Hitchcock and the Chickasaws

                                              

                                             Indian Territory, 1842

I apologise for this map. Skip it if you like. You can't read much of the printing as it is, but if you magnify it, you can see the names pretty well. A few comments for orientation:
Ft. Smith located where Arkansas River crosses Arkansas border. This is where Hitchcock entered Indian Territory.
Ft. Gibson located further up the Arkansas where it is joined by the Verdigris and Grand rivers. This was Hitchcock's home base while visiting the Cherokee, Seminole and Creek tribes.
Edwards Trading Post on the Canadian River almost in the map's center. Met with some of Creek leaders there.  
Note Boundary between Chickasaw and Choctaw districts marked by broken line, runs north and south.  
Ft. Washita just west of above boundary on Washita River.
Boggy Depot , just east of above boundary on Clear Boggy Creek.
Blue River - not labeled - runs between Boggy Creek and Washita River. Jason McClure lived on Blue River, barely within the Chickasaw district, about 4 miles northeast of Ft. Washita.

When I started out to write about Ethan Allen Hitchcock's journal, my main purpose was to point out his reference to Jason McClure, my great great grandmother's first husband (See blog post 12/22/2010 for article about Jason McClure and 1/1/2011 for article about Ethan Allen Hitchcock).

As I reread the book however I was reminded of what a thorough description Hitchcock gives of life in Indian Territory in 1842. He discusses the important issues of the time; he gives his impression of prominent Indian leaders; he quotes what people say; he describes the country; he describes Indian traditions as they are explained to him, and he does it with a noncritical good natured attitude. I can't read the journal for you, but I'd like to try to give you the flavor of Hitchcock's description of his visit with the Chickasaws. 

It took Hitchcock five weeks to travel from Washington D.C. to Indian Territory. He arrived on November 22, 1837 at Ft. Gibson. He spent the next two months among the Cherokees, Seminoles and Creeks who were located near the fort. Not content to have the Indians come to him, Hitchcock rode out into the territory on horseback, visiting and staying in the homes of the Indians themselves. (See my previous post for more information about this part of the Hitchcock's visit.)

At the end of January, Hitchcock started south through the rest of the Creek and Seminole districts. One of the places he stayed was Edwards' trading post. I learned a little about this place when I read Grant Foreman's book, Advancing the Frontier, several years ago. By the time of the Removal, the Comanches, Wichitas, Kiowas and other plains tribes had developed a lucrative trade in horses stolen from Texas. Also it was an old Indian practice to take hostages when raiding other tribes, and they did the same thing when they raided white settlements. When the Indians discovered they could get more by ransoming a woman or a child than by selling a horse, they began trading in people. The kidnappers were reluctant to come too close to a fort, and Edwards' Trading Post was centrally located, so it became a favorite location for the ransom of hostages.  

The Chickasaws sometimes hunted with the Wichitas and the Comanches, and they were able to arrange for the ransom of several prisoners. My great aunt Sippia once stayed with a woman who had been a kidnapped by a band of Comanches. One of the soldiers at Ft. Cobb had paid her ransom and then married her. 

While staying with the Edwards, Hitchcock witnessed a stickball game between the Creek men and women. Stickball was a very rough game back then, and  serious injuries or even deaths occurred. Anyway, from Hitchcock's description, the women were holding their own against the men.

After leaving the Edwards', Hitchcock rode down to Chickasaw territory where he stayed with the McClures. He and his negro guide Sambo camped along the way on the Boggy River about 30 miles south of Edwards'. There Hitchcock admired the beauty of the woodlands, even though it was cold enough to freeze water in the cup sitting next to his palette. Mrs Edwards had given Hitchcock some biscuits and buffalo tongue which he and Sambo ate on the second day's ride. Hitchcock said the buffalo tongue was so rich that it gave him a headache, and he barely managed to stay on his horse for the remaining 20 miles of the journey. Buffalo tongue was considered a delicacy in the 1800's which was one reason the buffalo were hunted almost to extinction. 

Hitchcock was accompanied by Negro guides during most of his travels, and much of what he learned about Indian culture he heard from them. Many Negros moved west with the Five Civilized Tribes, some as free members of the tribes, and others as slaves. The Indian slaves enjoyed more freedom than their white plantation counterparts, living more like sharecroppers than slaves. These Negros were valuable to the Indians as interpreters since many of the Indians couldn't speak English, and some achieved positions of influence among the Indians.  

As Hitchcock and his guide rode further south, they entered the Arbuckle mountain range. Hitchcock learned from Sambo that during this season the Indians sometimes started fires in the mountains to drive the bears out of their dens so they could be hunted.

Sambo also told Hitchcock that the Comanches always patted their chests and sang a song on awakening. He said the Osages did the same thing. He told Hitchcock that the Osages and Comanches were very close, and had even talked of joining together as one tribe.

The Osages were actually from Kansas. They had been persuaded to migrate down into the Arkansas River valley in the late 1700's by a fur trader named A P Chouteau, who was interested in finding hunters to provide him with furs. The government ignored the presence of the Osages when they promised the Arkansas River Valley land to the Creeks and Cherokees. As a result the Osages considered the immigrants intruders and they raided their settlements and stole their stock. The government punished the Osages by withholding their annuity, and many were starving at the time of Hitchcock's visit. 

The Chickasaw District was considered part of the Choctaw Nation, and the Chickasaws were considered Choctaw citizens, a situation that was unacceptable to the Chickasaws from the start. In the Treaty of Doaksville of 1837, the Choctaws sold the western part of their domain to the Chickasaws for $530,000. The Choctaws had chosen to sell this region for a reason. It was already occupied by Wichitas, Kickapoos, and Comanches. Those tribes hunted along the Washita River valley and some had villages there. In 1839, 12 Chickasaw families moved west into the Blue River valley just inside their district, and the Kickapoos immediately began raiding them. Soldiers from Ft. Gibson were sent down to evict the Kickapoos, but they returned immediately after the soldiers left. By the time of Hitchcock's visit the army was constructing a fort on the Washita River about 12 miles north of the Red River to protect these early Chickasaw settlers.

By Hitchcock's description, Jason McClure lived on the Blue River just about four miles east of the site of the new fort. His house was a double log cabin with a "dog trot" (breezeway) between the two halves. Hitchcock wasn't too happy about his accommodations there. He wrote: "The weather for two days has been excessively boisterous, and today is turning very cold. McClure is building a new house and has neglected his old one, which is open at all points - bottom, top, sides and chimney truncated." From the fact that McClure's house was already in disrepair by 1842, I think it's reasonable to conclude that his family was among this first group of Chickasaws to move into their district. 

After a good night's sleep Hitchcock felt better, and he had an interesting conversation with Jason McClure. McClure told him that the Choctaws had mainly given up the old practice of polygamy, but that many of the Chickasaws still practiced it. He gave as an example one of the tribal leaders, Captain (Jonas?) Wolf, who had three wives. McClure told Hitchcock that he had seen the wives "sitting all together like so many sisters."

Major Hitchcock spent three days at the McClure home as he waited for the Chickasaw leaders to come together to meet with him. During some of his stops he described his interactions with the wives and children of the men he met, but unfortunately Hitchcock made no mention of McClure's family. At that time McClure had a wife, Ela Teecha, my great great grandmother, and two children, Tecumseh age 12, and Catherine age 11. He mentions a Mr Brooks who was living with the family, but not my great great grandfather Smith Paul.

At any rate, Hitchcock relates conversations with McClure, and also with several visitors, including Captain Wolf, mentioned above, and a Mr Hume. I suspect the latter was an ancestor of the Hume family which has been prominent in the Chickasaw tribe during my lifetime. Rev. Jesse Humes coauthored a Chickasaw dictionary with his wife Vinnie May, published in 1973. Vinnie May was the mother of Overton James, a Chickasaw Governor. Overton's sister, Chenina Roach, was a good friend of my mother.

One topic of conversation during Hitchcock's stay was bear meat. Hitchcock wrote that "McClure prefers the meat of the bear to any other meat." McClure told him "Indians try up the whole of the meat and oil comes from the fat of every part and leaves nothing but crisp. He says there is no lean about a bear except its legs and that the oil is better than lard for any culinary purpose. Indians take the skins from young does entire, and "bag" the oil in them." He claimed that it was common to get 15 to 20 gallons of oil from a bear.

They also talked of the recent raids by the "wild tribes" into Texas, and the subsequent raids into Indian Territory by Texans who, not finding the guilty parties raided the farms of peaceful Chickasaws. McClure also told Hitchcock about a woman hostage who had recently been ransomed.
Mr Humes told Hitchcock that the commissioners of the Chickasaw "incompetent" fund had recently been meeting at Mr Guy's house, over at Boggy Depot, the farthest west of the supply depots set up after the Removal. He related to Hitchcock that the commissioners were "treated with every luxury the country affords free of charge, whiskey, etc.; and thus induced to recommend the payment of that fund to Saffran and Lewis," the proprietors of the store at Boggy Depot where the annuity was distributed.

The next day Major Hitchcock rode over to the site of construction of the new Fort Washita, four miles west. He spent the next night at Mr Humphrey's home where he was to meet with the Chickasaw leaders. Hitchcock mentions "Humphreys gave me a good bed last night in a room by myself, with clean neat bed clothes, white pillow cases, ruffled, etc., etc. So upon a good supper I should have slept well, if I had not had dreams, but my dreams were pleasant, peaceful and I waked from time to time and my thoughts were in harmony. In the night, however, Mr. Humphreys sleeping in the next room got up and stumbled over a chair which brought forth a severe anathema; and then a cat got into my room and tried to climb up the logs of which the house is built to my provision sack in which I have some buffalo tongue and which I had purposely hung up, etc."

Hitchcock spent only two weeks with the Chickasaws and Choctaws, actually most of that time with the Chickasaws. During his whirlwind tour of the Chickasaw - Choctaw domain, he came to a remarkably complete understanding of the issues facing the two tribes: the threats from the "wild" tribes to the west and the Texans to the South; the distrust by the Chickasaws of the commissioners of their "incompetent" fund; the unrest of the Chickasaws at being under the government of the Choctaws, and the general malaise of the tribe, facilitated by their annuity which was three times that of the Choctaws, and enough for a thrifty family to live on for a year.

Hitchcock came to the conclusion that changes needed to be made in the administration of the incompetent fund, and that there would be unrest as long as the Chickasaws remained a part of the Choctaw tribe. He thought that the Chickasaws would need another fort farther west, in addition to the one under construction on the Washita River, to protect them from raids by roving bands of plains Indians. He felt that the ambitious mixed blood Chickasaws would eventually lead the tribe out of it's current lethargy.  

Hitchcock's summary was prophetic. On completion of Ft. Washita more Chickasaws moved into their domain, and in 1851 another fort, Ft. Arbuckle, was built further up the Washita. Then most of the Chickasaws moved into their own district. The year after Hitchcock's visit, the Chickasaws sent a delegation down to meet with representatives from the Republic of Texas, and the raids by Texas settlers stopped.

What Hitchcock didn't know, was that one of the Chickasaws' chief problems was a leadership vacuum. The strong mixed blood leaders who had negotiated the favorable removal treaty for the Chickasaws, Levi and George Colbert, had passed away, and the power of the nation rested in the hands of the Chickasaw commissioners, first in charge of the incompetent fund and later the entire  annual annuity. In 1845, Isaac Alberson, elected chief of the Chickasaw District, along with his elected council, acquired the authority to administer the Chickasaw fund. Gradually, the Chickasaws regained their old pride and spirit of independence, and in 1856 they signed a treaty with the Choctaws for complete independence, and drafted their own constitution.

As for Jason McClure, he passed away soon after Hitchcock's visit, and after a suitable period of mourning, his widow, Ela Teecha, married Smith Paul, my great great grandfather. When Ft. Arbuckle was built in 1851, they moved west and started farming in the rich bottom land just outside the gates of the fort.