Choosing America's Heroes and Villains: Lessons Learned from the Execution of Silon Lewis

In early November 1894, full-blood Choctaw Silon Lewis and his wife, Sally, arrived at Wilburton, Indian Territory, a town named after Will Burton, one of the contractors who built the Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Gulf Railroad (that later was renamed the Rock Island Railroad) in the 1890s. Located to the north of the Ouachita Mountains in lush, green, tree-covered hills, Wilburton was once the location of coal mines and is the closest town to Robber's Cave, now a state park that features a complex system of tunnels and underground halls that housed the booty of Indian Territory outlaws. Some say that when the harvest moon is bright, you can hear the music of Fiddlin' Jim, a man who was smitten with Belle Starr and killed at the entrance of the cave by a jealous suitor.

Silon Lewis was around sixty-four years old, but because he had no birth certificate, even he could not be sure of his age. His seventeen-year-old wife of less than a year, Sally Lewis, was of mixed heritage, her mother a Choctaw and her father a white man who share-cropped on Lewis's farm west of Pine Mountain, near present-day Blanco in Pittsburgh County. A lean, dark man with hands calloused from farm work, Lewis wore his hair short, dressed like a white man, and spoke some English. He was however, a Choctaw whose value system was firmly situated within the traditions of his tribe. Among his beliefs were that the Choctaws should maintain control over their governance system and that the tribe should retain its sovereignty as promised by treaty with the federal government.

Because of Lewis's deep-seated beliefs, in addition to his intense frustration over the rapid influx of white settlers into the Choctaw Nation and the even more rapid loss of tribal culture because of intermarriage and missionary influences on the tribal members, Silon Lewis took out his anger in a way uncharacteristic for him. Because of his behavior, Lewis did not come to Wilburton for a social visit. He had arrived for his execution.

This is the story of how some Natives feel about the importance of defending their tribes and cultures. It reminds us of how the desire for power can destroy and posits how it is that Americans chose their heroes, martyrs, and villains. There are many hundreds of stories of Native peoples who honor their tribal traditions and who attempt to protect their cultures at great personal cost, yet because of their actions they are vilified as "savages." Silon Lewis is one of them.

Choctaw Culture Change

One Story

Choctaws and Chickasaws were originally one group who merged out of the earth from caves near Nanih Waiya in Mississippi. One cave is located a mile from the now-eroded Nanih Waiya that today stands around forty feet high. These individuals were locusts, or according to some, crayfish. They came up from the caves onto the earth, then lay on the ground to dry themselves, then they got up and marched away and eventually turned into people. The group was led by two brothers, Chahta and Chickasa. The group followed the two men to find a place to settle. One day, they came across a red pole that was supposed to tell them which way to go, but the people couldn't decide if it was standing straight up, which meant to stay where they were, or if it was leaning towards the north, which meant to go that way. Those who thought the former stayed put under the leadership of Chahta and called themselves Chahtas (now known as Choctaws) while the others kept walking after Chickasa and became Chickasaws.

Another Version

The first group that emerged were the short and ugly Creeks who traveled east. The next group to emerge...