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Post by Diane Merkel on Jun 13, 2008 15:07:02 GMT -5
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Post by pohanka on Jun 28, 2008 18:33:51 GMT -5
For most tribes in the West (circa1891) the world consisted of continually shrinking boundaries.
Among the Creeks, who by a majority, had reluctantly agreed to
allotment in 1899, the anti-allotment faction in 1901 established its own government and police force at Hickory Grove, a small community near Checotah, Oklahoma. Led by an accomplished orator, Chitto Crazy Snake Harjo, these "Snake" Indians drew in dissidents from other tribes, carried out their own sometimes harsh law around Hickory Grove, and sought to replace the Greek government at Okmulgee with their own
Arrested for threats against Greek principal Chief Pleasant Porter, Harjo and almost one hundred followers were given two-year suspended sentences, but the orator and nine companions who continued to agitate went to jail to serve their sentences in 1902.
Harjo continued to fight against allotment, appearing before a Senate Committee in 1906 and seeing his resistance grow in 1908 into the activist Four Mothers Nation, an Oklahoma pan-Indian group.
The next year Harjo was wounded in altercation with some sheriff's deputies. he eluded capture, but the injury proved fatal."
The "allotment" system began on the reservation of the Sisseton and Wahpeton Sioux in present day northeastern South Dakota. The General Land Office sent out agents for the "mapping" of the tracts of land. Tracts were assigned with no attention to the Indian's wishes. Agents avoided allotting to Indians any valuable mineral lands as a matter of policy..
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