After the Trail of Tears by William G. McLoughlin

Author:William G. McLoughlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 1993-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

9: Reconstruction and National Revitalization, 1866–1870

Bad as is the condition of all these southern Indians, that of the Cherokees is much worse than the remainder of the tribes. They have a domestic feud of long standing which prevents them from coming together for mutual aid and support.

—Commissioner William P. Dole, in Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs (1865)

The Loyal Cherokees, having reaffirmed John Ross as their chief in October 1865, and insisting on their loyalty and sacrifice for the Union cause, appointed a delegation to go to Washington, D.C., in January 1866 to work out a treaty that would clarify their status and provide the income the nation needed to reconstruct itself. Led by John Ross and including Smith Christie, White Catcher, Sam Houston Benge, D. H. Ross, and John B. Jones, the delegation was instructed to obtain a just settlement of Cherokees’ claims against the government for its failure to protect them from the Confederate invasion, to obtain all monies due from their trust funds (frozen during the war), to secure pensions and bounties for veterans and their widows and children, to repulse the Indian bureau’s drive for a territorial government, and to thwart the Southern Rights party’s plan for two distinct Cherokee nations. The council also authorized the sale of the 800,000 acres in the Neutral Lands in southeastern Kansas.1 However, the underlying goals, as always, were Cherokee unity and sovereignty, both of which would have seemed beyond hope to anyone but John Ross.

The Confederate Cherokees (now known as the Southern party or Southern Cherokees) appointed their own set of delegates as though they were the legitimate authority of the nation, Commissioner Dennis N. Cooley and the other envoys having rejected Ross’s claim to represent his people at the September 1865 meeting at Fort Smith. In addition to working for a division of the nation and a proportional share of all tribal funds on hand or to be obtained from land sales, the Southern delegates, headed by Stand Watie and including E. C. Boudinot, John Rollin Ridge, Saladin Watie, James M. Bell, J. A. Scales, and William Penn Adair, were instructed to make whatever concessions Cooley demanded in order to establish their legitimacy. In effect, they hoped to persuade Cooley to make two separate peace treaties, one with them (forever separating them from the Loyal Cherokees) and one with the Loyal Cherokees, conceding their right to a share of tribal land and funds. They knew that this would weaken Ross’s position and enable Cooley to play each side off against the other in order to obtain his stipulations, but their bitterness was so great that they had no qualms about proceeding with their plan.

The reasons for division of the nation went beyond the enmity between the two sides during the war, according to the Southern delegates: “The ‘Pin Society’ [or the Keetoowahs] was organized five years before the war” and “the purpose of this secret society was to secure and perpetuate the power of Mr. Ross

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