authority of the governor's proclamation, March fourth. Its members were
inclined to temporize, however; for, as Harrell says, they were
cooperationists[181] rather than secessionists and their policy of
temporizing they carried out even in the provision made for reassembling
after adjournment. David Walker, the president of the convention, was out
of sympathy with this; and, at the first news of the attack upon Fort
Sumter and while passion and excitement were still at fever heat,
called[182] an extra session for the sixth of May. The regular session was
not to come until the nineteenth of August. Coincidently Governor Rector
again showed where his sympathies lay by refusing[183] President Lincoln's
call for troops.
The Arkansas Ordinance of Secession was passed on the sixth of May. S. R.
Cockrell had proved himself a good prophet; for, writing jubilantly to L.
P. Walker, on the twenty-first of April, on the progress of secession, he
had said,[184] "Arkansas will go out 6th of May before breakfast. The
Indians come next." His closing remark had some foundation for its
utterance. Intelligent and prominent Indians were to be found in the very
ranks of the Arkansas secessionists. E. C. Boudinot, a Cherokee, an enemy
and rival of John Ross, and later Cherokee delegate in the Confederate
Congress, was secretary[185] of the convention. M. Kennard, a leading and
a principal Creek chief, seems also to have been influential. The alliance
of the Indians was yet being sought.[186]
The secession ordinance once safely launched, the Arkansas convention
turned its attention without equivocation to Indian concerns. On the tenth
of May, for instance, it followed the example set by Texas and passed a
resolution,[187] authorizing the president of the convention to appoint
three delegates to visit Indian Territory. The men appointed were, S. L.
Griffith of Sebastian County (the same man, interestingly enough to whom
the United States government had recently offered[188] the Southern
Superintendency), J. Murphy of Madison County, and G. W. Laughinghouse of
St. Francis County. Two of these counties were on or near the border.
Sebastian was on the border and Madison not far inland, so Griffith and
Murphy very probably realized the full significance of their mission. On
the eleventh of May, the convention tried to pass another resolution,[189]
indicative of a community of interests between Arkansas and the Indian
country. This resolution failed, but, had it passed, it would have prayed
the president of the Confederate States to erect a military department or
division out of Arkansas and Indian Territory. As it was, the convention
contented itself, on this occasion, with empowering[190] Brigadier-general
Pearce[191] to cooperate with Brigadier-general McCulloch.[192] It took
this action on the twenty-first of May and on the twenty-eighth it
received a communication[193] from Elias Rector concerning the Choctaws
and Chickasaws.
Almost simultaneously with this legislative activity, solicitation of the
Indians came from yet other directions. On the eighth of May,
Brigadier-general B. Burroughs of the Arkansas militia took it upon
himself to make an appeal to the Chickasaws, which he did in this wise:
HEADQUARTERS EIGHTH BRIGADE, FIRST DIVISION, ARKANSAS MILITIA,
Fort Smith, Ark., May 8, 1861.
GOV. C. HARRIS: To-day we have information that Arkansas, in
Convention, has seceded, by a vote 69 to 1. Tennessee has also
seceded, and made large appropriations and ordered an army of 50,000
men.
Arkansas has for several days past been in arms on this frontier for
the protection (of) citizens, and the neighboring Indian nations whose
interests are identical with her own.
I have news through my scouts that the U. S. troops have abandoned the
forts in the Chickasaw country.
Under my orders from the commander-in-chief and governor of Arkansas,
I feel authorized to extend to you such military aid as will be
required in the present juncture of affairs to occupy and hold the
forts.
I have appointed Col. A. H. Word, one of the State senators, and
Captain Sparks, attached to this command, commissioners to treat and
confer with you on this subject. These gentlemen are fully apprised of
the nature of the powers intrusted to myself by the governor of this
State, and are authorized to express to you my views of the subject
under consideration. I ask, therefore, that you express to them your
own wishes in the premises, and believe, my dear sir, that Arkansas
cherishes the kindest regards for your people.
I have the honor to subscribe myself, with sentiments of regard, your
excellency's friend and servant,
B. BURROUGHS, Brigadier-General, Commanding.[194]
The impudence and calm effrontery of this has its humorous side and would
seem even ridiculous were it not for the fact that we are bound to
remember that the Indians took it all so very seriously. It was true
enough, as Burroughs said, that the Federal troops had abandoned the
Indian country; but against whom were the forts to be held? Surely not
against the Federals. Furthermore, what need was there for Arkansas to
interest herself in the Chickasaw forts, since the Texan troops were
already in possession? Is it possible to suppose that Burroughs's scouts,
who had found out so much about the withdrawal of the Federal forces, had
not discovered the work of the Texans in contributing thereto? The
Chickasaws were particularly friendly to the secessionists and, in this
same month of May, passed, by means of their legislature, those eight
resolutions[195] in which they gave such strong expression to their
views, at the same time, however, giving the Southern States clearly to
understand that they knew the extent of their own rights and were
determined to hold fast to them. They also declared that they wished to
hold their forts themselves.
On the ninth of May, the Indians were still further addressed and this
time by the citizens of Boonsboro, Arkansas, whose appeal has already been
referred to and quoted.[196] The appeal was made through the medium of a
letter to John Ross and of him the citizens of Boonsboro inquired where he
intended to stand; inasmuch as they much preferred "an open enemy to a
doubtful friend." They earnestly hoped, they said, to find in him and his
people "true allies and active friends." On the fifteenth of May, J. R.
Kannady, lieutenant-colonel, commanding at Fort Smith, also
communicated[197] with Ross and on the same subject, his immediate
provocation being the report that Senator James H. Lane was busy raising
troops in Kansas to be used against Missouri and Arkansas. Of the Kannady
letter, John B. Luce was the bearer and, to it, Ross replied[198] on the
seventeenth, the very day that he published his great proclamation[199] of
neutrality; for the otherwise most sensible John Ross labored under the
delusion that the Indians would be allowed to figure as silent witnesses
of events. In this respect, he was, however, on slightly firmer ground
than were the citizens of such a state as Kentucky; but, none the less, he
labored under a delusion as he soon found out to his sorrow. His
proclamation of neutrality was intended as a final and conclusive
answer[200] to all interrogatories like that from Boonsboro.
III. THE CONFEDERACY IN NEGOTIATION WITH THE INDIAN TRIBES
The provisional government of the Confederate States showed itself no less
anxious and no less prompt than the individual states in its endeavor to
secure the Indian country and the Indian alliance. On the twenty-first of
February, 1861, the very same day that the law was passed for the
establishment of a War Department of which Leroy P. Walker of Alabama took
immediate charge, William P. Chilton, member[201] of the Provisional
Congress from Alabama, offered in that body a resolution to the effect,
that the Committee on Indian Affairs be instructed to inquire into the
expediency of opening up negotiations with the Indian tribes of the West
in relation to all matters concerning the mutual welfare of said tribes
and the people of the Confederate States.[202] The resolution was adopted.
Four days later, Edward Sparrow of Louisiana asked that the same committee
be instructed to consider the advisability of appointing agents to those
same Indian tribes.[203] The Indian committee, at the time, was composed
of Jackson Morton of Florida, Lawrence M. Keitt of South Carolina, and
Thomas N. Waul of Texas. Robert W. Johnson became a member after Arkansas
had seceded and had been admitted to the Confederacy.
Preliminary steps such as these led naturally to a comprehension of the
need for a Bureau of Indian Affairs[204] and, on the twelfth of March,
President Davis recommended[205] that one be organized and a commissioner
of Indian affairs appointed. His recommendations were acted upon without
delay and a law[206] in conformity with them passed. This happened on the
fifteenth of March and on the day following, the last of the session,
Davis nominated David Hubbard,[207] ex-commissioner[208] from Alabama to
Arkansas, for the Indian portfolio. For some time, however, Hubbard had
little to do.[209] It is wise therefore to leave him for a while and
resume the examination of congressional work.
The journal entries through February and March show that the Provisional
Congress had, not infrequently, Indian matters placed before it and, at
times presumably, communications direct from the tribes. On the fourth of
March, Robert Toombs, himself on the Finance Committee and at the same
time Secretary of State,[210] offered the following resolution:[211]
_Resolved_, That the President be, and he is hereby authorized to send
a suitable person as special agent of this Government to the Indian
tribes west of the State of Arkansas.
Whether this was called forth by the investigations of the Committee on
Indian Affairs under the Chilton resolution of the twenty-first of
February or whether it grew out of a correspondence between Toombs and
Albert Pike does not appear. Toombs and Pike were friends, brother
Masons[212] in fact, and then or soon afterwards in intimate
correspondence on the subject of Indian relations. The resolution passed,
but there the matter seems to have rested for a time. On the tenth of May,
William B. Ochiltree proposed[213] that the Committee on Indian Affairs
consider the condition of Reserve Indians in Texas; and, on the fifteenth,
a most important measure was introduced[214] in the shape of a bill,
reported by Keitt from the Committee on Indian Affairs, "for the
protection of certain Indian tribes." This opened up the whole subject of
prospective relations with the great tribes of Indian Territory and,
taken in connection with the provision for a special commissioner, was
fruitful of great results.
On the seventh of May, Thomas A. Harris of Missouri had made the
Provisional Congress acquainted with some Choctaw and Chickasaw
resolutions,[215] which, in themselves, seemed indicative of a friendly
disposition towards the South. This fact lent to the bill for the
assumption of a protectorate a large significance. Congress considered it,
for the most part, in secret session. The text of the act as finally
passed does not appear in any of the published[216] statutes of the
Confederate States; but, under the act, Albert Pike, special commissioner
for the purpose appointed by President Davis, negotiated all his
remarkable treaties with the western tribes. Three sections of the law,
those added to the original bill by way of amendment, appear in the
Provisional Congress _Journal_.[217] They are strictly financial in their
nature and are as follows:
_Sec. 6._ And be it further enacted, That the Confederate States do
hereby assume the duty and obligation of collecting and paying over as
trustees to the several Indian tribes now located in the Indian
Territory south of Kansas, all sums of money accruing, whether from
interest or capital of the bonds of the several States of this
Confederacy now held by the Government of the United States as
trustees for said Indians or any of them; and the said interest and
capital as collected shall be paid over to said Indians or invested
for their account, as the case may be, in accordance with the several
treaties and contracts now existing between said Indians and the
Government of the United States.
_Sec. 7._ That the several States of this Confederacy be requested to
provide by legislation or otherwise that the capital and interest of
the bonds issued by them respectively, and held by the Government of
the United States in trust for said Indians, or any of them, shall not
be paid to said Government of the United States, but shall be paid to
this Government in trust for said Indians.
_Sec. 8._ That it shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs to obtain and publish, at as early a period as practicable, a
list of all the bonds of the several States of this Confederacy now
held in trust by the Government of the United States as aforesaid, and
to give notice in said publication that the capital and interest of
said bonds are to be paid to this Government and to no other holder
thereof whatever.
Before this bill for the protection of the Indians had come up for
discussion or had even emerged from the rooms of the Committee on Indian
Affairs, Albert Pike, in letters to Toombs and R. W. Johnson, had pointed
out most emphatically the military necessity of securing[218] the Indian
country. His conviction was strong that the United States had no idea of
permanently abandoning the same but would soon replace the regular troops,
it had withdrawn from thence, by volunteers. Pike discussed the matter
with N. Bart Pearce and the two agreed[219] that there was no time to lose
and that something must be done forthwith to prevent the possibility of
Federal emissaries gaining a foothold among the great tribes; for, if they
did gain such a foothold, their influence was likely to be very great,
especially among the Cherokees who might be regarded as predisposed to
favor them, they having many abolitionists on their tribal rolls. Whether,
at so early a date, Pike thought formal negotiation, as had been
customary, the preferable method of procedure, we are not prepared to say,
positively. Formal negotiation was scarcely consistent with the southern
argument of Jackson's time or consonant with present state-rights
doctrine. When writing[220] to Johnson on the eleventh of May, Pike seems
to have been thinking simply of Indian enlistment and of the use of white
and red troops in the defense of the Indian country. At that date his own
appointment[221] as diplomatic agent for the negotiation of treaties of
amity and alliance was certainly not prominently before him. He expressed
himself to Johnson in such a way, indeed, as would lead us to suppose that
the position he half expected to get, and did not altogether want, was
that of commander of an Indian Department which he hoped would be created.
For such a position Pike was not entirely unfitted. He had served in the
Mexican War and had attained the rank of captain; but his tastes were
certainly not what one would call military. He was a poet[222] of
acknowledged reputation and a lawyer of eminence. Arkansas had recognized
him as one of her foremost citizens by sending him as her one and only
delegate to the Commercial Convention[223] of Southern and Western
States, held at Charleston, South Carolina, April, 1854. Just recently, at
the time when the question of secession was before the people of Arkansas,
he had issued a pamphlet, entitled, _State or Province, Bond or Free_,
described by a contemporary as, "a most specious argument for secession,
but a re-production of the political heresies, that thirty years ago
called down on John C. Calhoun, the anathema maranatha of Andrew
Jackson."[224] To the men of his time, it seemed all the more astonishing
that Albert Pike should take such a pronounced stand on the subject of
state rights, not because he was a New Englander by birth, for there were
many such in Arkansas and in the ranks of the secessionists, but because
he was the author of that stirring poem against the idea of national
disintegration, published some time before under the title of,
"Disunion."[225]
On the twentieth of May, Pike wrote[226] again to Toombs and by that time
he certainly knew[227] of his commission to treat with the Indian tribes,
but had apparently not received any very definite instructions as to the
scope of his authority. One little passage in the letter brings out very
clearly the essential fair-mindedness of the man, a marked characteristic
in all[228] his dealings with the Indians, but at once his strength and
his weakness. He succeeded with the red man for the very same reason that
he failed with the white, because he gave to the Indians the
consideration and the justice which were their due. This is the
significant passage from his letter to Toombs:[229]
I very much regret that I have not received distinct authority to give
the Indians guarantees of all their legal and just rights under
treaties. It cannot be expected they will join us without them, and it
would be very ungenerous, as well as unwise and useless, in me to ask
them to do it. Why should they, if we will not bind ourselves to give
them what they hazard in giving us their rights under treaties?
As you have told me to act at my discretion, and as I am not directed
not to give the guarantees, I shall give them, formal, full, and
ample, by treaty, if the Indians will accept them and make treaties.
General McCulloch will join me in this, and so, I hope and suppose,
will Mr. Hubbard, and when we shall have done so we shall, I am sure,
not look in vain to you, at least, to affirm these guarantees and
insist they shall be carried out in good faith.
There was an implied doubt of Hubbard in Pike's reference to him and a
single future declaration almost justified the doubt, notwithstanding the
fact that Hubbard was supposed to have been chosen as commissioner of
Indian affairs because of his "well known sympathy for the Indian tribes
and the deep concern" he had ever "manifested in their welfare."
Hubbard's official position was that of Commissioner of Indian Affairs;
but the unorganized character of the Confederate administration in early
1861 is well attested by the way Secretary Walker confounded the name and
functions of that office with those of an ordinary superintendent. On the
fourteenth of May, he addressed Hubbard as "Superintendent of Indian
Affairs" and instructed him
To proceed to the Creek Nation, and to make known to them, as well as
to the rest of the tribes west of Arkansas and south of Kansas ... the
earnest desire of the Confederate States to defend and protect them
against the rapacious and avaricious designs of their and our enemies
at the North.... You will, in an especial manner, impress upon the
Creek Nation and surrounding Indian tribes the imperious fact that
they will doubtless recognize, that the real design of the North and
the Government at Washington in regard to them has been and still is
the same entertained and sought to be enforced against ourselves, and
if suffered to be consummated, will terminate in the emancipation of
their slaves and the robbery of their lands. To these nefarious ends
all the schemes of the North have tended for many years past, as the
Indian nations and tribes well know from the character and conduct of
those emissaries who have been in their midst, preaching up abolition
sentiments under the disguise of the holy religion of Christ, and
denouncing slaveholders as abandoned by God and unfit associates for
humanity on earth.
You will be diligent to explain to them, under these circumstances,
how their cause has become our cause, and themselves and ourselves
stand inseparably associated in respect to national existence and
property interests; and in view of this identification of cause and
interests between them and ourselves, entailing a common destiny, give
to them profound assurances that the Government of the Confederate
States of America, now powerfully constituted through an immense
league of sovereign political societies, great forces in the field,
and abundant resources, will assume all the expense and responsibility
of protecting them against all adversaries....
Give them to understand, in this connection, that a brigadier-general
of character and experience has been assigned to the military district
embracing the Indian Territories south of Kansas, with three regiments
under his command, while in Texas another military district has been
formed....
In addition to these things, regarded of primary importance, you will,
without committing the Government to any especial conduct, express our
serious anxiety to establish and enforce the debts and annuities due
to them from the Government at Washington, which otherwise they will
never obtain, as that Government would, undoubtedly, sooner rob them
of their lands, emancipate their slaves, and utterly exterminate them,
than render to them justice. Finally, communicate to them the abiding
solicitude of the Confederate States of America to advance their
condition in the direction of a proud political society, with a
distinctive civilization, and holding lands in severalty under
well-defined laws, by forming them into a Territorial government; but
you will give no assurance of State organization and independence, as
they still require the strong arm of protecting power, and may
probably always need our fostering care; and, so far as the agents of
the late Government of the United States may be concerned, you will
converse with them, and such of them as are willing to act with you in
the policy herein set forth you are authorized to substantiate in the
employment of this Government at their present compensation....[230]
Hubbard's mission to the west was quite independent[231] of Pike's,
although both missions were undoubtedly part of the one general plan of
securing as quickly, as surely, and as easily as possible the friendly
cooperation of the Indians. At about the same moment that they were
devised, the Confederacy took yet another means of accomplishing the same
object and one referred to in the letter of Secretary Walker just quoted.
On the thirteenth of this same month of May, 1861, it assigned
Brigadier-general Ben McCulloch "to the command of the district embracing
the Indian Territory lying west of Arkansas and south of Kansas."
McCulloch's orders[232] were "to guard that Territory against invasion
from Kansas or elsewhere," and, for the purpose, in addition to three
regiments of white troops, "to engage, if possible, the service of any of
the Indian tribes occupying the Territory referred to in numbers equal to
two regiments."
Hubbard's part in the prosecution of this great endeavor may as well be
disposed of first. It was of short duration and seemingly barren of direct
results. Hubbard was long in reaching the western boundary of Arkansas. On
the way out he was seized with pneumonia and otherwise delayed by wind and
weather. On the second of June he was still in Little Rock, apparently
much more interested[233] in the local situation in Arkansas than in the
real object of his mission. His intention was to "go up the river to Fort
Smith," June third. From that point, on the twelfth, he addressed the
Cherokee chief, John Ross, and the Confederate general, Ben McCulloch. The
letter was more particularly meant for the former.