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Cherokee Construction of a "Civilized" Indian Identity During the Lakota Crisis of 1876

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Cherokee Construction of a University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Winter 2003 At the Head of the Aboriginal Remnant: Cherokee Construction of a "Civilized" Indian Identity During the Lakota Crisis of 1876 Paul Kelton University of Kansas, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the American Studies Commons, Other International and Area Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Kelton, Paul, "At the Head of the Aboriginal Remnant: Cherokee Construction of a "Civilized" Indian Identity During the Lakota Crisis of 1876" (2003). Great Plains Quarterly. 2431. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/2431 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. '~T THE HEAD OF THE ABORIGINAL REMNANT" CHEROKEE CONSTRUCTION OF A "CIVILIZED" INDIAN IDENTITY DURING THE LAKOTA CRISIS OF 1876 PAUL KELTON In 1876 the bilingual Cherokee diplomat and Territories, the diplomat claimed that his lawyer William Penn Adair expressed great people produced surpluses of "every agricul­ pride in the level of "civilization" that his tural product that is raised in the neighboring nation had achieved. Defining civilization as States of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and commercial agriculture, literacy, Christianity, Texas." Schools in the Indian Territory, he and republican government, Adair believed added, produced a vast number of students that his society had reached a sophistication who were literate either in their own language that equaled and in certain areas surpassed or English, or both. "About four-fifths at least that of the United States. Speaking before the of the population of the Indian Territory can US House of Representatives Committee on read and write, which cannot be said of the people of the United States," the lawyer bragged. He also claimed, with an unfortunate degree of intolerance, that Christianity was stronger in the Indian Territory than in the KEY WORDS: William Penn Adair, Cherokee, sllrrounding states. "All of our nations and Indian identity, Lakota, Sioux Removal, Indian tribes have more or less embraced the CHRIS­ Territory TIAN RELIGION, and have generally repu­ diated their ancient traditional religious beliefs and superstitions," he stated. "And, I Paul Kelton completed his Ph.D. in history in 1998 at must say that our religion is pure and free the University of Oklahoma and is currently Assistant from the contaminations of ... Mormonism, Professor of History at the University of Kansas. His Mahotmetanism, Spiritualism, and that other research focuses on indigenous peoples and their class of religionists that murdered our SAV­ responses to colonialism. He is currently completing a book manuscript on the Southeastern Indians. lOUR." Adair was particularly proud of his nation's political and judicial system. Since the early nineteenth century, the Cherokee [GPQ 23 (Winter 2003): 3-171 had had a national legislature, a principal 3 4 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, WINTER 2003 chief, and a supreme court. Such institutions announced the presence of gold; prospectors produced a degree of law and order that white flooded into the sacred homeland of the communities could not match. "I need only to Lakota, and western politicians called for the call your attention to the fact," Adair stated, immediate acquisition of the valuable real es­ "that there is more crime and of a more hei­ tate. The Lakota, however, resisted the loss of nous character among whites of the United the Black Hills. When 1 February 1876 passed, States than there is among the Indians."! several bands remained off the reservation, Adair certainly overstated the degree to forcing the US military to track them down. which his people adopted Euro-American civi­ The military campaign reached its most sig­ lization, but he did describe several character­ nificant point on 25 June when Sitting Bull istics of his nation that made it different from and Crazy Horse's warriors and their Chey­ other Native societies, especially the Lakota, enne and Arapaho allies destroyed George who were receiving the bulk of America's at­ Armstrong Custer and his entire detachment tention in 1876. The Lakota were among the of men. Unfortunately, Custer's defeat only last Native American nations to confront increased the federal government's efforts to Euro-American domination and to begin the punish Native Americans. For those Indians process of adopting what whites and many on the reservation, US agents stepped up their Cherokee considered "civilization."2 The demands that the Lakota give up their sacred Lakota had contact with Euro-Americans since land and move to a distant home in Indian the 1700s, but very few spoke English, even Territory.3 fewer practiced Christianity, and constitu­ While hundreds of miles away from the tional government was a foreign concept to Lakota, the Cherokee understandably became the loosely allied tribal bands. Moreover, as concerned about the tumultuous events on late as 1876, many Lakota lac.ked experience the Northern Plains. A significant number of as settled farmers. The majority of the North­ the 14,000 Cherokee, but certainly not the ern Plains tribe, including bands headed by majority, read about the Lakota and expressed Spotted Tail and Red Cloud, had only recently their views in English. While the recorded abandoned buffalo hunting and become con­ discourse of this English-speaking minority fined to reservations in the Dakota Territory, cannot reveal how everyone in their nation where they remained dependent on the fed­ thought, it does give us a rare view of how at eral government. Other bands led by such in­ least one group of Indians conceived of their dividuals as Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse relationship with a radically different Native remained off the reservation, hunting in Mon­ group with whom they had little if any first­ tana and Wyoming and subsisting on what hand experience. Such discourse indeed re­ few buffalo remained. veals how and why English-speaking Cherokee, Despite the seemingly deep cultural and his­ those whose language skills could have pre­ torical gulf that separated the two nations, pared them to assimilate into Euro-American the "civilized" Cherokee found their own fate society, nonetheless chose to identify as Indi­ intersecting with that of the "uncivilized" ans and continued to call for a separate exist­ Lakota in 1876. By 1 February1876 all Lakota ence of Native peoples. At the same time, Indians, according to the order of the Secre­ Cherokee discourse also reveals the limits of tary of the Interior, were to gather at their Indian identity. English-speaking individuals, agencies, where US agents hoped to pressure especially those whose leadership positions them into ceding the Black Hills and remov­ forced them to interact with antagonistic ing to Indian Territory, thus becoming the whites, chose to adopt the "civilized" label in neighbors of the Cherokee. Two years earlier order to distinguish themselves from "wild" the US Army had invaded the Black Hills and Indians such as the Lakota.4 "AT THE HEAD OF THE ABORIGINAL REMNANT" 5 SCENE I: THE CHEROKEE INVADE outsiders and later historians to label it a "full­ WASHINGTON blood" organization. Indeed, the Keetoowahs elected one of their own, Oochalata, to the In 1876 the Cherokee, like the Lakota, were position of principal chief and took the lead­ engaged in battle with the forces of white ex­ ing role in appointing diplomats to serve pansion. Instead of donning war paint and Cherokee interests in Washington. The confronting the bluecoats on the high plains, Downings, while seeming to be a "full-blood" though, Cherokee diplomats took the train to party, nonetheless had a number of members Washington, D.C., where they lobbied Con­ of mixed Cherokee and European descent, gress to defeat various bills that were detri­ including William Penn Adair, whom the mental to Indian sovereignty. Since 1866 Keetoowahs continually supported as a dip­ nearly every session of Congress had enter­ lomat. The Downings' rival, the National tained at least one of these so-called Okla­ Party, also had members of both mixed and homa bills, each aimed to dissolve the pure descent. Its head was William Potter Ross, Cherokee as well as Creek, Choctaw, Chick­ a former principal chief and current diplomat asaw, and Seminole Nations, to open their from a prestigious family whose ancestry in­ land for white settlement and to force Indians cluded both Cherokee and Europeans. Ross to become US citizens.s Cherokee diplomats counted on longstanding support that his fam­ had become quite skilled in mobilizing the ily had built among the so-called full-bloods. support of sympathetic whites, but they faced Rather than blood, political divisions fell along the daunting task of countering the efforts of a complicated matrix of family loyalties, clan railroad lobbyists and western politicians who membership, popular appeal of particular lead­ wanted to end the autonomy of Indian na­ ers, and variety of other factors. At times, di­ tions. Such enemies of Indian sovereignty per­ visions between the National and Downing sonally attacked English-speaking diplomats Parties could become heated, but they both as a corrupt group of "mixed-bloods" who lived united on the issue of Cherokee nationalism. off tribal annuities and were concerned only Both parties strove to protect Indian sover­ with their own power. Their "full-blood" con­ eignty and joined forces in lobbying the fed­ stituents, meanwhile, supposedly remained eral government to defeat the Oklahoma impoverished and ignorant of the advantages bills. 7 that assimilation into the United States would While blood did not translate into political bring them.6 divisions, neither did the cultural differences Criticism certainly stung the diplomats, but that appeared to distinguish diplomats from the enemies of Indian sovereignty oversimpli­ the rank and file.
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