Albert Pike, Confederate commissioner, signs the 1861 treaties with the nations of Indian Territory (Indian Territory, July–October 1861)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet proven
Year: 1861 · Places: Florida, Oklahoma & the Five Tribes
SUMMARYAlbert Pike, Confederate commissioner, signs the 1861 treaties with the nations of Indian Territory (Indian Territory, July–October 1861) [Connections: Masonic color line, asylums, castles, wight, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDThe Oklahoma Historical Society says Jefferson Davis "appointed Albert Pike... as Commissioner of Indian Affairs." Pike "signed treaties with the Creek (July 10, 1861), the Choctaw and Chickasaw (July 12)," "the Seminole (August 1), and the Wichita, Caddo, and others (August 12)." "On October 7 the Confederacy consummated a treaty with the Cherokee and then with the Quapaw, Seneca, Shawnee, and Osage." Pike resigned in May 1862, saying "the Confederates were failing to uphold their treaty promises." Wikipedia says the Confederacy "promised the tribes a Native American state if it won the war." Tier 1 for Pike as a Mason: he was elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction, in 1859 and held the office until his death in 1891. The title page of his Morals and Dogma (1871) says it was published by the authority of that Supreme Council. HOSTILE
WITNESSthe treaties were written by a Confederate agent to bind the nations to a slaveholding war
PATTERNThe highest officer of Southern Scottish Rite Masonry is the same man who signed the nations into the Confederacy. After the war, the 1866 treaties used that alliance to punish the nations
LENS (WW9)The pen that wrote the Scottish Rite's degrees also wrote the paper that tied the nations to the slaveholders' war
OPENRead the treaty texts (Statutes at Large of the Provisional Government of the Confederate States) for the clauses on slavery and on "free negroes" in the nations. Wikipedia credits the Cherokee treaty to John Ross, while the Oklahoma Historical Society says Ross later used the occasion to "negate the Confederate treaty and to embrace the Union cause."
SOURCEEncyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, "Civil War"; Wikipedia: Albert Pike.