Race, Citizenship, & Reconstructing Cherokee
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University of Mississippi eGrove Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate School 1-1-2012 Maintaining Intact Our Homogeneousness: Race, Citizenship, & Reconstructing Cherokee Rachel Purvis University of Mississippi Follow this and additional works at: https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Purvis, Rachel, "Maintaining Intact Our Homogeneousness: Race, Citizenship, & Reconstructing Cherokee" (2012). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1415. https://egrove.olemiss.edu/etd/1415 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at eGrove. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of eGrove. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “‘MAINTAINING INTACT OUR HOMOGENOUSNESS’: RACE, CITIZENSHIP, & RECONSTRUCTING CHEROKEE.” A Dissertation presented in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in the Department of History The University of Mississippi by RACHEL SMITH PURVIS August 2012 Copyright Rachel Smith Purvis 2012 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ABSTRACT The history of the Cherokee Nation from 1866 to 1907 provides a new framework for the story of Reconstruction that expands the periodization and geographical scope of the effects of the postwar period on both mainstream America and those regulated to its margins. Although the historical narrative marks the end of Reconstruction with the political compromise of 1877, the process continued in the Cherokee Nation until Oklahoma statehood was achieved in 1907. The Cherokee Nation serves as a window of analysis that demonstrates how the process of Reconstruction was a national phenomenon. The experience of the Cherokee people and their leaders during Reconstruction bridges the gap between the historiography of the postwar period and the postwar conquest of the west, and also contributes to recent works detailing the centrality of race and slavery to the lives of nineteenth-century southeastern Indians. This dissertation project strives to contribute to the story of the struggle of the Cherokee to negotiate their place within the postwar United States through an examination of the problems of freedom unleashed in the Cherokee Nation with emancipation. Investigations of the relevant secondary literature combined with an analysis of personal correspondence, governmental reports and letters from the holdings of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Cherokee laws, Cherokee leaders’ correspondence, and Cherokee Nation protests and memorials against federal government intervention in their affairs discussed in this project reveals that the Cherokee adapted the prevailing racial classifications of nineteenth-century America in an effort to use these categories of difference to assert their uniqueness and ii independence as a sovereign and legitimate nation. Chapter one examines the Treaty of 1866 with an analysis of the document and its many stipulations. The second chapter looks at the struggle of Cherokee leaders to defeat numerous bills introduced in Congress to extend federal control over Indian Territory. Chapter three explores the important and contentious issue of Cherokee citizenship and its connection to native sovereignty. The final chapter reveals that federal protection of Cherokee freedmen continued beyond the official end of Reconstruction. iii DEDICATION This dissertation project is dedicated to my family who wholeheartedly supported my academic endeavors. In particular, I want to thank my parents for their encouragement throughout my graduate training, as well as my husband for his constant belief in my ability to succeed. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I express my deepest gratitude and appreciation to my advisors, Drs. John Neff and Robbie Ethridge and my committee members, Drs. Shelia Skemp and Anne Twitty. My research could not have been completed without the assistantship provided by the Department of History. In addition, the McMinn Dissertation Fellowship awarded by The Center for Civil War Research as well as the J.L. & Diane Holloway Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship in the Humanities awarded by the University of Mississippi Graduate School were generous sources of support for my dissertation project. Lastly, I want to thank my writing group, composed of Audrey Uffner and Benjamin Purvis, for seeing this through to the end with me. It was quite an adventure. v TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………… ii DEDICATION…………………………………………………………………………………. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………………… v INTRODUCTION:………………………………………………………………………..……. 1 CHAPTER ONE: “THE RECONSTRUCTION TREATY OF 1866: IMPORTANCE, IMPACT, & LEGACY”………………………………………………………………………….……….. 31 CHAPTER TWO: “THE CHEROKEE NATION IN THE 1870S: FIGHT TO RETAIN INDIAN TERRITORY”………………………………………………………………………...……….. 79 CHAPTER THREE: “EMANCIPATION, CITIZENSHIP, AND RECONSTRUCTING CHEROKEE”……………………………………………………………………….……….....131 CHAPTER FOUR: “CHEROKEE FREEDMEN CHALLENGES TO RACIAL EXCLUSION”……………………………………………………………………….………... 156 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………………….…….... 211 VITA…………………………………………………………………………………………... 220 vi INTRODUCTION: The history of the Cherokee Nation from 1866 to 1907 provides a new framework for the story of Reconstruction. An examination of the process of Reconstruction in the Cherokee Nation expands the periodization and geographical scope of the effects of the postwar period on both mainstream America and those regulated to its margins. Although the historical narrative marks the official end of Reconstruction with the political compromise of 1877, the process continued in the Cherokee Nation until Oklahoma statehood was achieved in 1907. The Cherokee Nation serves as a window of analysis that demonstrates how the process of Reconstruction was a national phenomenon that involved more than the reunification of north and south and blacks and whites. When viewed through the history of the Cherokee Nation, Reconstruction is a process of reuniting the union and incorporating the west and its inhabitants into the American nation. Cherokee leaders struggled to preserve the sovereignty of their “dependent, domestic nation” in the face of a stronger federal government committed to rebuilding and uniting the country on its own terms. In fact, a close examination of the congressional actions debated for Indian Territory in 1865 reveals that the new power of a reunited United States government was felt first in native nations. Native Americans are often marginalized in the historical narrative, especially in discussions of the Civil War and Reconstruction. Scholars have worked to show the crucial importance natives played in contesting the expansion of colonial America, and later in resisting 1 American removal efforts. Most textbooks reflect the influence of this scholarly attempt to broaden our understanding of the interactions of diverse racial groups in colonial America. But, Native Americans fall out of the national story after the removal period of the 1830s, and they often do not reappear until after the Civil War when the United States began to subdue Plains tribes and consolidate the west. In examining the history of the Cherokee Nation after the war, it becomes clear that the experience of the Cherokee people and their leaders during Reconstruction bridges the gap between the historiography of the postwar period and the postwar conquest of the west, and also contributes to recent works detailing the centrality of race and slavery to the lives of nineteenth-century southeastern Indians. When the history of the Cherokee is understood within the context of the Civil War and the subsequent national reconstruction it demonstrates the importance of race to late-nineteenth century America’s national development. The intersection of racism and Indian nationalism is often unexplored in both Reconstruction history and Native American history. This dissertation project strives to contribute to the story of the struggle of the Cherokee and their freedpeople to negotiate their place within the postwar United States through an investigation of the problems of freedom unleashed in the Cherokee Nation with emancipation. It asserts that when the intersection of racism and Indian nationalism in the postwar Cherokee Nation are considered it is possible to see how the chaotic and disruptive process of Reconstruction reached across all regions of the country and greatly affected all groups striving to rebuild their communities and societies after the trauma of war. The conventional framework of the historical narrative of this period should be expanded to include the story of groups like the Cherokee because it provides a more complicated and nuanced picture of the Reconstruction process. 2 Most recent studies of the postwar period have focused on the effects of emancipation on American society, but the problems of freedom in the Cherokee Nation have not been thoroughly examined. The destruction of slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment meant Americans had to confront the challenge of incorporating four million formerly enslaved people as citizens of the body politic. The Cherokee Nation also faced this challenge after the war, but issues arising from emancipation in Indian Territory quickly became entwined with the postwar sovereignty struggle between Cherokee leaders and federal officials. The war made the union of the states permanent and federal authority sovereign, and the formerly rebellious states were compelled to seek readmission