Anadarko Area Office

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Overview of Native American Research
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Records Relating to Native American Research in Oklahoma
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This article originally appeared in "Native American Research" by Curt B. Witcher, MLS, FUGA, FIGS, and George J. Nixon in The Source: A Guidebook to American Genealogy

The Anadarko Area Office, established in 1948, is essential­ly a continuation of the Kiowa Agency, which was created in 1864 and permanently located in Indian Ter­rito­ry in 1869.<ref>Hill, Guide to Records in the National Archives, 6, 148.</ref>

Located at Anadarko, Oklahoma, the Anadarko Area Office adminis­ters Bureau of Indian Affairs programs for the regions of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri and is responsible for the following agencies in Oklaho­ma: Anadarko, Concho, Pawnee, Shawnee, Concho Indian School, Riverside Indian School, Fort Sill Maintenance and Security Detachment, and the Chilocco Maintenance and Security Detachment.

The records, 1881'1952, include general correspondence and correspondence concerning lands, heirship, town sites, and schools; accounts and case files for individual Indians; land transactions files; annuity payrolls; annual reports; student records; and records of employees.<ref>Klein, Reference Encyclopedia of the American Indian, 91.</ref>

Contents

Anadarko Agency

The Anadarko Agency, located at Anadarko, Oklahoma, has jurisdiction over the Apache, Kiowa, Comanche, Caddo, Delaware, and Wichita tribes.<ref>Ibid.</ref>

Apache

The Apaches of Oklahoma are also called the Prairie Apache, a name applied to them through error on the assumption that they were the same as the Apache people of Arizona. They have no political connection with the Apache tribes of the Southwest, however. They came from the north as a component part of the Kiowa. More recent authorities, however, believe that the Apaches did divide somewhere in Montana, with the main body going southward on the west side of the mountains and a smaller body going northward to become allied on the east side of the mountains with the Kiowas. Whichever theory is correct, the Apaches have a distinct language and call themselves Nadishdewa, or 'our people.' The Pawnees and early French explorers and settlers called them Gattacka or Gataka, and these names appeared on the first treaty they signed with the United States.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 213.</ref>

Caddo

The Caddos were first known to have been in the Louisiana Territory and were referred to in the chronicles of the DeSoto expedition in 1541. Soon after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory, a peace treaty was made in which the Caddos ceded all their Louisiana lands and agreed to move to the Indian Territory, settling on the Washita River in what is now Caddo County. The present Caddo tribe also includes remnants of the Anadarko tribe.<ref>Ibid., 214.</ref>

Comanche

The Comanches were one of the southern tribes of the Shoshon­ean stock and the only one to live entirely on the Plains. They are a comparatively recent offshoot of the Shoshonis of Wyoming and, until recently, kept in continual friendly communication with them.

For nearly two centuries they were at war with the Spaniards in Mexico and raided Mexican settlements as far south as Durango and Zacatecas. Generally friendly to the Americans, they were bitter enemies of the Texans, who had dispossessed them of their best hunting grounds, and they waged relentless war against them for almost forty years. Around 1795, they became close confederates of the Kiowas and also allied themselves with the Apaches.

Several treaties were consummated between the United States and the Comanche Tribe between 1834 and 1875. In the Treaty of Medicine Lodge in 1867, the Comanche, Apache, and Kiowa tribes were assigned a tract of land in Oklahoma, which they still share.<ref>Ibid., 222.</ref>

Delaware

The Delawares call themselves Lenape, meaning 'real men,' or Leni Lenape, meaning 'men of our nation.' The English name Delaware was given to the tribe from the Delaware River, the valley which was the tribal center in earliest colonial times. The valley extends from southeastern New York into Pennsylvania through New Jersey and Delaware. The early traditional history of the Delaware is contained in the nation legend, the Walam Olum.

The Delawares were once one of the larger tribes of the eastern woodland people. Gradually, they moved west and were located in at least ten different states during this migration. At present, two groups of Delawares live in Oklahoma. The main part of the tribe, known as Registered Delaware, came from their reservation in Kansas in 1867 and settled with the Cherokees and were allotted land with them. The other group, still a district Delaware tribe, was associated with the Caddo and Wichita tribes in Texas and came to the Washita River in Indian Territory in 1859. A number of Delaware moved and associated with other tribes in the north and northwestern country. Approx­imately 750 Delawares are called Absentee Delawares.<ref>Ibid.</ref>

Fort Sill Apache

The Fort Sill Apaches are composed of members of the Warm Springs Band of Apache and the Chiricahua Apache. This small group of Indians is often referred to as Chief Geronimo's Band of Apache. According to older members of this group, Victorio, chief of the Apache, led a group of forty warriors in protesting the tribe's being moved from their New Mexico reserv­ation to one located at San Carlos, Arizona. Upon Victorio's death at the hands of a band of Mexicans in Chihuahua, Mexico, Geronimo assumed leadership of the group. He carried on warfare until August 1886, when Gen. Nelson A. Miles forced him to surrender. Geronimo and all of his band were taken as prison­ers of war to Fort Marion, Florida, near St. Augustine.

Because of many deaths and much sickness in the tribe, the government removed them to Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, where they were kept prisoner for seven years. On 4 October 1894, Geronimo and the remnants of his band, then about 296 in all, were moved from Alabama to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. They remained at the Fort Sill Military Reservation as nominal prisoners of war until 1913, when the government arranged to allot an eighty-acre tract of land to each member who desired to remain in Oklahoma. Those who wished to move to the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico could do so, and only eighty-seven stayed in Oklahoma and were given allotments of land in or near what is now the town of Apache.<ref>Ibid., 223-34.</ref>

Kiowa

The Kiowa are believed to have migrated from the mountain regions at the source of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers in what is now western Montana. According to tradition, they left this region because of a dispute with another tribe over hunting spoils and moved to the Black Hills in present-day South Dakota. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the Kiowa were driven south by the Sioux, finally settling in the area of present western Oklahoma and the panhandle of north Texas and west into part of New Mexico.

Early in their history, they formed an alliance with a small band of Apache which continues today in Oklahoma. In 1790, having made peace with their one-time enemies, the Comanches, they established control of the area from the Arkansas River to the headwaters of the Red River, and the two tribes became masters of the southern Plains. This alliance appears to be the basis for both the Kiowa-Apache-Comanche alliance of today and also the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation in Oklahoma, where the two tribes were settled by the United States. In 1840, the Kiowas made a permanent peace with the Cheyenne and their allies, the Arapahos, and became friendly with the Wichitas.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Kiowas continually resisted white immigration along the overland trails. With the Comanche, they attacked Texas frontier settlements, extending their raids far south into Mexico. Treaties with the U.S. government beginning in 1837 had little effect, and the tribe continued fighting. After the Battle of Washita in 1868, the Kiowas, Apaches, and Comanches were forced onto a reservation near Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Their defiance continued, however, and only military defeat and the disappearance of the buffalo ended their resis­tance.<ref>Ibid., 227.</ref>

The treaty of Medicine Lodge Creek, Kansas (15 Stat., 581 and 15 Stat., 589), concluded on 21 October 1868 between the United States and the Kiowas, Comanche, and Kiowa-Apache, provided for a reservation in Indian Territory to be located between the Washita and Red rivers. This was a modification and reduction of a reservation established by a treaty of 18 October 1865 (Stat. L, xiv, 717) with the Comanche and Kiowa.

In 1868, an agent was sent to Indian Territory to bring together the Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches who wished to abide by their treaty commitments. Progress was made, and the following year, a new agent arrived at the agency headquarters near Fort Sill. When he assumed control on 1 July 1869, he found himself in charge of the Wichita Agency as well. That agency had been established in July 1859 on the south side of the Washita River near Sugar Creek in an area long claimed by the Wichita. The agency served the Kiowa, Caddo, and Kichai. Later Waco, Tawakoni, Anadarko, Ionie (Hainai), Tonkawa, and some Penateka Comanche, Delaware, and Shawnee groups became part of this agency. During a brief interval in the 1870s, some of the Pawnees from Nebraska made their home at this agency before moving to their new reservation.

In 1870, the agency, properly called the Caddo, Wichita, and Affiliated Bands Agency, became independent. Although some of the tribes had long resided in the region, it was not until 19 October 1872 that an agreement (never ratified) established a reservation for Wichitas and affiliated bands between the Washita and Canadian rivers, northeast and adjacent to the Kiowa, Coman­che, and Apache reservation.

In the decade following 1868, the Kiowa-Comanche Agency remained in operation near Fort Sill. On 1 September 1878, that agency and the Wichita Agency were again consolidated. At that time, instructions were given to move the agency from Fort Sill to the Wichita Agency near the present town of Anadarko. The office at Fort Sill served as a subagency for a number of years.

In 1894, Geronimo and a group of Chiricahua Apache prisoners of war who had formerly been at Fort Marion, Florida, and Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, were brought to Fort Sill. In 1913, eighty-seven of them elected to remain in Oklahoma rather than return to the Mescalero Apache reservation in New Mexico. They were allotted land near the town of Apache.

The allotment of the Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches was comp­leted in 1901 after several years of their attempting to prevent the dissolution of their reservation and eventual use of surplus land for white settlement. The Wichita and other tribes of the original Wichita agency group were allotted lands before 6 August 1901, when their surplus lands as well as those of the Kiowas, Comanches, and Apaches were opened for white settlement.<ref>Records of the Kiowa Agency, introduction, reel KA-1 (Indian Archives Division, Oklahoma Historical Society).</ref>

Wichita

Tradition indicates that the Wichita tribe migrated south­ward from the north and east. In 1850, the Wichitas had moved from near the Red River into the Wichita Mountains region, with their main village a short distance from what is now Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In 1859, the Wichita moved to a permanent site south of the Canadian River near the present Caddo-Grady county line. A reservation consisting of 743,610 acres and known as the Wichita-Caddo Reservation was established in 1872.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 242.</ref>

Kiowa Agency Records<ref>Notes and Documents, vol. 60, part 3, 351-55.</ref>

Census Records

Letters sent and received, 1872'1920; undated census lists, worksheets, and miscellaneous undated census lists; census lists for the Apache, Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita, Waco, Tawakoni, Caddo, Kichai, and Delaware, 1869'1922.

Letterpress Books, 1869'1900

Federal Relations

Letters Sent and Received, 1864'1933.

Federal, State, and Local Court Relations, 1865'1925

Foreign Relations

Letters Sent and Received, 1866'1929.

Military Relations and Affairs, 1869'1925

Indian History, Culture, and Acculturation, 1860'1926

Concho Agency'Cheyenne and Arapaho

The earliest known evidence of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes dates from 1600 and places the Arapaho east of the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Minnesota and the Cheyenne in southwestern and northern Minne­sota. The two tribes have long been associated, having wandered in the same direction and fought jointly for defense, yet they were separate tribes and were politically independent. With the westward push of settlers, the Cheyenne and Arapaho moved west and adopted a lifestyle that evolved into the culture of the Plains Indians. Their wandering led them to North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado. In about 1835, portions separated from the main body became known as the Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho. In 1869, the Chey­enne and Arapaho were assigned a reservation in Oklahoma, and the Darlington Agency was established in 1870 to serve them.<ref>Records of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency, introduction, reel CAA-1 (Indian Archives Division, Oklahoma Historical Society).</ref>

A treaty between the United States and the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, 28 October 1867 (Stat. L., xv, 593), provided for a reservation in what is now Oklahoma for the Southern Cheyenne and Southern Arapaho Indians. In 1869, a temporary agency was estab­lished at Camp Supply, Indian Territory. The location of the reservation was altered by executive order on 10 August 1869, and in May 1879, the agency was moved to a site five miles north­west of the present town of El Reno.

From 1869 through 1874, this agency, called the Upper Arkan­sas Agency, was under the Central Superintendency, Office of Indian affairs. In 1875 its name was changed to the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency. This designation has remained to the present day.

In 1877, several bands of Northern Cheyenne numbering 927 people were brought to Darlington in Indian Territory. Another contingent of approximately two hundred reached Darlington in 1878. In 1881, Little Chief's band was allowed to move to Pine Ridge Agency in Dakota Territory. In September 1883, the last of the Northern Cheyenne wishing to remove to their old home arrived at Pine Ridge Agency. The records of these Northern Cheyenne for the time they were at the southern agency remain in the files of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency. On 30 November 1902 a 'subagency' was established at Cantonment in Indian Territory. Part of the agency's affairs came under the super­vision of the head of the Cantonment Indian Training School, with headquarters at the school three miles northwest of Canton. Another portion was assigned to the superin­tendent of Seger Indian Training School located at Colony. The remainder of the agency was under the direction of the Cheyenne and Arapaho School superintendent at the old agency headquarters at Darlington. By December 1909, a further division created the Red Moon Agency located at the Red Moon School at Hammon.

In March 1910, the removal of the Darlington Agency to Caddo Springs was authorized. The move was completed in May 1915, and the agency's name changed to the Concho Agency. On 9 April 1917, the consolidation of the Red Moon Agency with the Seger Agency was accomplished. The next reorganization took place in 1927. At that time the Seger Agency was abolished, and the Cantonment Agency became part of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Agency at Cantonment.<ref>Ibid.</ref>

Cheyenne-Arapaho Agency Records<ref>Notes and Documents, vol. 60, part 3, 348-51.</ref>

Census Records

Letters sent and letters received, 1876'1931; enrollment, 1878'1914; enrollment lists and census rolls, 1870'1928.

Letterpress Books, 1876'1891

Letters Sent and Received and Other Documents, 1868'1933

Indian History, Culture, and Acculturation, 1871'1933

Pawnee Agency

The Pawnee Agency, located at Pawnee, Oklahoma, has juris­diction over the Kaw, Pawnee, Ponca, Otoe-Missouria, and Tonkawa tribes.<ref>Klein, Reference Encyclopedia of the American Indian, 92.</ref>

The Pawnee Agency was the last name given the agency respon­sible for the affairs of the following various tribes from 1870 to 1930. The agencies and subagencies that had jurisdiction over the several tribes through the years changed locations and names and are as follows: Osage Agency; Kaw Agency; Kaw Subagency; Pawnee Agency; Pawnee Subagen­cy; Ponca, Otoe and Oakland Agency; Ponca, Pawnee, Oakland and Otoe Agency; Ponca Subagency; Otoe Subagency; Tonkawa Subagency; and reservation schools whose superinten­dents were placed in charge of school and tribal affairs.<ref>Records of the Pawnee Agency.</ref>

Kaw

According to tradition, the Kaws, Osages, Poncas, Omahas, and Quapaws were one people who lived along the Wabash River and far up the Ohio. Pushed westward by the encroachment of superior forces, they split at the mouth of the Ohio River. Those going down the Mississippi River took the name Quapaw, or 'downstream people.' They later divided into four tribes: Kaw, Osage, Ponca, and Omaha. By terms of the treaties with the United States from 1820 to 1846, the Kaws relinquished their claims to several million acres in Kansas and Nebraska. A new reservation was assigned to them in 1846 at Coun­cil Grove on the Neosho River in Kansas. These lands were finally overrun by white settlers. In 1872, the tract was sold, and a new reserve was purchased for the tribe near the Osages in Indian Territory. In 1902, that reservation was allotted under law to the tribal membership.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 225.</ref>

The Kaw (Kansas) Reservation was established by act of Congress on 5 June 1872 (Stat. L., xvii, 228) and consisted of 100,141 acres of the Osage reserve located to the west of that reservation, east of the Arkansas River and adjoining the Kansas border. In July 1874, the affairs of the 523 Kaws were handled by the Osage Agency. Living on their own reservation, they continued under this supervision until 1876, when the superinten­dent of the Central Superintendency said that the Kaw Agency was a district agency but that the Osage agent handled its affairs. In 1879, the Osage Agency title was changed to Osage and Kaw Agency. The name was changed the next year to the Osage Agency and continued as such until 1886, when the tribal affairs were managed by two agencies again, with the Kaws under the supervision of the superintendent of the Kaw School. In 1887'88, the title was changed to the Kaw Subagency; a clerk-in-charge supervised its business. By an act of Congress ratified on 1 July 1902 (Stat. 32, 636), the tribe agreed to allotment of its reservation.

In 1904, the Kaw Reservation and agency were completely separated from the Osage Agency and placed under a bonded super­intendent. In 1912, Kaw affairs were transferred to the management of the Ponca School superintendent. In 1913'14, the Kaw farmer (a government employee who lived on the reservation and assisted the Indians in their farming) reported on Kaw Agency affairs. The Kaw School was abolished in 1915, and in 1922, tribal affairs supervision was given to the Pawnee School superintendent at the Pawnee Agency at Paw­nee.<ref>Records of the Pawnee Agency.</ref>

Otoe-Missouria

According to tradition, the people later known as the Otoes, along with their relatives the Winnebagos and the Iowas, once lived in the Great Lakes region. In a prehistoric migration southwest in search of buffalo, they separated. The division that reached the mouth of the Grand River, a branch of the Missouri, called themselves Niutachi and soon separated into two bands because of a quarrel between two of their chiefs. One band went up the Missouri and became known as the Otoe, and the other band stayed near the first settlement and was called the Missouria. From 1817 to 1841, the Otoes lived near the mouth of the Platte River. Since 1829, the Missourias have been absorbed by the Otoes, and the two are now indistinguishable.

On 15 March 1854, the Otoe-Missourias signed a treaty ceding all their lands except for a strip ten miles wide and twenty-five miles long on the waters of Big Blue River, but when it was found that there was no timber on this tract, it was exchanged for another tract taken from the Kaws (Kansas). In a treaty signed 15 August 1876 and amended 3 March 1879, they agreed to sell 120,000 acres of the western end of the reserve. Finally, a treaty signed on 3 March 1881 provided for the sale of all the rest of their lands in Kansas and Nebraska and for the selection of a new reser­vation. Consent to the treaty was recorded on 4 May, and the tribe moved the following year to the new reservation, which was in Indian Territory.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 233.</ref>

The Otoe Reservation was established by act of Congress on 3 March 1881 (Stat. L. xxi, 381) and consisted of 129,113 acres west of the Pawnee Reservation and south of the Ponca Reservation in Indian Territory. The tribes were removed from the Great Nemaha Agency in Nebraska to the Otoe Agency in 1882 and later placed under the consolidated Ponca, Pawnee, and Otoe Agency in 1883. The Missouri Indians had been a separate tribe until 1829, when many of them joined the Otoes. By 1885, only forty in­dividu­als were designated as Missouri. The Absentee Otoes were a group who refused to live at the new agency and went to live at the Sac and Fox Agency for some years. In 1886, the main agency's name was changed to the Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and Oakland Agency, and the Otoes and Missouris were under its supervision for many years. Their subagency was on the Otoe Reservation.

In the 1890s, the tribes resisted allotment; it was completed slowly, often with arbitrary assignment of land by the allotting agent. In 1896, the allotment schedule was in the secretary of the interior's office, unapproved. In 1897, the allotment process was repeated, with continued opposition from tribal members. In 1904, additional allotments were made (Stat. 33, 218). In 1902, the Pawnee Agency was separated from the Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and Oakland Agency, and the Otoe superinten­dent became responsible for the Otoe School and tribal affairs. In 1904, the Otoe and Missouri Agency was segre­gated from the Ponca Agency and the Otoe Reservation lines abolished. The two eastern townships became part of Pawnee County, and the balance of the reservation area became Noble County. Later the tribe became part of the Ponca Agency.<ref>Records of the Pawnee Agency.</ref>

Pawnee

The prehistoric origins of the Pawnees are still largely a mystery. Archeological studies indicate that the tribe moved northward around 1400 from an original homeland beyond the Rio Grande to the Red River near the Wichita Mountains and then to the Arkan­sas River in southern Kansas or northern Oklahoma. From there, the Skidi Pawnee continued northward into southwestern Nebraska, while the Southern (or Black) Pawnee remained.

Until 1770, the Southern Pawnee, aided by weapons and supplies from French traders, stayed in the Arkansas River region. As French trade lessened, they migrated northward to join the Skidis in what is now Nebraska near the Platte, Loup, and Republican rivers. The move gave the tribe renewed outlets for trade as well as good buffalo hunting south of the Platte.

The opening of the frontier brought disaster to the Pawnees. Three treaties (1833, 1848, and 1857) provided for the cession of all Pawnee lands to the United States, with the exception of a reservation thirty miles long and fifteen miles wide along both banks of the Loup River, centering near present-day Fullerton, Nebraska. In 1876 this tract was also surrendered to the United States, and the entire tribe was relocated to a new reservation in Oklahoma in a difficult exodus that caused many deaths. Under an agreement with the United States dated 23 November 1892, the Pawnees gave up certain lands for a perpetual annuity payment of $30,000 per year, to be divided equally among tribal members. This annuity, which breaks down to just a few dollars for each tribe member, is still provided. The only other tribe still to receive such payments is the Oneida.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 234.</ref>

The Pawnee Reservation was established by an act of 10 April 1875 (Stat. L, xix, 28) and consisted of 230,014 acres purchased from the Cherokee and 53,006 acres from the Creek Nations. It was located between the Cimarron and Arkansas rivers, west of the Creek Nation and north of the Sac and Fox Reservation in Indian Territo­ry. The Pawnee removal from Nebras­ka began around 1873, when small groups left their reser­vation near Genoa, Nebraska, and moved to the Wichita Reservation by invitation of that tribe, their linguistic kinsmen. The majority of the tribe migrated to their new reserva­tion from Nebraska in the winter of 1875.

In 1883, Pawnee affairs were handled by an agent at the Ponca, Pawnee, and Otoe Agency located on the Ponca Reservation. A clerk-in-charge was stationed at the Pawnee Subagency. The agency's name was changed to the Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and Oakland Agency in 1886, with the Pawnee Subagency continuing to function.

On 23 November 1892, the Pawnees consented to accept allot­ments in severalty and ceded their reservation (Stat. L., xxvii, 644, ratified 3 March 1893). Allotments were made to 820 persons, and in 1896 the surplus 169,320 acres were opened to settlement. At that time, Pawnee affairs were handled by the Pawnee superin­tendent, who was responsible for school and tribal affairs admin­istration during the decade.<ref>Records of the Pawnee Agency.</ref>

Ponca

In 1673, the Poncas were living on the Niobrara River; later they moved to southwestern Minnesota and the Black Hills of South Dakota. In 1877, they were evicted from their lands by the United States, which caused such hardship among the tribe that it became the subject of a public investigation ordered by President Hayes. In a settlement, approximately a third of the tribe returned to their lands on the Niobrara in 1880, while the rest moved to new lands set aside for them in Oklahoma. A small group of Poncas known as the Northern Ponca live in Nebraska.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 236.</ref>

A 3 March 1877 act of Congress provided for Ponca removal to Indian Territory 'without regard to their consent.' Under this act, they were temporarily located at the Quapaw Agency. The act of 27 May 1878 provided for their removal to their own reser­vation, which was established by this act. It was located west of the Osage Reservation and the Arkansas River and northwest of the Pawnee Reservation. Six hundred and ninety-three Poncas were moved from the Quapaw to the Ponca Reservation in July 1878. The new agency was located on the Salt Fork River. It was not until 3 March 1881 (Stat. L, xxi, 422) that an appropriation was made to purchase that tract from the Cherokees.

The Poncas were under the supervision of the Ponca, Pawnee, and Otoe Agency, which was responsible also for the Pawnees, Otoes, Missouris, and Nez Perce. In 1886, it became the Ponca, Otoe, and Oakland Agency. This agency, established for the Nez Perce, became the home of the Tonkawa Indians in 1885. The Poncas strongly resisted allotment of their lands in several­ty, and not until 6 April 1895 could the secretary of the interior approve the allotment of 100,734 acres to 782 in­dividuals. However, one group did not accept allotment until 1899, and in 1904, additional allotments were made (Stat. 33, 218). In 1899, a superinten­dent was placed in charge of the Ponca School and tribal affairs. In 1901, the Pawnee Agency separated from the Ponca, Otoe, and Oakland Agency, which became known as the Ponca, Otoe, and Oakland Agency located at White Eagle.

In 1904, a further separation left the agency serving only the Poncas and Tonkawas. The Ponca superintendent continued to be responsible for the tribe into the 1920s. In 1927, the Ponca Subagency fell under the jurisdiction of the Pawnee Agency, and Otoe and Missouri affairs were transferred to this agen­cy.<ref>Records of the Pawnee Agency.</ref>

Tonkawa

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Tonkawas lived in central Texas. In 1884, they moved from Texas to Indian Terri­tory and were assigned 91,000 acres of land previously assigned to the Nez Perce in Kay County, Oklahoma.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 242.</ref>

The Tonkawas and a small group of associated Lipan Apaches came to the Oakland Agency from the Sac and Fox Agency, where ninety-two tribespeople had arrived from Fort Griffin, Texas, on 23 October 1884. They were placed on the Iowa Reservation of the agency, where they remained until June 1885, when they were transferred to the Oakland Reservation, which had just been vacated by the Nez Perce the month before. A subagency was created for them, with the main agency at the Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and Oakland Agency on the Ponca Reserva­tion. In an agreement concluded on 21 October 1891, the Tonkawas ceded this reservation to the United States, and allotments were subsequently made to them. In 1896, the surplus lands were opened for settlement. In 1900, the subagency had a farmer-in-charge. The tribe's affairs continued under the Ponca, Otoe, and Oakland Agency in 1901 and under the Ponca School superintendent in 1904. The Lipan Apaches, counted as part of the Tonkawas, had apparently been with them since their arrival in Indian Territory from Fort Griffin. This small remnant were often called Tonkawa and soon lost their identity. The combined group continued under this agency's supervision until 1928, when the Pawnee Agency became the main agency for all of the tribes listed previously.<ref>Records of the Pawnee Agency.</ref>

Pawnee Agency Records<ref>Notes and Documents, vol. 60, part 3, 355-56.</ref>

Census Records

Letters sent and received, 1894'1927; census and lists for the Nez Perce, Kaw, Tonkawa, Pawnee and Oto, and Missouri, 1880'1926; census and lists for the Ponca and Tonkawa, undated and 1926.

Letterpress Books, 1870'1903

Records of the Pawnee Agency and Subagencies<ref>Ibid., 358-59.</ref>

Federal, State, and Local Courts and Other Relations

Letters Sent and Received and Other Documents, 1894'1902.

Kaw Agency Records<ref>Ibid., 357.</ref>

Letterpress Books, 1894'1908

Ponca, Pawnee, Otoe, and Oakland Agency Records

Letterpress Books, 1894'1908

Otoe Agency Records

Letterpress Books, 1880'1908

Ponca Agency Records<ref>Ibid., 356-57.</ref>

Letterpress Books, 1879'1911

Tonkawa Agency Records<ref>Ibid., 357.</ref>

Letterpress Books, 1877'1918

Shawnee Agency

The Shawnee Agency, located at Shawnee, Oklahoma, has juris­diction over the Iowa, Kickapoo, Citizen Potawatomi, Sac and Fox, and Absentee-Shawnee tribes.<ref>Klein, Reference Encyclopedia of the American Indian, 92.</ref>

The Shawnee Agency was originally known as the Sac and Fox Agency. It operated under the Central Superintendency. It was located about six miles south of the present town of Stroud, Oklahoma. The agent also had under his jurisdiction 467 absentee Shawnees who were living thirty miles southwest of the Sac and Fox Agency. They were located on lands they had occupied before the Civil War. Many had remained loyal to the Union and had sought shelter in the North. After the war they returned to their old territory and were later joined by the Black Bob Band of Shawnees from Kansas.

In a series of agreements in 1890 that resulted from implement­ation of the Dawes Act, all of the tribes within the Sac and Fox Agency (except the Kickapoos) ceded their lands to the United States and accepted allotments in severalty. The Sac and Fox, Iowa, Potawatomi, and Shawnee lands were opened to non-Indian settlement on 22 September 1891. The agency site at that time became a part of Oklahoma Territory. The Kickapoos were allotted land later, and their lands were opened to settlement on 23 May 1895. In April 1896, a special agent was appointed to handle the affairs of the band of Mexican Kickapoos known as the Kicking Kickapoos. The special agent assumed charge of the Progressive Kickapoos and the Big Jim Band of Absentee Shawnee a year or so later through an agency office located near the town of Shawnee.

In 1901, the Sac and Fox Agency was divided. The Sac and Fox Agency itself remained at the old site near Stroud with jurisdic­tion over the Sac and Fox and the Iowas. The Shawnee, Potawatomi, and Kickapoo Agency (sometimes called the Shawnee Agency) was established about two miles south of Shawnee, Oklahoma. The agencies continued their separate existence until 1919, when they were merged, becoming the Shawnee Agency.<ref>Records of the Sac and Fox-Shawnee Agency, introduction, reel SFSA-1 (Indian Archives Division, Oklahoma Historical Society).</ref>

Besides the resident tribes' records, there are files of other tribes' records brought from the Sac and Fox Agency in Kansas. They are listed here with the name of the tribe and years covered by the correspondence and records.

Chippewas of Swan Creek and Black River, and Muncie (Munsee) Indians, 1854'1901

Christian Indians, 1858'1864

Oneida Indians, 1902

Otoe Indians, 1880'1921

Ottawa Indians, 1838'1908

The majority of the Otoes listed in table 14-1 resided on the Otoe reservation under the Otoe Agency. Later they were under the jurisdiction of the Pawnee and Ponca agencies. Some inter­married among the Iowas and others at the Sac and Fox Agency. This file refers to them and the earlier group that came from the Great Nemaha Agency in Nebraska.<ref>Ibid.</ref>

Absentee-Shawnee

See Eastern Shawnee.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 212.</ref>

Citizen Band Potawatomi

Before 1700, the Potawatomis lived near the upper Lake Huron territory and on the islands of Green Bay, Wisconsin. They were later located near what is now Chicago and Milwaukee. During the French and Indian War, they were close allies of the French until the peace of 1763. They were also allied with Ottawa Chief Pontiac against the British and white settlers. During the revolutionary war, however, they fought with the British against the American colonies, and hostilities continued until the Treaty of Greenville of 1795 brought peace between the former colonies and the Potawatomis.

In 1833, the Potawatomis, together with the Ottawas and Chippewas, signed the Chicago Treaty, ceding all their lands in Illinois and along the western shore of Lake Michigan and agree­ing to move to Iowa within three years. They were in Iowa only briefly before the government moved them to Kansas. Today, in Kansas, the Prairie Band of Potawatomis is descended mainly from Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan Pot­a­watomis.

The Citizen Band of Potawatomi tribe of Oklahoma is so called because certain Prairie Band members applied for citizen­ship papers in the 1860s, having been granted that right by treaty. Many sold their fee patent land in Kansas; landless and destitute, they removed to Indian Territory. Reservation land was provided for them there; however, because they were citizens, legal ques­tions arose as to their right to live on it. Today, there is no Potawatomi reservation in Oklahoma.<ref>Ibid., 219.</ref>

Under a treaty of 15 November 1861 (12 Stat. 1191), the Potawatomis had received allotments in severalty in Kansas. A number accepted allotments and became citizens of the United States, then becoming known as Citizen Potawatomi. Many of them soon sold their allotments and began to plan the purchase of a new reser­vation in Indian Territory. A treaty of 27 February 1867 (15 Stat. 531) provided for this purchase. A thirty-square-mile reservation was selected west of the Seminole Nation between the North and South Canadian rivers, and 250 Citizen Potawatomis moved into the area. The Potawatomi lands selected encroached on those of the Absentee Shawnees' prewar settlement claims. To right this situation, Congress passed an act (Stat. L, xvii, 159) on 23 May 1872 permitting the Absentee Shawnees to select allotments on the Potawatomi Reserve. There was con­siderable opposition, and Sam Warrior's Band, comprising approximately one-third of the tribe, moved to an area west of the Kickapoos.<ref>Records of the Sac and Fox-Shawnee Agency.</ref>

Iowa

The earliest known Iowa settlement is believed to have been along the upper Iowa River. Later, the Iowas moved into the north­western part of the present state of Iowa. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, the Iowas moved to the Missouri River and settled south of the spot where Council Bluffs, Iowa, now stands on the east side of the river. Around 1760, they moved east and came to live along the Mississippi between the Iowa and Des Moines rivers. Early in the nineteenth century, part of the tribe moved farther up the Des Moines River, while others established themselves on the Grand and Platte rivers in Missouri. In 1814, they were allotted lands in what was known as the Platte Pur­chase, extending from the Platte River of Missouri through western Iowa to the Dakota country. By treaties signed on 4 August 1824, 15 July 1830, 17 September 1836, and 23 November 1867, the Iowas ceded all their lands in Missouri and Iowa to the United States. On 19 August 1825, they also ceded lands in Minnesota. The treaty of 1836 assigned part of the tribe to a reservation along the Great Nemeha River in present-day Nebraska and Kansas. The remainder were moved to central Oklahoma in 1883.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 224-25.</ref>

Kickapoo

The Kickapoos moved into the Wisconsin area in the early part of the seventeenth century. They later moved into Illinois near the present-day city of Peoria. During the War of 1812, they were allied with Tecumseh against the United States. In 1809 and 1819, the Kickapoos ceded their lands in Illinois to the United States and moved to Missouri and then Kansas. Around 1852, a large number of the Kickapoos and some Potawatomis went to Texas and then to Mexico, where they became known as Mexican Kickapoos. Another dissatisfied band joined them in 1863. Ten years later, part of this band was induced to return to Indian Territory. Those who chose to remain in Mexico were granted a reservation on the Sabinas River about twelve to fifteen miles from the town of Musquiz in the state of Coahuila.<ref>Ibid., 226.</ref>

After the cession of their homeland in Illinois in 1819, the Kickapoo bands separated and migrated to different areas, some going to Texas and others to Mexico. The Texas bands came to Indian Territory before the Civil War in two groups, one settling on Creek and the other on Choctaw lands. Later, many of them joined the Kickapoos living in Mexico. An effort was made under the acts of 15 July 1870, 3 March 1871, and 22 June 1874 to move the Mexican Kickapoos and others on the borders of Texas to a reservation that would be established for them in Indian Territory. A commission was appointed that succeeded in getting some three hundred to four hundred to consent to move. By 1873, these Mexican Kickapoos had begun to arrive at the Sac and Fox Agency. Their reservation was located between the South Canadian and Deep Fork rivers west of the Sac and Fox Reservation.<ref>Records of the Sac and Fox-Shawnee Agency.</ref>

Sac and Fox

Originally separate and independent tribes, the Sac (or Sauk) and Fox tribes have long been affiliated and allied. The original homeland of the Sac and Fox was in the Great Lakes region, where the Sac inhabited the Upper Michigan Peninsula and the Fox the south shore of Lake Superior. By 1667, when Father Allouez made the first recorded white contact with the two tribes, Iroquois and French pressure on the Sac and Chippewa pressure on the Fox had pushed both groups to the vicinity of present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin. French attacks on the Sac and Fox in the eighteenth century, attributed to Indians, strengthened the alliance of the two tribes, which amounted to a confederation. Forced to migrate south, they attacked the Illinois and forced them from their lands along the Mississippi in the present-day states of Illinois, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Those groups that stayed near the Mississippi River became known as the Sac and Fox of the Missis­sippi to distin­guish them from the Sac and Fox of the Missou­ri, a large band that settled farther south along the Missouri River.

In 1804, the chiefs of the Missouri band were persuaded to sign a treaty ceding to the United States all Sac and Fox lands east of the Mississippi River, as well as some hunting grounds to the west of it. Government efforts several years later to enforce the treaty embittered the Sac and Fox, most of whom knew about the treaty. Attempts to remove the Sac and Fox caused a split in the confederation. The majority of the tribe followed the conciliatory Sac Chief Keokuk, who agreed to move. The remainder supported the rival Black Hawk, a Sac warrior who bitterly opposed the treaty and led his 'British Band' into revolt (the Black Hawk War). With the Treaty of Fort Armstrong in 1832, Sac and Fox power on the frontier came to an end. In 1833, the tribe was moved to Iowa, where they lived for only thirteen years before being moved again, this time to the Osage River Reservation in Kansas. In 1869, the Sac and Fox were again moved, this time to Oklahoma. Keokuk, and later his son Moses, continued to lead the conciliatory faction of the tribes, but many of the Fox opposed the many cessions of land to the United States and returned to Iowa in 1859 to join a smaller number who had steadfastly refused to be moved.<ref>Confederation of American Indians, Indian Reservations, 234.</ref>

Under terms of a treaty with the United States concluded on 18 February 1867 (15 Stat. 495), the Sac and Fox of the Mississ­ippi ceded approximately 157,000 acres of their land in Kansas in ex­change for a new reservation of 750 square miles in Indian Territory between the Cimarron and North Canadian rivers west of the Creek Nation. On 25 November 1869, 387 tribal members began the move to their new home, arriving nineteen days later. One band under Chief Mo-ho-ko-ho remained in Kansas, and the Sac and Fox of Missouri continued to live at the Great Nemaha Agency in Nebraska near the Iowas, with whom they had been associated for many years.<ref>Records of the Sac and Fox-Shawnee Agency.</ref>

Sac and Fox-Shawnee Agency Records<ref>Notes and Documents, vol. 60, part 4, 476-79.</ref>

Census Records

Letters and documents received, 1865'1924; census and lists for the Iowa, Mexican Kickapoo, and Otoe, 1881'1920; census and lists for the Citizen Potawatomi, 1883'1921; Sac and Fox and Absentee Shawnee census, 1850'1923.

Letterpress Books

Iowa letters sent, 1840'47; account and letter book, Sac and Fox Agency, Kansas, 1849'61; letters sent, 1874'1902.

Federal and State Relations, 1854'1918

Federal, State, and Local Relations, 1851'1928

Military Relations and Affairs, 1853'1924

Indian History, Culture, and Acculturation, 1867'1923

Land Ownership and Use, 1847'1917

Agents and Agency, 1849'1927

References

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External Links