LOT Davis Brothers Auction  /  Frontier Chronicles  / 

623

Indian Territory Agent Dew Moore Wisdom Letter

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Western Americana Start Price:10.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 400.00 USD
Indian Territory Agent Dew Moore Wisdom Letter
A bid placed on our auctions is a legal contract – it cannot be revoked or cancelled for any reason. By registering for our auctions, you grant us permission to waive your right to execute any chargebacks against our company for any reason. Auctions will be sold with and without reserve. If a lot contains a reserve price, it will be clearly noted in the corresponding catalog. All items are sold as is, where is with no guarantees expressed or implied.
ALL SHIPPING IS HANDLED IN HOUSE.
Letter is in relation to Dew Moore Wisdom's attempt to secure his spot as a land baron in Oklahoma Territory. Schemes to annex land for cattle and prevent the tribe from restoring their claim to the land. Mentioned is Deputy Marshal Sam Sixkiller who was later gunned down in the streets of Muscogee. Interesting early letter highlighting political corruption in the Indian Territory. Transcribed below: Confidential United States Indian Service Union Agency Muscogee February 9th 1886 Dear McCorry (Judge Henry Woods McCorry), I have not heard from you for a long time, and if at all coinvent I should be glad to receive a line or so. You will recollect that I wrote you some time ago that I could control a Ranch in the Territory, which would give me free and unlimited pasturage, and I could control it for nothing. Now, if I could get money to stock it with cattle and hogs (the latter do well in this country) I could "rise and come again", I would be glad to find a man, who would like a foothold in this election under me, he furnish capital, and I furnish range and protection, and then divide profits accordingly to "equity and good conscience". The plan is a feasible one, and I propose to do exactly square in the matter, can such a man be found? In case Oklahoma is made a Territory, I am very sure that my friends will press my name for Governor, and I say this without any fueling of vanity on my part, and you are about the only old friend to whom I have mentioned it to at all. I know that I left some warm friends behind me in Tennessee, but I have added more to my standard since I came here, and I have done it by a uniform course of courtesy and kindness to all; besides, I have worked like a "galley slave", and have not lost an hour (much less a day) in the discharge of my official duties, and I have demonstrated to all, whites, Indians, and blacks that I am a man of burning capacity, tact and discretion. Every rebel soldier when he comes to Muscogee on business hunts me up, presents his grievance, and if at all possible, "I make him whole", and when it can be done, I "strain the timbers of the law", (such law as we have) in his behalf. All this element is far me for anything. I have been promoted to Chief of Police of this Agency, and herewith send you copy of our printed instructions. Whenever there is any "shooting to do", I send out Capt Sixkiller (Deputy Marshal Sam Sixkiller), who is a very efficient officer, and a brave, clever whole blooded "injun". The bill to create the territory of Oklahoma out of the Indian Reservations, which project includes Oklahoma proper, Indian Territory, so called, Cherokee Strip, and "no mans land" a kind of disjunctive conjunction in the way of land, that lies between the state of Texas and Kansas, and is bordered on the west by New Mexico. The Government claims it, and I stole it from the Cherokees several years ago. it being nothing more or less than an extension of the Cherokee Strip, and guaranteed to the Cherokees under that peculiar clause of all their treaties by which they were secured a "perpetual outlet" west, wherever the sovereignty of the Untied States extended, or its jurisdiction was recognized. The Cherokees claim it, and have actually leased it by an Act of Council to certain parties for a form of years, and the Lessees have tried to get possession of it, control and sublease it, and the Cattleman would say "big money" to be secure in holding it, because at this time they are free loaders and intruders on its broad acres of grass. I have secured an interest in the aforementioned lease, but if Oklahoma is created, or the above sections are grouped into a Territory by that name, my title to nameless acres of pasturage will be extinguished by the boomers, and swallowed up in the maw of Anglo Saxon Progress, but despite my prospection interest in the lease of "No Mans Land", (which is one tenth, and it is as big as West Tennessee) I shall subordinate purely selfish and personal considerations to the promptings of patriotism, and do all I can to set up Oklahoma, put on the Breech-Cloth of Territorial pupilage, and keep her in due time on the robes, "standing collar and all", of state hood. Oklahoma proper, as you know, was ceded to the United States by the Creeks and Seminoles by treaty of 18666 or 1869, for the occupation of freedom or friendly Indians, and the Government paid them in "spot cash" current coin of the realm, 30c per acre for it. And it is only by the doctrines of revision from new user, that the Indians hold on to it a very fragile tenure, when Uncle Sam is Tugging at the other end of the lines. By an Act of Congress in 1875, (I believe) the policy of settling any more Indians in the old Original Indian Reservation out of which Oklahoma was carved, was declared against, and receded from and abandoned. To restore Oklahoma would be counter to a settled policy of our Territory from the earliest dealings with the Indians, We drove a hard bargain with the Indians in the purchase of Oklahoma, so did old William Penn, but he never proposed a ruse, although he blistered his new fans praying on Plymouth rock on their behalf. (It might have been some other rock but the fact is all the same). The Indian is our ward now, Mr "Niggah" has returned to the original wood pile, and we ought to advance every bit, open a National Chancery Tale for that purpose and thereby extinguish his reversionary interest. Such I understand to be the object of late Congressional Commission on which Levi Woods was appointed. Well Judge, excuse me if I have been "slopping over a little". We had the biggest snow that ever fell in these parts about the 1st of February. It was 24 to 30 inches deep, and cold as ice, snow and a Prairie Northerner could make it. My wife is in New Orleans attending the Exposition, my health was never better, and I weigh about 240 pounds, but am free of all rheumatism, gout and "other ills that flesh is heir to" You must write me when you can. Stow is ?, Anderson, Bullock and other friends. Who will succeed Senator Jackson? Wont he succeed himself? I am afraid Col Owen will have some trouble in his Confirmation owing to his Indian "blood". Garlands decision is in the way. Will you have any trouble? I hope not most sincerely, with many good wished to you and yours, and especially to miss Pet McCorry, to whom I desire to be remembered by very kindly. I am truly your friend Dew M. Wisdom
Sign In to Bookmark Lot