The social and political differences between the Upper and Lower Creeks were accentuated by the treaty of February 12, 18251. This treaty was promoted by William McIntosh a chief of the Lower faction and operated to fully divest the Creeks of the remaining portion of their tribal lands in Georgia. The terms of the treaty were vigorously protested by a delegation of the Upper Creeks which attended a conference with McIntosh and his adherents at Indians Springs, Georgia early in February 1825, which delegation of Upper Creeks was led by Opothleyahola, a young orator of that faction and who was then speaker of the Upper Creek Council. The youthful leader became dramatic as he challenged the power of the Lower Creek chiefs to cede any portion of the tribal domain without the consent of the entire Nation, concluding his protest with words of solemn warning to McIntosh, should he sign the treaty. McIntosh signed the treaty, however, as did also a number of the Lower town chiefs under his domination, although it was repudiated and unsigned by a majority of the Indian representatives. McIntosh was subsequently tried before the Creek Council under the Creek law of 1824 and sentenced to be shot, the order for his execution being given by Little Prince, Principal Chief of the Confederacy. The death penalty was exacted on May 1, 1825 by a chosen company of one hundred Upper Creeks led by Menewa.

The young Opothleyahola closed his stirring address to the commissioners at Indian Springs, in language which left little doubt as to the attitude of the Indians toward a further disposition of their lands although the suggestion of another meeting was made,

"We met you at the Broken Arrow and then told you we had no land to sell. I heard then of no claim against our Nation, nor have I heard of any since. We have met you here upon a very short notice and I do not think the

17 Stat. L. 237. Kappler, Vol. II, 214.

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chiefs present have any authority to treat. Gen. McIntosh knows that we are bound by our laws and that what is not done in public council is not binding. Can the council be public if all the chiefs have not had notice and many of them are absent? I am, therefore, under the necessity of repeating what I told you at the Broken Arrow, that we have no lands to sell. No part of our lands can be sold except in full council and by consent of the whole Nation. There is not a full council; there are but a few here from the Upper towns and of the chiefs of the Lower towns, many are absent. From what you told us yesterday, I am inclined to think it would be best for us to remove; but we must have time to think of it and to consult our people. Should the chiefs now here undertake to sell our country, it would cause dissention and ill blood among ourselves, for there are many who do not know that we have been invited here for that purpose and many who would not consent to it, if they were here. I have received a message from my head chief, the Big Warrior, directing me to listen to what the commissioners have to say—to meet and part with them in peace—but not to sell any land. I am also instructed to invite you to meet us at the Broken Arrow three months hence, where a treaty may be finally made. I gave you but one speech at the Broken Arrow and I give you but one here. Tomorrow, I return home. I have delivered the message of my head chief and have no more to say. I shall listen to whatever you may think proper to communicate but shall make no further answer."

Then turning toward McIntosh, the ill fated chief, with an eye full of meaning, he extended his arm toward him and in a low, bitter tone of prophetic menace, added, "I have told you, your fate if you sign that paper. I once more say, beware."

The cleavage between the Upper and Lower Creeks, which were now known as the McIntosh faction, became one of lasting proportions which continued for many eventful years and the bitter animosities which were engendered were never to yield to a better understanding, until all semblance of tribal government was taken over by the United States, some seventy years later.

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The young orator, Opothleyahola (Hu-pui-hilth Yahola) was born in the Creek Nation about the year 1798 and is believed to have fought with Chief Weatherford, against the whites in the Creek War of 1813-14 and seen service at Horseshoe Bend when the recalcitrant Creek tribes were all but extinguished by General Jackson. He lived at Tuckabatchee town, where lived Big Warrior, chief of the Upper Creeks and where the council house was situated. He became principal counsellor or speaker of the Upper Creek council and exercised much influence over their deliberations.

Under the treaty of January 24, 1826,2 the Lower Creeks or McIntosh faction removed to the lands west of the Mississippi and thus passed out of the picture in so far as further controversies between the Government and the Creeks in Alabama, were concerned. The first contingent of the Lower Creeks arrived in February 1828 and subsequent arrivals in November of the same year. They settled along the banks of the Arkansas River with headquarters near the mouth of the Verdigris River. Their removal was voluntary.

The signing of the treaty of February 12, 1825, inspired the journey of Opothleyahola and John Stidham to Washington, to protest against the terms of the treaty and to insist upon the removal of white intruders who were invading the Creek lands. This visit was made in January 1826 and resulted in the signing of the treaty of January 24, 1826, by Opothleyahola and others representing the Creek tribes. The Creek representatives declined to enter into negotiations with the Government until the terms of the treaty of February 12, 1825, were abrogated. The new treaty divested the Creeks of all of their lands in Georgia but through a technical error, a strip of land was not included although it lay within the limits of Georgia. Opothleyahola bowed to the inevitable and signed this treaty but later stood out for the claim to this strip of land for his people. This controversy provoked the treaty of November

27 Stat. L. 286. Kappler, Vol. II, 264.

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15, 1827,3 in which all of the lands of the Creeks in Georgia were surrendered. Georgia being now satisfied, the State of Alabama began to irritate the Creeks and insist upon their removal from the state. The Creek representatives were cajoled and urged into the signing of the treaty at Washington on March 24, 1832,4 by the terms of which the tribe relinquished all of its lands east of the Mississippi River for lands in the west. Opothleyahola most reluctantly signed this treaty. The brave Indian leader was in vigorous opposition to the removal of his people from their ancient lands in the East. He was apprehensive for them and feared a renewal of contact with the McIntosh faction which was already in the West. The terms of the treaty of 1832 gave the Creeks five years to abdicate their homes in Alabama and to reestablish themselves between the Arkansas and Canadian rivers in the West. It was during the negotiations of this treaty that Gen. Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, in a message to the Creeks in January 1832, promised them lands in the West, to be theirs "as long as the grass grows and the rivers run." This phrase thus coined, became a slogan of challenge against a further invasion of their tribal domain, in future years.

In 1834, Opothleyahola and one Benjamin Hawkins, influenced undoubtedly by Gen. Sam Houston, went to Nacogdoches, Texas, and negotiated for lands to accomodate the Alabama Creeks. General Houston had abandoned his life among the Cherokees, north of the Arkansas and removed to Nacogdoches. Here, he began the practice of law and represented the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company, a New York corporation which had obtained a large grant of lands from the legislature of Coahuilla and Texas. The Mexican government disavowed this grant, imprisoned Gov. Visera and undertook to arrest the members of the legislature and others implicated in the grant. Through the wily Houston, Opothleyahola was induced to enter into negotiations for the purchase of a large tract of this land north of Nacogdoches. A preliminary payment of $20,000 was made by the Indians, the balance of the

37 Stat. L. 307. Kappler, Vol. II, 284. 47 Stat. L. 366. Kappler, Vol. II, 341.

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$80,000 purchase price to be paid later. In the meantime, the report of this project having gone abroad and been made public, both the Mexican and American governments interfered and the matter was abandoned.

In 1836 some of the Creek towns in Alabama prepared to join the insurgent Seminoles. Opothleyahola marched at the head of his Tuckabatchee warriors, captured some of the young men of a neighboring village who had donned the war paint to start a revolt and delivered them to the military authorities to expiate the crimes they had committed against travelers and settlers. After holding a council of warriors, he led 1500 of them against the rebellious towns, receiving a commission as colonel and when the regular troops with their Indian allies appeared at Hatchechubbee, the hostiles surrendered. The United States authorities then took advantage of the Creek warriors to begin the enforced emigration of the tribe to the west. Under a strict military convoy, the first contingent of the reluctant Creeks were forcibly removed to the west in 1836, ninety of their town chiefs being chained in pairs during the journey. In the following year, Opothleyahola led some 8,000 of his people from their ancient homes in Alabama to lands north of the Canadian river. He was now chief of the Upper Creeks and most highly revered and respected by them.

The plans of conquest, in contemplation by Sam Houston in Texas undoubtedly had in mind the use of certain of his Indian friends among the Cherokees and Creeks. Through Lieut. Peter Harper a white man who had married a Cherokee woman, he undertook to get in touch with the Indian chiefs to the north. Opothleyahola, who probably was not altogether satisfied with his new surroundings, in 1837 communicated with Houston through Harper. On February 9, 1837, Houston wrote to Harper, acknowledging the receipt of this communication and tells him to advise the Creek chiefs: "Tell them I will take them warmly by the hand. They will be welcome." The Harper letter turns up in the hands of Opothleyahola as Houston probably intended it should, the Indian Superintendant gets hold of it and transmits a copy to the Commissioner of Indian

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Affairs at Washington, with a letter dated May 10, 1837, about what is going on in the West. This was the last gesture by the Creeks to remove to Texas.

The Upper and Lower Creek factions in the beginning, rarely came in contact with each other in the new country. Roley McIntosh, a brother of the ill-fated William McIntosh was chief of the Lower Creeks and Opothleyahola chief of the Upper faction. The influence of Opothleyahola over his people became a fixed factor in their lives. He was cool, cautious and sagacious and displayed talents of a superior order. His fidelity to the best concerns of his people, was unquestioned. No one ever bribed or corrupted Opothleyahola, although he may have been cajoled and threatened and was compelled to yield through stress of circumstances. He was a party signatory for his tribe to the treaty of January 4, 18455 and to the treaty of June 13, 1854.6

On an occasion, during an intertribal council held at Asbury Mission on the North Fork in November, 1859, Opothleyahola delivered an impassioned address favoring education for the young people of the tribe and said, in part,

"My brothers, many, many years ago, when I was a child, there was a beautiful island in the Chattahoochee River. It was covered with stately trees and carpeted with green grass. When the Indian was hungry and could not find game elsewhere, he could always go to that island and kill a deer. An unwritten law forbade the killing of more than one deer, and, even then, the hunter might resort to the island only when he had failed elsewhere. But the banks of that island were of sandy soil. As the floods of the river rolled on this side and on that, the banks wore away and the island shrunk in size. When our people left the country, the island had become so small that there was only room for two or three of the great trees and most of the green grass was gone. The deer, once so plentiful there, had entirely disappeared.

"I have since learned that there is a kind of grass which, if it had been planted on the banks of that beautiful island, might have saved it. This grass strikes its roots

59 Stat. L. 821. Kappler, Vol. II, 550. 611 Stat. L. 599. Kappler, Vol. II, 647.

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deeply into the sandy soil and binds it so firmly that the waters of the flood cannot wear it away.

"My brothers, we Indians are like that island in the middle of the river. The white man comes upon us as a flood. We crumble and fall, even as the sandy banks of that beautiful island in the Chattahoochee. The Great Spirit knows, as you know, that I would stay that flood which comes thus to wear us away, if we could. As well might we try to push back the flood of the river itself.

"As the island in the river might have been saved by planting the long rooted grass upon its banks, so let us save our people by educating our boys and girls and young men and young women in the ways of the white man. Then they may be planted and deeply rooted about us and our people may stand unmoved in the flood of the white man."

7The Civil War wrought havoc among the Creeks in the Indian Territory, opening old tribal wounds and fanning into flames, the smoldering embers of their ancient factional antagonisms. They were drawn into the conflict between the North and the South before they had time fully to recover from the economic and political chaos into which they were cast by their enforced removal to the west. The two factions were, as yet, not reunited although a preliminary gesture had been made by the progressive leaders of both factions in 1860, by the adoption of a written constitution and the popular election of a Principal Chief. During the Civil War little responsible government existed in the Creek Nation. They were at a disadvantage of being unable to present a united front against a common foe. Bitter rival factions seemed eager to draw the sword against each other upon the question of secession which was one about which they knew little. The war, as a matter of fact, was no affair of the Indians and their wiser leaders, in the beginning, counselled strict neutrality between the warring factions of the Government. Opothleyahola and Chief John Ross of the Cherokees called a General Council of all the tribes which met at Antelope Hills, now in Roger Mill Co., Okla., in July, 1861 and urged an agreement on neutrality. In the end, however, the Indians were forced by a combination of circumstances, to ally themselves with whichever side could assure them the greatest measure of protection against the other warring faction in their own tribe. The

7Article by Rachel Caroline Eaton in Tulsa World, January 11, 1931, to which the writer is greatly indebted for much information.

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Civil War among the Indians in the Territory resolved itself into a war of self extermination.

In the summer of 1861, Gen. Albert Pike, representing the Confederate Government met the Creek chiefs and representatives near Eufaula and concluded with them, a treaty of alliance. Opothleyahola leading his delegation of Upper Creeks, bitterly fought this treaty of alliance and urged that neutrality be preserved. After its adoption, he and his followers retired from the conference and returned to their homes. The Upper Creeks, now driven to declare a positive position, under the leadership of Opothleyahola, steadfastly remained loyal to the Union and persistenly refused to join the McIntosh faction in any alliance with the Confederacy. Perhaps in this decided course, one may detect a lingering resentment against the States of Georgia and Alabama, rather than sentiments of attachment to the Federal Union. Opothleyahola and his adherents were not concerned with the slavery question, because many of them were slave holders. In fact, as far back as 1838, Chief Opothleyahola is credited with having made claim to and carried off, seven negro slaves, belonging to the estate of the late Col. A. P. Chouteau. Be that as it may, the fact remains that Opothleyahola mobilized at his encampment near the junction of the North Fork and the Deep Fork of the Canadian River, near the present town of Eufaula, about 2000 warriors, consisting of full-blood Creeks and a band of Seminoles under Halex Tustenuggee. The contingent was illy armed and accompanied by a large number of women, children and old men, all inured to hardship. This band of Loyal Upper Creeks and Seminoles was not composed of renegades and outlaws fleeing from justice, but of self respecting, prosperous farmers and their families, who, compelled to flee for safety, were taking their household goods and flocks and herds with them, together with two or three hundred negroes, mostly slaves. Finding his position threatened by Col. Douglass H. Cooper in command of the Indian regiments enlisted in the Confederate cause to which was added a Texas cavalry regiment, Opothleyahola broke camp on November 5, 1861 and began his movement north toward the Kansas line to join the Union forces and to seek protection for the women and children. It was a colorful

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cavalcade as it moved forward and consisted of armed warriors, covered wagons, ox teams, carriages, buggies, droves of live stock and was followed by scouts. Ten days later Colonel Cooper finding the camp deserted, hastened in pursuit and came upon the refugees at Round Mountain, near the mouth of the Cimarron River and where an indecisive battle was fought on November 19, from which both parties were compelled to retire at nightfall. There seems to be some indecision as to the precise location of this battlefield, whether near Yale or at a place about a mile north of the present town of Keystone, in Pawnee County, Oklahoma. Colonel Cooper reported that his troops had killed and wounded 110 and took a number of prisoners although the Union report makes the loss of Opothleyahola, much less.

The intrepid leader led his exiles under cover of night along the north bank of the Arkansas and encamped on Bird Creek, some seven miles northeast of the present city of Tulsa, where he hoped to replenish his supplies and secure reenforcements among the neutral Creeks and Cherokees assembled at Camp McDaniel. Camp McDaniel was located near what is now the town of Owasso. Colonel Cooper was unable to resume his pursuit of the refugees at once and it was early in December before he again started. Colonel Cooper was apprised on December 8, that Opothleyahola was ready to negotiate for peace. Major Pegg with three companies of full blood Cherokee Indians was dispatched by Cooper to treat with the refugee leader. The Confederate colonel was evidently not advised that many of the Cherokees were quite sympathetic to the loyal Creeks. Major Pegg found Opothleyahola not an humble supplicant, but a superb stately chieftain, who, seizing the initiative as if by natural right, extended greetings to the Cherokees and called them friends. Then came from the lips of the aged orator of the Creeks, words of compelling influence to the Cherokees. Tactfully he recalled to their minds the time when they dwelt side by side in the valleys of their native streams back in the East and the path between the two nations was the white path of peace and the chain of friendship that bound the tribes together was kept bright and shining with deeds of brotherly kindness and

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good will. He addressed them in his figurative style at length and at his conclusion, a leading Cherokee spoke the word which signified agreement. After several of the Cherokees had spoken, the Cherokee Indians deserted Colonel Cooper and flatly refused to fight against their Creek brothers, led by Opothleyahola. Major Pegg and a handful of followers rode back to camp in the evening and on the following day occurred the battle of Chusto-Talasah or Caving Bank.8 This engagement is described by Colonel Cooper in his report to the Confederate War Department as follows;—

"The position taken up by the enemy presented almost insurmountable obstacles. The creek made up to the prairie on the side of our approach in an abrupt, precipitious bank some 30 feet in height, in places cut into steps reaching near the top and forming a parapet, while the creek, being deep, was fordable but at certain points known only to the enemy.

"The approach side, which was occupied by hostile forces, was densely covered with heavy timber, matted underbrush and thickets and fortified additionally by pros-

8The site where this battle was fought is on the southwest quarter of Section Twenty (20) in Township Twenty-one (21) North and Range Thirteen (13) East. This location has been quite definitely made and steps should be taken to mark the same.

As a part of the forces of Colonel Cooper, was the 1st Creek Regiment under command of Col. D. N. McIntosh, who was a son of the ill fated Chief William McIntosh. As a private soldier in the regiment of Colonel McIntosh, was a young Creek Indian by the name of Pleasant Porter, who afterwards became a character of great prominence and Principal Chief of the Creek Nation.

Colonel Cooper was Indian Agent to the Choctaws and Chickasaws when the Civil War broke.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, the Indians in the Territory were disturbed by the apparent abandonment of them by the Federal government while the Confederate representatives became busy among them. They were further perturbed by the statement attributed to Sen. Wm. H. Seward made during the campaign of 1860 in a speech at Chicago in which he is reputed to have said, "The Indian Territory, also, south of Kansas, must be vacated by the Indians." This language appeared ominous to them and seemed tentatively to augur the policy of the new administration.

After the day's fighting at Round Mountain, the Confederates retired and camped for the night among the tall grass, expecting to renew the battle in the morning. About 1 o'clock at night, they were awakened by the flames of a prairie fire bearing rapidly down upon them and fanned by a stiff north wind. They abandoned their wagon trains and supplies, having barely time to escape with their lives. After firing the prairies, Opothleyahola, took up his march toward Bird Creek in the early morning hours.

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trate logs. Near the center of the enemy's lines was a dwelling, a small corn crib and a rail fence situated in a recess of the prairie at the gorge at the bend of the creek of horseshoe form, about 400 or about 500 yards in length. This bend was thickly wooded and covered in front near the house with long interwoven weeds and grass extending to a bench behind which the enemy could lie and pour upon the advancing line his deadly fire in comparative safety, while the creek banks on either side covered the house by flank and reverse. Forcing their way under hot fire across the creek and meeting the enemy in a hand-to-hand encounter over the rough and tangled ground, through thickets and tall grass, the Confederate forces, composed of both Indian and white regiments, drove the refugees back and they, in turn compelled their antagonists to give ground.

"For three or four hours the fighting continued, the advantage shifting from side to side until sundown the loyal Creeks suddenly ceased firing and were gone from the line of attacks, disappearing almost as if by magic; and the Confederate troops extracted themselves from the underbrush and matted swamp grass and marched back to camp, suspecting the enemy of strategy."

This battle fought on December 9, 1861 was fought approximately two miles north and one mile east of Turley, in what is now Tulsa County, Oklahoma. Its location has been quite definitely made. No report was made by either side as to the casualities and the presumption is that they were not great. The loyal Creeks were holding off the Confederates until their women and children and wagon trains and supplies could be well on the way to Kansas. Colonel Cooper was fearful of a direct charge because he was not exactly certain of the loyalty of his Indian allies.

Again, under cover of darkness, Opothleyahola led his refugees from the scenes of the battlefield and retreated to the northwest, encamping at or near Hominy Falls in what is now Osage County, Oklahoma. Here he entrenched his troops and awaited the advance of the Confederates and their allies. His delay here was almost fatal and was occasioned, that his force might be augmented by the arrival of other loyal bands who were en route to join him. Colonel

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Cooper returned to Fort Gibson and the further pursuit of the refugees was intrusted to Col. James McIntosh. After forced marches with his trained and well disciplined troops, Colonel McIntosh came upon the fortified Creeks late in the forenoon of December 26. He found them entrenched on a rugged hill covered with scrub oak and underbrush. The Seminoles under Halex Tustennuggee were in the front protected by trees and rocks and were drawn up in battle line near the top of the hill. Opothleyahola's mounted troops occupied a place in the rear as reserves. Fragments of other tribes held strong stragetic positions as outposts. Every tree and thicket sheltered a warrior determined to sell his life in defense of this last stronghold. Colonel McIntosh launched his attack at 12 o'clock and hurled his troops upon the hill with such force that they swept all before them. Short of arms and ammunition and weakened by protracted privations, the refugees, unable to withstand the fierce onslaught fell back from cover to cover. Their last stand in an effort to protect their women and children was in vain. The victorious Confederates drove them in headlong flight. Women and children fled in terror and wild confusion. Horses and wagons were left behind and the scanty stores of provisions abandoned. A northern blizzard from the northwest blew sleet in their faces as they fled over the snow covered ground, their bodies thinly clad, as they had no time to snatch any warm clothing they may have had. Some were even without shoes and destitute of the simplest necessities. Thus the vanquished refugees traveled from four o'clock in the afternoon, all night and the next day, making their way across the Kansas line near the Walnut River. The dauntless old chieftain who had led his tribesmen toward the setting sun, now tottered as he led them into the frozen north pursued by Standwaite and his band of intrepid followers who, in the running fire, shot down men, women and children whose bodies were left uncovered, save by the snow.

The survivors arriving in Kansas in dead of winter, suffered hardships inconceivable. Within two months after their arrival 240 Creeks alone had died of famine, pestilence and exposure and more than 100 frozen limbs were ampu-

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tated. The United States Army unprepared for such an emergency, did what it could to relieve the suffering. From time to time, other loyal Indians from the Territory joined them until their number reached 10,000 souls who pitched their tents at and contiguous to the Sac and Fox Agency in Osage County, Kansas and up and down the Neosho valley.9 In the midst of dire poverty and suffering, they spent the winter and spring of 1862. Opothleyahola, now broken in health but dauntless in spirit, mounted his lean pony and rode weary miles over the wind swept prairies of Kansas, to interview Federal officers for the relief of his people. He offered to lead a regiment of Indians back into the Territory in an attempt to clear his country of the Confederates in order that his people might return to their homes. But this was not to be. With the coming of the summer, his heroic soul passed to the Spirit Land and his worn out body was laid to rest in an unknown and unmarked grave at or near the Sac and Fox Agency at Quenemo, Osage County, Kansas.

In days to come, the tide of fortune changed and the loyal Indians returned to their homes in the Territory. But they were loth to forget that the breach between the factions in the Creek Nation was slow to heal.

Opothleyahola did not adopt the dress of the white man. His form was draped in a blanket which hung grace-

9Col. W. F. Coffin was appointed, by the Lincoln administration in 1861, Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern Superintendantcy, with headquarters at Tahlequah. Finding himself unable to reach that place because of the activities of the Confederates, he secured the removal of his headquarters to Le Roy, Coffey County, Kansas. Opothleyahola and his refugees first established themselves on the Verdigris, near the present town of Coyville, in the northwest corner of Wilson County, Kansas. They were immediately removed by Colonel Coffin to his newly established agency at Le Roy, the Kansas farmers being employed with their teams and wagons to remove the women, children and such household effects as the Indians had. The new camps were established along the Neosho valley from about two miles above Le Roy south to Neosho Falls. Attempts to remove them again further north to the Sac and Fox reservation at Quenemo, in Osage County, were opposed by Opothleyahola. His consent was later secured through the influence of his friend Colonel Carruth and the removal again made in the summer of 1862. Opothleyahola died shortly after the removal to Quenemo. See "Indian Refugees in Coffey County," by J. P. Hamilton Sr., in 1880 and republished by Glick Fockele in the Le Roy Reporter of Le Roy, Kansas, in its issues of August 14 and 21, 1931. Mr. Hamilton, now deceased, was one of the teamsters who assisted in removing the Indian women and children.

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fully as the toga of a Roman senator. A bright colored shawl encircled his head like a turban. He was a man of large and imposing frame. Although the members of his tribe recognized poligamy, Opothleyahola seems to have had but one wife. He had, at least two daughters and one son. The son graduated from the Choctaw academy in Kentucky, and took the name of Richard M. Johnson. The chief was unlettered and could speak only in the Creek tongue. The only likeness of the old chieftain, now known, is the oil painting of him in Washington, made, perhaps about 1832 and which now adorns the gallery of the War Department at the capital. Copies of this celebrated painting are frequently seen.10The old chief was quite prosperous and at the outbreak of the Civil War, was considered to be the richest member of the Creek tribes. His estate consisted of herds and flocks which were entirely dissipated by the campaign into Kansas and the ravages of the war.

Opothleyahola enjoyed an uninterrupted leadership of the Upper Creeks for 40 years. No man in their history so touched the hearts of his people. In him, they saw a reflection of themselves. They knew he sympathized with their sorrows and understood their aspirations. He surpassed all others in those attributes which the Indians felt common to them all. He possessed an unsurpassed power to express himself to there in terms which they understood. Undoubtedly, he was the outstanding Creek leader of the full blood, after the days of the Creek War. Opothleyahola was wholly in sympathy with the full blood Indian, who he believed, should be permitted to enjoy his social and political life according to his own notion. He was, in every instinct, a natural communist. This fact shared alike by his people, carried with it the necessary implication of the incapacity of the Indian as an individual. to compete in the white man's socal and economic order. Group life was the unit of his political thought and understanding. No situation arose in hs lifetime to challenge him to recede from the communal ownership of the tribal lands. He was never disturbed by the question of the allotment of the lands in sev-

7History of the Indian Tribes, by Thomas L. McKenney and James Hall, 1842, Vol. II, 7.

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eralty and just what would have been his attitude later, cannot be conjectured. He was progressive, strongly favored the education of his people and encouraged them in the productive arts and in thrift. He might have accepted the allotment scheme as a logical consequence and favored it.

The McIntosh faction remained a source of apprehension to him and seemed to color many of his activities. He never appeared to reach a stage where he would trust the differences between the Upper and Lower Creeks to be accomodated. Many of the Indians fought on both sides during the Civil War, apparently seeking to be allied with the winning party, but not so with Opothleyahola. He took his punishment, but not lying down. Prejudice may have warped and impaired his life service to his people. Happier would have been the concerns of the Creek people, as a whole, had Opothleyahola cast his influence and efforts toward reuniting the factions, as was accomplished after his death. The Upper and Lower Creeks were drawn together by the adoption of the written constitution in 1867. The embers of discord were extinguished only to be revived, but feebly, in later years, under the dynastic pretensions of Ok-tars-sars-har-jo, Lacher Haijo, Isparhecher and Chitto Harjo, each professing to be the successor of Opothleyahola, but none of whom was worthy to unlace the strings of his moccasins.

Record	Source Website	Type	Created
Indian hunting buffalo.gif	Forces War Records	Image	23/03/2016
800px-Opothleyahola.jpg	Forces War Records	Image	23/03/2016
American Indian.gif	Forces War Records	Image	23/03/2016
Map of Indian Territory and seals of tribes.gif	Forces War Records	Image	23/03/2016
Geronimo	Forces War Records	Memorial	19/09/2013

URL	Events	Description
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214
2
264
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284
341
5
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550
647
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Opothle Yahola

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