Chitto Harjo
As Lili‘uokalani’s opposition to annexation faltered, Native nations within the continental United States defended their homelands from a different form of incorporation. Allotment intended to integrate reservations into the United States by allocating parcels of tribally owned property to individual Indians and opening the remaining “surplus land” to homesteaders. It proceeded unevenly. In Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory pressure intensified, and resistance took many forms. Lone Wolf, a Kiowa leader, sued the United States to prevent the dismantling of the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache Reservation, only to be defeated in Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock (1903). Plenary power, the Supreme Court affirmed, enabled Congress to abrogate treaties arbitrarily. After separate legislation extended the Dawes Act to Indian Territory, dissenters refused to sign tribal rolls or accept allotments. The Creeks splintered, and as Oklahoma moved toward statehood in 1906, Chitto Harjo (1846–1911) took the Creek opposition’s case before a Senate investigating committee in Tulsa. Consider the connection he made between land ownership and nationhood, his strategic deployment of history, memory, and race, and the central place treaty making, consent, and justice held in his defense of Creek sovereignty.18
I will begin with a recital of the relations of the Creeks with the Government of the United States. . . . And I will explain it so you will understand it. . . . My ancestors and my people were the inhabitants of this great country from 1492. I mean by that from the time the white man first came to this country until now. It was my home and the home of my people from time immemorial, and is today, I think, the home of my people.
Away back in that time—in 1492—there was man by the name of Columbus came from across the great ocean, and he discovered this country for the white man—this country which was at that time the home of my people. What did he find when he first arrived here? Did he find a white man standing on this continent then, or did he find a black man standing here? Did he find either a black man or a white man standing on this continent then?
. . . I stood here first and Columbus first discovered me. I want to know what did he say to the red man at that time? He was on one of the great four roads that led to light. At that time Columbus received the information that was given to him by my people. My ancestor informed him that he was ready to accept this light he proposed to give him and walk these four roads of light and have his children under his direction. He told him it is all right. He told him, “The land is all yours; the law is all yours.” He said it was right. He told him, “I will always take care of you. If your people meet with any troubles I will take these troubles away. I will stand before you and behind you and on each side of you and your people, and if any people come into your country I will take them away and you shall live in peace under me.” “My arms,” he said, “are very long.” He told him to come within his protecting arms and he said, “If anything comes against you for your ruin I will stand by you and preserve you and defend you and protect you.” . . .
He told me that as long as the sun shone and the sky is up yonder these agreements shall be kept. That was the first agreement that we had with the white man. He said as long as the sun rises it shall last; as long as the waters run it shall last; as long as grass grows it shall last. That was what it was to be and we agreed on those terms. That was what the agreement was, and we signed our names to that agreement and to those terms. . . . That is what he said, and we believed it. I think there is nothing that has been done by the people should abrogate them. We have kept every term of that agreement. The grass is growing, the waters run, the sun shines, the light is with us, and the agreement is with us yet, for the God that is above us all witnessed that agreement.
. . . Now, coming down to 1832 and referring to the agreements between the Creek people and the Government of the United States: What has occurred since 1832 until today?19 It seems that some people forget what has occurred. After all, we are all of one blood; we have the one God and we live in the same land. I have always lived back yonder in what is now the State of Alabama. We had our homes back there; my people had their homes back there. We had our troubles back there and we had no one to defend us. At that time when I had these troubles it was to take my country away from me. I had no other troubles. The troubles were always about taking my country away from me. I could live in peace with all else, but they wanted my country and I was in trouble defending it.
It was no use. They were bound to take my country away from me. It may have been that my country had to be taken away from me, but it was not justice. I have always been asking for justice. I never asked for anything else but justice. I never had justice. First, it was this and then it was something else that was taken away from me and my people, so we couldn’t stay there any more. It was not because a man had to stand on the outside of what was right that brought the troubles. What was to be done was all set out yonder in the light and all men knew what the law and the agreement was. It was a treaty—a solemn treaty—but what difference did that make? I want to say this to you to-day, because I don’t want these ancient agreements between the Indian and the white man violated. . . .
Then it was the overtures of the Government to my people to leave their land, the home of their fathers, the land that they loved. . . . He said, “Go away out there to this land toward the setting sun, and take your people with you and locate them there, and I will give you that land forever, and I will protect you and your children in it forever.” That was the agreement and the treaty, and I and my people came out here and we settled on this land, and I carried out these agreements and treaties in all points and violated none. I came over and located here.
What took place in 1861? I had made my home here with my people, and I was living well out here with my people. We were all prospering. We had a great deal of property here, all over this country. We had come here and taken possession of it under our treaty. We had laws that were living laws, and I was living here under the laws. You are my fathers, and I tell you that in 1861, I was living here in peace and plenty with my people, and we were happy; and then my white fathers rose in arms against each other to fight each other. They did fight each other. At that day Abraham Lincoln was President of the United States and our Great Father. He was in Washington and I was away off down here. My white brothers divided into factions and went to war.
When the white people raised in arms and tried to destroy one another, it was not for the purpose of destroying my people at all. It was not for the purpose of destroying treaties with the Indians. They did not think of that and the Indian was not the cause of that great war at all. The cause of that war was because there was a people that were black in skin and color, who had always been in slavery. In my old home in Alabama and all through the south part of the nation and out in this country, these black people were held in slavery and up in the North there were no slaves. The people of that part of the United States determined to set the black people free, and the people in the South determined that they should not, and they went to war about it. In that war the Indians had not any part. It was not their war at all.
The purpose of the war was to set these black people at liberty, and I had nothing to do with it. He told me to come out here and have my laws back, and I came out here with my people and had my own laws, and was living under them. On account of some of your own sons—the ancient brothers of mine—they came over here and caused me to enroll along with my people on your side.20 I left my home and my country and everything I had in the world and went rolling on toward the Federal Army. I left my laws and my government, I left my people and my country and my home, I left everything and went with the Federal Army for my father in Washington. I left them all in order to stand by my treaties. I left everything and I arrived in Kansas—I mean it was at Leavenworth where I arrived. It was a town away up in Kansas on the Missouri River. I arrived at Fort Leavenworth to do what I could for my father’s country and stand by my treaties. . . .
Things should not have been that way but that is the way they were. The father at Washington was not able to keep his treaty with me and I had to leave my country, as I have stated, and go into the Federal Army. Then I got a weapon in my hands, for I raised my hand and went into the Army to help to defend my treaties and my country and the Federal Army. I went in as a Union soldier. When I took the oath I raised my hand and called God to witness that I was ready to die in the cause that was right and to help my father defend his treaties. All this time the fire was going on and the war and the battles were going on, and today I have conquered all and regained these treaties that I have with the Government. I believe that everything wholly and fully came back to me on account of the position I took in that war. I think that. I thought then, and I think today, that is the way to do—to stand up and be a man that keeps his word all the time and under all circumstances. That is what I did, and I know that in doing so I regained again all my old treaties, for the father at Washington conquered in that war, and he promised me that if I was faithful to my treaties I should have them all back again. I was faithful to my treaties and I got them all back again, and today I am living under them and with them. I never agreed to the exchanging of lands and I never agreed to the allotting of my lands. . . . Your Government . . . said that if anyone trespassed on my rights or questioned them to let him know and he would take care of them and protect them.21
I always thought that this would be done. I believe yet it will be done. I don’t know what the trouble is now. I don’t know anything about it. I think that my lands are all cut up. I have never asked that be done, but I understand it has been done. I don’t know why it was done. My treaty said that it never would be done unless I wanted it done. That anything I did not want to be done contrary to that treaty would not be done. . . . I never had made these requests. I went through death for this cause, and I now hold the release this Government gave me. I served the father faithfully; and as a reward I regained my country back again and I and my children will remain on it, and live upon it as we did in the old time. I believe it. I know it is right. I know it is justice.
I hear that the Government is cutting up my land and is giving it away to black people. I want to know if this is so. It can’t be so, for it is not the treaty. These black people, who are they? They are negroes that came in here as slaves. They have no right to this land. It never was given to them. It was given to me and my people and we paid for it with our land back in Alabama. The black people have no right to it. Then can it be that the Government is giving it—my land—to the negro?22 I hear it is, and they are selling it. This can’t be so. It wouldn’t be justice. I am informed and believe it to be true that some citizens of the United States have titles to land that was given to my fathers and my people by the Government. If it was given to me, what right has the United States to take it from me without first asking my consent? That I would like to know. . . .
I believe the officers of the United States ought to take care of the rights of me and my people first and then afterwards look out for their own interests. I have reason to believe and I do believe that they are more concerned in their own welfare than the welfare or rights of the Indian—lots of them are. I believe some of them are honest men, but not many. A man ought first to dispossess himself of all thought or wish to do me or my country wrong. He should never think of doing wrong to this country or to the rights of my people. After he has done that, then maybe he can do something for himself in that regard; but first he must protect the Indians and their rights in this country. He is the servant of the Government and he is sent here to do that and he should not be permitted to do anything else.
All that I am begging of you, honorable Senators, is that these ancient agreements and treaties wherein you promised to take care of me and my people be fulfilled, and that you will remove all the difficulties that have been raised in reference to my people and their country, and I ask you to see that these promises are faithfully kept. . . .