Pen and Ink Witchcraft

by Calloway, Colin G.

71. Edward Everett Dale and Gaston Litton, eds., Cherokee Cavaliers: Forty Years of Cherokee History as Told in the Correspondence of the Ridge-Watie-Boudinot Family (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939), 8 (“the Chicken Snake General Jackson”); Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 269.

  72. Currey to Ross, April 19, 1835, LROIA, reel 76; Currey to Herring, August 30, 1835, LROIA, reel 76.

  73. Ross Papers, 1: 7.

  74. Anderson, Brown, and Rogers, Payne-Butrick Papers, xiv–xvii, quote at 84.

  75. “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 380–462; Schermerhorn’s report on the council, 450–62; quotes at 454, 459–60; Payne’s account in Anderson, Brown, and Rogers, Payne-Butrick Papers, 178–83; Meigs to Cass, August 20, 1835, LROIA, reel 76.

  76. “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 463.

  77. Kenny A. Franks, Stand Watie and the Agony of the Cherokee Nation (Memphis: Memphis State University Press, 1979), 21–22; “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 492–94, 538, 591–92.

  78. Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokee Indians, 1: 340 (farce), 347–48 (move or starve), 361, 364 (treaty unnecessary).

  79. Duane H. King and E. Raymond Evans, eds., “The Trail of Tears: Primary Documents of the Cherokee Removal,” Journal of Cherokee Studies 3, no. 3 (Summer 1978), 133; “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120; 485, 518, 532–34; copies of talk delivered at the Red Clay council, October 30, 1835, LROIA, reel 76.

  80. John Hooper to Gen. R. Jones, November 10, 1835, LROIA, reel 76; Currey to Cass, November 1835, LROIA, reel 76; Anderson, Brown, and Rogers, Payne-Butrick Papers, xvii–xviii.

  81. NASPIA, 1: 262.

  82. “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 490–91.

  83. John F. Schermerhorn, “A Journal of the proceedings of the council held at New Echota,” December 21–30th, LROIA, reel 76, and in 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 514.

  84. Perdue, “Cherokee Women and the Trail of Tears,” 14.

  85. “Memorial and Protest of the Cherokee Nation,” 24th Congress, 1st session, House Document 286: 120; Ross Papers, 1: 379.

  86. Quoted in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 286–87 (Ridge), and Perdue, Cherokee Editor, 27 (Boudinot).

  87. Copy of the minutes of the council at New Echota (accompanying Schermerhorn’s journal of proceedings), LROIA, reel 76.

  88. IALT, 439–48.

  89. IALT, 448–49.

  90. “Memorial and Protest of the Cherokee Nation,” 24th Congress, 1st session, House Document 286: 120; Ross Papers, 1: 379.

  91. Daniel Heath Justice, Our Fire Survives the Storm: A Cherokee Literary History (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 58 (quote), 81–86.

  92. Report of Secretary of War to the Senate, February 9, 1829, Senate Document 72, 20–22, serial 181: 17–19, quoted in Francis Paul Prucha, American Indian Treaties: The History of a Political Anomaly (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 211.

  93. Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 289.

  94. A. D. Shackleford to William Wilkins, March 25, 1844, LROIA, reel 116.

  95. Schermerhorn, “A Journal of the proceedings of the council held at New Echota,” 517.

  96. “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 495–96.

  97. “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 519, 528.

  98. “Memorial of a Delegation of the Cherokee Nation, Remonstrating against the instrument of writing (treaty) of December, 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, House Document 99: 10–11.

  99. “Memorial and Protest of the Cherokee Nation,” 24th Congress, 1st session, House Document 286, quotes at 2, 13, 15; “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 799–814; Ross Papers, 1: 394–413; Ross et al. to Cass, January 14, February 9, and February 29, 1836, LROIA, reel 76.

  100. It is this petition, not the treaty, that modern Cherokees chose to exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian. Thanks to Theda Perdue for bringing this to my attention.

  101. 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 530, 535; Schermerhorn to Cass, March 3, 1836, LROIA, reel 80.

  102. Quoted in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 292.

  103. Hugh Park, Reminiscences of the Indians by Cephas Washburn (Van Buren, Ark.: Press-Argus, 1955), 49.

  104. Anderson, Brown, and Rogers, Payne-Butrick Papers, xxi.

  105. Benton quoted in Moulton, John Ross, 77.

  106. Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokee Indians, 2: 87.

  107. Kenny, Stand Watie, 37; 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 593.

  108. “The Death of Harriet Gold Boudinot,” Journal of Cherokee Studies 4, no. 2 (Spring 1979), 102–7; Perdue, Cherokee Editor, 30.

  109. The Ridges to President Jackson, June 30, 1836, LROIA, reel 80; 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 600–601, 607–8.

  110. Worcester, Forked Tongues and Broken Treaties, 63.

  111. “Report of the Secretary of War … in relation to the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 120: 67; Wool to the Cherokee People, September 19, 1836, LROIA, reel 80; “Proclamation to the Chiefs, Headmen, and People of the Cherokee Nation,” December 28, 1837, LROIA, reel 82.

  112. Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokee Indians, 2: 8 (no one contributed more; liberal provisions), 45 (ignorant and depraved), 51 (execute, not negotiate); Wilson Lumpkin and John Kennedy to Harris, June 5, 1837, LROIA, reel 114 (“intelligent and wealthy”).

  113. Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokee Indians, 12 (fraud and corruption), 193 (legislate directly), 225 (“never cease”).

  114. Lumpkin and Kennedy to Harris, June 5, 1837, and Lindsay to Poinsett, July 20, 1837, LROIA, reel 114.

  115. Elias Boudinot, Letters and Other Papers Relating to Cherokee Affairs; Being in Reply to Sundry Publications Authorized by John Ross (Athens, 1837); reprinted in Perdue, Cherokee Editor, 155–225 (quotations at 162, 177), and in “Documents in relation to the Validity of the Cherokee Treaty of 1835,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 121.

  116. Ross Papers, 1: 471–74 (quote at 473), 480–87 (“Our fate is in your hands” at 486).

  117. Petition to Congress, February 22, 1838, LROIA, M234, reel 82; “Memorial of the Cherokee Delegation, Submitting the memorial and protest of the Cherokee people to Congress,” April 9, 1838, 25th Congress, 2nd session, House Document 316: 1–4.

  118. Nathan Smith to congressional delegates, February 2, 1838, and George Gilmer to Joel Poinsett, March 5, 1838, LROIA, reel 115.

  119. Perdue and Green, Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears, 120–23.

  120. Lumpkin to C. A. Harris, March 23, 1837, LROIA, reel 81.

  121. Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 311, 315.

  122. Scott’s address in King and Evans, “The Trail of Tears: Primary Documents of the Cherokee Removal,” 145; Scott to Poinsett, June 7, 1838, LROIA, reel 115. Both documents also in “Removal of the Cherokees,” 25th Congress, 2nd session, House Document 453: 11–12, 18–21.

  123. Scott to Poinsett, July 20, 1838, LROIA, reel 115.

  124. Ross et al. to Scott, July 23, 1838, and Scott to Ross et al., July 25, 1838, and Resolution of July 26, 1838, LROIA, reel 115; “Memorial of the Delegation of the Cherokee Nation,” March 9, 1840, 26th Congress, 1st session, House Document 129: 34–38, 48–49; William G. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees’ Struggle for Sovereig
nty, 1839–1880 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), 2–5.

  125. Carl J. Vipperman, “The Bungled Treaty of New Echota: The Failure of Cherokee Removal, 1836–1838,” Georgia Historical Quarterly 78 (Fall 1989), 540–58.

  126. IALT, 443.

  127. Williams to Poinsett, April 11, 1838, LROIA, reel 81 (quote at page 5); Scott to Collins, August 10, 1837, reel 115. Settling payments due under article 8 went on for many years after removal: see LROIA, reel 116.

  128. Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 323; Ross Papers, 1: 9; Moulton, John Ross, ch. 6.

  129. King and Evans, “The Trail of Tears,” 180–85.

  130. Quoted in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 322.

  131. Butler to Greene, January 25, 1839, Houghton Library, ABCFM, 18.3.1X: 73; quoted in Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 328.

  132. “Statement showing the number of Indians annually removed from the eastern to the western side of the Mississippi, from 1789 to 1838, inclusive,” NASPIA, 1: 575.

  133. David J. Silverman, Red Brethren: The Brothertown and Stockbridge Indians and the Problem of Race in Early America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010), 188–91.

  134. Van Hoeven, “Salvation and Indian Removal,” 267.

  135. Perdue and Green, Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears, 143–45.

  136. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears, 4–17; “Memorial of the Delegation of the Cherokee Nation,” March 9, 1840, 26th Congress, 1st session, House Document 129: 50–51.

  137. Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 334–39; James W. Parins, John Rollin Ridge: His Life and Works (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991), 30–31; Kenny, Stand Watie, 56; “The Murder of Elias Boudinot,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 12 (March 1934), 9–24 (Allen Ross’s account); “Message of the President of the United States, relative to the internal feuds among the Cherokees,” April 13, 1846, 29th Congress, 1st session, Senate Document 289, House Document 185: 54–55; Ross to Arbuckle, June 22, 1839, and Arbuckle to Brig. Gen. Jones, November 24, 1839, LROIA, reel 84 (Mrs. Boudinot’s warnings).

  138. “A Tribute to John Ridge,” Journal of Cherokee Studies 4. no. 2 (Spring 1979), 111–17.

  139. Lumpkin, Removal of the Cherokee Indians from Georgia, 1: 192.

  140. Arbuckle to J. B. Grayson, June 26, 1839; Capt. Nathan Boone to Major C. Wharton, July 9, 1839; and Edmund Gaines to Commanding Officers, July 13, 1839, LROIA, reel 83.

  141. “Names of Cherokees charged with the murder of the Ridges and Boudinot,” November 27, 1839, and Arbuckle to Poinsett, December 26, 1839, LROIA, reel 84. Documents relating to the issue of Arbuckle’s intervention are in “Letter from the Secretary of War … respecting the interference of any officer or agent of the Government with the Cherokee Indians in the formation of a government for the regulation of their own internal affairs,” 26th Congress, 1st session, House Document 188 (names of Cherokees charged at 17).

  142. Ross Papers, 1: 764–70; “Memorial of John Ross and Others,” March 3, 1829, 20th Congress, 2nd session, House Document 145: 7–9; Ross to Arbuckle, November 4, 1839, LROIA, reel 84, reprinted in 26th Congress, 1st session, House Document 188, 15–17.

  143. Dianne Everett, The Texas Cherokees: A People between Two Fires, 1819–1840 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990), ch. 5; Gary Clayton Anderson, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820–1875 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), 177–80.

  144. Ross Papers, 2: 11, 23; Moulton, John Ross, 115–16. The Cherokee Constitution and other documents relating to these events are in LROIA, reels 83–84.

  145. David LaVere, Contrary Neighbors: Southern Plains and Removed Indians in Indian Territory (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000), ch. 4; John P. Bowes, Exiles and Pioneers: Eastern Indians in the Trans-Mississippi West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 122–23 (quote at 123), 141–47.

  146. Ross Papers, 2: 65, 74–75; Address of General Arbuckle to Deputations from the Old Settlers and late Emigrant Cherokees, April 21, 1840, and Cherokee Council to Arbuckle, April 22, 1840, LROIA, reel 84.

  147. Ross Papers, 2: 87.

  148. Ross Papers, 2: 150–51.

  149. John Howard Payne, Indian Justice: A Cherokee Murder Trial at Tahlequah in 1840 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002).

  150. “Report of the Secretary of War [on] difficulties among the Cherokee Indians,” February 24, 1845, 28th Congress, 2nd session, Senate Document 140: 95.

  151. Ross Papers, 2: 124–26, 143; Kenny, Stand Watie, 80–81, 83–88; George Paschal, “The Trial of Stand Watie,” ed. Grant Foreman Chronicles of Oklahoma 12 (September 1934), 305–39. Paschal was married to the daughter of John Ridge and was therefore a strong supporter of Watie.

  152. Kenny, Stand Watie, 83.

  153. Ross Papers, 2: 170–77; Moulton, John Ross, 149.

  154. Parins, John Rollin Ridge, 37.

  155. “Memorial of John Ross and Others,” May 4, 1846, 29th Congress, 1st session, Senate Document 331: 12–13; Ross Papers, 2: 272–73, 279–80, 298–300; Kenny, Stand Watie, 96.

  156. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears, 34, 40–41; “Memorial of John Ross and Others,” 29th Congress, 1st session, Senate Document 331: 20, 30.

  157. “Memorial of John Rogers, Principal Chief, et al.,” April 13, 1844, 29th Congress, 1st session, House Document 235, quotes at 13, 14, 34.

  158. “Message of the President of the United States, relative to the internal feuds among the Cherokees,” April 13, 1846, 29th Congress, 1st session, Senate Document 289, House Document 185: 55–58.

  159. Ross Papers, 2: 228–42.

  160. Dale and Litton, Cherokee Cavaliers, 35; Parins, John Rollin Ridge, 45.

  161. Ross Papers, 2: 283–85.

  162. “Message of the President of the United States, relative to the Cherokees Difficulties,” April 13, 1846, 29th Congress, 1st session, House Document 185, Senate Document 289, quote at 2.

  163. Ross Papers, 2: 285.

  164. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears, 56–58; Ross Papers, 2: 312, 316–19.

  165. McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears, 60–62; Moulton, John Ross, 153–54; Perdue and Green, Cherokee Nation and the Trail of Tears, 160.

  166. Wilkins, Cherokee Tragedy, 344.

  167. Parins, John Rollin Ridge, 55–60; Dale and Litton, Cherokee Cavaliers, 64 (principle of revenge).

  168. Clarissa W. Confer, The Cherokee Nation in the Civil War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007); Denson, Demanding the Cherokee Nation, ch. 2.

  169. Ross Papers, 2: 469–70, 476, 480.

  170. Ross Papers, 2: 492–95; The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 70 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880–1901), Series 1, 4: 669–87.

  171. Laurence M. Hauptman, Between Two Fires: American Indians in the Civil War (New York: Free Press, 1995), ch. 3, quote at 48.

  172. Ross Papers, 2: 590–92, 624–27.

  173. Moulton, John Ross, 177, 182.

  174. Dale and Litton, Cherokee Cavaliers, chs. 3–4, Saladin quote at 128, “peace once more” at 170; Kenny, Stand Watie, chs. 7–9, “short time in peace” at 160.

  175. Hauptman, Between Two Fires, 42.

  176. Kenny, Stand Watie, 196, 200; Dale and Litton, Cherokee Cavaliers, 234, 256, 265.

  177. Kenny, Stand Watie, 208.

  Chapter 5

  1. James P. Ronda, Lewis and Clark among the Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), quote at 1.

  2. Quoted in Paul VanDevelder, Savages and Scoundrels: The Untold Story of America’s Road to Empire through Indian Territory (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 89.

  3. Colin G. Calloway, One Vast Winter Count: The Native American West before Lewis and Clark (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003).

  4. Calloway, One Vast Winter Count, 250–60; Juliana Barr, Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands (Chapel Hill: Un
iversity of North Carolina Press, 2007), ch. 1; Juliana Barr, “Beyond Their Control: Spaniards in Native Texas,” in Choice, Persuasion, and Coercion: Social Control on Spain’s North American Frontier, ed. Jesús F. de la Teja and Ross Frank (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005), 154–58.

  5. Gilbert C. Din and Abraham P. Nasatir, The Imperial Osages: Spanish-Indian Diplomacy in the Mississippi Valley (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983); Willard H. Rollings, The Osage: An Ethnohistorical Study of Hegemony on the Prairie-Plains (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992).