Cherokee Mythology (Illustrated Edition). James Mooney

      The Arkansas Band—1817–1838

       Table of Contents

      Having followed the fortunes of the main body of the Nation to their final destination in the West, we now turn to review briefly the history of the earlier emigrants, the Arkansas or Old Settler Cherokee.

      The events leading to the first westward migration and the subsequent negotiations which resulted in the assignment of a territory in Arkansas to the western Cherokee, by the treaty of 1817, have been already noted. The great majority of those thus voluntarily removing belonged to the conservative hunter element, who desired to reestablish in the western wilderness the old Indian life from which, through the influence of schools and intelligent leadership, the body of the Cherokee was rapidly drifting away. As the lands upon which the emigrants had settled belonged to the Osage, whose claim had not yet been extinguished by the United States, the latter objected to their presence, and the Cherokee were compelled to fight to maintain their own position, so that for the first twenty years or more the history of the western band is a mere petty chronicle of Osage raids and Cherokee retaliations, emphasized from time to time by a massacre on a larger scale. By the treaty of 1817 the western Cherokee acquired title to a definite territory and official standing under Government protection and supervision, the lands assigned them having been acquired by treaty from the Osage. The great body of the Cherokee in the East were strongly opposed to any recognition of the western band, seeing in such action only the beginning of an effort looking toward the ultimate removal of the whole tribe. The Government lent support to the scheme, however, and a steady emigration set in until, in 1819, the emigrants were said to number several thousands. Unsuccessful endeavors were made to increase the number by inducing the Shawano and Delawares of Missouri and the Oneida of New York to join them.336

      In 1818 Tollunteeskee (Ata′lûñti′skĭ), principal chief of the Arkansas Cherokee, while on a visit to old friends in the East, had become acquainted with one of the officers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and had asked for the establishment of a mission among his people in the West. In response to the invitation the Reverend Cephas Washburn and his assistant, Reverend Alfred Finney, with their families, set out the next year from the old Nation, and after a long and exhausting journey reached the Arkansas country, where, in the spring of 1820, they established Dwight mission, adjoining the agency at the mouth of Illinois creek, on the northern bank of the Arkansas, in what is now Pope county, Arkansas. The name was bestowed in remembrance of Timothy Dwight, a Yale president and pioneer organizer of the American Board. Tollunteeskee having died in the meantime was succeeded as principal chief by his brother, John Jolly,337 the friend and adopted father of Samuel Houston. Jolly had removed from his old home at the mouth of Hiwassee, in Tennessee, in 1818.338

      In the spring of 1819 Thomas Nuttall, the naturalist, ascended the Arkansas, and he gives an interesting account of the western Cherokee as he found them at the time. In going up the stream, “both banks of the river, as we proceeded, were lined with the houses and farms of the Cherokee, and though their dress was a mixture of indigenous and European taste, yet in their houses, which are decently furnished, and in their farms, which were well fenced and stocked with cattle, we perceive a happy approach toward civilization. Their numerous families, also, well fed and clothed, argue a propitious progress in their population. Their superior industry either as hunters or farmers proves the value of property among them, and they are no longer strangers to avarice and the distinctions created by wealth. Some of them are possessed of property to the amount of many thousands of dollars, have houses handsomely and conveniently furnished, and their tables spread with our dainties and luxuries.” He mentions an engagement some time before between them and the Osage, in which the Cherokee had killed nearly one hundred of the Osage, besides taking a number of prisoners. He estimates them at about fifteen hundred, being about half the number estimated by the eastern Nation as having emigrated to the West, and only one-fourth of the official estimate. A few Delawares were living with them.339

      The Osage troubles continued in spite of a treaty of peace between the two tribes made at a council held under the direction of Governor Clark at St. Louis, in October, 1818.340 Warriors from the eastern Cherokee were accustomed to make the long journey to the Arkansas to assist their western brethren, and returned with scalps and captives.341

      In the summer of 1820 a second effort for peace was made by Governor Miller of Arkansas territory. In reply to his talk the Osage complained that the Cherokee had failed to deliver their Osage captives as stipulated in the previous agreement at St. Louis. This, it appears, was due in part to the fact that some of these captives had been carried to the eastern Cherokee, and a messenger was accordingly dispatched to secure and bring them back. Another peace conference was held soon afterward at Fort Smith, but to very little purpose, as hostilities were soon resumed and continued until the United States actively interposed in the fall of 1822.342

      In this year also Sequoya visited the western Cherokee to introduce to them the knowledge of his great invention, which was at once taken up through the influence of Takatoka (Degatâ′ga), a prominent chief who had hitherto opposed every effort of the missionaries to introduce their own schools and religion. In consequence perhaps of this encouragement Sequoya removed permanently to the West in the following year and became henceforth a member of the western Nation.343

      Like other Indians, the western Cherokee held a firm belief in witchcraft, which led to frequent tragedies of punishment or retaliation. In 1824 a step forward was marked by the enactment of a law making it murder to kill any one for witchcraft, and an offense punishable with whipping to accuse another of witchcraft.344 This law may have been the result of the silent working of missionary influence, supported by such enlightened men as Sequoya.

      The treaty which assigned the Arkansas lands to the western Cherokee had stipulated that a census should be made of the eastern and western divisions of the Nation, separately, and an apportionment of the national annuity forthwith made on that basis. The western line of the Arkansas tract had also been left open, until according to another stipulation of the same treaty, the whole amount of land ceded through it to the United States by the Cherokee Nation in the East could be ascertained in order that an equal quantity might be included within the boundaries of the western tract.345 These promises had not yet been fulfilled, partly because of the efforts of the Government to bring about a larger emigration or a further cession, partly on account of delay in the state surveys, and partly also because the Osage objected to the running of a line which should make the Cherokee their next door neighbors.346 With their boundaries unadjusted and their annuities withheld, distress and dissatisfaction overcame the western Cherokee, many of whom, feeling themselves absolved from territorial restrictions, spread over the country on the southern side of Arkansas river,347 while others, under the lead of a chief named The Bowl (Diwa′ʻlĭ), crossed Red river into Texas—then a portion of Mexico—in a vain attempt to escape American jurisdiction.348

      A provisional western boundary having been run, which proved unsatisfactory both to the western Cherokee and to the people of Arkansas, an effort was made to settle the difficulty by arranging an exchange of the Arkansas tract for a