The American Indian Under Reconstruction. Annie Heloise Abel

McNeil were correct and that Union sentiment among the Indians was very perceptibly on the increase. So excellent an opportunity, however, for recalling to the minds of congressmen and cabinet officials the remissness of the War Department and of the army from the very outset of the war was not to be lost. It was a case, if there ever was one, where reiteration, bold and constant, did no harm. The time was approaching and would soon be here when the United States government and all in authority under it would do well to remember where the blame for Indian defection really lay. Shirkers of responsibility have proverbially short memories.

      Yes, Unionist sentiment among the Indians was on the increase and it was on the increase because the spectre of eventual Confederate failure was looming up ever larger and larger in the distance. The Choctaws, stanchest of allies once, were now wavering in their devotion to the South but not many of them were as yet fully ready to unite with Abolitionists and Black Republicans. Their interests were still, as Commissioner Scott had defined them, all southern. Their laws were largely derived from the statutes of Mississippi, whence most of them had come. They were a wealthy people, and largely of the planter class. Race prejudice was strong among them as was also repugnance to any race mixture that entailed their own assimilation with inferior blood. In this characteristic they resembled the haughty Anglo-Saxon and differed radically from the Gallic Frenchman and, strange to relate, from their own kith and kin, the Creeks, who mingled Indian blood with African freely. All but about three hundred 8 of the Choctaws had gone over to the Secessionists and the tribe had numbered approximately eighteen thousand before the war.

      The first stage in the Choctaw re-tracing of steps would seem to have been marked by the desire for inactivity, the convenient pose of a neutral, and the second, by a plan to organize an independent Indian confederacy. The principle of self-determination, not christened yet, was dominant throughout the South. It lay back of all secessionist action and ought logically, reasoned the Choctaws, to work as well for red men as for white. Its reductio ad absurdum as the principle of anarchy par excellence naturally never suggested itself to anyone. Possibly, all cogitation was time-serving in character. The discouraged and disgusted Indians dallied with ideas of independent sovereignty because it was altogether too early yet for leading Choctaws, prominent half-breeds mostly, to join forces with the detested North. Besides, the Indian was loath to abandon his erstwhile friend; for the Indian is fundamentally loyal. He keeps faith so long as and often longer than faith is kept with him. Let the Confederates give some evidence of disinterestedness of motive, of genuine concern for Indian welfare and all might yet be well. Their martial prowess was undoubted, their star of fortune seemed occasionally still in the ascendant; but rally their forces they must. There could be no surer way to a restoration of confidence.

      The general Indian council that had been regularly meeting at Armstrong Academy was the political body before which to propound the independent confederacy project and it was while that body was holding a session in February of 1864 with the object of assisting the Confederates in the rallying of forces that certain Choctaws, who had irretrievably lost confidence in the South and despaired of any course being practicable that did not presuppose the resumption of old-time relations with the United States, attempted to organize an opposition element and to secure an expression of opinion favorable to the immediate repudiation of the Confederate alliance. Calling themselves the Choctaw Nation, de facto and de jure, they met in mass-meeting at Doaksville; but dispersed again on realizing that they were there too near the enemy forces. They re-convened betimes at "Skullyville, twenty miles from Fort Smith," where the Federals were now holding sway. Not far from Skullyville was New Hope Academy, a female seminary, which, in the late fifties, had been successfully conducted under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. It now presented itself as a convenient and safe meeting-place and at New Hope, on March fourteenth, a convention of disgruntled Choctaws took drastic action indicative of their weariness of the war and of all that it involved. The following resolutions " were unanimously adopted:

      Whereas, In entering upon the reconstruction of our Government in this Nation, we believe that the government of the United States has been an infinite blessing to all parts of this country, and especially to our own Nation, and,

      Whereas, Certain portions of the United States have set up their individual rights in opposition to the Federal Government, Be it resolved,

      First, That we the citizens of the Choctaw Nation, as well as of the United States, knowing that the Government of the United States must be maintained supreme over the so-called rights of any portion of this country, do, on the part of the Choctaw Nation, utterly disclaim any pretensions to any socalled rights which may be subversive of the rights of the Federal Government, and hold that our primary allegiance is due to the Government of the United States.

      Second, Resolved, That we, Citizens of the Choctaw Nation, desire the authority of the United States to be vindicated, and the people brought back to their allegiance.

      Third, Resolved, That the following named citizens be appointed a committee to select proper men for Provisional Governor of the Nation, Sec. of State, pro tern., subject to the future vote of the people of the Nation, and a Delegate to represent our Nation at Washington,

      (Committee) Jeremiah H. Ward

       J. G. Ainsworth

       John Hanaway

       William P. Merryman

       J. H. Jacobs

      Fourth, Resolved, That the thanks of the Convention be and hereby are tendered to Lt. Lindsay and the escort under his command.

      WM. F. STEPHENS, Pres't of Convention

       THOMAS EDWARDS, Sect.

      The nominating committee retired and later offered the name of Thomas Edwards for governor, of George W. Boyd for secretary of state, pro tern., and of Edward P. Perkins for delegate. Its report was accepted and the nominations confirmed by the convention. Whereupon, the men selected began without further ado to exercise the functions of their respective offices. Ten days subsequently Governor Edwards issued a proclamation outlining the new policy.

      PROCLAMATION

      To the Choctaws, and the Citizens of the Choctaw Nation:

      At a Convention held at New Hope, C.N., on March the 1 4th, 1864, by the loyal citizens of your Nation, a preamble of Resolutions were adopted to secure to you the rights and suffrages which you are entitled to from the Government of the United States.

      The last Treaty between the United States and your Nation, which was ratified in 1855, guaranteed to you on the part of the United States Government "protection from domestic strife and hostile aggression," (Treaty 1855, Article xiv) is the only agreement in that treaty wherein the United States has failed to fulfill for the time being her part of the compact; and though three years have elapsed since the "stars and stripes" was struck down in the Garrison, erected for your defence, by a rebellious and misguided people, that flag again waves in triumph over your fortress, and the Government which it represents is HERE in full force and power to keep her word and offer you its protection.

      The Government of the United States is well aware of the sophistry and eloquence brought to bear upon the minds of your people, by such men as Douglass H. Cooper and Albert Pike to delude you into a treaty with the rebellious confederacy, of which they were the agents; and can excuse you to a certain extent for an alliance formed when despotism and treason were in your midst. But now that the Government holds indisputable possession of near four-fifths of your country, it calls upon you to return with truthful allegiance to your natural protector.

      The same rights offered to the rebellious subjects of the States by the late Proclamation of the President is guaranteed to you. Three years of strife, misery and want, should at least convince you that the unnatural alliance which you have formed with the enemies of the United States has been one of the heaviest calamities that ever befel your Nation. They made you brilliant promises, but never fulfilled them. What is your condition to-day? The enemy after having swept ruin through your entire land, brought starvation to your very doors, and spread a scene of utter degradation and suffering in your families; have been lying for months on the extreme southern border of your Nation, listening to the