Intruders in the Chickasaw Nation

The word intruder conjures up many images in the mind.  What exactly was an Intruder in the Chickasaw Nation? 

The dictionary defines intruder as “to thrust of bring in without reason; to thrust oneself without permission”.

 In the Chickasaw and Choctaw Nations, only members of these two tribes could live on their land.  If you were not a member of these two tribes then you were an intruder.

 It made no difference if one was Cherokee, Osage, Delaware, black, white, Mexican or Chinese, you were an intruder with only the tribal freedmen being the exception.

 There were good and bad intruders.  The bad intruders were the whiskey peddlers, conmen, rustlers, murders and robbers.  These were not wanted and every effort was exerted to eradicate them by legal means if possible.  The case most often is that they were killed before the formal administration of justice.

 The good intruders were the whites that were merchants, freighters, wheelwrights, blacksmiths, teachers, missionaries and doctors.

 From 1837, when the tribes became a sovereign nation in Indian Territory, white men wanted to enter the Nations to do business.  At first there were only a few of these intruders and this posed little problem for the tribes.  As time passed, the tribes began issuing annual permits for these intruders.

 The Chickasaws adopted the Choctaw permit system when it became a separate nation in 1856 with a new constitution.  Cyrus Harris pushed heartily for the rapid expansion of educational and vocational training facilities for the young people.  Until such time as these young people could be trained, the tribes would have to rely on the white intruders and their expertise.

The Chickasaws wanted the white men among them as they always brought business activity and that stimulated the local economies of the Chickasaws.

The white intruders who came in built cotton gins, gristmills, saw mills, sorghum mills and purchased the produce of the Chickasaw farmers and ranchers.

These merchants who were mostly white intruders imported goods such as farm implements, clothing, shoes, coffee, sugar, flour and food stuffs that increased the standard of living in the Nations.

In 1876, the Chickasaw Legislature passed an act which permitted white men to rent land or otherwise be employed by a citizen and pay an annual permit fee of $5 per year. 

This amount was small enough so as not to create an undue burden on the farmers but did help the Chickasaw treasury considerably.  For those not familiar with this type of arrangement of farming, it was known as sharecropping.

Normally the Indian citizen who often had as many 15 to 20 white farmers would pay the annual permit.  The point to remember here is that at this time, a citizen could farm as much land as he could successfully handle.  Also the land was farmed with a team of mules or oxen and a forty-acre farm was considered very large for one man.  Many of the Chickasaws became very wealthy using this practice.

Licensed traders and merchants, non-citizens, were required to pay an annual ad valorum tax on their stocks in addition to the annual fee.

Physicians were required to obtain a permit from the governor and pay a $5 annual permit fee.  Mechanics and farm laborers paid the $5 annual fee but should they desire to stay in the Nations for only a short time, they could pay a fifty-cent monthly permit fee.

In 1898 the Chickasaw Legislature passed an act that imposed an annual head tax of $1 for all adult non-citizen males 18 years of age.  If a non-citizen owned horses, jacks, jennets, mules or cattle, he was obliged to pay an annual fee of 25 cents per head.

Up to this point, the large cattle ranchers were required to pay an annual permit fee of $50 and 10 cents per head grazing fee.  The tax rate was increased by 150% and caused many large ranchers to move to the Cheyenne-Arapaho and Comanche-Kiowa reservations in the Leased Lands where the old fee of 10 cents was still in effect.

Keeping in mind that a steer at this time brought about $8 to $10 per head, the rancher could loose one quarter of his herd annually to the new taxes.  One can see that a herd of cattle that numbered 15,000 to 20,000 could cost nearly $5,000.  Little wonder they moved out of the country.

But this created a new problem.  A white man who paid these annual fees could marry a Chickasaw woman and become a citizen by marriage thus eliminating the fees.  Many of the intruders married Chickasaw women and divorced or left them upon becoming citizens. 

Governor Harris was at his wits end on how to stop this practice and even went so far as to propose the banning of divorce in the Nation.  Governor Byrd went a step further and changed the fee for a marriage license between a citizen and non-citizen from $50 to $1050.  That fee is quite steep for a man making $25 a month.  Also it was thought that the $1050 marriage liscense fee would greatly exceed the value of the allotment of the Chickasaw bride, thus eliminating the idea of getting free land

The intruders who became citizens became a driving economic force in the Nations.  As the white intermarried citizens became wealthier they exerted more political influence in the legislatures and few forgot their own economic schemes.

J.J. McAlester is a prime example of the white intermarried citizen who became wealthy through his dealing with the Choctaw Nation.

After the Civil War, McAlester established a freighting business between Ft. Smith and Ft. Gibson.  He later established a trading store where the town of McAlester now stands.

As his business took him through the future counties of Pittsburgh, Latimer, Coal and LeFlore, he noticed the black outcroppings of coal everywhere.  The Choctaw knew of the black stone but thought it had no particular value.

Through his marriage with a Chickasaw woman, McAlester was able to secure a contract for literally thousands upon thousands of acres of coal land and made a fortune.  He imported hundreds of white coal miners from the East, which he paid the annual $5 permit.

The white intruders acquired vast holdings in timber and other mining activities of the Nations importing more white workers.  These workers married Chickasaw and Choctaw women and became citizens.

In a few years, the white men had acquired a dominating influence into tribal affairs and the governors and legislatures became subservient to these wealthy interest.

The white intruders of the 1860’s who were few in number were now in control of mining, logging, farming, ranching, freighting and they owned the towns and the railroads.

Although the white men could not own the land where businesses were located, the tribes had become so dependent on their goods and services that they were now helpless without them.

Submitted by Dennis Muncrief - June, 2003