Being the Native American scholar that I am, I am choosing to write my Reconstruction paper on the Five Civilized Tribes during the Reconstruction Era. On a side note, Native American history is the only history that I enjoy most and the only type I find interest in. My choosing of this topic has given me more knowledge into my love of Native Americans. I find the term civilized as applied in this case at various times as insulting or derogatory, as implying that other Native American tribes were “not civilized” and that the five tribes could only earn the designation of being “civilized” to the extent they took up the cultural values and ways of the European Americans.
For those who do not know, the tribes that they considered the “Five Civilized Tribes” were the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Seminole, and Choctaw. These tribes were considered civilized by the Anglo-European settlers during the colonial and early federal period because they adopted many of the colonists’ customs and had generally good relations with their neighbors. These people lived in the southeastern United States and they had an agrarian culture. In the early part of the 19th century, the US government forced the Tribes to relocate, under Indian Removal, to other parts of the country, a significant number to Indian Territory, in the area that would become the future state of Oklahoma. At the time of their removal tribes were suzerain nations with well established tribal governments, cultures, and legal systems that allowed for slavery. Many should already know that the tribes were relocated from their homes east of the Mississippi River over several decades during the series of removals known as the Trail of Tears, authorized by federal legislation.
The Five Tribes were divided in politics during the American Civil War. The Choctaw and Chickasaw fought predominantly on the Confederate side. The Creek and Seminole supported the Union, while the Cherokee fought a civil war within their own nation between the majority Confederates and the minority, pro-Union men. Congress passed a statue that gave the President the authority to suspend the appropriations of any tribe if the tribe is “in a state of actual hostility to the government of the United States… and, by proclamation, to declare all treaties with such tribe to be abrogated by such tribe.”
As an element in Reconstruction after the Civil War, the Interior Department ordered a meeting of representatives from all Indian tribes which had been affiliated with the Confederacy. The Council, the Southern Treaty Commission, was first held in Ft. Smith, Arkansas in September of 1865, and was attended by hundreds of Indians representing dozens of tribes. Over the next several years, the commission negotiated treaties with tribes that resulted in additional relocations to Indian Territory and the de facto creation (initially by treaty) of an unorganized Oklahoma Territory.
Larry S. Watson complied primary sources taken from speeches, reports, and meetings with the Southern Treaty Commission, as well as the Bureau of Indian Affairs from 1865. Watson found a report by the President of the Southern Treaty Commission in October 30, 1865. I find this document especially interesting. As many may not know, my HIS 450 paper with Dr. Bowes, is about the Nez Perce Indian assimilation in the late nineteenth century. I have much experience on Native American assimilation reports. When reading reports of these affairs, one will find many mentions about the “Great Spirit”. The “Great Spirit” is the Indians word for their god, and the “Great Father” is the president of the United States.
A report by D.N Cooley, who was president of the Southern Treaty Commission writes in 1865 that the red children “pained the Great Father the President” because some of the “portions of the several tribes united with the wicked white men who have engaged in way, and that they had attempted to throw off allegiance to the United States government, made treaty stipulations with the enemies of the government, and have been in open war with those who have remained loyal and true and at war with the United States.” Cooley tells the tribes that “the President is willing to make new treaties with such nations and tribes as are willing to be at peace among themselves and with the United States.”
My interpretation of Cooley’s speech with the tribes and his report that they sent to the U.S. government is clouded with lies. American efforts to assimilate and “befriend” the Native Americans were just that, lies. The Five Civilized Tribes were no different. Their equally got the brunt of the American treaties because of their intentions in the Civil War. After the war, and during Reconstruction, many of the Native Americans were left out of the mix and were told to assimilate and have “peace” with the “Great Father” because the “Great Spirit” wanted them too. That red children and white children should all be equal and share their lands. As anyone who actually reads history about Native Americans would know, and NO, equality never came and that NO the lands were forced away from them as they were thrown onto reservations.
What I am getting at is this, that Reconstruction, while it may have helped and paved the way for Africans, it did not help the Five Tribes or any other Native American for that matter. The concept of Reconstruction is overplayed and equality for all had presumably never been put into effect, no matter how much contradicting jargon the United States government seemed to spew out of their mouths, especially from the Native Americans sake. In sum, the treatment of the Native Americans, as well as the Five Civilized Tribes, should have been better than what they received.
“Act of Congress, R.S. Sec. 2080 derived from act July 5, 1862, ch. 135, Sec.1, 12 Stat. 528.” Retrieved March 27, 2013.
Peery, Dan W. “Chronicles of Oklahoma: A Foreordained Commonwealth”. http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v014/v014p022.html. Accessed March 27, 2013. Oklahoma. 1936.
“Report of D.N. Cooley, as president of the southern treaty commission.” Department of the Interior. Office of Indian Affairs. October 30, 1865.
Watson, Larry S. “Journal of Southern Treaty Commission of 1865”. Histree. 1994.
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