By T.S. Akers
(Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society)
Throughout the nineteenth century, Indigenous Peoples within United States faced an onslaught of attacks against their sovereignty and existence. With one broken promise after another, Indian Nations watched their homelands dwindle and many ultimately faced removal to what would become Oklahoma. The Five Tribes, originally from the southeastern portion of the United States, were a set of Indian Nations who were some of the first to be removed to what became the Indian Territory. These tribes included the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, the Muscogee, and the Seminole. The Five Tribes each had internal divisions amongst those who had adopted European or white culture and those who wished to remain traditional. There existed in the Five Tribes some headmen who understood the compromises that would be necessary for continued sovereignty in dealing with the federal government. One such headman in the Muscogee Nation was Pleasant Porter, who in time would rise to the office of Principal Chief.
Pleasant Porter was, as would have been described at the time, of mixed-blood descent. Porter’s paternal grandfather was Captain John Porter who served with Andrew Jackson during the Red Stick War of 1813-1814. This was a Muscogee Civil War which the United States was drawn into. Captain Porter managed to intervene as federal troops waged a merciless campaign against the Muscogees following an incident known as the Fort Mimms Massacre. In helping to bring an end to the hostilities, Captain Porter was extended an invitation by the Muscogee people to live within their nation, which he accepted, and thenceforth resided with the division of the Muscogees known as the Lower Creeks.[1] This was a geographic designation, with the Upper Creeks residing in the northern part of the nation. (Creek is the British name for the Muscogee Nation.) Whilst the Upper Creeks were traditionalist, the Lower Creeks had adopted white customs following European contact.
Captain Porter’s son Benjamin was born around 1818 in the Muscogee Nation. The Porter family came west with the first group of Muscogees, known as the McIntosh party, in February of 1828. It was then that the family established a farm near Clarksville in present day Wagoner County and Benjamin Porter resided there until his death shortly before the American Civil War. A young Benjamin Porter married Phoebe Tustunnuggee the daughter of Tahlopee Tustunnuggee, who was a Muscogee tribal town chief.[2] Phoebe was of the Bird Clan and of mixed-blood descent as her mother Lydia Perryman was white.[3] Pleasant Porter was born to Benjamin and Phoebe, at the family farm, on the 26th of September, 1840. In his youth, Pleasant Porter was given the Muscogee name of Talof Harjo, which means Crazy Bear.[4]
The Tullahassee Presbyterian Mission School was established in partnership with the Creek National Council in 1850. A three-story institution, the Tullahassee school could support eighty students. Whilst most mission or boarding schools today are associated with Indian assimilation, the Muscogees viewed education as one strategy by which they could reinforce their identity post-removal.[5] Pleasant Porter attended the Tullahassee school for five years. From there he briefly clerked in a store and then went to New Mexico as a cattle drover in 1860.[6]
(Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society)
On the 10th of July, 1861, the Muscogee Nation signed a treaty of Friendship and Alliance with the Confederacy; which was favored and opposed along the old divisional lines, with the traditionalist Upper Creeks standing in opposition. Article thirty-six of the treaty called for the Muscogees to raise one mounted regiment of ten companies.[7] Ultimately, two regiments were raised, the 1st and 2nd Creek Mounted Rifles. Pleasant Porter returned to the Muscogee Nation and enlisted as a private in the 1st Creek Mounted Rifles on the 19th of August, 1861.[8] He rose to the rank of regimental quartermaster sergeant in the 1st Creek.[9] In 1863 Porter transferred to the 2nd Creek, presumably to fill vacancies, as a second lieutenant in Company A.[10] Riding with the Muscogee regiments, Porter would have seen action at Round Mountain, Old Fort Wayne, and Honey Springs, among numerous other smaller engagements. He was ultimately wounded three times during the war.[11] The Muscogee regiments were part of Stand Watie’s command when he surrendered on the 23rd of June, 1865, at Doaksville in the Choctaw Nation.[12]
At the war’s end, Pleasant Porter returned to the family farm near Clarksville. He found it to be in much the same condition as the rest of the Muscogee Nation. The buildings were burned, the fields overgrown, and the livestock gone; however, Porter began the task of rebuilding.[13] Whilst reestablishing life, Porter was also called into service for his tribe. In September of 1865, he was asked to accompany Muscogee commissioners bound for Fort Smith, Arkansas, as a guard. The party was to negotiate a new treaty with the federal government. The resulting Treaties of Washington of 1866, the reconstruction treaties, were designed to punish the Five Tribes for their alliance with the Confederacy.[14]
The year 1867 yielded one of the most important changes for the Muscogee Nation and it was a change that would leave lasting political divisions. Prior to 1867, the Muscogee Nation existed as a confederation or alliance of autonomous towns, each with tribal town chiefs. That year, a constitutional republic with an elected executive, a bicameral legislature, and a tiered court system was created.[15] The elected executive was vested in the office of Principal Chief, the bicameral legislature included a House of Kings (the upper house) and a House of Warriors (the lower house), and the court system included a High Court with six district courts.[16]
The first man to be elected to the office of Principal Chief was Samuel Checote. During the Civil War, he served in the 1st Creek Mounted Rifles, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel, which made him one of Pleasant Porter’s former superior officers.[17] After serving the treaty commission, Porter was tapped by Chief Checote as superintendent of schools for the Muscogee Nation in 1867. As previously discussed, the Muscogees understood the importance of education and Porter, as a product of a joint mission school, restored and expanded the public school system.[18]
It was the election of 1871 that saw the political divisions born of the 1867 constitution boil over in the Muscogee Nation. The two groups that rose out of the 1867 division were the Constitutionalists and the Traditionalists, which mirrored the old divisions that dated back to the Red Stick War of 1813-1814; those divisions being the Upper Creeks (traditionalist) and the Lower Creeks. The Constitutionalists believed the future of tribal sovereignty rested in the modernization of institutions to navigate the intricacies of dealing with the federal government.[19] It was to this faction which Pleasant Porter was an adherent. As Chief Checote attempted to convene the national council at Okmulgee in October of 1871, a Muscogee named Sands with around three hundred of his adherents marched on the capital. Porter was placed in command of the Light Horse Company and successfully put down the rebellion without bloodshed.[20] The constitution of 1867, in article IV, established the Light Horse Company as the militia of the Muscogee Nation, though it was grouped under the judiciary. The Lighthorsemen, as they were commonly known, were comprised of a captain and four privates from each of the six judicial districts.[21]
(Courtesy of the Oklahoma Historical Society)
Following the Sands Rebellion, Pleasant Porter made his first visit to Washington, D.C., as a representative of the Muscogee Nation in 1872; throughout his lifetime, he made over ten such diplomatic trips to the federal capital.[22] In 1875 Porter was elected to the House of Warriors. In time, he not only became a member of the House of Kings but presided over that body.[23] Porter served a total of four years in the House of Warriors and eight in the House of Kings during his lifetime.[24] The election of 1875, which propelled Porter to the Muscogee legislative bodies, also placed the traditionalist Lachar Harjo in the office of Principal Chief. Harjo was soon impeached by the National Council and removed from office. Ward Couchman, a constitutionalist, was appointed to fulfill the remainder of the chief’s term. Naturally angry over this, Harjo and his followers set out to overthrow the Muscogee government. Once again commanding the Lighthorsemen, it was Porter who quelled the uprising without bloodshed.[25]
Whilst in the service of the Muscogee Nation, Pleasant Porter also enjoyed personal success in business. He first operated a general store at Hillabee and then at Okmulgee, which he sold in 1869. Leaving Okmulgee, Porter built a home at Wealaka.[26] It was in cattle that Porter was most successful, capitalizing on the common ownership of land in the Muscogee Nation for grazing purposes. He helped to form the Muscogee and Seminole Livestock Association in 1884, which created roundup districts and facilitated the transport of cattle to Eastern markets.[27] Porter married Mary Ellen Keys on the 25th of November in 1872. She was the daughter of Riley Keys, a Cherokee Nation Chief Justice. Mary Ellen died in January of 1886, and Porter married Mattie Leonora Bertholf on 26th of May that same year. The Porter family later moved to Muskogee in 1889.[28] In Muskogee, Porter acquired a great deal of commercial property as the city grew into a rail shipping point.[29]
It was in the late 1870s that Pleasant Porter first became associated with Freemasonry. The Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory had formed in the fall of 1874 and now meeting at Eufaula was Muscogee Lodge No. 1, AF&AM. It was there in August of 1877 that Porter was made an Entered Apprentice, becoming a Master Mason in early 1878. He demitted from Muscogee Lodge to help with the forming of Checote Lodge at Muskogee, a lodge named in honor of Chief Samuel Checote. That lodge entered the roll of the Indian Territory lodges as Muskogee Lodge No. 28, AF&AM on the 6th of November, 1888.[30] Muscogee Lodge No. 1 at Eufaula changed its name to Eufaula Lodge No. 1 in 1889 to avoid any confusion.[31] Porter joined the York Rite at Muskogee, and was a charter member of Muskogee Chapter No. 3, Royal Arch Masons in 1890; Muskogee Council No. 2, Royal & Select Masters in 1894; and Muskogee Commandery No. 2, Knights Templar in 1892.[32] He was created a 32nd Degree Mason by Robert W. Hill at Muskogee on the 24th of June, 1889. No Scottish Rite Valley yet existed in the Indian Territory at the time, but Hill was serving as deputy for Sovereign Grand Commander Albert Pike and had the authority to create Scottish Rite Masons.[33] Historian Nicholas Rinehart describes Porter as a cultural broker, which he defines as a leader who bridges the cultural chasm separating two distinct political entities.[34] Freemasonry had long been used by the headmen of the Five Tribes to meet this aim and Porter understood the importance of the Masonic Lodge’s ability to bridge that chasm.
After the two rebellions that Pleasant Porter successfully quelled, one would have thought that the traditionalists would have given up the idea of overthrowing the Muscogee government. This proved not to be the case in 1880. That year, a Muscogee judge named Isparhecher openly rejected the 1867 constitution, which resulted in charges of sedition and his removal from the bench. Gathering arms and around three hundred adherents at a camp near Nuyaka, twelve miles west of the capital at Okmulgee, Isparhecher established a “quasi-government.”[35] In July of 1882, the Isparhecher faction was holding a council when two Lighthorsemen came upon then. The group was disarmed and one member arrested for “resisting an officer.” Leaving with their prisoner, the two Lighthorsemen were pursued by about thirty of Isparhecher’s men and killed.[36] Porter was called back from diplomatic business in Washington, D.C., to take command of a seven-hundred-man force to bring an end to what is now called the Green Peach War. In leading this force, Porter became known as General Porter. Isparhecher was chased into the Sac & Fox Nation, where he and his followers were ultimately disarmed by federal troops and moved to Fort Gibson; the point from which they were released.[37]
The end of the nineteenth century saw a federal Indian policy based on ending communal land holding and taking what the federal government viewed as unused land from Indian Nations for white settlement. This began with the Dawes General Allotment Act in 1887, though it exempted the Muscogee Nation.[38] The Land Run of 1889, held in April of that year, saw white settlers rush into what was then known as “The Unassigned Lands” to stake homestead claims. The Muscogees and the Seminoles had a legal claim to the area and in January of 1889, Pleasant Porter was part of the group that negotiated an agreement to release the land in exchange for $2,250,000.[39] The railroads, beginning with the MK&T in 1872, that ran through the Indian Territory brought white settlement with them, as the Indian Nations were required to grant the railroad a right of way. The census of 1890 shows that at least 44% of the population in the Muscogee Nation were listed as “Other races” as opposed to “Indian.”[40] For some tribal headmen, such as Porter, what loomed on the horizon was obvious.
Allotment came to the Muscogee Nation in 1893 with the creation of the Dawes Commission. The commission’s directive was to negotiate an agreement around allotment but was completely rebuffed.[41] The commission’s measure of success was “the wiping out of quasi-independent governments within our [the United States’] territorial limits.”[42] To counter the transfer of land ownership to individual title, Pleasant Porter unsuccessfully proposed that each Muscogee be limited to a pro-rated share of land without conversion to individual title. Whilst the commission was setting out to end tribal government, and being generally stonewalled, Porter first stood for election as Principal Chief of the Muscogee Nation in 1895. Unfortunately, the negotiations around land ownership cost Porter, as he lost to Isparhecher, whom he had opposed in the Green Peach War.[43] Frustrated with their inability to allot Five Tribes land, the Dawes Commission sought additional authority, which came via the Curtis Act in 1898. This allowed the commission to move forward with allotment without tribal consent. The act also said that tribal governments were to be dissolved in 1906.[44]
Standing for election again in 1899, Pleasant Porter was finally elevated to the office of Principal Chief of the Muscogee Nation.[45] This of course was during a period of forced allotment which, as evidenced by the previous election of the traditionalist Isparhecher, was not popular. Recognizing that allotment was inevitable, in an address before the National Council, Chief Porter said, “The vitality of our race still persists. We have not lived for naught.”[46] In an effort to negotiate the best terms possible for the Muscogee Nation, an agreement was finalized in 1901, with a supplement in 1902, that established a complex equalization formula to secure a fair distribution of allotments to all citizens.[47] These negotiations prompted one last traditionalist uprising, this time led by Chitto Harjo, who was also known as Crazy Snake. Dubbed the Crazy Snake Uprising, Harjo’s adherents established a government of their own at Hickory Ground, near Henryetta. As the Curtis act had also dissolved the tribal courts, Chief Porter had to appeal to the federal government to address the uprising. A posse organized by US Marshal, and prominent Freemason, Leo Bennett was initially unsuccessful in apprehending the rebels in late January of 1901. A troop of the 8th US Cavalry from Fort Reno was then dispatched to the area, but they ultimately were not needed as Deputy US Marshals arrested Harjo and others within a day.[48]
Pleasant Porter’s service to the Muscogee Nation saw him face four separate insurrections against the tribe’s constitutional form of government. With the Curtis Act set to dissolve tribal governments in 1906, Porter had one last foe to battle in his second term as Principal Chief, having been re-elected in 1903.[49] With the creation of the Oklahoma Territory, a statehood movement was born. In the summer of 1905, a call was put forth to form a separate statehood convention for the Indian Territory. The Sequoyah Convention, as it became known, convened on the 21st of August for the purpose of drafting a constitution for a new state to be formed from the Indian Territory. Porter, with his years of service and experience in Washington, D.C., was selected as the convention president.[50] It was generally understood that Oklahoma Territory was to be its own state, separate from the Indian Territory. During the Sequoyah Convention, Porter posited, “From time immemorial the Indians as a heritage of the original inhabitants have been promised a state, an empire of their own.”[51] Unfortunately, the state of Sequoyah, which should have been, was never realized; and the reasons were entirely political. Bills for Sequoyah statehood were filed in Congress, but that legislative body refused to hear them. There was simply no way that Republicans were going to admit a state into the union that was heavily Democratic. That directive came from the top down, with President Theodore Roosevelt, who had visited Muskogee in April of 1905, stating then, “Your territory, remember in conjunction with Oklahoma, will soon be one of the greatest states in the Union.”[52]
Whilst traveling with Judge John R. Thomas and Creek National Attorney M.L. Mott on tribal business in 1907, Pleasant Porter and his party stayed overnight in Vinita as it was necessary for them to change trains. It was there on the 2nd of September that Porter suffered a stroke, fell unconscious, and passed away the following day. It is said that his final words were “I’m not afraid to die.” Porter was laid to rest in the family cemetery at Wealaka.[53]
Speaking before the last session of the National Council held in 1906, Pleasant Porter remarked “My Nation is about to disappear.”[54] This may have seemed like a foregone conclusion, with the onslaught of attacks against tribal sovereignty that had been put forth by the federal government. However, time has proven Porter’s prediction to be incorrect. The Muscogee Nation stands today, as strong as it ever has, and this is due in part to men like General Pleasant Porter. The leadership and foresight that these cultural brokers possessed helped to lay a strong foundation, which subsequent generations have built on, and vigorously they have built.
