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

by Annie Heloise Abel

It is distinctly understood by the said several tribes and bands, that the State of Texas is one of the Confederate States, and joins this Convention, and signs it when the Commissioner signs it, and is bound by it; and all hostilities and enmities between it and them are now ended and are to be forgotten and forgiven on both sides.[310]

It soon developed that Texas was not pleased to find her consent so thoroughly taken for granted and that the Reserve Indians were no better satisfied. The enmity between the two continued as before.

As regarded the relations between the Indian tribes and the Confederate States proper, the Pike treaties were old law in so far as they duplicated the earlier United States treaty arrangements and new law only in so far as they met conditions incident to the war. United States laws and treaties were specifically continued in force wherever possible, and, in most cases, the name of the one government was simply substituted for that of the other. Considerable emphasis was laid upon the right of eminent domain. The Indians conceded to the Confederacy the power to establish agency reserves,[311] military posts[312] and fortifications, to maintain post and military roads,[313] and to grant the right of way,[314] upon payment of an indemnity,[315] to certain corporations for purposes of internal improvement, mainly railway and telegraph lines. Most of this would have contributed very materially to the good of the southern cause in guarding one of the approaches to Texas and in increasing the convenience of communication. The Confederate States assumed the wardship of the tribes, exacted a pledge of loyalty from the weaker and one of alliance,[316] offensive and defensive, but without the entail of pecuniary responsibility, from the stronger. In its turn, the Confederacy promised to the Indians many things, deserving of serious mention and far too important for mere enumeration. As a matter of fact, the South paid pretty dearly, from the view-point of historical consistency, for its Indian alliance. In the light of Indian political history, it yielded far more than at first glance appears and, as a consequence, the great tribes gained nearly everything that they had been contending for for half a century.

As has just been intimated, the concessions made by the Confederacy to the Indians were somewhat significant. In addition to the things noted a few paragraphs back, congressional delegates, control of trade, and others of like import, Pike, the lawyer commissioner and the man of justice, promised the establishment of Confederate States courts within the Indian country. There were to be two of them, one in the Choctaw country[317] and one in the Cherokee.[318] They were to be District Courts with a limited Circuit Court jurisdiction. The importance of the concession cannot well be over-estimated; for it struck at the root of one of the chief Indian grievances. The territorial extent of the districts was left a little vague and the jurisdiction was not fairly distributed. Here again we have an illustration of might conditioning right. The Osages,[319] the Senecas and Shawnees,[320] and the Quapaws[321] were all brought within the limits of the Cha-lah-ki, or Cherokee district, but it is not clear that, as far as they were concerned, any other offences than those against the Fugitive Slave[322] laws, were to come within the purview of the court. The Wichitas and Comanches were left entirely unassigned, although naturally, they would have come within the Tush-ca-hom-ma, or Choctaw district.

The Confederacy reinstituted the agency system and continued it with modifications. These modifications were in line with reiterated complaints of the Indians. They restricted the government patronage to some extent and, in certain instances, allowed a good deal of tribal control. As a general thing, to each tribe was allowed one agent and to each language, one interpreter. An exception to the first provision was to be found wherever it had been found under the earlier régime. Thus there was a single agent for the Choctaws and Chickasaws, another for the fragmentary tribes of the Leased District, and another for those of the Neosho River country. In the minor treaties, it was stipulated, for very evident and very sound reasons, most of them based upon experiences of past neglect, that the agent should be faithful in the performance of his duties, that he should reside at his agency continually, and never be absent for long at a time or without good and sufficient cause.

There were also certain things the Indians were forbidden to do, many of them familiar to us in any ordinary Bill of Rights and having reference to ex-post facto laws, laws impairing the obligation of contracts, due process of law, and the like. The Confederacy, in turn, bound itself not to allow farming on government reserves or settlement there except under certain conditions and not to treat[323] with Cherokee factions. It inserted into the treaties with the minor tribes the usual number of civilization clauses, promising agricultural and industrial support; and into the Cherokee some things that were entirely new, notably a provision that the congressional delegation from each of the great tribes should have the right to nominate a youth to membership in any military academy that might be established.[324] It also promised to maintain a postal system throughout the Indian country, one that should be, in every particular, a part of the postal system of the Confederate States with the same rates, stamps, and so on. To the Cherokees, it promised the additional privilege[325] of having the postmasters selected and appointed from among their own people. From the foregoing analysis of the treaties, it is clearly seen that the characteristic feature of them all was conciliation and conciliation written very, very large. Of the great tribes, the Confederacy asked an alliance full and complete; of the middle tribes, such as the Osage, it asked a limited alliance and peace; and of the most insignificant tribes it asked simply peace but that it was prepared, not only to ask, but, if need be, to demand. Between the Cherokees and the Wichitas, there was a wide, wide gulf and one that could be measured only in terms of political and military importance.

So much for the contents of the treaties but what about the detailed history of their negotiation? When Albert Pike first came within reach of the Indian country, he communicated[326] officially or semi-officially with the men belonging or recently belonging to the Indian field service, agents and agency employees, or, at least, with those of them that were known as Confederate sympathizers. A few very necessary changes had been made in the service with the inauguration of President Lincoln but the changes were not always such as could, in any wise, have strengthened the Federal position. First, as regards the southern superintendency, an attempt had been made to find a successor to Elias Rector[327] at about the same time that Harrison B. Branch[328] of Missouri had been appointed central superintendent in the stead of A. M. Robinson. The man chosen was Samuel L. Griffith[329] of Fort Smith to whom the new Secretary of the Interior, Caleb B. Smith, telegraphed on the fifth of April, tendering the position. Similarly by wire, on the ninth, Griffith accepted; and, on the tenth, explained[330] the delay in the following letter:

Being a member of our State Convention on the Union side, I hesitated a day or two, as to the propriety of accepting, fearing it might affect the union cause, but on mature deliberation and counsel with union friends, and on the receipt of a memorial signed by a large number of names of men of all parties, I concluded to accept....

Col. W. H. Garret Agt. for the Creeks, passed through this place on the 8th....

Col. S. Rutherford left here this morning for his agency (the Seminole). I desired him to ascertain on his way through the Creek and Choctaw Nations, the facts, as to the rumor that two men from Texas were in the Creek Nation for the purpose of meeting the several nations in Council &c. and to report to me immediately....