The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist: An Omitted Chapter in the Diplomatic History of the Southern ConfederacyAbel, Annie Heloise
History
The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist: An Omitted Chapter in the Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy
Abel, Annie Heloise
Indian Territory; Slavery -- United States; United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865
The other great tribes had also occasions for quarrel in these same
critical years. The disgraceful circumstances of their removal had widened
the gulf, once simply geographical, between the Upper and the Lower
Creeks. They were now almost two distinct political entities, in each of
which there were a principal and a second chief. In 1833, provision had
been made for the accommodation of the Seminoles within a certain definite
part of the Creek country[65]--just such an arrangement, forsooth, as
worked so ill when applied to the Choctaws and Chickasaws; but it took
several years for the Seminoles to be suited. At length, when their
numbers had been considerably augmented by the coming of the new
immigrants from Florida, they took up their position, for good and all,
in the southwestern corner of the Creek Reserve, a politically distinct
community. By that time, the Creeks seem to have repented of their
generosity,[66] so, perhaps, it was well that the United States government
had not yielded to their importunity and consented to a like settlement of
the southern Comanches.[67] It had taken the Chickasaws a long time to
reconstruct their government after the political separation from the
Choctaws; but now they had a constitution,[68] all their own, a
legislature, and a governor. The Choctaws had attempted a constitution,
likewise, first the Scullyville, then the Doaksville, set up by a minority
party; but they had retained some semblance of the old order of things in
the persons of their chiefs.[69]
There were other Indians within the southern division of the Indian
country that were to have their part in the Civil War and in events
leading up to it or resulting from it. In the extreme northeastern corner,
were the Quapaws, the Senecas, and the confederated Senecas and Shawnees,
all members, with the Osages and the New York Indians of Kansas, of the
Neosho River Agency which was under the care of Andrew J. Dorn. In the far
western part, at the base of the Wichita Mountains, were the Indians of
the Leased District, Wichitas, Tonkawas,[70] Euchees, and others,
collectively called the "Reserve Indians." Most of them had been brought
from Texas,[71] because of Texan intolerance of their presence, and placed
within the Leased District, a tract of land west of the ninety-eighth
meridian, which, under the treaty of 1855, the United States had rented
from the Choctaws and Chickasaws. It was a part of the old Chickasaw
District of the Choctaw Nation. Outside of the Wichita Reserve and still
wandering at large over the plains were the hostile Kiowas and Comanches,
against whom and the inoffensive Reserve Indians, the Texans nourished a
bitter, undying hatred. They charged them with crimes that were never
committed and with some crimes that white men, disguised as Indians, had
committed. They were also suspected of manufacturing evidence that would
incriminate the red men and of plotting, in regularly-organized meetings,
their overthrow.[72]
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