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previous: Chapter 9 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. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 11

[ Creek ]

 p147  Chapter ten
Victims of Contractors

Pursuant to the terms of the Treaty⁠1 of 1826 about 1,200 Creek followers of McIntosh and as many more of the opposing faction emigrated and located in 1829 on the Arkansas River near the mouth of the Verdigris.⁠2 Much friction and discontent arose from the fact that the Cherokee Indians recently emigrated from Arkansas claimed the land on which the Creeks were located.⁠3 But their measure of unhappiness was filled to overflowing by the failure of the Government to comply with the terms of the treaties under which they had removed from the East. The traps, guns, and other things essential to their welfare promised them in 1826 were not furnished them for several years after their removal; in the meantime their hunters were obliged to travel far from home in quest of game in the country infested by savage western Indians. They were compelled to follow the chase to feed their families and to secure skins to make clothing for them. At home they were in constant alarm from the warlike demonstrations of the roving prairie Indians.

The new country of the immigrant Indians abounded in natural wealth according to white men who were acquainted with it. While the Choctaw treaty of 1830 was under consideration in the senate, inquiries concerning this western country and the Indians who had removed there were made by Senator Thomas H. Benton, chairman of the senate committee on Indian affairs, of Col. A. P. Chouteau, trader  p148 at the Three Forks, Gen. William Clark, and John Campbell agent for the Western Creeks. Colonel Chouteau's long reply⁠4 is particularly illuminating. He said he had raised there forty-five to fifty bushels of corn to the acre and from eighteen to twenty bushels of wheat, thus fixing the growth of wheat in the country at a very early date. "The prairies are covered with fine grass; stock do well on it winter and summer; in the winter the grass of the prairies dies and cures, and the cattle and horses prefer it and keep fat upon it; but in cold, windy, wet weather they resort to the timber land to get cane, wild rye, and a winter grass." He stressed the ample water supply, both fresh and salt water. The depots of salt on the salt plains were important. He had never seen them but had them described by the Indians and hunters. The Indians for hundreds of miles around came to gather salt and the Osage brought and sold bushels of it to Colonel Chouteau.

Chouteau's trading house on the bank of the Verdigris River was  p149 within the Cherokee country and adjacent to that of the Creeks; he was a frequent visitor in the homes of his neighbors Roley McIntosh and other rich Creeks.

But the great mass of Creek people had no money, nor, to them, much more than its equivalent — traps, guns, ammunition, clothing and food, and while they waited for that promised them by the Government, the traders A. P. Chouteau and Hugh Love on the Verdigris River provided them with the necessities they could not otherwise obtain; for these they were obliged to pledge a large part of their annuities payable to them under their treaty, and past due for several years while they waited and suffered. On March 1, 1832, Roley McIntosh, Chilly McIntosh, and fifteen other Creek chiefs and warriors of the Verdigris River settlements executed a power of attorney appointing Colonel Chouteau their attorney to secure and receipt for "guns, traps, kettles, blankets, etc., which is justly coming to us agreeable to our treaty."⁠5

Finally, in December, 1834, a shipment of supplies promised them was ascending the Arkansas River when below Fort Smith the boat  p150 sank. It contained articles intended for the Creeks and Quapaw Indians including 1,000 rifles, 520 pairs of blankets, 5,652 pounds of lead, 2,230 pounds of iron, and 55 kegs of powder.⁠6 Some of these were recovered from the river in a damaged condition and brought up to the Creek Agency on the Verdigris River about three miles above the mouth. Among them were 305 rifles with percussion locks and 187 with flint locks; 486 bullet moulds, 445 wipers, and 443 beaver traps. Some of these were delivered to the Creeks along with a crosscut saw for each of the twelve towns, and a set of blacksmith tools including a bellows, anvil, vise, sledge, hammers, tongs, and numerous other tools.

For several years the immigrant Creeks had a wretched existence;⁠7 denied the necessities promised them in consideration of their removal and so vital to their existence in this wild western country, they were in addition afflicted with devastating fevers. By 1830 their numbers had grown to three thousand, but in the next three years over five hundred died from the fevers, an epidemic of influenza, and other prevailing diseases. Cholera and smallpox were epidemic at Fort Gibson and in the surrounding Indian settlements and in the winter of 1833‑34 Dr. George L. Weed of the post vaccinated 790 Creek and Cherokee Indians for which the Government paid him six cents each.⁠8 Only one child in every four born in the new country had lived.⁠9

As if this were not enough, their troubles were aggravated by contention with the Cherokee over the land they occupied, and the  p151 fear that made them nearly desperate, that they were going to be driven from the homes and little farms they had wrested out of the forest on the Arkansas and Verdigris rivers. Many of the Creeks, sick of their treatment, ill, or nostalgic, wandered back to their old homes in Alabama.⁠10

For some years the immigrant Creeks were clustered under the protection of Fort Gibson, from fear of the wild Indians. In the Creek settlement on the Verdigris and Arkansas rivers, the most populous community of immigrant Indians, they were settled so compactly for twelve or fifteen miles up those streams that their improvements adjoined;⁠11 and they continued so until 1834 when General Leavenworth directed the establishment of a military post at the mouth of the Cimarron River; then they felt safe in seeking out locations higher up the Arkansas River⁠12 where they would have more room to raise cattle and hogs.

These pioneer Creeks stood in fear of the wild Indians of the prairies and their appeal to the Government for protection was in a measure responsible for the Indian council held at Fort Gibson in September,  p152 1834, where was laid the groundwork for treaties later made by the Government with the prairie Indians, of great importance to these and succeeding immigrants. But this did not end the troubles of the Creeks, who "made frequent and grievous complaints against the Osage for depredations committed by them, in killing their stock, stealing their horses &c, and have even threatened (as the Government does not afford them that protection which they have promised) to take satisfaction in their own way. . . . They have also similar complaints against the Delawares who are constantly hovering round their borders, and destroying the game."⁠13

Charges were renewed four months later by Chief Roley McIntosh

The tragic migration of the Creek Indians⁠15 brought more than ten thousand cold, suffering and destitute members of that tribe to Fort Gibson in December, 1836. "They had been hutted on the Military Reservation at that post when they were met in a friendly manner by the McIntosh's and on the 28th, 29th and 30th December crossed over  p153 the Arkansas River into their new country, near the mouth of Grand River."⁠16 Here they remained in camp for a time until they could organize for their next move. A few of them united with the McIntosh Creeks on the Arkansas River, but the great majority followed their trusted leader Opothleyaholo and located in the vicinity of the present Eufaula. Here they settled on the rich bottom land of the Canadian River where some of them who engaged in planting in the spring were rewarded by good crops.

Western History Collections, University of Oklahoma Library Opothleyohola, the great Creek leader. From McKenney and Hall, History of the Indian Tribes of North America, 1838.

On their arrival at Fort Gibson, in spite of efforts to reconcile their differences, they renewed the old bitterness over the killing of Chief William McIntosh and the selling of their lands in Alabama; and the tribe was torn by dissension, which at first threatened hostilities and for years prevented the united effort and coöperation essential to their best interest. The tribe was composed of nearly fifty towns, which were more political than geographical, divisions. The faction of Lower Creeks which had followed Chief Roley McIntosh, brother of the former chief William McIntosh, were located on the Arkansas River. The larger faction, the Upper Creeks, were combined under Opothleyaholo, though he was not the nominal chief. Upon the arrival of the emigrants in the Indian Territory in 1836 the two factions numbered nearly the same, making an aggregate of eighteen or twenty thousand. The members of the Upper Towns who located on the Canadian River soon began extending their settlements up that river as far as Little River. A few had even ventured farther west towards Camp Mason, where they would have more open grazing land and would be nearer the buffalo, though exposed to the incursions of the wild prairie Indians.

In 1837 the superintendent for the western Indians reported that the Lower Creeks living on the Verdigris and Arkansas dwelt in comfortable houses, had fine gardens and orchards, and raised forty to fifty thousand bushels of corn more than they needed for their own consumption. They furnished large quantities to the commissariat at Fort Gibson annually, and contributed greatly in supplying the late immigrants. They raised also more stock than was necessary for their own use, he said, and carried on a considerable trade with the garrison in grain, stock, vegetables, poultry, eggs, fruit, pigs, lambs, venison,  p154 ham, bear-meat and butter.⁠17 The numerous traders among them included two Creeks who did a flourishing business, selling eighteen or twenty thousand dollars worth of goods annually; they were also engaged in trade with the wild prairie Indians in the West. The Creeks were known as corn-growing people, and some of the principal farmers cribbed as much as five to ten thousand bushels of corn in a season.

The glowing published reports of the government agents are to be accepted with reservations, for they are often at variance with other accounts that for obvious reasons never found their way into print. However, the Lower Creeks, those on the Arkansas River, were, in fact, adjusting themselves to their new environment with measurable success. The next year reports were circulated that the Creeks had done no planting and that there was much discontent among them. This situation did exist among the Upper Creeks on the Canadian for the best of reasons. Driven from their homes without any preparation, and obliged to abandon their personal property, they found themselves in a strange country suffering from poverty and a want of provisions; they had no tools with which to till the soil and they could raise no crops the year after their arrival. Though they were without funds to purchase ammunition they were forced to go on hunting trips to procure deer skins and furs to clothe themselves and their families and food to keep from starving. These Creeks particularly bitter at the whites who had robbed them in Alabama, were the most destitute in their new homes; helpless to engage in farming, they were entertaining proposals to join the Texans in their warfare against the Mexicans.⁠18

Governor Stokes whose candor was always reliable, wrote in June, 1838 of these unhappy Creek people: "The circumstances under which a great portion of this Nation was lately removed to this country, has soured the minds of a great majority of the late emigrants. Very few of Opothleyohola's band are making crops for their subsistence. . . . the scenes exhibited on the Canadian River at this time, of drunkenness and riot among the Creeks are such as have rarely been exhibited in any country. There are no less than six dram shops at this time within two hundred yards of each other, where whisky is openly and publicly  p155 sold."⁠19 The white vultures who had preyed on the Creeks during their removal fastened on them in their new home to add to their misery. There was much sickness among these recent emigrants and many died.⁠20 The homesick survivors wished to go to Texas whither they had planned to remove when confronted with the necessity of leaving their homes in the East. A drought in 1838 that destroyed their meager crops, added to the misery of all the immigrant Indians.

There was so much destitution among them that Congress appropriated an additional $150,000 to feed the Creeks, Osage, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and others. On February 1, 1839 an issue was made to 2,000 half-starved Creeks gathered at the depot on North Fork of the Canadian River, and later another to a large number nearer to Fort Gibson.⁠21 Issues were made later in the year to large parties of hungry Osage, Quapaw, and Seminole. Vaccination carelessly done had but little checked the smallpox then raging among the Creeks, Seminole, and Cherokee.⁠22

The Lower Creeks, who were much more fortunately situated, feeling that an injustice had been done them by reports of neglect of crops, through Roley McIntosh, Fushhatche Micco and twenty-two other chiefs, caused a letter of denial to be published in the Arkansas Gazette. They said in early June that they had as good a prospect for a bounti­ful crop of corn, considering the late spring and the meager supply of farming tools, as they ever had.⁠23

These Indians early began laying the foundation for herds of cattle and hogs. It was reported by the officials that the resources of the Creeks were equal to all their wants and comforts and it was thought that the superior fertility of their lands, aided by their evident tendency to industry, would in a few years place them in a condition equal to the Cherokee and Choctaw.

The emigration of the eastern Indians not only afforded opportunities for profitable employment by the emigration companies, but very materially increased the number of steamboats and the amount of  p156 commerce on Arkansas River as far as the Verdigris. In the year 1836, seven of these boats were engaged in regular service to Fort Gibson and the Creek Agency on the Verdigris; and the next year there were twelve boats carrying Indians, rations, supplies and merchandise to Fort Coffee, Fort Gibson, and the Verdigris River.

The Government was under contract with the Indians to subsist them for a year after their arrival in the West until they could support themselves from their first crop in their new homes. The earlier arrivals, especially the Creeks on the Verdigris and Arkansas rivers, and the Cherokee near Fort Gibson, were raising an abundance of corn on the rich bottom land and each year had a surplus which they had been selling to the garrison at Fort Gibson, and which would have contributed measurably to the maintenance of the newcomers through 1836 and 1837. But for some reason, or lack of reason, the administration failed to consult the Indian officials of the West about the subject, and proceeded to let contracts for an enormous quantity of rations as if there were nothing whatever raised in the West; these rations were purchased at New Orleans and removed at great expense to Fort Gibson and Fort Coffee.

The nature of these shipments is shown by the ladings of three steamboats that left New Orleans for Fort Gibson in the month of May, 1837, loaded as follows: The steamboat Privateer with 473 barrels of pork, 596 barrels of flour, 25 sacks (or 100 bushels) of salt, and 35 casks (37,111 pounds) of bacon. The steamboat Caspian with 700 barrels of pork, and 450 barrels of flour; the steamboat Cocchuma with 25 casks (13,750 pounds) of bacon, 341 barrels of flour, and 392 barrels of pork.⁠24 One boatload followed another, and they had not all reached their destination when it was discovered that somebody had made a monumental blunder; that the supply purchased by the Government greatly exceeded the possible demand, and in addition there was promise of bounti­ful crops on the farms of the resident Indians.

The provisions were being piled up on the banks of the river at Fort Coffee and Fort Gibson, and hasty efforts were made to care for them — no adequate consideration, apparently, having been given to the matter before their arrival. Lieut. Jefferson Van Horne was sent to Fort Coffee to erect sheds to contain 1,000,000 rations, and Capt.   p157 James R. Stephenson went to Fort Gibson to construct as quickly as possible a number of sheds to house twice that amount. On the bank of the river at Fort Gibson, four of these sheds each more than 200 feet long, were erected; labor and lumber were difficult to obtain, and it required weeks to complete them. The casks stood in the hot sun, and what with the heat and rough handling the hoops dropped off, the brine ran out and the meat began to spoil.⁠25 On June 16 there were piled up at this post on the bank of the Grand River in the hot sun 881 barrels of pork, 2136 barrels of flour, 207 hogshead of bacon of 700 pounds each, and 200 sacks of salt, with large quantities yet to arrive.⁠26 They turned desperately to the chance of reshipping these supplies to New Orleans to salvage those that were not spoiled; but the water in the Arkansas River had fallen so low that no steamboats were available to carry any of the stores down the river; and the government officials were followed to turn for relief to traders, contractors and others who were prepared to supply the immigrant Indians.

Much of this immense quantity of damaged provisions was sold to the firm of Harrison, Glasgow and Company, contractors for rationing the Indians and it thereby entered into the scandal that involved the care of these helpless people along with the prodigal and defenseless purchase of supplies at New Orleans and Cincinnati out of their money.

A ration for the Indians — food for one person for one day — consisted of three articles: meat, bread, and salt. The meat was either three-quarters of a pound of salt port, or a pound of fresh beef; the bread ration was a pound of wheat flour or three-quarters of a quart of corn; salt was furnished at the rate of four quarts to every 100 rations. There was much complaint on the part of the Indians of the quantity and quality of the rations issued to them. A. J. Raines who had been employed by the contractors Harrison and Glasgow and afterwards discharged, wrote to the war department and members of Congress as early as 1837 making specific charges of the grossest frauds and impositions on the Indians. The authorities in Washington were disinclined to credit these charges and little attention was paid  p158 to Raines's letters nor was anything done to remedy the conditions exposed by them. Raines was finally silenced by the payment to him of the sum of $13,500 and he left Fort Smith with a large trading expedition bound for Mexico. Similar charges and complaints in connections with the rationing of the Chickasaw, Seminole, and Cherokee immigrants were lodged in Washington, and finally the matter became so notorious that in September, 1841 Maj. Ethan Allen Hitchcock was commissioned to proceed to the Indian Territory and make an investigation of the whole field covered by the charges since the arrival of the Creeks in the West.

Major Hitchcock interviewed many of the most intelligent Creek citizens who related incidents disclosing the truth of all the charges that had been made.⁠27 Capt. James R. Stephenson of the Seventh Infantry supervised the issuing of rations until April, 1837 and there was little complaint. At that time however the contractors Harrison and Glasgow took over this function and the complaints began. A few examples illustrate the whole field of villainy practiced by the heartless contractors on helpless Indians.

The fraud consisted mainly in the use of a false measure in the issue of corn so that the Indians received only about three pecks for a bushel, and in the issue of cattle on the hoof the usually ignorant and helpless Indians were obliged to take an animal at forty to fifty per cent more than its true weight. Benjamin Marshall, an intelligent Creek Indian whom Hitchcock regarded highly, said that he was asked by some of the ignorant Indians to go to Sodom a place of issue near his home and protect them in their rights. Samuel Mackey, a white man living on the Illinois River with his Cherokee family, represented the contractors locally. The issuing agent at the place was a man named Kirk and later Eli Jacobs, both white men. Marshall who had dealt extensively in cattle and was a judge of their weight said that Kirk was gambling in a house about 200 yards from the cattle pen; at least he was playing cards and Marshall saw money on the table. When the Indians came for cattle he would interrupt his game long enough to write an order to the contractor to issue a certain number of rations to them. The Indians would then go to the pen and present the order to the contractor who would turn out as many and such cattle as he chose to comply with the  p159 order. Their weight, Marshall said, was greatly overestimated; an animal which would not weigh more than 350 pounds was issued to the Indians and credited to the contractors as from 500 to 550 pounds. When he saw this done repeatedly Marshall reported it to Captain Stephenson at Fort Gibson who resented Marshall's interference and they had some hot words. Chief Roley McIntosh, Alexander Berryhill and other reputable and intelligent Indians killed cattle that had been issued to the immigrants at 600 pounds and found that they weighed only a trifle over 400. And when informed of the fact the contractor refused to make good the difference. This form of fraud was many times related to Major Hitchcock.

The other most common method was the issue of corn in the husk measured in a barrel for two bushels when it was contended that it would not shell out more than a bushel and a half. Another measure used was a square box for a half bushel which when tested lacked several points of holding a half bushel of shelled corn. Seaborn Hill told of seeing a wagonload of corn in the shuck thrown on the ground for the Indians and delivered to them at forty bushels. He said the bed could not have held more than twenty-five bushels of shucked corn and with the shucks on it was much less. Hill said this was part of 5,000 bushels of corn he had sold to Governor James Conway of Arkansas who was a partner of the contractors Harrison and Glasgow.

Samuel Smith related that in February 1838 an issue of corn was made at Sodom to a company of Seminole Indians under Nocose Yohola. It had been in a keel boat stranded on a sand bar where for two months through the winter it had been rained and snowed upon so that it was fit only for hogs. The agent wished to issue it at the rate of a bushel and three pecks a barrel, but Smith told him the Indians were doing him a favor to take it at all. Some of it was so rotten the husks were falling off.

J. L. Alexander, a white man, came west with Opothleyaholo's company of Creeks of whom 2,321 survivors of the 2,700 who left Alabama arrived at Fort Gibson December 7, 1836. He was employed by Captain Stephenson as issuing agent, but he was discharged on the complaint of the contractors that he was issuing excessive amounts to the Indians. The contractors had given him half a dozen square boxes in which to measure the corn; but when tested Alexander found that they did not hold half a bushel and by authority of Stephenson  p160 he substituted a regular half bushel measure. Raines, who was then in the employ of the contractors, made the charge and Alexander went to see him. Raines too was playing cards. It seemed that everybody played cards and gambled where there were so many rations being issued and so much money about. Raines left the card table and went to the door to speak to Alexander whom he accused of issuing 1,200 bushels too much corn to the Creeks. After his discharge the contractors held out that amount to make up for what they claimed to have lost. Alexander was then employed by the Creeks as clerk to protect their interests. At a certain issue of cattle he had them killed and weighed and found them 7,000 pounds under the weight for which the Indians were charged. By order of the chiefs he wrote to Captain Stephenson informing him of the facts but the Captain never replied. On one occasion when Alexander was working for the contractors, Harrison told him that he had some corn for the Indians at Webbers Falls about thirty-five miles from the place of issue on the Canadian River; and he said that if the Indians would transport it from the boat landing he would pay them "three bits" (37 ½ cents) a bushel. The Indians having been without corn for a long time, many of them accepted the offer; some went on ponies, some even went on foot and packed the corn on their backs the full thirty-five miles. For they were desperately poor, their families were hungry, and most of their ponies had died on the long march from Alabama.

Artus Fixico, a Creek chief at the head of a company of seventy-eight persons, said that his party was given an issue of five barrels, four of which contained sour flour and one was filled with lime. The provisions issued to them were so scant and so bad that as soon as the roasting ears came in the Indians lived on them until autumn when the new corn was available for crushing. The contractors then paid them seventy-five cents in satisfaction of their claim for food for the remainder of the year. At times there was complaint of complete failure to issue the rations to which the Indians were entitled and many of them were on the point of starvation. On other occasions the Indians were compelled to return home empty handed and visit the place of issue more than once before they could secure their rations. Cowed and discouraged they were then induced for a grossly inadequate consideration to sell to the contractor their claim for food.

There were several reports of barrels of lime being included with  p161  barrels of flour issued to the Indians. Instances were related where Indians complained to the issuing agents of the quantity or quality of the rations, only to be cursed and told that if they did not like what they were given they could do without. One Creek who represented his and other families requested to have the cattle to which they were entitled delivered as early as possible as he had to travel a long distance and cross a river. He was rewarded by being told that he should be the last one served; it was late in the day and night overtook him before he crossed the stream, the wild cattle he was attempting to drive home escaped in the timber and underbrush, he lost every one of them and the hungry families he represented were destitute of meat for a long time.

One witness told of seeing an Indian woman picking up grains of corn where the contractor's horses had been eating. At times, on the verge of starvation, some of the Creeks "were obliged to dig for the wild potato in the prairies; a good many have died, and but for the wild potato, a great many more would have died. The want of provisions occasioned a great deal of suffering, and, in my opinion, many deaths. Very few had guns, and there was very little game about." The investigation showed that no one representing the Government or the Indians took any steps to protect their interests or witness the issue of rations to them and these ignorant people were helpless victims of the rapacious contractors.⁠28 Raines said that in 1837 the contractors bought up the claims of the Creek Indians for corn rations for $20,000 cash which the latter expended for whisky; that at the issuing depot  p162 at the North Fork (later North Fork Town) 400 barrels of whisky was sold to the Creeks and that in one day he had seen 2,000 drunken Creek Indians; that in my homes entire families were prostrate with sickness so that not one was able to help another; and the next June when he wrote, one half of the 16,000 Creeks were without a mouthful of provisions.⁠29

The Author's Notes:

1 Kappler, op. cit., II, 188.

2 Grant Foreman, Indians and Pioneers, 297; Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest, 210.

3 In 1842 Roley McIntosh wrote: "The rifles were delivered and some few small kettles and traps, but no money at all. The headright money due that party had never been paid."

4 Knoxville (Tenn.) Register, April 13, 1831, p2, col. 5; p3 cols. 1 and 2. Rev. John Fleming located among the Creek Indians on the Verdigris River in January 1833. He thought these Indians were "idle, lounging about the greater part of the time. They have little houses and live and dress pretty much like ourselves; only they have no regular eating times through the day. A pot of hominy stands in the chimney corner and when any are hungry they go and eat. The women are learning to sew and spin on large wheels and some of them make out remarkably well."

5 Roley McIntosh and other Creeks to Augustus P. Chouteau, March 1, 1832, OIA.

6 Van Horne to Gibson, March 5, 1835, OIA "Creek Emigration."

7 When the Chickasaw explorers visited the Creeks in 1829 (Foreman, Indians and Pioneers, 310), they reported that "the Creeks are in a poor condition. They are continually mourning for the land of their birth. The women are in continual sorrow" (Cherokee Phoenix, June 10, 1829, p2, col. 4).

8 Vaccination Accounts, OIA "Creeks West" 1834.

9 Document, IV, 721, 722; a census of the western Creeks taken September 30, 1833, showed a total of 2,459, belonging to the following towns: "Coweta, 423; Broken Arrow, 326; Talledega, 251; Ufala, 131; Chow-woc-kolee, 95; New York, 50; Wockokoy, 117; Sandtown, 77; Koasati, 100; Hitchita, 166; Coiga, 120; Big Springs, 300; Oakela Ockney, 206; Sowocolo, 70; Hatchee Chubbee, 27." The total included twenty-six white men and two white women intermarried in the tribe, and 498 slaves belonging to the Indians (ibid.). And yet, while the Creeks were dying in such numbers, Secretary Eaton blandly told the delegation of Eastern Creeks then in Washington: "The country your nation possesses west of the Mississippi River you say is not healthy. This surely is not correct; all the accounts we have are opposed to your statement" (Document, II, 290).

10 Ibid., III, 434.

11 ". . . on the point of land formed by the junction of the Arkansas and Verdigris, extending twenty miles up the Arkansas and six up the Verdigris . . . live 2,135 . . ." Creeks. ". . . On the adjacent south bank of the Arkansas are 175, and on the north bank of the Verdigris, 50. The remainder (one hundred) live on the Canadian. The point between the Arkansas and Verdigris is compactly settled for twenty miles and is a fertile and beauti­ful valley. . . . From 50 to 55,000 bushels of corn has been produced this season. The surplus quantity which can be spared for market is about 20,000 bushels. . . . The present current price of corn among the more extensive farmers, is seventy-five cents per bushel. The poorer class are every day selling considerable quantities of corn which they carry on their backs and sell to the traders for fifty cents in goods" (Van Horne to Gibson, October 7, 1834, Report of commissioner of Indian affairs for 1834, p256). Mr. Vaill wrote: ". . . the country is one extended village, as thickly settled as some of the smaller parishes in New England" (Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Missionary Records, Vol. 73, No. 80).

12 In the fork of the Verdigris and Arkansas rivers the Talisi (or Tulsa) Creeks had cleared the ground of ". . . the peccan trees, the cottonwood, oaks, and hickory and a great many others, with their trailing vines; and some of these vines had trunks from four to six inches through" and established a considerable village (Augustus W. Loomis, Scenes in the Indian Country). Another village of "Talasee" is shown higher up the Arkansas River, where is now located the city of Tula (Map of Creek County, Bureau of Topographical Engineers, 1850).

13 McCabe to Armstrong, December 31, 1834, OIA "Creeks West."

14 Ibid., April 5, 1835. OIA "Creeks West."

15 Indian Removal, op. cit.

16 Batman to Harris, January 8, 1837, OIA, "Creek emigration," B 160.

17 United States Senate Executive Document No. 3, Twenty-fifth Congress, second session, p579.

18 Stuart to Jones, June 9, 1838, OIA, "Fort Coffee."

19 Stokes to Poinsett, June 5, 1838, OIA.

20 Foreman, A Traveler in Indian Territory, 120; letter from St. Louis, OIA, "Western Superintendency," file E 171.

21 Pew to Crawford, February 12, 1839, OIA, "Western Superintendency," file F 494.

22 McCoy to Poinsett, February 13, 1839, OIA, "Miscellaneous" file M 615.

23 New York Observer, July 7, 1838, p3, col. 5.

24 Lieut. John B. Grayson to commissioner of Indian affairs, May 25, 1837, OIA.

25 Capt. R. D. C. Collins to Commissioner Harris May 31, and July 27, 1837, OIA; Stephenson to Collins, August 9, 1837, ibid.

26 Joel Crittenden to Harris June 16, 1837, OIA.

27 Hitchcock Report, U. S. House Executive Document No. 219, Twenty-seventh Congress, third session.

28 Glasgow and Harrison, James S. Conway and Thomas T. Turnstall of Little Rock advertised that by the name of Glasgow & Harrison they had formed a partner­ship to trade and furnish rations to the Creek and Seminole emigrants for twelve months from April 1, 1837, and any contracts made by any of the members would be attended to by James S. Conway of Little Rock (Constitutional Journal (Helena, Arkansas) February 9, 1839, p2, col. 5).

Confidential papers in the Hitchcock collection of manuscripts charge that a disbursing officer at Little Rock connected with the rationing of the Indians was a defaulter in the sum of $200,000; but that he was the victim of a gang of rogues who surrounded him and taking advantage of his easy-going nature induced him to loan them large sums of Government funds for speculation in schemes that would yield them enormous profits. Names of some of the men supposed to have secured this money are given; men prominently identified with the country and times. The defaulting army officer was abandoned to his fate by his associates and he died just before Hitchcock made his investigation.

Thayer's Note: I find it interesting that writing in 1934, about a century after the events, Foreman still chose to conceal the names of the wrongdoer — the "defaulting army officer" — and of his partners in corruption. The army officer is Richard D. C. Collins, who, as will be seen from his biographical sketch in Cullum's Register, was first dismissed from the army, and died four months later.

29 Raines to Harris, June 4, 1838, OIA, "Western Supt'y (Emigr.)" File R 269, 289.

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