Okla Hannali

by R. A. Lafferty

  The story is that Welshmen (under Prince Madoc) came to America long before Columbus, went inland, and intermarried with Indians. They left a progeny of blue-eyed and hazel-eyed people much lighter than other Indians, and with Welsh words in their languages.

  It was not the experts who compiled the corresponding word lists, but the amateurs. Usually the comparison is with the Mandan Indian, for the legend connecting the Mandans with the Welsh grew stronger after the Mandans were wiped out by smallpox and their faces and speech could not be closely studied. There are many words which seem the same in both languages — ni, we, chwi, you (but the Welsh not pronounced at all like the Indian), buw, to live, cysgu, to sleep, ceffyl, a horse (but the Welsh is from the low Latin caballus, and the Indian from the kindred Spanish caballo), afor, a river, trof, a town, coch, red, nos, the night, modryb, aunt, cwch, a boat, mawr, big, tebot, a kettle (the compiler didn't realize that the Welsh word is from the English teapot, a much later borrowing than the purported Welsh intrusion of America), cryf, strong, carreg, a stone.

  But the game can be played with any language, and it has been played by others with Hebrew and Phoenician and Basque and Ainu — relating them to Indian tongues.

  We do not believe in the pre-Columbian Welsh intrusion, but we do believe in one very early in the colonial period. And there are Indians who, in a sense, may be called Welsh Indians — the Choctaws.

  Just as the Cherokees were mixed English and Ulsterman Indians, and the Creeks were Scottish Indians, so were the Choctaws Welsh Indians. We have no idea why so many of the colonials who came among the Choctaws were Welshmen, but they were.

  There is a long list of Choctaws who carried Welsh blood: Robert Cole, Robert M. Jones, George W. Harkins, Sidney Bowen, David Folsom, John Morgan, George S. Gaines, William David, W. N. Jones, the Pitchlynns, the Kincaids, the Pebworths, John Garland, George Hudson, Frank Owen, S. D. Griffiths, F. G. Wynn, W. A. Williams. These were Welsh Indians.

  A Welshman is more canny than a Scot; he will not let himself have the name of being canny. He is more stubborn than an Englishman, though letting it be thought that he is amenable. He is neither an explorer nor a seafarer nor a pioneer, but whenever the pioneers come to the ends of the earth they always find a Welshman already there and running a store.

  Among the Choctaws, the merchants at Doaksville and Boggy Depot and Skullyville were usually these Welsh Indians, blue-eyed and hazel-eyed and lighter than their fellows. It was they who set up the toll bridges and the toll pikes and who took tribute at the fords and passes. They were the inventors of the leased-land device in the Territory, of the affair of entering non-existent Indians on the rolls for allotment payments, of the trail-driver grazing fees, and much else. They were the big planters and the rich man Indians. They were the slaveowners.

  The greatest of these Welsh Indians among the Choctaws was Robert M. Jones. He was the richest man in the Territory, and one of the really rich men in the whole country. He came most typically to represent one of the two aspects of the Choctaws, so we must have an account of him.

  He was a half-blood Choctaw, born in Mississippi in 1808 of a wealthy family. With what he was born with, and what he acquired variously along the way, Robert M. Jones became about as smart a man as was ever to be found anywhere.

  On coming to the new Territory as a young man, Robert Jones selected Doaksville as his base. He served a swift apprenticeship with a French-Canadian trader named Berthelet, going on trading missions to the Plains Indians, the Wichitas, Wacos, Caddoes, Comanches, Anadarkos, and Cheyennes, comprehending all the intricacies of the trade, and learning the languages of all of them in one year.

  Berthelet then took Jones into his store as full partner, and their company soon surpassed Doaks and Timms Mercantile Company as the leading establishment in Doaksville. Berthelet soon passed from the picture, and Jones owned it all. His monopoly on trade with the Plains Indians and his political influence over them remained one of the strong sticks in Jones's hand.

  Jones acquired credit and went into the slave and cotton business. His first plantation, three hundred acres near Fort Towson on the Red River, only a start. By the time of the Civil War he had six large plantations: Rose Hill, Boggy, Root Hog, Shawnee-Town, Walnut Bayou, and Lake West. Lake West is mentioned as having five thousand acres, and it may not have been the largest; it was at the Rose Hill plantation that he built his fine house.

  Robert Jones owned five hundred slaves, and they were contraband blacks new from Africa. The Negroes were landed in the Sabine Estuary, driven through the wild piny country to a Red River point in Louisiana, then brought up the Red River by boat to the landings in Oklafalaya. Importation of new slaves was then forbidden and slaves brought a very high price in all the South, but Robert Jones went into the big slave business cheap.

  But one secret of Jones's success was that he came to own many of the Choctaw Indians more completely than he owned his own Negroes. By his wealth and his mind and his methods, he became the most powerful Choctaw of them all.

  He had everything, a mill and sugar plantation in Louisiana, stores in Skullyville and Boggy Depot as well as in Doaksville, his own steamboats on the Red River, a great house at Rose Hill with furnishings imported from France and with formal gardens laid out in the high English manner. He built alliance by marrying into the first family of the Chickasaws, and thereafter their chiefs were always Jones's in-laws, so involved with him in business deals that they had to be his partisans.

  When the moment of decision should come in a few years, it would be the weight of this one man Jones who would tip the balance to a wrong choice and the eventual destruction of the Five Tribes Indians.

  Robert M. Jones, politically liberal, devoted to the fevered and exploding economy, slave-driving, white blood, operating by political deviousness and entangling loans, selfish and shriveled, represented one pole of the Choctaws. He was the biggest of those men of Falaya of whom Hannali had said that they had drunk mules' milk and were sterile.

  And the man with the given name of Six-Town, Hannali Innominee himself, politically conservative, economically feudal, free-holding, full-blood, compassionate and chauvinistic, perhaps represented the other pole.

  3.

  The day when Hannali was no longer ugly. Famous Innominee and his brothers. The Big Decade. Alabaster Hills and Great Salt Plains.

  It was Abraham Lincoln who said that every man over age thirty is responsible for his face. He will have formed it by then. If he has an ugly face it is because he is an ugly man through. But there came a day when Hannali Innominee was no longer ugly of face. The details of that great bulk had now formed themselves into a thing so curious, so intricate, so interesting in its topography and so deep in contour that it was in no way ugly. He looked like the figurine of some chuckling God, but no longer of an ugly one. Later visitors at his Big House have said that he was a man of deep charm and power, and of most pleasant and exciting appearance. Earlier visitors had said that he was a bedamned spooky devil till you got to know him. The new Hannali had come onto a certain intensity of life and vast inner resources.

  The three sons of Hannali had been sent off to school. The Choctaw academies had now been set up, one in each district. Hannali sent his three sons to three separate schools, not from a desire to separate them, not to keep one from standing in the shadow of another (for they were of near equal ability), but that they should know the various parts of their own nation.

  Alinton Innominee went to Spencer Academy in Oklafalaya.

  Famous Innominee went to Fort Coffee Academy in Moshulatubbee.

  Travis Innominee went to Armstrong Academy in Pushmataha.

  This (from about the years 1847 to 1860) was the Great Decade of the Innominee family — a baker's dozen decade. They multiplied their friendships, extended their connections, and increased their own numbers. Hannali could do no wrong in material things. His prosperity grew.

  In fact, it was a period of prosperit
y, the only such period they ever knew, for all the Territory Indians. In population the Five Tribes had made up the losses of the twenty thousand persons left dead on the removal trails. They had learned to farm and ranch in the new country, and the weather and prices held well for them. Education was moving forward. It really seemed as though the Indians had discovered a way of accepting the best of what the white people had to offer, and rejecting the worst.

  Famous Innominee became something of a Territory dude in his time at Fort Coffee Academy. He had a certain advantage over his two brothers — a living grandfather, Strange Choate. The family of Famous' mother Natchez was now accessible to him. From Fort Coffee Academy to the Choate holdings in Sebastian County, Arkansas, was only a two-hour drive, and Strange Choate had given his grandson Famous a flamboyant buggy and two fine trotters to drive it in often. Some of the rough Choctaw bumps were knocked off Famous by his smooth and pleasant Cherokee cousins. Also Famous brought about a new cementing of the friendship between Hannali and his father-in-law Strange.

  Strange Choate was a Cherokee of the full-blood faction. His beliefs were those of Hannali, but more fully worked out. Both, in the years of crisis, would be Freedom Indians. Each would always know that, however bad things got, there was one other Indian standing firm forever.

  It was on the advice and counsel of Strange Choate that Hannali entered politics. Politics had not yet taken its modern form, and campaigning was not so competitive. Hannali simply announced that he would devote his time and talents to a particular service if so be it he was selected for it. But it pleased him when he was chosen.

  It was the crown of the success and respect that he had won that Hannali Innominee became (for the first time in the early 18 50s) one of the twelve members of the Choctaw Senate. Later he served a term as congressman (there was one congressman for every one thousand Choctaws), and still later a second term as senator.

  The views of Hannali in the Choctaw Senate were usually minority views, but he gave expression to the basic philosophy of the free-stead Indians. Today he would be called a conservative and damned for it.

  The Big Decade of the family was such a large and pleasantly juicy thing that we must bite into it from all sides to get the varied flavor. We may seem to skip around in treating of the Innominee in those years, their connections, their travels, their increase. But, people, people, how the Innominee themselves did skip around!

  They became almost tourists with Hannali's own love for travel. They visited the Alabaster Hills and the Great Salt Plains and the Wichita Mountains. They consorted with Osage friends at Hominy Falls, with Caddoes on the False Washita, and with Creeks at Lokar Poker Town on the Arkansas. They were town Indians and country Indians at the same time, they went in four buggies and a big red wagon, they reached out their hands to touch everything. They were an expansive family in the Territory that had begun to seepen and vary.

  The first of the sons to travel far was Alinton. Like Famous, Alinton also had a second grandfather. Old French Shawnee Alinton DuShane, long dead, still lived in his grandson Alinton Innominee. And Alinton reverted to a dream of his dead grandfather. He announced that he would take boat and trade goods and go all the way up the Canadian River to the Santa Fe portage.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  1.

  About green Indians. The Canadian River goes to Santa Fe. The California Road.

  Have you heard about the green Indian named Pickens? He got a stock of goods from a trading post, and he went to trade with the prairie and Plains Indians.

  Pickens is a Cherokee when the Creeks tell the story, a Creek when the Choctaws tell it, and a Choctaw when the Chickasaws tell it. None of them will admit that an Indian that green could be one of their own.

  Pickens had nine pack animals laden with goods. He knew all about what gifts must be given to open a parley; he knew how to ask for beaver pelt in Arapaho and for foxskin in Wichita; he knew which Indians will accept cigar coupons for Territory money, and which will buy bear grease for Chippewa honey. He knew how to deal with the ignorant brush and Plains Indians. Some of those fellows are so ignorant that they will take a trader's mules and food away from him, not realizing that he will die without them.

  One day Pickens came to a Kiowa Indian and gave him a block of soap for parley gift. The Kiowa began to eat the soap. “No, no,” Pickens yiped at the man, “it is not for eating.”

  “Tell me not my business, boy,” said the Kiowa, “you should see what we eat at home.”

  The Kiowa gave Pickens three beaver pelts for three more blocks of soap. Other Kiowas came and each of them gave him three more beaver pelts for more soap, for a grindstone, for a yellow rock that he said was Cherokee salt, for a sack of pecan shells which he said would hatch into quail if you put them in creek water, for a broken chamber pot with little cherubs on it, for a left-handed glove for a left-handed Indian. He traded all sorts of odd articles to the Indians, the dasher out of an old butter churn, a child's broken doll, a little lead soldier, and for each of the things he got three beaver pelts.

  “I bet I have three thousand beaver pelts,” Pickens cried when he had traded off the last of his unusual articles, and he turned around to look at his pile. But he didn't have three thousand pelts, he had only three. Each Indian had come behind him and stolen the pelts and then walked around a rock and traded the same three pelts back to him.

  “It is a green buffalo!” one of the Kiowas yelled, and Pickens ran up to the top of the hill to see it. While he was gone, someone stole the only three pelts there were. “Where is it? Where is it?” Pickens called from the top of the hill.

  “It wasn't a green buffalo at all,” the Kiowa said, “I think it was a green Indian.”

  Pickens came to some Caddo Indians one day. The first one came and took a bundle of merchandise — “for a parley gift,” he said. He took a second bundle “for gift for my wife.” And still another bundle “for gift for my second wife.” “Stop! That's enough! How many wifes do you have?” Pickens cried. “Is it your business how many wifes I have?” asked the Caddo, “with all these bundles I need one of your mules to carry them.” And he took one of Pickens' mules away.

  Other Caddoes came and took bundles from Pickens for parley gifts, loaded them on his remaining mules, and led them away. And Pickens was left alone and destitute in the wilderness.

  But not for long! Cheyennes came to him and asked for parley gifts. “The Caddoes have stolen all my merchandise and left me destitute,” said Pickens, “I have nothing left for a parley gift.” “How can a man with a little sack of corn to eat say that he has nothing for gift?” asked one Cheyenne, and he took the little sack of corn. “How can a man who has a jug of water to drink say that he has nothing for gift?” asked another Cheyenne, and he took the jug of water. “How can a man with a shirt on his back say that he has nothing for gift?” asked another Cheyenne, and he took the shirt off Pickens' back. And still other Cheyennes took the hat off Pickens' head, the trousers off his shanks, and the clout from his loins. Then one took his shoes away from him.

  “Let me keep my shoes,” Pickens begged. “How can a man walk in this terrible country without shoes?” “I tell you what,” said the Cheyenne, “a man that hasn't any corn to eat or water to drink or clothes to wear and the sun burning like it is today, that man isn't going very far anyhow. He don't need shoes.” So the Cheyenne took Pickens' shoes and left him to die in the wilderness.

  You think that was the end? You don't know those Plains Indians. A Pawnee came and said, “How can a man with meat on his bones say that he has nothing for gift,” and he began to cut the meat off Pickens' bones to feed to his dog. “What will I have to cover my bare bones with,” Pickens' dead body asked, “if you cut all the meat from my bones?''

  “If I'd gone as far with it as you have,” the Pawnee told Pickens' dead body, “I don't believe I'd worry about my bones.” And, as it happened, he needn't have worried. A Comanche came and began to break loose Pickens' bo
nes and toss them in a hamper on his horse. “What will be left of me if you take my bones?'' said Pickens' bones. “Am I a philosopher?” asked the Comanche, “how do I know what will be left of you? We will break these open and my wifes will make soup from them. Thank you.” And the Comanche carried off all Pickens' bones.

  No, no. That wasn't all of it. An Anadarko came by and caught Pickens' soul in a sack made out of a deer's stomach, and carried the soul away.

  And that was the end of the green Indian named Pickens — until the next story. The thing about it was that all these stories were true: Those ignorant Plains Indians were pretty smart, and they'd pick a trader clean if he let them. Alinton Innominee had heard these stories from his father before he started out, so he only grinned when the Plains Indians said to him — as they said to every new trader in their country — “Here comes Pickens, the green Indian.”

  It took Alinton only three days to discover, as his father Hannali had tried to tell him, that the trading trip up the Canadian River was impractical. But he continued on. He would go to Santa Fe for adventure, if not for profit.

  Well, why was it impractical? Wagon traders and mule-pack traders had been doing well with the western Indians. And in the old French days, the boat trade had beat any other sort. Now there was more profit than ever on the big rivers. Why shouldn't there be a middling profit from a middling river?

  On the third day, Alinton and his companions tied the boats to a cottonwood shore, climbed the banks, and saw the reason. That was where the country changed, where one goes up from the eastern mountains to the western flatlands. West, north, and south it was green and level as far as one could see.