Indian Territory

Biographical Sketch of William L. Harris

The subject of this sketch was born December 21, 1852, in Bedford County, Virginia, the oldest son of J. L. Harris, a well known citizen of that county. His mother was a Miss Elma Anthony, a Virginian. William attended public school until sixteen years of age, when he went to college at Jackson, Tenn. At the age of eighteen years he began the duties of a clerk in the State of Mississippi, and continued the same until twenty-two years of age, when he spent two years more bridge-building in different portions of the country. In 1880 he went west of … Read more

Biography of Gideon Morgan

This well-known citizen of Tahlequah was born April 3, 1851, in Athens, Tennessee, the son of Major William Morgan and grandson of Colonel Gideon Morgan, of Stonewall Jackson’s army. His father was an officer in General John H. Morgan’s command, and was killed at the battle of Lexington, Kentucky, in 1862. The Morgans originally came from Wales. Colonel Gideon Morgan, already referred to, married Margaret Sevier, a granddaughter of General Sevier, who was half Cherokee, through his family connection with the Lowreys. Martha Mayo, daughter of G. W. Mayo, a white man, was mother to the subject of our sketch. … Read more

Biography of John Thompson Adair

John Thompson Adair was born December 22, 1812, the son of Walter Adair, a half-breed, and Rachel Thompson daughter of William Thompson, a white man. John was born on Painter’s Creek, near Tulula Falls and received his earliest education at the neighborhood schools until his twentieth year, when he entered the Lawrenceville Academy, Georgia, and there remained for five months. On leaving that institution he entered a mercantile house, and after serving his time to the business, purchased a stock of goods in New Orleans in 1837, and with them proceeded to the State line, or eastern border of the … Read more

Biography of John Harold McQuarie

John Harold McQuarie was born March 4, 1852, in the Dominion of Canada, the second son of George McQuarie and Sarah Brown, of the same country. John attended public school until fourteen years of age, after which he went to the Wyoming Plains, where he worked for the Union Pacific Railroad as check clerk for two years. Leaving there, he went to Wilson County, Kansas, where he purchased land, and farmed for one year, after which he moved to Texas. Remaining but a short time in the Lone Star State, he went to the Creek Nation, and there managed a … Read more

Biographical Sketch of William Meeks

William, son of George and Minerva (Fleetwood) Meeks, was born March 5, 1880 in Sequoyah District, educated in Cherokee public schools and Male Seminary. Married September 11, 1905 Goldie May Perry. They are the parents of Sylvia Pauline, born September 7, 1906; Mary Louise, born June 3, 1909; Della Ruth, born September 19, 1912 and Wyllie Burtis, born June 1, 1919. William Meeks was left an orphan while a small child and through adverse circumstances has struggled to a competence and the respect of his community. A Methodist in church affiliation he has ascended in masonry to the Thirty second … Read more

Biographical Sketch of William J. Strange

The subject of this sketch was born September 29, 1860, in Walker County, Georgia, second son of William Strange, a stockman and ex-sheriff of Walker County, having served eight years in that capacity. William’s mother was the daughter of Henry Boss, also a stock raiser of Walker County. William, after attending public school till seventeen years of age, entered the mercantile business at Ringgold, Georgia. Selling out three years later, he moved to Vinita, Indian Territory, and began clerking for W. C. Patton & Co. Here he remained five years, till 1885, when he moved to Chelsea, and there embarked … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Charles Scott Smith

This gentleman was born in September 1849, the eldest son of Rev. J. G. Smith, a Baptist minister of Eufaula, and of the Creek tribe of Tuckabatche Town, and a very prominent man among his people. At six years of age Charles commenced attending neighborhood school, and continued until 1862, when he went to Fort Smith to complete his education. But at the outbreak of the war he returned to his father’s home, and with others, joined a band of refugees that sought safety on Red River, Chickasaw Nation. Here he remained until 1866. Two years later he went to … Read more

Slave Narrative of Eliza Whitmire

Person Interviewed: Eliza Whitmire Location: Vinita, Oklahoma Date of Birth: 1833 Age: 102 My name is Eliza Whitmire. I live on a farm, near Estella, where I settled shortly after the Civil War and where I have lived ever since. I was born in slavery in the state of Georgia, my parents having belonged to a Cherokee Indian of the name of George Sanders, who owned a large plantation in the old Cherokee Nation, in Georgia. He also owned a large number of slaves but I was too young to remember how many he owned. I do not know the … Read more

Biography of W. M. Tate

For twenty-one years W. M. Tate has been engaged in farming in Nowata county, residing all of this time on his present farm of one hundred and forty acres, four and one-half miles southeast of Nowata. He was born in western Kansas on the 4th of December, 1873, a son of P. A. and Margaret (Barnes) Tate, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Indiana. They moved from Iowa to Kansas one year before W. M. was born and located in Lincoln county, where they lived two years. At the termination of that time they went to … Read more

Indian Villages, Towns and Settlements of Indian Territory

These pages will provide an alphabetical listing for all the villages, towns, and settlements in what was the state of Indian Territory at the time the Handbook of American Indian of North America was written. Alibamu to Apoholythas Beaversville to Black Dog Chakihlako to Conchanty Hatchichapa to Hlekatska  

Choctaws views on God and Murder

Among every North American Indian tribe from their earliest known history down to the present, there was and is a universal belief in the existence of a God, and Supreme Being, universally known among all Indians as the Great Spirit; and with whose attributes were associated all the various manifestations of natural phenomena; and in point of due respect and true devotion to this Great Spirit their acknowledged God they as a whole today excel, and ever have excelled, the whites in their due respect and true devotion to their acknowledged God. Never was an Indian known to deny the … Read more

Treaty of October 21, 1867 – Memorandum

Articles of a treaty concluded at the Council Camp on Medicine Lodge Creek, seventy miles south of Fort Larned, in the State of Kansas, on the twenty-first day of October, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, by and between the United States of America, represented by its commissioners duly appointed thereto to-wit: Nathaniel G. Taylor, William S. Harney, C. C. Augur, Alfred S. [H.] Terry, John B. Sanborn, Samuel F. Tappan, and J. B. Henderson, of the one part, and the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Indians, represented by their chiefs and headmen duly authorized and empowered to act for the body of … Read more

The Meeting in 1811 of Tecumseh and Apushamatahah

Peter Perkins Pitchlynn was the Choctaw Principal Chief from 1864-1866

The meeting in 1811, of Tecumseh, the mighty Shawnee, with Apushamatahah, the intrepid Choctaw. I will here give a true narrative of an incident in the life of the great and noble Choctaw chief, Apushamatahah, as related by Colonel John Pitchlynn, a white man of sterling integrity, and who acted for many years as interpreter to the Choctaws for the United States Government, and who was an eye-witness to the thrilling scene, a similar one, never before nor afterwards befell the lot of a white man to witness, except that of Sam Dale, the great scout of General Andrew Jackson, … Read more

Biographical Sketch of Sampson O. Hinds

Born December 1846, in Jennings County, Indiana, the second son of John Hinds and Eliza Mace, of Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Sampson attended neighborhood school until the war broke out, when he joined Company E, 82d Indiana Infantry, Federal service, and was afterwards transferred to Company H, 122d Indiana Infantry. During the war his people had moved to Iowa, where he joined them in 1866, and took a three years’ course of study at the Leon High School. Afterwards he commenced reading law with Judge J. W. Harvey, of Leon, where he was afterwards admitted to the bar. In May 1873, … Read more

Biography of Hon. Horace B. Durant

Hon. Horace B. Durant, a prominent representative of the Ottawa County bar who is practicing his profession at Miami, is also active in public affairs, representing his district in the state senate. He was born at Troy, Miami county, Ohio, July 31, 1868, his parents being Horace H. and Caroline (Brandriff) Durant, the former a native of Vermont and the latter of Ohio. Removing to Ohio, the father for a time engaged in the dry goods business at Troy, while later he conducted a drug store at Piqua, that state, becoming recognized as one of the successful business men of … Read more

Biography of Elias C. Boudinot

The late distinguished lawyer and statesman, E. C. Boudinot, was born August, 1835, near Rome, Ga., and was the son of Kille-kee-nah, a Cherokee descended from a long line of chiefs. Elias was first educated for a civil engineer at Manchester, Vt., but finally concluded to adopt the law as a profession. He was admitted to the bar in 1856, and practiced in the State and Federal Courts. One of his first cases was the defense of Stand Watie, defendant in a murder case, in which it is recorded that young Boudinot made one of the most effective and polished … Read more

Iroquoian Family

As to the name, original location, geographical distribution, and tribal relations of the Cherokees, the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology gives the following information (pages 76-79): Iroquois, Gallatin in Trans, Am. Antiq. Soc., u, 2423, 305, 1836 (excludes Cherokees). Prichard, Phys. Hist. Mankind, v. 881, 1817 (follows Gallatin). Gallatin in Trans. Am. Eth. Soc., II, pt.1, xcix, 77, 1848 (as in 1836). Gallatin, in Schoolcraft, Ind. Tribes, in, 401, 1853. Latham in Trans. Philolog. Soc. Lond., 58, 1856. Latham, Opuscula, 327, 1860. Latham, Elements Comp. Phil., 463, 1862. Irokesen, Berghans (1845), Physik. Atlas, map 17, 1848. Ibid, … Read more

Biography of J. H. Truskett

For forty-one years J. H. Truskett has devoted his attention to farming in Washington county and is numbered among the pioneer settlers of Oklahoma whose labors have been a potent factor in the development of the agricultural resources of the state, while he has also contributed in substantial measure to the promotion of educational interests in his section. A native of Ohio, he was born August 31, 1845, and in 1880, when thirty-five years of age, he settled at the forks of the Caney river, where he purchased a farm, upon which he engaged in raising grain and cattle, continuing … Read more

Quapaw Indians

Quapaw Tribe: Meaning “downstream people.” They were known by some form of this word to the Omaha, Ponca, Kansa, Osage, and Creeks. Also called: Quapaw Connections. The Quapaw were one of the five tribes belonging to what J. O. Dorsey (1897) called the Cegiha division of the Siouan linguistic stock. Quapaw Location. At or near the mouth of Arkansas River. (See also Louisiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas.) Quapaw Villages Quapaw History Before the French became acquainted with this tribe (in 1673) the Quapaw had lived on Ohio River above its junction with the Wabash, and that portion of the … Read more