Grant Foreman • The Five Civilized Tribes

The missionaries and leaders of the nation realized the seriousness of the whisky menace and proceeded by an intelligent campaign of education to combat it. Temperance meetings now were frequently held in all parts of the Cherokee Nation. Dr. Butler was always on hand to lecture on his "plates" and he traveled over the country exhibiting them to all who would listen. These looked with interest on the first pictures they had ever seen of the stomach and other internal organs, demonstrating to them the great harm resulting from the use of whisky.

These temperance meetings were earnest and solemn occasions, but the leaders endeavored to make them interesting as well as impressive. Accounts of them held a prominent position in the Cherokee Advocate from which one learns of the quaint features of the programs. For example, at a meeting of the Tahlequah District Temperance Society at Riley's Chapel, presided over by Rev. Stephen Foreman, the long program included the songs "The Drunkard's Wife," to the tune of "Ingleside"; "The Drunkard's Dying Wife," "The Penitent Rum Drinker," "and volunteer songs any one has to offer."

Mrs. Edith Walker of Fort Gibson, a granddaughter of the Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, recalls as one of her earnest recollections the rallying of the Cold Water Army at the convening of the National Council in November of each year; they would form a

"march of allegiance around the Capitol square, carrying banners and singing temperance songs written and set to popular airs of the day by my grandfather, when we listened to temperance speeches by the most prominent men of the nation and members of the Cherokee council; and at the noon hour every body was served with barbecued meat, chicken, pie and p386 cake, which the mothers, wives and sweet-hearts prepared. I can remember my mother as she stood over the furnace kettle in the old mission kitchen, and fried two bushels of doughnuts for one such occasion.

"My mother's eldest sister, Mrs. A. E. W. Robertson, accompanied her father on yearly visits to the different districts of the Nation to play the melodeon for the singing of the temperance songs at the gatherings for instruction and encouragement, until the fame of the Cherokee Cold Water Army spread far and wide, and a similar organization was asked for by the Choctaws and Creeks."

Mrs. Walker's mother also wrote her impressions of those interesting occasions.⁠1

"The Cherokee council in the early days of the temperance movement was held in a large shed in the centre of what is now Capitol Square. The annual meetings of the temperance society were always held during the session of the National council; and the officers of the society were, many of them, members of that body, as were also many of the speakers at the meetings. Some were both native preachers and members of the council. The only qualifications for membership in the Society, was to sign the Society pledge, as follows:

'We hereby solemnly pledge ourselves that we will neither use nor buy, nor sell, nor give, nor receive as a drink, any whisky, brandy, rum, gin, wine, fermented cider, strong beer, nor any kind of intoxicating liquor.'

"Between annual meetings there were other meetings held and auxiliary societies organized in all parts of the Nation. My father taught his children and all who came under his influence to help in the temperance work. All young men who at different times dwelt in his house (and there were usually more than two or three) learned that they could do something and that they were expected to do their part; some could sing, some speak, and some help to wait on the assembled people when dinner time came. We children knew that what we could do, we were bound to do with no word of objection. Our father took us with him to the meetings, and we all had our parts to perform. My brothers made music when they were hardly taller than their violins. One brother spoke the first 'speech' he ever made in public at the age of sixteen on temperance.

p387 "We went to many temperance meetings in different parts of the Nation; some in the woods on the banks of the beautiful clear-running streams, or near some of the fine springs so plentiful in our Nation. The people gathered from near and far; meat was barbecued; bread, cakes and pies provided, and no effort was spared to have an interesting and happy time for all. Through the courtesy of the Christian commander of Fort Gibson, Col. Indicates a West Point graduate, Class of 1811: a link to his biographical entry in Cullum's Register. Gustavus Loomis, my father was permitted to have the attendance at some of his meetings of 'the finest band in the United States Army' then stationed at Fort Gibson; and once a choir of nineteen soldiers sang temperance songs, and more delightful singing I never heard in all my long life. Great was our consternation and grief when that fine band was ordered to march with the regiment to the Mexican War, and left Fort Gibson, never to return.

"At the request of Rev. R. M. Loughridge, missionary at Tullahassee mission, my father went to the Creek Nation to organize a Temperance society. He took with him his children and his 'seraphine'; a brush shed was constructed near the Old Agency, and there near the agency spring, the people gathered and a temperance society was organized. The 'seraphine' was played by my sister who afterwards became Mrs. A. E. W. Robertson, principal and superintendent of the Tullahassee manual labor mission school.

"My father, Dr. Worcester, wrote the songs for the Cherokee Cold Water Army; and taught the boys and girls to sing and march to them; he spent hours and days making for them banners of different devices. Many happy days we had, preparing for and attending the meetings. We sang 'Come and join our Temperance Army,' 'Water, Sweet Cold Water,' &c. Some of us had to ride the five miles from Park Hill in the slow clumsy ox-wagon, with the boxes and baskets of provisions for the dinner; while the more fortunate ones went in a four-mule wagon sent through the kindness of a wealthy neighbor, Mr. George M. Murrell, with a Negro driver, to carry thirty or forty children gathered in from the neighborhood. Those who rode behind big plodding old Pete and Broad had to start earlier than the others, though all were up and sitrring by daylight to get ready. We had to bear it as well as we could to see the other party go dashing by us, singing and shouting, with a streamer twenty feet long flying, and other banners waving. That last, last, meeting, before the Civil War put a p388 stop to all such things, was on July 4, 1860, after the death of its founder.

"On that day 125 children marched in line around the public square in Tahlequah. Every child carried a little banner with a printed device; the girls' banners white, the boys' pink, besides the twenty foot streamer at the head of the line with 'Cold Water Army' in large letters painted on it and many other banners of different devices and mottoes. The years had passed until I was no longer a child; two of my children marched in that company, and a third one, too small to keep up, was carried by her father alongside."

Pierce M. Butler, who was born in South Carolina in 1798, served in the Seventh Infantry at Fort Smith and Fort Gibson. He was made first lieutenant in March, 1822, and captain in 1825. On May 26, 1826, he was married to Miss Miranda Julia du Val at the home of E. W. du Val in Crawford County, Arkansas. In 1829, while in recruiting service in South Carolina, he resigned from the army and was elected cashier of the branch bank of that state. He served as governor of his native state from 1836 to 1838, and on September 17, 1841, he was appointed agent to the Cherokee Indians, when he took up his residence at Fort Gibson. He was intensely loyal to the Cherokee Indians and took a vigorous part in their controversies with the troops stationed at Fort Gibson. He very much desired reappointment, but in the shiftings of politics it was denied him. He was of that small class of intelligent Indian agents who were not only able but made it part of their business to write interesting descriptions of the Indians and their progress in the scale of civilization. The student of these Indians is under great obligations to agents such as Butler, Logan, Stokes, and others for much of what we know of those periods of Indian history.

In the spring of 1846, upon the termination of his service as Cherokee agent, Butler made a final report to Maj. William Armstrong, acting superintendent for the Western Territory, which contains some interesting observations on the tribe. He was greatly impressed by the progress of the Cherokee people as evidenced by

"their change of sentiments relative to females, and the now high and exalted estimate of female character, disclosed by the countenance and encouragement given to her cultivation, and the many opportunities afforded her of improvement; being regarded no longer as a slave — as personal property — but as a friend and companion. This change in the condition of the p389 women manifests itself in their manners, dress and general deportment. Under this head I take great pleasure in making mention of a school taught at the seat of government by Miss Mary Hoyt, a native Cherokee, and which will bear comparison with any institution of like character west of the Mississippi river. Miss Hoyt is the grand daughter of the venerable Major Lowrey, second chief of the nation. In acquirement, lady-like deportment and capacity for government, she has few if any superiors . . . and wish that the impress of her own character may be made on the minds of her pupils.

"Temperance . . . has been a God-send to Cherokee nation. Its progress has been marked by a successful suppression of vice, and a happy subjugation of the turbulent and depraved passions. The number of members is, as will be seen, about 2,700 — a larger proportion of the whole people than can be found in any other of equal extent of population. Private associations among themselves, of a similar character, produce a like effect, working, perhaps a more lasting and permanent reformation, from the fact that they pride themselves on their undeviating adherance to a promise, and their fidelity to this pledge. The saving influence of this society shows itself not only in the voluntary abstinance from the use of spirits, but also in their manifest demonstration of an intention to prevent its importation into their country. From my observation and acquaintance with the Indian Tribes, I am decidedly of opinion that all restrictive laws or arbitrary action by superior power is productive of evil consequences. . . . The effect of the present law is to introduce by stealth, liquors of a bad quality, and at exorbitant prices, whilst the consumption is induced by frolics in a spirit and temper in proportion to the efforts made to restrain the inclination. The experiment is now being made of allowing the sutler to sell to the garrison, which I approve of, and believe will result in a correction of this evil."

Butler referred again to the advance of the Cherokee farmers who had many of the luxuries of life, neat farms, abundance of cleared lands, a good system of cultivation; they displayed great care and rivalry in the improvement of their cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep. The soil of the country was productive and yielded an ample support at little cost from which they enjoyed all the comforts and necessities of life. Many of the Cherokee men displayed great mechanical skill, and most of the farmers were able to stock their plows, helve their hoes, and make gates p390 and doors to their dwellings. But the women contributed as much to their common welfare as the men. "They are fond of spinning and weaving and manifest great ingenuity in the manufacture of domestic cloth. . . . It is a pleasing spectacle and a subject of great congratulations to the friends of these people, to witness, on a Sabbath, the father, mother, and children clad in the products of their own labor; the material is well manufactured, and in the selection, variety, and arrangement of the colors, they exhibit great taste and skill."⁠a

Butler paid a tribute to the Cherokee printing press which had been "chiefly instrumental in placing the Cherokees one half a century in advance of their late condition; providing an easy and cheap mode of diffusing instruction among the people, and stimulating them to further exertion and improvement. . . . It is an object that cannot fail to strike the heart of the philanthropist with peculiar emotion to be in the neighborhood of the press on the day the paper is struck off, and witness the eagerness with which it is sought after, particularly by the more ignorant class who neither speak nor read the English language, but who acquire their own alphabet in twenty-four hours. Two or three of the Cherokee columns are occupied with portions of Peter Parley's Travels, which they read and enjoy with much zest."⁠2

Governor Butler was succeeded as agent in 1846 by James McKissick, of Fayetteville, Arkansas, formerly of Tennessee; Butler was then entrusted with negotiations of a delicate nature with the western Indians.

McKissick died suddenly, January 13, 1848, in his office at the Cherokee agency seven miles east of Fort Gibson. Colonel Loomis, commanding at Fort Gibson, acted as agent in the interval, and a large number of Cherokee people signed a petition for the appointment of Marcellus du Val to fill the vacancy, but the president appointed Richard C. S. Brown from near Fort Smith, who arrived at his post in March, 1848, and served until the next year when he was removed. When Brown assumed the duties of the office he reported that the improvements at the agency, then located at Manard Bayou, consisted of four log cabins much in need of repair, about 600 yards from a fine spring, and that there was a frame house near by that had been erected by p391 Berthelet & Heald for a storehouse and was occupied by John Waitie, the interpreter. There was also a farm of eighty acres in connection with the agency. He asked for authority to build new houses or to locate the agency elsewhere.

Dr. William Butler, of Greenville, South Carolina, brother of Pierce M. Butler, was appointed Cherokee agent May 30, 1849. He reached the agency with his family on December 7, of that year, after a journey of two months overland, the rivers being too low for navigation. Dr. Butler served as agent until September 24, 1850, when, after an illness of five weeks at the agency, he died at the age of sixty-one. Dr. Butler was a native of South Carolina and in the war of 1812 had served as a surgeon in the army.

Brigadier-general W. G. Belknap in command of the infantry at Fort Gibson, then acted as Cherokee agent until the appointment of George Butler, son of Dr. Butler, October 31, 1850. On July 5, 1851, Butler reported that, in accordance with instructions, he had sold the agency buildings for $250 and had located the new agency three miles northwest of Tahlequah in a high and healthful country.

The Author's Notes:

1 Mrs. Hannah Hitchcock, the daughter of Rev. S. A. Worcester, was the widow of Dr. Dwight H. Hitchcock.

[ Cherokee ]

p385 Chapter twenty-nine
The Cold Water Army

The Author's Notes:

Thayer's Note:

[ Cherokee ]

p385 Chapter twenty-nine The Cold Water Army

The Author's Notes:

Thayer's Note:

p385 Chapter twenty-nine
The Cold Water Army