Читать книгу The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist - Annie Heloise Abel - Страница 7

The State of Arkansas, Executive Department,

Little Rock, January 29, 1861.

To His Excellency John Ross,

Principal Chief Cherokee Nation:

Sir: It may now be regarded as almost certain that the States having slave property within their borders will, in consequence of repeated Northern aggressions, separate themselves and withdraw from the Federal Government.

South Carolina, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Georgia, and Louisiana have already, by action of the people, assumed this attitude. Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland will probably pursue the same course by the 4th of March next. Your people, in their institutions, productions, latitude, and natural sympathies, are allied to the common brotherhood of the slaveholding States. Our people and yours are natural allies in war and friends in peace. Your country is salubrious and fertile, and possesses the highest capacity for future progress and development by the application of slave labor. Besides this, the contiguity of our territory with yours induces relations of so intimate a character as to preclude the idea of discordant or separate action.

John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokees

[From Smithsonian Institution, Bureau of American Ethnology]

It is well established that the Indian country west of Arkansas is looked to by the incoming administration of Mr. Lincoln as fruitful fields, ripe for the harvest of abolitionism, free-soilers, and Northern mountebanks.

We hope to find in your people friends willing to co-operate with the South in defense of her institutions, her honor, and her firesides, and with whom the slaveholding States are willing to share a common future, and to afford protection commensurate with your exposed condition and your subsisting monetary interests with the General Government.

As a direct means of expressing to you these sentiments, I have dispatched my aide-de-camp, Lieut. Col. J. J. Gaines, to confer with you confidentially upon these subjects, and to report to me any expressions of kindness and confidence that you may see proper to communicate to the governor of Arkansas, who is your friend and the friend of your people. Respectfully, your obedient servant,

Henry M. Rector, Governor of Arkansas.[176]

Lieutenant Gaines duly started out upon his mission and upon reaching Fort Smith interviewed Superintendent Rector and received from him a letter of introduction[177] to John Ross, which was, in effect, a hearty endorsement of the governor’s project. An inkling of what Gaines was about soon came to the ears of A. B. Greenwood, an Arkansan, a state-rights man, and United States commissioner of Indian affairs. At the moment he was the official, intent upon doing his duty, nothing more. It was then in his official capacity that he straightway demanded of Agent Cowart an explanation of Gaines’s movements; but Cowart was privy to Governor Rector’s plans undoubtedly, a Georgian, a secessionist, and one of those illiterate, disreputable, untrustworthy characters that frontier or garrison towns seem always to produce or to attract, the kind, unfortunately for its own reputation and for the Indian welfare, that the United States government has so often seen fit to select for its Indian agents. More than that, Cowart was a man of such base principles that he could commercialize with impunity a great cause and calmly continue to hold office under and to draw pay from one government while secretly plotting against it in the interests of another. On this occasion he attempted a denial[178] of the presence of Rector’s commissioner at Fort Smith; but the Indian Office had soon good proof[179] that a commissioner had been there and that he had proceeded thence to the Cherokee country. It was no other than Gaines, of course, who, when once he had delivered the Rector letters to Ross, saw fit, in the further interests of his mission, to attend the inter-tribal council at the Creek Agency.

John Ross did not reply to Governor Rector’s communication until the anniversary of George Washington’s birthday and he then expressed the same ideas of concern, of sympathy, but also those of positive neutrality that had characterized his advice to the Indian conferees. He scouted, though, the very idea of the incoming administration’s planning to abolitionize the Indian country while at the same time he manifested his utter disapproval of it. This is what he said:

Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, February 22, 1861.

His Excellency Henry M. Rector, Governor of Arkansas:

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s communication of the 29th ultimo, per your aide-de-camp, Lieut. Col. J. J. Gaines.

The Cherokees cannot but feel a deep regret and solicitude for the unhappy differences which at present disturb the peace and quietude of the several States, especially when it is understood that some of the slave States have already separated themselves and withdrawn from the Federal Government and that it is probable others will also pursue the same course.

But may we not yet hope and trust in the dispensation of Divine power to overrule the discordant elements for good, and that, by the counsel of the wisdom, virtue, and patriotism of the land, measures may happily be adopted for the restoration of peace and harmony among the brotherhood of States within the Federal Union.

The relations which the Cherokee people sustain toward their white brethren have been established by subsisting treaties with the United States Government, and by them they have placed themselves under the “protection of the United States and of no other sovereign whatever.” They are bound to hold no treaty with any foreign power, or with any individual State, nor with the citizens of any State. On the other hand, the faith of the United States is solemnly pledged to the Cherokee Nation for the protection of the right and title in the lands, conveyed to them by patent, within their territorial boundaries, as also for the protection of all other of their national and individual rights and interests of persons and property. Thus the Cherokee people are inviolably allied with their white brethren of the United States in war and friends in peace. Their institutions, locality, and natural sympathies are unequivocally with the slave-holding States. And the contiguity of our territory to your State, in connection with the daily, social, and commercial intercourse between our respective citizens, forbids the idea that they should ever be otherwise than steadfast friends.

I am surprised to be informed by Your Excellency that “it is well established that the Indian country west of Arkansas is looked to by the incoming administration of Mr. Lincoln as fruitful fields ripe for the harvest of abolitionism, free-soilers, and Northern mountebanks.” As I am sure that the laborers will be greatly disappointed if they shall expect in the Cherokee country “fruitful fields ripe for the harvest of abolitionism,” &c., you may rest assured that the Cherokee people will never tolerate the propagation of any obnoxious fruit upon their soil.

And in conclusion I have the honor to reciprocate the salutation of friendship.

I am, sir, very respectfully, Your Excellency’s obedient servant,

Jno. Ross, Principal Chief Cherokee Nation.[180]

The Arkansas state convention, sanctioned by popular vote, met, by authority of the governor’s proclamation, March fourth. Its members were inclined to temporize, however; for, as Harrell says, they were coöperationists[181] rather than secessionists and their policy of temporizing they carried out even in the provision made for reassembling after adjournment. David Walker, the president of the convention, was out of sympathy with this; and, at the first news of the attack upon Fort Sumter and while passion and excitement were still at fever heat, called[182] an extra session for the sixth of May. The regular session was not to come until the nineteenth of August. Coincidently Governor Rector again showed where his sympathies lay by refusing[183] President Lincoln’s call for troops.

The Arkansas Ordinance of Secession was passed on the sixth of May. S. R. Cockrell had proved himself a good prophet; for, writing jubilantly to L. P. Walker, on the twenty-first of April, on the progress of secession, he had said,[184] “Arkansas will go out 6th of May before breakfast. The Indians come next.” His closing remark had some foundation for its utterance. Intelligent and prominent Indians were to be found in the very ranks of the Arkansas secessionists. E. C. Boudinot, a Cherokee, an enemy and rival of John Ross, and later Cherokee delegate in the Confederate Congress, was secretary[185] of the convention. M. Kennard, a leading and a principal Creek chief, seems also to have been influential. The alliance of the Indians was yet being sought.[186]

The secession ordinance once safely launched, the Arkansas convention turned its attention without equivocation to Indian concerns. On the tenth of May, for instance, it followed the example set by Texas and passed a resolution,[187] authorizing the president of the convention to appoint three delegates to visit Indian Territory. The men appointed were, S. L. Griffith of Sebastian County (the same man, interestingly enough to whom the United States government had recently offered[188] the Southern Superintendency), J. Murphy of Madison County, and G. W. Laughinghouse of St. Francis County. Two of these counties were on or near the border. Sebastian was on the border and Madison not far inland, so Griffith and Murphy very probably realized the full significance of their mission. On the eleventh of May, the convention tried to pass another resolution,[189] indicative of a community of interests between Arkansas and the Indian country. This resolution failed, but, had it passed, it would have prayed the president of the Confederate States to erect a military department or division out of Arkansas and Indian Territory. As it was, the convention contented itself, on this occasion, with empowering[190] Brigadier-general Pearce[191] to coöperate with Brigadier-general McCulloch.[192] It took this action on the twenty-first of May and on the twenty-eighth it received a communication[193] from Elias Rector concerning the Choctaws and Chickasaws.

Almost simultaneously with this legislative activity, solicitation of the Indians came from yet other directions. On the eighth of May, Brigadier-general B. Burroughs of the Arkansas militia took it upon himself to make an appeal to the Chickasaws, which he did in this wise:

Headquarters Eighth Brigade, First Division, Arkansas Militia,

Fort Smith, Ark., May 8, 1861.

Gov. C. Harris: To-day we have information that Arkansas, in Convention, has seceded, by a vote 69 to 1. Tennessee has also seceded, and made large appropriations and ordered an army of 50,000 men.

Arkansas has for several days past been in arms on this frontier for the protection (of) citizens, and the neighboring Indian nations whose interests are identical with her own.

I have news through my scouts that the U. S. troops have abandoned the forts in the Chickasaw country.

Under my orders from the commander-in-chief and governor of Arkansas, I feel authorized to extend to you such military aid as will be required in the present juncture of affairs to occupy and hold the forts.

I have appointed Col. A. H. Word, one of the State senators, and Captain Sparks, attached to this command, commissioners to treat and confer with you on this subject. These gentlemen are fully apprised of the nature of the powers intrusted to myself by the governor of this State, and are authorized to express to you my views of the subject under consideration. I ask, therefore, that you express to them your own wishes in the premises, and believe, my dear sir, that Arkansas cherishes the kindest regards for your people.

I have the honor to subscribe myself, with sentiments of regard, your excellency’s friend and servant,

B. Burroughs, Brigadier-General, Commanding.[194]

The impudence and calm effrontery of this has its humorous side and would seem even ridiculous were it not for the fact that we are bound to remember that the Indians took it all so very seriously. It was true enough, as Burroughs said, that the Federal troops had abandoned the Indian country; but against whom were the forts to be held? Surely not against the Federals. Furthermore, what need was there for Arkansas to interest herself in the Chickasaw forts, since the Texan troops were already in possession? Is it possible to suppose that Burroughs’s scouts, who had found out so much about the withdrawal of the Federal forces, had not discovered the work of the Texans in contributing thereto? The Chickasaws were particularly friendly to the secessionists and, in this same month of May, passed, by means of their legislature, those eight resolutions[195] in which they gave such strong expression to their views, at the same time, however, giving the Southern States clearly to understand that they knew the extent of their own rights and were determined to hold fast to them. They also declared that they wished to hold their forts themselves.

On the ninth of May, the Indians were still further addressed and this time by the citizens of Boonsboro, Arkansas, whose appeal has already been referred to and quoted.[196] The appeal was made through the medium of a letter to John Ross and of him the citizens of Boonsboro inquired where he intended to stand; inasmuch as they much preferred “an open enemy to a doubtful friend.” They earnestly hoped, they said, to find in him and his people “true allies and active friends.” On the fifteenth of May, J. R. Kannady, lieutenant-colonel, commanding at Fort Smith, also communicated[197] with Ross and on the same subject, his immediate provocation being the report that Senator James H. Lane was busy raising troops in Kansas to be used against Missouri and Arkansas. Of the Kannady letter, John B. Luce was the bearer and, to it, Ross replied[198] on the seventeenth, the very day that he published his great proclamation[199] of neutrality; for the otherwise most sensible John Ross labored under the delusion that the Indians would be allowed to figure as silent witnesses of events. In this respect, he was, however, on slightly firmer ground than were the citizens of such a state as Kentucky; but, none the less, he labored under a delusion as he soon found out to his sorrow. His proclamation of neutrality was intended as a final and conclusive answer[200] to all interrogatories like that from Boonsboro.