Elias Cornelius Boudinot

Elias Cornelius Boudinot

Elias Cornelius Boudinot (born August 1, 1835 in Rome , Georgia , † September 27, 1890 in Fort Smith , Arkansas ) was an American lawyer and politician ( Democratic Party ). He also served as an officer in the Confederate Army .

Early years

Elias Cornelius Boudinot, son of Harriet R. Gold (1805–1836) and Elias Boudinot (1802–1839), a Cherokee leader, was born in Floyd County . His mother was a member of a prominent Cornwall ( Connecticut ) family who were of English descent. His parents met when his father was attending an Indian school there. From 1828 to 1832 his father was the editor of Cherokee Phoenix , the first Indian newspaper. He published articles in both English and Cherokee languages. For this he used the syllabary which Sequoyah (1770-1840) developed. The newspaper was distributed both in the United States and internationally.

His parents named him after the missionary Elias Cornelius (1794-1832), who made it possible for his father to attend the Foreign Mission School . Elias was the fifth of six children. In the year he was born, his father signed the Treaty of New Echota with other Cherokee leaders , where the rest of the Cherokee land in the southeast was ceded in exchange for relocation to Indian territory west of the Mississippi River . His mother Harriet died in 1836, several months after the birth of the seventh child, which was born. The family moved to Indian Territory before the forced relocation in 1838. His father and three other Cherokee leaders were murdered in 1839 in retaliation for ceding their tribal lands in the Treaty of New Echota. His uncle Stand Watie (1806–1871) survived the attack. For their safety, Elias and his siblings were taken to their mother's family in Connecticut, where they all received a good education. In his youth Boudinot studied engineering in Manchester ( Vermont ).

Professional background

At the age of 18, in 1851, he returned west, where he taught at a school for a short time. In 1853 he moved to Arkansas and settled in Fayetteville ( Washington County down). There he renewed contact with his uncle Watie and the other resident Cherokee. In the following years he studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1856. His first major victory as a lawyer was defending his uncle Watie, who was charged with murder. Watie had killed James Foreman, one of the attackers of Major Ridge (1771–1839), Watie's uncle, who was murdered along with his son John Ridge (1802–1839) and brother Elias Boudinot. Watie had survived the attack. Boudinot wanted the fall to revive his family notoriety among the Cherokee.

As an active advocate of slavery in Arkansas, he joined the Democratic Party. In 1859 he was elected to the Fayetteville City Council. That same year, he co-founded a pro-slavery newspaper, The Arkansan, with James Pettigrew , and advocated railroads in Indian territory, with some of the Indians opposed. Boudinot urged the territory to regulate its status with the United States and later supported the measures necessary to recognize Oklahoma as a state. The following year he was elected chairman of the Arkansas Democratic State Central Committee and in his new role oversaw the mounting tension in the country. In 1861 he participated as a delegate to the Arkansas Secession Convention. The territory decided to leave the Union there. Boudinot was elected as a delegate to the first Confederate Congress in 1863 , where he represented the Cheroke majority, which supported the Confederate States. A minority supported the Union. During the Civil War he fought under his uncle Watie in the Confederate Army. He received an officer license and rose to lieutenant colonel over time. After the war ended, Boudinot was chairman of the Cherokee Delegation (South) in the Southern Treaty Commission, which renegotiated treaties with the United States.

Boudinot and his uncle Watie opened their own tobacco factory in 1868. They intended to take advantage of the tax exemption agreed in 1866 between the Cherokee and the United States. With the majority of Cherokee in support of the Confederation, the United States demanded that a new peace treaty be signed. One of their conditions was that the Cherokee release their slaves and that those who chose to stay in Indian territory would be given full citizenship. The Cherokee had taken many slaves with them when they moved west. Contrary to the tax exemption treaty of 1866, federal officials confiscated the factory for unpaid taxes. In 1871 the United States Supreme Court ruled against Boudinot and Watie. The reason given was that the US Congress could override the guarantees agreed in the contract and that those of 1866 were not renewed or provided for previous tax exemptions.

Boudinot remained active in politics and society in Indian territory after the war. He played an important role in railway construction. With the passing of the Dawes Act , in which he helped, the previous Indian territory was opened to white settlement. Common land was allocated to each individual household of the tribe members. The federal government declared that the remaining land was in surplus and allowed its sale to non-Indians. Boudinot founded the town of Downingville, which was later renamed Vinita .

He moved to Washington, DC His work there included lobbying for the railways. A bill passed by the US Congress in 1873 would have given Boudinot financial benefits. However, US President Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885) vetoed it. In early 1874, Boudinot was the private secretary of Congressman Thomas M. Gunter (1826-1904) from Arkansas. He has been appointed to a number of paid committee clerkships . After Gunter left the US Congress, Boudinot became the secretary of US Senator James D. Walker (1830-1906) from Arkansas. In 1885 he tried to get the appointment as Commissioner of Indian Affairs . Despite the support of the Arkansas politicians, he suffered defeat.

Boudinot married Clara Minear in 1885. The marriage remained childless. After they got married, the couple moved to Fort Smith, Arkansas, where they spent the rest of their lives. He practiced there as a lawyer with the politician Robert Ward Johnson (1818–1879), who sat in both Congress Houses before the Civil War. In matters of Indian territory he was still politically active. In this context he often spoke at lectures on Cherokee issues and developments in the West. Boudinot played a major role in the eventual formation of the state of Oklahoma in the early 20th century . Many Cherokee and others of the Five Civilized Tribes had previously tried to get the government to establish a state that would be under the control of Indians. He died on September 27, 1890 at the age of 55 in Fort Smith an der Ruhr . His body was buried there in Oak Grove Cemetery .

Trivia

The historian Richard White wrote the following in 2011 regarding Boudinot and his involvement in railroad construction:

"[He] became a willing tool of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad .... If the competition were not so stiff, Boudinot might be ranked among the great scoundrels of the Gilded Age."

literature

• Adams, John D .: Elias Cornelius Boudinot: In Memoriam, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1890
• Colbert, Thomas Burnell: Prophet of Progress: The Life and Times of Elias Cornelius Boudinot, PhD diss., Oklahoma State University, 1982.
• Visionary or Rogue: The Life and Legacy of Elias Cornelius Boudinot, Chronicles of Oklahoma 65, Fall 1987, pp. 268-281

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} James W. Parins: Elias Cornelius Boudinot: A Life on the Cherokee Border , University of Nebraska Press, 2006, ISBN 978-0-8032-3752-0
2. ↑ ^{a b} John Reyhner: Elias Cornelius Boudinot: A Life on the Cherokee Border , South Western Historical Quarterly, Vol 111, No. 1 July of 2007.
3. ↑ Elias Cornelius Boudinot on the website of The Political Graveyard
4. ↑ Presidential vetoes, 1789-198 , US Senate , p 46
5. ^ ^{A b} Thomas Burnell Colbert: Elias Cornelius Boudinot , Encyclopedia of Arkansas, 2009
6. ^ Richard White, Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America, 2011, ISBN 978-0-393-34237-6