_The Slaveholding Indians. Volume I: As Slaveholder and Secessionist._
By Annie Heloise Abel, Ph.D. The Arthur H. Clark Company, Cleveland, 1915.
Pp. 394.
This is the first of three volumes on the slaveholding Indians planned by
the author. Volume II is to treat of the Indians as participants in the
Civil War and Volume III on the Indian under Reconstruction.
The present volume deals with a phase, as the author says, "of American
Civil War history, which has heretofore been almost neglected, or where
dealt with, either misunderstood or misinterpreted." It comes as a surprise
to most of us that the Indian played a part of sufficient importance within
the Union to have the right to have something to say about secession. Yet
inconsistently enough he was considered so much a foreigner that both the
South and the North, particularly the former, found it expedient to employ
diplomacy in approaching him.
The South, we are assured, found the attitude of the Indians toward
secession of the greatest importance. Yet it was not the Indian owner so
much as the Indian country that the Confederacy wanted to be sure of
possessing, for Indian Territory occupied a position of strategic
importance from both the economic and the military point of view. "The
possession of it was absolutely necessary for the political and
institutional consolidation of the South. Texas might well think of going
her own way and of forming an independent republic once again, when between
her and Arkansas lay the immense reservations of the great tribes. They
were slave-holding tribes, too; yet were supposed by the United States
government to have no interest whatsoever in a sectional conflict that
involved the very existence of the 'peculiar institution,'"
The above quotation is practically the intent of the book and the author
has succeeded in carrying this out in four divisions entitled: I, "The
General Situation in the Indian Country, 1830-1860." II, "Indian Territory
in Its Relations with Texas and Arkansas." III, "The Confederacy in
Negotiation with the Indian Tribes." IV, "The Indian Nations in Alliance
with the Confederacy."
The book is essentially a work by a scholar for scholars. It is certainly
not for the laity. The facts are striking but well substantiated. There can
be no doubt but that much time has been spent in its compilation. The
style, however, is unusually dry. It has appendices, an invaluable
bibliography, a carefully tabulated index, four maps, and three portraits
of Indian leaders.
It is interesting to note that the author is of British birth and ancestry
and so presumably is free from sectional prejudice. Her book marks a
distinct step forward, for those who are interested in Indian affairs.