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Chapter 8, Section 1
Divided Loyalties
Conflict is often brought on by different
beliefs, experiences, and values.
Conflicts between the North and South began to grow in the 1800s,
and few people seemed to agree on solutions to the problems.
The industrial Northern states wanted high tariffs;
the agricultural Southern states wanted low tariffs.
A tariff is a tax charged on an imported or an exported product.
Governments use tariffs to help products made in their own countries.
There were also differences on whether
federal or state authority should prevail.
This issue was known as States’ Rights.
The federal government thought there should be a uniformity of laws.
The state governments thought they should be able to pass any law
as long as it wasn’t unconstitutional.
By the 1850s, industry had replaced agriculture
in the North, and immigrants provided cheap labor.
More and more people left their farms and began to work in factories.
It was the main reason that slavery died out in the North.
Southern states believed that slavery was essential
to their economy and to their culture.
Northerners wanted to end slavery, but Southerners thought that
outsiders shouldn’t have the power to threaten their way of life.
When California applied for statehood in 1849,
it upset the balance of free and slave states.
The southern states threatened to secede, or break away from, the Union.
To gain the support of southern states
for the admission of “free” California,
Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850.
It required
all citizens
of all states
to help
recover
runaways.
But it also organized the
New Mexico and Utah
Territories without
mentioning slavery.
Many northerners
refused to obey
the Act and
continued to
help slaves
escape the South.
Abolitionists
were people
who believed
slavery was
wrong and
worked to
bring it
to an end.
The Underground Railroad was a secret
network to help slaves escape to Canada,
where slavery was illegal.
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin
added to Northern efforts to end slavery.
Although it was a work of fiction, it dramatized the harsh reality of slavery.
The Kansas-Nebraska Act provided for
popular sovereignty, or the right of the people
to decide the slavery issue for themselves.
Violence broke out between abolitionists and pro-slavery groups.
Kansas also tried to claim all lands south to the 36o30’ line,
but the Cherokee strongly objected. Kansas withdrew the claim.
But now there was a large rectangle of land between
Kansas, Colorado Territory, New Mexico Territory,
Texas, and the Cherokee Outlet.
It was called “No Man’s Land,” and became
part of Oklahoma Territory in 1890.
More fuel was added
to the slavery debate
by the Supreme Court
ruling in the Dred Scott case.
The court ruled slaves were
“beings of an
inferior order
(with) no rights which
white men were
bound to respect.”
It meant that Congress had no right to
prohibit slavery in the United States.
The presidential election of 1860 brought
the slavery crisis to a head.
The Democratic Party split, choosing both
a Northern and a Southern candidate.
A third group, the Constitutional Union Party,
further fractured the vote.
John C. Breckinridge (left),
Southern Democrat (20%)
[Pro-slavery]
Stephen Douglas (center),
Northern Democrat (30%)
[Popular sovereignty]
John Bell (right),
Constitutional Union (10%)
[Status quo]
The election of
the Republican
candidate
Abraham Lincoln,
a northerner
who favored
abolition,
caused several
slaves states
to secede.
Within a few weeks, South Carolina, Mississippi,
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas
all withdrew from the Union.
In all, 11 southern states formed a new country
called the Confederate States of America.
In April 1861,
the War Between
the States
broke out at
Fort Sumter,
near Charleston,
South Carolina.
Both sides
were confident
of a quick
victory.
Chapter 8, Section 2
Indian Territory
Joins the Confederacy
Jefferson Davis,
president of the
Confederacy,
was well aware that
Indian Territory
was rich in resources.
He had been part of
the Leavenworth
Expedition in 1834.
There were cattle herds for food,
lead deposits for ammunition,
plentiful supplies of salt,
and men for the Confederate Army.
When Arkansas
secessionists
took Ft. Smith and
cut off supplies to
the Oklahoma forts,
the Union troops
abandoned
Indian Territory
and marched
northward
into Kansas.
Many in the Five Tribes wanted to remain neutral,
or not take either side, in the Civil War.
But the withdrawal of federal troops left the Indians to fend for themselves.
Their choice was to join the Confederates or fight them on their own.
The Confederates chose Albert Pike as their
Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Pike, along with
the military commander
of Indian Territory,
Brigadier General
Ben McCulloch,
was sent to
persuade the Natives
to join them in their
fight against the North.
Albert Pike
Pike was an Arkansas lawyer
who was well-liked by the Five Tribes.
The aging John Ross refused to join the Confederates.
He thought the war would destroy his people.
Pike continued his mission,
signing treaties with
factions of the Creek,
Chickasaw, and Choctaw.
The Seminole, Osage, and others also joined.
Most of the treaties allowed the
Confederacy take over guardianship
of the tribes and to be responsible
for all obligations to the Indians.
Realizing the Cherokee were standing alone,
Ross reluctantly signed too.
The first Native American fighting regiment
was the Cherokee Mounted Rifles.
The military leader
of the Cherokee
was Stand Watie,
the last survivor of
the Ridge faction,
who had signed
away Cherokee
lands in Georgia.
Other Native regiments
quickly organized.
Col. Douglas Cooper of Texas
formed the Choctaw and
Chickasaw Mounted Rifles.
The Confederacy built only two outposts in the I.T.
The first, called Fort Davis, was near Muskogee .
Named for the Rebel President, they were forced to move it after just five months.
It was re-established as Fort McCulloch, on the Blue River south of Boggy Depot.
Its new name honored the Territory’s military commander.
Pike’s mission through Indian Territory
had reopened old wounds.
Indians who
supported
the Union
now felt
overpowered
by those who
favored the
Confederacy.
The Upper and Lower Creek
were divided before removal,
and the War would
divide them further.
The Upper Creek
who supported the Union
were led by an
elderly chief named
Opothleyahola.
To avoid a
confrontation with
Douglas Cooper’s
Confederate troops,
he tried to lead his
tribe and more than
6,500 others north
toward Kansas, which
was a Union state.
Though pictured here as a young man,
Opothleyahola was 81 years old
when he led the exodus to Kansas.
Confederate forces attacked the Loyal Creek at
the Battle of Round Mountain in November 1861.
The two sides battled to a draw, and the Indians escaped.
But the weather turned bitterly cold, and supplies dwindled.
The Southern troops attacked again at
Chusto Talasah, just north of Tulsa.
Once again, the skirmish ended in a stalemate.
The encounter is also known as the Battle of Caving Banks.
A final attack at Chustenahlah scattered the natives.
The dead were left behind and the wounded now faced a blizzard.
The refugees, many hungry and barefoot, continued north toward Kansas.
Opothleyahola survived, but never recovered. He died two years later.
The Confederates won most of
the battles in the War’s first year.
One of the Union’s biggest wins
would affect Indian Territory.
In March 1862, Union General Samuel Curtis
won the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas.
The Confederate Army greatly outnumbered the Union’s, but they
sustained devastating casualties, including General McCulloch.
In the summer of 2014, I visited Elkhorn Tavern,
the site of The Battle of Pea Ridge.
The loss at Pea Ridge weakened the Confederacy.
It kept Missouri from seceding and allowed
the Union to re-enter Indian Territory.
Union General James Blunt
took command of troops
in Kansas and Arkansas,
and formed the
Indian Expedition to
retake Oklahoma.
Col. William Weer’s soldiers
won the Battle of Locust Grove
and took control of
Fort Gibson and Tahlequah.
They were welcomed by Chief John Ross,
who was taken into protective custody.
The Union troops then withdrew to Kansas.
On Jan. 1, 1863,
President Lincoln
issued the
Emancipation
Proclamation,
which freed
the slaves in the
Confederate states.
Although it didn’t apply
to Indian Territory,
thousands of
African Americans
now joined the fight
against the South.
The
First Kansas
Colored Infantry
and the
11th Regiment
United States
Colored Troops
from Arkansas
were organized
to fight the
Confederates
in Indian
Territory.
Meanwhile, at the Cowskin Prairie Council in 1863,
the Cherokee withdrew from the Confederacy,
declared Stand Watie and his men outlaws,
abolished slavery, and re-elected John Ross.
Kansas created a new unit of Native American
soldiers called the Indian Home Guards.
On July 2, 1863,
the First Kansas
Colored Infantry,
two Union units,
and the Home Guards
set out to escort a
supply caravan
to Fort Gibson.
As they approached Cabin Creek,
Stand Watie and his soldiers
were waiting to ambush them.
The Battle of Cabin Creek was the first military
engagement of the Civil War in which black,
white, and Indian troops fought side by side.
Watie’s soldiers retreated and the supplies were delivered.
The morning of July 17, 1863 dawned
with a summer rain in Indian Territory.
Union troops were tired
and hungry, but were
encouraged by news of
great Union victories
two weeks before
at Gettysburg
in Pennsylvania,
and at Vicksburg, on
the Mississippi River.
Texas forces under General Douglas Cooper and
Ft. Smith troops under General William Cabell
were given orders to attack Fort Gibson.
Gen. Douglas Cooper
Gen. William Cabell
General Blunt
decided to
attack first,
before Cooper
and Cabell
could join up.
The Union’s
3,000 soldiers
would face
more than 6,000
Confederates.
The Battle of Honey Springs was the largest,
bloodiest, and most decisive in Indian Territory.
After the Union victory, Blunt said of The First Kansas Colored Infantry,
“In the hottest of the fight, they never once faltered…
Too much praise can not be awarded them for their gallantry.”
After the war, Gen. William Cabell became
a lawyer and later, Mayor of Dallas, Texas.
In 1856, he had married
Harriet Amanda Rector.
Her father, and Indian agent, nicknamed
her “Shingo,” meaning “Singing Bird.”
Their son, John Cabell,
married Phoebe Lee,
and their daughter was
Shingo Marie Cabell.
Shingo Marie Cabell was my grandmother.
Gen. Blunt decided to defeat the Confederates
in Indian Territory once and for all.
He routed them in the Battle of Perryville,
then burned the town to the ground.
Perryville was located on The Texas Road near present-day McAlester.
After 1863, the only activity in Indian Territory
was guerrilla warfare, or small military groups
that attack and annoy the enemy.
The most successful guerrillas were led by Colonel William Quantrill,
a Confederate raider based in Kansas. One of his men was Jesse James.
Neither the North or the South could have
anticipated the number of Native refugees.
Thousands on both sides tried to avoid further conflict
by heading north into Kansas or south into Texas.
On April 9, 1865, the South surrendered at
Appomattox Court House, a town in Virginia.
Indian leaders met at Council Grove to offer
a peace plan to the Union, but it was ignored.
The last Confederate General to surrender was
Stand Watie, on June 23, 1865, at Doaksville.
Indian Territory
had been devastated.
Thousands were dead.
Livestock, fields,
and homes were
completely destroyed.
Once again, Indians
had to find a way
to rebuild their lives.