The Trails To Atoka

by Richard Green 

One hundred years ago, official representatives of the Chickasaws, Choctaws and federal government met in Atoka and after much negotiations, agreed that the Indian Nations would be divided up among their members and that their governments would be extinguished by 1906.  This is an account of events leading up to and including that momentous meeting.  It was the end of an era and the beginning of a new chapter in Chickasaw history.

In February 1893, a number of delegates representing the Five Civilized Tribes drafted a letter to their leaders warning of "grave dangers now threatening our political and property rights." The letter was signed, following several intense meetings, by seventeen delegates including Chickasaws Overton Love, William Rennie and Tandy Walker. There was nothing new in members of Congress introducing legislation designed to emasculate or destroy Indian Nations. But now, the delegates realized that the attacks were more concerted, that the Indians' friends and supporters were weaker and that the Supreme Court had ruled that Congress could abridge the Indians' political rights.

In a report, members of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs had written that "the anomalous condition of five separate independent Indian governments within the Government of the United States must soon ... cease." Conditions had changed, they had concluded. When these governments were established, they were remote and isolated. "Today they are surrounded by settled states and territories. White citizens, by the permission of the Indians themselves, have been admitted into their Territory, until now the white people ... outnumber the members of the tribes, and are rapidly increasing." It was alleged that the tribes no longer could protect their own citizens much less the increasing number of white settlers. Therefore, a stable and satisfactory government was said to be necessary for the protection of both classes.

After the Cherokee Outlet (now much of northwest Oklahoma excluding the panhandle) was purchased from the Cherokees by the federal government, it refused the tribe's request to reiterate its former pledges of self government. Furthermore, the delegates noted, an amendment was added to the Cherokee Outlet Agreement directing that a commission be sent to "negotiate with the five civilized nations for a change of their government and method of land holding to allotment and to a territorial government with a view of forming a state." Late in 1893, members of the Dawes Commission arrived in the Indian Territory to do just that. They were not greeted warmly or enthusiastically, and did little the first two years except meet tribal members here and there, and write reports. They would negotiate with the tribes individually except the Chickasaw and Choctaw. Since the tribes owned land in common, the Dawes Commission proposed to negotiate with them jointly. To get the ball rolling, the Commission presented eight propositions for discussion. These involved how the government intended to allot the lands, reserving mineral lands and town sites for sale. All money derived from the sales and owed to the tribes by the government, except that devoted to school purposes, would be distributed on a per capita basis to all tribal members. This included the promise to settle all tribal claims against the United States. Once the members were in possession of their allotments and the money owed was paid to them, the tribal governments would be extinguished, replaced by a territorial government.

Members of both tribes were sharply divided on these issues. Generally, the fullbloods and other traditionalists wanted to be left alone by the federal government. The progressives, consisting mainly of mixed bloods and intermarried citizens, thought that negotiating with the Dawes Commission, while distasteful, was essential to getting a more favorable settlement from the government. When the commission presented its proposals in Tishomingo in February 1894, the Chickasaw delegation appointed by Governor Jonas Wolf consisted of (not surprisingly) twenty fullbloods. Wolf was himself a fullblood who spoke no English. After the morning session, the two groups were to meet again after lunch, but the Chickasaws packed up and went home. Henry L. Dawes, the chairman of the commission, should not have been surprised. Previously, Gov. Wolf had told the Legislature that allotment and statehood "should be strenuously opposed.”

His hand picked successor, Governor Elect Palmer S. Mosely, said that true to his campaign pledge he would refuse to treat (negotiate) with the Dawes Commission. But by 1895, Mosely, realizing that he could not continue to ignore the Dawes Commission, recommended to the Legislature that a Chickasaw commission be appointed to meet with them to "learn their terms so that this may be submitted to our people for approval or rejection.” Members were duly appointed, but now, the Dawes Commission was calling for Congress to intervene in the affairs of the Indian nations, immediately and drastically. The Commission based its recommendation on charges that the Indian governments were "wholly corrupt, irresponsible, and unworthy to be longer trusted with the care and control of the money and other property of Indian citizens, much less their lives."

The Commission reported that the reason the Indian nations were not cooperating with them was because their leaders were personally benefitting from the status quo. The Commission charged that although the tribal lands were held in common, a relatively small group of mixed bloods and intermarried citizens were actually controlling much of the most lucrative tribal lands (mineral land and townsites) for their own personal gain. Furthermore, alluding to "statistics and incontrovertible evidence," the Commission reported that the courts of the Indian nations "have become powerless and paralyzed. Violence, robbery and murder have become almost of daily occurrence, and no effective measures of restraint or punishment are put forth by these governments and courts to suppress crime. A reign of terror exists."

The 1895 report concluded: "There is no alternative left to the United States but to assume the responsibility for future conditions in this Territory." Were these reports true? To some extent, yes, although it was in the interest of the federal government bent on extinguishing tribal governments to bolster an impression of lawlessness and mayhem. According to the maxim: "The history of an oppressed people is hidden in the lies and the agreed upon myth of its conquerers."

While the Chickasaws and other tribes had invited whites into their nations under their permit laws after the Civil War, a trickle of adventurers and settlers had become a flood of intruders, and the federal government for a generation had done little or nothing to remove them, despite their treaty obligations to do so. Meanwhile, the small tribal governments were ill equipped to deal with conditions that were getting more and more out of hand. The Dawes Commission always emphasized the lack of protection of persons and property. But the Commissioners were not there to offer constructive criticism; they were there to negotiate the termination of the Five Tribes.

In concert with the views of the Dawes Commission were reports from a U.S. Senate Committee which had investigated the Indian Territory in 1894, and the Indian reform delegates at the annual Lake Mohonk Conference in New York in 1895. The platform of the Conference said, in part, that despite treaties, the federal government was under "a sacred obligation to exercise its sovereignty extending over the three hundred thousand whites and fifty thousand so called Indians in the Indian Territory.

Accordingly, Congress passed a law on June 10, 1896, directing the Dawes Commission to begin making out rolls of Indian citizens in preparation for land allotment. The Commission was to be the arbiter of the fate of thousands of applicants claiming to be tribal citizens. The law also stated that it was the duty of the United States to establish a government in Indian Territory that could protect the citizens. These were the mandates that the Dawes Commission needed to facilitate the abolition of the Five Tribes.

In early 1896 at Tuskahoma, Choctaw leader Green McCurtain and others organized a new political party, the Tuskahoma. The purpose of the party was to make an agreement with the Dawes Commission, and to serve as a vehicle for the election of McCurtain as principal chief. Their platform that spring included a provision calling for an equal division of the lands among all citizens by blood and intermarriage, while freedmen and their descendents were to receive forty acres each. McCurtain was nominated by the party to run for chief later that summer. He had three opponents, whose dispositions to deal with the Dawes Commission ran from cool to hostile.

While Gov. Mosely had appointed a commission to meet for defensive purposes with the Dawes Commission, he continued to avoid meeting personally with the Dawes Commission. If one newspaper account is accurate, Mosely and the Chickasaw Legislature invited the Commission to meet with them in Ardmore and then they failed to appear. Only a few intermarried citizens greeted the Commission members, who voiced their disgust at having been stoodup by the leadership. According to the news story, the Dawes Commission said "it would not come again to visit the Chickasaws; next time, the tribal leaders would have to come to them."

The Chickasaws also held elections that summer; there were two candidates for Governor, former Gov. Jonas Wolf against Robert M. Harris, the progressive candidate. Like Green McCurtain, Harris favored making an agreement with the Dawes Commission but shunned being tagged as pro Dawes Commission. Both candidates for governor contributed to a hotly contested campaign. As the Atoka Indian Chieftain maintained, the tribal elections had more to do with pro or anti allotment stands than with the candidates themselves. Like the majority of Indian Territory newspapers, the Indian Chieftain was pro allotment: "Are 50,000 citizens of this territory able to bring to submission the 70 million citizens of the U.S.? It is a foolish dream of an idiot that supposes our treaties are an invulnerable shield to ward off the powerful and irresistible forces of the government. The fact that the government has proceeded so far in this matter without our consent proves conclusively that it has virtually abrogated the treaties. The time for dreaming and moralizing is past ...”

The progressive forces in both tribes triumphed. Harris defeated Wolf by a vote of 214 to 161. While McCurtain was elected chief by 169 votes, the other three candidates combined polled about a thousand votes more than the victor. Nevertheless, McCurtain's election was heralded by the newspapers as a victory for allotment. The Indian Agent at the Union Agency in Muskogee also wrote that the elections indicated "beyond doubt, that the Indian mind has undergone a change on this question. Hitherto, all the tribes have stood solid against allotment, and the victory achieved by McCurtain and Harris may be classed as a remarkable and significant one under the circumstances.”

In his first message to the Chickasaw Legislature in September 1896, Governor Harris acknowledged that the federal government had not honored the former treaties and wondered what value a new agreement would have with that government when "it suits the United States to call on us for some other change and concession of our property rights." Yet, he felt he had no choice but to recommend the appointment of a Chicksaw Commission to meet with the Dawes Commission. Harris thought the new commissioners should first meet with representatives of the Choctaws and other Indian nations. The Legislature agreed and appointed four prominent Chickasaw leaders, former Governor William L. Byrd, Richard McLish, M.V. Cheadle and Overton Love, chairman. The recommendations made and measures passed were matters of expediency, not enthusiastic support of the federal plan. The same was true of the Choctaws. Writing in the Indian Citizen, E.N. Wright stated that he believed that McCurtain's defeated opponents for chief would not try to "thwart the will of the people." He said it was critical, with the Choctaw Nation "hanging by a mere thread," to demonstrate that they are law abiding people ... united in the "one great cause of saving our country if possible.

Although "hanging by a mere thread" may be hyperbole, it probably was not. There were sentiments on the federal government side and the Indian side reflecting the belief that this would be the last chance for the Chickasaws and Choctaws to negotiate the terms of their dissolution. Keeping attuned with the tribal situation, the Dawes Commission in October sent to both tribes propositions that were nearly identical with those extended in 1894. Then the Commission prepared to move to Fort Smith to carry on its citizenship work and the negotiations with the two tribes.

Meanwhile, representatives of the Five Tribes met in McAlester in November. They adopted a resolution recognizing that it was time to act and to act uniformly. Therefore, a program to govern the nations in their dealing with the federal government was outlined. Provisions included: the insistence that the federal government pay all claims arising from treaties; an equal division of the lands, the title of which would be held by the Indians until a new government might be organized; setting aside certain lands for investments for tribal education funds; and maintaining tribal governments for as long as possible. In addition, each tribal citizen should receive $500 to assist them in adjusting to the new order, a new state should not be created for at least twenty-five years, and the nations were never to consent to single territorial existence or statehood with Oklahoma."

The Chickasaws and Choctaws met with the Dawes Commission at Fort Smith in November 1896. After a week of making proposals and counter proposals, it was learned that the Chickasaws had come without authority to negotiate. When the Dawes Commission refused to meet with them until they had the proper authority, the Chickasaw commissioners departed, saying they hoped to return with their Legislature's blessing. The problem probably stemmed from the Chickasaw Act of September 12,1896, that setup the Commission. The act authorized the members to "meet and confer with the Dawes Commission in cases of citizenship and any other business that may come before them.” "Meet and confer' is certainly not the same as "negotiate and sign an agreement."

After the Chickasaws left, the Choctaws continued to negotiate in Fort Smith and later in Muskogee. On December 18, the two commissions signed a very detailed agreement, covering the transfer of the title to the tribal lands to the United States. The lands of both tribes would be held in trust by the government and subsequently parceled out in allotments to tribal citizens. Thus, after three years of persuasion buttressed by the threat of hostile legislation, the Dawes Commission made an agreement with the representatives of the first of the five tribes. But, if the Choctaws thought they had reached the agreement also on behalf of the Chickasaws, they were sadly mistaken. On January 15, the Chickasaw Legislature passed an act creating a commission of six, in addition to the two regular delegates, to visit Washington to officially protest Congressional ratification of the agreement. Even though the two tribes had common goals, the Chickasaws considered themselves independent and would not allow the Choctaws to unilaterally usurp their authority. Furthermore, the same January 15 Act gave the new commission power to negotiate an allotment agreement with the Dawes Commission, provided that the government would pay all the money due the tribe.

The Act also gave the tribe more power than under the terms of the Choctaw U.S. agreement. Allotment would be carried out by a tribal commission, not the Dawes Commission. Freedmen would receive no allotments or share of Chickasaw assets, as they had never been adopted by the tribe. Townsite lots would be rented rather than sold. The proceeds as well as mineral royalties beyond those needed for the educational system would be used as the Legislature saw fit. Furthermore, the Act specified that no agreement would be valid until the Chickasaw Legislature had ratified it and the Chickasaw people had approved it. Commission members were William L. Byrd, R.L. Boyd, S.B. Kemp, T.C. Walker, William M. Guy, Isaac O. Lewis, Richard McLish, Josiah Brown and Gov. Harris, exofficio.

After opponents of the Dawes Choctaw agreement had had their say in Washington, the Secretary of the Interior submitted the agreement to Congress for ratification on January 27. Chances for success were further weakened because of dissension within the ranks of the Choctaws. Even the great conciliator, E.N. Wright had refused to sign the agreement. When the Chickasaw commissioners got the chance to protest the agreement, they did so with considerable zeal. In addition to the provisions included in their Legislature's January 15 Act, commissioners voiced more objections: "We object to the agreement requiring all laws and ordinances passed by the Choctaws and Chickasaws to be approved by the president. We object to being regarded as a conquered province. We object to the proposition that all claims that the United States government may have against the two nations, and vice versa, be submitted to arbitration."

The Chickasaw Commission incorporated both its objections to the Choctaw U.S. agreement and its proposals to the Dawes Commission in a report dated February 12, 1897. According to Chickasaw commissioner R.L. Boyd, the Commission put forward its proposals to counter a claim by The Washington Post that the Chickasaws were in town only to block any settlement before congressional adjournment. "In order to vindicate our position," Boyd said, "we decided to memoralize Congress, and did so on the lines laid down by the Chickasaw legislature ....”

Senator Jones of Arkansas presented the Chickasaw memorial to Congress on February 8. Congress adjourned without acting on the ratification of the agreement, but members attached to the Indian Appropriations bill an amendment that Governor Harris said "virtually destroys us as a nation." The offending provision required that all acts of the tribal legislatures be submitted for presidential approval. Because Harris believed that the appropriations bill would pass, he telegraphed a recommendation to the Legislature to modify the January 15 Act "so that an agreement can be affected between the three parties on the best terms that can be made for the Chickasaw people." Time, he believed, was of the essence; any delay "would be dangerous.”

Congress did pass the appropriations bill, but retiring President Grover Cleveland allowed the act to die through the pocket veto. Nevertheless, the die was cast. The veto delayed, but in no way, stopped congressional determination to consummate national purpose in the Indian Territory. In March, new President William McKinley called a special session of Congress to deal with funding the Indian Service. During this time, the Chickasaws and Choctaws met individually and together to get prepared for meeting the Dawes Commission. Writing in The Chickasaws, historian Arrell Gibson wrote that a compelling motivator for spurring the Chickasaw leaders on to the negotiation table was the fear that Congress might soon require that the tribe adopt freedmen and grant equal shares of the tribal estate to them. In light of the agreement that was made, however, Gibson appears to have been mistaken.

Accepting Gov. Harris's recommendation, the Chickasaw Legislature, despite the objections of many Chickasaw officials and citizens, passed an Act on March 1, creating a new commission of eight members with full power to make an agreement on allotment. The Legislature named the following men to the commission: R.L. Boyd, M.V. Cheadle, R.L. Murray, Holmes Colbert, William Perry, Amos Colbert, Isaac Lewis and interestingly, that old foe of allotment former Gov. Palmer S. Mosely. Gov. Harris was ex officio chairman.

They held preliminary conferences in Atoka with their Choctaw counterparts beginning on March 24. Within three days, the commissioners had agreed on a set of joint proposals to be offered to the Dawes Commission. Two members of the Dawes Commission, Alexander Montgomery and Frank Armstrong were present on the last day of the tribal discussions. Notices were printed in newspapers informing Chickasaw and Choctaw citizens that commissioners of the tribes and the federal government would be meeting in Atoka April 1, to entertain presentations on a number of pertinent subjects including statehood, townsites, farm leases, mineral interests, and "the rights of colored people."

The meeting began on April 1 with the election of Frank C. Armstrong of the Dawes Commission as chairman. Then the members settled in for more than a week to listen to individuals and vested interests have their say. Representatives of the townsites in the two nations on March 30 had formed the Choctaw and Chickasaw Protective Association and passed resolutions urging preference for occupants in the sale of lots and the right of any citizen, occupying a homestead including a townsite, to purchase the site and dispose of it. (After the issues were decided, the Protective Association became inactive. But as new issues or calls for grassroots action common to both tribes emerged later in the twentieth century, the Choctaw and Chickasaw Protective Association would reemerge.) Other interests represented at the hearings were farmers, railroads, lease holders particularly mining companies and the Presbyterian church.

After negotiations got underway among the three commissions, rumors began circulating that trouble was brewing. The newspapers printed them, apparently having no ethics against running rumors. For example, it was reported with no attribution that the Chickasaw and Choctaw Commissions could not agree on anything. Also, the Choctaw and Dawes Commissions, were said to have agreed upon all points. Fortunately, most of the newspapers in the Chickasaw and Choctaw nations were weeklies and could inflict only periodic damage.

Finally, on April 23, it was announced that a very lengthy agreement had been reached by all Green McCurtain, Choctaw, 1909 three commissions. An Atoka attorney, Joseph Rails Jr., claimed in an interview conducted in the 1930s that the agreement had been signed in his law office. Rails said he typed the document and provided "a copy of said agreement to the newspapers." He added that he had saved the typewriter as a keepsake. Like it or not, everyone recognized the Atoka Agreement as momentous. The agreement was translated into the Indian languages and published by the owner of the Atoka Indian Citizen, D.A. Homer. Many newspapers in the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations published the Atoka Agreement in its entirety, consuming two or more full news pages.

The framers got to the point quickly. Its first provision stated that all of the Chickasaw and Choctaw lands "shall be allotted to the members of said tribes so as to give to each member of these tribes except for Choctaw freedmen [Chickasaw freedmen were not tribal members], so far as possible, a fair and equal share thereof, considering the character and fertility of the soil and location and value of the lands.” Unlike the agreement signed by the Choctaws in 1896, which would have issued deeds in trust to the federal government, the new agreement provided that the chief executives of the two nations should execute all patents and deliver them to the allottees. The allotments were to be non taxable and inalienable [non transferrable] for twenty one years.

Coal, asphalt, timber lands and townsites were reserved from allotment, and were to be sold separately. The proceeds from the sales and all trust funds held by the government for the two tribes were to be paid out to tribal members on a per capita basis. Mineral royalties were to be used to support schools. Choctaw freedmen and their descendants would each get forty acre allotments, but no share of the other tribal resources. The Indian governments were to terminate on March 4, 1906 and all tribal members would automatically become U.S. citizens* Until then, all legislation passed by the Chickasaw or Choctaw legislatures had to be approved by the President.

Apparently in return for these concessions, the Chickasaw freedmen were omitted from consideration in the Atoka Agreement. After learning that they had been left out of the Agreement, a group of Chicksaw freedmen asked the President and Congress either to provide allotments for them prior to the pact's ratification by Congress or to reject the Agreement. To promote their interests, the freedmen retained two attorneys to work on a contingency bas is. Members of the Dawes Commission also objected to the absence of Chickasaw freedmen in the Agreement. The commissioners urged Congress to remedy this feature before the ratification vote.

All members of the three commissions, except for three Chickasaws, signed the Atoka Agreement. Amos Colbert did not sign because he was reportedly ill; Palmer Mosely and M.V. Cheadle refused to sign the agreement. Since a majority of the Chickasaw Commission did sign the agreement, it was considered approved. Nevertheless, this lack of unanimity among the Chickasaw commissioners was a harbinger of future trouble. As powerful and influential Chickasaws, Mosely and Cheadle had many followers who would be having their say during the Agreement's ratification phase.

As early as April 29, it was reported that the sentiment around Ardmore favored the rejection of the Agreement. Soon, numerous editorials and articles, both pro and con, on the Agreement appeared throughout both Indian nations. The flames of controversy were fanned on May 12 with the release of a report issued by the Office of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. The report stated first that the "diversity and magnitude of interests" in the two nations "make it almost impossible" to frame an agreement satisfactory to all. The report cited 11.3 million acres, inhabited by "14,560 Indians and 100,000, approximately, of whites and others engaged as they are in nearly every kind of business and industry." Then, in apparent contradiction of its initial finding, it was stated that "no objections to this agreement have been filed in this office; therefore, so far as known, it is satisfactory to those persons having interests in the country or who may in any manner be affected by it." With that, the Interior Department transmitted the Agreement on May 18 to Congress for "consideration and ratification." Whether or not objections had been filed with the Indian Affairs office, its bland, spurious finding that the Agreement was satisfactory to all further stirred up the opposition.

Former Choctaw chief candidate Jacob Jackson led a group of conservatives in advocating an emigration plan, under which they were to sell their land improvements and migrate to Mexico. At a convention of some three hundred Indians in Antlers in November, the ChoctawChickasaw Union Party was founded. In December, the Union Party sent a letter to the Secretary of the Interior stating its objections to the Atoka Agreement. The letter said the nine signers represented the "majority of the people of the Choctaw and Chickasaw tribes" in protesting the ratification of the agreement. The letter charged that the ratification was "procured by unscrupulous means" and that "a number of the Commissioners who were parties to the consummation of the aforesaid treaty have taken advantage of their position and have trafficked in our coal and asphalt, greatly to their own individual pecuniary interest and much to the detriment of the people." No names or substantiation were provided .

Despite such organization opposition, the Tuskahoma Party gained the upper hand in the Tribal Council and under the leadership of Chief Green McCurtain the Agreement was ratified by both Houses on November 4. Gov. Harris reminded the Chickasaw Legislature on September 7 that if the Atoka Agreement were approved, tribal government could continue for eight more years. Otherwise, new federal legislation would go into effect on January 1 that would emasculate the tribe's judicial and legislative departments . The Legislature ratified the Agreement on October 30, and provided for an election by the people to approve or reject the pact.

On December 1, Chickasaw voters rejected the Agreement by a majority of 112. A number of factors probably were responsible. The Atoka Agreement was a lengthy, complicated document, and the means of communicating its many provisions to tribal members was primitive. Misinformation and misunderstandings about the Agreement were rife and the implications of ratifying or not ratifying were probably not well understood. On the other hand, two groups of opponents saw things clearly enough. One group benefitted economically from the status quo. Gov. Harris blamed the defeat on the "pressure of out side influences, by people whose personal and private interests were at stake .... " The other group, benefitting psychologically, emotionally and spiritually from the status quo, would never betray the trust of their ancestors by voting to terminate the Chickasaw Nation.

The Chickasaws could vote no, but they could not alter the inexorable tide of events. As the Dawes Commissioners noted in an 1897 report, even if the Agreement were not ratified, "great strides had been made in convincing the Indians of the change that was to be made." Now the time for persuasion was over. There was no turning back.

In less than five years, the forebodings of the Indian delegates meeting in 1893 had all been realized.                     

Members of the 5 Tribes were made U.S. Citizens by an act of Congress in 1901.

Letter of Indian Delegation to the Five Tribes, Feb. 18, 1893, Phillips Collection, Misc. 5CT, Western History Collections (WHC), University of Oklahoma Library. 
In an oblique way, the case the delegates were referring to was probably United States v. Kagama, May 10, 1886. While it addressed another matter, upholding the right of Congress to assert jurisdiction over internal crimes of Indians against Indians, the decision denigrated the integrity of Indian tribes and cleared the way for the government to interfere in the affairs of Indians. Report of Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, Nov. 20, 1894, Congressional Serial Set (CSS) 3281, 3 4.
John Bartlett Meserve, "Gov. Jonas Wolf and Gov. Palmer Simeon Mosely," The Chronicles of Oklahoma, Vol. 18, No. 3, Sept. 1940, 246, 249. 
"Editorial on P.S. Mosely," The Caddo Banner, Caddo, I.T. Aug. 24, 1894. Actually, Wolf resigned before the end of his term, which was served out by Acting Governor Tecumseh A. McClure, who had been president of the Senate.
"Message of P.S. Mosely," The Alliance Courier, Ardmore, I.T. Sept. 4, 1895. Mosely Collection, M 44, WHC. 
Report of the Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, 1895, CSS 3381, XCIII-XCV. 
F.P. Prucha, The Great Father, (Lincoln: The University of Nebraska Press, 1986), 258 59. 
Ibid., 259. 
Angie Debo, The Rise and Fall of the Choctaw Republic, (Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1934), 255. 
“New Item of P.S. Mosely,” The David Progress, David, I.T., July 30, 1897. 
L.A. Benton, “The Situation,” Atoka Indian Citizen, July 30, 1896, 1. 
Debo, Rise and Fall..., 255. 
D.M. Wisdom, Indian Agent, Union Agency, Annual Report, Report of the Sect. of the Interior, Vol. 2, 1896, 154. 
"Editorial on Message of R.M. Harris," The Purcell Register, Sept. 24, 1896. 16. E.N. Wright, Communication,” The Indian Citizen, Aug. 27, 1896, 1. 
Loren N. Brown, The Work of the Dawes Commission Among the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians, Ph.D. dissertation, University of Oklahoma, 1937, 97 98. 
Act of Chickasaw Legislature, Chickasaw Manuscripts, No. 7075, Archives, Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS), Oklahoma City, OK. 
Act of Chickasaw Legislature, Jan. 15, 1897, Chickasaw Tribal Records, Microfilm CKN 5, OHS; "An Act Signed by R.M. Harris," The Daily Capital, South McAlester, I.T., Jan. 23, 1897. 
Ibid. 
Brown, Work of the Dawes Commission, 107. 
"Chickasaws Protest," The Daily Ardmoreite, Feb. 2, 1897, 1. 
Report, Chickasaw Commission, Feb. 12, 1897, Atoka Agreement folder, Chickasaw vertical file, OHS Indian Archives, Okla. City, OK. 
"Chickasaw Commission," Ardmoreite, Feb. 17, 1897, “The Message, Ardmoreite, Feb. 28, 1897, 1. 
Brown, Work of the Dawes Commission, 110. 
Arrell Gibson, The Chickasaws (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), 303. 
"An Act Creating a Commission to Negotiate with the Dawes Commission," Constitution and Laws of the Chickasaw Nation, Parsons, KS: Foley Railroad Printing Co., 1899, 381. 
Brown, Work of the Dawes Commission, 113. 
"Important Announcement," The Indian Citizen, March 29, 1897. 
“Dawes Commission,” The Indian Citizen, April 8, 1897, 1. 
No headline, The Indian Citizen, April 15, 1897, 1. 
Joseph Ralls Jr., Indian-Pioneer Collection (IPC), Vol. 41, 128-29, OHS Indian Archives, OKC. 
D.A. Homer, IPC, Vol. 5, 156, OHS Indian Archives, OKC. 
"Agreement," Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1897, 409 415. 
Daniel F. Littlefield, Jr., The Chickasaw Freedmen, (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1980), 173. 
Brown, Work of the Dawes Commission, 115. 
"An Agreement Reached," The Indian Chieftain, Vinita, I.T., April 29, 1897, 2. 
Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1897, 39 40. 
Brown, Work of the Dawes Commission, 119. 
Letter from Choctaw Chickasaw Union Party, Dec. 17, 1897, U.S. Congressional Serial Set 3563, 1 2. 
“Message of R.M. Harris,” The Indian Citizen, Sept. 16, 1897. 
Brown, Work of the Dawes Commission, 122. 
“Message of R.M. Harris,” The South McAlester Capitol, Feb. 17, 1898. 
Brown, Work of the Dawes Commission, 116.