Chitto harjo biography of barack

The incident, sparked by allegations against Harjo and his family over a stolen beef , led a posse to approach Harjo's cabin. One of Harjo's bodyguards opened fire, killing two posse members. The posse returned fire, wounding Harjo in the leg. Harjo fled to the Kiamichi Mountains, where he remained for nearly two years, battling infections before passing away on April 10, , at the home of Daniel Bobb.

They built a traditional grave house over his final resting place, depositing his saddle and one of his pistols inside. His followers kept his whereabouts secret for a time, with some believing he had fled to Mexico. Today, Chitto Harjo is remembered as a symbol of resistance and a champion of Muscogee Creek heritage. His eloquent speeches before the Senate committee and his resistance to the Dawes Commission left an indelible mark on Muscogee Creek history.

The enduring spirit of Chitto Harjo and those who stood against assimilation continues to inspire the Muscogee Creek Nation today. The speech is often portrayed as the definitive description of the status of the native nations within the United States. Senate Committee in and the words of President Keel in has to do with the clarity of position and identity provided by Harjo.

Where Harjo provides distinct lines of separation between Nations and Peoples giving deference to Creek sovereignty we find much less clarity in the words of the NCAI President. Harjo understood that for native nations the struggle for treaty rights and self-determination was a struggle for what freedoms they could retain in the face of a colonial reality.

The struggle for self-determination is, after all, a struggle for freedom and the responsibilities that true freedom brings. Freedom would require them to eject this image and replace it with autonomy and responsibility. We are being told that the Presidential election of will afford native America an unprecedented chance to engage in the U. For some perspective let us quickly review some basic demographic figures for the indigenous population living within the borders of the United States of America.

Native people have the highest rates of teen suicide, the highest rates of teen pregnancy, the highest high school dropout rates, the lowest per capita income and the highest unemployment rate. In over two centuries of American colonization, our people have been reduced to the poorest, most impoverished levels of society. We have struggled to maintain what aspects of sovereignty and self-determination were not stripped away by the plenary power of the U.

Government and watched as the monolithic monster of western capitalism continues to devour the land and resources that have sustained us for a millennium. Now we are lead to believe that our answer lies in handing over a million dollars to help the election campaign of the current American emperor? The argument that is made in defense of this tactic is that it offers the only way forward for our people; we must after all be practical.

Only by investing ourselves within the American political system can we have any hope of our voices being heard within the corridors of power. Among my people, the Houma, this strategy has been put forth many times. Written accounts of our attempts to gain the ears of the rich and powerful are well known. In Jean Baptiste Parfait, a Houma community leader, lead a delegation from the lower bayous to the Lafourche Parish seat in Thibodaux.

He and nine others were imprisoned at the Leavenworth federal penitentiary in March , where they served the remainder of their two-year sentence. Senate in the summer of A select Senate Committee came to Indian Territory to investigate matters related to the termination of the Five Nations. On November 23, , Harjo attended the public hearing in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

When Harjo addressed the Senators, the clash of cultures was painfully evident. Harjo's style was difficult for the Senators to understand. In traditional, eloquent Creek oratory, Harjo petitioned the committee to restore the Treaty of He did not sway action by the Senators, but he embarrassed them by challenging the ambiguous legal status of Indians.

In , after years of enmity between the Snakes and their neighbors, a shootout between Checotah police officers and Chitto Harjo resulted in Harjo's death. Even though Snake activity had subsided after their Leavenworth imprisonment, white fears of an uprising never disappeared. In addition, much to the displeasure of Henryetta citizens, Hickory Ground had allowed many displaced Black families from Henryetta to set up a tent camp near the town.

Chitto harjo biography of barack

Unemployed and landless, the families resorted to theft to feed themselves. A posse from Henryetta rode to the tent camp and a shootout ensued as they tried to arrest suspected thieves. The posse opened fire and killed several Black men. Harjo and other Snake leaders were not at the camp. Harjo was at home, located 20 miles from Hickory Ground. Odom blamed Harjo for the incident.

He sent four deputies to arrest Harjo. At sundown, March 27, , as the officers approached Harjo's cabin, one of Harjo's friends shot and killed two officers. A bullet from the officers found its way through the cabin and struck Harjo in the leg above the knee. This wound eventually proved fatal. The death of the two officers created a furor in Checotah and Henryetta.

A larger posse returned to Harjo's home to find him gone. They shot at the women in the cabin, forcing them to flee, and burned Harjo's property to the ground. Consumed with revenge, vigilante groups roamed the vicinity pillaging Snake farms in search of Harjo. An alarmed Governor Haskell called out the state militia. They quickly restored order, but they did not capture Chitto Harjo.

His disappearance resulted in many legends about his death. He most likely died on April 11, , at the home of his Choctaw friend, Daniel Bob, from the gunshot wound in his hip. Snakes continued their efforts to block assimilation through World War I. Views about Harjo were mixed at the time of statehood. Creek leaders and mixed-bloods viewed Harjo as ignorant, backwards, and an embarrassment to the tribe.

Non-Indians labeled him the most dangerous Indian in Oklahoma because they believed he intended to kill every white person in the region. Other tribes viewed him as smart and eloquent, but many refused to follow him in the later years of the movement because they feared imprisonment at Leavenworth. Today, the Creek Nation views Harjo as a sincere, honest warrior-statesman, a shrewd and charismatic leader.

Chitto Harjo did not halt the encroachment of white culture upon the Creeks. However, the significance of his efforts transcends his failure to enforce the Treaty of Harjo's inclusive oratory disseminated seeds of intertribal cooperation that blossomed into an official political organization called the Four Mothers Nation. Moreover, he built a foundation on which intertribal political activism has flourished throughout the twentieth century and forged a coalition designed to influence the United States within acceptable forms of the dominant culture.

Chitto Harjo. Chitto Hargo, generally referred to as Craze Snake, who was known among the whites as Wilson Jones, was the leader of the disillusioned full blood Creeks after the collapse of the Green Peach War and the retirement of Isparhecher. In , Congress created the Dawes Commission, giving it power to survey the land of Indian Territory, determine those who were qualified to be allotted land and make these allotments.

The Curtis Act of abolished tribal laws and courts. In , the Creek Nation agreed to submit to allotment, thereby consenting to accepting the work of the Dawes Commission and the Curtis Act. In the winter of , the U. Government sent troops to put down the "uprising". Various ones were arrested. Grant Johnson, Negro U. Deputy Marshal arrested Crazy Snake at his home.

He and several of his supporters were taken to Muskogee where they were tried and sentenced to two years in Leavenworth but the sentence was not carried out, as they were offered a parole if they enrolled voluntarily and would be given allotments in the vicinity in which they lived. About half of them kept the agreement. Those that did not were arbitrarily enrolled and given what was considered to be less valuable land.

Crazy Snake and Jackson Barnett were in the group. Ironically, oil was struck on much of this land among which was that of Jackson Barnett, one of the richest Indians in the United States. Chitto Harjo, as a member of the House of Kings, had repeatedly warned the Creek leaders this calamity would befall the proud people and they would lose their sovereignty.

He gathered a number of full bloods and freedmen together, declared himself their chief and established his capital as the Hickory Stomp Grounds near the community of Pierce. He urged his followers to refrain from enrolling with the Dawes Commission, since it was customary among the Creeks as well as the other so-called civilized tribes to have all land held by the tribe with the individual merely using it without title.

Jones, he went to Harjo's home near Pierce where he gave a young Indian interpreter the copy of a summons to come to Muskogee to enroll with the Dawes Commission. The interpreter gave it to Harjo who was sitting in a wooden chair. Jones then rode off. The interpreter later told him Harjo tore up the summons and stomped it. Harjo did not make his appearance.

Instead, he called a meeting at the Hickory Stomp Grounds. The court then issued a warrant for his arrest for contempt of court. Jones served the warrant. The interpreter read the warrant, whereupon Harjo got on his horse and went peaceably with Jones to Checotah,. Jones then took him to Muskogee and put him in jail. He was then taken to the Dawes Commission where the enrollment plan was explained to him.

Harjo made a tentative agreement giving the impression that if freed, he would urge his followers to be enrolled. Harjo returned home and called a meeting of his followers at Hickory Stomp Grounds, where they remained two weeks carrying on to such as extent the white neighbors became frightened. They founded a police force, known as Lighthorse, and attempted to dissuade the Creek from accepting allotment of lands.

From to , Chitto Harjo led Creek resistance to the assimilation changes. The Green Peach War took place in , and Isparhecher retired. He had been a judge in the Okmulgee District and leader of Loyalists. Harjo led those Creek who opposed cultural assimilation and allotment. As the US was trying to extinguish tribal government, Crazy Snake and his followers set up a separate government for a time at the old Hickory Stomp Grounds southeast of Okmulgee.

Chitto Harjo and others were arrested and convicted in US court and imprisoned briefly. They were released on parole. During the next five years, the majority of the tribe accepted the changes and were allotted individual plots of land, in preparation for the territory to be admitted to statehood as Oklahoma. Chitto Harjo and other Snakes refused to choose their allotments.

In members of a Special Senate Investigating Committee visited the Indian Territory to learn more about the issues and why some of the Muscogee Creek people were resisting changes. Harjo, as a recognized leader of the traditionalists, testified at length to the senators. In , after Oklahoma had achieved statehood and passed Jim Crow laws like those of neighboring states of Arkansas and Texas, a group of African Americans came to Harjo's grounds seeking refuge.

They had faced discrimination and been driven out of other parts of Oklahoma. During the time of the March meeting of the Four Mothers Society, local European-Americans said that a piece of smoked meat had been stolen from them. Fearing an alliance between the Creek and the African Americans, they called together a white posse to break up the black encampment.

A melee ensued in which one black man was killed, a white man wounded, and 42 blacks were arrested and jailed. Whites began to get arms, wanting to break up the Creek-black encampment and to arrest Chitto Harjo, known as a conservative leader. When a group went to his house, a gun battle broke out. Two white deputies were quickly killed and others were wounded; Harjo and his followers escaped to the old Choctaw Nation.

They were helped by fellow members of the Four Mothers Society. This became known as the "Crazy Snake Rebellion". The Oklahoma governor, " Charles N. Haskell , ordered a militia to pursue the Creek conservatives and restore order in McIntosh and Okmulgee counties. He died in , without being seen again by white enforcers. Harjo, along with several representatives of Cherokee, Creek, and other tribes strongly opposed breaking up tribal land into individual allotments.

Harjo told a Senate investigating committee that "I will never stop asking for this treaty, the old treaty that our fathers made with the Government which gave us this land forever I look to that time—to the treaties of the Creek Nation with the United States—and I abide by the provisions of the treaty made by the Creek Nation with the Government in I would like to enquire what had become of the relations between the Indians and the white people from down to ?

I mean by that from the time the white man first came to this country until now. It was my home and the home of my people from time immemorial and is today, I think, the home of my people. Away back in that time—in —there was man by the name of Columbus came from across the great ocean [Atlantic] and he discovered this country for the white man—this country which was at that time the home of my people.

What did he find when he first arrived here? Did he find a white man standing on this continent then or did he find a black man standing here? Did he find either a black man or a white man standing on this continent? I stood here first and Columbus first discovered me. He was on one of the great four roads that led to light. At that time Columbus received the information that was given to him by my people.

My ancestor informed him that he was ready to accept this light he proposed to give him and walk these four roads of light and have his children under his direction. He told him it was all right. He told him, 'The land is all yours; the law is all yours'. He said it is all right. He told him, 'I will always take care of you. If your people meet with any troubles, I will take these troubles away.

I will stand before you and behind you and on each side of you and your people, and if any people come into your country I will take them away and you shall live in peace under me. My arms,' he said, 'are very long'. He told him to come within his protecting arms and he said, 'If anything comes against you for your ruin I will stand by you and preserve you and defend you and protect you.

It does not make any difference to you,' he said, 'if as many as twelve other nations come against you or twelve other tribes come against you it will not make any difference for I will combine with you and protect you and overthrow them all. I will protect you in all things and take care of everything about your existence so you will live in this land that is yours and your fathers' without fear.

He told me that as long as the sun shone and the sky is up yonder these agreements shall be kept. This was the first agreement that we had with the white man. He said as long as the sun rises it shall last; as long as the waters run it shall last; as long as the grass grows it shall last. That was what it was to be and we agreed upon those terms.

That was what the agreement was and we signed our names to that agreement and to those terms. He said, 'Just as long as you see light here; just as long as you see this light glimmering over us, shall these agreements be kept and not until all these things shall cease and pass away shall our agreement pass away. I think there is nothing that has been done by the people should abrogate them.

We have kept every term of that agreement. The grass is growing, the waters run, the sun shines, the light is with us and the agreement is with us yet for the God that is above us all witnessed that agreement. He said to me that whoever did anything against me was doing it against him and against the agreement and he said if anyone attempted to do anything against me, to notify him for whatever was done against me was against him and therefore against the agreement.