By T.S. Akers
In describing the history of relations between American Indians and Euro-Americans one word comes to mind, exploitation. From the enslavement of native peoples to their displacement for desirable land in North America, like in most of the world, an exploitative attitude was the norm for Euro-Americans. In the twentieth century, this exploitation became an obsession with indigenous culture, which is perhaps amplified in Oklahoma. In time, all things Indian would become in vogue. On a visit to Washington, D.C., around 1904 Pleasant Porter, a Mason who was then serving as Principal Chief of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation, sat for a portrait. Additional care was taken to make the mixed-blood Muscogee look more Indian for the photograph. He was adorned with a mixture of regalia including a Plains headdress, an Eastern beaded bandolier, and wrapped in a blanket. The image was a far cry from Porter’s Civil War appearance, wearing a bowtie and plumed slouch hat. This brings us to Oklahoma, where the obsession with American Indian culture crosses into Freemasonry. In a 2024 social media post featuring the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team, the California Freemason magazine refers to the Native influence on Masonic life in Oklahoma and references Native American Freemasonry. This leads to the question, what is Native American Freemasonry?
Today, thirty-nine federally recognized Tribal Nations call Oklahoma home, due to actions taken by the government of the United States. The land that became Oklahoma was originally considered to be useless, but then it was discovered the region was rich in timber, coal, and oil. And with those discoveries came exploitation. Not one to mince words, historian Angie Debo in 1949 highlighted how the “systematic plundering of Five Tribes allottees” dominated the first twenty years of Oklahoma statehood. She added, “Historians have been inclined to pussyfoot in this field of Indian exploitation, but nobody who ignores it can understand Oklahoma…”[1] To be clear, the creation of the State of Oklahoma from the Twin Territories was an act of exploitation. Writing more recently in the volume A Promise Kept, Robbie Ethridge highlights how one objective of statehood, frequently stated in public, “was to secure and develop the Indian Territory for and by white Americans.”[2] As the twentieth century progressed, and the coveted resources passed from Native hands to those of Euro-Americans, the tone towards Indians shifted from exploitation to a cultural obsession. Perhaps the turning point was the “Indian Centennial” held at Muskogee in 1948. That year was selected as it commemorated the adoption of the Chickasaw constitution at Boiling Springs in October of 1848.[3] The overall theme of the centennial was “One Hundred Years of Progress.” Stagecoach robberies were reenacted, special Indian dances were held, and the entire city dressed “Western” for the occasion.[4] Around this time, Euro-Americans went from not only needing their Indians to look how they envisioned Indians to look, but they also needed to be Indian themselves. An item recently donated to the McAlester Scottish Rite Valley is a curious piece of leather that belonged Sovereign Grand Inspector General William S. Key. Dated the 17th of January 1954, the hide serves as a “certificate” bestowing the Indian name of Wah-Gah-So-Say upon Key by Joseph “Chief” Shunatona, a man who was not an Indian Chief but an Otoe musician.[5] The honor was in recognition of Key’s service as a general in the US Army and his service to Masonry.
The Key certificate certainly shows a Native interest in Freemasonry, but it fails in defining what Native American Freemasonry is. If we move to the pre-removal period, we encounter a handful of Indigenous men associated with Freemasonry. Noted as the first Indian to be initiated into Freemasonry, Joseph Brant received the degrees in 1776, shortly after his conversion to Christianity in the Anglican Church. A Mohawk, Brant had risen to prominence in the Iroquois Confederacy. He ultimately remained loyal to the Crown; Brant’s sister Molly was the wife of Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs in New York. On the frontier of New York, Brant led a group of partisans against the American rebels. In discussing Brant, Joy Porter notes that his Freemasonry was “very obviously a symptom of the British Empire’s influence on his life.”[6] In the South, another early Indian Freemason was the mixed-blood Muscogee Alexander McGillivray, the son of a Scotsman. Sometimes noted as a chief, McGillivray was in reality a spokesman for the loosely unified Creek Confederacy.[7] He joined Freemasonry later in life after retiring to Pensacola.[8] There is also William Augustus Bowles, a contemporary of McGillivray, who styled himself as Director General of the short-lived State of Muskogee in northern Florida. Bowles was a white man who had two wives, one Cherokee, the other a daughter of a Hitchiti Muscogee meko or chief. It was through his Muscogee marriage that Bowles ingratiated himself with some Creeks.[9] In the latter half of the nineteenth century, this would have qualified Bowles for tribal citizenship. He became a Mason in the Bahamas in 1786.[10] After visiting Prince of Wales Lodge No. 259 of London in 1790, Bowles was appointed “Provincial Grand Master” for the Indian tribes of the Southeast.[11] In reality, his jurisdiction lacked any lodges. The three men mentioned above never saw what would become the Indian Territory west of the Mississippi. However, John Ross of the Cherokee Nation did. Ross was made a Mason in Olive Branch Lodge No. 53 of Jasper, Tennessee, in 1827.[12] Ross, also the son of a Scotsman, served as Principal Chief of the Cherokees from 1828 to 1866.[13] Ross’ tenure as chief would see what we know today as the Five Tribes removed from their homes in the Southeast. It is during this post-removal period that Freemasonry began to take hold among the Five Tribes.
It was the U.S. Army that marked the arrival of Freemasonry in what would soon become the Indian Territory. The region was originally home to the Caddo, Osage, and Wichita Nations. Cherokees who had voluntarily migrated to Arkansas in 1812 would periodically cross into Osage country to hunt, leading to an ongoing feud between the two tribes. This caused Colonel Matthew Arbuckle to move his 7th US Infantry Regiment west from Fort Smith in 1824 to establish a post at the confluence of the Grand and Arkansas Rivers, to maintain peace on the frontier.[14] Arbuckle dubbed the new post Fort Gibson, in honor of Commissary General George Gibson, a veteran of the War of 1812. At the time of its establishment, the post was essentially the end of the Earth.[15] Whilst Arbuckle was a Freemason, he never proceeded to establish a lodge connected to the post; but he certainly brought the ideals of the Fraternity with him.[16] As the seat of the federal government in the northern part of the Indian Territory, the post also came to play an integral role in the affairs of the Five Tribes. This resulted in Fort Gibson having the largest garrison of any American military post.[17] The first full scale emigration of the Five Tribes occurred in 1827 when roughly 700 Creeks led by Chilly McIntosh made their way west in the wake of the Treaty of Indian Springs.[18] The Western or Old Settler Cherokees were removed from Arkansas the following year.[19] The subsequent Indian Removal Act of 1830 is estimated to have resulted in over 58,000 members of the Five Tribes either emigrating or being forcibly removed to the Indian Territory. As the population density increased around Fort Gibson, it was in the area around the post that Freemasonry first began to take hold in the region.
The Cherokee Nation saw the first Masonic Lodge to be established in the Indian Territory. The 1839 Act of Union had brought together the Western Cherokees, formerly of Arkansas, and the recently removed Cherokees as the Cherokee Nation, establishing their capital at Tahlequah.[20] The lodge was duly chartered by the Grand Lodge of Arkansas as Cherokee Lodge No. 21, located in the new tribal capital, on the 8th of November 1848. With the physical charter in hand, the lodge’s first officers were installed by a representative from Arkansas in the Cherokee Supreme Court Building on the 12th of July 1849. By 1851, the lodge membership at Tahlequah had grown to twenty-eight Masons.[21] Additional Lodges, with primarily indigenous membership, that were chartered included Choctaw Lodge No. 52 at Doaksville in the Choctaw Nation, Flint Lodge No. 74 at the Flint Court House in the Cherokee Nation, and Muscogee Lodge No. 93 at the Creek Agency in the Creek Nation. A lodge was also chartered at Fort Gibson, known as Fort Gibson Lodge No. 35, in 1850. Unlike the other lodges in the region, this lodge was composed of soldiers and merchants associated with the post; the charter Worshipful Master was Captain William Chapman of the 5th US Infantry Regiment. [22] And there were some lodges on the Arkansas border which counted Indians amongst their membership, such as Northwestern Lodge No. 36 at Maysville where the Cherokee Stand Watie was a Mason.[23] In the handful of settlements across the Indian Territory that were home to a lodge, Freemasonry quickly became part of the community fabric. At Tahlequah, the Cherokee National Council granted Cherokee Lodge No. 21 land for a lodge hall in 1852. Within a year the Masons there had erected a two-story wood frame structure that was shared with the Sons of Temperance. The lodge hall became a center of civic activity and was used for a variety of purposes including schooling and church meetings.[24] With Freemasonry gaining a foothold in the Indian Territory, two questions arise. Who joined the Fraternity and why?
In 2009 the Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma published the volume Indians, Cowboys, Cornerstones, and Charities to commemorate its one hundredth year of existence. The value of the volume lies in its appendices. One of those, titled “Of More Than Common Fame,” is an accounting of individuals of note who were Freemasons in what is now the jurisdiction of Oklahoma. Included here are names of pioneers of statehood that one might expect to find. Also included are the names of several Indians of note. On the last page is a curious name, with an image of the man in question. The volume states, though not spelled correctly, that Opothleyahola was a Freemason and “Chief of the Creek Nation during the Civil War.”[25] Whilst the turbaned and plumed visage of Opothleyahola may paint a wonderful image of what Native American Freemasonry could be, there is no primary source that shows the tribal headman to have been a Freemason. There are also reasons why Opothleyahola probably was not a Mason and it is important to understand those. Though he was of mixed-blood descent, Opothleyahola was of the traditionalist Upper Creek faction who opposed the overall adoption of European culture. This ideal arose from his full-blood mother and his association with her clan, for Muscogee society is matrilineal. Opothleyahola spoke no English and never adopted western dress. He did own slaves, but as the American Civil War began, he bitterly opposed Indian involvement. After the Muscogee Nation aligned itself with the Confederacy, Opothleyahola fled to Kansas with those Muscogees loyal to the Union, where he died in 1863.[26] By the removal period, tribal politics had come to be dominated by mixed-blood Indians open to adopting European ways, including Christianity, and those are the men who were becoming Freemasons. It was on a diplomatic visit to Washington, DC, that the Cherokee William P. Ross was made a Freemason at Federal Lodge No. 1 in 1848.[27] The Choctaw Peter Pitchlynn also became a Freemason in Washington, DC, and both he and Ross became Royal Arch Masons there.[28] In the Muscogee Nation, George W. Stidham entered Freemasonry on tribal business in Washington, D.C.[29] The Muscogee Daniel N. McIntosh joined the Baptist church in the late 1840s and became a Baptist minister shortly thereafter.[30] He was also counted among the members of Muscogee Lodge No. 93.[31] The tribal headmen noted here who were Freemasons were all of Scottish descent. In knowing who was joining Freemasonry, we can then determine their motivation for doing so.
From 1883 to 1901, Edmond H. Doyle served as Grand Master of Masons, Grand High Priest, Illustrious Grand Master, Grand Commander, and Deputy for the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in the Indian Territory.[32] Doyle, a resident of McAlester, was a white man and often told a story of meeting a non-English speaking Choctaw during a storm in the dark of night. Seeking shelter from the storm, Doyle gave a sign which the Choctaw recognized and greeted him with hospitality. Doyle referred to this as Choctaw “Horse Masonry,” which he states included signs and grips.[33] In 1888 Rudyard Kipling published his story "The Man Who Would Be King," which followed the lives of two English loafers who ventured into the fictional Kafiristan. There the pair discovered a form of Freemasonry was being practiced, receiving the grip of a Fellowcraft from a tribal chief. The similarities between Doyle and Kipling’s tales are striking. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, comparisons of American Indian culture to Freemasonry began to proliferate. An early example of this relates to the Grand Medicine Society of the Anishinaabe people, which featured four degrees. A more recent example attempts to connect the Ghost Dance of the late nineteenth century with Freemasonry around ritual resurrection.[34] The latter comparison fails to understand the Ghost Dance, a practice that originated in 1889 to bring back the spirits of the dead to help end American Westward expansion.[35] In Oklahoma in 1922, it was claimed that a fraternity of “Indian Blood Brothers” existed, consisting of “Indians old and young, from many different tribes,” with ceremonies featuring a stone altar bearing the Square and Compasses.[36] All of these comparisons have been put forth as reasons why Indians may have been interested in Freemasonry, seeing in it something familiar. The problem here is, the only Indians joining Freemasonry in any number in the nineteenth century were the men of the Five Tribes. Grouping various indigenous cultures under one umbrella is Pan-Indianism and that simply did not exist at the time. In his American Indian Freemasonry of 1919, Arthur C. Parker remarked on the claimed similarities found between Freemasonry and American Indian culture stating:
The Masonry of the Indians as builders and as philosophers dealing with moral truths grew out of their experiences with nature and with the actions of humankind. The wise men of the tribes knew that a band of men pledged to uphold morality and to enact rituals showing its advantages would constitute a dynamic influence.[37]
To begin to understand why the headmen of the Five Tribes became involved with Freemasonry, it is important to understand what the fraternity could do. Joy Porter takes note of this in the volume Native American Freemasonry, stating “Freemasonry universalized the religious ethic of brotherliness, creating potential for community to become global, interdenominational, and cross-racial.[38] She later adds, “What reciprocity there was in an industrializing world increasingly bereft of such quid quo pro was found in Masonry and other fraternal associations.”[39] The ability to make connections is apparent with the numerous headmen who were made Freemasons whilst on tribal business in Washington, D.C. In the Indian Territory, the connections to be made were with army officers, government officials, and missionaries; with Masons spread across these three groups. The precursor for Masonic initiation of tribal headmen was typically conversion to Christianity. As previously noted, this became common in the first half of the nineteenth century. Missionaries who were Freemasons in the Indian Territory included the Methodist Thomas Bertholf at Cherokee Lodge No. 21, the Baptist Henry F. Buckner at Muscogee Lodge No. 93, and the Presbyterian Cyrus Kingsbury at Choctaw Lodge No. 52.[40] It is possible that introductions to Freemasonry were made by these missionaries. With the connections made through the fraternity, the headmen of the Five Tribes were seeking another avenue to aid in preserving their tribal existence. Often, the men who were either in a position to provide for the needs of the Five Tribes or influence legislation were Freemasons, men such as Albert Pike. An attorney, Pike spent time exploring the Southwest before settling in Arkansas, where he took the degrees of Freemasonry in 1850. Having passed through the Indian Territory, Pike may have become acquainted with the Five Tribes, which led them to seek him out to settle a land claim against the federal government. Pike prevailed in his efforts, securing $800,000 for the Choctaws and Chickasaws and another $1,000,000 for the Muscogess in 1856.[41] When the federal government withdrew from the Indian Territory in the spring of 1861, it was Pike who was sent by the Confederacy to negotiate treaties of alliance with the Five Tribes, as he already had rapport with the headmen.[42] By 1862, Pike had been commissioned a Brigadier General, and placed in command of the Confederate Indian Brigade.[43] His command included a number of Indian Freemasons among the field officers. Pike’s tenure as a combat general would be brief, resigning later in the year.[44] The resignation was prompted by two reasons: one, Pike had been ordered to move his Indian Brigade outside of the Indian Territory, which violated the treaties he had negotiated; and two, Pike’s command suffered from a serious lack of material, as it was not a Confederate priority.[45] The Civil War would not only change the Indian Territory, it also had an impact on Freemasonry in the region.
For the Indian Territory, the American Civil War was particularly devastating owing to the guerrilla tactics employed by both sides. As the federal army began to occupy the region in force, raiding became the norm, which often resulted in reprisals. Not only were homes and churches burned, but in some cases entire towns, resulting in a large refugee population along the Red River and further south into Texas. Freemasonry was not spared from the violence and Masonic activity in the Indian Territory ceased. The property of many of the lodges operating in the region, including Arkansas, was lost. Northwestern Lodge No. 36 at Maysville, a town on the territorial border, was burned to the ground by the federal army. [46] The physical charters of most of the Indian Territory lodges were lost during the hostilities, save for Flint Lodge No. 74 and Muscogee Lodge No. 93. To get Freemasonry back on track, the Grand Lodge of Arkansas issued a notice to all the lodges in default, which included the lodges of the Indian Territory as they had failed to make any returns or dues payments during the War, requiring they make said returns by the 1st of June 1866. Flint Lodge did respond to the notice, reporting they only had four members left, and obtained permission to move their lodge to Wilsonville, Arkansas in 1867.[47] Cherokee Lodge No. 21 also responded to the notice, indicating how few members they had in the area, and requested more time to locate others.[48] The request by Cherokee Lodge was ultimately denied and the Grand Lodge of Arkansas suspended their charter, along with charters of Fort Gibson, Choctaw, and Muscogee Lodges in 1867.[49] The membership of Cherokee Lodge attempted again in 1870 to have their charter reinstated, but the request was denied, with the reason being the lodge had been declared dead and its number given to another lodge. Cherokee Lodge Historian George W. Moser speculated that the true reason for the denial was owing to large factions of Cherokees supporting the Union during the Civil War.[50] Whilst this brought an end to Masonic activity at Tahlequah for the time being, the fate of Muscogee Lodge was different. That lodge’s charter also survived the War and it is possible that those Brethren resumed Masonic activity immediately following the hostilities, though they were no longer meeting at the Creek Agency, which had been abandoned during the War. By 1874 Muscogee Lodge had reconvened in Eufaula. That year, the lodge settled its $90 debt for dues in arrears to the Grand Lodge of Arkansas for $80 to ensure its regularity. Muscogee’s lodge number had also been given to another lodge, but that did not stop a new charter from being issued as Lodge No. 90.[51] The first sanctioned Masonic activity to occur in the Indian Territory after the Civil War was the chartering of Oklahoma Lodge No. 217 at Boggy Depot, Choctaw Nation, in 1868 by the Grand Lodge of Arkansas.[52]
Following the American Civil War, the Reconstruction Treaties of 1866 greatly impacted the Indian Territory. Notably, these treaties punished the Five Tribes by reducing their land holdings due to aligning themselves with the Confederacy. This ultimately led to the settlement of former Indian land by Euro-Americans and later the creation of the State of Oklahoma. The Reconstruction Treaties also required the Five Tribes to grant a right of way through their territory for the construction of a railroad.[53] Being the first to reach the Kansas border at a point in the Neosho Valley in 1870, the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company was granted the exclusive right to cross the Indian Territory. Known as the Katy Railway, the company’s line reached the Red River by the end of 1872.[54] Towns quickly sprang up along the rail line, with the right of way allowing for Euro-Americans to begin settling in the Indian Territory. The Oklahoma Masonic luminary Joseph S. Murrow remarked on this, stating, “There is a class of reckless white adventurers in this Territory. Some of these have perhaps been Masons somewhere, perhaps expelled, at best irregular and unreliable.”[55] This tension is highlighted in a letter to Chief Samuel Checote from Chief Justice George W. Stidham, both Masons and officials of the Muscogee Nation. Stidham took umbrage with the actions of “would-be leaders (white citizens) of Muskogee” concerning the construction of a rail line from Muskogee to Fort Smith. Of the situation, Stidham said, “Such a high-handed measure by United States citizens within our limits should not be allowed to pass unnoticed.”[56] This influx of Euro-Americans can also be seen in lodge membership after the Civil War. In reviewing the available membership rosters of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory from 1875 to 1882, an accounting of the membership composition can be made by comparing the surnames with those that appeared on the Dawes Rolls that the federal government began to compile in 1898. Average individual lodge membership during this period was around 24 Masons. The first four lodges on the roll of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory, unsurprisingly, have a membership that is on average 90% indigenous. Excluding Flint and Cherokee Lodges, which between the two were 80% indigenous, the indigenous membership of the lodges established from 1874 onward drops to an average of 52%. The formation of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory itself in 1874 highlights the changing character of Freemasonry in the region. Euro-Americans quickly came to dominate the fraternity, men such as Granville McPherson of Caddo, the first Grand Master of Masons.[57]
In the end, this pursuit of Native American Freemasonry has returned a simple conclusion, there is no Native American Freemasonry as the institution is European in origin. Perhaps one could point to Mother Kilwinning Lodge of Scotland to confirm this, which has long been claimed to be the oldest Masonic lodge, attributing its origins to the twelfth century. But Americans, and Freemasons, enjoy their lore and the idea of Native American Freemasonry truly falls under that heading. In examining the Indian Territory, Freemasonry was primarily associated with those of mixed-blood descent. Of the estimated 58,000 Indians removed to the territory, there were only around 150 Freemasons by the establishment of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory in 1874, and a fair amount of those men were Euro-American. Other societies of course formed amongst the Indian Nations in what is today Oklahoma, particularly around fighting allotment, but to say these were influenced by Masonry is a stretch. And then there is the case of the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team. They are fine ambassadors of Freemasonry in Oklahoma, but they are more detached from the Freemasonry of the Indian Territory than anyone wants to admit. The ritual exemplified by the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team today is simply not the ritual practiced in the nineteenth century. Thomas Webb first published his Masonic ritual monitor in 1797 and the jurisdiction of Oklahoma adopted a version of that in 1910.[58] The Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory never adopted or published a monitorial ritual working. When they addressed the question of ritual in 1891, the Masonic ritual being practiced in the territory could vary from one lodge to the next. The committee charged with codifying the ritual likely ended up agreeing on what they believed were the best ritual workings from the variations being practiced.[59] In considering the regalia worn by the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team, it too is far from the attire that would have been found in the Indian Territory. The team’s ribbon shirts and Fancy Dance regalia are also part of the twentieth century Pan-Indian movement. The Fancy Dance itself was created in Oklahoma in the 1920s.[60] Indians everywhere are keenly aware that their culture is often viewed as exotic and popular with Euro-Americans. A visit to the plaza at Santa Fe, where Indians have their wares spread out for sale on blankets illustrates this well. This view of all things Indian as exotic is further highlighted by a video of the Oklahoma Masonic Indian Degree Team dancing on Facebook that has had over 3,000 views. The team’s real connection to the Freemasonry of the Indian Territory lies in its members and the lodges of the original territorial jurisdiction they may belong to.
