The Keetoowah Mission to other Nations

There were deep bonds between the conservative members of the Cherokee Nation and the conservative members of neighboring peoples that lived just across the border in the Mvskoke Nation and the Seminole Nation. The cultural bonds that linked the Mvskoke and Cherokee nations were strengthened at the hands of removal and the "common people" of both nations were finding themselves displaced by the progressives. In addition, the Natchez people, which settled among the Mvskoke and Cherokee following their decimation at the hands of the French, provided yet another link of commonality among the peoples. The Natchez were known for their knowledge of the "old ways," and served to promote traditionalism among the conservative members of the Southeastern Indians.²¹⁴

Not only were there traditional ties between the peoples relocated to Indian Territory, there were denominational ones as well. From their very inception, the Baptist Missions in the Cherokee Nation had established an outreach to the Mvskoke Nation to their immediate west. In the early days of the Mvskoke Nation in the West, law forbade an Indian or Negro to lead Christian worship services. Yet, according to Angie Debo, it was done anyway: "Small earnest groups met secretly, sang negro spirituals and portions of the Creek Hymns they could remember, and listened to the instructions of ignorant slaves."²¹⁵ When the hostility towards missionaries ended in the early eighteen forties, several missionaries from the Cherokee station visited the Mvskoke Baptist mission, "The church among the Creeks has been visited by the Cherokee missionaries and found to be in a prosperous condition, under the care of colored preachers. Several have been added to the church. No white missionary labors with the Creeks at present, but Mr. Jones of the Cherokee Mission has been requested to ascertain the practicability of stationing a mission family among them." ²¹⁶

The Baptist Mission in the Mvskoke Nation was situated in the same Ebenezer Baptist Church that was founded in 1832 by "three blacks, two white people, and one Indian in its six charter members."²¹⁷ Native preacher John Davis, the first Baptist preacher licensed and ordained in Indian Territory, led it.²¹⁸ When Davis died in 1839, he left the church in very able hands, "Mr. Jones reports the state of the people to be highly encouraging. The members of the church appear well, and the religious meetings are thronged, many of the congregation attending from a distance of twenty or more miles...Religious meetings are conducted by two black men, both slaves. The oldest, Jacob, is ordained; the other called Jack, a blacksmith, acts as interpreter. They are allowed one day in the week to support themselves and their families in food and clothing; and these days they devote to the service of the church, hiring the working of their little corn and potato patches."²¹⁹ By 1845, Baptist and Methodist ministers were openly working in the Mvskoke territory and by the end of the following year, the ban against African preaching had been lifted. In the area where the Arkansas River and Verdigris River, a number of churches had sprung up led by Native preachers.²²⁰

On April 12, 1845, Minister Evan Jones had founded the Cherokee Baptist Mission Society. Because of the poverty of the conservatives and slaves that supported the Baptist mission, the society was dissolved after a few years.²²¹ However, in late 1848, a great camp meeting was held in the Mvskoke Nation, led by Baptist missionaries from the Cherokee Nation under the auspices of Evan Jones. Fourteen Mvskoke, including Chilly McIntosh ²²² and several other prominent chiefs, united with the Baptist Church, "The Congregation was made up chiefly of Creeks and blacks, with a few whites and Cherokees. I became acquainted with two very interesting and intelligent young men, one the son of the late principal chief of the Creek nation, and the other of the present chief ... They both appear well, and promise great usefulness to their people, as the speak the English and Creek languages fluently."²²³ A Baptist missionary (probably Jones) was even invited to address the council. At the time, the Mvskoke Baptists had eight preachers -- one white, four Native Americans, and three African-Americans. They had seven churches with more than 550 members. ²²⁴

In 1850, Evan Jones reconstituted the Cherokee Baptist Mission Society and "the preachers and others entered very cordially into the spirit of the missionary enterprise, and are determined to urge the subject on the attention of the people."²²⁵ In a following paragraph, Jones mentions that the missionaries "are decidedly and steadfastly opposed to slavery; and the direct tendency of their influence is to extend their own sentiments and views. [Their] sincere desire and earnest prayer is, that it may be speedily brought to an end."²²⁶ As one of the leading missionaries to the Mvskoke Nation, Brother Lewis Downing made no distinctions among his parishioners, "After the services of the morning, the congregation repaired to the water, a stream about a mile distant, and in the presence of a large company, br. Downing with deep solemnity baptized, on the profession of their faith in a dying savior, two Cherokees and three black men." ²²⁷

In the years between 1850 and 1860, Lewis Downing led numerous missions to the Mvskoke Nation, "where they had very large congregations and solemn attention."²²⁸ Downing traveled as far as Missouri, where he attended a great camp meeting of the Cumberland Presbyterians and met with a colporteur from the American Tract Society. When several of Downing's native assistants in the missionary movement died, John B. Jones, the son of Evan Jones, filled their positions and worked their circuits.

A year later, in 1853, Smith Christie, "a Cherokee of decided piety and promise," was licensed for the ministry, and was ordained the following year. In the years following 1858, missionaries Lewis Downing, John B. Jones, and Smith Christie traveled exclusively throughout the Cherokee and Mvskoke Nations, conducting camp meetings, organizing, and structuring the Baptist missions. By 1860, the Cherokee Baptist Missionary Society had grown into a self-supporting institution that held annual meetings and gave yearly contributions to the American Baptist Missionary Union.²²⁹

In addition to conducting a missionary effort among the Mvskoke with Cherokee missionaries, the "Jones Baptists" took it one step further. On one visit to the Mvskoke Nation in 1857, Evan Jones and Pastor Lewis Downing of the Peavine Baptist Church had ordained a free black by the name of "Old Billy." In 1860, Cherokee Henry Davise was ordained to the Baptist ministry at Peavine Baptist Church to help "Old Billy" spread the message of the gospel among the Mvskoke Nation.²³⁰ It seems that Davise was a member of the Keetoowah Society and that he was sent forth into the Mvskoke Nation to pursue the interests of the Keetoowah Society; James Mooney makes note of the spread of the Keetoowah Society into the Creek Nation in the years preceding the Civil War.²³¹

Little is known about the spread of the Keetoowah Society among the Mvskoke Nation, except much later in a footnote on the history of the Mvskoke Nation, Angie Debo, in her The Road to Disappearance describes "a secret society of full bloods known as the `Pins'... The origins of this society is unknown, but it exerted a strong hidden influence throughout the Nation."<sup>232</sup> The `Pins' of the Mvskoke Nation are associated with Samuel Checote, a full blood Methodist minister from Alabama and one-time chief of the Mvskoke Nation. Checote was a graduate of the Asbury Mission and pastor of Eufaula Methodist Church in the Mvskoke Nation.²³³ He was also a member of Muscogee Lodge #93.²³⁴

There is no evidence of "Pin" activity among the Seminole Nation. However, it is likely that the Baptist message spread among the Seminole along the same routes as it did among the traditional Mvskoke and Cherokee. James S. Murrow, Baptist missionary and future "father of Oklahoma Freemasonry," settled among the Seminole at the North Folk Town near Eufala in the Mvskoke Nation. Murrow immediately began his missionary work, "He secured a Negro interpreter, and promptly began his life's work. December 25, [1857] Brother Murrow baptized an Indian girl. Since that time he has baptized more than a thousand Indians and almost as many whites and Blacks." ²³⁵

The North Fork Baptist Church had become "a sort of `Jerusalem'"²³⁶ in the Indian Territory; the church was founded in 1854 by Black Baptist Monday Durant and was also ministered by Black Baptist evangelist "Old Billy."²³⁷ The North Fork Baptist Church was also the center of the Keetoowah Society within the Mvskoke Nation. It was to the North Fork Baptist Church that Henry Davise missionary from Peavine Baptist Church for the Cherokee Baptist Missionary Association. The church was later to become the center of a strong evangelical revival under the leadership of Black Baptist Harry Islands.²³⁸

James Factor, an interpreter and "beloved man" among the Seminole, had made the North Fork Church a center of a controversy when he became the first Seminole to convert to Christianity. Factor, a descendent of Black Factor and member of one of the oldest families of "black muscolges, "²³⁹ was friends with Chief John Jumper of the Seminole Nation. Chief Jumper belonged to the "Moon Order," a secret society among the Seminole that dated to the pre-removal period,²⁴⁰ but converted to the Baptist faith in September of 1860. Rev. Murrow, upon hearing of Chief Jumper's conversion, established a Baptist mission at Ash Creek Baptist Church with Jumper as its first member. He was, within a few years, to become pastor of the church.²⁴¹ Chief Jumper was also a Freemason.²⁴²

Freemasonic lodges had also spread from the Cherokee Nation into the Mvskoke Nation and probably into the Seminole Nation through Seminole residents of the Mvskoke Nation. From the very first lodge formed among the Cherokee in Tahlequah, the brotherhood had spread among missionaries, merchants, and Native Americans throughout Indian Territory. Reverend John Bertholf, member of Cherokee Lodge #21, relocated to the Mvskoke Nation and was appointed Superintendent of the Asbury Mission in Eufaula in 1859. George Butler, government agent and junior warden of Cherokee Lodge #21, became one of the charter members of the military base lodge at Fort Gibson Lodge #35. Doaksville Lodge #52 was organized in the Choctaw Nation and led by Chief Peter Pitchlyn, Sam Garvin, Basil Laflore, plantation owner Robert Jones, and also American Board missionary Cyrus Kingsbury. Walter Scott Adair, Worshipful Master of Cherokee Lodge #21, left Lodge #21 to organize Flint Lodge #74 near the Baptist Mission deep in Keetoowah country in the southeastern corner of the Cherokee Nation.

Joseph Coodey, nephew of John Ross and Junior Warden of Cherokee Lodge #21, resettled in the Mvskoke Nation at North Fork Town near Eufala.²⁴³ In the Mvskoke Nation, Benjamin Marshall, George Stidham, and Samuel Checote, all affiliates of the Asbury Mission, formed Muscogee Lodge #93 at the Creek Agency near the border of the Cherokee Nation. One of the early members of Muscogee Lodge #93 was a prominent traditional leader (and relative of Asi Yahola, i.e., Osceola ) ²⁴⁴ by the name of Opothle Yahola.²⁴⁵

The Keetoowah ideals of community, patriotism, and sovereignty spread throughout the Nations through the several organizations that most clearly reflected these ideals. The Baptist Church, with its sense of the "beloved community," its affiliation with political idealism, its tolerance for religious traditionalism, and the very nature of its ecclesiastical structure, resonated with the highest tenets of the "Kituwah Spirit." The fact that the Baptist ministers were fluent in Cherokee and supported a missionary program led by native ministers was a tremendously powerful influence in the spread of the Keetoowah message among the conservative population. Lastly, that the Baptist churches and missions and churches were composed of persons of Cherokee heritage, both black and Indian, would prove to be of critical importance.

The split that had occurred within the Freemasonic lodges of the Indian Territory was indicative of a larger rift that was spreading through the Masonic brotherhood throughout the United States. Yet, many of the brothers of the nascent lodges in what would become Oklahoma clung to the ties of fraternalism, of service to the community, of honor, and of nationalism that had led them to bond together in the first place. Torn between the Cherokee Nation and their Mother Lodge, they placed their faith and confidence in each other and in their collective ability to work together "like so many links of a chain."²⁴⁶ In so doing, their affinity with the ideals of the Keetoowah Society was made manifest.

The nations would split, the churches would split, and the lodges would split, but the "Kituwah Spirit" would persevere in the hearts of the people. In the coming years, the trials and tribulations of the Cherokee Nation would be great and the spirit of the Cherokee people would be tested perhaps in a manner unparalleled in their history. Many Cherokee would "present their bodies a living sacrifice... abhor that which is evil, cleave to that which is good."²⁴⁷ The Keetoowah Laws would allow for nothing less, "Our secret society shall be named "Keetoowah." All of the members of our Keetoowah Society shall be like one family. It should be the intention that we must abide with each other in love....We must not surrender under any circumstances until we shall "fall to the ground united." We must lead one another by the hand with all our strength. Our government is being destroyed. We must resort to our bravery to stop it."²⁴⁸