The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist. Annie Heloise Abel
in Washington, made up of P. P. Pitchlynn, Samuel Garland, Israel Folsom, and Peter Folsom, assured the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that the Choctaw Nation intended to remain neutral,112 which assurance was interpreted to mean simply that the Choctaws would be inactive spectators of events, expressing no opinion, in word or deed, one way or the other. The Chickasaw delegation gave the same assurance and at about the same time and place. Now what is to be concluded? Is it to be supposed that the Act of January 5, 1861 in no wise reflected the sentiments of a tribe as a whole and similarly the Resolutions of February 7, 1861, or that the tribal delegations were, in April, utterly ignorant of the real attitude of their respective constituents? The answer is to be found in the following most interesting and instructive letter, written by S. Orlando Lee to Commissioner Dole from Huntingdon, Long Island, March 15, 1862:113
Thinking you and the government would like to hear something about the state of affairs among the Choctaws last summer and the influences which induced them to take their present position I will write you what I know. I was a missionary teacher at Spencer Academy for two years and refer you to Hon. Walter Lowrie Gen. Sec. of the Pres. Board of Foreign Missions for information as to my character &c. I left Spencer June 13th & the nation June 24th but have heard directly from there twice since, the last time as late as Sept 6th. So that I can speak of occurrences as late as that.
After South Carolina passed her secession ordinance in Dec. 1860 there was a public attempt to excite the Choctaws and Chickasaws as a beginning hoping to bring in the other tribes afterwards. Many of the larger slaveholders (who are nearly all half breeds) had been gained before and Capt. R. M. Jones was the leader of the secessionists. The country was full of lies about the intentions of the new administration. The border papers in Arkansas & Texas republished from the New York & St. Louis papers a part of a sentence from Hon. W. H. Seward’s speech at Chicago during the election campaign of 1860 to this effect “And Indian Territory south of Kansas must be vacated by the Indian” (These words do occur in the report of Mr. Seward’s Chicago speech as published in New York Evening Post Weekly for I read it myself). This produced intense excitement of course and to add to the effect the Secessionist Journals charged that another prominent republican had proposed to drive the indians out of Indian Ter. in a speech in congress. “This” they were told “is the policy of the new administration. The abolitionists want your lands—we will protect you. Your only safety is to join the South.” Again they were told “that the South must succeed in gaining their independence and the money of the indians being invested in the stocks of Southern states the stocks would be cancelled & the indians would lose their money unless they joined the south, if they did that the stocks would be reissued to the Confederate States for them.” Their special commissioners Peter Folsom &c., who came to Washington to get the half million of dollars for claims, reported that they got along very well until they were asked if they had slaves after that they said they could do nothing. Sampson Folsom said however that he thought they would have succeeded had it not been for the attack on Sumpter—He said President Lincoln then told them “He would not give them a dollar until the close of the war.” An interesting fact in relation to these commissioners is that they came to Washington by way of Montgomery & were when they reached Washington probably all, except Judge Garland, secessionists. Thus all influences were in favor of the rebels—Where could the indians go for light—The former indian agent Cooper was a Col. in the rebel service. The oldest missionary who has undoubtedly more influence with the Choctaws than any other white man is an ardent secessionist believing firmly both in the right & in the final success of the rebel cause—He (Dr. Kingsbury) prays as earnestly & fervently for the success of the rebels as any one among us does for the success of the Union cause. The son of another, Mr. Hodgkin, is a captain in the rebel service—another Mr. Stark actively assisted in organizing a company acted as sec. of secessionist meetings &c. Even Mr. Reid superintendant of Spencer was confident the rebels could never be subdued and thought when the treaty should be made they ought in justice to have Ind. Territory. Again when Fort Smith was evacuated the rebel forces were on the way up the Ark. river to attack it & the garrison evacuated it in the night which looked to the Indians (if not to the white men) as if the northerners were afraid. The same was true of Fort Washitaw where our forces left in the night and were actually pursued for several days by the Texans. Thus matters stood when Col. Pitchlynn the resident Com. of the Choctaws at Washington returned home. He gave all his influence to have the Choctaws take a neutral position. The chief had called the council to meet June 1st. & Col. P. so far succeeded as to induce him to prepare a message recommending neutrality. Col. P. was promptly reported as an abolitionist and visited & threatened by a Texas Vigilance committee.
The Council met at Doaksville seven miles from Red River & of course from Texas. It was largely attended by white men from Texas our Choctaw neighbors who attended said the place was full of white men.
The Council did not organize until June 4th or 5th (I forget which). In the meanwhile the white men & half bloods had a secession meeting when it leaked out through Col. Cooper that the Chief Hudson had prepared a message recommending neutrality at which Robert M. Jones was so indignant that he made a furious speech in which he declared that “any one who opposed secession ought to be hung” “and any suspicious persons ought to be hung.” Hudson was frightened and when the Council was organized sent in a message recommending that commissioners be appointed to negotiate a treaty with the Confederates and that in the meantime a regiment be organized under Col. Cooper for the Confed. army.
This was finally done but not for a week for the Choctaws were reluctant. They feared that their action would result in the destruction of the nation. Said Joseph P. Folsom, a member of the council & a graduate of Dartmouth College New Hampshire, “We are choosing in what way we shall die.” Judge Wade said to me, “We expect that the Choctaws will be buried. That is what we think will be the end of this.” Judge W. is a member of the Senate (for the Choctaw Council is composed of a Senate & lower house chosen by the people in districts & the constitution is modeled very much after those of the states.) & he has been a chief. Others said to me “If the north was here so we could be protected we would stand up for the north but now if we do not go in for the south the Texans will come over here and kill us.” Mr. Reid told me a day or two before we left that he had become convinced during a trip for two or three days through the country that the full bloods were strongly for the north. I am sure it was so then & it was the opinion of the missionaries that if we had all taken the position, that we would not leave, some of us had been warned to do so by Texan vigilance committees, we could have raised a thousand men who would have armed in our defence—Our older brethren told us that this would hasten the destruction of the indians as they would be crushed before any help could come.—We thought this would probably be the case and the missionaries who were most strongly union in sentiment left.
One of the number Rev. John Edwards had been hiding for his life from Texan & half blood ruffians for two weeks & we at Spencer had had the honor to be visited by a Texas committee searching for arms.
I continue my narrative from a letter from one of our teachers who was detained when we left by the illness of his wife & who left Spencer Sept. 5th & the Nation Sept. 9th. He says Col. Coopers regiment was filled up with Texans “The half breeds after involving the full bloods in the war have rather drawn back themselves and but few of them have enlisted & gone to the war.” This indicates that the full bloods have at last yielded to the pressure and joined the rebels. The missionaries who remained would generally advise them to do this.
The Choctaw commissioners met Albert Pike rebel commissioner & made a treaty with him, with reference to this he says “The Choctaws rec’d quite a bundle of promises from the rebel government. Their treaty gives their representative a seat in the rebel congress, acknowledges the right of the Choctaws to give testimony in all courts in the C. S., exempts them from the expences of the war, their soldiers are to be paid 20$ a month by the C. S. during the war, the C. S. assume the debts due the Choctaws by the U. S., they have the privilege of coming in as a state into the Confederacy with equal rights if they wish it, or remain as they are, the C. S. to sustain their schools after the war, they guarantee them against all intrusion on their lands by white men, allow them to garrison the forts in their territory with their own troops if they