| THIRD PERIOD |
| (1825-1840) |
| INDIAN MIGRATION FROM THE EAST. |
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| A STEAMBOAT OF THE TYPE IN USE ABOUT 1830 |
| The Santa Fe Trail.— By an act of Congress which was approved March 3, 1825, the president of the United States was authorized and directed to cause a road to be marked out from a point on the Missouri River to the Spanish settlements in New Mexico. The work of locating, surveying and marking the proposed road was performed during the years 1825-6-7. For a distance of about fifty miles this road, or “trail,” as it was more commonly called, passed over Oklahoma soil, entering what is now Cimarron County from the north and running in a general southwestwardly direction across that county. |
| The First Steamboat. —The first steamboat that entered the waters of the Arkansas River in the Indian Territory was the "Facility," which, under the command of Captain Philip Pennywit, ascended that stream as far as Fort Gibson in 1828. From that time on, Fort Gibson was visited regularly by one or more steamboats each year. |
| The Cherokee Nation. —By the terms of the treaty between the Government and the chiefs and head men of the Western Cherokees (i. e., those who had moved west of the Mississippi and who were then living in Arkansas), May 6, 1828, it was proposed to settle the entire Cherokee tribe on a new reservation west of Arkansas Territory. |
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| ROUTE OF WASHINGTON IRVING’S TOUR OF THE PRAIRIES, 1832 |
| The Chickasaw and Seminole Treaties. —In 1832, the Seminole Indians, of Florida, and tlie Chickasaw Indians, of Mississippi and Tennessee, were induced to agree to remove to new reservations in the region west of the Mississippi. |
| An Indian Territory to Be Established. —An act of Congress, approved May 26, 1830, provided for the establishment of an Indian Territory. By its terms, the president of the United States was authorized to select from the public lands a tract not included in any organized state or territory and not belonging to other Indian tribes and to cause the same to be set aside for division into a suitable number of districts or reservations to be given to Indian tribes in exchange for lands in the states east of the Mississippi which they might be willing to give up and leave. Although no formal action was taken by the president, the country immediately west of the state of Missouri and the territories of Arkansas and Iowa became known as the Indian Territory. |
| Washington Irving’s Visit. —In the autumn of 1832, a company of rangers marched westward from the Osage Agency (which was a few miles above Fort Gibson), crossed the Arkansas just above the mouth of the Cimarron, forded the latter a few miles below Guthrie and crossed the North Canadian in the vicinity of Oklahoma City. Washington Irving, the distinguished author and traveler, accompanied the expedition as an interested witness of wilderness sights and scenes. He afterward embodied his experience and observations of an outing in Oklahoma in a charming narrative entitled, ’’A Tour of the Prairies." |
 The Leavenworth Expedition.— An important expedition was organized at Fort Gibson in the summer of 1834. It was undertaken for the purpose of seeking to gain the friendship of the Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita and other tribes of Indians which roamed in the region of the Wichita Mountains. The expedition was organized under the command of Gen. Henry Lewenworth and was accompanied by Gov. Montfort Stokes, who was acting as a peace commissioner for the Government. The expedition went far into an almost unexplored wilderness, visiting the village of the Wichita Indians on the North Fork of the Red River and meeting with the Indians of the other tribes. Upon its return to Fort Gibson, delegations from several tribes accompanied it for the purpose of attending a grand peace council. |
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| Continued Migration of Indians. —Although reservations had been assigned to the Cherokee, Choctaw and Creek tribes in the Indian Territory, to which many of their people had already moved, the greater part of these tribes did not move from their old homes east of the Mississippi until after 1835. Most of the Creeks came west in 1836. The Chickasaws purchased an interest in the Choctaw reservation in 1837 and, shortly afterward, began to move westward. A majority of the Cherokees refused to leave their old homes in Georgia and Tennessee and had to be removed by force in 1836. The people of all of these tribes were strongly attached to their old homes. Many if not most of them were compelled to move away to a strange and distant country against their own will and wish. They underwent great hardship and suffering during the course of their journeys to the West. The history of the removal of the Indians of these tribes to the West is a sad one. Another band of Cherokees, which had been living in Texas for many years, was driven out of that country and came to the north to settle with the main body of the tribe shortly after the arrival of the Eastern Cherokees. The bitter feeling between the Cherokees who had favored the removal treaty and those who had opposed it remained for years. |
| Slavery Introduced into Oklahoma. —The Indians of the tribes from the South had adopted many of the habits and customs of their white neighbors in the states east of the Mississippi. As the ownership of negro slaves was lawful in all of those states from which these tribes had moved, many of them had become slave owners. When they moved to their new reservations in the Indian Territory, they brought their slaves with them. |
| Indian Wars. —The Indian wars in the Indian Territory during this period were few and not of much importance. Most of them were between Indians of the tribes who had moved from the East, on the one side, and those of the tribes which were native in this part of the country, on the other. In nearly every case the Government induced the members of the various tribes to cease from warfare against each other and to live as friends. |
| New Military Posts. —Two military posts were established during this period, Fort Coffee, in the Choctaw Nation, on the Arkansas River, in 1834, and Fort Wayne, in the northeastern part of the Cherokee Nation in 1838. |
| The Fur Trade. —The coming of the Indians of the civilized tribes into the eastern part of Oklahoma soon caused the fur traders to leave their old trading posts in that section of the country and led them to build new posts further west. Besides the trading posts of the big fur companies and their agents, there were many independent traders who went out on the Plains with a few pack animals loaded with knives, colored cloths, trinkets and other wares suitable for trading. These were exchanged for furs, buffalo robes and other articles to be had in the camps of the wild Indians. |
| Early Progress.—The Indians who moved to Oklahoma from east of the Mississippi between 1825 and 1840 were already well on the way toward civilized life. They therefore began to prosper in their new homes after they became settled once more. They raised small fields of corn, wheat and cotton and kept large herds of live stock, including horses, cattle and hogs. Their government agents and the missionaries, who had come to labor among them, tried to encourage them to adopt all the ways of civilization. Some of the traders, on the other hand, wanted these Indians to abandon the ways of civilization and live altogether by hunting and trapping. They lived plainly, their fields and herds and the game that abounded in the forest and on the prairie supplying most of their needs. With but few exceptions their homes were built of logs. As a tribe, the Cherokees were the most progressive. This was largely due to the fact that the writing and printing of their language had been made possible by the invention of the Cherokee alphabet by Sequoyah. |
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| SEQUOYAH |
| PROSPEROUS INDIANS |
The Western Cherokees, who had already been living in the Indian Territory for some years before the arrival of the main body of the tribe from east of the Mississippi, had so many horses, cattle and hogs at the time of the migration of the remainder of the tribe that the Government was enabled to purchase from them enough animals for the use of the new comers in stocking their farms.
While most of the Indians of the tribes from the East were engaged in farming and stock raising, a few of them became merchants and others became wandering traders among the wild tribes of the Plains. Some of the Cherokee Indians seem to have been engaged in river traffic by means of flat boats on the Cumberland and Tennessee before they came West. They still kept up an active interest in such affairs, which is evident from the fact that, as early as 1837, they owned and operated a fine steamboat which plied between their country on the Arkansas and the lower Mississippi to New Orleans. |
| Tribal Constitutions. —The Cherokees had a tribal constitution which had been formally adopted in 1827. It was republican in form, having legislative, judicial and executive departments. This Cherokee constitution is said to have been modeled after that of the state of Mississippi and, in turn, it served as a model for the constitutions of the Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek nations. |
| SEQUOYAH. |
Sequoyah, or George Guess, was born about 1760, being the son of a white father and a Cherokee mother. There is a tradition to the effect that his father was Nathaniel Gist, son of Christopher Gist, the North Carolina scout who accompanied George Washington on his memorable mission to the French posts on the Allegheny, in 1753, the story running that Nathaniel Gist was captured by Cherokee Indians at Braddock’s defeat on the Monongahela and kept as a prisoner among them for many years. This has never been established as a fact, however, and it is more probable that his father was a German peddler from one of the Morwian settlements of the adjacent region in Carolina.
Sequoyah grew up ignorant and untutored. When young he was unable to speak or understand English and, even in later life when signing his name to a document in English, he merely made his mark as any illiterate would. When he first saw books at the mission schools he was informed that the characters represented the words of the spoken language. Not understanding how this was done, he attempted to make characters of his own for the Cherokee language. At first he undertook to make a separate character for each word, but finding that impracticable, he reduced his invention to a system by making a separate character, or letter, for each possible syllable in the language and one for the letter ’’s." In all, he had eighty-five characters or letters in his alphabet. He was enabled to teach this syllabic alphabet to any Cherokee, old or young, within three weeks. Types of the new alphabet were cast and books and newspapers were printed in the Cherokee language. As a result, the printing of books and pamphlets for the Cherokee Indians in Eoman text ceased, swe when the English language was used.
Sequoyah was greatly honored by his people and his memory is revered by them to this day. He first visited the Western Cherokees, in Arkansas, in 1822. The next year he moved west and remained. He was a leader of the Western Cherokees (Old Settlers) at the time of the migration of the Eastern Cherokees in 1838-9. He died in 1844 while on a hunting and exploring excursion to New Mexico and was buried near Taos, in that state. |
| Summary. —The story of the removal of the Indian tribes from the southern states and their settlement in the Indian Territory will always be one of thrilling interest, not alone to their descendants but to the American people generally. The tales of the deeds of pioneers always fascinate us, but the pioneering stories of no state have surpassed those of the Indian Territory in heroic, pathetic and tragic interest. That period of the history of Oklahoma may furnish inspiration for the artists, musicians and poets of generations yet unborn. |
| SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS Third Period. |
| 1. When and by whom was the Santa Fe Trail located’? What part of Oklahoma did it trwerse? Tell briefly the story of the Santa Fe Trail and its importance in the early history of the South-w^est. |
| 2. When did the first steamboat reach Fort Gibson? What was the name of the steamboat? The name of its captain? |
| 3. What noted author visited Oklahoma in 1832? What interesting book tells the story of his trip? |
| 4. When did Congress pass an act providing for the establishment of an Indian Territory? What Indian treaties were made shortly afterward? |
| 5. Tell the story of General Lewenworth’s expedition. What tribes of Indians were visited? What veteran of the American Eevo-lution accompanied the expedition? What noted painter of Indian portraits? |
| 6. What tribes migrated to Oklahoma during this period? From what part of the United States did they come? What tribe joined the Choctaws? |
| 7. When was slwery introduced into the Indian Territory? By whom was it introduced? |
| 8. Where did the fur traders operate in the Indian Territory during this period? What other traders were there besides those who owned and operated trading posts? |
| 9. Tell what you can about the life, occupation, customs and prosperity of the immigrant tribes. |
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