Disease among the Indians

 

            

      Small child with small-pox, Bangladesh, 1973.

 

I remember when I was in medical school, running across a thesis that someone had written on the health problems suffered by the Five Civilized Tribes during the "Trail of Tears," their forced removal from their homelands to Indian Territory, in what is now the State of Oklahoma. Along the 4 to 800 mile journey 1 out of 5 lost their lives. Many of the deaths were due to exposure - the winter of 1832 was especially hard. Alexis De Tocqueville, visiting from France, described blocks of ice floating down the Mississippi River. It was said that after the Indians arrived they had lost almost all of their elders and small children.  

It's really hard to imagine the hardships endured by the Indians in those days. Not only were they brutally mistreated due to the prejudice and greed of the white man, their immune systems couldn't cope with the diseases that Europeans considered minor such as chicken pox and measles, so whole tribes had been wiped out by disease even before the Trail of Tears. 

The Indians way of life before the Removal had protected them somewhat from disease. They lived in small family groups, which limited transmission of disease. They got their water from streams or wells which for the most part were not contaminated. They hunted to provide fresh meat, and by the time of the Removal had learned to cure meat by salting or smoking it.  

During the Removal Indians were forced to travel crowded together in large groups. They suffered from poor sanitation, leading to typhoid, dysentery and cholera, and unscrupulous contractors ordered food in advance and allowed it to sit out and spoil. The Indians had to choose between eating spoiled food or nothing. Many of the Chickasaw refused to follow the planned route. They made their way through the swamps, killing game along the way. This frustrated their army escorts but it probably saved lives.  

One of the few preventable diseases of the time was smallpox, a disease with a mortality rate of 30 to 50%. Vaccination of the Native American population did not start until the 1830's and it was not widespread. In 1834 there was a smallpox outbreak among the Creeks and the U.S. Army physician, Dr. W. L. Wharton, vaccinated over 7000 Indians, ameliorating the epidemic. Small pox broke out among a group of migrating Chickasaw in 1837, and it spread to the Choctaw killing over 500. The smallpox epidemic of 1837 also spread to the plains tribes, and many suffered and died. The Mandan tribe, for instance, was reduced from 1500 to 15. A witness described the devastation:  

Language, however forcible, can convey but a faint idea of the scene of desolation which the country now presents. In whatever direction you turn, nothing but sad wrecks of mortality meet the eye; lodges standing on every hill, but not a streak of smoke rising from them. Not a sound can be heard to break the awful stillness, save the ominous croak of ravens, and the mournful howl of wolves, fattening on the human carcasses that lie strewn around … Many of the handsome Arickarees, who had recovered, seeing the disfiguration of their features, committed suicide; some by throwing themselves from rocks, others by stabbing and shooting. The prairie has become a graveyard; its wild flowers bloom over the sepulchres of Indians. The atmosphere for miles is poisoned by the stench of hundreds of carcasses unburied.  

According to the memoirs of my great great Aunt, Mississippia Paul Hull, her brother Sam contracted small pox while scouting for the Army:

One of the things I remember which made such an impression on my mind was the dreadful epidemic of small pox. There were two kinds, the Black small-pox, which was usually fatal, and the red small-pox which was a milder form. My brother Sam was on a scouting expedition among the wild tribes and took the small-pox. My father heard of him being sick, and when he located him he was almost dead, but he nursed him until he got well, and brought him home.  

That was the way that small-pox was brought to our family, and we all had it. But we knew how to doctor ourselves and all of the family lived. The plains Indians had caught it by this time too and died in great numbers, sometimes an entire family died, because there was not one left to wait on the other. They did not understand how to take care of themselves and would go out and take cold. They were buried up and down the river and where the town of Pauls Valley now stands.   

This epidemic would have taken place during the 1870's when the Army was forcing the nomadic tribes onto reservations. There was a large group of Caddo Indians that lived near my great great grandfather Smith Paul's farm, and many of them died in the epidemic. My mother said that her mother used to point out a spot on Jackson Hill, overlooking Pauls Valley, where a group of Caddo's were buried.  

Small-pox was declared eradicated in 1979 by the world health organization. 

 

Footnotes:

Indian Removal, by Grant Foreman, Chap 8, P 110. Describes epidemic among Creeks

The Chickasaws, by Arrell Gibson: Chap 8, P 191. Small-pox among the Chickasaw and Choctaw

Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest, by Grant Foreman. Indian Warfare Between Texas and Mexico, P 235. Epidemic among Plains tribes, including Wichita and Caddo as well.

 

Allotment

In last week's blog, my cousin Jim Phillips mentions that his great grandfather was killed by a white man as he was trying to return to his land after the federal allotment process. This was a terrible tragedy but it wasn't the only time that an Indian was murdered for his land. Almost every family has a story about some sort of conflict with the white man over land. A white guardian was appointed for my grandfather and his brother after their father's death, even though their mother was alive and even though they had many other Chickasaw relatives. By the time they had come of age, the guardian had spent all of their father's money. 

My mother told me that my grandmother always hated one of their neighbors who had married a Chickasaw woman to get Chickasaw citizenship rights. He left her the night of their marriage, and then settled on Indian land. Later he married a white woman.  

There were many abuses of Native Americans around the turn of the nineteenth century. There is certainly nothing unique about the suffering of the Indians in Oklahoma, and I can only touch on a few examples of their struggles. Anyone interested in learning more should read And Still the Waters Run, by Angie Debo. It is the definitive work on the subject. The book is a methodical catalogue of abuses, written in a scholarly, non-sensational way, but even so Ms. Debo was turned down by publishers in the State of Oklahoma. It was ten years before her landmark report was finally published by the Princeton University Press.

After being forced to leave their ancestral homes in the American Southeast, the Five Civilized Tribes settled in Indian Territory, later to become the state of Oklahoma. They settled the land, thought to be worthless at the time, and set up their own governments. The Indian nations' governments were loosely patterned after that of the United States, but each tribe preserved some of their own customs. One custom common to all was the communal ownership of land. Land could be used by any tribal member, as much as he wanted, but at the time of his death, ownership reverted to the tribe.

As it turned out, the land in Indian Territory wasn’t useless after all. There was much fertile farm land, as well as timber and mineral resources, so white men streamed into the Territory, and soon they outnumbered the Native Americans. The Indian governments hospitably passed laws to allow these non-citizens to live and work in the Territory for a nominal fee. Those who married Indian citizens were even adopted into the tribes.

These attempts at accommodation by the Indian governments, led to further problems though. The Indian courts had no jurisdiction over non-citizens, and soon the growing white population was demanding the right to have a voice in the tribal governments. Many Native American citizens, among them my great uncle Tecumseh, favored denying voting rights to whites, even those married to Chickasaws, but my great grandfather Sam Paul disagreed with his half brother, believing that the Indian Nations needed to incorporate whites into their governments in order to survive. (See Sam Paul's Prophesy in the previous post) This conflict led to Sam Paul's death, as I'll explain later.  

In the mean time, the U.S. Government wasn't willing to wait for the Indian nations to find a solution on their own, and in 1887 Congress passed the Dawes Act, which authorized the President to negotiate with tribal governments to assign to tribal members individual allotments, and to make them American citizens. This of course was aimed at dissolving the tribal governments, violating the treaties which the Indians had signed only fifty years before, promising them the land for "as long as the grass grows or the water runs.@

(Indian Removal, by Grant Foreman. P 193)

This would in effect turn the government of the Territory over to whites, since they were in the majority, and create surplus of land for more white settlers. It also provided a solution to the problem the U.S. Government had created for itself during the early 1800's when they confined the "Plains Indians" to reservations. The fate of these Indian tribes is another story, but by the late 19th century these tribes, having no way to support themselves, were starving, and their support was taking a big bite out of the federal budget. Giving them allotments wouldn't relieve the Indians' poverty of course, but it would give the government an excuse to cut off their support.  

But I should get back to the Chickasaws and the other Five Civilized Tribes.

The tribal governments resisted the allotment process. They refused to talk to the Commissioners. They held referendums and voted overwhelmingly against allotment, but the U.S. Government was determined. In 1897 Congress went ahead with the Curtis Act, which abolished the governments of the Five Civilized Tribes and forced the Indians to accept allotments.  

As I've tried to explain before, the Indians had a deep aversion to individual ownership of land. They believed that the land should be free for all to use, like air and water, so when the Dawes Commissioners came to the area and set up camps and to compile rolls to be used to allot land, the Indians simply refused to come in. That's what Jim's great grandfather did. He didn't trust or respect the white man's laws, and he felt that it was morally wrong to own the land.  

This happened to countless Indians. Those like my grandfather, who had been more acculturated into the white society, cooperated and tried to convince his family and friends to do likewise, but many Indians, often the ones in the most need, were not included on the rolls. Many like my grandfather tried to convince their brothers and sisters of the futility of resisting. Alex Posey, the Creek poet, was drowned while attempting to cross a swollen stream on the way to visit a family to convince them to sign the rolls.

                                                Alexander Posey

Conservative members of each tribe banded together to resist the abolishment of their governments. The Cherokees formed the Nighthawk Society. The Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee and Creek irreconcilables formed the Four Mothers Society, which at one time had 25,000 members. They hired attorneys and sent representatives to Washington, but to no avail. 

Perhaps the most determined resistance came from the Creek Nation under the leadership of Chitto Harjo, or "Crazy Snake." Harjo had in his youth been a Union loyalist, and a follower of the great Creek warrior Opothleyahola (see post of 11/21/10, Creek Removal). He lived alone in a small cabin, cultivating a small plot of land and hunting for his meat. He served his community by sharpening plowshares and operating a small forge where he fashioned silver ornaments. When the official Creek government signed the allotment treaty, Harjo called a meeting of his followers and voted to depose Pleasant Porter, the current chief. The traditionalists proceded to form an alternate tribal government with Harjo as chief. They adopted laws against taking allotments, and against renting to or hiring non-citizens, and then they proceded to arrest transgressors. Several tribal members were sentenced to whipping. Harjo's police also confiscated allotment certificates.

                                          

                                       Chitto Harjo, "Crazy Snake"

Harjo has been portrayed as an eccentric man with radical beliefs, but he was basically fighting to his tribe's rights to remain independent under the terms of their Removal treaties. He was intelligent and eloquent. 

The following is an excerpt from one of Harjo's speeches in which he illustrated the conflict between whites and Indians as an argument between two individuals:  

He told me that as long as the sun shone and the sky is up yonder these agreements will be kept …. He said as long as the sun rises it shall last; as long as the waters run it shall last; as long as the grass grows it shall last …. He said 'just as long as you see light here, just as long as you see this light glimmering over us, shall these agreements be kept, and not until these things cease and pass away shall our agreement pass away.' That is what he said, and we believed it …. We have kept every turn of that agreement. The grass is growing, the waters run, the sun shines, the light is with us, and the agreement is with us yet, for the God that is above us all witnessed that agreement. 

(And Still the Waters Run, by Angie Debo, P 55.) 

Several of Harjo's followers were arrested, and released after promising to cooperate with the allotment process, but not before the movement had spread to other tribes. Conservative members of each tribe refused to accept allotment certificates, mailing them back when they came in the mail. Although in poverty, many also returned annuity checks. 

With the help of some of the more educated tribal leaders, conservatives from the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, and Creek tribes finally came up with a plan to accept their allotments and then sell them and buy land in Mexico where they could establish their own community and be free to follow their traditions. The only obstacle in the way of the movement was the rule included in the allotment treaties that prohibited the alienation (selling) of their allotments, usually for twenty years.  

Jacob Jackson, a full blood Choctaw, wrote a letter to Congress in behalf of the Choctaw and Chickasaw conservatives. This is an excerpt: 

Surely a race of people, desiring to preserve the integrity of that race, who love it by reason of its traditions and their common ancestors and blood, who are proud of the fact that they belong to it, may be permitted to protect themselves, if in no other way but emigration. Our educated people inform us that the white man came to this country to avoid conditions which to him were to him not as bad as the present conditions are to us; that he went across the great ocean and sought new homes in order to avoid things which to him were distasteful and wrong. All we ask is that we may be permitted to exercise the same privilege. We do not ask any aid from the Government of the United States in so doing. We do ask that we may be permitted, in a proper way, by protecting our own, to dispose of that which the government says is ours, and which has been given us over our protest against the distribution, to the end that another home may be furnished, and another nation established…. 

We believe that the great father of all men created the Indian to fill a proper place in this world. That as an Indian he had certain rights, among which is the right to exist as a race, and that in the protection of that right, it is our belief that we are fulfilling the purpose of the Divine Creator of mankind.

(And Still the Waters Run, by Angie Debo, P 59.)  

Jackson's eloquent appeal was received by the Senators with ridicule. The Four Mothers' Society continued to exist well into the twentieth century although they were never able to establish a colony in Mexico. Its members refused to accept allotments or payments from the U.S. Government. Some continued to live on what had been their tribal land and were eventually evicted, jailed, or murdered, as in the case of Jim's great grandfather.  

These people are my heroes. They defended their culture and traditions with courage and dignity, and what eloquence! They certainly left a legacy that should make us, their descendants, proud. It is the stuff of legend.  

Chitto Harjo or Crazy Snake died in 1911. He lived in hiding for the last two years of his life. Some say it was the "Little People" who sustained him.

(See post, Chickasaw Culture and Beliefs, Oct. 18, 2010)   

The Comanche, 1858

          As I described in my post of March 15, the situation for the plains Indians changed rapidly during the 1840's and '50's. Their profitable trade in horses stolen from Texas settlements was virtually halted by the admission of Texas to the Union, and by the United States' victory over Mexico, which had been subsidizing their raids. Their hunting lands were rapidly diminishing with the immigration of the Indian settlers from the southwest. The discovery of Gold in California was attracting thousands of settlers to cross the Indians' land, and the slaughter of buffalo for fur, for meat and just for sport, was eliminating their main source of food, clothing and shelter. They had sought advice from the eastern tribes, the so called Five Civilized Tribes, who had told them to give up their nomadic life and to settle down on farms.

          There was a drought in 1854 and it was especially hard on the plains tribes. In March of 1855, 4000 were starving in camps west of the Creek settlements on the Arkansas River. The Comanche Chief Tibbalo came to the Creeks for assistance. He said that he had seen how prosperous they were on their farms, and he asked them to intercede for him with the United States' officials to obtain land for his tribe.

          The Creeks took Chief Tibbalo to Fort Smith where he delivered his request. Jefferson Davis, the Secretary of War, recommended that the Department of the Interior set aside land as a home for the plains tribes, and so the department negotiated a treaty with the Chickasaws and Choctaws to lease part of their land for this purpose. In spite of this agreement, raids into Texas by bands of Comanches and other tribes continued, sometimes by Indians living on reservations in Indian Territory. 

          The Texans had given up negotiating with Indians, and they had given up deciding which Indians were their friends and which foes. They just wanted them out of Texas. In 1858, Texas requested the permission of Congress to pursue horse thieves into Indian Territory. Their request was denied but in May of 1858 a unit of Texas Rangers under John S. Ford crossed the Red River into the Wichita Mountains anyway. When he came across a Comanche camp whose warriors were out hunting, he attacked, killing 76 men women and children. He took several prisoners and 300 horses. Among those killed was Iron Jacket, grandfather of Quanah Parker. (See post of Feb. 20, 2011)    

          This indiscriminate attack by the Texans enraged the Comanche. They had pursued Ford's force and recognized among them a Keechi warrior whom they had seen living with the Wichita, so they assumed that the Wichita had sided with the Texans against them. As a result, the Comanche began to steal horses from the Wichita, as well as from Chickasaw and Choctaw settlers, to prepare for war against the Texans.

          In April of 1858 when the troops stationed in Indian Territory were ordered to Utah to confront the Mormons (see post of March 19, 2011) the Comanche saw their opportunity. They began planning an attack on Fort Arbuckle, in order to obtain its store of guns, ammunition and other supplies. Smith and Ellen Paul, my great great grandparents, lived right next to the fort, now defended by only five soldiers.   

To be continued.

Tustennuggee Emathla, Jim Boy

                                      Tustennuggee Emathla, Jim Boy

          In my last post I told the story of a panic that occurred in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory in 1845, the year my great grandfather was born. There had been a rumor that some of the Creek farms were being attacked by Pani Maha Indians (see post of Feb 28, 2011). The first to respond to the emergency was "Jim Boy" the Creek war chief. Jim Boy immediately left with a band of warriors to rescue the settlement. The report was a false alarm but the threat was real, and during the summer the Creeks acted boldly to negotiate with the hostile plains tribes and war was avoided.

          It's easy, I think, to concentrate on the exciting, dramatic stories of Indian history and forget that the characters in these dramas were just people, with families, doing their best to survive in almost impossible circumstances. I pieced together a few facts about the Creek Chief Jim Boy that illustrate some of the tragedies that he had lived through before the 1845 incident.  

          Jim Boy was born around 1790 or 95, probably in what was to become the state of Alabama. During his childhood white settlers were displacing his people from their homeland, taking their land, and pushing them out of their homes. In 1809 the Shawnee chief Tecumseh visited the Creek towns preaching a new Native American religion. Tecumseh's brother Tenskwatawa had been visited by the Great Spirit in a vision. The Great Spirit had told Tenskwatawa that He had punished the Indian people because they had taken up the ways of the white man. He said that if the Indians would return to the old ways He would help them drive the white man from their land. Tecumseh had left the Creeks with magic red sticks which would make them invincible in battle.

          This was the start of the Creek "Red Stick" movement. Several Creek towns including the one where Jim Boy lived, returned to the old ways by doing away with manufactured goods and returning to hunting. In their fervor the Red Sticks started raiding the homes of Creek nonbelievers who were living like white men. Some of these families fled to Fort Mims, joining white settlers living in the area. Jim Boy, a warrior in his teens called "High Head" in those days, belonged to a band of Red Sticks. The Spanish in Florida, eager to cause trouble for the new United States, were supplying the Red Sticks with ammunition, but at this time the Red Stick war was a civil war among the Creeks.

          When troops from Fort Mims found out about these trips to Florida they ambushed Jim Boy's band on their way home. Jim Boy escaped without harm but the Red Sticks decided to attack Fort Mims in retaliation. The result was a massacre. 300 people were killed, including soldiers, settlers as well as the Creek refugees, who were actually the Red Sticks' targets. Jim Boy was one of the attackers.

          This is when Andrew Jackson got involved. He had organized a band of Tennessee volunteers to fight against the British in the War of 1812, but had been told they weren't needed. The Fort Mims incident gave him an excuse to use his troops, and what resulted was the greatest slaughter of Native American people in the history of the United States. Jackson went from town to town through the Creek domain, slaughtering men, women, and children. Jim Boy and the other Red Sticks fought, but they were outnumbered and outgunned. Thousands of their people were killed. After concluding his rampage with the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (see post dated Oct 26, 2010) Jackson imposed a treaty on the Creeks which took 2/3 of their domain. Even though the majority of the Creeks opposed the Red Sticks, and actually fought with Jackson against their own people, their land was taken too.

          In 1835, when the Seminoles were fighting for their freedom down in the Florida Everglades, the U. S. government enlisted other Indian tribes to fight against them. At this time Jim Boy was known as Tustennuggee Emathla among his people. Tustennuggee was a title meaning task master, awarded to him because of his leadership, and Emathla was his family name. Jim Boy was now a farmer and he had a wife and 9 children. Settlers were threatening his home so he gathered a group of 900 warriors to fight the Seminoles, for the promise that his family would be protected.  

          When Jim Boy and his men returned from Florida, their land had been taken over by white settlers and their families had been rounded up and taken west to Indian Territory, in one of the most brutal of the Removal stories. Not only that, his family had been on the Monmouth, the Mississippi steamship which had blown up with 600 Creek emigrants on board, killing 300. Four of Jim Boy's 9 children were drowned.

          At the time of the Pani Maha incident in Indian Territory Jim Boy was in his 50's. He had led a long life filled with tragedy and disappointment.  

1845

          History, like life, is complicated, and doesn't always fit neatly into discrete stories. The period after the Removal was like that. It was a time of tragedy and change for the Indians. The tribes from the east and the tribes from the west were trying to find a way to survive. There was constant conflict, even between divisions of individual tribes, and constantly changing alliances. The history of the period consists of hundreds of stories, many of which we will never hear. The following two stories will hopefully give some idea of what the situation was like in Indian Territory the year my great grandfather was born.

          After their Removal in 1837, the Chickasaws lived for several years in the Choctaw domain, mainly in camps near the supply depots established to distribute their first year's rations. It wasn't safe to move into their own land to the west because the plains Indian tribes who lived and hunted there weren't willing to give up their home without a fight. The closest fort, Ft. Towson, was 70 miles to the east, so it offered little protection for the Chickasaws.

          My great great grandmother, Ela Teecha, "Ellen," and her first husband Jason McClure (see post of Dec 22, 2011) were among 12 Chickasaw families who moved into the Chickasaw domain in 1839. They settled on the Blue River just east of the Washita. There was a settlement of Kickapoo Indians nearby, and soldiers were sent down from Fort Gibson to evict them, but the Kickapoos moved right back. In 1842 construction was begun on Fort Washita, just five miles west of the McClure farm. The fort was built to provide protection for the Chickasaws from raids by the plains tribes, but it wasn't completed until 1844. In the meantime the Chickasaw families were on their own. According to stories handed down in the family, Ellen advised her husband not to fight or barricade the doors when those "horse riding Indians" came, but just to "go out and offer to feed them, because they are always hungry and they will eat and if they eat there will be no trouble."      

          As near as I can tell, Jason McClure died in 1842, and in 1844, the year that Fort Washita opened, Ellen married my great great grandfather, Smith Paul. The trouble with the plains Indians continued. In 1845, the year my great grandfather, Sam Paul, was born, there were several raids on Chickasaw settlements in the area in spite of the fort. One of these raids was on a settlement six miles from Fort Washita, almost surely my great great grand parents' farm. After these attacks, Chickasaw leaders called a meeting to plan for the defense of their settlements, and Major Beall, the commander of Ft. Washita, having sent out all his available units to search for the marauders, asked for reinforcements from Ft. Towson.

          In the mean time the Chickasaw agent, Col. A. M. M. Upshaw, sent some Delaware warriors to the Wichita village to retrieve the horses. The Delawares found the Wichita Village burned, with dead bodies lying everywhere. A band of Pani Maha, an indigenous tribe which wreaked havoc on the plains for several years, had attacked the village while the Wichita warriors were away on a hunt.

          The Creek immigrants were also having problems. In February of 1845 a group of Creek Indians surprised some Pani Maha near Edwards Trading Post. The Pani Maha shot arrows at the Creeks, who replied with gun fire, killing four Pani Maha. Word of the incident spread like wild fire. It was followed by a rumor that 500 Pani Maha were massacring Creeks settled along the Verdigris River. A war party was sent out under Jim Boy, the famous Creek war chief, to rescue the settlers. The next news was that Jim Boy's warriors had been repulsed. Principal Chief McIntosh then sent out reinforcements, and requested troops from Fort Gibson. A company of Dragoons under Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone, was sent out from the fort. Meanwhile Creek farmers living along the Verdigris began to flee for the safety of the fort.

          The situation was described by the Creek agent James Logan, who also fled to Fort Gibson:

          I should not previously have believed the Creeks to be so excitable a people. In extenuation, however, it may be said that they knew no mercy would be shown by the invaders. Everything was in the greatest possible confusion. Here was to be seen a crowd of the poorer class of women on foot, loaded down with their children and bundles containing their valuables; here a line of wagons laden with the property of the richer class … and their families on horse back; there a warrior begrimed with paint, rifle and tomahawk in hand, making the welkin ring with the discordant war whoop! The rivers were literally covered with canoes laden with women, children, etc., all wending their way to Fort Gibson; here they all congregated, conceiving themselves secure under its protection.

          As Captain Boone rode out to assist the Creek war parties, he met Chief McIntosh who was coming back. McIntosh reported that the settlements were safe, and that there had been no attack. The whole incident was a product of the imagination of the frightened settlers.

          The Pani Maha attack was indeed a false alarm, but the plans of the plains tribes to attack the immigrant tribes was not. When the Creeks sent out an invitation to the Comanche to attend a peace council later that summer, the Comanche replied that they were already planning to meet with the other plains tribes at the next full moon. The purpose of that meeting was to plan a coordinated attack on the Creeks and on the Chickasaws, the two immigrant tribes whose settlements extended furthest west. The Creek messengers were seized and would have been put to death had it not been for the brave intervention of Echo Harjo, a Creek warrior who spoke Comanche. Harjo went to the Comanche camp and successfully pled for the messengers' release.

          The Creeks sent a message to the council of plains tribes by their neighbors the Osage, who had been invited to attend. The message, delivered by Black Dog, the great Osage chief, was that the Creeks wanted peace but they would fight if needed. Black Dog went on to advise the western tribes against arousing the Creeks, the most powerful of the immigrant tribes.

          The Creeks hosted their own council that summer, which was also attended by the Chickasaws. Peace with the plains tribes was not won in a single council, but at least the Five Civilized Tribes were earning respect. Not only were they formidable foes, they were also better able to deal with the white man.  

Gunpandama

Wun-pan-to-mee (the white weasel), a girl; and Tunk-aht-oh-ye (the thunderer), a boy; who are brother and sister. As described by the artist, George Catlin, the two are Kioways (sic)who were purchased from the Osages, to be taken to their tribe by the dragoons (with whom Catlin was traveling in the 1830s-1840s.).

          In the Smithsonian museum there are several buffalo hides inscribed with pictures, pictures of warriors, pictures of soldiers. These hides represent a sixty year history of a band of Kiowa Indians living in western Indian Territory during the early 1800's. One of these hides contains the image of a severed head with a knife sticking into it. On the section of hide representing the following year is the figure of a small girl. That girl's name was Gunpandama.  

(George Catlin recorded the young lady's name as Wun-pan-to-mee but the U.S Bureau of Ethnology spells it Gunpandama.)

          During the migration of the Five Civilized Tribes to Indian Territory in the 1830's there were several failed attempts by the United States' Army to negotiate peace with the dozens of Indian tribes already occupying the area.

          In an attempt to prevent trouble for the migrating Choctaws, two expeditions were sent out in 1832 by the commanding officer of Ft Gibson, Col Matthew Arbuckle, to make contact with the hostile plains Indians. The first group under Captain Jesse Bean was accompanied by the author, Washington Irving, who chronicled the expedition in A tour of the Prairies. The soldiers encountered only friendly tribes, and had to turn back less than halfway into their journey because of winter.

          Later that same year, Col Arbuckle sent another contingent of troops up the Red, Washita and Canadian Rivers, to drive the Comanches and Wichitas west, and to invite their chiefs to come to Ft Gibson where they might be impressed by the power of the United States. The Indians were evidently not impressed. The only contact made by the troops was when a band of Indians rode up and kidnapped one of the rangers, George Abbay. The troops were unable to catch the Indians although they pursued them for 12 days. The soldiers finally ran out of food and had to turn back. The expedition lasted for 54 days. For the last 30 days the men subsisted solely on buffalo meat. 

          In addition to the problem of the western plains tribes, who were not only raiding the Choctaws in the southern part of Indian Territory and plundering with impunity caravans headed west to Santa Fe, there was also a threat to the immigrant tribes in the north, the Osages. The Osage tribe, as I mentioned in my post of 1/1/2011, had been lured into the Arkansas River valley by fur traders during the previous century. Recently the fur trade was waning, and not only that, the Osage were being pushed off their land because U. S. commissioners, due either to ignorance or thoughtlessness, had promised it to the immigrant tribes, the Creeks and Cherokees. The Osage people were starving so they took to raiding Creek and Cherokee farms to feed themselves. The federal government reacted by withholding their annuity, which only increased the problem. 

          In addition to these blunders, the areas promised to the Creek and Cherokee tribes overlapped, so another team of commissioners was sent to revise the treaties and to resolve this three way conflict. This was how Washington Irving came to be invited to go with Captain Bean's expedition. He had come to Indian Territory with one of the commissioners to learn more about the Indians. 

          When the three tribes met, the Osage leaders received no concessions from the commissioners. After hearing the news, a party of warriors, frustrated and furious, rode west over the prairie to take out their fury on their old enemies the Kiowas. After travelling over a hundred miles they came across the trail of a Kiowa hunting party. They followed the trail back to the Kiowa village, and then in a fit of unreasoned rage, massacred all the women, children, and old men that they could catch, and cut off their heads. Kiowa warriors pursued the Osage, but lost them during a heavy rain storm. The Osage returned to their homes with 400 horses, one hundred scalps, and two captives: a twelve year old girl named Gunpandama, and her ten year old brother, Tunkahtohye.

          It's hard to understand this reaction by the Osage, but they were facing a crisis that threatedned their very existence, and they could see no solution. They could no longer live by hunting and trading, and their warriors felt that farming was beneath them, so while they were friendly with the white traders and missionaries who had come to live among them, they still carried on their warlike ways. The Kiowas were also a warlike tribe, and they might have done the same thing to the Osages if they had an opportunity. Also the Kiowa had recently massacred a white trading party, and perhaps the Osage felt that the white soldiers would be grateful to them for avenging their fellow countrymen. The Osage chief Clermont boasted that he never made war on the white man, but never made peace with his Indian enemies. He was following his code.

          Soon the young girl, Gunpandama, faced another tragedy. When the Osage war party returned, and the community around Ft. Gibson became aware of their rampage, one of the traders, Hugh Love, bought Gunpandama and her brother from the Osage with the idea of returning them to the Kiowa in exchange for a trading agreement. Before the two children could be returned however, Gunpandama's brother was killed in a freak accident.  

          The frontier artist, George Catlin, painted the two children before the tragedy. The painting, now displayed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, shows the little boy and his sister with her arm affectionately around him. Catlin wrote in his journal: "The fine little boy was killed at the fur trader's house on the banks of the Verdigris near Ft. Gibson, the day after I painted his picture. ….He was a beautiful boy of nine or ten years of age, and was killed by a ram, which struck him in the abdomen, and knocking him against a fence, killed him instantly."

Creek Removal

Chief Menawa

          Like the Seminoles, the Creeks were led in their struggle against removal by a survivor of the massacre at Horseshoe Bend in 1814. Chief Menawa, leader of the Red Stick defenders, was shot seven times during the battle. He was lying with his fallen comrades and assumed dead when he awakened to see a militiaman looting the body of a Creek warrior nearby. Menawa raised himself on one elbow and shot the soldier. Again he was shot and again left for dead, but when night fell Menawa managed to pull himself down to the river, climb into a canoe, and push himself into the current. He was discovered by a group of Creek women camped downstream from the battleground, rescued and nursed back to health.    

          Nearly 8000 Creeks were rendered destitute by the burning of their villages and crops during the Red Stick War. The Creeks were forced to sign an admission of guilt for the war, even those who had fought alongside the Americans against their brethren. Then they were forced to cede 2/3 of their domain.

          These devastating concessions left the Creeks divided and demoralized. Finally, in 1822, on the urging of the Cherokees, their council voted to adopt written laws, and to accept missionary schools in an effort to learn to live in the white man's world. Their resolution stated, "We were here before there was the face of a white man seen on this island," and "We earnestly admonish our white brethren … to treat us with tenderness and justice." At about the same time they passed a law forbidding any chief to cede more tribal land to the whites, under penalty of death.

Opothle Yahola

          In 1825, one of the Creek chiefs who had apposed the Red Sticks, a mixed blood named William McIntosh, met with federal commissioners and drew up a treaty exchanging all the Creek land in Georgia for land in the west. What made it worse was that McIntosh was a cousin of the Governor of Georgia and had been given a $25,000 bribe. The Creek Council sent a messenger, a young chief named Opothle Yahola, to warn McIntosh of the consequences of signing the treaty. Opothle Yahola climbed on a rock in McIntosh' front yard, called him to his window, and, surrounded by his fellow chiefs, said:

Brothers, the Great Spirit has met here with his children of the woods and their pale face brethren. I see his golden locks in the sunshine; he fans the warrior's brows with his wings and whispers sweet music in the winds; the beetle joins his hymn and the mocking bird his song. You are charmed! Brothers, you are deceived! A snake has been coiled in shade and you are running into his open mouth, deceived by the double tongue of the pale face chief, and drunk with the fire water of the pale face. Brothers, our grounds are gone, and the plow of the pale face will soon turn over the bones of our fathers. Brothers, are you tame? Will you submit? Opothle Yahola says NO!

          Then, turning to McIntosh, he continued:

           "As for you, double tongued snake, before many moons have waned, your own blood shall wash out the memory of this hated treaty. Brothers, I have spoken."

          McIntosh signed the treaty anyway, and the Council sent out a war party, led by Chief Menawa, the veteran of Horseshoe Bend. The party set McIntosh' house on fire, and when the chief ran out, the death sentence was carried out. When President Adams found out that the treaty had been signed without the Council's consent, he refused to send it to Congress. Instead he called the Creek leaders to Washington, including Menawa and Opothle Yahola, and a new treaty, not much different from the McIntosh treaty, was drawn up and signed. It became known as "Menawa's Treaty," and by 1830 about 3000 tribal members had migrated west under its terms.  

          Although initial reports of Indian Territory had been favorable, some emigrants returned later with tales of disease, poverty, and attacks by hostile tribes. These stories made those remaining in the east more reluctant to leave. In 1829 the Creek Council met and voted to stay in their native homeland and submit to state laws.

          When local authorities failed to expel whites encroaching on Creek land, one chief sent a list to Washington of 1500 illegal settlers, asking for federal help. Andrew Jackson was now President, and he gave the Creeks what would become his standard reply, that he was helpless to intervene in state affairs, and that the Indians' only choice was to move west.

          By 1832 more chiefs, including Opothle Yahola, had decided that removal was inevitable, and they signed another treaty, this time agreeing to give up their remaining lands in the east. The terms of the treaty were similar to those of the Choctaws. Settlers were to be kept out of Creek land, and those who decided to stay were to be given allotments. Creeks who emigrated were to be paid for their property, given transportation west, and subsistence for one year after arrival.

          But like the Choctaws, the Creeks were given none of the protection promised by their treaty. Swindlers found ways to trick them into signing away their allotments, and they had no legal recourse in the courts. When the Indians refused to move, land hungry settlers raided their farms. In 1836, eighty year old Chief Eneah Emathla led a party of warriors to retaliate. Sadly Opothle Yahola was forced to lead his warriors against the old man to prevent further bloodshed.

          With another "Indian uprising" as an excuse, U. S. troops were sent in under General Winfield Scott, and the rebel groups were forced to surrender. About 800 Indian warriors were marched 90 miles to Montgomery, Alabama, and paraded through the streets before being loaded onto barges bound for Mobile, and then Indian Territory. The experience was so humiliating for these proud people that several warriors committed suicide. After these "hostiles" and their families arrived in Indian Territory, they were released there without food, weapons, farming tools, or even cooking utensils, to live or die. Only about half survived the trip.

          To escape being sent west, several groups of Creek Indians fled to the Cherokee and  Chickasaw nations where they were given refuge, and some went to Florida to fight with the Seminoles. Those remaining in Alabama were hunted down and either hanged or placed into slavery.

          By the end of 1837, 15,000 Creeks had been forcibly removed to Indian Territory. The hardships they underwent were similar to those of the Choctaws. They suffered diseases like smallpox and cholera. They were forced to march in freezing cold weather without proper clothing, and were left to die if they couldn't keep up. One of the steamboats crammed full with 600 Creek captives sank in the Mississippi River, killing half its passengers.

          One elderly lady began to sing a song as she marched and soon she was joined by the others:

"I have no more land. I am driven away from home, driven up the red waters, let us all go, let us all die together."

          The old chiefs Eneah Emathla and Menawa were among those who died during the Removal. Opothle Yahola continued to lead his people in the new Indian Territory.