Thoughts on Native American Culture

Whipping Tree, Chickasaw Council House Museum

My Uncle Haskell was an attorney and judge in Pauls Valley, Oklahoma, and a charter member of the Chickasaw Historical Society Board. He explained to me once that for the Indians, especially the full bloods, the concept of land ownership was totally foreign.  

He said that to them, land was like water or air, to be used by each person as needed. Before the white man came, they used land for hunting and for farming, and when game was scarce or during droughts, they moved on. There were boundaries between tribes, which changed with time depending on the size and needs of each tribe, but there was no such thing as land ownership.

After tribal boundaries were imposed by the US government, the Indians set up constitutions which reflected their tribal custom, designating land as common to all. Tribal members could use what they needed, but after their death, the land was returned to the tribe. This caused trouble within the tribe as some took advantage of the law to profit by subletting land to white men. The real tragedy though came in 1903, when tribal governments were dissolved and individuals were issued allotments.

Many Indians were so opposed to the allotment process, that they refused to be included on the tribal rolls compiled by the government, thereby eliminating themselves and their families from receiving allotments, and also future benefits of tribal membership.

It was mainly full bloods, who held onto their traditions more strongly, those who deserved the benefits most, who were left out, and even for those who signed the rolls, the concept of land ownership was so difficult for them that they often signed over title to their allotments for a night on the town. As Uncle Haskell told me, “They didn’t think land was worth anything.” So it wasn’t just that the Indians were opposed to private land ownership of land, they couldn’t even understand the concept.

The tragedy that befell the Indians during the allotment process is described in detail by Angie Debo in her book, “And Still the Waters Run.”

I include this story as an illustration of the tremendous power of culture and tradition to mold the thinking of the members of a group.

The Indians also had no concept of wealth. Often the chief was the poorest person in the tribe because he shared what he had with others. Possessions were shared. Poor or disabled members were taken care of. Even now the Chickasaw have what they call “giveaways.” People take household appliances, clothes, linens, furniture, whatever they don’t need, and give it away to whomever needs it more.

Gifts were even exchanged between enemies as a symbol of good faith. The Europeans didn’t understand this. There is an example in the Roanoke Colony story. During the first exploratory mission the explorers noticed that a cup was missing after a meeting with the Indians, and they retaliated by attacking the village and burning the Indians’ food stores. We have no explanation from the natives’ point of view, but I imagine that they would have expected the Europeans to share what they had.

Another difference in Indian culture I learned from my mother. She told me about the honesty and honor among the Chickasaw. In fact they did not even have jails, or at least not until quite late in their history. When a crime was committed, a date was set for the punishment and the guilty party was told to appear at a certain time and place for his or her punishment, usually lashes, and the guilty one always came to submit to his punishment, even if it was execution. The Chickasaws’ whipping tree has been preserved at their museum in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.

My mother explained that for the Indian the worst punishment wasn’t execution, but banishment from the tribe. An individual’s identity, his or her very existence depended on membership in the tribe.

In tribal society, the very concept of identity was dependent on tribal membership. A warrior’s name was given based on a characteristic or achievement, for instance “Running-deer” or “Ten-killer.” Also tribal members’ names might change from time to time depending on their position or rank. In an article recently published in the Chickasaw history journal, there is a discussion about whether or not the chief Tishominko was in attendance. In the article they say that “Tishumustubbee” is listed, and that in future documents listing Tishominko, Tishumustubbee is not mentioned.

Minko means chief.

Chickasaw society was, is matrilineal, which makes sense in a culture where the men are away much of the time hunting or at war, at risk of losing their lives. Lineage made a difference, and clan (family) membership was important. There were certain clans from which leaders were taken. Clans were thought to have characteristics, such as bravery, wisdom, or hunting ability.

At the same time tribal identity appears to have trumped lineage, or even race! The Chickasaws experienced intermarriage from an early time, especially with Scotch traders and missionaries and these men were adopted by the tribe. For this reason the Chickasaws were better able to negotiate with the government in their treaties. The mixed blood members understood English, and also they understood the the white man’s way of thinking, for instance on the issue of land ownership.

Early in Chickasaw history the Natchez Indian Tribe was decimated by the Spanish and the remnants were adopted by the Chickasaws.

Slavery was commonly practiced by many Indian tribes including the Chickasaws. Captives from raids on other tribes or survivors of battles were often made slaves, or servants, but with time many became members of the tribe. This applied not just to Native Americans though. Black runaway slaves were adopted by the Seminoles in Florida.  In fact, there were some tribes that were predominantly black.   

In the west, the Plains tribes frequently raided white settlements, taking hostages for slaves or ransom, but often adopting them into the tribe, and it was not uncommon for these hostages to refuse to return to their families when they were discovered. In other words, the Indians determined tribal membership not by family membership, but by performance and loyalty.

Thinking about my last article about the Lumbee tribe, I think that the Indians would have accepted the Lumbee as just another tribe, in spite of their genetic heterogeneity.

The tribal culture, the Indians’ concepts of ownership, and tribal identity, served them well possibly for millennia, but they are totally foreign to our way of thinking. I make two conclusions from these observations. First, the tribal culture works. There’s plenty of room for compassion, loyalty, generosity. The members of the group each have a place, they produce what they need, and they have security and support from their community.

The second, and perhaps the more interesting conclusion to me is that, not only is the tribal system efficient, it requires a totally different way of thinking. Its members are not just convinced. They are conditioned to think in a way that supports their system, and their conditioning is so strong that they have difficulty surviving in a different culture.

It makes you wonder, how are we conditioned by our culture? Does this conditioning prevent us from understanding or judging other cultures? Can we see the flaws in our own culture? Would our conditioning prevent us from adapting to another culture?

The Custodians

I'm going to try to describe to you how the federal government managed the transition of the Five Civilized Tribes from self government to U.S. citizenship using the Chickasaw and Choctaw as an example. The reason for this is that the amount of information about the abuses committed is so great as to be overwhelming. Actually the Chickasaw and Choctaw came through the transition better than the other tribes because they were wealthier and more integrated into the white community, but the abuses the Chickasaw and Choctaw fullbloods and freedmen suffered were just as great as those of the other tribes. 

Most of this information comes from the book, And Still the Waters Run, by Angie Debo.  

I've described before how the governments of the Five Civilized Tribes were abolished in 1898 by the Curtis Act, how their land was surveyed and divided into allotments by the Dawes Commission, and how the tribes fought the process each step of the way by passing resolutions, by sending their leaders to Washington to speak against it, by holding elections voting to uphold their own system, and finally by refusing to cooperate in the process altogether. (See Post of October 19, 2011, Allotment) 

In the end, the US Government took the Indians' land in the name of progress, or "Manifest Destiny," responding to the greed of the millions of white settlers. Theodore Roosevelt was President during the process, from 1901 - 1908, the same man who hunted with Quanah Parker and claimed friendship with the Indians. He wrote in his book Winning the West that in the underdeveloped regions of America and the world the land should pass out of the hands of the red, black, and yellow races, and that "the rude, fierce settler who drives the savage from the land lays all civilized mankind under a debt to him.@ 

Actually that sounds like a description Andrew Jackson's 'accomplishments.' Theodore Roosevelt was more subtle, but his object was the same and his results were just as tragic for Native Americans.  

The allotment agreements with the Five Civilized tribes were not completed until 1902. They differ in detail but basically they provided for the Indian governments to end in 1906, except for a powerless chief to be appointed by the President. Tribal lands were to be divided equally among the tribal members except for mineral and timber land. The Chickasaws and Choctaws elected to sell their mineral and timber property because they didn't trust the government to administer it, whereas the Cherokees and Creeks kept theirs.

As I've alluded to before there was a problem with the tribal rolls themselves. When the Dawes Commission would visit a community, many tribal members, opposed to the whole process, simply refused to come in to register. On the other hand many whites pretended tribal citizenship in order to acquire free land. The Chickasaws and Choctaws eventually were given the right to question fraudulent claims and they won most of their cases saving $16 mil, but that didn't help the poor full blood who stood by his principles and refused to cooperate. 

The next problem was with the land survey and assessment. First, mineral and timber land was set aside to be sold later. Then townsites, government buildings, schools, and cemeteries were identified and set aside to be excluded from allotment. The rest of the land was given a score of 1 through 4, depending on its value for farming, and a dollar assessment. The townsites were also assessed. The assessments were meant to be more a comparative measure, and were only a small fraction of the actual commercial value. This became a problem later, when the unallotted land was sold, and the Indians were paid according to the assessed value, cheating them out of millions of dollars.

The size of the allotments were based on the size of each nation. The Chickasaws and Choctaws got the most, 320 acres of "average" land, which would mean 160 acres of the most fertile land up to 4165 acres of the poorest land. The Seminole, on the other hand got 125 acres, the Cherokee 110 acres and the Creek 160 acres. After the inclusion of children born after the rolls were compiled, the Creek and Cherokee tribes ran out of land, so not everyone on the rolls got an allotment. The Commission then decided to provide a cash payment instead, to come out of tribal funds, of course. Even so the Creeks had to sue for the money.  

The Allotments were divided into a homestead and a "surplus." The location of the homestead was chosen by the Indian, and was 160 acres in size for the Chickasaw / Choctaw. The balance of the allotment, which might be located many miles away, was called the surplus. The allotments were originally inalienable and tax free for 21 years, but the white people wanted to get access to the land and they wanted the tax money to run the new state government, so the Five Civilized Tribes Act was passed in 1906, making the surplus both alienable and taxable except for the Indians of 3/4 or more Indian blood. Even this was challenged in the Supreme Court, under the pretense of protecting the Indians' "rights," but the Court upheld this last protection for the full bloods.  

After the Dawes Commission finished its work of creating rolls and dividing the land, Theodore Roosevelt's Secretary of the Interior, Ethan Allen Hitchcock, became the custodian over the citizens of the Indian Nations. He did so through his inspector, J. George Wright, and Indian agent, Dana H. Kelsey, without any representation by the Indians themselves. They operated the Union Agency, a large department employing hundreds of people, mostly political appointees from outside the territory. This federal agency collected tribal revenues, and royalties from the Chickasaw and Choctaw coal and asphalt mines. They ran the tribal schools, platted and sold town sites, and managed undivided property, and they made recommendations - usually followed - to the President and to Congress about questions regarding Indians. All the expenses of the agency were paid for by money from the tribal funds.     

One of these federal employees, John Benedict, was appointed superintendent over the Indian schools. The Five Civilized Tribes had always been generous in providing education for their children. When Benedict took over most of the Indian children were literate and studying academic subjects. Benedict decided that the Indians should be taught trades only. He hired white teachers to replace the Indian ones, and forbade the children to speak their language. His goal was actually to build schools for white children, using tribal funds. Soon the Indian children dropped out of school.  

In spite of Benedict's 'lofty goals,' he was distracted from his responsibilities by financial interests. Somehow during his four years of access to tribal funds, he managed to become a wealthy man, and he started his own bank. An investigation revealed that the "Indian" schools were in a deplorable condition, and Benedict was fired, although he probably no longer needed the job. The Indian schools were then taken over by the new state of Oklahoma.    

During this time the platting of town sites was taking place, and the sale of these town lots brought in about $5 mil, all of which was supposed to be distributed to tribal members. Also the Chickasaw and Choctaw tribe actually had more land than they thought was needed for allotments, so they asked that the land be sold and the proceeds returned to the tribe. This was in addition to the coal and asphalt land that the Chickasaws and Choctaws had unwisely asked the government to sell and distribute. Of course the Union agency had also taken over the Chickasaw and Choctaw trust funds and they were collecting all the various fees and royalties which continued to be collected in the Indians' name until statehood. 

Where did all that money go?  

Well, a lot of it was spent by the Union Agency on "expenses." The Choctaw Chief, Green McCurtain, asked for an accounting of the Agency's expenses, but his request was vetoed by the President.  In 1909 Congress asked for an accounting of the expenses of the Agency. I don’t have a total, but according to Debo's book the records contained statements like "funds decreased by $693,061," or "$346,364." When Congress requested more specifics, "Expenditures of various amounts are simply listed chronologically, as a child might keep account of how he spent his allowance," with no receipts listing the person receiving the money and no explanation of the purpose. Since the Curtis act had authorized the President to spend the money "for any purpose deemed by him to be for the best interests of the tribe," there were no grounds to judge the transactions illegal.

At one time there was an investigation of the employees of the Dawes Commission and every single employee was found to have dealings in Indian real estate, but no one was prosecuted. No one was even fired.  

When the federal government made no move to distribute the tribal funds as required by law, the Chickasaws and Choctaws took them to court and won. They were given per capita payments of $40 in 1904, and $35 in 1906, payments they had to sue for, using up even more of their tribal funds. According to the census of 1907 there were 23000 Chickasaws and Choctaws, so at $ 75 apiece, they received about $1.7 mil. I don't have an estimate of the value of the Chickasaw / Choctaw estate, but at one point the Agency suggested that the State of Oklahoma buy their extra land for $10 mil which they argued was a bargain, and that was only a small part of the Indians' property.   

As you study the history of how the Indian Nations were engulfed by the wave of white settlers and ultimately destroyed, the various accounts make it sound like the Native Americans were so hopelessly primitive that there was no way to save them, but history is always skewed toward the point of view of the victors, even when written sympathetically. Actually the Indians were better educated than the white settlers who came to steal their land, and before the federal government stripped them of their power, the tribal governments were struggling to deal with the situation in their own way. When the "Progressives" represented by my great grandfather, Sam Paul, gained power among the Chickasaws, the fullbloods took it away, not by force but by peaceful political action. The violence that occurred didn't really determine the political outcome. The Indians were already learning how to adapt.    

Because of their long established custom of communal living, and the strength of the bonds of family and clan, the Indians, more so the fullblood portions of the tribes, valued honesty, generosity, and loyalty over wealth and personal possessions. When they were suddenly thrown into a society motivated by greed, many couldn't protect themselves. They became easy victims to the avarice of the white man.  

If the great Indian Nations had been given time to work out their relation with the white man on their own, perhaps things would be different. But even now the values and traditions of our ancestors survive, and I believe they are in many ways more civilized than those of our conquerors. As more tribal governments win sovereignty, perhaps we can yet have a beneficial influence on society.