Pushmataha, Father of the Choctaws (c. 1764-1824) “A little cloud was once seen in the northern sky. It came before a rushing wind, and covered the Choctaw country with darkness. Out of it flew an angry fire. It struck a large oak, and scattered its limbs and its trunk all along the ground, and from that spot sprung forth a warrior fully armed for war. And that man was Pushmataha.”
Katherine Roche Buchanan’s magnificent portrait of Pushmataha. (http://portraitartist.com/buchanan/index.asp)

Pushmataha Answers Tecumseh

“Halt! Tecumseh, listen to me. You have come here, as you have often gone elsewhere, with a purpose to involve peaceful people in unnecessary trouble with their neighbors. Our people have no undo friction with the whites. Why? Because we have had no leaders stirring up strife to serve their selfish personal ambitions.“

In addition, Pushmataha knew white squatters already populated the proposed new Choctaw territory and that these western lands possibly lacked the fertility of those from which his tribe was being forced. Against this tense backdrop, Jackson’s steely and immovable tack in the negotiations reportedly brought the two legendary warriors to a famous verbal confrontation, recorded in the following account:
Gen. Jackson put on all his dignity and thus addressed the chief; 

“I wish you to understand that I am Andrew Jackson, and, by the Eternal, you shall sign that treaty as I have prepared it?”

  The mighty Choctaw Chief was not disconcerted by this haughty address, and springing suddenly to his feet, and imitating the manner of his opponent, replied,

 'I know very well who you are, not sign that treaty.

Indeed, the Treaty of Doak’s Stand, which stipulated voluntary migration west by the Choctaws and pledged supplies for all who did, was not signed until Jackson adjusted its provisions to require removal of the white squatters from the land to which the Choctaws were removing. Only about one-fourth of the tribe moved, however, and those who remained suffered pressure, intimidation, and injustice from federal officials and local white settlers alike for an entire decade.

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

The southeast, of course, was the original home for none of them, because all had come from other lands. They had lived there for hundreds of years by the time the United States government’s policy of encouragement and persuasion evolved into one of pressure and brute force.
In fact, the federal government carried out the wishes of Georgia and other Southern states in particular and the American citizenry in general. Those wishes involved removal of the Indians from the lands where white pioneers wished to settle and from the society that whites did not wish mutated by Native bloodlines or customs. This was accomplished in spite of the aforementioned fact that the southeastern “civilized” tribes in particular vigorously pursued American acculturation.

Choctaw Treaty

 Choctaw hunting parties had forayed west into Indian Territory for decades. Numerous tribesmen knew the region covering most of modern-day southeast Oklahoma that the U.S. government offered them in exchange for a chunk of their remaining lands in Mississippi. After the Choctaws and the United States had concluded a series of modest treaties over the years, in 1820 Pushmataha and other chiefs were again compelled to negotiate, this time with General and future President Andrew Jackson. And this time the negotiations concerned not hunted-out lands on the periphery of the Choctaw country; instead, they focused on core tribal territory.

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

 By 1820 the national government had designated present-day Oklahoma as the hub of America’s “Indian Territory,” though official Congressional legislation occurred a decade later. Centuries of the Five Civilized Tribes living in their ancestral southeastern homelands were coming to an end.

Southeastern homelands of the Five Civilized Tribes, all known for their advanced acceptance and mastery of Western ways, before their removal to Indian Territory. (Adapted from Arkansas Historic Preservation Program)

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

The Pilgrims Landing on Plymouth Rock, 1620, by Charles Lucy. The Pilgrims and Puritans who founded Christian civilization in America aimed for nothing less than building a “city set on a hill,” spiritually speaking and based on the Holy Scriptures, that would bless its own inhabitants and all the nations of the world.  Despite all their enemies, their legacy endures.

  Were the individual bearers of that message faultless in their embodiment of their religion and their treatment of the Indians or Africans-or the Mexicans, Chinese, Irish, or Italians-and their descendants? No, and much wrong, bloodshed, and woeful consequence ensued and continues today. Yet does the Christian Bible claim that God has ever used sinless vessels to accomplish His work? Not as evidenced either by His chosen people of old, Israel, or the greatest individual heroes of the Christian faith, whether they were Moses, David, Peter or Paul. But the history of the world evidences that those who oppose the cross of Christ—including those who defy the laws of God while claiming to defend them are themselves opposed by God, with potentially catastrophic consequences for themselves and those in their charge.

Among the many attributes of God identified by the Bible is impartiality, a refusal to show favoritism to one person or group over another. Thus, persons of any race and ethnicity are imperiled when they ignore and defy God. Those, meanwhile, who claim and abide in Him with humble hearts, whatever their people group, are promised matchless blessing - though often in manners other than mankind would expect - in both this world and the next. Though the Natives, including those who came to present-day Oklahoma, sadly suffered at the hands of many of the “Christ-bearers” whom they encountered, many of them received the wondrous gift of spiritual forgiveness; God’s earthly protection, provision, and blessing; and eternal life and joy in His presence by following in the same Christian way as those flawed messengers of life.

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

The Adams-Onís Treaty showing area claimed by the US before the treaty, and results of the new agreement

The 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty delivered Spanish Florida to the United States, while recognizing Spain’s rule over present-day southwest United States, other than Oklahoma and most of Red River. Only the present-day Panhandle of the state fell outside of the Louisiana Purchase/Missouri Territory and under Spanish rule. Adams-Onís proved pivotal to the subsequent southeastern Indian removals and settling of Indian Territory.

For the southeastern Indians, Adams-Onis meant the United States could move toward removing the tribes from the westward tide of American settlement.

Secretary of State and future sixth President John Quincy Adams. He spearheaded the Adams-Onís Treaty, pivotal to the subsequent Indian removals and settling of Indian Territory.

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

This 1819 agreement, labored over for four years by the United States and Spain, defused serious tensions on several geographic fronts between the expanding new North American country and its European counterpart, whose imperial power was fading. Spain ceded Florida to the U.S., partly to keep it out of French hands, and the U.S. recognized Spanish claims to the land comprising its Texas province and west to California and the Pacific Ocean.
More significant to Oklahoma history, Adams-Onís codified the Sabine River as the eastern boundary of Texas with America’s new Louisiana Territory, and Red River as the northern one with Indian Territory drawn from Louisiana. These mandates cleared the way for Americans, whether explorers, military expeditions, scientists, or otherwise, to travel, explore, and even settle in these environs without any threat from Spanish soldiers. They also initiated the official designation in 1820 of “Indian Territory,“ a large reserve to relocate the Native tribes from back east that Americans grew increasingly determined to have out of their way.
Adams-Onís, deriving its name from U.S. Secretary of State and future President John Quincy Adams and the Spanish Minister to the United States Don Luis de Onís, achieved another important American objective. It gave the U.S. ownership of the Sabine, Red, and Arkansas Rivers in their entirety where they separated American- and Spanish claimed territory, rather than splitting the rivers as treated boundaries normally did. American eagerness for this stemmed from earlier problems with Spain concerning the previously split Mississippi River. American ownership of Red River would figure in future disputes over oil between not-always-friendly Red River neighbors Oklahoma and Texas.
For the southeastern Indians, Adams-Onís held a different set of portents. Not least, it meant the United States could now proceed unfettered by interference from European powers toward removing the tribes from the westward tide of American settlement.

Stephen Long’s map of the Great Plains, clearly including his famed "Great American Desert,” otherwise known as present-day western Oklahoma. (Courtesy Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art)

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

“Present-day Oklahoma and the American Southwest were providentially placed to keep the American people from ruinous diffusion… We have little apprehension of giving too unfavorable an account of this portion of the country. Though the soil is in some places fertile, the want of timber, of navigable streams, and of water for the necessities of life, render it an unfit residence for any but a nomad population. The traveler who shall at any time have traversed its desolate sands, will, we think, join us in the wish that this region may forever remain the unmolested haunt of the native hunter, the bison, and the jackall.”

 -Edwin James, botanist accompanying American explorer Stephen H. Long

 With his own eyes James witnessed scenes ranging from bald eagles to pelicans to wild horses to a square-mile-large prairie dog colony. As recounted in W. David Baird and Danny Goble’s The Story of Oklahoma, he also wrote of the constant bedeviling presence of seed ticks in the lives of Oklahoma explorers:

“The bite is not felt until the insect has had time to bury the whole of his beak, and in the case of the minute and most troublesome species, nearly his whole body seems hid under the skin. Where he fastens himself with such tenacity… he will sooner suffer his head and body to be dragged apart than relinquish his hold.”

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

Stephen Harriman Long, early American explorer of present-day Oklahoma.

Stephen Long Explores Oklahoma Region

Neither cold nor heat, drought nor flood, dangerous Indians nor hostile Spaniards could stem the surge of American merchants, scientists, adventurers, missionaries, and soldiers who persevered across the rivers, then the lands of present-day Oklahoma. While the imperial powers of Europe drained each other’s blood and treasure, or sank into non-productive lassitude, the young American nation born of them vibrated with energy and ambition. Indeed, many people would have many ideas for Indian Territory.
Scores of daring American entrepreneurs yearned to reach the bountiful trading hub of Santa Fe to the west of Texas, but well-armed Spanish troops under orders from their distant government prevented that, at the point of the bayonet when necessary. It was no place for the faint of heart or the uncertain of aim. Many of the keenest observations and most notable discoveries by Americans were accomplished by private citizens such as scientists or merchants, rather than those in government service.
One of the most intrepid American explorers of early Oklahoma, though, was U.S. Army Engineer Stephen Long. As the Osage-Cherokee war raged in 1817, the War Department commissioned him to choose a location on the Arkansas River for a fort to help calm that vicious feud, as well as to protect the American settlers beginning to enter the area. Long established Fort Smith, later one of the largest cities in Arkansas.
Then, encouraged by the Adams-Onis Treaty signed between the United States and Spain, a series of important American explorations trekked through present-day Oklahoma in the late 1810s and early 1820s. Natural and manmade dangers alike lurked in every direction throughout the rough country.
Long’s Epic Journey Two years after his first Oklahoma adventure, esteeming his toughness and coolness of mind in dangerous situations, the War Department sent Long west on an even more daunting mission: finding the elusive headwaters of the Arkansas and Red Rivers. Numerous previous American expeditions had failed to do so. Also plagued throughout the expedition by supply shortages due to the financial Panic of 1819, Long trekked across the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains, then in the summer of 1820 detached Captain John H. Bell and a dozen men to follow the Arkansas back to Fort Smith.
This group, which included the father of American zoology, Thomas Say, faced its own desperate odyssey, braving thirst and scorching heat before reaching their destination. Say suffered additional heartache as deserting soldiers stole five journals in which he had painstakingly compiled vast amounts of eyewitness data about newly christened Indian Territory’s people, plants, animals, geography, and minerals. Forging on from memory and the remnants of his expedition writings, he managed to publish a book chronicling the Bell expedition.

Stephen Long’s great 1820 expedition through present-day Oklahoma continued his preceding year’s exploration of the Missouri River. The remarkable pathfinder seemed to find a way to answer every one of the many formidable challenges that arose with ingenuity and resourcefulness.

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

Scientist Describes the Cherokees

 Among the lasting scientific and historic contributions of famed American botanist Thomas Nuttall during his trip to Oklahoma in 1819 is his description of the sophisticated and advanced Cherokees he met as he traveled the Arkansas River:
Both banks of the river, as we proceeded, were lined with the houses and farms of the Cherokee, and though their dress was a mixture of indigenous and European taste, yet in their houses, which are decently furnished, and in their farms, which were well fenced and stocked with cattle, we perceive a happy approach toward civilization. Their numerous families, also, well fed and clothed, argue a propitious progress in their population. Their superior industry either as hunters or farmers proves the value of property among them, and they are no longer strangers to avarice and the distinctions created by wealth. Some of them are possessed of property to the amount of many thousands of dollars, have houses handsomely and conveniently furnished, and their tables spread with our dainties and luxuries.

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.

Plains Tribes

 Though perhaps not all of it lay in the “Great American Desert" invoked by contemporary American explorers and maps, the western half of early eighteenth-century present-day Oklahoma still hosted few people. Most numerous were likely the aforementioned nomadic bands of Comanches and Kiowas who had migrated from the west over the previous few decades. Though their impact on the region would grow through the 1800s, already they occasionally clashed with the Osages, Apaches, and others.
Meanwhile, the Wichitas’ long dismal retreat from the Osages southward toward Texas continued.
Modern-day place names such as their large namesake city in southern Kansas, the Wichita Mountains near Lawton in southwest Oklahoma, and the city of Wichita Falls across Red River in north Texas indicate the tribes’ path.

George Catlin’s early-1830s depiction of a Comanche Village, Women Dressing Robes and Drying Meat as they no doubt would have appeared just a few years before as well, in the 1820s.

Read the entire Oklahoma story in John J. Dwyer's The Oklahomans: The Story of Oklahoma and Its People volume 1 of a 2-part series on the 46th state and the people who make this state very special.