Southern History Series: The State of Sequoyah

Editor’s Note: This is a work in progress.

Is Oklahoma a Southern state, a Southwestern state or a Midwestern state? It is fair to say that Oklahoma is a border state. It is a crossroads of the Deep South, the Midlands and Great Appalachia.

The Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws and Seminoles were all transferred to Indian Territory by the federal government during the antebellum era. There is a Eufaula, OK and a Muskogee, OK. There are other cities and towns in Oklahoma that have counterparts in the Deep South. The same people picked up and left. How did Indian Territory end up becoming Oklahoma though?

The State of Sequoyah never joined the United States because the Republican Congress rejected statehood for the heavily Democratic Indian Territory. The Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory had fought for the Confederacy in the War Between States. General Stand Watie of the Cherokee Nation was a wealthy planter who owned nearly 100 slaves and was the last Confederate general to surrender. We poke fun at the Rainbow Confederates due to their obsession with “Black Confederates,” but it is absolutely true that the Confederacy had Indian allies who were Southern in culture.

There was nothing unusual about this. Indian tribes had fought on both sides of American wars in virtually every other conflict in American history. The Cherokees had fought on side of Andrew Jackson against the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend in the Creek War. The Cherokees had fought on the side of South Carolina against the Creeks in the Yamasee War. The Yamasees had previously fought on the side of North Carolina against the Tuscarora Indians. The Mohawks had saved the Yankees during King Philip’s War by attacking the Wampanoag, etc.