3rd Annual Arkansas Cherokee Nation Powwow

The 3rd Annual Arkansas Cherokee Nation Powwow is scheduled for September 11, 2010.  The event will be held at Pickles Gap Village located at 315 Hwy 65 N in Conway, AR.  In case of rain, the event will be moved to the new Faulkner Country Fairgrounds located off Hwy 64 E in Conway, AR.   More information will be posted in the future.

 

First Telephone In Indian Territory

Taken from the Indian – Pioneer Papers; Interview with Ed Hicks on April 9, 1932.

The Cherokee telephone company which placed in operation the first line in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, came into existence in 1886. A franchise authorizing the erection of the line was granted by the Cherokee National Council at Tahlequah in the autumn of 1885. Work was begun the following year and before its close the first telephone line was a reality, connecting Tahlequah with Fort Gibson in the Cherokee Nation, and with Muskogee in the Creek Nation.

Before the completion of the line much delay was experienced in communicating from Tahlequah with the Union Agency at Muskogee, and also with business men by other business men at the Cherokee capital. E.D. Hicks, a young business man of Tahlequah began thinking of the great convenience and value of more direct communication and suggested to a number of the leading men the convenience and feasibility of a telephone line. Much interest was aroused among those to whom he talked, with the result that a franchise was requested of the Cherokee National legislative bodies.

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Native American Contributions

American Indians who lived in the Northeast and the Great Lakes regions used cattails for food starting in about 2000 B.C. They also used them as medicine and as a source of cordage for making mats and baskets. Cattails were also used to make dolls and small figures used as toys. In addition they were used to make duck decoys.

Because cattails contain 10 times the amount of starch as that in an equal amount of potatoes, they provided a good source of food energy. Indians picked and peeled cattail shoots in the springtime and in the winter they dried the roots and pounded them into flour. They also used mashed roots for toothpastes.

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National Archives - Letters Received By the Office of Indian Affairs

The following is a letter which was address to John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War on March 23, 1824 from the Cherokee Nation in Arkansas.

Sirs,

As the country we have ceded to the United States under the Treaties of 1817 and 1819 is not of yet surveyed and as it is difficult to ascertain the quantity of the land from maps of the country, there appears now no other alternative but a speedy actual survey of the said country. Such a course we believe will mutually gratify the United States and the Cherokee and in this way only can justice be done to both parties.

We, therefore, request of the United States that measures may be taken as early as practicable to ascertain by a survey the precise quantity of the lands we have ceded in Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and North Carolina under the Treaties of 1817 and 1819 and we are calling you by the endeavoring name Father.

Amid the misfortunes of storms of sorrow which agitate the Cherokee bosom – amid the overwhelming troubles which the Cherokees of the Arkansas Territory have experienced, in their new settled country, it is a consoling reflection to them that they have a noble and magnanimous line toward the rising of the sun whose arm is mighty and who is ever ready to make the crooked straight.

Father, we earnestly solicit that your ears should be open, while represent our nation and relate the sad and unhappy fate of our people.  We regret to state that universal dissatisfaction and disgust prevails in the nation toward the proceeding of the Governor of the Arkansas Territory; agreeably to whose orders the boundary line was lately run between the United States and the Cherokees. It was understood by our delegation last winter that measuring would be taken as early as possible to have our just quantity of lands surveyed according to the Treaty of 1817 and 1819 and that the notice would be given to the Cherokees as to send commissioners to attend the survey; but to the astonishment of the Cherokees the United States survey commenced running the line before we had any notice of his intentions so to do and was thirteen days on the line before any notice was given to our nation.

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