[NATIVE AMERICAN] -- [OKLAHOMA TERRITORY].  Manuscript ledger from trading post at Cloud Chief, Oklahoma Territory, with detailed purchase records for members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe, ca 1903-1904.

10 1/2 x 16 in. ledger with cloth and leather covered boards (heavy wear, especially at corners, edges, and along spine). Interior title page with inscription "J. Griffin" (possibly "Griffen") followed by "Cloud Chief / 4 or 500 fasts." 377pp (approx. 285pp utilized) with alphabetical tab index at beginning identifying the names of more than 250 individuals who made purchases at the post alongside a corresponding ledger page number where purchases and account information for the individual can be located. Individuals identified in the ledger include Native Americans of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribe who lived in the "Seger Colony," a community settled in 1886 by John H. Seger (1846-1928) with the intent of assimilating Native Americans via education in Anglo-American agricultural and industrial methods. With thousands of transactions documented, the ledger provides extraordinary insight into the buying habits of Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho families, and bears witness to the results of the US government's decades-long policy of forced assimilation.

Located less than 20 miles from the "Seger Colony," the pioneer community of Cloud Chief was settled in 1892 when the Cheyenne-Arapaho Reservation was opened for white settlement. The town's trading post would have been frequented by men and women of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes, and the ledger offered here identifies in detail those transactions taking place ca 1903. Pages throughout the ledger are marked with the month and day of purchase followed by a listing of items purchased with associated cost and account balance. Some pages, though not all, are marked with the year "1903" at the top of the page. Frequently purchased items include: foodstuffs such as peaches, coffee, butter, beef, bacon, eggs, crackers, sugar, and candy; fabric including muslin and calico, buttons, and pre-made clothing such as robes, shawls, overalls, shoes, socks, shirts, and a boy's suit; household items such as a pocket knife, ax, oil cloth, needles, matches, tobacco, soap, rope, a mattress, and blankets; and personal items such as beads, earrings, ribbon, perfume, and marbles.

Represented in the ledger are notable members of the Cheyenne and Arapaho community spanning generations. Amongst the names are Left Hand (p152), (Henry) Roman Nose (p167), and Packer (p175), likely the same Cheyenne and Arapaho men who had been held as prisoners at Ft. Marion (FL) following the Red River Wars of the 1870s. Appointed in 1891, Little Big Jake (p125) was the first Cheyenne tribal chief after allotment and frequently visited Washington DC to advocate for the tribe. George Bent (p210) was the son of a Cheyenne mother and an Anglo father, who fought with the Confederates in the Civil War, survived the massacre at Sand Creek, fought with the Cheyenne against the whites, and eventually worked for the US government living out his last years in Seger Colony. Grant Left Hand (p102) was a prominent Arapaho Chief and an early student at Carlisle Indian School. Jock Bull Bear (p52) was, according to a history of Cloud Chief, a "local favorite" who made a living by boxing and wrestling in the East over the winter and spent his summers hunting and fishing on the Washita River.  Larger family groups are distinguishable in the ledger, and women often have their transaction pages listed separately from husbands who are likewise listed in the ledger.

In a broader context, the ledger represents yet another step in the painful legacy of assimilation that began decades earlier for the Cheyenne and Arapaho. The 1867 Treaty of Medicine Lodge established a reservation for the tribes in Indian Territory, and by the 1870s a policy of forced assimilation was being implemented through Indian schools and the introduction of Anglo-American methods of farming and herding. Anticipating passage of the Dawes Act (1887) and the break-up of tribal lands, John H. Seger (1846-1928) along with approximately 120 Cheyenne and Arapaho families established the "Seger Colony." Later, the Seger Industrial Training School would be built to teach farming and industrial skills to the residents of the community continuing the government-sanctioned process of eliminating cultural traditions and identity. As evidenced in the ledger, by 1903 Europeanized names had often replaced traditional tribal names due in large part to the allotment process. Even more, purchases delineated in the ledger provide transactional evidence of the transition away from traditional Native American ways while also demonstrating the extent to which the once self-sufficient Cheyenne and Arapaho people had become heavily dependent upon whites for their ability to subsist.

A SCARCE HISTORICAL ARTIFACT WITH SIGNFICANT RESEARCH POTENTIAL AND HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE

Consignor relates that ledger was purchased in Elk City, Beckham County, Oklahoma, just a short distance from present-day Colony and Cloud Chief, Oklahoma, in Washita County.

[With:] Research conducted by consignor into the ledger, reproduction photographs of individuals represented in the ledger, and a stereoview with applied paper label on verso "A Picture of the Indian Cut Throats & Scalpers, Who were confined in the Old Spanish Fort as prisoners of war by the United States Government" [ca mid-to-late1870s].