The two commissioners who made this treaty with the Choctaw Nation were at the nucleus of the cartel of Jackson cronies who controlled government offices in the Southeast during the 1830s. John Coffee, one of Jackson's earliest business partners and the General's cavalry commander
during the Creek War of 1813, had the shortest trip
to make to the banks at Dancing Rabbit Creek.
He lived in Lauderdale County, Alabama near Florence.
The other commissioner, Jackson's Secretary of War, Major John
H. Eaton, accompanied Jackson on his summer vacation to the
Hermitage near Nashville and continued south with only one
instruction from Andrew Jackson, the man the Indians named
Sharp Knife: “Fail not to make a treaty.” Eaton and Coffee earned
the dubious distinction of being the first United States
commissioners to not arrive at a Choctaw treaty on horseback. They
came in horse-drawn carriages(This author found no
record of John McKee, Tuscaloosa County's first U.S. Congressman,
being among the the commissioners yet the Dictionary of American
Biography discloses that in 1830 he was one of the commissioners to
negotiate the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek).
Catering for this gathering of six-thousand Choctaws between the
two prongs of Dancing Rabbit Creek was provided by George
Strother Gaines, of Demopolis, Alabama. A former Choctaw agent,
Gaines was now a Marengo County merchant and in partnership
with Allen Glover, builder of Rosemount, a twenty-room mansion
near Forkland in Greene County. Gaines hauled flour and corn meal
on Indian ponies and penned beef cattle about a half-mile away for
daily butchering.
Politically, the Indians from what are now
Choctaw, Sumter and Pickens counties were weakened by divisions
in their tribal allegiances. Clear threats and harassment between
members of the “Pagan” party led by Mushulatubbee and Nitakechi
and the “Christian” party led by Greenwood Leflore and David
Folsom moved the tribe close to a state of anarchy. This emotional
instability was heightened after the Choctaw arrived at the treaty
ground and discovered that they would be forced to give up all of
their land and head west. George S. Gaines wrote that, this
proposition acted as a bomb thrown among the Choctaws."
Jackson's commissioners were between the devil and the deep blue
sea. Under no circumstances could they return to Washington, D.C.
and Old Hickory without a treaty. On the other hand, they were very
close to being mobbed by thousands of drunken warriors. The
distillers of the Black Warrior and Tombigbee valleys made sure that
the council grounds were well lubricated with “mountain dew."
Halbert states, “It must be recorded that a large portion of the white
people at Dancing Rabbit were not the best characters, being mainly
rowdies, gamblers and saloon keepers-in short, the bad element
characteristic of the American frontier. The law was very much
relaxed on this occasion, and all the demoralizing concomitant of
civilization were to be found at the fork of the two Rabbits,—
drinking saloons, gaming tables, and every other cunning
contrivance whereby to catch the loose cash of the white man and
the Indian."
The commissioners banned missionaries from treaty negotiations
and forbade them to step foot on the treaty ground because “their
religious instructions would have a tendency to distract the Indian's
minds during the progress of the negotiations." Jugs of good
whiskey near the hand of each Choctaw councilman could not be
considered a distraction and were placed there only because some
Indians might desire to quench their thirst during the tiresome
process.
The layout for the council ground was sort of like a semi-circle. The
commissioners and their white advisors sat on a large log that was
lying with its big end facing west . The Commissioners' secretary's
desk was on the south side of the log and the Commissioners sat
facing south. More than sixty Choctaw councilmen sat on the ground
facing north and formed the completed semicircle. On the ground in
the middle of the semicircle were seated seven of the oldest women
from the Choctaws who had assembled at the treaty ground. On
their left at the west end of the Commissioners log sat the old
squaw's interpreter, Middleton McKee. H.S. Halbert describes the
respect McKee had for his duty to these women: "McKee solemnly
promised these old women that he would faithfully interpret to them
everything that was said by the Commissioners in council, 'Holabi
likma, sakonla baqshlit has tabla chike,' (and if I tell a lie, you may
cut my neck off.'). Encircling the Commissioners and the Choctaw
councilmen were hundreds of Choctaw spectators, eager to see and
hear everything said and done in council.
The secretary for the Commissioners read the treaty in English and
John Pitchlynn of Columbus, Mississippi, translated it into Choctaw
for the audience. Then the Commissioners requested that Killihota
step up to make a speech to the Indians on about a three foot high
stump that stood in front of the Commissioners. Killihota, a half-
breed chief and "front man” for the “Christian” party of Choctaws,
pitched the land deal that the Commissioners were offering in what
is now Oklahoma. He told the Indians that it was way better than
Alabama and Mississippi. There was more game and watermelons
grew twice as big in the West. Killihota told his Choctaw brethren
that children out west grew up bigger and stronger and guaranteed
them that if they “would leave this country and emigrate there, their
children would all grow up large, strong and healthy."
The seven old women seated around Killihota's stump didn't buy it.
According to Halbert: “One of these venerable matrons sprang
excitedly to her feet and made a threatening gesture toward
Killihota with a butcher knife. "Killihota,' she said, 'I could cut you
open with this knife. You have two hearts,' meaning by this, one
heart for the white people and one for the Choctaws." She was
calling him an “Apple”: red on the outside and white on the inside.
After this episode all of the chiefs of the “Pagan” party were allowed
to speak. They were angry. Little Leader, a Choctaw councilman,
said, “Any chief who may sign a treaty selling our country is a traitor
and should suffer death. I go home to prepare my people to fight for
our homes and the graves of our fathers.”
Halbert beautifully describes the closing of this emotional
session: “At the conclusion of the interpretation of the last speech,
that of Shenatubbee, Killihota, taking a large knotty hickory stick in
his hands, and saying, 'Yakni kanchi lishkeh,' 'I am for selling the
country,' gave a heavy thud on the ground with it, thereby recording
his own vote in favor of a treaty. He then passed the stick to his
right-hand neighbor. This man, to show his opposition to a treaty,
passed the stick in silence to the next council man sitting on his
right-hand. The stick thus passed in silence from hand to hand
around the circle until it returned to the hand of Killihota, who alone
of all the councilmen, that day, had struck the ground with the stick,
thus voting for a treaty.
“When the action with the stick was completed, Mingo
Moshulitubbee, mindful of the immemorial Indian ceremony in
public assemblies, broke the silence by saying, 'hakechuma keho
shunks, ' 'let us all smoke tobacco.' The chief thereupon ordered that
his silver-mounted pipe hatchet be filled with tobacco and lighted,
then handed over to Kilihota, who, after taking a single whiff, passed
it to his right-hand neighbor. He, in like manner, after taking a
whiff, passed it to his right-hand neighbor. The pipe thus from hand
to hand passed around the circle, everyone, even including the
whites sitting on the log, taking a single whiff until the pipe returned
to Killihota, thus completing its circuit. During all these ceremonies,
the passing of the hickory stick and the smoking and passing of the
pipe, the council men remained seated in grave and decorous
silence. It was now about 2 o'clock in the afternoon. All now arose to
their feet and the council adjourned for the day.”
There was to be no negotiating on this treaty. From the opening talk
on Saturday, September 18, until the Indians signed on the dotted
line on Monday, September 27, the Commissioners used the same
threat: If you do not sign, the United States will withdraw all
protection from you and you will be at the complete mercy of the
white citizens of Alabama and Mississippi.
To a Choctaw living here in 1830, that threat represented their
greatest horror and worst nightmare. So eventually they signed and
they walked from the Tombigbee to the Mississippi Their emigration
was a confused mess.
Ironically, the Treaty and Dancing Rabbit Creek did not end John
Eaton's negotiations with the Choctaw Nation.
On April 7, 1831, Major Eaton resigned as Jackson's Secretary of
War. This was the climax of a scandal that split Jackson's cabinet
over how to handle the vulgarities of Eaton's wife, Peggy. “The dark
and sly insinuations” of this “vile tale” almost toppled our
government. Jackson's entire cabinet resigned and for the first time
in more than forty years of orderly, constitutional government,
our republic experienced a catastrophe that came from within
itself. Eaton had already helped to destroy the Choctaw Nation,
and now he had certainly threatened our Republic, yet he was to
continue to play a role in the destruction of the Choctaws.
By October Eaton was back at work. He, along with Coffee, had
again been appointed commissioners by Jackson. Their job was to
tell the Choctaws to sell 4,500,000 acres of their Oklahoma land to
the Chickasaws. At this conference, which occurred as the Choctaws
marched out of Mississippi, one of the Indians reportedly asked
Eaton, “Will you not let us put our feet on our new land before you
ask for it?”
It may be unfair to saddle Eaton, Coffee and Jackson with the total
responsibility for Choctaw removal. Andrew Jackson could have
done nothing at all like all of the other men who preceded him in the
White House. And if he had done nothing, it can be argued that
there would be no present-day talk of the legal sovereignty of Indian
tribes in America because there would be no Indian tribes. Jackson
certainly rubbed the Yankee's noses in it every chance he got. In
1830 a group of Philadelphia Quakers came to the White House to
protest the inhumanity of forcing the Choctaws from their ancestral
homes. Jackson was incensed. "Is Philadelphia the ancestral home
and hunting ground of the Quakers?”
“Not exactly, but that's a different case.”
“Were you born in Philadelphia?”
“We were.” The Quaker said their parents and grandparents were
also natives, but conceded that most of their great-grandparents had
come from England.
“Then,” Jackson said, “They left their ancestral homes and hunting
grounds and came to the West in search of new homes."
“Well, yes. But it was a different case."
“Did your great-grandparents find Indians at Philadelphia?"
“Yes, but..."
“What became of those Indians?”
"Oh, those Indians moved away; but it was a
different case."
“Why did they move away?”
“Because our forefathers bought their lands."
“What did your forefathers pay for their lands?”
“That was a different case." Old Hickory
dismissed the delegation. “I think you folks
have taken up quite enough of my time...I
concede to everyone the constitutional right
to be as big a hypocrite as he may please, but
do deny your right to take more of my time...”
The years 1830 to 1839, during and
immediately after Indian removal, produced
phenomenal population and economic
growth in Alabama. Cotton exports from the
Port of Mobile, where much of the cotton
produced from Choctaw land was shipped,
increased from 100,000 bales (each weighing
approximately 500 pounds) in 1830, to
300,000 in 1838. Between 1830 and 1839,
1,850,000 bales were shipped to Mobile
from the river valleys that drain this region.
Alabama's population nearly doubled,
ballooning from 309,527 in 1830, to nearly
600,000 in 1840.
Almost all Americans in 1830 believed that it
was a sin to not till the soil. The only good
Indian, they surmised, was an Indian who
walked behind a plow. Still, no matter how
civilized the Choctaws may have become,
most Americans were either gave no
recognition of progress, or they just didn't
care. Ignoring every moral and constitutional
implication, the American citizenry with the
willing help of the Congressmen from the
Southern frontier who bulldozed the Indian
Removal Bill through the House and Senate,
allowed their appetite for surveyed acreage
to conquer any “decent concern for
humanity."
Regardless of Indian progress, American
civilization was not going to allow the
Choctaws or any other tribe to play
“catchup”. No time-outs in this ball game.
Repercussions of the Treaty of Dancing
Rabbit Creek live with us in the present day.
According to John H. Peterson, Jr., Professor
of Anthropology at Mississippi State
University in Starkville, the 150th
anniversary of the Treaty in 1980 made a few
Noxubee County politicos anxious. The local
committee planning to commemorate the
sesquicentennial of the Treaty of Dancing
Rabbit Creek weren't certain whether it
would be proper to invite the Mississippi
band of Choctaws from neighboring
Philadelphia to the festivities.
