RECOMMENDATIONS
Few Indian matters in our honorable Congress have had more publicity
than the so-called McMurray contracts. Several chapters of this book
could be devoted to describing the propositions made by Mr. McMurray and
his associates and the far-reaching effects on the Indians of Oklahoma
were these carried into effect. But I must content myself with calling
attention to the bibliography at the end of this chapter. The testimony
and investigations cover hundreds of pages.
Mr. McMurray made contracts with thousands of Indians on a percentage
basis. P. J. Hurley, Esq., attorney for the Choctaw Indians, opposed the
McMurray contracts before Congressional Committees and in court. Hurley
contended that McMurray would receive at the least possible estimate
$3,500,000 in fees, the undistributed portion of the Choctaw and
Chickasaw estate being $35,000,000 minimum valuation. The struggle for
so large a stake has extended through a number of years. So far Mr.
Hurley, and other friends of the Indians, have succeeded in preventing
McMurray carrying his contracts into effect.
The Choctaw and Chickasaw affairs are both interesting and complicated,
and tell a different story from that of the Creeks. Further reference to
Cherokees and Seminoles may be omitted, as their story is practically
that of the Creeks.
A little more than two-thirds of the entire acreage—a vast domain over
200 miles east and west, and an average of approximately 100 miles north
and south—was allotted and sold for the benefit of these three classes
of Indians, the Choctaws, Chickasaws and Mississippi Choctaws, about
37,600 in number—a little more than one-third of the total Oklahoma
enrollment.
The eastern third of this territory is especially rich in coal and
hardwood timber. What is shown upon the map as the Choctaw Nation
contains the largest coal deposits in what is generally known as the
Mississippi valley, and when allotment of lands began in 1903, this
country was practically covered with a rich growth of pine timber of the
finest quality.
The Chickasaw Nation comprised the greatest agricultural and
stock-raising lands, some of which had been under cultivation for half a
century. By the use of these vast estates, they became well-to-do and
self-supporting. The richness of the country becoming known, Whites and
negroes flocked to Indian Territory with the idea prominent that they
were going to be permitted to homestead the surplus land, as had been
the custom in breaking up Indian reservations. With the opening of the
Cherokee strip, the Cheyenne and Arapaho and the Iowa and Comanche
reservations on the west, comprising all of the western half of
Oklahoma, immigrants flocked to these openings. Some of the best of them
remained as farmers in that great western country. The riff-raff, after
exploiting those western and northern reservations, came back to Indian
Territory to ply their vocations at the various allotting agencies among
the Five Civilized Tribes.
By 1903 all kinds of land, livestock and timber companies were at work;
skillful lawyers schemed to change the laws. More than one Indian,
disgusted with the “Christian” white man, stayed in the Choctaw hills
among the pine forests and refused to come out and perform the duties
necessary under the laws made for him in order that he might receive his
allotment. Each man, woman and child was to receive $1040 worth of land,
appraised at from twenty-five cents to $6.50 per acre; also 320 acres of
average land. He was supposed to look it over, and being satisfied with
it, come to the land office and file his “descriptions” with an
affidavit that he owned such improvements, if any there were, and the
possessary right to the land selected. He could not be induced to come.
It cost money to go 200 miles over into the Chickasaw Nation, or even to
find suitable land in the Choctaw Nation.
Under the allotment act the members of the tribes were given the right
to alienate one-half their lands within five years from date of patents.
The more ignorant classes were more easily influenced, and runners were
employed to go over in the Choctaw Nation and “shell the woods” for
Indians. Sufficient quantities of whiskey, an interpreter, and expense
money were all that was necessary. Indians were brought into the
allotting agencies by the score. He was taken out in a conveyance and
driven a few miles from the agency and shown the best improved farm in
the country, a deal made with him to lease the land for five years in
consideration of the purchase of the possessary right to the land. His
plans were prepared for him. His allotment known as surplus which would
be alienable within five years, was plotted upon improved lands which he
had never seen and the balance of his land known as homestead selected
for him in some out of the way place, generally upon the hills. To this
day most of these full-blood Indians have never seen nor set foot upon
their several allotments.
A case or two illustrating Choctaw and Chickasaw affairs is illuminating
of general conditions. Addie B. Fasler was a minor full-blood Indian
about twelve years of age in 1907, and a certain man was made guardian
for her. Under a new act of Congress an additional judge had been
appointed in the southern district, Judge J. T. Dickenson, and he had
been assigned the northern half of the district by agreement between
himself and the other judge. This application was presented to him for
approval. Judge Dickenson refused to appoint the one requested, but upon
his own motion selected a man by the name of Wright living at Sulphur.
Up to this time such independence on the part of the judiciary was
unusual and war from this time on existed between the old and the new
judge. Wright found his ward in squalor. He found that she owned, by
reason of the death of her family, four allotments besides her own—that
they consisted of something like a thousand acres of improved land, the
larger part in cultivation; that all of this land had been in the
possession of a Mr. Mullen since allotment, and was at that time being
rented out by Mr. Mullen for an average rental of $2.50 per acre per
year. Mr. Wright employed attorneys and began proceedings to recover
these lands for his ward. He was met at the hearing by a subsequently
appointed guardian from the central district who had been appointed at
the instance of Mullen. The hearing was had before the old judge who
promptly held that the domicile of the minor was in the central district
and that the United States Court for the southern district had no
jurisdiction to appoint Mr. Wright guardian. What has become of Addie B.
Fasler or her vast estates? She is one of the many now “unknown” since
her property is gone.
After statehood, the Chocktaw and Chickasaw Nations were cut up into
many counties and probate matters transferred to the County Courts of
the counties which included the court towns. Provisions were made to
transfer probate cases to the county which would have had jurisdiction
had such case been inaugurated after statehood.
Little effort has been made to transfer these cases, because the Indians
themselves are ignorant of the fact that administrators and guardians
have been appointed elsewhere and only in those instances where the
grafter wants to sell or lease the land is any pretense made to have
everything regular. This condition has resulted in the appointment of
guardians in the counties of the residence of the minors to recover
lands and rentals. Much litigation has grown out of these conflicts, and
it is safe to say that in very few instances have the grafters
surrendered to the Indian lands allotted to him.
Charles McKinney is an ignorant, easy-going quarter-blood Chickasaw with
four or five minor children. Their lands were scattered in Poulatre,
Johnson, Marshall and Carter Counties. He was their guardian. He sold
these various allotments through the County Court of —— County and
received something like $7000. The mayor of the city was on his bond. A
certain judge, the mayor and several other politicians decided to buy a
local newspaper which was too independent for the good of the party.
This money was loaned to the mayor, who gave as security a mortgage upon
several tracts of land which he did not own, and used the money in the
purchase of the newspaper plant; the latter became insolvent and was
sold by its creditors, and the guardian squandered the balance of the
money.
The Mississippi Choctaws are Indians of a low order of intelligence.
They were imported into this country in 1902 and 1903 by land companies,
among which was the Choctaw Investment Company, now defunct, and J. E.
Arnold. They were herded in barracks around Ardmore and other places
during 1902, 1903 and 1904; the smallpox broke out among them and they
died like sheep. Before they left Mississippi, contracts were made with
them in which they agreed to prove up on their lands and sell them to
the promoters.
The stockholders of the Chocktaw Investment Company and other
non-residents furnished the money and have stood the loss, but J. E.
Arnold and Senator Owen are now pressing before the Court of Claims
large accounts for allowance. To secure these claims if allowed, J. E.
Arnold has filed a lien upon almost every allotment of a Mississippi
Choctaw in these two nations. Congress has recognized these claims by
permitting them to be litigated.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Except a few persons, everybody agrees that affairs in Oklahoma are in a
bad shape. The Indian Office is doing all that it can through Mr. Sells’
attorneys to bring about desired reforms and protection, but it is
exceedingly slow work. We must adopt Miss Barnard’s plan if we desire to
save the remaining Indian peoples in Oklahoma. That is, briefly, to
arouse the conscience in hundreds of thousands of good citizens in
Oklahoma and persuade them to take a firm stand against further
despoilation of Indians. The grafters, through their newspapers, have
exerted an influence out of all proportion to their strength. They have
dominated in Oklahoma. They have even subsidized. One of the newspapers
which attacked Hon. George Vaux, Jr., and afterwards was very bitter
toward Mr. Mott and myself, received thousands of dollars from an Indian
minor child’s estate. This money was used to boom a political journal.
All who would save the Indian must stimulate the better class of
citizens into action. Attacking grafters, is not bringing into discredit
the good name of a great State. I mention this because the grafters
raise the cry of State persecution. They do not, however, deny the
pauperizing of Indians, or the 30,000 specific cases of fraud. Miss
Barnard well answers critics with the statement that we are merely
attacking forces of evil. The people of Oklahoma themselves can solve
the problem promptly and satisfactorily, if they will assert their
rights. All the protection and publicity, and legal procedures in the
world will not save the Oklahoma Indians, if the better class of
citizens (the great majority) do not take a firm stand for right and
justice. The ministers, Miss Barnard claims, are already beginning to
preach sermons against graft—all of which indicates a trend of healthy
public opinion.
Mr. Foreman, who has worked along the same lines as Department of
Justice officials, Miss Barnard and Mr. Kelsey, and has been associated
with Mr. Mott, takes a rather gloomy view. I present his paragraphs
herewith:
“In a few short years, Congress has removed the restrictions on the sale
of nearly 70 per cent of the 100,000 Indians of the tribes—on all but
the full-bloods. The inevitable has overtaken these mixed-bloods from
whom Congress released its protecting supervision, and probably not one
in ten of them retains even a considerable part of his original
allotment of land.
“The experiment of turning these mixed-blood Indians loose has been a
lamentable mistake. But at least some good should be extracted from it.
The lesson should be employed to emphasize the need for protection of
the full-blood. The mixed-blood as a land owner is no more. He is gone
and there is practically nothing to be done for his class except in the
protection of his minor children.
“But the full-blood still has his land, for his restrictions have never
been released. There is no obligation to these Indians so commanding as
the duty of seeing to it that they are protected in their property; this
means that the restrictions against the sale of their lands must not be
relaxed except under the supervision of the Interior Department. To
permit them to sell their lands without this protection would expose
them to their own inexperience and improvidence, to the cunning of the
shameless horde of white land grafters.
“It was claimed that at least the mixed-bloods are competent to handle
their property, and developments have shown the fallacy of that claim.
Many of the full-bloods are but little more fortunate. Totally
unprepared they have had thrust upon them individual ownership of their
lands. In 1906 Congress provided that full-blood Indians might sell
lands inherited from deceased relatives. As the rate of mortality is
high among these people, there are many such inheritances and many such
sales have been made. In a great number of instances they have been
swindled out of their inheritances for a pittance.
[Illustration: © _by Rodman Wanamaker, 1913_ _Chief Keen, Koon-Ta-Chy
addressing the Council_]
“Congress unwisely permitted these full-bloods to lease most of their
land for five years without supervision. Thousands of them were induced
by white speculators to lease their land, including their homes and
little cultivated farms which were capable of making them comfortable.
Inexperienced in such transactions, they gave the white man their home
for five years for little or nothing, the consideration depending on the
extent of fraud practiced on them. The speculator in turn sublets the
land to a renter and makes a handsome profit on the transaction. The
Indian was then forced to move on the land of a relative, or into the
hills on unimproved land, with practically nothing to sustain his
family. In many cases only the first year’s rent is paid the Indian and
the lessee refuses to pay more. The Indian in his helplessness knows no
remedy and suffers almost a total loss of the consideration agreed upon.
This situation is particularly distressing in the Choctaw and Chickasaw
Nations.
“These leases are extended by methods which the mind of the Indian
cannot comprehend, and once out of possession it is practically
impossible for the Indian to get his land back. When the restrictions
are removed from the sale of this class of land, which is looked forward
to by the people holding them, they will make the most of their
advantage over the Indian, by making it practically impossible for the
Indian to get any other buyers than the lessees, who will buy on their
own terms. This mean advantage is evidenced now in another way. The
Indian Department can sell part of the Indian’s allotment for the
Indian’s benefit, but in many cases a sale for an adequate consideration
is defeated by the presence of leases often taken by white speculators
for no other purpose than to prevent anyone else buying the land, or to
demand a heavy tribute for a surrender of the lease.
“The newspapers and the court files of the eastern half of Oklahoma for
several years have been filled with the stories of the Indians’ undoing
which explains the swift impoverishment of the mixed-blood Indian. If
the mixed-bloods could not stand up against this condition, what chance,
would the full-bloods have?
“When the hardy pioneer ventured within the domain of the aboriginal
proprietors of this country he found himself among what are often
described as “hostile” people. It is a strange caprice of fortune that
with the coming of the white man’s civilizing influence, the description
“hostile” should be shifted from the Indian to the white man, and the
submissive red man, remaining upon his own land, should discover himself
surrounded by the perils of hostile white people. Perils less bloody but
more insidious and relentless; the thirst for blood supplanted by the
thirst for the Indian’s property; the Indian’s ambush exchanged for the
white man’s ambush of intrigue and deception; conquest of the stout of
heart and arm routed by the conquest of the pen and deceit and of the
brain befuddled by the devastating alcohol.
“The Indian is groping his way through the dusk of his day upon earth
and soon he will pass from our sight and the sound of his footsteps will
cease. As he proceeds falteringly, this shred of a great race is
comforted by no expressions of good will. The road is rough and the
guideposts are far between and hard to read. The only light that would
reveal his path to him shines distantly but faithfully. From this light,
from the voices and counsels of a few distant friends unselfishly
striving for him, comes the only promise of amelioration.”
Miss Barnard’s assistant, Mr. Huston, at Lake Mohonk, dictated to me the
following two paragraphs as indicative of the essential things for which
the Department of Charities and Corrections is fighting. It must be
understood that the second paragraph from the end is not aimed at the
Indian Office personnel. It is merely a statement of fact, that the new
attorneys labor under disadvantage.
1st. To elect a Legislature pledged to appropriate sufficient funds to
make effective the Department of Charities and Corrections,—the only arm
of Government, Federal or State, which is clothed with legal authority
to intervene in the probate courts of Oklahoma on behalf of Indian minor
heirs.
2nd. To enact a law embodying adequate probate procedure. The probate
procedure recently agreed to between the probate judges of Oklahoma and
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs is substantially the same procedure
which was prepared by M. L. Mott and put into effect in five out of the
eight counties of the Creek Nation several years previous to the present
administration. Mr. Mott had this procedure embodied in a bill which
passed the lower house of the Oklahoma Legislature two years ago, but
which was defeated through the influence of grafters in the Senate. Mott
knew that the probate procedure, depending for its force and effect
merely upon the personal agreement of county judges elected by a
constituency hostile to the Indians, would be ineffective to protect
Indian minors, unless the same had the force of law, and provided
adequate penalties for violation of same.
Finally, all good citizens in the United States must rally to the
support of those who are making a fight for simple justice and decency
in Oklahoma. If the better element in that State is defeated by a
combination of oil, coal, gas, timber, land, and asphalt interests, the
taxpayers of this country will be called upon to support 100,000
homeless paupers. Nowhere else in the United States are 100,000 citizens
to be dispossessed, and if this calamity is permitted to occur, the
blackest page in all American history shall have been written. A
helpless, a trusting, and a dependent people look to us to keep the
final one of all our promises.
PARTIAL BIBLIOGRAPHY ON OKLAHOMA
Lengthy discussion of Indian Affairs. Both branches of Congress.
_Congressional Record_ for 1914. Jan., 22; Feb., 10, 11, 12, 13, 17,
16, 17, 19, 20, 26, 28; March, 10, 11, 12, 21, 26, 27, 28, 31; Apr.,
24, 28, 29; May 4; also Dec., 20, 1913.
Detailed reviews of satisfactory conditions of Five Civilized
Tribes; statistics of some; need of protection; legislation
recommended. Board of Indian Commissioners reports to President and
Secretary of Interior. 1869–1890
Letters expressing the favorable cooperation indorsing the work of,
or urging the retention of District Agents in the Five Civilized
Tribes. Washington 1912. Printed for the use of the Committee on
Indian Affairs.
Choctaw-Chickasaw Tribal Affairs. _Patrick J. Hurley._ Thirty-first
Annual Report Lake Mohonk Conference, P. 29. 1913.
Toward “Restricted” and “Unrestricted” Indians of Five Civilized
Tribes, Should the Law and its Administration be the same?—_William
H. Murray._ Thirty-first Annual Report Lake Mohonk Conference. P.
35. 1913.
Memorial of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, Relative to the
Rights of the Mississippi Choctaws. Submitted for consideration in
connection with H. R. 19213. 1913.
Five Civilized Tribes, Conditions—_George Vaux, Jr._ The Red Man.
Dec., 1912. P. 135.
Report of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes to the
Secretary of the Interior. June 30, 1912.
The Reorganized Schools in the Five Tribes.—_J. P. Brown._
Twenty-eighth Annual Report Lake Mohonk Conference, 1910. P. 79.
Report on School Taxation in Indian Territory. House of
Representatives Doc. No. 34. Fifty-eighth Congress, 3rd Session,
Dec. 6, 1907.
Education Among the Five Civilized Tribes.—_J. P. Brown._ Quarterly
Journal of the Soc. Amer. Indians. Oct.-Dec., 1913. P. 416.
Veto Message of the President of the United States, without approval
Senate Bill 7978, entitled “An Act Relating to inherited estates in
the Five Civilized Tribes in Oklahoma.” Senate Doc. 899, 62nd
Congress, 2nd Session, August 6, 1912.
Laws and Regulations, Relating to Indians and their Lands.—_Oscar H.
Lipps._ 1913.
Suppressing the Liquor Traffic in Indian Territory and
Oklahoma.—_William E. Johnson._ Twenty-fifth Report Lake Mohonk
Conference, 1907. P. 27.
Indian Appropriation Bill, Hearings before the Committee on Indian
Affairs, U. S. Senate. Parts 1, 2, 7, and 5. Ending June 30, 1915.
Hearing before Committee on Indian Affairs of the U. S. Senate.
Appropriation Bill. Jan. 28 to Feb. 10, 1905.
Suits in Court of Claims by the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians. “To
authorize the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations to bring suit in the
Court of Claims and for other Purposes.” Doc. No. 1010, 62nd
Congress, 3rd Session. 1913.
The Grace Cox Inheritance Case. Decision of Comm. of Indian Affairs
which relates to the Determination of Heirs of Deceased Indians.
Jan. 22. 1914.
Letter from Dept. of Interior to Chairman of the Committee on Indian
Affairs, transmitting detailed statement of all expenditures and
disbursements from various funds on account of the Five Civilized
Tribes from 1908 to 1911 inclusive. Senate, 62d Congress, 2d
Session, June 30. 1911.
The U. S. Government and the Indian Problem.—_Hon James S. Sherman._
Twenty-seventh Annual Conference Lake Mohonk, 1909. P. 74.
Status and Needs of the Five Civilized Tribes. Thirty-first Annual
Report Lake Mohonk Conference, 1913. P. 16.
The Need of Publicity in Indian Affairs.—_John M. Oskisen._
Twenty-fourth Annual Report Lake Mohonk Conference, 1906. P. 38.
Indian Territory Tribes. The Cherokees, Chapter VIII. Pp. 257–297.
Indian Territory pp. 425–431. Century of Dishonor.—_Helen Hunt
Jackson._ 1886.
The Five Civilized Tribes—Why They Employ Attorneys.—_Speech of Hon.
William H. Murray, Congressional Record_, No. 78, Vol. 51. Feb. 11,
1914.
Oklahoma Red Book, 1909–14. Oklahoma City.
Fort Sill Indians, Report of Condition of.—_William H. Ketcham_,
Member Board of Indian Commissioners, Jan. 5, 1914.
The Shawnee Indians: Their Customs, Traditions, and Folk-lore.—_Rev.
Jacob Spencer._ Kansas City Historical Society, 1907–1908. P. 382.
Reports of the Dawes Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes.
1894–1895.
Five Civilized Tribes. Handbook of American Indians. Vol. I. P. 463.
Seminole. Handbook of American Indians. Vol. II. P. 500.
Creek. Handbook of American Indians. Vol. I. P. 362.
Choctaw. Handbook of American Indians. Vol. I. P. 288.
Chickasaw. Handbook of American Indians. Vol. I. P. 260.
Cherokee. Handbook of American Indians. Vol. I. P. 245.
Sank and Fox Agency, Oklahoma. Report of the Department of the
Interior. 1900. P. 348.
Indian Territory. Fourth Annual Report of the Board of Indian
Commissioners. 1872. P. 14.
Osages. Third Annual Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners.
1871. P. 5.
Cherokees, General Condition of the Eastern. Twenty-eighth Annual
Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners. 1896. P. 13.
Choctaws and Chickasaws. Fifth Annual Report of the Board of Indian
Commissioners. 1873. P. 52.
First to Fifth Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Charities and
Corrections of the State of Oklahoma. Dec. 10, 1908 to 1913.—_Kate
Barnard._
McMurray Contracts. Hearings Before the Committee on Indian Affairs.
U. S. Senate, 63rd Congress. First Session on H. R. 1917. pp.
338–353, 354–456.
Our National Problem. The Sad Condition of the Oklahoma
Indians.—_Warren K. Moorehead._ 1913.
Kiowa Agency, Anadarko, Oklahoma. General Condition of Agency
Indians.—Report of Department of the Interior, 1904. P. 293.
Habits of the Indians. Kiowa Agency, Oklahoma.—Department Interior
Report, 1900. P. 332.
Kiowa Agency, General Condition of the Indians of.—Report of the
Department of the Interior, 1902. P. 287.
Pawnee Agency, Oklahoma.—Report of the Department of the Interior,
1904. P. 302.
Cantonment Training School, Oklahoma.—Report of the Department of
the Interior, 1904. P. 283.
Cantonment Training School, Oklahoma.—Report of the Department of
the Interior, 1903. P. 252.
Mott Report Relative to Indian Guardianships in the Probate Courts
of Oklahoma.—_Honorable Charles H. Burke._ House of Representatives,
Dec. 13, 1912.