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The Spread of Freemasonry Among the American Indians of the United States
by Dr. Patrick Neal Minges

On January 20, 1791, a curious assembly of Americans appeared before thebrethren
of the Prince of Wales Lodge #259 in London, England. The minutes of theLodge
recorded the event: William Augustus Bowles, a Chief of the Creek Nation, whose
love of Masonryhas induced him to wish it may be introduced into the interior
part of America,whereby the cause of humanity and brotherly love will go hand in
hand with thenative courage of the Indians, and by the union lead them on to the
highest titlethat can be conferred on man, to be both good and great, was
proposed by theRight Worshipful Master, with the Approbation of the Prince to be
admitted anHonorary Member of this Lodge. He was seconded by the Secretary, and
receivedthe unanimous applause of the whole Lodge.1 Though Bowles was not
actually an American Indian, he was considered among theChiefs of the Creek
Nation by the Indians themselves and was also appointed by theGrand Lodge of
England to the "provincial grand master of the Creek, Cherokee,Chickasaw, and
Choctaw Indians." 2 Bowles was accompanied by three Cherokee and twoCreek
headman and it is reported that they visited the Grand Lodge of England as well
asseveral other lodges. Though Bowles and his associates were "lionized by
London society in 1791," heand his associates were neither first Native American
Freemasons nor even the firstIndian Freemasons to visit England. That honor
belongs to Joseph Brant(Thayendanegea), the principal War Chief of the Mohawk
Nation who also translated the 1 William R Denslow, Freemasonry and the American
Indian (St Louis: Missouri Lodge of Research, 1956, 125. 2 Denslow, 58.

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Gospel of Mark and the Book of Common Prayer into his language. He received
hisdegrees in Hiram's Cliftonian Lodge No. 417 at some point before the onset of
theRevolutionary War. When he sailed to England in 1776, Brant was presented to
the court,wined and dined at the expense of the government, and had his picture
painted by one ofthe outstanding artists of England. The British government, who
sought to bestowdegrees and Masonic titles as a means of soliciting support
among influential colonistspulled out all stops for Brant; it is given on good
authority that Brant received hisMasonic apron at the hands of King George the
Third. 3 The British appeal worked perfectly. Brant spent much of his time
trying to amassthe support of his people, but many natives resented his fidelity
to the British Crown. Infact, revisionists often hold Brant accountable for
dividing his people and destroying theLeague of Six Nations. While nations such
as the Mohawks and the Seneca sided withBritain; the Oneida and the Tuscarora
supported the Americans throughout most of theRevolutionary period. 4 Even
though he sided with the British, his loyalties were neverunclear; on several
occasions, Brant spared the lives of fellow Freemasons and yetenemies when at
the point of despair, they presented "the great mystic appeal to a Masonin the
hour of danger." 5 In case it has missed your grasp, we appear to have plunged
right into the deepwith respect to the spread of Freemasonry among American
Indians; that is with intent.We are not addressing "Indian Masonry." There have
been numerous treatises written the 3 Denslow, 101-102.4 History Television
[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation], "Joseph Brant"
[http://www.historytelevision.ca/chiefs/htmlen/mohawk/sp_brant.asp] (Accessed
September 13, 2003) 5 Sidney Hayden, in Cornelius Moore, Leaflets of Masonic
Biography, (n.p., 1863), 27.

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attempt to find relationships between the philosophies and practices of the
indigenouspeoples and their corresponding principles and practices within
Freemasonry. There havealso been quite a few discussions of how travelers to the
Western Frontier encounterednative peoples who hailed them with the signs and
symbols of the brotherhood. Equallyso, many persons have found affinities
between Indian "secret societies" and "fraternalorders" and those of
Freemasonry; even the great Arthur C. Parker, himself a Freemason,stated that:
The Masonry of the Indians as philosophers dealing with moral truths grew out
oftheir experiences with nature and the actions of humankind. The wise men of
thetribes knew that a band of men pledged to uphold morality and to enact
rituals itsadvantage would constitute a dynamic influence.6 However, in his work
Indian Masonry, Robert Wright comes to the following conclusion: There us no
Indian Masonry in that small and narrow sense which most of us thinkof; that is
one who pays lodge dues, wears an apron like ours gives signs so nearlylike ours
that we find him perforce a Mason in any degree or degrees we know,and which
degrees we are prone to watch, just as we do a procession of historicalfloats,
which casually interest us, and maybe a little more so if we can but secure
aplace at the head of the procession, the true meaning of which we have but a
faintidea about. This makes our own Masonry as meaningless as the interpretation
ofIndian signs by an --deleted-- trapper. 7 What we are addressing is the spread of
Freemasonry among those persons ofAmerican Indian heritage and brought up within
the culture and traditions of theindigenous peoples of the Americas in general
and the United States in particular. It isquite important to stress at this
point that there is no such thing as an "American Indian"in the generic sense in
which they have easily definable common traits and characteristicsany more than
we can state that the Irish, the German, and Italian have the same. Thenative
peoples of the Americas had thousands of mutually unintelligible languages and 6
Arthur C. Parker, American Indian Freemasonry (Buffalo, Buffalo Consistory, A.
A. S. R. N. M. J. U. S. A., 1919), 36p. 7 Robert Wright, Indian Masonry. Ayer
Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL., 1905.

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distinct social, political, and cultural practices that defined and often set
themselves inopposition to other indigenous persons in the midst and from afar.
Today there are about500 American Indian peoples, each with its own language and
cultural traditions rootedin their historical experience with their surrounding
environment, the creatures thatinhabit it, and whatever divine force they
believe made it all possible.Why would persons of Native American descent wish
to become associated withthe philosophical traditions and ritual practices of
Freemasonry? To me, there is a verysimple answer -- for the very same reasons
that every other person who has chosen tobecome affiliated with the craft. I
will no more attempt to articulate these reasons for youthat I would ask you to
expose the inner workings of your own heart and soul to a curiousand
exploratory, but often --deleted--, interloper. What is important is that
countlessAmerican Indians across history have chosen to become Freemasons and
continue to doso even unto this very day. They are our brothers in every sense
of the word and whateverpolitical, religious, and even cultural differences that
they express from us are eclipsed bythe three great lights of our brotherhood.
There can be but one simple answer to thisquestion as to why Native Americans
join our brotherhood… "so to act, that the principle of his actions may be
exalted to a law of nature; to actin that manner only in which he thinks that He
who has given to nature itsimmutable laws, would have compelled him to act, had
He chosen to introducecompulsion into the realm of mind, in order to realize his
design."8 That they have done so is indisputable. Some of the most important
leaders of thevarious nations that make up our indigenous peoples have chosen to
become a part ofFreemasonry. Tecumseh, a Shawnee prophet who reportedly "was
made a Mason whileon a visit to Philadelphia," was the leader of a Pan-Indian
movement in the eighteenthcentury. Alexander McGillivray, a mixed blood leader
of the Muskogee, and LouisAnnance, of the Alnombak people of the Abenaki Nation,
were skilled political leaders.Red Jacket, famous orator of the Seneca and
leader of the traditionalist resistance amongthe Iroquois, was a Freemason. His
nephew, General Ely S. Parker, was General U.S.Grant's Adjutant and drew up the
conditions of surrender at Appomattox. He went on to 8 The Masonic Monthly, "The
Lesson Taught By The Three Great Lights"
[http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/three_great_lights.htm] (Accessed September 13,
2003).

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be the First American Indian Commissioner of Indian Affairs under Grant. Leaders
onboth sides of the Civil War in the Indian Territory including John Ross,
Opothle Yahola,Elias Boudinot, John Jumper, Peter Pitchlyn, Stand Watie, the
last Confederate general tosurrender. Coming forward into history, we find
Carlos Montezuma, doctor andspokesman for the Yavapai Indian; Arthur C. Parker,
Scientist, Scholar and LiteraryFigure from the Seneca Nation; Philip DeLoria,
Sioux leader and Episcopal Priest; andlast but certainly not least Will Rogers,
American humorist and philanthropist. 9 Thoughmany of these names may not be
familiar to you, they can be considered among theilluminati of the First Nations
of the United States.The story of the first American Indian Freemasonic lodges
has yet anotherinteresting aspect. J. Fred Latham, in The Story of Oklahoma
Masonry, reports that notonly were Native "chiefs" made Masons in the East, but
that because both the NativeAmerican leaders and the military officers who
removed them during the "Trail of Tears"were Masons, it made the process of
removal "more orderly." 10 General Winfield Scott, aFreemason, who presided over
the removal of the Cherokee, gave explicit orders topursue this distasteful
activity with civility, "Every possible kindness...must therefore beshown by the
troops, and if, in the ranks, a despicable individual should be found capableof
inflicting a wanton injury or insult on any Cherokee man, woman, or child, it is
herebymade the special duty of the nearest good officer or man, instantly to
interpose, and toseize and consign the guilty wretch to the severest penalty of
the laws. 11 When asked bythe leaders of the Cherokee Nation to postpone removal
because of drought and sicknessamong the Cherokee, General Scott again showed
compassion for his fraternal brothers.Negotiating with General Scott was Chief
John Ross, a Master Mason in good standingwith the Olive Branch Lodge of the
Free and Accepted Masons in Jasper, Tennessee. 12 9 Patrick Minges, "Famous
Native American Freemasons" [http://www.people.virginia.edu/~pnm3r/freemasons/]
(Accessed September 13, 2003). 10 Latham, 2.11 Winfield Scott quoted in Grace
Steele Woodward, The Cherokees (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963),
204. 12 Woodward, 214.

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Finally, when it appeared that his troops could not handle the process of
removalas well as the Cherokee themselves, Scott agreed to a plea from Chief
John Ross to allowthe Cherokee to manage removal themselves. When Andrew
Jackson, Former GrandMaster of the Grand Lodge of Tennessee, heard of Scott's
brotherly relief, he wrote, "Iam so feeble I can scarcely wield my pen, but
friendship dictates it and the subject excitesme. Why is it that the scamp Ross
is not banished from the notice of thisadministration?" 13 Upon arrival in the
new territory, former members of the Freemasonic lodgesfrom the East began to
organize the craft in their new home. J. Fred Latham describesthis particular
phenomenon in The Story of Oklahoma Masonry: The history of the Indian
Territory, and indeed that of Freemasonry in the presentstate of Oklahoma, is so
closely interwoven with that of the Five Civilized Tribes itwould be difficult
-- almost impossible -- and entirely undesirable to attempt toseparate them. 14
A number of the ministers, merchants and military personnel were members ofthe
craft. Along with the many Indians inducted into the craft, they began to
havemeetings throughout the Indian Territory. These meetings moved from very
informalsocial groupings into fellowship meetings where Masons met and enjoyed
fraternaldiscussions. Applications for authority to organize lodges in several
places were made,but urgent domestic problems prevented the satisfactory
organization of lodges.According to J. Fred Latham, members of the craft took an
active part in the stabilizationof the community through the organization of law
enforcement and through their activityin the political affairs of the Five
Nations. 15 In 1848, a group of Cherokee Freemasons made application to Grand
Master R.H.Pulliam of the Grand Lodge of Arkansas and were granted a
dispensation to formulate a"blue lodge" in the Cherokee capital 16 Brother
George Moser, Secretary and Historian of 13 John P. Brown, Old Frontiers
(Kingsport: Tennessee, 1938), 511.14 J. Fred Latham, The Story of Oklahoma
Masonry (Oklahoma City: Grand Lodge of Oklahoma, 1957), 8.15 Latham, 5. 16
Albert Mackey describes a "blue lodge" as: "A symbolic Lodge, in which the first
three degrees are conferred, is so called from the color of its decorations." A
"blue lodge" is the common determination for

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the Cherokee lodge presents the information as follows, "Facts as taken from
theproceedings of the Grand Lodge Free and Accepted Masons of Arkansas show that
theCommittee on Charters and Dispensations did, on November 7, 1848 at the hour
of 9:00a.m., recommend that a charter be granted to `Cherokee Lodge' at
Tahlequah, CherokeeNation, and that it be given the number `21'". 17 The
officers were sworn in at SupremeCourt Headquarters on Keetoowah Street on July
12, 1849; it was the first lodge of IndianFreemasons established in the United
States. 18 In 1852, the Cherokee National Council donated several lots in
Tahlequah to beused jointly by the Masonic Lodge and the Sons of Temperance for
the construction of abuilding to house their respective organizations. The
building was erected in 1853, andowned jointly by the two organizations; the
Sons of Temperance 19 occupied the firstfloor and Cherokee Lodge #21 occupied
the second floor. The lodge building was usedfor a number of community services,
including lodge meetings, temperance meetings,educational instruction, and
church meetings; later, because of the noise, bothorganizations used the upper
floor, leaving the lower floor for church services and publicmeetings. 20
Freemasonry flourished among the Native Americans in Indian Territory,
leadingthe Grand Master of Arkansas to comment upon his "red brethren" in 1855:
this lodge as opposed to lodges that grant higher degrees such as the Scottish
Rites or York Rites. (Mackey,120) 17 George Moser, quoted in Latham, 6.18 T.L.
Ballenger, History of Cherokee Lodge #10, T.L. Ballenger Papers, Ayer
Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL., 5; J. Fred Latham, The Story of
Oklahoma Masonry (Oklahoma City: Grand Lodgeof Oklahoma, 1978) 5- 8. 19 The Sons
of Temperance modeled its constitution on those of the Freemasons and Odd
Fellows and based their organization around simple initiation rituals. As time
progressed, the Sons of Temperance andorganizations such as it developed
increasingly complicated rituals even further aligned with those of
theFreemasons. (Carnes, 8) 20 Ballenger, 6. It is important to note that the
Cherokee Indian Baptist Association, consisting of six "colored churches" held
its first organizational meeting in the Cherokee Masonic Lodge in 1870.
[J.M.Gaskins, History of Black Baptists in Oklahoma (Oklahoma City: Messenger
Press, 1992), 118)]

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All over the length and breadth of our state the (Masonic) Order is
flourishing,and amongst our red Brethren, in the Indian Territory, it is taking
deep hold, andnow embraces a goodly number of Lodges and Brethren. The members
of theseLodges compare very favorably with their pale-face neighbors. In fact,
it isreported of them that they exemplify practically the Masonic teachings and
ritualby living in the constant discharge of those charities and moral virtues
so forciblyinculcated in our lectures, thereby demonstrating to all that Masonry
is not onlyspeculative, but that it is a living practical reality; of great
utility to the humanrace, and of eminent service to a social community. 21
Freemasonry was indeed "taking deep hold." From the very first lodge formed
among theCherokee in Tahlequah, the brotherhood had spread among missionaries,
merchants, andNative Americans throughout Indian Territory. Reverend John
Bertholf, member ofCherokee Lodge #21, relocated to the Creek Nation and was
appointed Superintendent ofthe Asbury Mission in Eufaula in 1859. George Butler,
government agent and juniorwarden of Cherokee Lodge #21, became one of the
charter members of the military baselodge at Fort Gibson Lodge #35. Doaksville
Lodge #52 was organized in the ChoctawNation and led by Chief Peter Pitchlyn,
Sam Garvin, Basil Laflore, plantation ownerRobert Jones, and also American Board
missionary Cyrus Kingsbury. Walter Scott Adair,Worshipful Master of Cherokee
Lodge #21, left Lodge #21 to organize Flint Lodge #74near the Baptist Mission
deep in Keetoowah country in the southeastern corner of theCherokee Nation.
Joseph Coodey, nephew of John Ross and Junior Warden of Cherokee Lodge
#21,resettled in the Creek Nation at North Fork Town near Eufala. 22 In the
Creek Nation,Benjamin Marshall, George Stidham, and Samuel Checote, all
affiliates of the AsburyMission, formed Muscogee Lodge #93 at the Creek Agency
near the border of theCherokee Nation. One of the early members of Muscogee
Lodge #93 was a prominent 21 Ballenger, 5.22 G.W. Grayson, A Creek Warrior for
the Confederacy: The Autobiography of Chief G.W. Grayson, W. David Biard, ed.
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 127.

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traditional leader (and relative of Asi Yahola, i.e., Osceola ) 23 by the name
of OpothleYahola. 24 When the winds of the Civil War hit the Indian Territory,
it sent a bitter chillthrough the lodges. In 1855 Brother John Ross, the Chief
of the Cherokee Nation,discovered the emergence of "a secret society organized
in Delaware and SalineDistricts" dedicated to the promotion of slavery and the
removal of abolitionist interestsfrom the Cherokee Nation. 25 According to Ross,
at the core of this "sinister plot" were so-called "Blue Lodges" established in
the Indian Territory by officials from Arkansas. 26 Many of the pro-slavery
factions in the Cherokee Nation had ties to Arkansas and it wasbelieved by Ross
that these elements were using the "Blue Lodges" associated with theArkansas
Grand Lodge to "create excitement and strife among the Cherokee people." 27 The
"Blue Lodges" were so closely affiliated with the Southern Methodist church
thatsome considered them to be the spiritual arm of the organization, "The
[Southern]Methodists take slavery by the hand, encourage it, speak in its favor,
and brand all thosewho oppose it with opprobrious epithets. As they support
slavery, of course slaverysupports them." 28 23 Asi Yahola (Osceola) was a
prominent leader of the African American/ Seminole resistance movement in
Florida. He was married to an African American runaway slave. Some reporters
state the cause of theSecond Seminole War was the seizure of Osceola's African
wife by merchants who sought to sell her backinto slavery. Osceola was finally
murdered following treachery by federal authorities. In a practice whichhas
become common among Florida authorities, his brain was "donated to science" and
kept on a shelve formany years. 24 Denslow, 70-75. For information on Opothle
Yahola, see John Bartlett Meserve, "Chief Opothleyahola" Chronicles of Oklahoma
10 (Winter, 1931): 439-452; Clee Woods, "Oklahoma's Great Opothle Yahola"North
South Trader 4, (January-February): 22-36; Mrs. Clement Clay, "Recollections of
Opothleyahola"Arrow Points 4 (February 1922): 35-36. 25 John Ross to Evan Jones,
May 5, 1855, "Correspondence of Missionaries to Native Americans, [microform],
1825-1865," American Baptist Historical Society, Rochester, N.Y. 26 I use the
term "Blue Lodges" because that is what most of the scholars, including
McLoughlin and Mooney use to describe these lodges. However, the fact that Ross
was a Freemason meant that heunderstood the term "Blue Lodge" quite well and
would not have used it unadvisedly. In all probability,these "Blue Lodges" were
Freemasonic lodges tied to the Grand Lodge of Arkansas. 27 John Ross to Evan
Jones, May 5, 1855, "Correspondence of Missionaries to Native Americans,
[microform], 1825-1865," American Baptist Historical Society, Rochester, N.Y. 28
John B. Jones, July 12, 1858, "Correspondence of Missionaries to Native
Americans, [microform], 1825- 1865," American Baptist Historical Society,
Rochester, N.Y.

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History records the "Blue Lodges" as being the seat of the pro-slavery
movement,but this appears to be an inaccuracy rooted in a too-convenient
association of the "BlueLodges" with the pro-slavery movement. It is easy to see
from the membership roll ofCherokee Lodge #21 that there were also members of
the Ross Party who belonged tothese so-called "Blue Lodges." It seems that there
was a split within the Freemasoniclodges within Indian Territory along the lines
of party affiliation related to the efforts ofthe Grand Lodge of Arkansas to use
the lodges to promote the issue of "SouthernRights." 29 Some members of the
lodges were opposed to the efforts of the ArkansasGrand Lodge, as revealed in a
later discussion by Lodge historian T. L. Ballenger:There seems to have
developed some misunderstanding between themother Lodge and Cherokee Lodge at
that time, the exact nature of whichthe records fail to reveal: possibly it was
a coolness that had grown out ofdifferent attitudes toward the war. The
Cherokees were divided, some ofthem fighting for the North and some for the
South. It happened that theleading members of the Lodge sympathized with the
North. 30 As a result of the split within the lodges within Indian Territory or
perhapsprecipitating the split, some of the members of the "Blue Lodges" became
associated witha secessionist secret society by the name of the "Knights of the
Golden Circle." Othermembers of the "Blue Lodges" within the Indian Territory
became associated with atraditionalist secret society in the Cherokee Nation
entitled the Keetoowah Society.Throughout the duration of the Civil War, these
two competing "secret societies" foughttooth and nail for the fate of the Indian
territory and the bitter struggle between these two 29 This opinion is supported
by evidence that the Grand Lodge of Arkansas refused to recognize the charters
of many of the lodges in Indian Territory following the cessation of the Civil
War. In addition, theGrand Lodge of Arkansas considered many of the charters
"forfeited" and would only grant the lodges newcharters if the were reorganized
under a different name. Cherokee Lodge #21 became Cherokee Lodge #10when it was
reorganized after repeated attempts for recognition in 1877. Fort Gibson Lodge #
35 becameAlpha Lodge #12 in 1878. Flint Lodge #74 became Flint Lodge # 11 in
1876.(Starr, 185). Muskogee Lodge#93 and Choctaw Lodge #52 also forfeited their
charter following the Civil War. The Grand Lodge whichrefused the recognition
was led by J.S. Murrow, the "Father of Oklahoma Masonry," a Baptist ministerwho
was a Confederate States Indian Agent during the Civil War. (Latham,10; West,
103) 30 T.L. Ballenger, History of Cherokee Lodge #10, T.L. Ballenger Papers,
Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago, IL., 12; "Pin Indians" in Robert
Wright, Indian Masonry, (n.p., 1905) Ayer Collection,Newberry Library, Chicago,
IL., 105.

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groups was carried out with a ferocity that left not even innocent persons
unharmed. Theeffect upon the Indian Territory was devastating:The events of the
war brought to them more of the desolation and ruinthan perhaps to any other
community. Raided and sacked alternately, notonly by Confederate and Union
forces, but also by the vindictive ferocityand hate of their own factional
divisions, their country became ablackened and desolate waste. Driven from
comfortable homes, exposedto want, misery, and the elements, they perished like
sheep in asnowstorm. Their houses, fences, and other improvements were
burned,their orchards destroyed, their flocks and herds were slaughtered or
drivenoff, their schools broken up, their schoolhouses given to the flames,
andtheir churches and public buildings subjected to a similar fate; and
thatentire portion of their country which had been occupied by theirsettlements
was distinguishable from the virgin prairie only by thescorched and blackened
chimneys and the plowed but now neglectedfields. 31 When the war was over and
nations such as the Cherokee needed healing, theyelected Bro. William Potter
Ross to be the new Principal Chief of the Reunified nation.One of the founding
members of Cherokee Lodge #21, he was to go on to become theWorshipful Master of
the lodge in 1851 -- a time before the lodge would split over theissues that
ultimately led to the Civil War. In addition, William P. Ross had been theleader
of the reconciliation of the Cherokee Nation following the Treaty of 1846:He
(Ross) and the other headmen of the Cherokee nation were at thecapital to
arrange a treaty made necessary by the late enforced removal oftheir tribe from
Georgia to the Indian Territory. These headmen werearrayed in two hostile
factions, and the negotiations were at a standstill.But at one of the meetings
of Federal Lodge (Federal Lodge #1,Washington, D.C.), the rival leaders, all
Freemasons, were broughttogether by the exertions of Worshipful Master S. Yorke
and othermembers, and the treaty was successfully completed. 32 31 Charles
Royce, "Cherokee Nation," Fifth Annual Report (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian
Institution, Bureau of Ethnology, n.d.), 376. 32 "History of Federal Lodge #1,"
quoted in Denslow, 183. William Potter Ross was raised to the Third Degree on
April 25, 1848 in Federal Lodge #1 in Washington, D.C. [Denslow, 183].

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In spite of their political, social, and party differences, one of the key
elements that hadbrought together the disparate elements of Cherokee Society had
been the interest in andpromotion of brotherhood by the Freemasonic lodges in
the Cherokee Nation. Ross usedthis background to his advantage. Many of the
leaders of the Keetoowah Society and theKnights of the Golden Circle were former
Freemasons in the lodges of the IndianTerritory. Many of the government agents,
military officials, religious authorities, andinfluential citizens of the Indian
Territory were also Freemasons. That William P. Rosswas a power broker and a
conciliatory force in the Cherokee Nation under the auspices ofthe Freemasonic
brotherhood is a factor that cannot be ignored. 33 However, Freemasonry among
Native Americans is not just an historicphenomenon. In Oklahoma today, there are
Freemasonic lodges in nearly every IndianNation; the Order of the Eastern Star
is also quite popular. The Oklahoma Indian Degreeteam is perhaps the most
well-traveled of group of Freemasons in the United States; theytour the nation
constantly and sometimes internationally. Dressed in the full regalia oftheir
American Indian heritage, they raise Masons to the third degree in our ancient
andesoteric ritual.The Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team was organized in 1948
after thedeath of Brother Will Rogers. The team currently consists of 15 active
members, 11 ofwhich are Past Masters. Nine recognized tribes are represented:
Apache, Cherokee,Choctaw, Creek, Oneida, Osage, Ottawa, Seminole, and Sycamore.
States visited include:Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado,
Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, 33 William R. Denslow, in his work
Freemasonry and the American Indian, describes Ross's influence, "In later
years, passions broke all bounds and some of the darkest pages of Cherokee
history were written. Inretrospect, the influence and principles of Freemasonry
can be seen as the greatest healer of these oldwounds within the Cherokee
family. This fact is emphasized by the thought of Chief William P.
Ross,presiding in the East over a Cherokee lodge, while the men around the altar
would have thought it apatriotic duty to slay him only a short time before. The
roster of the Cherokee lodge is a revelation to thestudent of the times, and, if
it were not for its undisputed authority, it would hardly be believed in
thisgeneration." (Denslow, 69).

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Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Massachuetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Hampshire,
NewJersey, New Mexico, New York and Texas. Oklahoma lodges represented are:
BrokenArrow #423, Cherokee #10, Delta #425, Daylight #542, Dustin #336, Ottawa
#492,Sapulpa #170 and Skiatook #416. One of the most interesting of all groups
of Indian Freemasons is the AkdarShrine Indian Dance Unit of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Its members come from diverse nationssuch as the Cherokee, Navajo, Quapaw,
Creek, Shawnee, Apache, and Kiowa. Whatunites these men of divergent nations are
two things – their love of Freemasonry and theirlove of traditional forms of
dance. They regularly perform traditional dances at specialevents, pow-wows, and
shrine circuses in Oklahoma and throughout the Southwest andMidwest. The Akdar
Indians, being the only all-Native American unit in Shrinedom, notonly share a
common heritage, but also share a common bond with their fellow Nobleseverywhere
— to help spread the word about the free medical care offered by
ShrinersHospitals for Children. More than 40 years ago, in 1954, the unit was
established as the Akdar IndianPatrol with about 20 members; today, Akdar
Indians' 50 members represent six ShrineTemples and 20 Tribes from North
America. Representatives of the five civilized tribesof Oklahoma — Cherokee,
Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole — along with theComanche and Apache
Indians, make up the majority of unit members. According toBill Tyndall, an
Omaha Indian from Akdar Temple, a recent change in the unit's by-lawsallows
Nobles from any Shrine Temple to join, as long as they are Native Americans. Not
only do they participate in many of the Temple's fund-raising activities
forShriner's Hospitals, but they also raise money by hosting an annual Indian
dinner withNative American food, and an arts and crafts show. They put on
educational dances,explaining the types of dances and the clothing worn by each
dancer.

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Throughout the year, members perform for the general public and for
variousShrine functions. Their most enjoyable performances, according to
Tyndall, are the onesheld at the Shriner's Hospitals. "It's there that we get to
see first-hand what our hospitalsare all about and we can give the kids an
up-close look at real Indians and the costumesthat they wear," he explained. A
unique aspect of the Akdar Indians is that the Nobles are often joined by
theirfamily members — women and children — when they perform some of their
traditionaldances, especially at the Shriner's Hospitals. One of the members has
commented thatone of the greatest benefits of being in the unit is being able to
help children whileeducating others about his culture. "We love to promote
Native American culture," heremarked. "The non-Indian sees us as we are shown on
TV. But what we are trying to dois educate people about what we do and what we
are about." That is, of course, inaddition to informing the public that
Shriner's Hospitals provide free medical care tochildren in need. As we meet
together here today in Columbus on this January day some twohundred plus years
after Brother Bowles and his collected Indians met before theirastonished
British brethren, another collection of Americans is again meeting a body
ofastonished British brethren. Next Monday, the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree
Teamwill performing demonstrations at the Surrey Secretaries' Golden Jubilee
Lodge No. 9764meeting at Surbiton and at a special meeting to be held at Croydon
in the Province ofSurrey England on Tuesday 27th January 2004. Just as their
brothers some two hundredyears ago welcomed these unusual brethren from across
the seas, these modern daytravelers will be equally greeted. Rest assured that
the more we learn about Native Americans and theirinvolvement in Freemasonry,
the more that we learn that their interests, inclinations, andexcitement about
the craft spurs from the same quest for wisdom and enlightenment thatdwells
within us all. Though it easy enough to put upon fanciful notions about
secretsigns, secret societies, and the incorporation of "pagan" rituals and
symbols into theancient and accepted order, nothing could be further than the
truth. Such creations have

Page 15

always been the practices of small minds and have often been the bane of the
existence ofreasonable and intelligent practitioners of all of the higher orders
of religion andphilosophy. The world will be a better place when we put myths
such as these to rest.

Excerpts from Are you Kituwah's son? Cherokee Nationalism and the Civil War
By Patrick Minges
http://www.us-data.org/us/minges/keetoo1.html

"...the even more troublesome issue of "Southern Rights" arose within the
Cherokee Nation. John Ross and the leadership of the Cherokee Nation struggled
to maintain a position of neutrality, which was exceedingly difficult
considering the location of the Cherokee Nation deep within the South and the
proximity of "bleeding Kansas." However, in 1854 the Ross party lost votes to an
increasingly hard-line Southern-Rights party that believed an alliance with
white southerners in the defense of slavery would be the best course for the
nation. The pro slavery Southern Rights party was largely composed of those
pro-assimilationist "Treaty Party" members who represented the elite ten-percent
of the Nation. [43]

In 1855, Chief John Ross discovered the emergence of "a secret society organized
in Delaware and Saline Districts" dedicated to the promotion of slavery and the
removal of abolitionist interests from the Cherokee Nation. [44] Forming the
core of this "sinister plot" were members of the so-called "Blue Lodges"
(Freemasons) that had been organized by the Grand Lodge of Arkansas. The Grand
Lodge of Arkansas was being used effectively in the promotion of the
pro-Southern effort in Kansas and Oklahoma from Arkansas. [45] Many of the
pro-slavery factions in the Cherokee Nation had ties to Arkansas. John Ross, a
Freemason himself, believed that these elements were spreading the pro-southern
message among the "Blue Lodges" within the Cherokee Nation.

Some of the members of the "Blue Lodges" later formed the "Knights of the Golden
Circle," an organization that functioned somewhere in the blurred regions
between Freemasonry and the Ku Klux Klan. [46] The Constitution of the Knights
of the Golden Circle, as chartered on August 28, 1860 states:

"We, a part of the people of the Cherokee Nation, in order to form a more
perfect union and protect ourselves and property against the works of
Abolitionists do establish this Constitution for the government of the Knights
of the Golden Circle in this Nation...

"No person shall become a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle in the
Cherokee Nation who is not a pro-slavery man...

The Captain, or in case of his refusal, then the Lieutenant has the power to
compell each and every member of their encampments to turn out and assist in
capturing and punishing any and all abolitionists in their minds who are
interfering with slavery....

You do solemnly swear that you will keep all the secrets of this order and that
you will, to the best of your abilities protect and defend the interests of the
Knights of the Golden Circle in this Nation, so help you God." [47]




The leader of the Knights of the Golden Circle was Stand Watie, a Freemason, and
members of the Knights of the Golden Circle included many of the elites of the
Cherokee Nation, John Rollin Ridge; Elias Boudinot; William Penn Adair; James
Bell -- all leaders of the Southern Rights party. [48]"


"In July, a company of pro-Southern Cherokees led by Stand Watie attempted to
raise the Confederate flag over the Cherokee Nation. Senator William Doublehead
and 150 full-bloods confronted the Confederate Cherokees and bloodshed was only
narrowly averted by the intervention of John Drew, a member of Chief John Ross's
family. [62]

On August 21, 1861, Chief John Ross addressed a meeting of some four thousand
Cherokee meeting to discuss the Nation's stand in the coming Civil War and
encouraged them to maintain neutrality: "the great object with me has been to
have the Cherokee people's harmonious and united in the free exercise and
enjoyment of all their rights of person and property. Union is strength;
dissension is weakness, misery, ruin." [63] When the discussion was over, the
Cherokee Nation had maintained its unity, but lost its neutrality. The Cherokee
Nation became the last great nation to side with the Confederate States of
America when it signed a treaty on October 7, 1861. [64]

Two Confederate regiments were raised by the Cherokee Nation. Brigadier General
Ben McCulloch of the Confederate Army described them: "Colonel Drew's Regiment
will be mostly full-bloods, whilst those with Col. Stand Watie will be
half-breeds, and good soldiers anywhere, in or out of the Nation." [65] The
membership in the two units fell directly upon party lines and membership in the
corresponding secret societies. The largest part of the 1st Cherokee Mounted
Rifles were members of the Keetoowah Society and supporters of John Ross; most
of the 2nd Cherokee Mounted Rifles were members of the Knights of the Golden
Circle and followers of Colonel Stand Watie. [66] The leadership of both parties
was composed of former Freemasons from Cherokee Lodge #21, Fort Gibson Lodge
#35, and Flint Lodge #74. [67]"

"By the time the war was over in 1866, seven thousand Cherokee had lost their
lives; this amounted to from 1/4 to 1/3 of the Cherokee Nation. [85] No state
suffered greater losses than did the Indian Territory in the Civil War. [86]
General Stand Watie of the Knights of the Golden Circle was the last General of
The Confederate States of America to surrender. With Watie's surrender, the
Civil War within the Cherokee Nation was over."

CHEROKEE NATION DECLARATION OF CAUSES; 1861

Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation of the Causes Which
Have Impelled Them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the
Confederate States of America.

"When circumstances beyond their control compel one people to sever
the ties which have long existed between them and another state or
confederacy, and to contract new alliances and establish new
relations for the security of their rights and liberties, it is fit
that they should publicly declare the reasons by which their action
is justified.

The Cherokee people had its origin in the South; its institutions are
similar to those of the Southern States, and their interests
identical with theirs. Long since it accepted the protection of the
United States of America, contracted with them treaties of alliance
and friendship, and allowed themselves to be to a great extent
governed by their laws.

In peace and war they have been faithful to their engagements with
the United States. With much of hardship and injustice to complain
of, they resorted to no other means than solicitation and argument to
obtain redress. Loyal and obedient to the laws and the stipulations
of their treaties, they served under the flag of the United States,
shared the common dangers, and were entitled to a share in the common
glory, to gain which their blood was freely shed on the battlefield.

When the dissensions between the Southern and Northern States
culminated in a separation of State after State from the Union they
watched the progress of events with anxiety and consternation. While
their institutions and the contiguity of their territory to the
States of Arkansas, Texas, and Missouri made the cause of the
seceding States necessarily their own cause, their treaties had been
made with the United States, and they felt the utmost reluctance even
in appearance to violate their engagements or set at naught the
obligations of good faith.

Conscious that they were a people few in numbers compared with either
of the contending parties, and that their country might with no
considerable force be easily overrun and devastated and desolation
and ruin be the result if they took up arms for either side, their
authorities determined that no other course was consistent with the
dictates of prudence or could secure the safety of their people and
immunity from the horrors of a war waged by an invading enemy than a
strict neutrality, and in this decision they were sustained by a
majority of the nation.

That policy was accordingly adopted and faithfully adhered to. Early
in the month of June of the present year the authorities of the
nation declined to enter into negotiations for an alliance with the
Confederate States, and protested against the occupation of the
Cherokee country by their troops, or any other violation of their
neutrality. No act was allowed that could be construed by the United
States to be a violation of the faith of treaties.

But Providence rules the destinies of nations, and events, by
inexorable necessity, overrule human resolutions. The number of the
Confederate States has increased to eleven, and their Government is
firmly established and consolidated. Maintaining in the field an army
of 200,000 men, the war became for them but a succession of
victories. Disclaiming any intention to invade the Northern States,
they sought only to repel invaders from their own soil and to secure
the right of governing themselves. They claimed only the privilege
asserted by the Declaration of American Independence, and on which
the right of the Northern States themselves to self-government is
founded, of altering their form of government when it became no
longer tolerable and establishing new forms for the security of their
liberties.

Throughout the Confederate States we saw this great revolution
effected without violence or the suspension of the laws or the
closing of the courts. The military power was nowhere placed above
the civil authorities. None were seized and imprisoned at the mandate
of arbitrary power. All division among the people disappeared, and
the determination became unanimous that there should never again be
any union with the Northern States. Almost as one man all who were
able to bear arms rushed to the defense of an invaded country, and
nowhere has it been found necessary to compel men to serve or to
enlist mercenaries by the offer of extraordinary bounties.

But in the Northern States the Cherokee people saw with alarm a
violated Constitution, all civil liberty put in peril, and all the
rules of civilized warfare and the dictates of common humanity and
decency unhesitatingly disregarded. In States which still adhered to
the Union a military despotism has displaced the civil power and the
laws became silent amid arms. Free speech and almost free thought
became a crime. The right to the writ of habeas corpus, guaranteed by
the Constitution, disappeared at the nod of a Secretary of State or a
general of the lowest grade. The mandate of the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court was set at naught by the military power, and this
outrage on common right approved by a President sworn to support the
Constitution. War on the largest scale was waged, and the immense
bodies of troops called into the field in the absence of any law
warranting it under the pretense of suppressing unlawful combination
of men. The humanities of war, which even barbarians respect, were no
longer thought worthy to be observed. Foreign mercenaries and the
scum of cities and the inmates of prisons were enlisted and organized
into regiments and brigades and sent into Southern States to aid in
subjugating a people struggling for freedom, to burn, to plunder, and
to commit the basest of outrages on women; while the heels of armed
tyranny trod upon the necks of Maryland and Missouri, and men of the
highest character and position were incarcerated upon suspicion and
without process of law in jails, in forts, and in prison-ships, and
even women were imprisoned by the arbitrary order of a President and
Cabinet ministers; while the press ceased to be free, the publication
of newspapers was suspended and their issues seized and destroyed;
the officers and men taken prisoners in battle were allowed to remain
in captivity by the refusal of their Government to consent to an
exchange of prisoners; as they had left their dead on more than one
field of battle that had witnessed their defeat to be buried and
their wounded to be cared for by Southern hands.

Whatever causes the Cherokee people may have had in the past, to
complain of some of the Southern States, they cannot but feel that
their interests and their destiny are inseparably connected with
those of the South. The war now raging is a war of Northern cupidity
and fanaticism against the institution of African servitude; against
the commercial freedom of the South, and against the political
freedom of the States, and its objects are to annihilate the
sovereignty of those States and utterly change the nature of the
General Government.

The Cherokee people and their neighbors were warned before the war
commenced that the first object of the party which now holds the
powers of government of the United States would be to annul the
institution of slavery in the whole Indian country, and make it what
they term free territory and after a time a free State; and they have
been also warned by the fate which has befallen those of their race
in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon that at no distant day they too would
be compelled to surrender their country at the demand of Northern
rapacity, and be content with an extinct nationality, and with
reserves of limited extent for individuals, of which their people
would soon be despoiled by speculators, if not plundered
unscrupulously by the State.

Urged by these considerations, the Cherokees, long divided in
opinion, became unanimous, and like their brethren, the Creeks,
Seminoles, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, determined, by the undivided
voice of a General Convention of all the people, held at Tahlequah,
on the 21st day of August, in the present year, to make common cause
with the South and share its fortunes.

In now carrying this resolution into effect and consummating a treaty
of alliance and friendship with the Confederate States of America the
Cherokee people declares that it has been faithful and loyal to is
engagements with the United States until, by placing its safety and
even its national existence in imminent peril, those States have
released them from those engagements.

Menaced by a great danger, they exercise the inalienable right of
self-defense, and declare themselves a free people, independent of
the Northern States of America, and at war with them by their own
act. Obeying the dictates of prudence and providing for the general
safety and welfare, confident of the rectitude of their intentions
and true to the obligations of duty and honor, they accept the issue
thus forced upon them, unite their fortunes now and forever with
those of the Confederate States, and take up arms for the common
cause, and with entire confidence in the justice of that cause and
with a firm reliance upon Divine Providence, will resolutely abide
the consequences. "

Tahlequah, C. N., October 28, 1861.

THOMAS PEGG,
President National Committee.

JOSHUA ROSS,
Clerk National Committee.

Concurred.
LACY MOUSE,
Speaker of Council.

THOMAS B. WOLFE,
Clerk Council.

Approved.
JNO. ROSS.

FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created
equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the
Pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are
instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of
the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes
destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or
to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation
on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to
them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
FROM THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.

http://www.unitednativeamerica.com/cherokee.html

Indian Territory Heroes

This page is dedicated to the memory of the Indian Territory Generals of the
Confederacy who fought so bravely, led so valiantly, and lived so honorably. We
seek to remember and celebrate their lives. In the end, their cause was lost,
but we will forever remember the nobility of their struggle.

"A nation which does not remember what it was yesterday does not know what it is
today." ~General Robert E. Lee~
_____________________________________________

Brigadier General Stand Watie

Stand Watie, a three-quarter Cherokee Indian, was born December 12, 1806, near
the site of the present day city of Rome, Georgia. He learned to speak English
at a mission school, and became a planter and assisted in the publication of the
Cherokee newspaper, the "Phoenix." In 1835 he and others signed the treaty by
which the remaining Cherokees in Georgia agreed to their removal to what is now
Oklahoma. This act split the Indians into factions and made Watie the leader of
the minority or "treaty" party.

At the beginning of the War Between the States the Cherokees attempted,
unsuccessfully, to remain neutral, but ultimately divided along the same lines
as before. The majority declared for the Union and the minority group, under
Watie, pledged allegiance to the Confederacy. Watie raised a company early in
1861; he later in the year was appointed colonel of the 1st Cherokee Mounted
Rifles, and brigadier general to rank from May 6, 1864. The Indians were engaged
in the battles of Wilson's Creek and Elkhorn Tavern, and were principally used
in raids and as skirmishers in the Territory and along its borders. They were
found to be excellent soldiers in the sudden offensive action. Gen. Watie fought
bravely to the end, the last general of the Confederacy to "strike the colors"
on June 23, 1865, at Doaksville in Choctaw Nation.

After the war he resumed the life of a planter and also engaged in various
business enterprises. He died at his home on Honey Creek, in what is now
Delaware County, Oklahoma on September 9, 1871 and is buried in Old Polson
Cemetery near Grove, Oklahoma.

Brigadier General Douglas H. Cooper

Douglas Hancock Cooper, a native of Mississippi, was born on November 1, 1815,
probably in Amite County, where his father, a physician and Baptist preacher,
was discharging his ecclesiastical duties at the time.

After attending the University of Virginia from 1832 to 1834, the son returned
to Mississippi and engaged in planting in Wilkinson County. During the Mexican
War he served as captain of the 1st Mississippi Rifles, and in 1853 was
appointed by President Franklin Pierce U.S. agent to the Choctaw Nation in
Indian Territory

In 1861 he was deputed by the Confederate government to secure the allegiance of
the Indians, and was commissioned colonel of the 1st Choctaw and Chickasaw
Mounted Rifles. He commanded the Indians at Elkhorn and at Newtonia, Missouri,
and was subsequently promoted brigadier general to rank from May 2, 1863. He
also was in command of Confederate forces in the largest battle fought in Indian
Territory: Honey Springs, July 17, 1863. His last important military service was
rendered as commander of the Indian brigade in General Sterling Price's second
invasion of Missouri.

After the war General Cooper prosecuted the claims of the Choctaws and
Chickasaws against the Federal government, claims arising out of nonperformance
by the government in connection with the removal of the tribes from their
original lands. He died at Old Fort Wa--deleted--a in the Chickasaw Nation (present day
Bryan County) April 29, 1879 and is buried at Old Fort Wa--deleted--a.

General Frank Crawford Armstrong

Frank Crawford Armstrong was born on November 22, 1835 at Choctaw Agency,
Indian Territory (now the virtually abandoned village of Scullyville) where his
father, an officer in the U.S. Army, was stationed at the time. The latter died
when Armstrong was a boy. His mother took as her second husband, General
Persifor Frazer Smith, U.S.A., one of the heroes of the Mexican War, whom young
Armstrong accompanied on a military expedition into New Mexico in 1854.

After graduation from Holy Cross Academy in Massachusetts, he was commissioned
directly into the regular army the following year. He took part in the battle of
First Manassas on the Union side, but resigned on August 13, 1861. His first
Confederate service was on the staffs of Generals Mcintosh and Ben McCulloch;
and he was a few feet away when the latter met his death at Pea Ridge (Elkhorn
Tavern).

Subsequently elected colonel of the 3rd Louisiana Infantry, he was soon after
given command of the cavalry in the forces under General Sterling Price. During
the balance of the war Armstrong operated under the command of such leaders as
Forrest, Wheeler, Stephen D. Lee, and Chalmers. His last battle was that of
Selma, Alabama, when the remnant of Forrest's corps surrendered. He had meantime
been promoted brigadier general to rank from January 20, 1863.

At the close of hostilities he entered the Overland Mail Service in Texas, was
United States Indian Inspector from 1885 to 1889, and Assistant Commissioner of
Indian Affairs from 1893 to 1895.

General Armstrong died at Bar Harbor, Maine, September 8, 1909, and is buried in
Rock Creek Cemetery, Georgetown, District of Columbia.


Major General Samuel Bell Maxey

Samuel Bell Maxey was born in Kentucky in 1825, graduated from the U.S.
Military Academy, fifty-fifth in 1846. The class of 1846 included George B.
McClellan, Thomas J. (Stonewall) Jackson, George E. Pickett and many other
future Generals of the War for Southern Independence.

Maxey served as a brevet 2nd lieutenant of the U.S. 7th Infantry in 1846 and the
8th Infantry In February 1847 and transferred back to the 7th Infantry in July
1847. In August 1847 he was brevet to 1st lieutenant for gallant conduct during
the battles of Conteras and Churubusco during the Mexican War.

He resigned his commission in 1849 to study law and migrated to Paris, Texas,
with his father in 1857 and was elected to the Texas senate in 1861.

Upon Texas secession from the Union, Maxey resigned his Texas senate seat and
organized the "Lamar Rifles" which soon became part of the 9th Texas Infantry.
That regiment, with Maxey in Command, joined General Albert Sidney Johnston's
forces in Kentucky.

Maxey, promoted to Brigadier General in 1862, served in east Tennessee at Port
Hudson and during the Vicksburg Campaign. In December 1863 Maxey was made
Confederate Commander in Indian Territory and appointed superintendent of Indian
Affairs for the pro-Confederate nations.

Maxey was promoted to Major General by General Kirby Smith in 1864, but was
never confirmed to that rank by Confederate President, Jefferson Davis.

He last commanded a division of dismounted cavalry in 1865. After the war, Maxey
resumed his law practice and became a U.S. Senator from Texas in 1875 and served
for twelve years.

Samuel Bell Maxey died at Eureka Springs, Arkansas in 1895.
-Samuel Bell Maxey bio submitted by Don Ballard - January 27th 2000

Brigadier General Albert Pike

Albert Pike was born in Boston, Massachusetts, December 29, 1809. He was a
many-sided character who is best remembered for his accomplishments as a
brilliant teacher, poet, author, lawyer, editor, and exponent of Freemasonry,
rather than as a brigadier general of the Confederacy, which he only
incidentally became.

He received his early education at Newburyport and Framingham, and in 1825
entered Harvard College, supporting himself at the same time by teaching. He
only went as far as the junior class in college, when his finances compelled him
to continue his education alone, teaching, meanwhile, at Fairhaven and
Newburyport, where he was principal of the grammar school, and afterward had a
private school of his own. In later years he had attained such distinction in
literature that the degree of master of arts was bestowed upon him by the
Harvard faculty.

In 1831 he went west with a trading party to Santa Fe. The next year, with a
trapping party, he went down the Pecos River and into the Staked Plains, whence
with four others he traveled mostly on foot until he reached Fort Smith,
Arkansas. His adventures and exploits are related in a volume of prose and
verse, published in 1834. While teaching in 1833 below Van Buren and on Little
Piney River, he contributed articles to the Little Rock Advocate, and attracted
the attention of Robert Crittenden, through whom he was made assistant editor of
that paper, of which he was afterward for two years the proprietor.

He was admitted to the bar in 1835 and studied and practiced law until the
Mexican War, when he recruited a company of cavalry and was present at the
battle of Buena Vista under the command of the famous Colonel Charles May. In
1848 he fought a duel with Gen. John S. Roane on account of something said by
him in his story of that battle, which the governor considered as reflecting
unjustly on the Arkansas regiment.

In 1849 he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States at
the same time with Abraham Lincoln and Hannibal Hamlin. In 1853 he moved to New
Orleans, having prepared himself for practice in the courts of Louisiana by
reading the "Pandects," of which he translated the first volume into English. He
also made translations of many French authorities. He wrote, besides, an
unpublished work of three volumes upon "The Maxims of the Roman and French Law."

An avowed Whig and anti-secessionist, he was a prominent lawyer and large land
owner in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1861, and cast his lot with the South rather
than desert his friends and his property. He was appointed as the Confederate
Commissioner to the tribes of Indian Territory. As such he brought the Creeks,
Seminoles, Choctaws, Chickasaws and part of the Cherokees into alliance with the
Confederate States.

On August 15, 1861, he was commissioned Brigadier General in the army of the
Confederate States, and at the battle of Pea Ridge he commanded a brigade of
Indians. Pike's Civil War career was unfortunate, to say the least, and
ultimately resulted in his arrest by General Hindman and the remark by General
Douglas Cooper that he was "either insane or untrue to the South."

With the Indian troops Pike fought at Elkhorn Tavern, and their dubious conduct
reflected, perhaps unjustly, on Pike. He later alleged they had been recruited
only for service in defense of their own territory. In his defense, it must also
be noted that Pike had little opportunity to work with or drill his Indian
troops. When the deaths of Generals McCulloch and McIntosh left him as the
senior surviving Confederate officer at Leetown, Pike was ineffective in
rallying or reorganizing his troops. After much acrimony Pike resigned his
Confederate commission on July 12, 1862; and his resignation was accepted on
November 5, 1862.

Pike lived in semi-retirement during the balance of the war, and after it ended,
he was regarded with suspicion by both parties to the conflict. He was indicted
for treason by the United States authorities, but was subsequently restored to
his civil rights. After the war he resided in Memphis, Tennessee, and edited the
Memphis Appeal in 1867. The next year he moved to Washington, D. C., and
practiced in the courts until 1880. During the remainder of his life he devoted
his attention to writing legal treatises and expounding the morals and dogma of
the Masonic Order.

He was the highest Masonic dignitary in the United States, and was author of
several valuable Masonic works. He died in the house of the Scottish Rite
Temple, Washington, DC on April 2, 1891, and is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery
there.

The Cherokee Braves Battle Flag was presented to the Cherokees as a
confederate battle flag by a representative of the
Confederacy, Albert Pike, at the signing of the treaty that brought
the Cherokee into the Confederacy on the 7th of October 1861.

The original flag was Stars and Bars with eleven white stars in a
circle in the blue field, representing the states in the Confederacy.
The Cherokee modified the flag to create one for battle of their own.
In the field of the white bar they added the words Cherokee Braves
and in the center of the circle of white stars in the blue field they
placed five red stars, representing the five civilized tribes, all in
the confederacy, with the larger red star in the center representing
the Cherokees.

The Confederate Indian troops, under the command of General Stand
Watie carried the flag as their banner, also used by the men as their
national flag. The Confederate Cherokee government was set up in the
Canadian District, in the southern part of the Cherokee Nation.

The dream of having a separate, independent and sovereign Cherokee
government was never realized. General Stand Watie was the only
Cherokee Native American to attain the rank of general in any
military and was the last one to surrender at the end of the war.

The Cherokees also fought for the Union.


General Stand Waite and the Cherokee Braves

General Stand Watie was born in the Oothcaloga Valley south of
present-day Calhoun, Ga. in 1806. His birth name was Tak-er-taw-ker
meaning "Stands Firm" and later Degadoga for "He Stands On Two
Feet". Baptized as Isaac he later combined a portion of his Cherokee
name with his father's name Oo-wat-ie to form Stand Watie in English.
Little is known of his early years in Georgia, he may have been
educated in Georgia mission schools that were set up to Englishise
the Cherokees. He was the brother of Buck Oowatie who later took the
name of Elias Boudinot and became a newspaper editor, and the nephew
of the prominent Cherokee Chief Major Ridge.

The Oowatie and Ridge families were two of the more prominent
slave owning aristocrat families of the Cherokees owning most of the
estimated 1600 owned by Cherokees. Those in the lower classes, poorer
than the Ridge and Oowatie factions tended to be less pro slavery and
were more traditionalist and less likely to favor a move west from
Georgia and the western Carolinas.

By 1820 one third of the tribe moved west of the Mississippi
River. Those who remained began to split into factions. Those who
favored fighting removal to the west rallied behind John Ross, a
Scottish Cherokee from Tennessee. Ross had only one eighth Cherokee
but considered them to be his people over his white counterparts and
was extremely popular having support of the majority.

On the opposing side was the Oowatie Ridge faction who believed
that the lower classes of the tribe would never make it in the white
mans world, believing that in years to come they would be decimated
even lower to drunkenness and poverty and that moving west was in the
tribes best interest.

In 1827 John Ross was elected to lead and represented them in
their first centralized government to help them deal with the white
world around them. By 1832 the rivalry between those of the Ross
faction and the Oowatie Ridge factions began to grow, and in the next
few years worsened. In 1835 it came to a head when the the Ridge
faction supported a treaty with Washington that would give the
Cherokees 5 million dollars in return for their removal west of the
Mississippi. The Ross side refused to sign hoping to hold out for at
least 20 million. It was clear that no treaty would be made at that
time since the majority of Cherokees sided with the Ross faction.

Then in December 1835 the Ridge Oowatie faction managed to sign
the Treaty at New Echota Georgia receiving $15 million dollars and
800,000 acres of land in Oklahoma for the Cherokees. They believed
they had secured the best terms possible in the best interest of the
tribe while the Ross followers considered it an act of treason
against them.

The Trail of Tears followed in 1838 with Federal and State
militias enforcing the removal. In 1839 the bitter animosity between
the two tribes remained in Oklahoma. A hundred or so Cherokees from
anti treaty faction met in secret and decided on death for the the
Ridge and Watie men. On June 22, 1839 John Ridge was dragged from his
home in Indian Territory and was stabbed to death. His father Major
Ridge was ambushed and killed in Washington County Arkansas. Elias
Boudinot the brother of Stand Watie was attacked at his home and axed
to death. Stand Watie also marked for death was forewarned and
escaped.

John Ross denounced the murders but did nothing in aiding the
capture of the killers. He was accused of hiding them in his home by
the now Watie faction while Ross denied involvement in the murders.
President Andrew Jackson wrote to Stand Watie now the leader of the
former Ridge Oowatie faction and denounced Ross. On March 7, 1862
Stand Watie was part of Earl Van Dorn's 16,000 man army in the area
of Fayetteville Arkansas attempting to encircle the right flanks of
Major General Curtis's 12,000 troops. Curtis was on the defensive
entrenched at Pea Ridge about thirty miles northeast of Fayetteville.
After two days of fighting Van Dorn was unable to penetrate and ended
up withdrawing. Stand Watie had distiquished himself by leading his
command in capturing a Union artillery battery and by committing a
skillful rear guard action stopping a disaster.

It was here during this action that Stand Watie was noticed by his
superiors for his bravery and exceptional military abilities, which
got him considered for a higher command in the Confederate Army. The
First Cherokee Mounted Rifles was formed on August 31, 1862 with
Colonel Stand Watie commanding, with Lieutenant Colonel Calvin Parks
second in command. This unit along with others adopted the Cherokee
Braves flag as their regimental colours. After Pea Ridge many of the
Cherokees left the war, but Stand Watie and his Cherokee Braves
remained for the duration of the war scouring the region using
guerilla warfare, cutting Union supply lines and disrupting Federal
operations throughout the Indian Territory.

He was feared by his loyal Cherokee counterparts for the next three
years. On May 10, 1864 he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier
General, the only Native American to reach the rank of General.
Along with this first, he was also the last Confederate General
officer to formally cease hostilities two months after Appomattox and
Bentonville. His formal agreement to end hostilities was issued on
June 25, 1865 and like Col. Mosby of Virginia he never officially
surrendered. Watie had displayed unfailing devotion and bravery
during his service to the Confederacy. He died on September 9, 1871
and was laid to rest at Polson Cemetery in Delaware County, Oklahoma.

In 1995 the US postal Service issued a set of 20 commemorative stamps
showing 16 individuals and 4 battles of the Civil War. General Stand
Watie was one of those honored along with others such as Jefferson
Davis, Robert E. Lee and Joseph Johnston.

General Stand Watie SCV Camp #915 Calhoun County Georgia

Born at Oothcaloga in the Cherokee Nation, Georgia (near present day
Rome, Georgia) on December 12, 1806, Stand Watie's Cherokee name was
De-ga-ta-ga, or "he stands." He also was known as Isaac S. Watie. He
attended Moravian Mission School at Springplace Georgia, and served
as a clerk of the Cherokee Supreme Court and Speaker of the Cherokee
National Council prior to removal.

As a member of the Ridge-Watie-Boundinot faction of the Cherokee
Nation, Watie supported removal to the Cherokee Nation, West, and
signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, in defiance of Principal
Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokees. Watie moved to the
Cherokee Nation, West (present-day Oklahoma), in 1837 and settled at
Honey Creek. Following the murders of his uncle Major Ridge, cousin
John Ridge, and brother Elias Boundinot (Buck Watie) in 1839, and his
brother Thomas Watie in 1845, Stand Watie assumed the leadership of
the Ridge-Watie-Boundinot faction and was involved in a long-running
blood feud with the followers of John Ross. He also was a leader of
the Knights of the Golden Circle, which bitterly opposed
abolitionism.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Watie quickly joined the Southern
cause. He was commissioned a colonel on July 12, 1861, and raised a
regiment of Cherokees for service with the Confederate army. Later,
when Chief John Ross signed an alliance with the South, Watie's men
were organized as the Cherokee Regiment of Mounted Rifles. After Ross
fled Indian Territory, Watie was elected principal chief of the
Confederate Cherokees in August 1862.

A portion of Watie's command saw action at Oak Hills (August 10,
1861) in a battle that assured the South's hold on Indian Territory
and made Watie a Confederate military hero. Afterward, Watie helped
drive the pro-Northern Indians out of Indian Territory, and following
the Battle of Chustenahlah (December 26, 1861) he commanded the
pursuit of hte fleeing Federals, led by Opothleyahola, and drove them
into exile in Kansas. Although Watie's men were exempt from service
outside Indian Territory, he led his troops into Arkansas in the
spring of 1861 to stem a Federal invasion of the region. Joining with
Maj. GEn. Earl Van Dorn's command, Watie took part in the bAttle of
Elkhorn Tavern (March 5-6, 1861). On the first day of fighting, the
Southern Cherokees, which were on the left flank of the Confederate
line, captured a battery of Union artillery before being forced to
abandon it. Following the Federal victory, Watie's command screened
the southern withdrawal.

Watie, or troops in his command, participated in eighteen battles and
major skirmishes with Federal troop during the Civil War, including
Cowskin Prairie (April 1862), Old Fort Wayne (October 1862), Webber's
Falls (April 1863), Fort Gibson (May 1863), Cabin Creek (July 1863),
and Gunter's Prairie (August 1864). In addition, his men were engaged
in a multitude of smaller skirmishes and meeting engagements in
Indian Territory and neighboring states. Because of his wide-ranging
raids behind Union lines, Watie tied down thousands of Federal troops
that were badly needed in the East.

Watie's two greatest victories were the capture of the federal steam
boat J.R. Williams on June 15, 1864, and the seizure of $1.5 million
worth of supplies in a federal wagon supply train a the Second battle
of Cabin Creek on September 19, 1864. Watie was promoted to brigadier
general on May 6, 1864, and given command of the first Indian
Brigade. He was the only Indian to achieve the rank of general in the
Civil War. Watie surrendered on June 23, 1865, the last Confederate
general to lay down his arms.

After the war, Watie served as a member of the Southern Cherokee
delegation during the negotiation of the Cherokee Reconstruction
Treaty of 1866. He then abandoned public life and returned to his old
home along Honey Creek. He died on September 9, 1871.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Commander
R. Stan Chambers
706-629-3116

Adjutant
James Tolbert
706-602-1244
tolberttjms@aol.com

Gordon County Historical Society

Lt. Commander
W.S. "Buddy" Autry
706-295-1753

Pike was an interesting guy.  And I know many think he is the master mind behind the KGC.  I don't know, I have yet to find anything besides rumors that I think started in th 50's.  I wouldn't doubt it if he was, just I can't find anything that directly links him to it.  

I don't think being a General was his strong point though. 

Nice posts.  I haven't finished reading - but some good stuff in there.

Note that in the article below that the "Indian Chief" they are referring to is
John Ridge, the son of Major Ridge and not a chief. The white girl mentioned is
his wife Sarah Bird Northrup Ridge.

New York Advocate 1825
MIDDLETOWN, Ct, June 29

Another Marriage of an Indian with a White Girl contemplated. - Our readers will
recollect, that about a year ago, a marriage took place between an Indian Chief,
who had attended the Foreign Missionary School at Cornwall, and a white girl.
Most of the papers spoke of it in terms of decided disapprobation. The Agents
of the School, at the head of whom is the Rev. Dr. Beecher, of Litchfield, have
published a report, under date of the 17th inst. in which they state, that a
negociation for a marriage has been carried on for some time past between Elias
Boudinot, a young Cherokee, and Harriet R. Gold, of the village of Cornwall, and
that there is now a settled engagement between the parties. The object of the
publication is to declare their "unqualified disapprobation of such connexions."
And they regard the conduct of those who aided or assisted in the negociation as
highly "criminal." They say that additional restrictions have been adopted, to
protect the interests of the School, and of the community as connected with it.

Excerpt from Freemasonry and Native American Traditions
 by W. Bro. Dennis V. Chornenky, President,
Masonic Restoration Foundation
2004 Annual California Masonic Symposium,
San Diego, CA

"Explanations for this supposed Masonic knowledge among the Native Americans ranged from speculations regarding the lost tribes of Israel, visits by the Phoenicians and even ancient immigration by the Welsh. In 1956, for example, the California Freemason magazine reproduced the following passage from the Oregon Freemason: 

"Here’s a new slant on how American Indians may have actually had what was the forerunner of Freemasonry as we have it today. To accept this theory it is necessary to set aside the discovery of America by Columbus, and possibly even the claim that Leif Ericson came here looking for Minnesota ahead of all the others. Now comes the story that ancient Welsh bards have records of a Prince Madoc who was presumed to have been lost at sea in 1172. Five hundred years later a report came from America of two or three Indian tribes which spoke the Welsh tongue. About 1909 two Welsh miners,looking for gold in Arizona, came across an Indian tribe rehearsing a Masonic ceremony in Welsh. The supposition is that Prince Madoc reached the Americas and taught the Welsh tongue and Welsh Freemasonry to the natives.""

Chief Joseph Brandt

"The period of the American Revolution also saw the first American Indian to be made a Mason. Thayendangea was the son of the chief of the Mohawks in the 1750's, and was brought up in the household of a prominent British administration official, Sir William Johnson, who was also a Freemason. Johnson gave him the name Joseph Brant, and when Brant was an adult, he fought several battles against the French with Johnson. Brant became Johnson's personal secretary, and by the time of Johnson's death in 1774, Brant had become accepted by the British administration. Brant traveled to England in 1775, and was made a mason in a London lodge in 1776. He then returned to America to enlist the Mohawks in the fight against the American rebels. The Mohawks, under the command of Col. John Butler and Brant, attacked and massacred the Americans in several battles, and captured prisoners were turned over to the Mohawks to be tortured to death. Brant, however, took his Masonic oaths seriously, and in a few recorded instances, released prisoners who made Masonic signs as they were about to be tortured. After the war, Brant became a member of St John's Lodge of Friendship No.2 in Canada, of which Col. Butler had become Master, before returning to the Mohawks in Ohio."

Excerpt from Masonic Civil War Heroes: First Day Covers

"Brigadier General Ely S. Parker, U.S. Army

A Seneca Chief, he entered the Union Army as a Captain of Engineers, until General Grant made him his secretary.  At the Appamatox surrender on April 6, 1865 he wrote out the engrossed copy of the surrender terms.   Subsequently he was promoted to Brig. Gen. of Volunteers as of that date.   Founder and First Master of Miner's Lodge No. 273 Galena, Illinois.  First Master of Akron Lodge No. 527, Akron, N.Y., R.A.M., K.T. in Monroe Commandery No. 18, Rochester, N.Y.

Excerpts from NATIVE AMERICAN RITUALS & THE INFLUENCE OF FREEMASONRY By  Frederic L. Milliken

        The scope of this subject is so large that more than once in my research I got sidetracked on trivial and dead end issues.  For instance I spent hours trying to track down verification that Freemasonry existed in North America before any European White man landed here.  Well there is absolutely no proof that Native Americans did not get Freemasonry from the White man. But one factor that makes life difficult for the researcher is the lack of written records by the American Indian.  Native Americans did not write down anything, in fact it was not until 1920 that written records were kept by Indians and that is probably only due to their homogenization into general society. Everything was passed down by word of mouth.  Sound familiar? So there will be many areas and much information that will not be covered in this paper.  We will confine ourselves to similarities of Indian customs and mores with Freemasonry and some of their secret societies.

The Number Four

        There seems to be a sacred number in many religions and bonding societies and even in certain cultures.  In the Hebrew Scripture the number 7 is said to occur over 360 times.  Masonry reveres numbers and so does the American Indian.  For Masonry it is the number 3, for the Indian it is 4.  Being a hunter the Indian is always has super awareness of the points of the compass whence comes the importance of the number 4.  Equally important it is from these points that the Creators and spirits come from.  In the ceremonies of the Mide-wiwin of the Ojibwa, which we will explore in detail later, there are 4 degrees.  In each degree the Indian paints a different colored band or stripe on his face – 4 colors. The Mason will have of course the 3 different displays of the apron in the 3 degrees.  The Chippewas initiated a candidate into Meda craft by sending him to a Lodge of 4 poles, with 4 stones before its fire and there he was to remain for 4 days and sit at 4 banquets.  The Otoe and Missouri Indians buried their people by keeping a fire at the grave 4 days and 4 nights.  On the fifth day the spirit would gallop away to the Happy Hunting grounds. The Zuni Indians believe that a spirit hovers about their village 4 nights after death. The Indian believes that spirit that looks over the deceased lives in the North and in Freemasonry is not the North also a place of darkness?  The Cherokee Shaman (Medicine Man) prepares his tribe for war by situating the warriors of the tribe at the edge of a stream facing east.  Thus placed the Shaman sings the war song and this is repeated on four successive nights.  The Creeks had a celebration called “The Busk” or the making the new fire.  It was a celebration to the four winds and was commenced by placing four logs in the center of a square, end to end forming a cross pointing to the four cardinal points.  In the center “new fire” was made which was symbolic of wiping the slate of sin clean.  This for the Native American was the day of Atonement. In the snake dance of the Moqui Indians they use four kinds of medicine utilizing four different roots. Not only does the number 4 appear in the four cardinal points of the compass, it is revered in the peace pipe ceremonial, the four colors ( generally red, black, yellow and white), and what might be referred to as the four essential virtues of Native American spirituality, respect for deity, respect for Mother Earth, respect for one’s fellow man, and respect for individual freedom. This all according to Robert G. Davis who states that because of the four virtues it is very rare to find American Indians quarrelling about religion.  Jim Tresner talks about the four arrows at the cardinal points in a circle all pointing inwards.  The circle represents the world and also an individual.  The arrows represent “the attitudes or attributes with which a person must view every event and consider every problem if he is to find enlightenment.  Thus he must look at things from:

1) The direction of wisdom (arrow of the North)
2)  The direction of innocence (the arrow of the south)
3)  The direction of Introspection (the arrow of the West)
4) The direction of far sight (the arrow of the East)” (3)
The points of the four arrows all meet at the exact center of the circle.  This symbolism is quite similar to the Masonic point within a circle.

He also tells us that an Indian’s life was divided into four periods:

1)  “The age of learning  --  0-12
2) The age of accepting  -- 12-24
3)  The age of refining  --  24-36
4)  The age of wisdom  --  36 until death” (3)

There were four elements  --  earth, water, fire and wind.  For the Navajo there were four sacred plants:  corn, beans, pumpkin and tobacco.

THE CROSS

Closely allied with the number four is the Indian use of the Cross long before contact with the White Man.  The swastika and the Maltese cross show up in war shields, sand paintings and medicine shirts of various tribes.  The often designation of four gods at the four points of the compass for the Native American was a story illustrated by the symbol of the cross.  This is noted in Indian illustrations long before the White Man tried to convert American Indians to Christianity.  The Blackfeet would arrange stones on open land in the form of a cross to honor “Natose” the “old man who sends the winds”.  These four winds were explained as the “tree of life” which provided for our nourishment.  Most nations have revered some shrub or growing thing.  The Egyptians revered the lotus and the Mason the acacia. The Indian revered his ghost tree.

BELIEF IN A SUPREME BEING
Indians may have had many Spirits but they believed in one Supreme Being.

BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY
Heaven was “The Happy Hunting Ground”.  The Dakotas believed that the East symbolized life.  They laid a dead body east and west (How shall we bury the body?) in the track of the sun so that it may rise again.  Several Indian Secret societies acted out the death and rebirth of the candidate as we shall soon see. In the GHOST DANCE of the 1850’s popular among the Paiute, Shoshoni, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Caddo and Pawnee the candidate dies and falls unconscious to the ground.  A circle of Brothers form around him chanting and singing.  The dead man is brought back to life.

CHARITY
The Honhewachi Society of the Omahas demanded 100 charitable acts before admission.  Hospitality and charity were universal rules among Indians  --  NO HUNGER, NO ORPHANS NOT TAKEN CARE OF.

BROTHERHOOD
It was a common practice for an Indian male to take a partner or Brother.  Such pairs often met in associations which were in all reality fraternities.  Indians believed strongly in the UNIVERSAL KINGSHIP OF ALL CREATED BEINGS.

MORALITY
The practice of virtue was a must.  An Indian was taught to recognize his dependence on his Maker.  AND “TO NEVER ENTER UPON ANY GREAT OR IMPORTANT UNDERTAKING WITHOUT FIRST THANKING THE MAKER FOR THE STRENGTH THAT GAVE HIM POWER TO PERFORM THE DEED WILLED.”(1)

SYMBOLISM
In the “Estufa”, or Lodge Room of the Moqui Indians on the East Wall was a prayer to God  --  to Omaia  -- with black and white stripes symbolizing rain and red and blue lightening.  As Masons in this place we would find the letter G.

To the DAKOTAS a white horse and blanket were emblems of purity and badges of the HOLY LODGE SOCIETY.  The Lodge taught the Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man.  When the Dakotas met a Brother they placed the hand on the heart and said – “Oh – ho, Ah – ta, Shonta – wash – ta – lo” or “Good morning father, my heart is glad.”  They held their secret councils in the hills and a Tyler was mounted on a white horse and clothed in a white blanket.

The KARANKAWAI Shamon of southern Texas wore circular sun disks with a circle and a triangle inside.  Its symbolism, like with many ancient Native American customs passed down by word but held by a few who suddenly died without passing on the meaning, was lost. But it was given a new meaning and reinterpreted as “the tent of faithful pitched in the sun”.  KOASOITI & KEECHI tribes associated it with a Brotherhood badge.  To many others the triangle was a symbol of immortality in their secret Brotherhoods.

SACRED & SECRET WORDS

The IROQUOIS called the Great Spirit YOWAH.  Contrast that with Yahweh.  This tribe in a festival perambulated around their Lodge Room and at each full course of the sun they stopped in the East, where three oldest Chiefs were seated.  Each time around certain questions were asked and answers given.  The procession was nine men.

RITUALISTIC LEGENDS OF INDIAN SOCIETIES
LOTAGOTMP OrLEGENDS OF THE ANCIENT GUARDS OF THE MYSTIC POTENCE
Also known as LITTLE WATERS

The ceremony was held in the Long House of the IROQUOIS, that is the SENECA, CAYUGA, ONONDAGA, ONEIDA, or MOHAWK.  Here due to space and time we will cover just the high points of the ceremony.

The proceedings began with 4 raps at the door.  The candidate was brought in and listened to the story of Red Hand, the ancient leader. As in the Hiramic legend the candidate assumes the identity of the object of the story.

Red Hand was a young Chief who received certain mysterious knowledge from the Creator of All.  He was kind and generous and loved by all.
One day in battle a poisoned arrow felled him.  The enemy Indian rushed upon him demanding the secret of his power ( Hiram Abiff) or his life. Red Hand refused to divulge the secrets so he was scalped.
A lone wolf came upon the body and howled so loud he brought all the animals from the forest.  They each contributed a part of their bodies and revived the scalp which they put on Red Hand’s head.  They formed a circle around him at signs of life and chanted.  Red Hand listened with his eyes closed when a voice asked him  these questions:

VOICE:  “Hast thou cleansed thyself from human guilt and impurity?”
RED HAND:  “ I have”.
VOICE:  “Hast thou ill will toward any of they fellow creatures?”
RED HAND:  “I have not”.
VOICE:  “Wilt thou trust and obey us, keeping thyself always chaste and valorous?”
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “Wilt thou hold this power with which we endow thee for thine own chosen company only?”
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “Wilt thou endure death or torture in its cause?”
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “”Wilt thou vow this secret never to be revealed save at thy death hour?’
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “They death hour will be revealed to thee; thou wilt be allowed to choose thy successor, and at the end of thy journey thou wilt be rewarded for faith and obedience.”(2)

The circle drew closer and the brother who is the bear touched the breast of Red Hand.  All stood erect.  The bear grasped the hand of the leader who was to be raised thought slain, and by a strong grip pulled Red Hand to his feet.

 
COMPARISIONS
Let us look at some areas of commonality in the ceremonies of the Midewiwin only.  The candidate pauses at the entrance and is prompted to say: “Let me come in and put down my gifts.”  Thus he has demonstrated that his admission is of his own free will and accord.  He is told that he is embarking on a new life and to take it seriously and to guard well the secrets of the “Grand Medicine”.  Do we not tell our Masonic candidates pretty much the same thing?  One item we did not discuss is that invitation to the Midewiwin ceremonies is sent out via a twig or stick presented to the invitee who deposits that inside the door of the Lodge when he enters.  This is in reality a summons just like a Masonic summons.  Attendance of the invited is considered mandatory.  Is that not how Masonry used to be and still is in some foreign lands? Another item we did not talk about is that those who perform the ceremony have birch bark charts.  These correspond to our tracing boards. The candidate is prepared in a separate room or place outside or attached to the Lodge room as in Freemasonry. The Native American never presents his back to the sacred stone or altar.  Do we not have similar rules in navigating the Masonic altar? Upon being shot down, notice that the blow is to the head as in Freemasonry. On raising the candidate note that none of the other officiating Priests can raise the body except the Chief Priest.  In Freemasonry only on the third try and only the Worshipful Master can accomplish this task. Upon completion of the degree the candidate is presented a brand new Mide-sack which he proudly wears.  In Freemasonry we present the candidate an apron. In Midewiwin there is a certain time between the degrees, often a year, and in between the candidate must choose an Instructor to teach him and certify him before he goes onto the next degree.  And we in Freemasonry do likewise. And most importantly there is much that is lost in these degrees as the guarders of the secrets failed to see to it that the passing down of the ancient truths were not interrupted.  Just as Hiram Abiff had the word and now it is lost so did the Midewiwin have many words that have now lost meaning.

CONCLUSIONS
So here we are at the end of our brief tour of Native American Indians and Freemasonry.  We have seen much but can conclude little.  Did Freemasonry exist in the “New World” prior to European colonization?  Dennis Chorenky, having written a great paper on the subject, says this:

“In light of current scholarship, not to mention common sense, it is obviously absurd to claim that Native Americans practiced Freemasonry prior to the advent of European settlers.  However, if seriously examined, there emerge many notable parallels and similarities between Western initiatic rites and symbols and those of Native Americans.” *(4)

The “Ghost Dance” of the 1850’s shows a distinct imitation of Freemasonry.  Because of that fact we have given it scant coverage here.  Dennis Chorenky says this about “Little Waters”.

“In the case of Red Hand and his scalping it should also be considered that scalping was not practiced in North America prior to the advent of Europeans.”  *(4)

The bear claw is just too similar to the Lions paw not to be a copycat. So we can say that “Little Waters” could have been corrupted by Freemasonry.  A similar case can be made about the “Mankani Society” and many other Indian ceremonies and fraternities not mentioned here. At this point it looks like we can definitely say there is no Indian Freemasonry.

But the Midewiwin ceremony presents a very different conclusion, which is why we have spent so much time on it.  A factual case can be made that this ceremony(s) was in place long before the white man set foot on North American shores.

First in the ritual certain words or figures of speech were used which have never been used in usual public discourse of Indians since the white man came.  In fact the four days spent in the wigiwam sweat Lodge was one of learning ritual or words that were totally unfamiliar to the Indian of that day.  One of the ways to date a ceremony such as this is to see if modern or ancient vernacular was used.  In the case of the use of much archaic, venerable terminology we are shown that the ceremony dates back to a much more ancient time.

Secondly, The sacred Migiis shells (cypraea moneta) used by the Midewiwin, have been found in various North American earth mounds, lost and buried long before the first known white contact. Since they only grow in the South Pacific, western Africa and perhaps a stretch, occasionally found in Central America,  their prevalence in pre-contact days, that is before the white man, is one of those mysteries that is difficult to explain. It is known these same shells, cypraea moneta, have been immediately valued and desired by nearly every so-called primitive people when introduced by traders. It is as if every tribal people recognize something very "special" about this certain shell. Other cowries are larger, more colorful, and are liked for their ornamental value, but cypraea moneta, the Migiis shell, is revered. So at this point we can definitely say that there is Indian Freemasonry of sorts.

I prefer to take the path of Robert C. Wright who said that “there is no Indian Masonry.  There is Indian Masonry.”(2)

BIBLIOGRAPHY
1.             “FREEMASONRY AND THE AMERICAN INDIAN”, by William R. Denslow
2.             “INDIAN MASONRY”,  by Robert C. Wright
3.             “A SHARED SPIRIT”  - Freemasonry and the Native American Tradition  -- by Robert G. Davis and Jim Tresner, a joint publication of the Masonic Service Association of North America and the Most worshipful Grand Lodge of Oklahoma
4.             “FREEMASONRY AND NATIVE AMERICAN TRADITIONS” by W. Bro. Dennis V. Chorenky.
http://www.masonicrestoration.com/i..._and_Native_American_Traditions.pdf

I think you missed one.

My goodness, cccalco, what a post.  I don't agree with most of that at all, and don't think you have a lot of actual experience with native Americans, but I learn something everytime you post so keep it up and I'll keep an open mind.  It was interesting that your missionaries came in and one of the things on their agenda was have nothing to do with 'secret' societies: Masons, KGC, KKK, maybe those red hat ladies too.  The Ghost Dance was born of desparation and was probably harmless, but it scared the whites, so my cousins out on the plains ate the big one for it.  Hardin BigBow was a friend of mine, and he had some pretty good thoughts about plains Indian culture, none of which involved Masonry.  The civilized tribes were a different story.  Most of their famous leaders were white and rich for all practical purposes.  The common full bloods, of which there are very few now, lived a completely different life.  I do like your posts, though.

Excerpt from Montezuma (mythology)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montezuma_(mythology)
Montezuma was the name of a heroic-god in the mythology of certain Amerindian tribes of the Southwest United States.
 In the Tohono O'odham legend, at the beginning of time the Great Spirit finds clay by digging a hole; he then drops the clay into the hole again and out comes Montezuma, who assists him in bringing out all the Indian tribes...

 It is said that all men and animals were speaking a common language in the early days; however a great flood destroyed everyone, with only Montezuma and his friend, Coyote, escaping. Because Coyote had warned him of the flood beforehand, Montezuma had fashioned a boat that he kept prepared on the peak of the Santa Rosa Mountains in Arizona....
After the flood had subsided, Montezuma and Coyote meet again atop Monte Rosa, and Montezuma sends Coyote out four times, once in each direction, to find out how far the sea is. He quickly returned from the south and the west, reporting that it was nearby. The journey east took a bit longer, but eventually he found the sea there also. Finally, he journeys northward and never finds water before growing tired.
Meanwhile, the Great Spirit, helped by Montezuma, has again repopulated the world with people and animals. Montezuma is entrusted with the governance of mankind, but becoming proud and wicked, he rebels against the Great Spirit, dismisses Coyote, and commands mankind to build a house tall enough to reach Heaven. Before he can succeed at this endeavour, the Great Spirit casts it down with thunderbolts, causing a confusion in the languages of mankind.

This legend was related by chief Con Quien of the Tohono O'odham and published in the Indian Affairs Report of 1865, p. 131.

Montezuma also figures prominently in the religion of the Pueblo Indians, who held that their god-king Montezuma was variously from Taos, Acoma, or one of the other pueblos, and was conceived from a beautiful virgin and a pinyon pine nut. Although weak as a youth, he was chosen to be their unlikely leader, and surprised everyone with his miracles, including the ability to produce rain. He taught the people their customs, and how to build the adobe pueblos. One day he kindled a fire that they were never to allow to burn out, then departed for Mexico (in some versions, on the back of an eagle), promising to return some day and save them from the Spanish.

Finally, Llewellyn Harris, a Welsh-American Mormon missionary who visited the Zuni in 1878, claimed that they told him they were descended from Montezuma, who was himself descended from white men called "Cambaraga" who came from over the sea 300 years before the Spanish, and that they still had many Welsh words in their language (see Madoc for many more tales along this theme). However, these much more sensational claims have never been independently verified.

Excerpts from Abraham Lincoln’s Legacy By Roy Cook
http://www.americanindiansource.com/lincolnlegacy/lincolnlegacy.html

"Some USA groups are planning a celebration of the 200th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth on Febuary12, 2009. There are some bitter views as to his legacy with the First Americans. Also it is a tragic irony that his personage is on display on the Black Hills of the Dakota. Examine the political and legal issues of this tragic Minnesota affair under his watch. It is the largest mass execution of American people in the history of the United States."

"The revered Anglo- Saxon principle of law that a person is considered innocent until proven guilty was reversed in the case of the Indians. Authorities in Minnesota asked President Lincoln to order the immediate execution of all 303 Indian males found guilty. President Lincoln was under heavy political pressure to acknowledge states rights but he objected to what he viewed as wholesale slaughter. Lincoln was concerned with how this would play with the Europeans, whom he was afraid were about to enter the war on the side of the South. He wired the commanding officer to stay the executions and forward the "full and complete record of each conviction." He also ordered that any material that would discriminate the guilty from the questionable be included with the trial transcripts. Lincoln and Justice Department officials reviewed every case. Episcopalian Bishop Whipple pleaded for clemency but Military leaders and the Minnesota state politicians warned Lincoln that anything less than large-scale hangings would result in widespread white outrage and more violence against the Indians. After review, the president pardoned 265 of the 303 condemned Indians, approving a total of 38 executions. He offered the following compromise to the politicians of Minnesota: If they would pare the list of those to be hung down to 39. In return, Lincoln promised to kill or remove every Indian from the state and provide Minnesota with 2 million dollars in federal funds. This eagerness to buy cooperation from the state in spite of the fact that the Federal government still owed the Sioux 1.4 million for the land is both tragic and ironic."

"So, on December 26, 1862, the Great Emancipator ordered the largest mass execution in American History, where the guilt of those to be executed was entirely in doubt. After 38 of the condemned men were hanged on the 26 of December, the day after Christmas, in 1862 in what remains the largest mass hanging in United States history, the other prisoners continued to suffer in the concentration camps through the winter of 1862-63."

Just a quick google of "Stand Watie" and the "Knights of the Golden Circle" indicated the following.
Now I am not saying that these are correct, only that they were found on the internet.
Now can I prove that Stand Watie was a member of the KGC or anything else?  Can I even prove that he even lived or was a General or a Confederate or an Indian. No not really, not unless you believe everything you read. So if anyone tells me that Stand Watie was a Cherokee I will just have to say "prove it".

http://spirittalknews.com/standwatie.htm
"In 1861 the Civil War broke out and Stand Watie organized a small private army which called itself the “Knights of the Golden Circle.” He was soon commissioned as a colonel in the First Cherokee Mounted Rifles, a unit of the Confederate Army."

http://www.yvwiiusdinvnohii.net/Cherokee/CivilWar-AWarWithinAWar.htm
March, 1861
Elias C. Boudinot, Stand Watie’s nephew, elected Secretary of the Arkansas Secession Convention. Watie organized pro-Southern Secret Society called the “Knights of the Golden Circle” which later became “The Southern Rights Party.” Watie also raised guerilla company of Cherokees to assist the south.

The site below all clone the same article:
http://www.civilwarhome.com/watiebio.htm
http://www.mycivilwar.com/leaders/watie_stand.htm
http://www.congray.com/dixie/standwatie1.htm
http://historyonair.com/?page_id=6&id=95
"Stand Watie assumed the leadership of the Ridge-Watie-Boundinot faction and was involved in a long-running blood feud with the followers of John Ross.  He also was a leader of the Knights of the Golden Circle, which bitterly opposed abolitionism."

The Stand Watie Society  http://standwatie.org/
Stand Watie (De-ga-do-ga) was born Dec. 12, 1806, near Rome Georgia, and died Sept. 9, 1871, at his home on Honey Creek in Delaware County, Oklahoma, near the northwest corner of Arkansas. He learned to read and write English at a mission school in Georgia, and occasionally helped write for the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper (after Sequoyah developed the 86-symbol Cherokee syllabary in 1821) with his brother Buck Watie (who took the name of Elias Boudinot from a white benefactor). His father David Watie (or Oowatie) was the brother of Major Ridge, and the Ridge-Watie families became wealthy slave-owning planters in the new Cherokee constitutional republic that replaced tribal government in 1827. The state of Georgia opposed any form of tribal government and in 1828 began to pass repressive anti-Indian laws without any recourse for the Cherokee in state courts. After gold was discovered on Cherokee lands in northern Georgia, 3000 white settlers poached on Indian lands. Only the treaties with the federal government gave Indians protection from the states. The Supreme Court under John Marshall declared the repressive state laws null and void in the 1832 Worcester v. Georgia case, but President Jackson refused to enforce the court's decision. In 1832, Georgia confiscated most of the Cherokee land, including the estates of John Ross, and sold them in a land lottery to whites. The Georgia militia entered the Cherokee capital of New Chota and destroyed the Cherokee Phoenix.

The Ridge-Watie faction allied with President Andrew Jackson to sign the New Echota Treaty Dec. 29, 1835, that required Cherokees to leave Georgia in return for 800,000 acres in the Indian Territory and $15 million. The Treaty was opposed by tribal chief John Ross and the Council and most Cherokees who refused to leave their homes in Georgia. The Ridge-Watie group led the voluntary removal of 2000 Cherokees from Georgia to the Indian Territory in 1837, but Ross and 10,000 others were forced out on the "Trail of Tears" in 1838. Some members of the anti-treaty party decided to kill the leaders of the Treaty Party at a secret meeting at Double Springs on June 21, 1838, and the next day killed Major Ridge and John Ridge and Elias Boudinot. The executions were justified by a clause of the Cherokee Constitution that authorized the death penalty for anyone selling tribal land without authorization. Stand Watie was also marked for death, but was warned and escaped. The Cherokee nation was deeply divided by the experience of the Treaty and the Trail of Tears and the Ridge-Boudinot murders. Watie formed a band of warriors for protection and refused to disband after Ross complained to the Jackson government. This internal civil war lasted until a truce was established in 1846 and Stand Watie joined the Tribal Council 1845-1861 (although Ross would remain the official elected Principal Chief until his death in 1866) presiding over a Cherokee population of 21,000 in the Indian Territory in 1861.

Watie served as a member of the Southern Cherokee delegation during the negotiation of the Cherokee Reconstruction Treaty of 1866.  He then abandoned public life and returned to his old home along Honey Creek.  He died on September 9, 1871.

Myths of the Cherokee By James Mooney. From Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology 1897-98

"The breaking out of the civil war in 1861 found the Cherokee
divided in sentiment. Being slave owners, like the other Indians
removed from the southern states, and surrounded by southern influ-
ences, the agents in charge being themselves southern sympathizers,
a considerable party in each of the tribes was disposed to take active
part with the Confederacy. The old Ridge party, headed by Stand
Watie and supported by the secret secession organization known as
the Knights of the Golden Circle, declared for the Confederacy. The
National party, headed by John Ross and supported by the patriotic
organization known as the Kitoowah society — whose members were
afterward known as Pin Indians — declared for strict neutrality. At
last, however, the pressure became too strong to be resisted, and on
October 7, 1861, a treaty was concluded at Tahlequah, with General
Albert Pike, commissioner for the Confederate states, by which the
Cherokee Nation cast its lot with the Confederacy, as the Creeks,
Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Osage, Comanche, and several smaller
tribes had already done."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle/

Famous Native American Freemasons
http://bellsouthpwp.net/g/o/goodoowah/freemasons/
Stand Watie   Leader of Cherokee Nation and canonized as the last Confederate General to Surrender
Elias C. Boudinot Leader of the Southern Cherokee during the Civil War
John Ridge    Leader of the Cherokee Nation and Advisor to the Muscogee
http://bellsouthpwp.net/g/o/goodoowah/freemasons/

"Of the five tribes, Pike had most trouble with the Cherokee. Their leader was John Ross, a full-blood opposed to slavery. However, another senior member of the Cherokee was Stand Watie, who was also leader of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC). Ross refused to sign a treaty with Pike. Pike threatened Ross,
  "If he refuses, he will learn that his country is occupied; and I shall then negotiate with the leaders of the half-breeds who are now raising troops".
Around May 1861, a faction of Cherokee led by Stand Watie, also leader of the KGC, met with Pike to request the Confederacy to protect them from the Pins should they join the Confederacy and fight for slavery, protection which Pike agreed to give. Pike left the Cherokee and easily formed treaties with the other four tribes. Upon Pike's return to the Cherokee, Ross signed a treaty with Pike.

Stand Watie's brother was Lone Watie, also known as Elias C Boudinot. In the spring of 1860, Pike raised Elias to the 33rd Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Rite of Scottish Freemasonry. Elias was also the secretary to the 1861 secession convention of Arkansas, at which the Arkansas Ordinance of Secession was passed. Elias and Pike would later work together in Washington DC as lawyers."
http://www.theconspiracyexplained.com/People.html

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle/

Excerpts from The Keetoowah Society and the Avocation of Religious Nationalism in the Cherokee Nation, 1855-1867  Chapter Five
http://www.tngenweb.org/tncolor/keetood5.htm

"Less than a month before the surrender of Watie, a Grand Council of the Southern Indians had been held at Armstrong Academy in the western portion of the Indian Territory for the purposes of establishing a “United Nations of the Indian Territory.” [6] The “United Nations” was presided over by the leaders of the Five Nations as well as Plains Indians who had fought on the side of the Confederacy; present at the meeting were freemasons Stand Watie, William Penn Adair, John Jumper, Samuel Checote, George Stidham, Robert Jones, Peter Pitchlyn, Chilly McIntosh, D.N. McIntosh, and Reverend J.S. Murrow. Originally planned to present a united front in dealing with an impending surrender to the Federal Government, the council quickly took on other meaning. [7]"
[7] Dale and Lytton, 229; Wardell, 179; Foreman, 132


"...Bloodied yet unbowed, the Confederate Indians made no mention of defeat, wrongdoing, or mistakes in judgment. They also required that any permanent treaty, i.e. terms of surrender, be ratified by the national councils of each tribe. [11]"
[11] ibid.


"On June 15, 1865, a second meeting of the “United Nations of the Indian Territory” ratified the positions put forward at the earlier meeting and Stand Watie appointed a commission of six delegates that would “forward the great work of establishing thorough harmony among all Indian tribes.” [12] Shortly after the council disbanded, Major General Francis Herron (Iowa Mosaic Lodge #125) sent Lieutenant Colonel Matthews as Federal peace commissioner to Doaksville, Choctaw Nation to come to terms with members of the council. When he surrendered on June 19, Chief Peter Pitchlyn (Knights Templar Washington Commandery #1) expressed the sentiments of many of the Southern Indians:

"Our late allies in war, the Confederate armies, have long since ceased to resist the national authorities; they have all been either captured or surrendered to the forces of the United States. It therefore becomes us as brave people to forget and lay aside our prejudices and prove ourselves equal to the occasion. Let reason obtain now that the sway of our passions and let us meet in council with the proper spirit and resume our former relations with the United States. [13]
On June 28, Stand Watie sent Knights of the Golden Circle William P. Adair and James Bell to meet with General Francis Herron to negotiate terms of surrender for the Confederate Cherokee. [14]"
[12] Watie quoted in Wardell, 180.
[13] United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 130 Volumes, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1900), Vol. 67, 1105.
[14] Franks, 182.


"When the Keetoowah heard that Watie and the Knights of the Golden Circle sought a “thorough harmony” within the Cherokee people, it seemed that peace was truly at hand. However, when the Watie delegation arrived at Fort Gibson to present themselves to the government, they were bearing arms, bristling with defiance, and walked and talked not like a people who sought conciliation. [42] The delegation presented John Garrett, the commander of Fort Gibson, with a copy of Watie's surrender treaty which allowed for an unprecedented surrender “without demanding their paroles or their arms.”
[42] Abel, 156


"In October 1865, the Cherokee Council met in its entirety for the first time since the beginning of hostilities in 1861. The Fort Smith “treaties” were actually truces which provided a temporary settlement of affairs and a stable political arrangement until a more permanent treaty could be signed in Washington. However, the October Council was still dominated by the Keetoowah faction as many of the Knights of the Golden Circle were reticent to return to the active political affairs of the Nation until their security could be guaranteed. [77]"
[77] McLoughlin, Champions of the Cherokee, 415; Wardell, 194.


"Shortly after arriving in Washington, the Keetoowah delegation received an audience with President Andrew Johnson, Secretary Harlan, and Commissioner Cooley in the President's office in the White House. Thomas Pegg addressed the President and his representatives and presented them with the Memorial of the Delegates of the Cherokee Nation to the President of the United States and the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress. The memorial began with a discussion of the Harlan Bill, but quickly moved to the critical issues:

When the rebellion broke out the Cherokees were divided into two parties. The loyal and the disloyal. Both had been thoroughly organized for two or three years -- and prepared for the struggle. Under the lead of Stand Watie, lately a General in the rebel army, the disloyal element, (small in numbers but backed by strong influences from the rebellious states) had been organized into “Blue Lodges,” and Knights of the Golden Circle.” The loyal masses, by a general movement of the populace, had organized themselves into a Loyal League, known as the Keetoowah Society, but by the rebels it was called, in derision, “The Pin Society.” The Loyal League embraced the great mass of the men of the Cherokee nation, especially the full-blooded Indians."


"...the Southern delegation led by John Rollin Ridge and composed of Knights of the Golden Circle Stand Watie, Saladin Watie, Elias C. Boudinot, and William Penn Adair. They were assisted behind the scenes by the ever wily Albert Pike. Boudinot and Adair, responding in early February, noted that though the Civil War may have accentuated the divide between these two parties, their struggle went much further back in Cherokee history than the Civil War."

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Knights_of_the_Golden_Circle/

Thank you, cccalco, for setting the record straight about Stand Watie's membership in the KGC and the Cherokee's Masonic connections as well.  I commend you for your research ability. 
~Texas Jay

Dear ccalco;
You wrote:
VOICE:  “Hast thou cleansed thyself from human guilt and impurity?”
RED HAND:  “ I have”.
VOICE:  “Hast thou ill will toward any of they fellow creatures?”
RED HAND:  “I have not”.
VOICE:  “Wilt thou trust and obey us, keeping thyself always chaste and valorous?”
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “Wilt thou hold this power with which we endow thee for thine own chosen company only?”
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “Wilt thou endure death or torture in its cause?”
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “”Wilt thou vow this secret never to be revealed save at thy death hour?’
RED HAND:  “I will”.
VOICE:  “They death hour will be revealed to thee; thou wilt be allowed to choose thy successor, and at the end of thy journey thou wilt be rewarded for faith and obedience.”(2)


My question is, how the the American Indians learn how to speak late middle English so well?
Your friend;
LAMAR

   HA!  EASY answer is that the rituals of the Blue Lodge of FreeMasons has similar old "BRIT style" language; AND! Some tribes in North Carolina "speak" like that in FORMAL "sessions"; it is thought that the LUMBEE Nation is descended from the BRIT Lost Colony.
The migration from there to the mountains of WESTERN N.C., Tennessee, and SW Virginia... gave us, the "broken English" speech (BRIT), of the MELUNGEONS!  PROBABLY written down that way, for "rituals purposes".   The 1611 KJV BIBLE, is PROBABLY the "source", of the speech pattern... check it out. 
 

My question is, how the the American Indians learn how to speak late middle English so well?
Your friend;
LAMAR

Of course it is unclear here whether the English being written is that of the native speaker or the English speaking transcriber/translator. And the English/French/Spanish spoken by the Amerindian was always representative of the first European contact. Could come through contact by trade or even contact with the missing colony at Roanoke. Early colonist often spoke of English speaking "white Indians".

Tubal-Cain

TW

 

Excerpt from: The escape and suicide of John Wilkes Booth:
or, The first true account of Lincoln's assassination,
containing a complete confession by Booth
by Finis Langdon Bates, 1907
http://www.archive.org/details/escapesuicideofj00bate

Chapter XV. Gen. Albert Pike Identified Booth beginning page 222

CHAPTER XV.

GEN. ALBERT PIKE IDENTIFIES BOOTH.

While trying to trace Booth after he left Fresno,
California, I read a story from Col. Edward Levan,
of Monterey, Mexico. He says that a man whom he
believed to be Booth roomed with him during the
winter of 1868, in Lexington, Kentucky. The two
became quite friendly, and Col. Levan openly de-
clared to the man, who was going by the name of
J. J. Marr, that he believed him to be John Wilkes
Booth. Mr. Marr did not deny the allegation, but
shortly thereafter left Lexington, where he was
"playing the character of a lawyer."

Col. Levan says that he afterward learned that
Mr. Marr had settled at Village Mills, Texas, and
from there went to Glenrose Mills, Texas, at which
place I first met John St. Helen, and where he de-
clared himself to be John Wilkes Booth.

Col. M. W. Connolly, a distinguished newspaper
man, at present and for many years past connected 
The Veteran Mason, Statesman, Lawyer and Poet, as He
Appeared at the Time of His Recognition of John Wilkes
Booth at Port Worth, Texas, in 1885.
with the leading papers as editor-in-chief, a gentle-
man of the highest type, a brilliant writer and a man
of honor and integrity, says :

"I am strongly inclined to believe that David B.
George, who died at Enid, Oklahoma Territory, was
John Wilkes Booth, the man who killed Lincoln.

"In 1883, while in the little town of Village Mills,
Texas, I met George, although I never knew his
name, and cannot say whether he went under that
name or not. He impressed me. I had seen Edwin
Booth once in Galveston, and had some knowledge
of the appearance of the Booth family. Later I went
to Fort Worth as editor of the Gazette, under the
late Walter Malone. I had forgotten all about my
casual acquaintance of Village Mills.

"One night I was in the Pickwick Hotel barroom
talking to Gen. Albert Pike, who had come down
from Washington on legal business. I had called on
him to inquire about a claim against the government
in which he was interested the claim of the heirs
of my wife's grandfather, Major Michie, of La-
Grange, Tennessee, whose cotton and cotton gins
were burned by the Federal troops when Grant was
at LaGrange. Capt. Day, of Day & Maas, proprie-
tors, was behind the bar. It was in 1884 or 1885,
and we were unconventional then.

"Tom Powell, mayor of Fort Worth, joined us, and
Temple Houston, youngest son of the ex-Governor
of Tennessee, the man who whipped Santa Anna at
San Jaeinto, and the first president of the Texas
republic (Gen Sam Houston), was there. I was
about to leave, was waiting for a pause in order to
excuse myself ; Gen. Pike was explaining how he had
been credited with the authorship of 'The Old
Canoe,' which he said was written by some woman;
just then my Village Mills friend came in accom-
panied by some one, I think Long Scurlock, who
used to edit the Chronicle at Cleburne, Texas. Capt.
Day turned to make a change. I was watching Gen.
Pike closely (trying to get away), when suddenly
he threw up his hands, his face white as his hair and
beard, and exclaimed :

'"My God! John Wilkes Booth!' He was much
excited, trembled like an aspen, and at my sugges-
tion went to his room. He seemed weakened by the
shock, the occasion of which I could not realize at
the moment. I saw him climb the stairs to his room
and turned to look for my Village Mills acquaint-
ance, but could not find him.

"While talking to Temple Houston the next morn-
ing I pointed out my Village Mills friend when I
was called to Gen. Pike, who was standing on the
opposite side of the street, and Temple Houston
promised me that he would look the man up and get
a story. I have heard that the alleged Booth, the
man whom I had met, moved to the Territory later,
but I took no newspaper interest in the matter.

"I never saw J. Wilkes Booth, but I have seen his
pictures, and while I am in no way certain, I am
strongly of the belief that the man who died at Enid
was John Wilkes Booth. I am quite sure that the
venerable author of 'Every Year* believed it was
the infatuated actor, and I am sure that he was
amazed to find that his bewailment, 'There are fewer
to regret us,' did not include the man who took a
leading part in our great national tragedy."

It is of interest in this connection to state that
Fort Worth, Texas, is only about forty-fives miles
to the northeast of Grandberry, Texas, my old home
and St. Helen's. It was from this place, in 1878,
that he drifted to Leadville, Colorado, and from
thence to Fresno, California, and was next seen in
1884 or 1885 at Fort Worth, Texas, near his old
home, by Gen. Albert Pike, in company with M.
W. Connolly, and by Gen. Pike recognized as John
Wilkes Booth.

The man supposed to be Booth was seen by others
before he settled at Glenrose Mills, for Dr. H. W.
Gay says :

"I knew John Wilkes Booth in 1857, and while I
was at Fort Donaldson, a prisoner of war, the news
was flashed over the world that President Lincoln
had been slain by John Wilkes Booth. I was horri-
fied to think of such a thing, for Booth, though a
boy when I knew him, in appearance was the most
accomplished gentleman with whom I had ever come
in contact. All who knew him well were captivated
by him. He was the most hospitable, genial fellow
to be met, and when drinking or much in company,
he was always quoting Shakespeare, or some other
poet. How many times have I seen him strike a
tragic attitude and exclaim:

O'The aspiring youth who fires the Ephesians dome
Outlives in fame the pious fools who reared it.'

"I read of his capture and death and never
doubted it until the year 1869. I was then living in
what is now Tate county, Mississippi. One evening
about dusk a man came to my house claiming that
he was one of the Ku-Klux Clan run out of Arkansas
by Clayton's militia (the Clayton referred to being
Powell Clayton, until recently Ambassador to Mexico).

"I soon recognized this man as an erratic fellow.
During his stay at my house he told me that John
Wilkes Booth was not killed, but made his escape
and spent a short while in Mexico with Maximilian 's
army, but got into trouble, and his life was saved
by reason of the fact that he was a Catholic. The
man also stated that during Booth's short stay in
Mexico he had lived in disguise as an itinerant Cath-
olic priest. He also told me the story of how Booth
had escaped after the assassination was done, and it
corresponded exactly with Mr. Bates' story as told
by John St. Helen, even to the crossing of the Mis-
sissippi river at Catfish Point and going thence up
the Arkansas river to Indian Territory. And that
Booth afterward met Junius Brutus Booth and his
mother in San Francisco."

This meeting was possibly arranged while John
Wilkes Booth was in the Indian Territory, and may
explain in some measure his employment to drive a
team from Nebraska City, Nebraska, to Salt Lake,
Utah, for Mr. L. Treadkel, in 1866 or 1867, and his
unceremonious desertion of duty before reaching
Salt Lake City.

So we have Booth, or St. Helen, meeting his oldest
brother, Junius Brutus Booth, at San Francisco in
1866 or 1867. Again we locate him in Lexington,
Kentucky, in company with Col. Levan, in 1868 or
1869, and seen by Dr. Gay in Tate county, Mississip-
pi, in 1869. In 1872 I met and knew him intimately at
Glenrose Mills, Texas. In 1883 Mr. Connolly saw
him at Village Mills, Texas, and again in 1884 or
1885 at Fort Worth, Texas, where he was recog-
nized by Gen. Albert Pike.

At Fort Worth we lost sight of Booth for a num-
ber of years, but it seems from the best obtainable
information that he drifted into the vicinity of Guthrie,
Oklahoma Territory, but was located at He.i-
nessy, Oklahoma Territory, in the year 1896, play-
ing the role of a gentleman of leisure, under the name
of George D. Ryan, where he remained until some
time in the year 1899, when he located at El Reno,
Oklahoma Territory, sixty-five miles south of Hen-
nessy, stopping at the Anstein hotel, where he was
domiciled in 1898 when I took up the matter with
the government authorities at Washington. %

On moving to El Reno, in 1899, Booth made de-
posits of money, opening an account with the State
bank of that place, under the name of David E.
George. Assuming the character of a journeyman
house painter he took a contract and painted a small
cottage for Mr. Anstien, the proprietor of the An-
stein hotel, and advertised himself as David E.
George, house painter, in the Daily Democrat, a
newspaper published at El Reno, but took no jobs of
painting after that first one for Mr. Anstien, and did
no other work in this nor any other business at El Reno.

At the El Reno State bank, where Booth made his
deposits as David E. George, the tintype picture of
St. Helen (Booth), taken twelve years after the as-
sassination of President Lincoln, was at once identi-
fied by the officials of the bank as being a true like-
ness of the man David E. George, who made the de-
posits at their bank and with whom they were per-
sonally acquainted. At the request of Mr. Bellamy,
one of the bank officials, I went with him to another
bank, the name of which I do not now remember,
and was introduced to the president of this bank,
whose name I believe was- Dr. Davis, who at once
identified the tintype picture of St. Helen as a true
and correct likeness of David E. George.

After remaining at the Anstien Hotel for quite a
long while David E. George (Booth) bought a cot-
tage at El Eeno, paying thirty-five hundred dollars
for it, where he installed a family by the name of
Simmons, who were to board him for the rent of the
place. He told the Anstiens that he was tired of
hotel life and requested them to look for a wife for
him, saying in a joking way that he would pay hand-
somely for one well suiting his fancy, who would be
willing to take charge of his cottage home.

Mrs. Simmons also took to board with her the
Methodist minister and his wife, the Rev. and Mrs.
Harper. Mr. Harper is a man of means and follows
the ministry as a matter of choice and not as a means
of livelihood, and his wife is a lady of great refine-
ment and culture, occupying in church and social
circles a high position. Being thrown much together
in the ordinary course of everyday life at the cottage
Mrs. Harper as well as the members of the Simmons
family grew to be on intimate terms with George
(Booth), who fell ill with his chronic asthmatic af-
fliction, from which he suffered a great deal, and
was removed from his cottage home to the Kerfoot
Hotel. Mrs. Harper, Mrs. Simmons and other kind-
hearted ladies of the city visited George (Booth),
who by right of birth and breeding moved in the so-
cial circle to which he was born, regardless of his
advertisement in the Democrat as a house painter,
performing for him such ministries as were neces-
sary.

Mrs. Harper makes the following statement:
"Mr. George (Booth) had been a resident of the
Territory for several years. He had always been
well supplied with money, the origin or source of
which no one knew, for from some mysterious source
he received a regular remittance. He was a familiar
figure in Guthrie, El Reno and Enid. My acquaint-
ance with Mr. George led me to believe him to be a
very different person from what he represented him-
self to be as David E. George, the painter. He was
eccentric, and though he claimed to be a painter of
houses, yet he did no work. He was possessed of
the highest degree of intelligence, had always the
bearing of a gentleman of cultivation and refine-
ment, and in conversation was fluent and captivat-
ing, while he discussed subjects of the greatest mo-
ment with learning, familiarity and ease. There
were very few people with whom he cared to asso-
ciate. Generally he was gloomy, though at times he
would brighten up, sing snatches of stage songs and
repeat Shakespeare's plays in an admirable manner.
He was so well versed in these plays and other writ-
ings that he would often answer questions with a
quotation.

"At one time the young people of El Reno had a
play of some kind. One of the actors became ill and
Mr. George (Booth) filled the place to the great ad-
miration and entertainment of those who saw him.
When surprise was expressed at his ability as an
actor he replied that he had acted some when he was
a young man.

"Regarding his people, he told different stories.
One time he said his father was a doctor, and he
and a brother were the only children; that his
mother had married again and two half brothers
were living in the Indian Territory, their name being
Smith, and that he had property in the Indian Ter-
ritory. Again he seemed very lonely at times, and
said that he had not a relative in the world. He was
subject to fits of melancholia, was extremely sensi-
tive, quick tempered and rather excitable. He said
he had never married. There seemed to be some-
thing constantly on his mind about which he thought,
and which made him miserable. He seemed to love
to have one understand that he was in trouble and
appreciated sympathy.

"He remained with the Simmons family three
months and treated everyone with the greatest kind-
ness and consideration. Never do I remember his
mentioning the history of his past life or that he
was other than David E. George until the time he
thought he was going to die that was about the
middle of April, 1902.

"He had gone up town, but returned shortly and,
entering the room where Mrs. Simmons, Mrs. Bears
and myself were seated, he made some remarks re-
garding the weather, which was unusually fine for
the time of year. He then went to his room and in
about fifteen minutes called for us, and said :

" 'I feel as if I am going to be very sick.' He
was lying on his bed and asked me to get him a
mirror. For some time he gazed at himself in the
mirror.

"Mrs. Bears said she could see the pupils of his
eyes dilate and believed that he had taken mor-
phine. Being uneasy, she went out o. che room and
got him a cup of coffee and insisted until he drank
it, but when she suggested sending for a physician
he roused himself and in a peculiar and dramatic
manner and voice said, while holding the mirror in
front of his face :

" 'Stay, woman, stay. This messenger of death
is my guest, and I desire to see the curtain of death
fall upon the last tragic act of mine, ' which passion-
ate utterance brought tears to our eyes. And when
I turned to wipe the tears from my eyes he called
me to his side and said :

' 'I have something to tell you. I am going to
die in a few minutes, and I don't believe you would
do anything to injure me. Did it ever occur to you
that I am anything but an ordinary painter? I
killed the best man that ever lived.' I asked him
who it was and he answered:

" 'Abraham Lincoln.'

"I could not believe it. I thought him out of his
head and asked: 'Who was Abraham Lincoln?'

" 'Is it possible you are so --deleted-- as not to
know?' he asked. He then took a pencil and paper
and wrote down in a peculiar but legible hand the
name, 'Abraham Lincoln,' and said:

" 'Don't doubt it, it is true. I am John Wilkes
Booth.'

" 'Am I dying now?' he asked. 'I feel cold, as if
death's icy hand was closing my life as the forfeit
for my crime.'

"He then told me that he was well off. He seemed
to be perfectly rational while talking to me. He
knew me and knew where he was, and I believe he
really thought in fact that he was dying, and asked
me to keep his secret until he was dead, adding that
if any one should find out now that he was J. "Wilkes
Booth they would take him out and hang him, and the
people who loved him so well now would despise him.
He told me that people high in official life hated
Lincoln and were implicated in his assassination. He
said that the suspense of possibly being detected
preyed on his mind all the time and was something
awful, and that his life was miserable. He said that
Mrs. Surratt was innocent and he was responsible
for her death as well as that of several others. He
said that he was devoted to acting, but had to give
it up because of his crime, and the fact that he must
remain away from the stage, when he loved the life
and profession of acting so well, made him restless
and ill tempered. He said he had plenty of money,
but was compelled to play the character of a work-
ing man to keep his mind occupied.

"In the mean time Dr. Arnold arrived and as ft
result of his efforts Mr. George was restored. After
this he was very anxious for weeks regarding what
he had told me and questioned me concerning it.
I answered him that he had told me nothing of im-
portance, but he seemed to know better. One day
he saw me looking at a picture of Lincoln and asked
me why I was looking at it. I told him that I had
always admired Lincoln.

" 'Is that the only reason you have for looking at
it?' he asked, regarding me with a fierce look. A
peculiar expression came over his face, his eyes
flashed and he turned pale and walked off.

"One peculiar feature of Mr. George, or Booth's,
face was that one eyebrow was somewhat higher
than the other. I have noticed him limp slightly,
but he said it was rheumatism. That Mr. George had
a past we all knew, but what his secret was remains
unknown except in so far as he may have communi-
cated the truth to me."

Booth's, or George's, life at El Reno was much
the same as I have found it at other places a simi-
larity and accumulative evidence unmistakably es-
tablishing his identity of person and character
wherever he located. It seems to have been his pol-
icy to change his name and character as often as he
changed his place of residence. It will be remem-
bered that when he left Hennessy for El Reno that
he changed his name from George D. Ryan to David
E. George, and his occupation and dress from that
of a gentleman of leisure to that of a journeyman
painter of houses, which character he acted to such
perfection that, although he painted but one house,
and did that in such an uneven and unworkmanlike
manner as to show that he knew little or nothing
about painting, yet people thought he knew all about
it, and just why he did no more painting the general
public did not understand. Upon inquiry, however,
George, or Booth, was always ready with a satis-
factory explanation. When the editor of the El Reno
Democrat, in which paper he put an advertisement
as a tradesman of house painting, at a cost of four
dollars a month, thinking it a useless expense, so
universally was it known that George, or Booth, did
no such work, suggested this to him, George, or
Booth, indignantly demanded to know if the editor
was uneasy about the price of the card, if so he
would pay for it in advance. The editor apologized
and the card continued from month to month for
two years, up to the date of the death of George.

Booth's purpose in this is obvious. He wanted to
keep himself constantly before the public as a paint-
er, not that he wanted work, but to keep alive his
identity as a painter while he played the deceptive
character. The 'little cottage painted for Mr. An-
stien was the stage setting to the character, the card
in the paper was his program and he played to a suc-
cessful finish this drama of the journeyman painter.

Booth's idea in purchasing the cottage and estab-
lishing a home for himself was probably because he
thought he would enjoy it after a long and homeless
life, alone whether on the plains, in the mountains
or the best hotels for it was his custom to put up
at only the best hotels wherever he went. Thus,
when he reached El Reno he went to the Anstien
Hotel, the best one then in the city, and as good as
any there now. But three months of home life was
quite sufficient for him and he moved into the Ker-
foot Hotel, 1he newest and most up-to-date hotel in
El Reno, which was completed after he left the An-
stien for his cottage. Just how it was possible for
Booth to stay at this hotel, the stopping place of
most ol the traveling public, and escape detection
in his changed character from " Gentleman Ryan"
to "Journeyman House Painter George," by people
from Hennessy, only about sixty-five miles away,
who must have frequented this hotel, is hard to un.
derstand. Nevertheless it is true. It would be pos-
sible, perhaps easy, to deceive as to occupation, but
to successfully disguise his person, and change his
name, is remarkable and certainly required all the
genius of the actor, John "Wilkes Booth, who played
the change of name, person and character practically
in the same community. At El Reno, Guthrie and
Enid he was known as George, while at Hennessy,
within the same section, he was known as George D.
Ryan, and that he was not recognized and exposed
staggers comprehension and creates disbelief, nev-
ertheless Booth did this successfully, as he aid many
other surprising things.

Leaving El Reno, Booth, or George, arrived at
Enid on the 3d day of December, 1902, and registered
at the Grand Avenue Hotel, under the name of David
E. George. In the meantime Mr. Harper and his
wife had removed from El Reno to Enid, from which
place she made the following statement:

"On the evening of January 13th, I was startled
and surprised by reading in the Enid Daily News
of the suicide of David E. George, of El Reno, with
whom I first became acquainted in March, 1900, iu
El Reno, at the home of Mr. Simmons.

"Mr. Harper went down on Wednesday morning,
the 14th instant, and recognized him, and told the
embalmers of a confession that David E. George had
made to myself, and that they had better investi-
gate.

"I went to the morgue with Mr. Harper on the
15th and identified the corpse of David E. George
as the man who had confessed to me at El Reno that
he was John Wilkes Booth, and, as brevity has been
enjoined on me, will reaffirm my former statement
made in detail of David E. George's confession to me
at El Reno, about the middle of April, 1900, as fully
as if same were set forth herein.

(Signed.) "MRS. E. C. HARPER."

" Territory of Oklahoma,
" County of Garland.

"Mrs. E. C. Harper, first being duly sworn, upon
her oath says that the facts were written above by
herself; that she knows the facts she has written,
and that the same are true.

(Signed) "MRS. B. C. HARPER,
' ' Sworn to and subscribed before me this the 24th
day of January, 1903.

(Signed) "A. A. STRATFORD,
"Notary Public.
(L. S.) "My commission expires November 18th, 1906."

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Indian cavalry
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_cavalry
Indian cavalry is the name collectively given (for lack of a better one) to the Midwest and Eastern American Indians who fought during the American Civil War, most of them on horseback and for the South.

The Cherokee Braves Flag, as flown by Stand Watie.
Scales'/Fry's Battalion of Cherokee Cavalry
Meyer's Battalion of Cherokee Cavalry
Cherokee Battalion of Infantry
Second Cherokee Artillery
Contents

1 Chickasaw Nation
2 Choctaw Nation
3 Creek Nation
4 Seminole Nation
5 Osage Cavalry Battalion
6 Native American units in the US Armed forces
7 See also
8 External links
Chickasaw Nation

First Regiment of Chickasaw Infantry
First Regiment of Chickasaw Cavalry First Colonel: William L. Hunter
First Battalion of Chickasaw Cavalry
Shecoe's Chickasaw Battalion of Mounted Volunteers
Choctaw Nation

First Regiment Choctaw & Chickasaw Mounted Rifles
First Regiment of Choctaw Mounted Rifles
Deneale's Regiment of Choctaw Warriors
Second Regiment of Choctaw Cavalry
Third Regiment of Choctaw Cavalry
Folsom's Battalion of Choctaw Mounted Rifles
Capt. John Wilkin's Company of Choctaw Infantry
Northwest Frontier Command of Indian Territory
Creek Nation

First Creek Mounted Rifles - Col. Daniel N. McIntosh, Commanding
Co. A - 2nd Lt. William McIntosh
Co. C - Capt. William F. McIntosh, Commanding
Co. G - Capt. William H. McIntosh, Commanding
Co. G - 2nd Lt. A.H. McIntosh
Second Creek Mounted Rifles - Lt. Col. Chilly McIntosh, Commanding
Seminole Nation

First Battalion Seminole Mounted Volunteers
First Regiment Seminole Mounted Volunteers
Osage Cavalry Battalion

First Commander: Major Broken Arm [1][2]
Native American units in the US Armed forces

Indian Home Guard (American Civil War)

See also

Albert Pike
Battle of Chustenahlah
Battle of Chusto-Talasah
Battle of Pea Ridge
Battle of Round Mountain
Benjamin McCulloch
Billy Bowlegs
Cherokee Nation Warriors Society
Douglas H. Cooper
Ely S. Parker
First Confederate Congress
Fort Smith Council
Halleck Tustenuggee
James G. Blunt
John Rollin Ridge
Keetoowah Nighthawk Society
Lewis Downing
Lumbee
Murrell Home
Opothleyahola
Richard Montgomery Gano
Sam Sixkiller
Samuel B. Maxey
Second Confederate Congress
Confederate Government Civil War units: Indian cavalry
External links

LewRockwell.com article on the Cherokee Nation and the CSA
Source page, used with permission from the author
Native American CSA Records
http://juntosociety.com/native/black_dog.htm
Stand Watie Civil War Regiment Roster
http://www.us-data.org/us/minges/keetoodi.html
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_cavalry"
Categories: Confederate States of America | Cherokee tribe | Native American history | Oklahoma in the American Civil War | Arkansas in the American Civil War | Bleeding Kansas | Native Americans in the Civil War | Irregular forces of the American Civil War
This page was last modified on 20 August 2009 at 06:22.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of Use for details.
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

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Why the Cherokee Nation Allied Themselves With the Confederate States of America in 1861
by Leonard M. Scruggs
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/scruggs4.html
       
Many have no doubt heard of the valor of the Cherokee warriors under the command of Brigadier General Stand Watie in the West and of Thomas’ famous North Carolina Legion in the East during the War for Southern Independence from 1861 to 1865. But why did the Cherokees and their brethren, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, and Chickasaws determine to make common cause with the Confederate South against the Northern Union? To know their reasons is very instructive as to the issues underlying that tragic war. Most Americans have been propagandized rather than educated in the causes of the war, all this to justify the perpetrators and victors. Considering the Cherokee view uncovers much truth buried by decades of politically correct propaganda and allows a broader and truer perspective.

On August 21, 1861, the Cherokee Nation by a General Convention at Tahlequah (in Oklahoma) declared its common cause with the Confederate States against the Northern Union. A treaty was concluded on October 7th between the Confederate States and the Cherokee Nation, and on October 9th, John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation called into session the Cherokee National Committee and National Council to approve and implement that treaty and a future course of action.

The Cherokees had at first considerable consternation over the growing conflict and desired to remain neutral. They had much common economy and contact with their Confederate neighbors, but their treaties were with the government of the United States.

The Northern conduct of the war against their neighbors, strong repression of Northern political dissent, and the roughshod trampling of the U. S Constitution under the new regime and political powers in Washington soon changed their thinking.

The Cherokee were perhaps the best educated and literate of the American Indian Tribes. They were also among the most Christian. Learning and wisdom were highly esteemed. They revered the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as particularly important guarantors of their rights and freedoms. It is not surprising then that on October 28, 1861, the National Council issued a Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation of the Causes Which Have Impelled them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the Confederate States of America.

The introductory words of this declaration strongly resembled the 1776 Declaration of Independence:

"When circumstances beyond their control compel one people to sever the ties which have long existed between them and another state or confederacy, and to contract new alliances and establish new relations for the security of their rights and liberties, it is fit that they should publicly declare the reasons by which their action is justified."

In the next paragraphs of their declaration the Cherokee Council noted their faithful adherence to their treaties with the United States in the past and how they had faithfully attempted neutrality until the present. But the seventh paragraph begins to delineate their alarm with Northern aggression and sympathy with the South:

"But Providence rules the destinies of nations, and events, by inexorable necessity, overrule human resolutions."

Comparing the relatively limited objectives and defensive nature of the Southern cause in contrast to the aggressive actions of the North they remarked of the Confederate States:

"Disclaiming any intention to invade the Northern States, they sought only to repel the invaders from their own soil and to secure the right of governing themselves. They claimed only the privilege asserted in the Declaration of American Independence, and on which the right of Northern States themselves to self-government is formed, and altering their form of government when it became no longer tolerable and establishing new forms for the security of their liberties."

The next paragraph noted the orderly and democratic process by which each of the Confederate States seceded. This was without violence or coercion and nowhere were liberties abridged or civilian courts and authorities made subordinate to the military. Also noted was the growing unity and success of the South against Northern aggression. The following or ninth paragraph contrasts this with ruthless and totalitarian trends in the North:

"But in the Northern States the Cherokee people saw with alarm a violated constitution, all civil liberty put in peril, and all rules of civilized warfare and the dictates of common humanity and decency unhesitatingly disregarded. In the states which still adhered to the Union a military despotism had displaced civilian power and the laws became silent with arms. Free speech and almost free thought became a crime. The right of habeas corpus, guaranteed by the constitution, disappeared at the nod of a Secretary of State or a general of the lowest grade. The mandate of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was at naught by the military power and this outrage on common right approved by a President sworn to support the constitution. War on the largest scale was waged, and the immense bodies of troops called into the field in the absence of any warranting it under the pretense of suppressing unlawful combination of men."

The tenth paragraph continues the indictment of the Northern political party in power and the conduct of the Union Armies:

"The humanities of war, which even barbarians respect, were no longer thought worthy to be observed. Foreign mercenaries and the scum of the cities and the inmates of prisons were enlisted and organized into brigades and sent into Southern States to aid in subjugating a people struggling for freedom, to burn, to plunder, and to commit the basest of outrages on the women; while the heels of armed tyranny trod upon the necks of Maryland and Missouri, and men of the highest character and position were incarcerated upon suspicion without process of law, in jails, forts, and prison ships, and even women were imprisoned by the arbitrary order of a President and Cabinet Ministers; while the press ceased to be free, and the publication of newspapers was suspended and their issues seized and destroyed; the officers and men taken prisoners in the battles were allowed to remain in captivity by the refusal of the Government to consent to an exchange of prisoners; as they had left their dead on more than one field of battle that had witnessed their defeat, to be buried and their wounded to be cared for by southern hands."

The eleventh paragraph of the Cherokee declaration is a fairly concise summary of their grievances against the political powers now presiding over a new U. S. Government:

"Whatever causes the Cherokee people may have had in the past to complain of some of the southern states, they cannot but feel that their interests and destiny are inseparably connected to those of the south. The war now waging is a war of Northern cupidity and fanaticism against the institution of African servitude; against the commercial freedom of the south, and against the political freedom of the states, and its objects are to annihilate the sovereignty of those states and utterly change the nature of the general government."

The Cherokees felt they had been faithful and loyal to their treaties with the United States, but now perceived that the relationship was not reciprocal and that their very existence as a people was threatened. They had also witnessed the recent exploitation of the properties and rights of Indian tribes in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon, and feared that they, too, might soon become victims of Northern rapacity. Therefore, they were compelled to abrogate those treaties in defense of their people, lands, and rights. They felt the Union had already made war on them by their actions.

Finally, appealing to their inalienable right to self-defense and self-determination as a free people, they concluded their declaration with the following words:

"Obeying the dictates of prudence and providing for the general safety and welfare, confident of the rectitude of their intentions and true to their obligations to duty and honor, they accept the issue thus forced upon them, unite their fortunes now and forever with the Confederate States, and take up arms for the common cause, and with entire confidence of the justice of that cause and with a firm reliance upon Divine Providence, will resolutely abide the consequences.

The Cherokees were true to their words. The last shot fired in the war east of the Mississippi was May 6, 1865. This was in an engagement at White Sulphur Springs, near Waynesville, North Carolina, of part of Thomas’ Legion against Kirk’s infamous Union raiders that had wreaked a murderous terrorism and destruction on the civilian population of Western North Carolina. Col. William H. Thomas’ Legion was originally predominantly Cherokee, but had also accrued a large number of North Carolina mountain men.    On June 23, 1865, in what was the last land battle of the war, Confederate Brigadier General and Cherokee Chief, Stand Watie, finally surrendered his predominantly Cherokee, Oklahoma Indian force to the Union.

The issues as the Cherokees saw them were 1) self-defense against Northern aggression, both for themselves and their fellow Confederates, 2) the right of self-determination by a free people, 3) protection of their heritage, 4) preservation of their political rights under a constitutional government of law 5) a strong desire to retain the principles of limited government and decentralized power guaranteed by the Constitution, 6) protection of their economic rights and welfare, 7) dismay at the despotism of the party and leaders now in command of the U. S. Government, 8) dismay at the ruthless disregard of commonly accepted rules of warfare by the Union, especially their treatment of civilians and non-combatants, 9) a fear of economic exploitation by corrupt politicians and their supporters based on observed past experience, and 10) alarm at the self-righteous and extreme, punitive, and vengeful pronouncements on the slavery issue voiced by the radical abolitionists and supported by many Northern politicians, journalists, social, and religious (mostly Unitarian) leaders. It should be noted here that some of the Cherokees owned slaves, but the practice was not extensive.

The Cherokee Declaration of October 1861 uncovers a far more complex set of "Civil War" issues than most Americans have been taught. Rediscovered truth is not always welcome. Indeed some of the issues here are so distressing that the general academic, media, and public reaction is to rebury them or shout them down as politically incorrect.

The notion that slavery was the only real or even principal cause of the war is very politically correct and widely held, but historically --deleted--. It has served, however, as a convenient ex post facto justification for the war and its conduct. Slavery was an issue, and it was related to many other issues, but it was by no means the only issue, or even the most important underlying issue. It was not even an issue in the way most people think of it. Only about 25% of Southern households owned slaves. For most people, North and South, the slavery issue was not so much whether to keep it or not, but how to phase it out without causing economic and social disruption and disaster. Unfortunately the Southern and Cherokee fear of the radical abolitionists turned out to be well founded.

After the Reconstruction Act was passed in 1867 the radical abolitionists and radical Republicans were able to issue in a shameful era of politically punitive and economically exploitive oppression in the South, the results of which lasted many years, and even today are not yet completely erased.

The Cherokee were and are a remarkable people who have impacted the American heritage far beyond their numbers. We can be especially grateful that they made a well thought out and articulate declaration for supporting and joining the Confederate cause in 1861.

PRINCIPAL REFERENCES:

Emmett Starr, History of the Cherokee Indians, published by the Warden Company, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1921. Reprinted by Kraus Reprint Company, Millwood, New York, 1977.
Hattie Caldwell Davis, Civil War Letters and Memories from the Great Smoky Mountains, Second Edition published by the author, Maggie Valley, NC, 1999.

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Union and Confederate Indians in the Civil War
http://www.civilwarhome.com/unionconfedindians.htm
    THE Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole tribes were the only Indian tribes who took an active part in the civil war. Before the war very few of the Indians of these tribes manifested any interest in the question of slavery, and only a small number owned slave property. Slavery among them was not regarded in the same light as among the whites, for in many instances the slaves acted as if they were on an equality with their masters. But the tribes named occupied valuable territory, and the Confederate authorities lost no time in sending agents among them to win them over. When the Confederate agents first approached the full-blood leaders of the Cherokee and Creek tribes on the subject of severing their relations with the United States, the Indian expressed themselves cautiously but decidedly as preferring to remain neutral.
    Conspicuous among these who took a decided stand against organizing the Indians to oppose the Federal Government was Hopoeithelyohola, the old chief of the Creek tribe. The Confederate agents had succeeded in winning over ex-Chief McIntosh, by appointing him colonel, but, perhaps, two-thirds of the people preferred to be guided by the advice of their valuable old chief, Hopoeithleyohola.
    In the fall of 1861, Colonel Douglas H. Cooper, commanding the department of Indian operations under authority from the Confederate Government, made several ineffectual efforts to have a conference with the old chief of for the purpose of effecting a peaceful settlement of the difficulties that were dividing the nation into two hostile camps. Finding Hopoeithleyhola unwavering in his loyalty to the United States, Colonel Cooper determined to force him into submission, destroy his power, or drive him out of the country, and at once commenced collecting forces, composed mostly of white troops, to attack him. In November and December, 1861, the battles of Chusto Talasah and Chustenhlah were fought, and the loyal Indians finally were defeated and forced to retire to Kansas in midwinter.
    In the spring of 1862 the United States Government sent an expedition of five thousand men under Colonel William Weer, 10th Kansas Infantry, into the Indian Territory to drive out the Confederate forces of Pike and Cooper, and to restore the refugee Indians to their homes. After a short action at Locust Grove, near Grand Saline, Cherokee Nation, July 2d, Colonel Weer's cavalry captured Colonel Clarkson and part of his regiment for Missourians. On the 16th of July Captain Greeno, 6th Kansas Cavalry, captured Tahlequah, the captain of the Cherokee Nation, and on the 19th of July Colonel Jewell, 6th Kansas Cavalry, captured Fort Gibson, the most important point in the Indian Territory.
    The Confederate forces were now driven out of all that part of the Indian country north of the Arkansas River, and the loyal Indians of the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations were organized, by authority of the United States Government, into three regiments, each fully a thousand strong, for the defense of their country. The colonel and part of the field and line officers of each regiment were white officers. Most of the captaiwere IWilliam A. Phillips, of Kansas, who was active in organizing these Indian regiments, commanded the Indian brigade from its organization to the close of the war. He took part with his Indian troops in the action at Locust Grove, C. N., and in the battles of Newtonia, Mo., Maysville, Ark., Prairie Grove, Ark., Honey Springs, C. N., Perryville, C. N., besides many other minor engagements.
    In all the operations in which they participated they acquitted themselves creditably, and to the satisfaction of the Federal commander in the Indian Territory.
    On the Confederate side, General Albert Pike and Colonel Douglas H. Cooper, in the all and winter of 1861, organized three regiments of Indians from the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations or tribes, for service in the Indian Territory. These regiments, under General Pike, participated in the battle of Pea Ridge, Ark., on the 7th and 8th of March, 1862. In the five tribes named a battalion and parts of four regiments were raised for the Confederate service, but these amounted in all to perhaps not over 3500 men.
    At the close of Mr. Buchanan's administration nearly all the United States Indian agents in the Indian agents in the Indian Territory were secessionists, and the moment the Southern States commenced passing ordinances of secession, these men exerted their influence to get the five tribes committed to the Confederate cause. Occupying territory south of the Arkansas River, and having the secessionists of Arkansas on the east and those of Texas on the south for neighbors, the Choctaws and Chickasaws offered no decided opposition to the scheme. With the Cherokee, the most powerful and most civilized of the tribes of the Indian Territory, it was different. Their chief, John Ross, was opposed to hasty action, and as first favored neutrality, and in the summer of 1861 issued a proclamation, enjoining his people to observe a strictly neutral attitude during the war between the United States States. In June, 1861, Albert Pike, a commissioner of the Confederate States, and General Ben. McCulloch, commanding the Confederate forces in western Arkansas and the Department of Indian Territory, visited Chief Ross with the view of having him make a treaty with the Confederacy. But he declined to make a treaty, and in the conference expressed himself as wishing to occupy, if possible, a neutral position during the war. A majority of the Cherokees, nearly all of whom were full-bloods, were known as Pin Indians, and were opposed to the South.
    Commissioner Pike went away to make treaties with the less civilized Indian tribes of the plains, and in the mean time the battle of Wilson's Creek was fought, General Lyon killed, and the Union army defeated and forced to fall back from Springfield to Rolla.
    Chief Ross now thought that the South would probably succeed in establishing her independence, and expressed a willingness to enter into a treaty with the Confederate authorities. On his return from the West in September, 1861, Commissioner Pike, at the request of Mr. Ross, went to Park Hill and made a treaty with the Cherokees. The treaties made with each tribe provided that the troops it raised should be used for home protection, and should not be taken out of the Indian Territory. Even before the treaty with Commissioner Pike, Chief Ross had commenced to organize a regiment composed nearly altogether of Pin Indians. John Drew, a stanch secessionist, was commissioned colonel, and William P. Ross, lieutenant-colonel, of this regiment. Colonel Stand Watie, the leader of the secession party, had also commenced to raise a regiment of half-breeds for General McCulloch's division. As already stated, there were two facing among the Creeks, one of which was led by Hopoeithleyohola and the other by D. N. and Chitty McIntosh, who were sons of General William McIntosh, killed in 1825 by Hopoeithleyhola and his followers in Georgia, for making the treaty of Indian Springs. It is asserted by General Pike and others that will Hopoeithleyohola it was not a question of loyalty or disloyalty to the United States, but simply one of self-preservation; that when he found the Confederate authorities had commissioned D. N. McIntosh as colonel of a Creek regiment, and Chitty McIntosh as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of Creeks, he left certain that the Indian troops thus being raised would be used to persecute and destroy him and his followers. In November, 1861, he started for Kansas, and was pursued and overtaken by the Confederate Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokee, and Texans under Colonel Douglas H. Cooper. A fight took place in the night, and Colonel Drew's regiment of Cherokees, which had been raised by Chief Ross, went over to Hopoeithleyohola, and fought with him in the next day's desperate battle (known as the battle of Chusto Talasah), in which five hundred of the Union Indians were reported by Colonel Cooper to have been killed and wounded.@@ The Confederate Indians of Colonel Stand Watie's regiment, and those of Colonel Drew's regiment, who had returned to the Confederate service under Pike and Cooper, also participated in the battle of Pea Ridge in March, 1862, where they were charged with scalping and mutilating the Federal dead on the field. General Pike, hearing of the scalping, called up the surgeon and assistant-surgeon of his field-hospital for reports, and in their reports they stated that they found one of the Federal dead who had been scalped. General Pike then issued an order, denouncing the outrage in the strongest language, and sent a copy of the order to General Curtis. General Pike claimed that part of the Indians were in McCulloch's corps in the first day's battle; and that the scalping was done at night in a quarter of the field not occupied by the Indian troops under his immediate command. After Pea Ridge the operations of the Confederate Indians under General Cooper and Colonel Stand Watie were confined, with a few exceptions, to the Indian Territory. In connection with while troops from Texas, they participated in several engagements with the Federal Indian brigade under Colonel Phillips, after he recaptured Fort Gibson in the spring of 1863; and they made frequent efforts to capture Federal supply trains from Fort Scott to Fort Gibson and Fort Smith, but were always unsuccessful. They fought very well when they had an opportunity to take shelter behind trees and logs, but could not easily be brought to face artillery, and a single shell thrown at them was generally sufficient to demoralize them and put them to flight.

@@The position chosen by Hopoeithleyhola at Chusto Talasah, where he determined to make a stand and fight the Confederate forces, was naturally a very strong one to resist an attack made with small-arms. It was at a gorge of a bend of Bird Creek, the bend being in the form of a horse-shoe, and fourth hundred yards in length. The creek made up to the prairie on the side approached by the Confederate forces in an abrupt and precipitous bank about thirty feel high. On the opposite side of this precipitous bank was the inside of the horse-shoe or bend, which was densely covered with heavy timber cane, and tangled thickets. The position was also strengthened by felled trees and by the creek forming the bend or horse-shoe. The creek was deep and was fordable only at certain places known to the Union Indians. In this been Hopoeithleyhola's forces were posted after they were obliged to fall back in the preliminary skirmish. A house and crib at the mouth of the bend served as a shelter for a while, from which his sharp-shooters kept back the Confederate. The Union Indians, however, were finally driven from this position back into the bend, contesting the ground with much obstinacy. The Confederate troops made repeated efforts to dislodge them from the bend, but without success. Every time a detachment of Hopoeithleyhola's warriors showed themselves in an opening or in the prairie, the Confederates charged them to the timber, when a volley from the concealed Union Indian threw the charging column into confusion and sent it back in a hasty retreat. Night coming on put an end to the fight.-W. B.

Source: "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War" article by Wiley Britton
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Native American CSA Records
Military Service Records in the War Department Collection of
Confederate Records
(Record Group 109)
http://www.usgennet.org/usa/ga/topi...itary/CivilWar/csaindianrecords.htm

The War Department Collection of Confederate Records
consists of records of the Confederate States of America acquired
by capture or surrender at the close of the Civil War and those
later acquired by donation or purchase. On July 21, 1865, the
Secretary of War established a unit in the Adjutant General's
Office for the collection, safekeeping, and publication of the
"rebel archives."

Compiled Service Records of Confederate Soldiers Who Served in
Organizations Raised Directly by the Confederate Government.
M258. 123 rolls. DP. 16mm.

Roll Contents
77 First Cherokee Mounted Rifles (1st Arkansas Cherokee
Mounted Rifles), A-L
76 M-Y
79 First Cherokee Mounted Volunteers (Watie's Regiment,
Cherokee Mounted Volunteers; 2d Regiment, Cherokee Mounted
Rifles, Arkansas; 1st Regiment, Cherokee Mounted Rifles or
Riflemen), A-K
80 L-Y
First Squadron, Cherokee Mounted Volunteers (Holt's
Squadron, Cherokee Mounted Volunteers)
81 First Chickasaw Infantry (Hunter's Regiment, Indian
Volunteers)
82 First Choctaw Mounted Rifles
83 First Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles, A-G
84 H-N
85 O-Y
86 First Creek Mounted Volunteers (1st Regiment, Creek Mounted
Rifles or Riflemen; Creek Regiment, Mounted Indian
Volunteers; 2d Regiment, Arkansas Creeks), A-H
87 I-S
88 T-Z
First Osage Battalion, C.S.A.
First Seminole Mounted Volunteers, A-C
89 D-Y
90 Second Cherokee Mounted Volunteers (2d Regiment, Cherokee
Mounted Rifles or Riflemen)
91 Second Creek Mounted Volunteers Cherokee Regiment (Special
Service)
Deneale's Regiment, Choctaw Warriors (Deneale's Confederate
Volunteers)
Shecoe's Chickasaw Battalion, Mounted Volunteers
Washington's Squadron of Indians, C.S.A. (Reserve Squadron
of Cavalry)
Capt. Wilkins's Co., Choctaw Infantry
Miscellaneous Indian Records


Compiled Records Showing Service of Military Units in Confederate
Organizations. M861. 74 rolls. DP. 16mm.

Roll Contents
74 First Cherokee Mounted Rifles (First Arkansas Cherokee)
First Cherokee Mounted Volunteers (Watie's Regiment,
Cherokee Mounted Volunteers; Second Regiment, Cherokee
Mounted Rifles, Arkansas; First Regiment, Cherokee Mounted
Riflemen)
First Squadron, Cherokee Mounted Volunteers (Holt's
Squadron)
First Chickasaw Infantry (Hunter's Regiment, Indian
Volunteers)
First Choctaw Mounted Rifles
First Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles
First Creek Mounted Volunteers (First Regiment, Creek
Mounted Rifles or Riflemen; Creek Regiment, Mounted Indian
Volunteers; Second Regiment, Arkansas Creeks)
First Osage Battalion, C.S.A.
First Seminole Mounted Volunteers
Second Cherokee Mounted Volunteers (Second Regiment,
Cherokee Mounted Rifles or Riflemen)
Second Creek Mounted Volunteers
Cherokee Regiment (Special Service)
Deneale's Regiment, Choctaw Warriors (Deneale's Confederate
Volunteers)
Shecoe's Chickasaw Battalion, Mounted Volunteers
Washington's Squadron of Indians, C.S.A. (Reserve Squadron
of Cavalry)
Capt. Wilkins's Co., Choctaw Infantry
Miscellaneous Indian Records

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The Military page Coordinators are   Margie Glover-Daniels and Chuck Pierce  and Gloria Holback

  This site  was last updated 06/10/2004 09:32:38 AM CDT
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Confederate Cherokee General, Stand Watie
His Civil War Regiment rosters.
http://www.quillspirit.org/History/..._War_Data/Waties_Regiments/main.php

INTRODUCTION

(Original preface by compiler)

This index to the First Cherokee Mounted Volunteers, Holt's Squadron, and the Second Cherokee Mounted Volunteers, (Cherokee General Stand Waties' Confederate regiments), has been compiled from the service records of these organizations that are National Archives publications on microcopy 258 - rolls 79, 80, and 90.

   Please note that the names and rank are listed alphabetical under each company. Researchers should check all companies as some individuals served in more than one during their service. Many times the company number and rank are not given for some of the soldiers.

   Some of these Confederate service records contain very little information, but will indicate where the person signed up for service, and the date he signed up. However, other service records will indicate age and physical description such as height, color of eyes, hair, and complexion. Many men were captured as prisoners of war, and the record will give where the soldier was captured. There will be some records with information about pensions
applied for about the year 1915. Whenever a name can be spelled more than one way, or if the name is listed with any difference, the index will indicate which name the service cards will be filed with. Researchers wanting copies of the service record for an individual should write to the National Archives, Washington, D.C., and request a military form to submit for a copy of the record.

Marybelle W. Chase
5802 E. 22nd PI.
Tulsa, Oklahoma 74114
July, 1989

   I have compiled these records in digital format, so that you can research them from your browser. If you have any similar information to share, please email me!

Good luck in your search!,
Shawn M. J. Mann

Here are some related items that may help you in your search~

The American Indian as participant in the Civil War - by Annie Heloise Abel, Ph.D. (Free Digital Book)
The American Indian in the Civil War, 1862-1865 (Paperback) by Annie Heloise Abel
The American Indian and the End of the Confederacy 1863-1866 (Civil War) by Annie Heloise Abel
Military Records: Civil War Service Records (5.3 million records on three discs! - CD-ROM)
The Civil War on the Web: A Guide to the Very Best Sites (Paperback)
Sam Bell Maxey and the Confederate Indians by John C. Waugh
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Osage - Chief Black Dog
http://juntosociety.com/native/black_dog.htm
American Indians of the Mid - West
Black Dog

The young Black Dog was reported to be about 6 foot, 2 inches, in height and weighed around 220 pounds. He did marry and had several sons and daughters. None of his sons survived to manhood. During the War Between the States (Civil War), Black Dog and many of the Osage Indians decided to join the Confederate States Army.

Some of the Osage Indians joined the 9th Kansas Volunteers as Union supporters, but they were determined to be too wild and untrainable for military service. They were discharged from Kansas military service. In 1861 about 50 Osage Indians joined Colonel Tom Livingston's Missouri Home Guards and fought with General Price at Wilsons Creek.

Osage - Chief Black Dog
By Don Wise

Black Dog or Zhin-ga'wa-ca (Manka-chonkah) was an Osage Indian born circa 1780 near what later became St. Louis, Missouri. Zhin-ga'wa-ca is a very old Indian name which is not translatable since the last part is archaic and the meaning lost. The Osage Indians are descendants of the Siouan Tribe. They originally came from the Alleghaney and Monogahela River Valleys. When Zhin-ga'wa-ca was young, he lost his left eye in a childhood accident. He grew to be seven (7) feet tall and weighed around 300 pounds.

During a raid upon a Comanche camp, a small, black dog started barking and Zhin-ga'wa-ca shot an arrow in the direction of the dog which killed it. Thereafter, he was known by the name of Black Dog. Later Black Dog was named chief of his tribe which became known as the Black Dog Tribe. Their camp was located in the vicinity of where the city of Coffeyville, Kansas, is now located. The Osages were a migratory tribe which would plant corn in an area, then go hunting for buffalo. Once they had their capacity of  buffalo meat and hides, the tribe would return to their camp area where the corn had been planted and harvest it. Their trail in southern Kansas became known as the Black Dog Trail.

Black Dog Married Menanah, an Osage Woman
They had a son in 1827 who became known as Black Dog, the second

Black Dog and some of his tribe did join the 1st Osage Battalion, C.S.A. around 1862 whose commander was Major Broke Arm. This military unit was composed of three companies. Black Dog served as a Captain of Company B. Military records are incomplete on their activities, but we believe that this unit was involved at Pea Ridge and Prairie Grove.

Chief Black Dog and Bighill Joe

Black Dog was elected Principal Chief of the Osages in 1880 and died in 1910. A creek near Hominy is named Black Dog Creek and a township in Tulsa County , Oklahoma, is named Black Dog Township.

George Catlin, the artist, painted Chief Black Dog in 1834. The artist, John Mix Stanley, painted Chief Black Dog in 1843, but this portrait was lost during a fire in the Smithsonian Institute in 1866. Black Dog died on 24 March 1848 at the age of about 68 years old.
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borrowed from Texas Jay and the BloodyBillAnderson forum

From: "Quantrill in Texas - The Forgotten Campaign" by Paul R.
Petersen, 2007, page 40.

***
"After the surrender of Fort Sumter, Indian leader Stand Watie
immediately began recruiting a troop of both Cherokees and whites to
protect Indian Territory from Federal forces. Watie was made a
general after organizing a large number of tribesmen into militia
units. His command became known as the Cherokee Mounted Rifles, of
which Quantrill, under Mayes's command, was shortly attached. Fifty-
five-year-old Watie became a superb commander of Indian forces during
the war. He never ordered a charge that he did not lead, and he
never received a wound in battle. Watie was small in stature but had
great physical strength and endurance, and while not a great orator,
he was a good writer. Later, on May 10, 1864, Jefferson Davis
appointed Watie as a brigadier general in the Confederate army. He
was the only Indian of this rank on either side during the Civil
War. When the war began, Watie reported to General Benjamin McCulloch.
Quantrill was only with Mayes's Cherokees a short while. He traveled
north with them until he could find a Missouri unit to join. Once he
found Gen. Sterling Price's Missouri State Guard, Quantrill
transferred to the partisan ranger company commanded by Col. Jeremiah
Vardeman Cockrell attached to the First Brigade, Eighth Division
under James Spencer Rains. His company commander was Capt. William
Steward, whose men were settlers from southern Kansas who had joined
Watie's Cherokee Mounted Rifles. Quantrill had already become a well-
known personality among the early Southern volunteers. He was easily
recognized by the four Colt Navy revolvers stuck into his belt and
his Sharp's carbine."

***
~Jay~

John Rollin Ridge, (Yellow Bird) (1827-67)
Encyclopedia of North American Indians
http://www.college.cengage.com/hist...ind/html/na_033200_ridgejohnrol.htm
Oklahoma Cherokee newspaper editor, novelist, and poet
Born just a few years prior to the crisis surrounding the Cherokee removal from Georgia, John Rollin Ridge experienced firsthand the most traumatic moments in the tribe's history. In 1830, the Indian Removal Act established the process that allowed for the removal of Cherokees from their homes in the Southeast. The Cherokees resisted this process, but federal officials exploited splits within the Cherokee Nation over relocation to advance their policy. In 1835 the government convinced twenty-one Cherokees, including Major Ridge (John Rollin Ridge's grandfather), John Ridge (John Rollin Ridge's father), Elias Boudinot, and Stand Watie, Boudinot's younger brother, to sign the Treaty of New Echota. The treaty provided for the cession of all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi and the subsequent removal of the tribe to the West.

Within months of removal, tribal leaders held general meetings to establish a new government. Negotiations between the pro-removal treaty faction and the Ross anti-removal faction quickly broke down, and on June 22, 1839, Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were murdered by their political enemies. As a twelve-year-old boy, John Rollin Ridge witnessed his father's murder, an event that deeply affected him. Because of continuing hostilities between the two factions, John Ridge's widow, a white woman, and her son immediately left Indian Territory for Fayetteville, Arkansas. In 1843, young Ridge was sent to the Great Barrington School in Massachusetts, where he stayed until 1845. He then returned to Fayetteville and began studying law.

In 1847, Ridge married Elizabeth Wilson, a white woman he had met in Massachusetts, and one year later they had their first and only child, Alice. His years in Arkansas, however, were also marked by conflict. He became involved in Cherokee politics, closely following the internecine struggles of the nation. On one occasion, he expressed his desire to avenge his father's death by killing one of the men implicated in the murder, the anti-removal leader John Ross. Ridge's involvement reached a climax in 1849 when he killed David Kell, a Cherokee he believed was one of his father's assassins.

In 1850, largely because of Kell's murder, Ridge left for California. He worked briefly in the gold mines there and soon afterward began writing. His poetry, dealing primarily with love and nature, was published in various magazines; it was collected and published posthumously in 1868. His major literary accomplishment, however, was his first and only novel, The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit (1854), whose story gave Ridge a chance to verbally avenge his father's death. His hero committed murders in the name of justice and stood up to all who resisted him. Ridge's novel also condemned American racism, particularly the hatred he saw being directed toward Mexican Americans. He declared in the book's conclusion that "there is nothing so dangerous in its consequences as injustice to individuals—whether it arises from prejudice of color or any other source; that a wrong done to one man is a wrong to society and to the world." Joaquín Murieta is considered "historical fiction," given the fact that the novel was based on the life of an actual California bandit. Ridge utilized newspaper articles extensively, and he claimed to have interviewed those close to Murieta. Several California historians later used the novel as a source in their own works.

From 1857 to 1862, Ridge worked as an editor for several California newspapers, including the Sacramento Bee, the California Express, the National Democrat, the San Francisco Herald, and the Red Bluff Beacon. As an editor he often advocated assimilationist policies and federal protection for American Indians. Like his father, he felt that American Indians needed the guidance and assistance of the federal government to maintain their rights. Also like his father, he often ignored the ways in which the federal government abused those rights. In regard to California Indians, Ridge felt they were inferior to the Indians of the Southeast and Northeast, and supported policies that confined them to reservations while upholding the claims of Euro-Americans to California lands.

During his years as an editor, Ridge also became increasingly involved in national politics. As a slave-owning southerner, he found himself sympathetic to the "Copperheads," a politically conservative faction of the Democratic Party. His critics accused him of establishing several chapters of the pro-slavery Knights of the Golden Circle. He worked for Democratic newspapers and openly supported the party's platform in his writings.

With the coming of the Civil War, Ridge expressed the sentiment that the Union should be preserved at all costs. While working for the Red Bluff Beacon in 1862, he protested the election of Abraham Lincoln and, later, insisted that the Emancipation Proclamation subverted democratic principles. In addition, while working for the National Democrat, he spoke in favor of the Confederacy and blamed the Civil War on abolitionists.

With the end of the Civil War, Ridge was given the opportunity to work toward his political goals for Cherokees. Invited by the federal government to head the Southern Cherokee delegation in postwar treaty proceedings, Ridge eagerly traveled to Washington, D.C. He worked diligently but failed to acquire Cherokee admission into the Union. In December 1866 Ridge returned home to Grass Valley, California. He died there on October 5, 1867.

Much of John Rollin Ridge's significance lies in his status as the first professional American Indian writer. More importantly, his life demonstrates that it was not only Euro-Americans who supported contradictory positions and detrimental policies toward American Indians and African Americans. Ridge, an American Indian writer whom we might expect to have thought otherwise, clearly helped to reinforce systems of thought and practice whose violent reverberations continue to be felt today.

See also Cherokee; Ridge, Major.

James W. Parins, John Rollin Ridge: His Life and Works (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991).

Liza E. Black
Oklahoma Cherokee
University of Washington

Secret Society of Pin Indians Disappear Into History After Civil War

The Civil War was to have a great impact on everyone who lived in Arkansas, and that included members of the Civilized Cherokee tribe. While Chief Ross forbade his people to take part in border warfare or to organize a band of guerrillas to help protect Arkansas, Elias Boudinot, a resident of Arkansas, encouraged Ross’s nemesis, Stand Watie, to fight for the Confederates. And so was formed a secret society of Cherokee known as Knights of the Golden Circle, finally changed to The Southern Rights party.

Another organization, made up of full bloods who called themselves Keetoowahs began to operate in the Indian Nation on the side of the Union. They were reorganized in 1859 by Evan Jones and his son John, and were claimed to be designed to perpetuate tribal traditions. It was common knowledge in the Nations that they really had been reorganized to fight slavery. This group of Cherokee became known as Pins Indians because of the insignia of crossed pins they wore on their hunting shirts and coats.

Asked to leave the Nations, the Pins reverted to their ancestors way of fighting. Though supposedly aligned with the United States against the Confederate States of America, they consistently raided their arch enemies the Knights of the Golden Circle, using guerrilla warfare at every opportunity.

It was only natural that settlers in the area just across the border in Northwest Arkansas should become unwitting targets of these hit and miss raids by this unruly band of warriors. In fact, according to records, Jones, said to be a white man with his own agenda, trained the Pins in a school in Cincinnati near Cane Hill, Arkansas.

After much political ado, Cherokee Stand Watie was made a General in the Confederate Army. When he and his men attempted to raise the Confederate flag in the Cherokee capital of Tahlequah, about 150 Pins led by Chief Doublehead stopped him.

In the book, The Cherokees, by Grace Steele Woodward, the final mention of the Pins Indians is made when the factions, split by the Civil War reunited in the Indian Nation in 1867.

In the book Mankiller by Chief Wilma Mankiller and Michael Wallis, the Pins are referred to as an ultra secret society. They used secret signs to identify themselves to other members. Touching their hats in salutation would be followed by “Who are you?”, with the proper response being, “I am Keetoowah’s son.” Among the Cherokees it was also known that those who had split from the tribe and fought for the Union forces wore strips of split corn husks in their hair before they went into battle.

Chief Ross never wished to align himself with the Confederate cause and slavery, though many Cherokees did indeed own slaves. So when the Union troops entered Indian Territory in 1862 he welcomed them and left under their protective custody.

Ever a rival of Chief Ross, Stand Watie saw his chance when Ross left the Indian Nations, and declared himself the new principal chief of the Cherokees. Many members of the tribe did not back Watie, and the war within a war spilled into Arkansas to affect those already under constant attack by gangs of bushwhackers.

Pin Indians attacked, burned and killed southern sympathizers on both sides of the border. Those living in Washington County became unwilling victims in this battle between the two factions of Cherokees as well as the two factions of men fighting in the Civil War. Many of the Cherokees caught up in this guerilla warfare fled into neutral lands in Kansas. Hundreds of Indian refugees, being cared for rather poorly in Kansas by the Federal Government, died during the first year of the war.

While down in the Indian Nations and Arkansas, the two factions continued to wage a bitter war. In 1864 Stand Watie was promoted to Brigadier General in the confederacy, the highest rank to be achieved by any Native American. The confederate troops led by General Stand Watie continued to fight long after General Robert E. Lee surrendered his confederate army at Appamattox, Virginia April 9, 1865. It would be late June before Watie’s army finally laid down their arms. In all, 7,000 Cherokees lost their lives in that war. Their homes, libraries, businesses and livestock suffered devastating losses.

White settlers living along the borderland of Northwest Arkansas suffered great losses as well. The white man’s law held no power in the Indian Nation and on the Arkansas side Indians were free from tribal jurisdiction. Outlaw gangs frequenting the area could step across the border from either direction and be free from punishment for their crimes committed on the other side.

According to Conrad Russell, a native of Cane Hill and a historian who wrote many articles about the Civil War from stories he heard at his grandfather’s knee, Jones was white and his name probably wasn’t Jones at all. It was known that he hated slavery in any form and didn’t care how it might be stomped out. He taught the young men to kill, rob and otherwise destroy slave owners. Soon they didn’t much care who they raided. Russell said that soon no man, woman or child was safe from raids by the Pin Indians. The group of outlaw Indians held no loyalties to either side. It was known that they raided both Confederate and Northern sympathizers alike.

Isaac Buchanan, a prosperous farmer living near Cane Hill became a victim of the Pins. One day three of them arrived at his farm and asked for food. Buchanan led them to his cellar where he gave them some apples. When he followed them from the cellar and turned to close the door, they shot and killed him. Buchanan’s three sons had already been cut down by bushwhackers and this deed left his womenfolk defenseless. Finally tiring of the killing, a band of Confederates and local citizens in the beleaguered area gathered weapons and ammunition and set up a series of clever ambushes. Spotting a large band of Pins headed for Cane Hill, they lay in wait south of the settlement along the road they were known to travel.

A group of about 60 Pins rode through and the first contingent closed up any retreat, driving the band into the second and third group who waited in hiding. By the time the renegades made the border, there were few left. It is said they never returned to pull another raid on the citizens around Cane Hill. Thus, according to Arkansas legend, ended the reign of the Pins and they disappeared for good into Indian Territory. Cherokee writings make no more mention of the secret Pins Indians after 1867.

Stories always differ, depending on which side the storyteller is on, but the story of the Pins has been recorded in most Cherokee histories, but few whites. Conrad Russell admits the stories he heard from his grandfather are only hearsay, as is most of our folk lore. However, the written history of the Pins by Cherokee sources are more than hearsay. The mystery of who is entirely correct will probably always remain just that. A mystery.


Velda Brotherton is currently working on a history of Springdale, Arkansas, which will be published by Arcadia Publishers in their Making of America Series.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright © 2001 Velda Brotherton originally published in The White River Valley News, Elkins, Arkansas

http://www.truthontheweb.org/abe.htm