Sustaining the Cherokee Family: Kinship and the Allotment of an Indigenous Nation

Notes

253 6' Notes abbreviations ARP Anna Ross Piburn Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. CJH C. J. Harris Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. CNR Cherokee National Records, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Okla. DD Doris Duke Oral History Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. DWB Dennis Wolf Bushyhead Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. HAC History of Adair County, by Adair County History Committee (Cane Hill, Ark.: ARC Press of Cane Hill, 1991) IC Indian Collection, Hampton University Archives, Hampton University, Hampton, Va. IPP Indian-Pioneer History Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Okla. JM Joel B. Mayes Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. JMC James Mansford Carselowey Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Okla. LH Leslie Hewes Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. LL Living Legends Oral History Collection, Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, Okla. SM Samuel H. Mayes Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. WCR W. C. Rogers Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. WPR William Potter Ross Collection, Western History Collection, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Okla. 254 notes to pages 1–5 introduction 1. The Dawes Commission allotted Nannie and her son, Sam Chewey, land that Tom had improved before his marriage to her. It was abandoned and neglected after Tom and Nannie established their home in Chewey. Commission to the Five Civilized Tribes, Applications for Allotment (hereafter known as allotment jacket): Tom and Nannie Wolfe. Indian case file: Sam Chewey. Probate file: Tom Wolfe, Nannie Wolfe. 2. Lewis was the son of Joe Sourjohn, a former deputy sheriff for the Cherokee Nation from Tahlequah. Lewis’s mother was Nancy Bearpaw, and her people were from this area to the east of the Cherokee capital. Lewis’s maternal aunts and uncles and his sister Jennie still made their homes there. In 1917, Governor Robert L. Williams granted dozens of paroles as part of his birthday celebration, and Sourjohn received one of them. His second chance was short-lived. By 1920, Sourjohn was back in McAlester, and after his subsequent release, Switch Foreman killed him in Tahlequah. Benge, 1880 Cherokee National Census (hereafter referred to as Cherokee census: 1880). Guion Miller roll (hereafter referred to as Eastern Cherokee application): Jennie Sand. Adair County Republican, February 19, 1915: 1; March 12, 1915: 5. Daily Oklahoman, December 20, 1917: 1 and 14; November 13, 1920: 7. Probate file: Tom Wolfe. 3. Indian case file: Sam Chewey. Bureau of the Census, 1920 census (hereafter simply given as the year of the census). Probate file: Tom Wolfe. Nannie had helped raise three of Tom’s sons from a previous marriage, including John, after she and his father began their relationship following the death of Tom’s previous wife, John’s mother. They also raised Nannie’s two daughters, Jennie and Louella, and her son, Sam, who were the results of three earlier relationships. 4. 1920 census. Probate file: Tom Wolfe. Application for Removal of Restrictions for 1908: Dora Wolfe. 5. I think the stenographer misspelled the buyer’s name, which is rightly “Watkins,” not “Wadkins.” Probate file: Tom Wolfe. 6. There’s no evidence of animosity between John and Nannie. Probate file: Tom Wolfe, Nannie Wolfe. 7. Indian case file: Sam Chewey. DD: Sam Chewey. 8. 1920 census. Probate file: Nannie Wolfe. 9. Allotment was not an innovation of the late nineteenth century. For a history of precedents, see Gibson, “Centennial Legacy”; Hagan, Taking Indian Lands; and Washburn, Assault on Indian Tribalism, 9. In his 1878 annual report, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ezra A. Hayt, a proponent of the policy, summarized the results of previous allotment laws; his positive narrative is a stark contrast to the interpretations of those who have studied the policy in its aftermath. See pages 7–10. 10. Historian Francis Paul Prucha cites these numbers based on tabulations by John Collier, the commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1933 until 1945 and a critic of allotment. Collier characterized half of remaining land as arid or semi-arid and, therefore, unsuitable for agriculture and grazing. Great Father, 895–96. The Indian Land Tenure Foundation suggests there has been little improvement since the repeal of the policy; see . The Wheeler-Howard Act, or Indian Reorganization Act, was passed in 1934, and while the act excluded notes to pages 5–14 255 Oklahoma’s diverse...