The Indians having settled down in Oklahoma under their various tribal governments, made great progress.[23] They published papers in their own language. The Cherokee capital at Talequah contained creditable buildings—a good administration building and two fine Indian schools, which may be seen on pages 138 and 146. This school, by the way, built by the Cherokee Indians with their own money, is now occupied by white pupils. It was the finest building I observed in all Oklahoma, and it is a standing repudiation to the statement that the Indians were not progressing and that they did not afford proper educational facilities to their own people. At the end of the Civil War, a number of outlaws belonging to guerilla bands, both North and South, came into the State. White persons migrated to the country and occupied it. The Indians complained, and our authorities at Washington made a few abortive attempts to keep them out, but, as inevitably, the whites dominated. The Dawes Commission was formed, and after years of negotiation and coercion, enrollment of the Indians began. The rolls are now completed and include the totals mentioned in my statistics upon a previous page. There were a few Indians who held out against this arbitrary action on our part, and right here I wish to pay a compliment to a few old men and women, who were treated with contempt, who were called “Snakes” in the Creek and “Nighthawks” in the Cherokee nation by the unthinking. Why? For the reason that they have a simple, a child-like faith in the great United States Nation. They believe that we will keep our pledged word. They are not educated and therefore they cannot grasp the essentials of our civilization as it applies toward Indians; that when we execute a ninety-nine year lease among ourselves, we keep it; but that a solemn covenant entered into with the Indians is a very different matter. So these poor old Snakes and Nighthawks refused to be enrolled and to receive allotments, trusting in the honesty and integrity of the Great Father at Washington. One of the most pathetic sights I ever witnessed in my life, was when old Fixico Harjo and Okoskee Miller, and a few other fine old men, of the best type of American Indian, called my attention to our solemn covenant with these people, stating that they were helpless, that allotments had been forced upon them, that they expected to see even these little tracts taken away from them, that they could not understand the speeches of the clever, shrewd, oily, forked-tongued lawyers and land-buyers who came among them; they asked not charity but justice. The only thing in this world that was positive, that was true, that was inevitable, was this fact: that every time they touched a pen they lost something; that every promise made to them by a white man was broken; that they had abandoned all hope save one—that when they are gathered to their fathers, in the great beyond, they hope