they were able to sell to the Government to subsist the arrivals expected the next year. Those who began to make preparations for the future all settled on the river and creek timbered bottom lands, for they had a well-fixed conviction that they could not make a living on the uplands nor could they build homes anywhere but in the timber that provided logs for their houses, and rails for fences. They were making considerable progress in the construction of their homes and little farms when, in the first week in June, 1833, there came one of the greatest floods in the history of the Arkansas River.

"I pause to tell you something of the most awful judgment of God,  p23 on these parts and the Terr. of Ark. in the unparralleled rise of waters; the week of our return from the Osage tour, the rains set in most power­fully and such was the effect that tho at Union and the Neosho the water did not equal the flood of 1826, yet on the Arkansas it far exceeded that one by 8 or 10 feet at least. Mr. Indicates a West Point graduate, Class of 1806: a link to his biographical entry in Cullum's Register.Chouteau lost all his trading houses and all the village, or nearly. The water rose into one corner of Ft. Gibson and from the Creek Nation to the south of the Arkansas immense damage has been sustained, hundreds of families have lost everything — fields, houses, stocks of horses and cattle and even their clothes."9

On the Verdigris River, besides Colonel Chouteau's trading houses, the Creek Agency was washed away; at Fort Gibson the bakery, several stables, other small buildings and fences were carried down stream. Colonel Arbuckle wrote:

". . . on the 4th inst., the Grand River or Ne. o. sho for the first time since this post has been established commenced overflowing its banks in front of this Post, and suddenly rose from eight to ten feet higher than any freshet heretofore known; in consequence of which, the greater part of the public and private corn at this point was destroyed."10

Since the middle of May rain had fallen, several weeks without intermission

". . . raising the Arkansas River to such a height as has never been seen by the oldest settlers in that section of country. . . . Nearly all the people who lived upon the river have been ruined. . . . on the bottoms near several of the creeks every house has been washed away. . . . all the Fork of the Canadian was inundated. At the latter place a large amount of stock, of almost every kind, was washed away; and it is said that, so power­ful was the force of the water, the course of the river at Fort Smith was changed entirely, making its way through the farm of Mr. Alexander, and carrying before it almost his whole property. Mr. John Rogers is said to have lost 1,700 bushels of salt; and his works are destroyed. Mr. Webber is said to have lost in stock etc. at least $3,000, besides a small black boy who was drowned."11

Prior to that time the highest stage noted on the Arkansas River  p24 of which there was any record was in 1814, and next to that was the flood of 1823.12 In 1837, when army officers were seeking an eligible site for the new post that was subsequently located at Fort Smith, they reported that at all other places but two, for a distance of thirty miles up and down the river, the flood of 1833 had overflowed the adjacent land for a depth of from one to twenty-five feet.13 The flood buried in sand Webbers Falls,14 that Lieutenant Wilkinson in 1807 reported as being "a fall of nearly seven feet perpendicular."15 The banks of the Arkansas above the Choctaw agency as far up as Harrold's Bluff or Swallow Rock, after the flood waters receded, were "covered with mud, quicksand, and the carcasses of animals destroyed by the water." Captain McClellan, the Choctaw agent, was for some time engaged in cleaning rifles and drying blankets and clothing that had been covered by water for ten days.16 The loss suffered by the Indians was excessive from the fact that they had all their improvements in the bottoms where they raised nearly all of their corn.17

At Fort Gibson the Grand River was out of its banks for more than a week. Travel to the north and east was arrested for twice as long, the flood aggravated the pest of flies, and travelers were compelled for some time to move only at night.18 Much sickness followed the flood. "Not a family but more or less sick; the Choctaws dying to an alarming extent. . . . Near the agency there are 3,000 Indians and within the hearing of a gun from this spot 100 have died within five weeks."19

In spite of the floods, however, in the autumn of 1833 the more provident Choctaw Indians had a surplus of 40,000 bushels of corn, which the Government purchased to apply on the allowance of the emigrants who were to come the next year. But that did not appease the hunger of a class of earlier arrivals who had consumed their year's  p25 allowance of rations and so had no further demands on the Government. Many of those who were not incapacitated by sickness were engaged in maintaining the strife they had brought from the East. Bitter contention over the selection of chiefs and animosity towards the authority that had caused their removal as well as against the members of the tribe who had acquiesced in it, supplemented other agencies in distracting many of them from the occupation of making homes and farms. Farming was neglected by many, and the next year there was much distress from lack of food and want of means to purchase it.

A majority of the Choctaw tribe being now in the West, Armstrong was given instructions in April, 1833, to carry out the terms of the treaty. Two public blacksmiths had been working for a year and he was instructed to engage a third. A mill-wright was to be employed at not to exceed $600 annually, and the Indians were to be directed to locate their little water mills "upon durable streams, and at good sites . . . conveniently situated for those who have work to be done, and equitably with respect to the different districts." Ten thousand dollars was appropriated to erect a council house for the nation, a house for the chief of each of the three districts, and a church for each district to be used as a schoolhouse until others were built. Armstrong was directed to determine the plans for the buildings, and let contracts for their construction. Rev. Mr. Stirman had been engaged as a teacher and Armstrong directed him to "repair to Colonel Folsom's settlement, where I believe the anxiety of the Indians for a school is so great that they will erect a temporary schoolhouse."

In the midst of internal strife and jealousy, Agent Armstrong in December, at Doaksville, advised the Choctaw people to organize their government and take over the regulation of their internal affairs that had been exercised by the war department. They accordingly appointed the first of February, 1834, to meet at Turnbull's on the Kiamichi River, half way between the Red and Arkansas rivers to hold their first general council and form a constitution. The meeting was attended by representatives from only part of the tribe, others refusing to participate in it. A constitution was prepared and adopted by representatives of Nitakechi's district,20 but the people of Pushmataha District without taking the trouble to participate in the adoption of a  p26 constitution or set up any laws, undertook to select a chief for the whole tribe.

This aggravated the bitter feeling in the tribe and Superintendent Armstrong informed the Indians that he would not recognize chiefs selected in that manner and advised them to begin again, call all their chiefs and ninety-nine treaty captains into council and set up their government before electing officers and injecting politics in their business.

There were only two of the old chiefs in the West, Mushulatubbe and Nitakechi. Greenwood Leflore having abandoned his tribe on removal, remained in Mississippi to enjoy the prosperity that had accrued to him by that event. Red River (Apuckshunnubbee or Oaklafaliah) District which included most of his followers, thus being without a chief, on July 7, 1834 his brother Thomas Leflore, was elected to that office.21 Nitakechi and Mushulatubbe were reëlected chiefs in their respective districts that same year, but the latter was soon succeeded by Joseph Kincaid. Mushulatubbe's district, named for him lay on the Arkansas River and had a population then of about 2,000. About the same number comprised Nitakechi's district which was named Pushmataha and lay on the west side of the Kiamichi River. East of the Kiamichi, the dense settlements of Red River District contained more than 7,000 Indians until they began removing higher up the Red River.22

About three weeks after their arrival in the West the treaty captains of Nitakechi's district at Horse Prairie wrote the President that they were well pleased with their new homes; but they objected to having to cross the Kiamichi River and travel to Doaksville to receive their annuity. They particularly objected to the great number of white traders who were swarming into the country to the great disadvantage of Indian merchants who could supply the wants of the Indians if left to themselves, but who could not compete with their white rivals. With the coming of the Indians the little town of Doaksville had grown up near Fort Towson, consisting entirely of white traders, except two Indian merchants.

 p27  Some of the more enterprising of the immigrant Indians not only conducted trading stores among their own people, but embraced the opportunity for profitable hunting and trading expeditions among the western Indians. Capt. David Folsom left with a party of twelve men in October, 1835, and returned in February. They went to Coffee's trading post on the Red River west of the Cross Timbers, which he made his base of operations. From here they traveled west and southwest sixty or seventy miles where they were in frequent contact with the Comanche Indians, whom they reported as friendly to them, the Cherokee, and Creeks, but bitter against the Delaware and Shawnee hunters.23

Armstrong had issued licenses to five white traders in the Choctaw country, and the war department held that the Indians had nothing to say on the subject; that the white traders would "prevent the prevalence of a monopolizing spirit among the native Choctaw traders, very injurious to the great body of people." The white traders were required to keep for sale stocks of goods suited to the use of the Indians, and they were forbidden to farm or keep more stock than that required for family use. They were also "forced to close their doors on the Sabbath."24

But the principal object of the communication of Nitakechi's captains was to request the annuity to which by the terms of the treaty they were entitled on their removal, including plows, iron, steel, anvil and blacksmith's tools, saws, knives, hoes, wedges and other implements needed by the pioneer. In addition to 600 blankets, strouds, domestics, plaids and calico for the individuals, the chief needed his "fine frock coat laced with gold" at $140, and one pair of fine pantaloons at forty. They wanted a blacksmith and thirty three small medals, three larger ones, and one still larger for the chief; they wished also "a drum, fife, and a flag for the use of our district."25

Pursuant to the terms of the treaty, the Government ordered for the immigrant Choctaw articles for their use in the West. For those  p28 who went in the winter of 1831‑1832, the war department contracted for a number of agricultural implements on the supposition that they would be in the hands of the Indians for use in the following spring. Among these were 200 hilling hoes, five or six inches wide; 200 weeding hoes, eight or nine inches wide; 100 grubbing hoes, and 500 plows with wrought-iron plates. The buildings at Fort Smith had been repaired to house these farming tools so they would be ready for the Indians on their arrival in the West. They were shipped September 21, 1831, from the arsenal in Philadelphia and were received at Fort Smith March 29, 1832.26 From here most of them were carried overland to Red River, where they arrived long after the Indians most needed them. 250 cotton cards and an equal number of wool cards were shipped to McClellan, the Choctaw agent at Fort Smith.

There were also 550 rifles contracted for; the Indians expressed a preference for those made by Mr. Derringer, and the contract was let to him. 350 were to be fitted with flintlocks, and the other 200 with percussion locks. However, after they were delivered the Indians asked the agent to take back the percussion rifles and let them have all flintlocks. The barrel was from three to four feet long with a half-inch bore; the rifle was furnished with ramrod, ball screw in lieu of wiper, nipple screw, bullet moulds and woolen cover to each. Another contract was made with Mr. Tryon of Philadelphia for 450 more rifles.27 There were furnished also 20,000 pounds of lead for bullets, 10,000 pounds of powder28 and 16,000 flints for the rifles; the latter cost three dollars a thousand. When the powder was delivered at Fort Smith and issued to the Indians they found it of such inferior quality that they could not use it.29 The Indian agent notified the arsenal to take it away, and it was not replaced for a year. There were also promised to be delivered at Fort Smith for the Indians 1,000 spinning wheels;30 a few hundred four-pound axes, which the Indians said were well-nigh worthless, were delivered, besides a few blankets.

 p29  The next year 500 more plows were sent to Fort Smith. They were shipped from the East May 2, 1832, reached Little Rock in July, and were stored in a warehouse and promptly forgotten; discovered again following the clamor of the disbursing agent at Fort Smith, who said his Indians were badly in need of them to engage in their spring plowing, these useful instruments were sent on their way up the Arkansas, where they arrived April 12, 1833, long after they could have been used to good purpose. There was some official jealousy and lack of coördination that occasioned the studied neglect of the plows. It happened that the 500 that were detained so long at Little Rock had been ordered by the Indian department; and the department of subsistence, which was in charge of the removal of the Indians, permitted them to remain in storage without any apparent effort to get them to the Indians in time to be of service.

The second winter there were engaged for the Indians other articles, including kettles, iron wedges, grindstones, drawing knives, handsaws, four-quarter and three-quarter augers, cross-cut saws, whipsaws, one bellows, anvil and set of blacksmith tools. Another lot of hoes and axes were ordered for the newcomers, but there was loud complaint when spring came that they had not received these useful tools, without which they could not clear the brush and timber and prepare the land for tillage; and as if to mock their efforts, these implements arrived at Fort Smith on July 11, too late to be of any service for the crops of that year.

Perhaps the most picturesque item provided by the Government for the Indians, under the requirements of the treaty, was that calculated to enhance the pulchritude of the many headmen of the tribe. Nothing was done for the women, of course, but witness the amazing contribution to male vanity! Ninety-nine chiefs and headmen of the tribe were  p30 each provided with the following gaudy articles of raiment: a beaver hat with silver band, cockade and three scarlet plumes; one pair of calfskin puttees, a superfine blue frock coat with collars trimmed with silver lace, a superfine silver lace-trimmed vest, a superfine pair of pantaloons, one Irish linen shirt, patent leather stock and a morocco swordbelt with plates; eighty-seven of these brilliantly accoutered captains bore infantry officers' swords with bright scabbards, basket hilts with two guards and square ends, and the other twelve wore artillery officers' swords with plain bright-yellow scabbards, yellow bands and mounting, basket hilts, and two guards.31 They were shipped from Philadelphia to Fort Smith in July, 1832, and it well may be assumed Indian Territory never looked the same after these ninety-nine warriors blossomed out in their effulgent splendor.32

By the autumn of 1836 a building in each of the three districts, to be used as a church and schoolhouse, had been erected pursuant to the promises in the treaty of removal. The first was constructed by Robert Baker and the other two by William Lowry. The Government was obligated also to erect a house for each of the three chiefs and a council house for the tribe. The Indians had selected sites for these buildings and there was considerable complaint by them because of the delay on the part of the government officials. The site chosen for the council house was near the residence of Vaughn Brashears, a half-breed Choctaw, on the upper part of the Kiamichi River, about midway between the Arkansas and Red rivers. The Indians had been holding councils there for a year or two.

A contract was let to William Lowry who constructed a commodious council house in time for the October, 1838, meeting of the council. The Indians took much pride in planning this building, which was constructed to meet their wishes. It was forty-five by twenty-five feet in size, containing a council chamber 25 by thirty feet and the remainder was divided into two committee rooms, where the district  p31  delegations could meet for conference. The building was well constructed of trimmed logs six inches thick with fifteen-inch fa­cing, chinked with short timber and pointed with lime mortar; the logs inside were trimmed with dressed plank, and the ceilings, fourteen feet high, were made with tongued and grooved boards; sawed rafters, joists and dressed flooring; a girder running the length of the house with the joists framed in and supported by a round column with large Grecian moulding and capitals; two three-foot doors, a large double door at the end, six windows of eighteen lights each, each light ten by twelve inches, and Venetian shutters, morticed blinds.


[zzz.]

First Choctaw Council House

The whole rested on three sills twelve by twelve inches, in turn supported by fifteen stone pillars. The council chamber was provided with a platform three feet high and twelve long, one table twelve feet long and twelve benches ten feet long of plank two inches thick. For the accommodation of the spectators a gallery with seats was provided. Two stone chimneys furnished as many fireplaces. The inside of the house was painted white and the doors green. The building was surrounded by a seven-foot fence inclosing an area 150 feet square. Every thing about the council house was ample and adequate; and withal it was an imposing structure in that far-off wilderness and gave dignity to the functioning of the Indian government.33

Lowry constructed also a court house for each of the three chiefs in their respective districts; each house was fifty feet by twenty, having two rooms twenty feet square with a twelve-foot passage between, the whole under one roof; porches ten feet wide extended the full length of the house, front and back. The house was constructed of trimmed logs six inches thick, showing a face of fifteen inches, and the whole rested on twelve-inch sills; there were two stone chimneys with four-foot fire-places to cheer the large rooms with their twelve foot ceilings. The inside of the rooms, columns and hand rails of the porches were painted white and the doors and windows green.

Superintendent Armstrong advertised for bids to furnish 312 looms and 780 spinning-wheels to conform to the specimens at the agency, then in common use in the country. The Government agreed to furnish  p32 the iron for the looms, consisting of cast-iron rag-wheels, wrought-iron catches, iron screws for cross timbers and two shuttles; and for the wheel a turned cast-steel spindle and axle. The Choctaw Indians were for a long time denied the use of the spinning wheels promised them in their treaty. Because of the cost of transportation the Government declined having them made in the East where they could have been turned out rapidly. So their manufacture was intrusted to the laborious process in the Choctaw Nation by Robert Baker, "an individual entirely competent to the task, but whose slowness in the performance must be attributed to the disadvantage of his situation."34

Baker set up his shop near the Choctaw agency and after long delay in receiving the irons from Cincinnati, due to low water in the rivers, succeeded in turning out 220 wheels and eighty-eight looms for the Indians in Pushmataha District. For those of Red River he got the timber and had it cut at Nail's mill; here he equipped a carpenter shop and set up a turning lathe operated by horse power, but there was much complaint concerning the delay in furnishing the looms and wheels necessary to enable the Indians to convert the cotton they were raising, into the clothing so much needed by them. Baker's contract was cancelled by Agent Armstrong, and the wheels and looms were not furnished the Indians for several costly years.

The Choctaw Nation was governed by a written constitution and laws printed in English and Choctaw. Each of the three districts was represented by a chief and ten councillors elected by the qualified voters — males over twenty-one years of age. The councillors and chiefs met on the first Monday of each October in general council for the transaction of the business of the Nation. All measures passed by the council were subject to the veto power of the three chiefs, though when passed by two-thirds of the council they became law regardless of the chiefs.35 Judges were appointed, juries and executive officers provided for to enforce the law, light-horsemen were employed to seize whiskey and destroy it.

When the council met, a speaker and secretary were selected36 and  p33  each chief in turn delivered a message to the council, recommending such laws as he thought needful. The council usually remained in session for ten to twenty days; the members received two dollars per diem and mileage, and the chiefs $250.00 annually. The strictest order prevailed and all proceedings were recorded. Observers said that few deliberative bodies could have been conducted with greater order and propriety. The Choctaw Academy in Kentucky had educated many of the most intelligent men in the Indian country, and they were to be seen in their councils taking the deepest interest in the welfare and prosperity of their people.37

One of the first measures enacted by the new Choctaw government was a law dealing with the subject of witches; for "the Indians were still addicted to heathen rites and superstitions, fear of witches, ghosts, &c."38 In 1834 three Choctaw Indians killed a man and a woman of the tribe who were accused of being witches. Superintendent Armstrong demanded the surrender of the murderers who were delivered up on his threat to withhold the autumn annuities payable to the tribe. The Choctaw council then enacted a law imposing the penalty of death upon any one who killed another accused being a witch and sixty lashes upon any one charging another with being a witch.39 Soon afterwards they passed a law forbidding Negroes in the nation to own any property and forbidding their being taught to read or sing except with the consent of their masters.40

The first exercise of the judicial functions of their government of which records are available was the trial of a slave named Bob, the property of John Caffery, for the murder of a Negro woman belonging to John L. Price; the owners of both slaves being white men with Indian wives and families. The case was tried September 10 and 11, 1834, in Red River District, before the presiding judges, George W. Harkins, Israel Folsom, and Silas L. Fisher, and a jury of twenty-four Choctaw citizens. Joel H. Nail represented the district, William Leflore  p34 appeared for Price, and Thomas Hays and Jack Hays represented Caffery, owner of the defendant. Bazil Leflore was secretary of the district. Two-thirds of the jury found the defendant guilty and sentenced him to death. As neither the defendant nor his owner was a citizen of the Choctaw Nation, Superintendent Armstrong perceived difficulties in the situation and directed that the defendant be surrendered to military authorities to be held in irons until he could consult the Indian department at Washington on the subject.41

Acting Superintendent Armstrong in 1836 said that the Red River part of the Choctaw country was "destined soon to be a fine cotton-growing country; the native traders have erected cotton gins, and they purchase all the cotton that is raised by the common Indians and half breeds. It is estimated that about 500 bales will go down Red River from the Choctaws this year.


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Photographed by Grant Foreman at the home of Mrs. Tennessee Hunter, Choctaw Nation, in 1900

A primitive cotton press used by the Choctaw Indians

[A much larger version opens here (2.7 MB).]

There is one good grist and saw mill near Red River, and another is building on the Poteau, from which large quantities of lumber will go down the Arkansas. To a great extent the trade with these Indians is carried on by the natives. I can state from my own knowledge that two native Choctaws on Red River have this year brought into the country $20,000 worth of goods;42 and there are others engaged in smaller trade of from 2,000 to 10,000 dollars. They make their purchases in New Orleans, and, I understand are in good credit. The assistants in the three public smith-shops are natives, who in a year or two, will be able to take charge of them. Besides these shops, they have five others of their own, that are used in the farming season. The chase, for a living, is now nearly abandoned; many take a fall hunt, but it is more an excursion of pleasure than a pursuit of gain."43


The Author's Notes:

1 United States Senate Document No. 1 page 188, Twenty-third Congress, first session.

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2 Rev. Jedidiah Morse, A Report to the Secretary of War on Indian Affairs, 183.

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3 "Improvements in the Choctaw Nation during the last Fifty Years," in the New York Evangelist, copied in the Indian Advocate, October, 1852, p3.

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4 Choctaw Mission, Stockbridge, Eagletown, P. O., Choctaw Nation, March 22, 1849, for the Boston Alliance and Visitor, copied in The Indian Advocate, July, 1849, p4.

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5 "First printed Laws known to the Writer," published in The Choctaw Telegraph, copied in The Indian Advocate, May, 1849, p4.

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6 Ward to Kingsbury, May 7, 1830, Cherokee Phoenix, July 24, 1830, p2, col. 2.

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7 Grant Foreman, Indians and Pioneers.

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8 Ibid., Indian Removal. Several hundred Choctaw emigrants who refused to go to the country intended for them traveled to Texas instead, and it was some years before they joined their tribesmen in the Indian Territory.

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9 Vaill to Greene, July 2, 1833, Missionary Records, LXXII No. 102, Harvard-Andover Theological Library.

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10 Arbuckle to Jones, June 12, 1853, AGO, OFD, 117 A 33.

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11 "Letter from Arkansas Territory," June 25, 1833, in Cherokee Phoenix (New Echota, Ga.), September 28, 1853, p3, col. 1.

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12 Arkansas Gazette, June 10, 1833.

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13 American State Papers, "Military Affairs," VII, 980.

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14 Memoirs of Narcissa Owen, 43.

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15 Elliott Coues, The Expedition of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, II, 415.

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16 Document, II, 845.

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17 Ibid., 531.

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18 Ibid., 924.

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19 Armstrong to Herring, September 20, 1833, OIA "Choctaw Agency." "One hundred died last month from various diseases" (Rains to Gibson, September 12, 1833, Document, I, 851).

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20 This district was called Apuckshunnubbee or Oklafaliah (Oklafalaya).

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21 Armstrong to Choctaw Chiefs, Talk, March 25, 1834; Armstrong to Herring, April 25, 1834; Brown to Herring, October 11, 1834, OIA, "1834 Choctaws West." Colonel Nail was the opposing candidate. They were nominated by their respective parties in May (Missionary Records, Vol. LXXII, No. 146).

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22 Byington to Bullard, December 30, 1834, Religious Intelligencer, XIX, 722.

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23 Stuart to Sewell, February 10, 1836, OIA, Choctaw file. Many of the emigrant Indians were going out on fall hunts and called on the agent for their annuities with which to equip themselves (Armstrong to Indicates a West Point graduate, Class of 1834: a link to his biographical entry in Cullum's Register.Harris, August 16, 1836, OIA, ibid., A 25).

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24 Document, III, 660; ibid., IV, 163.

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25 Ibid., IV, 71.

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26 Ibid., I, 491.

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27 Ibid., II, 287, 297, 314, 345, 349, 373, 689.

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28 Ibid., I, 256.

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29 Ibid., III, 662.

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30 The spinning wheels promised in the treaty were to be furnished with steel spindles and turned iron axle, the wood well seasoned. "The looms to be of the best seasoned materials, with hand shuttles, cast iron rag wheels, and wrought iron wrists. . . in fine both of these articles to be what would be called first rate country looms and wheels" (ibid., I, 241). They were not delivered for a long time, and in April, 1840, a large number of Choctaw Indians petitioned the Government to carry out that part of the treaty agreement. In forwarding the petition to Washington, Agent Armstrong said his predecessor had delivered 220 wheels and 88 looms out of 1,000 wheels and 499 looms due them. Armstrong reported that he had let a contract for making the remainder of the wheels, 570 for the large district on the Arkansas River and the balance for the small district on the Red River (Armstrong to Crawford, May 26, 1840, "Western Superintendency," File A 807, 1840).

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31 These swords were made at the United States arsenal at Watervliet and cost $1,162.56 (Bomford to Garland, June 13, 1832, OIA) and were delivered to the war department at Washington in June, 1832.

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32 Document, I, 99, 116, 452, 717; Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall, History of the Indian Tribes of North America (Philadelphia, 1854); in these three volumes are to be seen pictures of a number of the immigrant Indians garbed in similar uniforms.

Thayer's Note: These last three volumes are online at Archive.Org:

I •  II •  III

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33 The specifications are from the advertisement of William Armstrong for bids for the construction of the buildings, dated June 3, 1836, inserted in the Arkansas Gazette, June 8, 1836.

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34 United States House, Executive Document No. 2, p291, Twenty-fourth Congress, first session.

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35 Report of commissioner for Indian affairs for 1838: Report of William Armstrong; ibid. for 1836 in Arkansas Gazette, February 14, 1837, p1.

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36 Ibid., for 1841.

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37 Ibid., for 1842.

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38 Williams to Greene, July 17, 1833, Mission Records, ibid., LXXII, No. 107.

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39 Armstrong to Harris, September 24, 1834, "Choctaws West." In spite of the law, in 1838 Indians of the Six Towns executed a woman believed to be a witch and caused much excitement in the nation (Hotchkin to Armstrong, July 23, 1838, OIA "School" File A 402).

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40 Williams to Greene, January 18, 1837, Missionary Records, ibid., No. 35.

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41 OIA, 1835, "Choctaw West (Agency) F. W. Armstrong."

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42 One of these Choctaw merchants was Robert M. Jones.

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43 Report of commissioner of Indian affairs for 1836, Arkansas Gazette, February 14, 1837.


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