By Steve Byas

Some are surprised to learn that the Five Civilized Tribes and the rest of the tribes found in Indian Territory sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War. For that matter, the average person might even be surprised that there were multiple battles of the War Between the States in the Indian Territory.

Part of the problem is that most Americans have been indoctrinated into the belief that the North and the South simply lined up to settle the issue of slavery, and that why would the tribes care about that, thinking that the Indians owned no slaves. Actually, African slavery did exist in the territory, and some brought their slaves with them when removed from the East. And slavery existed among tribes long before any Europeans set foot on the North American continent, as one tribe would subjugate another tribe and make slaves out of the survivors, or at least out of those they did not just execute.

But slavery really had little to do with why the tribes sided with the South, as few Indians owned slaves. (Only a tiny minority of white southerners owned slaves, either). To be sure, there were a few planters that owned quite a few slaves, such as Robert Love (of the “country store” family), a Chickasaw planter who owned about 200 slaves along the Red River.

The reasons that the Indians sided with the Confederacy was because of what they perceived to be their own self-interest. Most of the Indian agents were southerners and newly-appointed agents remained in Kansas, fearing to move into Confederate-dominated Indian Territory. This meant the annuity payments promised under the removal treaties ceased, but the Confederate government promised to take over those payments.

William Seward, the secretary of state for President Abraham Lincoln, had advocated in his own campaign for president (before Lincoln instead got the Republican Party nomination) that the lands of Indian Territory be opened for white settlement. Additionally, it was the federal government that had actually carried out the removals, although it is true that this was supported by the southern state governments.

The Confederate government promised to honor the previous Union treaties and to continue to protect the more peaceful Five Civilized Tribes from the more war-like Plains Tribes in the western part of the territory. Federal troops had pulled out of the seven federal forts that had protected the Five Tribes.

Still, the war divided the tribes, with significant minorities in the Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole tribes believing it was a “white man’s war,” and they should stay neutral. (If only our present government would stay neutral in foreign conflicts).

But after the Union defeat at the Battle of Wilson’s Creek in nearby Missouri, many neutralists like John Ross, the Cherokee chief, decided it was in the best interest of his tribe to side with the expected winners of the war. The Knights of the Golden Circle were very active in the territory, urging support of the Confederacy, and Cherokee leader Stand Watie formed the Cherokee Mounted Rifles for the Confederacy. He was commissioned a colonel, but by the end of the war, Watie was the only Native American to serve as a combat general, on either side.

On June 23, 1865, Stand Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender, and thus the Civil War ended in what is now southeastern Oklahoma.

Steve Byas is a professor of history and government at Randall University in Moore, Oklahoma.