Explanation:
Seminole, and Creek had only begun to repair the damage done by intratribal factionalism before and during Indian Removal (1830–39), and to fashion a hospitable existence in Indian Territory, when the war came upon them and revived old disagreements. Indeed, it can be argued that no group in the nation suffered more in the Civil War than the Indians of Oklahoma.
In the two decades after removal the Five Tribes formed active economies and adapted to life in Indian Territory. The Chickasaw and Choctaw practiced cotton plantation agriculture, and the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole engaged in subsistence farming, ranching, and cattle raising. Market connections with New Orleans gave the tribes a Southern orientation. Each had an established government, distinct boundaries to their land, and a United States government representative (an agency) by which the obligations of the removal treaties were met. While the pre–Civil War era was not a "golden age" for the tribes, the trauma of dislocation had healed, and the region seemed destined to enjoy more prosperous times.
A key social institution among the Five Tribes, one that was also crucial in the sectional division of the United States, was the extent of slave holding. Of Indian Territory's approximately one hundred thousand inhabitants, 14 percent were African American slaves. That aspect of tribal culture, as much as any other, explains the willingness of many Indians to side with the Confederate States of America. The Cherokee Confederate general Stand Watie owned nearly one hundred slaves, making him, in the context of the times, an immensely wealthy man.
Little of the debate over slavery's expansion affected the tribes in Indian Territory. However, Indian slaveholders were apprehensive about the Republican victory in 1860 and the party's ultimate designs for "the peculiar institution." Many Indian Territory residents were upset by Secretary of State William H. Seward's remarks when he urged the U.S. government to extinguish tribal land titles and open the West to settlement.
Another condition catastrophically affecting the tribes was continued dissension between mixed-bloods and full bloods over the legacy of removal. Nowhere was this division more apparent than among the Cherokee. Because the mixed-bloods had signed a removal treaty at New Echota in 1835, they were despised by the full bloods, led by Chief John Ross. A leadership contest developed between the factions, pitting Stand Watie, for the mixed-bloods, against Ross. Until 1860, however, Ross and the full bloods had succeeded in holding political control of the tribe, and a working, if not amicable, accommodation between the two parties had been achieved.
The Confederate government, formed by early February 1861, had plans for the West. Jefferson Davis and his councilors saw the need to protect the Mississippi River, use the western Confederacy as a "breadbasket," and eventually establish Indian Territory as a springboard for expansion. Later in 1861 Davis appointed Albert Pike, a noted Arkansas attorney who enjoyed a good reputation with the Five Tribes, as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Prior to Pike's arrival, other commissioners had gone north to Indian Territory from Texas to enlist the tribes in the southern cause. They found the Choctaw and Chickasaw enthusiastic for the Confederacy, and strong sentiment for the new nation also appeared among the Creek and Seminole. In early 1861 Col. Douglas H. Cooper recruited the Choctaw and Chickasaw into mounted rifle units, which later fought in Arkansas and Missouri. Albert Pike also recruited military units, and after Stand Watie received a colonel's commission in the Confederate army on July 12, 1861, he raised a band of three hundred for service.
The Cherokee, however, held back from formal alliance. John Ross doubted the wisdom of secession and favored neutrality. Had the tribes listened to Ross, they would have weathered the war and enjoyed good relations with the victor. However, tribal divisions among the mixed-blood and full-blood factions, as well as the fact of slaveholding, worked against a policy of neutrality.
Unfortunately for the Union and the Cherokee, the U.S. government did little to engender Indian support. Seeing Confederate activity in Arkansas and Texas, Lt. Col. William H. Emory, commanding
