[226] Official Records, first ser., vol. iii, 580-581.
[227] In a letter to Commissioner D. N. Cooley, under date of February 17, 1866, Pike said that Toombs requested him in May of 1861 to visit the Indian country as commissioner. I have not been able to find out whether Toombs made his request in writing or verbally. The correspondence of Toombs recently edited by U. B. Phillips does not furnish any additional information on this point.
[228] On one very important occasion, Albert Pike was not strictly fair to the Indians. That occasion was after the war when the United States Indian Office was endeavoring to make a settlement with the Cherokees on the basis of their adherence to the Confederate cause. Pike was appealed to and threw the weight of his influence against John Ross, but most unjustly as it would seem. The letter embodying his views is a narrative of the events of 1861 as they happened in the Indian country under his scrutiny, and may as well be inserted here in full. It is to be found in the Indian Office in a bundle labeled, “Loyalty of John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokees: Letter of Albert Pike (original), Feb. 17, 1866—and Copies of several of Ross’ letter—relative to his loyalty in 1861 & 1862, etc.”
5. Albert Pike to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs
Memphis, Tennessee, 17th February 1866.
Sir: I have received, to-day, a copy of the “Memorial” of the “Southern Cherokees,” to the President, Senate and House of Representatives, in reply to the Memorial of other Cherokees claiming to be “loyal.”
It is not for me to take any part in the controversy between the two portions of the Cherokee People, nor have I any interest that could lead me to side with one in preference to the other. Nor am I much inclined, having none of the rights of a Citizen, to offer to testify in any matter, when my testimony may not be deemed worthy of credit, as that of one not yet restored to respectability and creditability by a pardon.
But, as I know it to be contemptible as well as false, for Mr. John Ross and the “loyal” Memorialists to pretend that they did not voluntarily engage themselves by Treaty Stipulations to the Confederate States, and as you have desired my testimony, I have this to say, and I think no man will be bold enough to deny any part of it.
In May, 1861, I was requested by Mr. Toombs, Secretary of State of the Confederate States, to visit the Indian Country as Commissioner, and assure the Indians of the friendship of those States. The Convention of the State of Arkansas, anxious to avoid hostilities with the Cherokees, also applied to me to act as such Commissioner. I accordingly proceeded to Fort Smith, where some five or six Cherokees called upon General McCulloch and myself, representing those of the Cherokees who sympathized with the South, in order to ascertain whether the Confederate States would protect them against Mr. Ross and the Pin Indians, if they should organize and take up arms for the South. We learned that some attempts to raise a Secession flag in the Cherokee Country on the Arkansas had been frustrated by the menace of violence; and those who came to meet us represented the Pin Organization to be a Secret Society, established by Evan Jones, a Missionary, and at the service of Mr. John Ross, for the purpose of abolitionizing the Cherokees and putting out of the way all who sympathized with the Southern States.
The truth was, as I afterwards learned with certainty, the Secret Organization in question, whose members for a time used as a mark of their membership a pin in the front of the hunting shirt, was really established for the purpose of depriving the half-breeds of all political power, though Mr. Ross, himself a Scotchman and a McDonald by the father and the mother, was shrewd enough to use it for his own ends. At any rate, it was organized and in full operation, long before Secession was thought of.