In Indian Territory the Civil War is a story best told through shades of gray rather than black and white or heroes and villains. Since neutrality appeared virtually impossible, the vast majority of territory residents chose a side, doing so for myriad reasons and not necessarily out of affection for either the Union or the Confederacy. Indigenous residents found themselves fighting to protect their unusual dual status as communities distinct from the American citizenry yet legal wards of the federal government. The Civil War and Reconstruction in Indian Territory is a nuanced and authoritative examination of the layers of conflicts both on and off the Civil War battlefield. It examines the military front and the home front; the experiences of the Five Nations and those of the agency tribes in the western portion of the territory; the severe conflicts between Native Americans and the federal government and between Indian nations and their former slaves during and beyond the Reconstruction years; and the concept of memory as viewed through the lenses of Native American oral traditions and the modern evolution of public history. These carefully crafted essays by leading scholars such as Amanda Cobb-Greetham, Clarissa Confer, Richard B. McCaslin, Linda W. Reese, and F. Todd Smith will help teachers and students better understand the Civil War, Native American history, and Oklahoma history.

At the onset of the American Civil War, the Muscogee (Creek) Nation found itself suffering from a division that had existed for fifty years prior to the United States being pulled apart. Creek leaders sought the best course for their tribe that would ensure their future survival. One such leader that worked to guide the Muscogee (Creek) Nation through the travails that awaited in the Indian Territory was Chilly McIntosh: a chief, a minister, and a soldier.

“Billie Jane McIntosh combines accuracy of history and immediacy of fiction to relate the life of her ancestor, a warrior, diplomat, and selfless leader of his Native nation. In that bitter time of dispossession known as Indian Removal when others lost hope, Chief McIntosh believed in a future where his people would both survive and thrive.” — Joseph Bruchac, author of Our Stories Remember “One of the most misunderstood and maligned figures of early United States history is Chief William McIntosh. Historian descendent Billie Jane McIntosh recounts Chief McIntosh’s story in balanced detail with solid research and vivid creativity.” — Gary L. McIntosh, PhD, professor of leadership, Biola University, La Mirada, CA “McIntosh brings to life historical facts, harnessing the clash of civilizations to move the personal story of William McIntosh forward with anticipation and drama and to show inner tensions within characters caught up in this historic time of transition.” — Margery Bouris, officer with the Friends of McIntosh Reserve, Inc. “Billie Jane McIntosh offers a unique historical perspective on an important family and a period of time. The appendices are a plus in understanding the family tree, treaties, and laws of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.” — Tamara M. Elder, author and Curator Research Division, Oklahoma History Center “Imagine Creek life during the tumultuous period of treaty making and removal, written as if you were a participant in the unfolding history. McIntosh quickly draws you in with a masterfully crafted story.” — James R. Floyd, Muscogee (Creek) Nation

Published in 1971, Georgia's Last Frontier presents the history of one of the state's least developed regions. During the 1830s, Carroll County was a large part of Georgia's most rugged frontier. James C. Bonner examines how life in this isolated region was complicated by the presence of Native Americans, cattle rustlers, and horse thieves. He details how the discovery of gold in the Villa Rica area resulted in drunkenness and violence, but also laid the foundations of mining technology that were later used in Colorado and California. The region remained isolated until after the Civil War, when a rail line was constructed to stimulate cotton cultivation. With the development of the railway, Carroll County's frontier traditions waned in the early twentieth century.

Many of the early 18th and 19th century Scots settlers of the Southeastern United States intermarried and formed partnerships with Native Americans. These mixed-blood relationships produced talented Indian leaders who negotiated and translated during peace treaties, maintained traditional values, and formed valuable alliances. Chilly McIntosh, son of legendary Creek Chief William McIntosh, Jr., was one of these leaders. With roots in both ancient Scotland and the Creek Wind Clan, he was an amalgam of both cultures. As elected Chief of his tribal township, he made efforts to straddle the divide between both the traditional and progressive factions, while at the same time performing duties as Clerk of the Creek Tribal Council. Accepting the fact that his people were being displaced from their lands, he made efforts to see that they were treated fairly during their journey west.From his youth in the Indian towns to his relocation to the Oklahoma lands that were to be his final home, we explore the many facets of his long and varied life. We learn of the controversial death of his father, Chilly¿s participation in the recording of the Laws of the Creek Tribe, his visit with General Lafayette, the role he assumed while leading his people west, his life as a Civil War Colonel, and his service as a Baptist minister. This chronicle of Chilly McIntosh is the ultimate story of triumph in the face of adversity, one to be cherished and savored by those who admire the strength of the human spirit.

This book deals with the quest for a preventive to lynching which can be undertaken only after one has an understanding of what it is that is to be prevented. This necessary analysis of lynching--its background, circumstances, and meaning--introduces many baffling elements. The author has made a detailed study of the lynchings of 1930 in an effort to find an answer to the complexities of the problem. Originally published in 1933. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

Chronicles the rise of the Cherokee Nation and its rapid decline, focusing on the Ridge-Watie family and their experiences during the Cherokee removal.

Growing up, Jerry Thompson knew only that his grandfather was a gritty, “mixed-blood” Cherokee cowboy named Joe Lynch Davis. That was all anyone cared to say about the man. But after Thompson’s mother died, the award-winning historian discovered a shoebox full of letters that held the key to a long-lost family history of passion, violence, and despair. Wrecked Lives and Lost Souls, the result of Thompson’s sleuthing into his family’s past, uncovers the lawless life and times of a man at the center of systematic cattle rustling, feuding, gun battles, a bloody range war, bank robberies, and train heists in early 1900s Indian Territory and Oklahoma. Through painstaking detective work into archival sources, newspaper accounts, and court proceedings, and via numerous interviews, Thompson pieces together not only the story of his grandfather—and a long-forgotten gang of outlaws to rival the infamous Younger brothers—but also the dark path of a Cherokee diaspora from Georgia to Indian Territory. Davis, born in 1891, grew up on a family ranch on the Canadian River, outside the small community of Porum in the Cherokee Nation. The range was being fenced, and for the Davis family and others, cattle rustling was part of a way of life—a habit that ultimately spilled over into violence and murder. The story “goes way back to the wild & wooly cattle days of the west,” an aunt wrote to Thompson’s mother, “when there was cattle rustling, bank robberies & feuding.” One of these feuds—that Joe Davis was “raised right into”—was the decade-long Porum Range War, which culminated in the murder of Davis’s uncle in 1907. In fleshing out the details of the range war and his grandfather’s life, Thompson brings to light the brutality and far-reaching consequences of an obscure chapter in the history of the American West.

Distributed by the University of Nebraska Press for Caxton Press During the decades from 1820 to 1870, the American frontier expanded two thousand miles across the trans-Mississippi West. In Texas the frontier line expanded only about two hundred miles. The supposedly irresistible European force met nearly immovable Native American resistance, sparking a brutal struggle for possession of Texas’s hills and prairies that continued for decades. During the 1860s, however, the bloodiest decade in the western Indian wars, there were no large-scale battles in Texas between the army and the Indians. Instead, the targets of the Comanches, the Kiowas, and the Apaches were generally the homesteaders out on the Texas frontier, that is, precisely those who should have been on the sidelines. Ironically, it was these noncombatants who bore the brunt of the warfare, suffering far greater losses than the soldiers supposedly there to protect them. It is this story that The Settlers’ War tells for the first time.