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.
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