The American Indian as Slaveholder and Seccessionist / An Omitted Chapter in the Diplomatic History of the Southern Confederacy

by Annie Heloise Abel

[101] Van Buren had a short time previously been the headquarters of the Southern Superintendency.

[102] We find that this intimate intercourse extended even to things scholastic; for, though there were plenty of female seminaries, so-called, within Indian Territory, Indian girls regularly attended similar institutions in Fayetteville [Bishop, A. W., Loyalty on the Frontier, 143].

[103] Bishop [Loyalty on the Frontier, 20] says that to the zeal of the Knights of the Golden Circle, or “Knaves of the Godless Communion,” was mainly attributable “the treasonable complexion” of the Arkansas legislature that organized in November of 1860.

[104] The following documents include the act of the Chickasaw Legislature and related correspondence:

Be it enacted by Legislature of the Chickasaw Nation, That the Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, be and he is hereby authorized to appoint four Commissioners, one from each county, namely:—Panola, Pickens, Tishomingo, and Pontotoc County, on the part of the Chickasaw Nation, to meet a like set of Commissioners appointed respectively by the Choctaw, Creek, Cherokee, and Seminole Nations, to meet in General Convention at such time and place That the Chief of the Creek Nation, may set, for the purpose of entering into some compact, not inconsistent with the Laws and Treaties of the United States, for the future security and protection of the rights and Citizens of said nations, in the event of a change in the United States, and to renew the harmony and good feeling already established between said Nations by a compact concluded & entered into on the 14th of Nov. 1859, at Asbury Mission Creek Nation.

Be it further enacted That said Commissioners shall receive for their services the sum of One hundred dollars each, and shall report the proceedings of said Convention to the next session of the Chickasaw Legislature for its approval or disapproval....

Passed the House Repts as amended Jany 5th 1861.

Passed Senate Jan. 5, 1861. Approved Jan. 5, 1861.

Indian Office General Files—Cherokee 1859-1865, C515.

Enclosed please find an Act of the called Session of the Chickasaw Legislature, the object of which you will readily understand. Your coöperation, and union of action of the Cherokee people in effecting the object therein expressed is hereby respectfully solicited.