On August 4th, 1862, Colonel James Williams of the Fifth Kansas Cavalry was appointed recruiting officer "for the purpose of recruiting and organizing a regiment for the United States service, to be composed of men of African descent."147 By the end of October, there were two regiments of African-American soldiers outfitted in Federal uniforms drilling daily at Camp "Jim Lane" in Southern Kansas. Colonel Williams reported the "colored people entering into the work heartily, and evincing by their actions a willing readiness to link their future and share the perils with their white brethren in the war of rebellion, which then waged with such violence as to seriously threaten the nationality and life of the republic."148
Though Lane and supporters may have believed that "the Negro may just as well become food for powder as my son," the feeling was much less than universal. Williams's recruits were arrested and jailed on fraudulent charges by county officials, and the white officers in his proposed regiment were harassed with frivolous charges, such as unlawfully depriving a person of his freedom.149 Williams saw as the source of the problem "an intolerant prejudice against the colored race, which would deny them the honorable position in society that every soldier is entitled to, even though he gained the position at the risk of his life in the cause of the nation."150
On October 27, 1862, the Kansas Colored Volunteers quieted their critics. In an assault on a rebel stronghold at the Osage River in Bates County, Missouri, the African-American regiment defeated a force of six hundred Confederate soldiers. The Battle of Island Mounds was the "first engagement in the war in which colored troops were actively engaged."151 William Truman, a leader of the Confederate forces, reported that "the black devils fought like tigers...and not one would surrender, though they [the Rebels] had tried to take a prisoner."152
A report of the Battle of Island Mounds from a New York Times correspondent highlighted the activities of two especially courageous black soldiers. One of the soldiers, "Sixkiller, a Cherokee Negro" fell with half a dozen wounds "after shooting two men, bayoneting a third and laying a forth hors de combat with the butt of his gun."153 A second, Sergeant Edward Lowrie (a prominent Cherokee name), "was reloading his gun when three men on horseback ordered him to surrender. As an answer he knocked one of them off his horse with a stunning blow from his rifle, and as the other two charged, he felled them also with the butt of his gun."154
The First and Second Kansas Colored Volunteers were at this point made up of refugee African-Americans from the Indian Territory.155 Though certainly there were large numbers of blacks that had fled to Kansas from Missouri and Arkansas, it was the "black indians" who made up the masses of these troops.156 Many of the African-American soldiers who served in the First and Second Kansas Colored Volunteers had previously served in the First Indian Home Guard that had been established in June of 1862. It was these experienced military veterans who made up the vanguard of the new colored regiments; it was these "black indians" who were actually the first African-American troops to see combat in the Civil War.157
On January 13, 1863, at Fort Scott in Kansas, Lieutenant Sabin of the regular army mustered six companies of African-American soldiers into the United States service. Between January 13 and May 2, 1863, the remaining four companies were organized and the Kansas First Colored Volunteers Infantry Regiment of the United States Army was commissioned. This was nearly four months before the commissioning of the most famous of the black regiments, the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth. The battle of Island Mounds was nearly nine months before the Fifty-fourth's assault on Fort Wagner. When the First Kansas was mustered out of the Civil War in 1865 as the 79th U.S. Colored Troops, it was ranked as twenty-first among all Union regiments in the percentage of total enrollment killed in battle.158 Though the "fighting fifty-fourth" has been memorialized in story and the film Glory, we should not forget the First Kansas and their role as freedom fighters..
In a letter to John Ross in early January, Keetoowah Huckleberry Downing mentioned that "Chilly and D.N. McIntosh propose to surrender, & to come into the Union army, with two regiments of Creeks."159 Colonel Phillips, commander of the Third Indian Home Guard, hearing of McIntosh's inclinations, informed him to be patient and to manifest no affection for the North, for to do so would be premature and foolhardy. He told McIntosh to bide his time until he could send a brigade of Federal troops into Indian Territory to cover the "capture" and retreat of further Creek forces.160 At this point, even some of Stand Watie's troops were deserting to the North.161
In early February, Phillips and the Third Indian Home Guard slipped across the border and established Camp Ross at Cowskin Prairie, an area in the Cherokee Nation that was immediately accessible from the Federal lines. On February 17, 1863, Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Downing called a National Council of the Cherokee Nation. Colonel Phillips stood by to protect the Council as it began its proceedings. This National Council elected John Ross as its chief and Major Thomas Pegg as acting principal chief. Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Downing was chosen president pro-tem of the upper house as well as school commissioner, and Toostoo was selected as Speaker of the Lower House. Reverend John B. Jones, Chaplain of the Second Indian Home Guard, was chosen clerk of the Senate.162 Three of the five members of the new National Council were founding members of the Keetoowah Society; there is little doubt that all of the persons elected to office were Keetoowah.
The first act of the new National Council decreed "the treaty with the rebels was declared to have been entered into under duress, and, therefore, to have no binding effect, either in law or in morals. It was, therefore, abrogated and revoked, and declared to be null and void."163 The Council then "passed an act expelling every disloyal person, and declared their offices vacant."164 The first act of the new Keetoowah Council was to assert its continuing treaty relationship with the United States and abrogate the false treaties with the Confederate States of America. It then removed the officers of the Knights of the Golden Circle from the positions that they had attained following Ross's surrender to Federal officials.
The next act of the Keetoowah Council was one of critical and lasting importance. It declared, "...at that early day (February, 1863) -- before any slave State made a movement towards emancipation -- the Cherokee Nation abolished Slavery unconditionally and forever, and the enslaving or the holding in slavery of a human being within the limits of the Cherokee Nation, was declared to be a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of from one thousand to five thousand dollars for every offence."165 The Act of Emancipation, signed by John Jones, Lewis Downing, Thomas Pegg, and George Foster, stated, "Be it enacted by the National Council: That all Negroes and other slaves within the lands of the Cherokee Nation be and they are hereby emancipated from slavery, and any person or persons who may have been in slavery are hereby declared to be forever free." 166
As important as it was, the Act of Emancipation would have little effect upon the majority of the slaves in the Cherokee Nation, for they were owned by mixed blood Cherokee who remained loyal to the Confederacy. These Cherokee would have little sympathy for slaves who attempted to take advantage of the actions of the National Council. Stand Watie's Confederate Cherokee would serve to enforce the will of the slaveowners. However, the Act of Emancipation was of critical strategic importance for the loyal Cherokee. The abolition of slavery and the freeing of former slaves within the Cherokee Nation would have a profound impact upon their military allies -- the Kansas First Colored Volunteers. Black soldiers would now fight as free men for a Cherokee Nation in which they would once again be citizens.
As the council was meeting, a "long line of persons"167 was weaving its way through the ice and snow for Kansas. Remaining members of the Creek Nation, having decided that their fortunes did not lie with the South, began to flee to Kansas. As they fled, they wore a white badge on their hats that signified their loyalty to the Union. Phillips and McIntosh had agreed to provide for their protection had designated such a sign. Though nearly half of the Creek Nation had fled to Kansas, the remaining Southern Creeks maintained their unity and carried on their governmental actions wherever they happened to be camped. In spite of their previous overtures to the Federal officers, the McIntoshes made no effort to flee to Kansas.168
In early March, the leaders of the Creek Nation decided to follow upon the lead of their brethren within the Cherokee Nation: Chief Opothle Yahola, aged and near death yet steadfast in his commitment to his treaties. As he refused to acknowledge the treaties that had been set forth by the Confederate Creeks, he saw no need to establish new treaties. However, through the subtle diplomacy of African-American counsel Rev. Harry Islands and with the assistance of Sands Harjo, an agreement was reached to negotiate a new treaty. It was the last public act of the great old chief; he died shortly afterwards.169
The new treaty was negotiated through Rev. Island of North Fork Baptist Church170 who was, according to Angie Debo in her The Road to Disappearance, a "shrewd Creek Negro" who "apparently looked after the interest of his race".171 The treaty recognized the "necessity, justice, and humanity" of the Emancipation Proclamation. In the treaty, the Creek Nation also agreed that slavery should cease and that they would set aside a portion of their lands for occupancy by the freedmen and "all others of the African race who shall be permitted to settle among them."172 It seems apparent, considering the historic role of African-Americans within the Creek Nation, that the treaty was in the best interest of all members of the Creek Nation.
The Cherokee National Council at Cowskin Prairie also chose three delegates to proceed to Washington, D.C. to assist Chief John Ross in his negotiations with the United States government: Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Downing, Captain James McDaniel, and Chaplain Evan Jones.173 The delegation was instructed to make a treaty with the United States on behalf of the new Council, to obtain unpaid annuities and compensation for losses from Confederate depredations, and to request assistance for the refugees in Kansas. A final demand was for yet another military expedition to free the Indian Territory from its occupying force so that the Cherokee could return to their homes in safety.174
147 Report of J.M. Williams, Colonel 1st Kansas Colored Volunteer Infantry, in Joseph T. Wilson, The Black Phalanx: African American Soldiers in the War of Independence, the War of 1812, and the Civil War (New York: De Capo Press Inc., 1994), 227. 148 Williams in Wilson, 228. 149 Rampp, 536. 150 Williams in Wilson, 228. 151 Williams in Wilson, 231; See also Booker T. Washington, The Story of the Negro: The Rise of the Race from Slavery [Volume I] (New York: Doubleday, Page, and Company, 1909), 323; Albert Castell, "Civil War Kansas and the Negro" Journal of Negro History 51, (January, 1966, No. 1): 135. 152 William Truman, quoted in Benjamin Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War [Second Edition], (New York: De Capo Press, Inc., 1989), 115. 153 ibid. 154 ibid. 155 Hondon B Hargrove, Black Union Soldiers in the Civil War (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1988), 52; Daniel Littlefield, Africans and Seminoles, 184. 156 Daniel Littlefield, Africans and Creeks: from the Colonial Period to the Civil War (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979), 239. 157 ibid. 158 Patricia L. Faust, ed., Historical Times Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Civil War (New York: Harper and Row, Co., 1986), 668. 159 Huckleberry Downing et. al. to John Ross, January 8, 1863, in Ross, Papers, 2: 528. It must be remembered that Evan Jones and his native ministers through the Cherokee Baptist Missionary Society's outreach to the Creek Nation prior to the Civil War had converted Chilly McIntosh. Both Chilly and D.N. McIntosh were affiliated with the Ebenezer Baptist Church and were to become Baptist ministers after the war. There must have been more than a few African Americans among the Creek soldiers. 160 United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XXII, 62. 161 Franks, 135. 162 McLoughlin, Champions of the Cherokee, 408-409. 163 Cherokee Nation, Memorial of the Delegates of the Cherokee Nation to the President of the United States and the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress, 7. 164 ibid. 165 ibid. David R. Wrone, "The Cherokee Act Of Emancipation," Journal of Ethnic Studies 1973 1(3): 87-90. 166 Cherokee Nation, Memorial of the Delegates of the Cherokee Nation to the President of the United States and the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress, 12. 167 United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. XXII, 101. 168 Debo, The Road to Disappearance, 154. 169 Debo, The Road to Disappearance, 160; Littlefield, Africans and Creeks, 239. 170 North Fork Baptist Church was located in the Creek Nation. It was the church that Reverend Henry Davise of Peavine Baptist Church was sent to do his missionary outreach to the Creek Nation on behalf of the Cherokee Baptist Missionary Association. 171 Debo, The Road to Disappearance, 160 172 Littlefield, Africans and Creeks, 239. 173 It is important to remember that the First Indian Home Guard was composed largely of members of the Creek Nation so Ross was quite well acquainted with them and their needs by this time. 174 McLoughlin, After the Trail of Tears, 209.