OPOTHLEYOHOLA’S EXODUS...

5fish

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Here is an Indian chief that fought in many of our 19th century wars with us and against us. He led his people for most of the 19th century and he owned slaves. He tried to lead his people to safety in the American civil war from the Indian confederate forces. His band was called OPOTHLEYOHOLA’S Union band...


After a faction of the Creek tribe had negotiated and signed a treaty with the Confederacy in July 1861, a group of Upper Creek chiefs led by Opothleyohola repudiated the treaty and declared their neutrality. Opothleyohola’s followers and their families gathered together on Opothleyohola’s plantation/ranch on the Deep Fork of the Canadian River and other locations in the western Creek country in August 1861. They included about 5,000 Creeks, 2,500 Seminoles, Cherokees, and other Indians, and approximately 500 slaves and free blacks, mostly from the Creek and Seminole nations. Opothleyohola had sent messages into the slave communities saying that if they joined him, they would be considered “free.”

Here a bio...


Opothleyahola joined the Freemasons and accepted Christianity, becoming a Baptist. Later he tried to overturn the Treaty of Indian Springs but was forced to make a new treaty with the federal government in 1832. He was commissioned as a colonel and led forces against the remaining Lower Creek and the Seminole in the first two wars of the US against them. Despite his efforts, he and his people were among the Seminole and others forced to remove to Indian Territory in 1836, where they settled in the Unassigned Lands. At the outbreak of the American Civil War, Opothleyahola and Creek remained loyal to the federal government. On August 15, 1861, Opothleyahola contacted President Abraham Lincoln to request help for the loyalists. On September 10, they received a positive response, saying that the United States government would assist them.

Here a bio...


Early life Opothleyahola was born at Tuckabatchee town in present day Elmore County, Alabama. He is believed to have fought against the whites possibly as early as the War of 1812 and again in the Creek War of 1813-1814, including against General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. Opothleyoholo swore his allegiance to never again bear arms against the Federal government.

After the Creek War, some of the Lower Creek leaders signed a number of treaties that ceded considerable land to Georgia. Eventually, the Creek Confederacy enacted a law that made further land cessions a capital offense. In 1825, these chiefs signed the Treaty of Indian Springs, which gave up most of the remaining Creek lands in Georgia. The Creek National Council, led by Opothleyahola, protested to the United States government that the treaty was fraudulent. President John Quincy Adams was sympathetic, and eventually the treaty was nullified in a new agreement, the Treaty of Washington (1826). However, Georgia officials began forcibly removing the Indians.


Here is Bio wiki...


Later the young man developed as an influential and eloquent speaker. He was selected to the role as Speaker for the chiefs, which was a distinct position on the National Council. He later became a "diplomatic chief."[5] Opothleyahola also became a wealthy trader and owned a 2,000-acre (8 km2) cotton plantation near North Fork Town. As did other Creek and members of the Five Civilized Tribes, he purchased and held enslaved African Americans as workers for his plantation. In other adaptations to European-American culture, Opothleyahola joined the Freemasons and accepted Christianity, becoming a Baptist.
 

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This is more detail about the moment...


Even though he proposed a pro-Union rally, Opothleyahola, in truth, wanted to remain neutral in the war. But as Southern sympathies swelled among the Indian nations and white encroachment loomed, he realized lines were being drawn and fewer people were standing behind him. Additionally, Union soldiers in Indian Territory had been pulled out, leaving the area unprotected from Confederate forces.

The sad ending...

Undeterred, Opothleyahola and his followers continued the icy trek along the Verdigris and Neosho rivers into Wilson County. When they finally reached Fort Row, they found a home guard militia of about 80 men, a storage facility of less than 200 square feet and a couple of other small buildings. The soldiers didn’t know the Indians and slaves were coming, and certainly didn’t have enough food or shelter for them or their animals.

“Opothleyahola expected to find some place to house livestock, horses, buildings to protect them from the weather and food, and none of that was there,” Crites said.

As the Indians and slaves trickled into the area over the winter and camped on the frozen prairie, Opothleyahola pleaded with federal authorities to send aid. His plea went unanswered as the refugees faced starvation and death from exposure.

Opothleyahola and other survivors eventually were moved 12 miles to Fort Belmont, a small structure about 5 miles south of Yates Center in Woodson County, where 240 refugees died in January and February 1862 and more than a hundred amputations were performed.
 

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Here is one of the battles fought by the OPOTHLEYOHOLA’S Union band... flight to freedom...


The Battle of Round Mountain was the first battle in the Trail of Blood on Ice campaign for the control of Indian Territory during the American Civil War that occurred on November 19, 1861.[1] Its main purpose was to prevent Union supporters of the Creek Nation, led by Opothleyahola from fleeing Indian Territory to the protection of Union forces in Kansas. [a] The physical location of the battle is in dispute. Some historians believe it to be near Keystone while others contend that it is near Yale, Oklahoma. The event is sometimes referred to as the Battle of Red Fork.[3][4]
 

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The last big battle...


The Battle of Chustenahlah was fought in Osage County, Oklahoma, (then Indian Territory) on December 26, 1861, during the American Civil War. A band of 9,000 pro-Union Native Americans was forced to flee to Kansas in bitter cold and snow in what became known as the Trail of Blood on Ice.

The victorious Confederates captured 160 women and children, 20 blacks, 30 wagons, 70 yoke of oxen, about 500 Indian horses, several hundred head of cattle, 100 sheep, and large quantities of supplies. Casualties were 9 killed and 40 wounded for the Confederates.[a] Col. McIntosh in his official report estimated the Union Indians' loss as 250.[4]
 
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