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

by Annie Heloise Abel

You will be diligent to explain to them, under these circumstances, how their cause has become our cause, and themselves and ourselves stand inseparably associated in respect to national existence and property interests; and in view of this identification of cause and interests between them and ourselves, entailing a common destiny, give to them profound assurances that the Government of the Confederate States of America, now powerfully constituted through an immense league of sovereign political societies, great forces in the field, and abundant resources, will assume all the expense and responsibility of protecting them against all adversaries....

Give them to understand, in this connection, that a brigadier-general of character and experience has been assigned to the military district embracing the Indian Territories south of Kansas, with three regiments under his command, while in Texas another military district has been formed....

In addition to these things, regarded of primary importance, you will, without committing the Government to any especial conduct, express our serious anxiety to establish and enforce the debts and annuities due to them from the Government at Washington, which otherwise they will never obtain, as that Government would, undoubtedly, sooner rob them of their lands, emancipate their slaves, and utterly exterminate them, than render to them justice. Finally, communicate to them the abiding solicitude of the Confederate States of America to advance their condition in the direction of a proud political society, with a distinctive civilization, and holding lands in severalty under well-defined laws, by forming them into a Territorial government; but you will give no assurance of State organization and independence, as they still require the strong arm of protecting power, and may probably always need our fostering care; and, so far as the agents of the late Government of the United States may be concerned, you will converse with them, and such of them as are willing to act with you in the policy herein set forth you are authorized to substantiate in the employment of this Government at their present compensation....[230]

Hubbard’s mission to the west was quite independent[231] of Pike’s, although both missions were undoubtedly part of the one general plan of securing as quickly, as surely, and as easily as possible the friendly coöperation of the Indians. At about the same moment that they were devised, the Confederacy took yet another means of accomplishing the same object and one referred to in the letter of Secretary Walker just quoted. On the thirteenth of this same month of May, 1861, it assigned Brigadier-general Ben McCulloch “to the command of the district embracing the Indian Territory lying west of Arkansas and south of Kansas.” McCulloch’s orders[232] were “to guard that Territory against invasion from Kansas or elsewhere,” and, for the purpose, in addition to three regiments of white troops, “to engage, if possible, the service of any of the Indian tribes occupying the Territory referred to in numbers equal to two regiments.”

Hubbard’s part in the prosecution of this great endeavor may as well be disposed of first. It was of short duration and seemingly barren of direct results. Hubbard was long in reaching the western boundary of Arkansas. On the way out he was seized with pneumonia and otherwise delayed by wind and weather. On the second of June he was still in Little Rock, apparently much more interested[233] in the local situation in Arkansas than in the real object of his mission. His intention was to “go up the river to Fort Smith,” June third. From that point, on the twelfth, he addressed the Cherokee chief, John Ross, and the Confederate general, Ben McCulloch. The letter was more particularly meant for the former.

As Commissioner of Indian Affairs of the Confederate States it was my intention to have called upon you and consulted as to the mutual interests of our people. Sickness has put it out of my power to travel, and those interests require immediate consideration, and therefore I have determined to write, and make what I think a plain statement of the case for your consideration, which I think stands thus: If we succeed in the South—succeed in this controversy, and I have no doubt of the fact, for we are daily gaining friends among the powers of Europe, and our people are arming with unanimity scarcely ever seen in the world before—then your lands, your slaves, and your separate nationality are secured and made perpetual, and in addition nearly all your debts are in Southern bonds, and these we will also secure. If the North succeeds you will most certainly lose all. First your slaves they will take from you; that is one object of the war, to enable them to abolish slavery in such manner and at such time as they choose. Another, and perhaps the chief cause, is to get upon your rich lands and settle their squatters, who do not like to settle in slave States. They will settle upon your lands as fast as they choose, and the Northern people will force their Government to allow it. It is true they will allow your people small reserves—they give chiefs pretty large ones—but they will settle among you, overshadow you, and totally destroy the power of your chiefs and your nationality, and then trade your people out of the residue of their lands. Go North among the once powerful tribes of that country and see if you can find Indians living and enjoying power and property and liberty as do your people and the neighboring tribes from the South. If you can, then say I am a liar, and the Northern States have been better to the Indian than the Southern States. If you are obliged to admit the truth of what I say, then join us and preserve your people, their slaves, their vast possessions in land, and their nationality.

Another consideration is your debts, annuities, &c., school funds due you. Nearly all are in bonds of Southern States and held by the Government at Washington, and these debts are nearly all forfeited already by the act of war made upon the States by that Government. These we will secure you beyond question if you join us. If you join the North they are forever forfeited, and you will have no right to believe that the Northern people would vote to pay you this forfeited debt. Admit that there may be some danger take which side you may, I think the danger tenfold greater to the Cherokee people if they take sides against us than for us. Neutrality will scarcely be possible. As long as your people retain their national character your country cannot be abolitionized, and it is our interest therefore that you should hold your possessions in perpetuity.[234]

The effect that such a communication as the foregoing might well have had upon the Indians can scarcely be overestimated. Time out of number they had been over-reached in dealings financial. Only the year before, bonds in which Indian trust funds were invested had been abstracted[235] from the vaults of the Interior Department; and, for this cause and other causes, Indian money had not been readily forthcoming for the much needed relief of Indian sufferers from the fearful drought that devastated Indian Territory, Kansas, and other parts of the great American desert in 1860.

Comment upon Hubbard’s letter from the standpoint of historical inaccuracy seems hardly necessary here. Suffice it to say that the distortion of facts and the shifting of responsibility for previous Indian wrongs from the shoulders of Southern States to those of a federal government made up entirely of northern states must have seemed preposterous in the extreme to the Indians. One can not help wondering how Hubbard dared to say such things to the Indian exiles from Southern States and particularly to John Ross who like all of his tribe and of associated tribes was the victim of southern aggression and not in any sense whatsoever of northern.

To Hubbard’s gross amplification and even defiance of his instructions, also to his extravagant utterances touching the repudiation of debts and southern versus northern justice and generosity, Chief Ross replied,[236] by way of strong contrast, in terms dignified and convincing: