University of Oklahoma College of Law University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899 10-20-1893 Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Indians Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/indianserialset Part of the Indian and Aboriginal Law Commons Recommended Citation S. Misc. Doc. No. 102, 53rd Cong., 2nd Sess. (1893) This Senate Miscellaneous Document is brought to you for free and open access by University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in American Indian and Alaskan Native Documents in the Congressional Serial Set: 1817-1899 by an authorized administrator of University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 53D CONGRESS, } SEN.ATE. MIS.Doc. .2d Session. { No. 102. IN THE SEN.ATE OF THE UNITED ST.ATES. MARCH 1, 1894.-Referred to the Committee on Indian Affairs and ordered to be printed. Mr. JONES, of .Arkansas, presented the following: Krnw A, COMANCHE, AND .AP ACHE INDIAN RESERVA'l'ION, Anadarko, Okla., October 20, 1893. To the honorable the Senate of the Unitt3d States: Your memorialists respectfully represent that they are male adult members of the Kiowa, Comanche, and .Apache tribes of Indians, resid­ ing upon their reservation, in Oklahoma Territory, which was con­ firmed to them by the second article of the Medicine Lodge treaty, pro­ claimed August 25, 1868. I. That some time in the month of September, 1892, Messrs. David H. Jerome, Alfred M. vV;lson, and Warren G. Sayre, composing a uody known as the Cherokee Commission, came to Fort Sill, a military post situated in the southwestern part of said reservation, a11d sent out for and had brought before them certain chiefs and headmen of said tribes, to whom certain representations were then and there made and pledges given-not in open council nor in the presence or with the knowledge of their people and constituents-whereby the signatures of said chiefs and headmen were obtained to an instrument purporting to be an agree­ ment by and between said tribes and the United States for the cession to the United States of the lands set apart to said Indians under Medi­ cine Lodge treaty; that after obtaining said signatures said commis­ sion, claiming to have the sanction and approval of said chiefs and headmen, then caused numerous preteuded councils of said Indians to be held under the guns of said fort, covering a period of something like a month, whereat further signatures were obtained to said agreement by misrepresentations, threats, and fraud, aggregating a total of some­ thing like three hund1 ed, or possibly more; that said commission then moved its base of operations to the place where it should have begun its campaign, to wit, to the agency at .Anadarko, and there for more than a month longer it continued its campaign of mendacity, fraud, and coercion until the alleged signatures of 456 Indians were claimed to have been obtained, whereupon said agreement was, without the loss of an hour, but upon tlle same tay, transmitted to Washington for the approval of Congress, as required by law, and is now, as your memori­ alists are informed and believe, in the possession of your honorable body awaiting ratification. II.. Your memorialists further represent that they were upon said dates, as they are now, peacefully occupying the lands awarded them under S. lUis. 1-13 . 2 KIOWA, COMANCHE, AND APACHE INDIANS. said foclicine Lodge treaty, engaged in farming and .stock-raising, earn­ e tly triving to better their cou~ition. and f{et iuto ''tlle white man~s road" and not coveting a change m their environments or a sale of therr pos ~ sion , but repos~ug confic~ence in the sacredness of t?-e promis~s given them uiider said Meclicme Lodge tr~aty, a1;1-d trustmg to their inviolability, they were at re~t and coutent with their ~ot aJ?-d pro~pe?ts, and that said commission came upon them as aforesaid, without mv1ta­ tion, without notice, a the wolf comes upon the fold, a;11d by ~he aid of interpreters, false to the trust reposed m them by said Indians, a~d with threats arnl coercion, as before stated, fraudulently secured to said agreement tbe number of names above stated, which said alleged agree­ ment is now being attempted to be palmed off on the Congress of the United States as the free act and deed of said Indians. III. That certain of said chiefs and headmen who bad been sent for and brought to Fort Sill, as before stated, and there beguiled into signing said instrument, notauly Chiefs Lone Wolf, Big Tree, Ko malty, and others, upon learning through other sources than from the official inter­ preters employed by said commission that said agreement to which they had in good faith authorized their signatures to be attached was in its terms different from and not in fact as it bad been represented to them when they signified their approval of it, demanded in open council at Anadarko that their names be taken therefrom, but that said com mis- . ion, speaking through its chairman, refused to permit their names to be withdrawn, and not only would not allow them to speak upon the subject, but threatened them with the '' lock up " if they persisted in their demand, whereupon said Indians, with their followers, withdrew from aid alleged council, and said commission was never thereaner able to get anything like a council of said Indians again. And upon the breaking up of said council as aforesaid, said commission at once t legraphed for and had a detachment of soldiers belonging to the reg­ ular Army of the United States sent to .Anadarko, and there placed under their orders or control, and said detachment was present, under arm , ~1t every ubsequent allegeu council held by said commission with aid Indian,, for the purpose of overawing, intimidating, and compell­ ing' aid Indian to subscribe to said alleged agreement. IV. The interpreters acting for said commission were Joshua L. Given and Edward L. Clark. The former, who is now deceased, was a full­ blooded Kiowa Indian, married to a white woman, and the latter is a white ma11; and your memorialists respectfully show that when it came to the knowledge of the great body of said Indians that said interpre­ ter , p ciaJly Joshua L. Given, were misinterpreting and misleading aid Indian', they theu and there sought to wreak vengeance upon him, tlle ·aid Given, but were prevented from so doing by said commis- ion furni hing him with and keeping him under an armed guard, com­ po d of aid olcliers, during the remainder of these alleged negotia­ ti n . nd the said Edward L. Clark has stated as late as July 25, 1 93, that aid agreement, as printed in Senate Ex. Doc. No. 17, Fifty- ·econ~ ong-re , econd es ion, now pending before your honorable 1 d 18 ' 11 t as th Indian und.erntood it, and if not corrected will cut quite a figure against them," but does not specify or particularize, KIOWA, COMANCHE, AND APACHE INDIANS. 3 and, it must be admitted, did not make this statement in the expecta­ tion of its publication. v. Your memoriaJists further show that under the 12th article of said Medicine Lodge treaty it was expressly provide~ that "!10 treaty for the cession of any portion or part of the ret:iervat10n he~em described, which may be held in common, shall be of any validity or force as - against tbe said Indiaus unlet:ls executed and signed by at least three­ fourths of all the male adult Indians occupying the same. * * *" And that said Cherokee Commission, in order to meet and comply with this express stipulation and requirement, found it necessary in s~cur­ ing to said alleged agreement the requisite number of names as signa­ tures, to obtain tllereto the names of a la.rge number of white men, residents by sufferance upon the reservation, and not "male adult Indians," as above stipulated,notably, James Gardloupe, John Sanchez, Boone Chanrller, George Chandler, Andrew Martinez, Hank Nelson, Antoine l\fartinez, and oLhers, to be found by reference to said alleged agreement. VI. That by the tenth article of said alleged agreement a part <?f the above named white men are undertaken to be incorporated into said tribes and made full beneficiaries of the provisions of the same, equally with the Indians of unquestioned right, and it is charged by your memorialists that their signatures were secured by the personal benefits thus to accrue to them, and this transaction alone indicates a degree of sharp practice on the part of said commission in attempting to palm · off on the Congress of the United States the signatures of these per­ so11s as tliose of Indians, which should discredit its entire performance, and remand the alleged agreement to said tribes for consideration and action by them de novo. VII. Your memorialists further represent that said alleged agreement bears no authentication by the agent of said Indians, nor even by the said commissiou, but is simply attested by said interpreters and certi­ fied bythemtohave been fully interpreted and explained to said Indians, and that after such interpretation the_said Indians whose names appear subscribed to said contract, "signed the same or authorized to be signed in our presence," and further that" said subscribers are members of said tribes" and "are male adults over the age of twenty-one years." This attempted authentication or attesta1tion is made by ·two persons w~o have a direct pecuniary interest under said tenth article, in having said agreement successfully made and concluded, and thus· is without force, and -f', honld not be accepted.