On the arrival in Indian Territory, the exiles at once set about building houses and planting crops, the government having agreed under treaty to furnish them rations for one year after arrival. They were welcomed by their kindred, the “Old Settlers,” who held the country under previous treaties of 1828 and 1833. These, however, being already regularly organized under a government and chiefs of their own, were by no means disposed to be swallowed by the governmental authority of the newcomers.
Jealousies developed, in which the minority or treaty party of the emigrants, headed by Major Ridge, took sides with the old settlers against John Ross of the National party, which outnumbered the others nearly three to one.
While these differences were at their height, the Nation was thrown into a fever of excitement by the news that Major Ridge, his son, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot—all leaders of the treaty party—had been killed by adherents of the National party, immediately after the adjournment of a general council, which had adjourned after nearly two weeks of debate without having been able to bring about harmonious action. Major Ridge was waylaid and shot near the Arkansas line, his son was taken from bed and cut to pieces with hatchets, while Boudinot was treacherously killed at his home at Park Hill, Indian Territory, all three being killed upon the same day, June 22, 1839, which date marks the decline and fall of a once great and happy people. For fifty years which followed this luckless day in June, Indian Territory became a veritable theater of crime and disorder.
From the South meridian of the sunflower state, to the cypress banks of the Red river, and from Fort Smith to the shifting sands of the great plains, for half a century sheltered a coterie of actors that would have made Robin Hood or Kit Carson blush with envy. The soil of the five tribes has been moistened with human blood when there was none to answer the cry for vengeance; when no sound save the deadly snap of the Winchester and the pit-pat of the bronchos' hoofs were there to bear testimony. Now, those who incited intrigue and murder are gone, the desperado is a thing of the past, the brave men who enlisted in the hazardous governmental service to give them battle have disappeared, and the sound of the firing Winchester used in deadly conflict, has been replaced by the reaper and the mower, and toilers in the field of commerce and industry.
The Indian tribe has been supplanted by the American Government; and the school and church have taken the place of the chase and the feud. Where the wild flowers nodded far out on the lonely plain, vast fields of wheat and corn whisper the great name of Oklahoma.
At this writing the eastern band of Cherokee is about to be dissolved, their lands allotted, and in a few more decades the Cherokee will have passed, and the name will be presented only in old records and in the hearts of their descendants.
PART II
OCCONEECHEE
Along Scott’s Creek, below Balsam, N. C.