The American Indian Under Reconstruction. Annie Heloise Abel

waves of these flags.

      We would also ask that the President give to military commanders orders to afford proper protection to such convention and to the delegates both in going to and returning from said convention.

      In view of the fact that the war has so desolated our country that the Cherokees cannot, as in former times, provide for the feeding of such a council, we, very relucktantly, ask that such provision be made by the United States.

      II. THE RETURN OF THE REFUGEES

       Table of Contents

      The existence of Indian refugees was the best indication that all projects, made while the Civil War was still in progress, for the removal southward of Kansas tribes and for the organization of Indian Territory were decidedly premature and altogether out of place. For a season, indeed, they were almost presumptuous. Disaster followed disaster and it seemed wellnigh impossible for the Federals ever to regain what they had so lightly thrown aside in 1861. At the very moment when the removal policy was being re-enacted there were upwards of fifteen thousand Indians living as exiles and outcasts solely because the United States government was not able to give them protection in their own homes. Nevertheless, with strange inconsistency and the total ignoring of most patent facts, its law-makers discussed in all seriousness, as is the habit of politicians, the re-populating with new northern tribes the very country that the army had abandoned and had not yet recovered. Meanwhile, as if to add to the incongruity of the whole matter, three full regiments of Indian Home Guards, composed largely of the legitimate owners of the territory in question, were fighting on the Union side.

      The earlier misfortunes of the Indian refugees have been described with fullness of detail in the preceding volume of this work. A large proportion of the first Indians, who had fled for safety across the border, had been conducted, at vast expense, with much murmuring, and some show of resistance, to the Sac and Fox Agency. There they were yet, the old men, women, and children, that is; for the braves were away fighting. They included Creeks who had accompanied Opoethleyohola in his flight, a few Euchees, Kickapoos, and Choctaws, about two hundred and twenty-five Chickasaws, and about three hundred Cherokees. At Neosho Falls, were the refugee Seminoles, some seven hundred and sixty, not counting the enlisted warriors. On the Ottawa Reservation, were the nonfighting Quapaws and the Senecas and Shawnees, while, encamped on the Verdigris and Fall rivers, in the neighborhood of Belmont, were almost two thousand Indian refugees from the Leased District. They had come there following the outbreak that had resulted in the brutal murder of Agent Leeper. Beyond them and beyond the reach of aid, as it proved, at the Big Bend of the Arkansas, were Comanches, one band, and scattering elements of other wild tribes.

      At the opening of 1863, the great bulk of the Cherokees were in southwestern Missouri, exposed to every conceivable kind of danger incident to a state of war. They were the larger part of those who, when the Confederates successfully invaded and occupied the Nation, had escaped to the Neutral Lands, a portion of their own tribal domain but within the limits of Kansas, and had been discovered, in October of 1862, settled upon Drywood Creek, about twelve miles south of Fort Scott. The Indian Office field employees had ministered to their needs promptly, if not efficiently; but, towards the close of the year, to the great surprise and financial embarrassment of Superintendent Coffin and under pretext of restoring them immediately to their homes, the army, ordered thereto by General Blunt, had removed them, bag and baggage, to Neosho. There they had remained, their position increasingly precarious and their condition, because of the desolateness of the region and its inaccessibility to adequate supplies, increasingly miserable, until March, 1863.

      By that time, General Blunt had made his peace with Superintendent Coffin although he had failed to keep his promises to the Indians, who, as a result of unrealized hopes, were becoming daily more fractious, both the refugees and their kin in the Indian Brigade. Colonel Phillips of the Third Indian Regiment, which was wholly Cherokee, sympathised with them; for only too well he knew the lack of consideration shown the loyal Indian and the secondary place he was forced to occupy in the public estimation. Despised, disappointed, discouraged, the Indian Home Guards were getting mutinous. Moreover, southwestern Missouri, if not "a perfect den of rebels," as Coffin, in his chagrin and indignation had described it, was no fit place for helpless women and children.

      With the first indication of the breaking up of winter, Colonel Phillips recommended, in strong terms, the resumption of the task of refugee restoration and solicited, for it, the assistance of the southern superintendent, heretofore ignored. Coffin responded with secret elation; for, by appealing to him, the military authorities had tacitly acknowledged the ineptitude of which he constantly accused them. Agents Justin Harlan and A. G. Proctor were detailed to conduct the expedition and early in April the majority of the Cherokee refugees were again in their own country.

      Before departing from Neosho, Harlan had come to an understanding with Phillips by which the two had agreed that the reconstruction work should begin on the Tahlequah side of the Arkansas, where beeves and milch cows were yet to be had. Seeds had been provided by the Department of Agriculture and gardening implements by that of the Interior, so all was in readiness; but Phillips with the vacillation, which seems to have been his crowning fault, changed the plan at the last moment and without seeking further advice from his fellow in authority. He crossed the line at about the same time Harlan's company did and at once issued an order for the establishment of six different posts, or points of distribution. As a result, the refugees scattered in all directions. The problem of protecting them became a serious one. The Confederates were still lingering in the country. No attempt had been made to oust them before undertaking the return of the refugees. No expected accretion came to swell Phillips's command. Indeed, before very long he was in danger of having to fall back into Kansas; for Blunt's troops were nearly all being drawn off "for the purpose of re-enforcing General Herron in Missouri." The Indian Brigade, Phillips in command, intrenched itself at Fort Gibson and there, too, the now doubly disappointed refugees eventually huddled so as to profit by the protection of its garrison, their range limited, scarcely any farming possible. It was most vexatious, since, if the original plan had been carried out, a force of about two hundred men might have been ample to protect Tahlequah. Harlan was beside himself with indignation and especially so when its own meagre resources exhausted, the brigade had to borrow from the produce intended for the subsistence of the refugees. The replenishment of supplies was something no one dared count upon with any certainty. There was nothing to be obtained south of Fort Scott; for the country intervening between that place and Fort Gibson was totally uncultivated. It had been devastated over and over again and was now practically denuded of everything upon which to support life. Moreover, it was infested with bushwhackers, who roamed hither and thither, raiding when they could, terrorizing, murdering. And then, not one of them but like unto them, there was Stand Watie, Cherokee chief of the Ridge faction, staunch Confederate, who, insatiably bent upon vengeance, harrowed the country right and left or lay in wait, with his secessionist tribesmen, for any chance supply train that might be wending its way towards Gibson.

      As the summer advanced, the wants of the restored refugees grew apace and proportionately their despair. So pitiable was their state, mentally and physically, with no prospect of amelioration that the most hard-hearted of the onlookers was moved to compassion. Rumors were afloat that they were to be sent back to Kansas, since military protection, poor as it was, might at any moment have to be withdrawn. Such a confession of failure was unavoidable under the circumstances. The situation was most perplexing. As late as June, Blunt was not able to furnish large enough escorts for supply trains, so depleted was his army, and recruits had to be sought for from among the refugees at Belmont. The turn in the tide came, fortunately, soon afterwards and Phillips received his long-lookedfor re-enforcements. Local conditions were not much improved, however, and stories about the necessity of forcing another exodus still continued to circulate. They had their foundation in fact and Coffin was in agreement with Phillips that return across the border might be advisable for the winter months. In southern Kansas, provisions were plentiful and cheap, while supply trains were a costly experiment and a provocation to the enemy.

      Superintendent Coffin expressed exasperation at the whole proceeding. "The contrariness and interference