Five Civilized Tribes

Traveling through Oklahoma, the term "Five Civilized Tribes" is seen and heard frequently.   It came into use about the time of the Indian Removal Act, passed during Andrew Jackson's presidency, May 28, 1830. The law authorized the president to negotiate with Indian tribes in the Southern states for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their ancestral homelands. The term was used to differentiate the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole nations from tribes that were migratory and relied on hunting for survival which were described as "un-civilized, and wild." 

 

Prior to their forced move, the 5 nations had made attempts to resist the move, often with non-violent means.  They assimilated into the Anglo-American culture and coexisted with the settlers.  They took up farming, accepted Western education, Christianity and many of the other practices common to the white society.  Many even took English names.  They developed a written language, wrote constitutions, maintained a centralized government, intermarried with the white settlers, participated in the markets and functions of the white community. Some even owned slaves.  Many of the tribes had "freedmen" living with them, former slaves or desdendants of former slaves.    The Cherokee had established a written language in 1821, a national supreme court in 1822, and a written constitution in 1827. The other 4 nations had similar developments.

Choctaw

On September 27, 1830, the Choctaw signed the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek and became the first tribe to be removed. This agreement was one of the largest transfers of land between the US Government and the Indians without being the result of warfare. By the treaty, the Choctaw signed away their traditional homelands in the Mississippi Territory, opening them up for European-American settlement. 

Some chose to stay in Mississippi under the terms of the Removal Act, although the protection offered by the War Department was no match for land-hungry squatters that invaded the Choctaw's former lands.   Tired of the mistreatment and threats, most  of the remaining Choctaws sold their land and moved west.

A Choctaw chief referred to the trek as a "trail of tears and death".  While in Memphis TN, French philosopher,  Alexis de Tocqueville, witnessed the Choctaw removal in 1831:

   "In the whole scene there was an air of ruin and destruction, something which betrayed a final and irrevocable adieu; one couldn't watch without feeling one's heart wrung. The Indians were tranquil, but sombre and taciturn. There was one who could speak English and of whom I asked why the Chactas were leaving their country. "To be free," he answered, could never get any other reason out of him. We ... watch the expulsion ... of one of the most celebrated and ancient American peoples."   Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Cherokee

Although it was voluntary, the Removal Act was often abused by government officials.   In 1830, Georgia passed a law which prohibited whites from living in Indian territory after March 31, 1831, without a license from the state.  Although this sounds like a protection from squatters and land-grabbers, it was actually written as a justification for removing missionaries who were helping them resist removal.

Using legal means, the Cherokee sought protection from those who stole their livestock, burned their towns and villages and 'squatted' on their lands.  In 1827 the Cherokee adopted a written constitution declaring themselves a sovereign nation. They based this on US treaty writting policy. The US had declared Indian nations as sovereign so they would be legally capable of ceding their lands.  The Cherokee hoped to turn this to their advantage. The state of Georgia did not recognize their sovereign status, but saw them as tenants living on state land. The Cherokee took their case to the Supreme Court, which ruled against them.

Again in 1831 they appealed to the Supreme Court on the 1830 Georgia law which prohibited whites from living on Indian territory. Deciding in favor of the Cherokee, it stated that the Cherokee had the right to self-government, and declared Georgia's extension of state law over them to be unconstitutional. The state refused to abide by the Court decision and President Jackson refused to enforce the law.

The Treaty of New Echota was signed by a small faction of Cherokee tribal members, not the leaders of the Cherokee nation, on December 29, 1835. Stand Watie and his older brother Elias Boudinot were among leaders who signed the Treaty of New Echota. The majority of the tribe opposed their action. In 1839 the brothers were attacked in an assassination attempt, as were other relatives active in the Treaty Party. All but Stand Watie were killed and, in revenge,  Watie  killed one of his uncle's attackers in 1842.  In the continuing cycle of violence , in 1845 his brother, Thomas Watie,  was killed in retaliation. Watie was acquitted at trial in the 1850s on the grounds of self-defense.

With the leadership of Chief John Ross, over 15,000 Cherokees signed a petition in protest to the treaty but the Supreme Court ignored their demands and ratified the treaty in 1836. The Cherokee were given 2 years to migrate voluntarily, or they would be moved forcibly.  Only 2,000 had moved by 1838 leaving 16,000 on their land. Those remaining were forced into stockades by 7,000 government troops. With no time to gather belongings, whites looted their homes as they left.  Starvation, weather and disease took the lives of 4,000 Cherokee as the traveled the Trail of Tears. 

Ross tried unsuccessfully to restore political unity after the arrival in Indian Territory. Stand Watie became Ross's most relentless foe. Soon, the issue of slavery refueled the old division. The Treaty Party (Stand Watie's faction) became  the "Southern Party," while the National Party led by Ross  became the "Union Party." Ross initially counseled neutrality, believing that joining in the "white man's war" would be disastrous for the tribe. After Union Forces abandoned their forts in Indian Territory, Ross reversed himself and signed a treaty with the Confederacy. He later fled to Kansas and Stand Watie became the chief. The Confederates lost the war, Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender, and Ross returned to his post as principal chief. 

Seminole

In 1833, the US government coerced a small group of Seminoles into signing the removal treaty.  However, the majority of the tribe declared this treaty illegitimate and refused to leave, resulting in the Second Seminole War, 1835 to 1842. 

Based in the Florida Everglades, Osceola and his followers defeated the US Army by using surprise attacks. As in the first war, fugitive slaves fought beside the Seminoles who had taken them in and given them refuge.

In 1837, Osceola came under flag of truce to negotiate a peace with Gen Thomas Jesup; he was arrested and died in prison. The war would end up costing the US over 1,500 deaths and $20 million, some estimates as high as $40 million -- much more than the amount that had been allotted for Indian removal! 

Most of the Seminoles moved to the new territory, however, those that remained moved deeper into the Everglades and defended themselves in the Third Seminole War, 1855-58, when the military, again,  attempted to drive them out. Finally, the United States paid the remaining Seminoles to move west.

Muscogee (Creek)

The Treaty of Fort Jackson (also known as the Treaty with the Creeks, 1814) was signed on August 9, 1814 at Fort Jackson, Alabama, following the defeat of the Red Stick resistance at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend.   It ended the fighting of the Creek War and began a series of negotiations between the Creek and the government for land, property, and monetary resources.   Under the terms of the treaty, the Creek Nation ceded nearly 22 million acres to the United States. Jackson justified the seizure of so much territory as payment for the expense of an “unprovoked, inhuman, and sanguinary” war. 

And with the signing of the 1826 Treaty of Washington, the Creek nation ceded all of their land East of the Mississippi river.  This opened a large portion of Creek land in Alabama land to white settlement, but guaranteed the Creeks protected ownership of the remaining portion.  The remaining portion was a small strip of land in present-day Alabama and this land was divided between the leading tribal families.  The Creeks were contained to this strip.

March 24, 1832 the Creek National Council signed the Treaty of Cusseta, ceding their remaining lands east of the Mississippi to the U.S., and accepting relocation to the Indian Territory. 

Most Creek were removed during the Trail of Tears in 1834, although some remained behind. The government did not protect them and they were quickly over-run with speculators and land-grabbers. By 1835 they were destitute and began stealing livestock and crops from the settlers.   Eventually it progressed to arson and murder in retaliation for the land grab and treatment. In 1836 the Secretary of War ordered the removal of the Creeks as a military necessity. By 1837 approximately 15,000 Creeks had been moved west.

 Chickasaw

The Chickasaw traditional territory was in the states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee.  They knew removal as inevitable and did not resist. They signed a treaty in 1832 which stated that the federal government would provide them with suitable western land and would protect them until they moved and would protect them from the hostile Plains Indians, the "Red Leggers" who raided from the Texas side of the Red River, and other migrants who frequently crossed the Chickasaw lands. In 1834 the treaty contained the agreement for protection that they had demanded. But once again, the onslaught of white settlers into the Chickasaw traditional lands proved to be more than the War Department could handle, and it backed down on its promise. 

Unlike other tribes who exchanged land grants, the Chickasaw were to receive $3 million for their lands east of the Mississippi River. In 1836, the Chickasaw reached an agreement that purchased land from the previously removed Choctaw.   After a bitter debate, they paid the Choctaw $530,000 for the westernmost part of Choctaw land. The $3,000,000 that the U.S. owed the Chickasaw went unpaid for nearly 30 years.

They gathered at Memphis, TN, July 4, 1837, with all of their belongings, livestock, and enslaved negroes.  3,001 Chickasaw, the last of the Five Civilized tribes to be moved,  crossed the Mississippi River, following the Trail of Tears established by the Choctaw and Creek before them.  More than 500 Chickasaw died of dysentery and smallpox.

 

The land of the Chickasaw extended from Arkansas west to the 100th Meridian and north from the Red River to the Canadian and Arkansas rivers.

They found an untamed wilderness where thousands of Plains Indian refugees from the Texas frontier lived. The Comanche were fierce raiders and immediately began attacks and extended their raids across the Red River into Texas. These raids brought the Texas Militia across the river, taking out their anger on any Indian. Many Chickasaw were killed and had their homes destroyed. The Chickasaws withdrew to the comparative safety of the Choctaw Nation bordering their lands and began a cooperative tribal government and coexistence. The two tribes began to collectively establish law and order and build schools and homes.  The Chickasaws were forced to pay the Choctaws for the right to live on part of their western allotment. 

In 1838, William Armstrong, acting Superintendent of the Western Territory, reported that the Chickasaw refused to settle on their assigned lands until the Government gave them the promised protection that they had been guaranteed by treaty in 1834. Chickasaw leaders had requested that a fort be built at the mouth of the Washita River to provide protection.  Upshaw, the Chickasaw Indian agent, urged the government to construct an installation for protection.

The discovery of gold in California provided the Chickasaw with the safety they needed when the government commissioned Gen. Zachary Taylor to select the site for a fort to protect and provide safe trail for west-bound white settlers.  General Taylor christened the site as "Fort Washita." 

In 1850, the Chickasaw wrote their own constitution

In 1861, the US Army abandoned Fort Washita, leaving the Chickasaw Nation defenseless, again, against the nomadic tribes from the Plains. Confederate officials recruited the Indian tribes with suggestions of an Indian state if they were victorious in the Civil War. The Chickasaw Nation resented the government that had forced them off their lands and failed to protect them against the Plains tribes and they were the first of the Five Civilized Tribes to become allies of the Confederate States of America.

After several decades of mistrust between the Choctaw and Chickasaw Nations, the Chickasaw re-established their independent government in the 20th century.