Benson, Henry C. Life Among the Choctaw Indians and Sketches of the South-West. L. Swormstedt & A. Poe. 1860.
The border Indians, so far as we could learn, all lived in families, recognizing the marriage relation, with its duties and obligations. Polygamy was tolerated in most, perhaps all the tribes, yet it did not exist to much extent. The Cherokees had enacted laws to prohibit it, but they had not been very rigorously enforced. […]
A number of the larger tribes had adopted republican forms of government, modeled after ours in their leading features. On the first day of July, 1839, the wise men of the Cherokee nation assembled in convention, or council, to frame an organic law, or constitution, for the government of the nation. After patient and mature
There were many scores of men and women who were earnest, devoted, and consistent disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. The labors of the faithful missionaries had prepared them for the adoption of a general system of education a system adapted to their necessities. At the time the General Government purchased their lands in Mississippi
The border Indians are all fond of games; many of them have learned to play cards and to gamble with considerable skill; but with the most of the tribes, and especially the Choctaws, ball-playing is the favorite amusement. They have an irresistible passion for such sports and pastimes. Their game was quite similar to that
Thursday morning, the twenty-first day of September Rev. Mr. Steele, a half dozen of our Indian friends, Mrs. B., and myself started on horseback to a camp meeting, which was to be held on the border or line which separates the state from the Indian territory. The distance was thirty miles, in a southeast direction,
The policy of the United States Government, for many years, has been to colonize the Indian tribes in a separate territory upon the western frontier. By consulting the maps published fifteen or twenty years since, a region of country, west of the states, will be seen, with its metes and bounds distinctly defined, designated, the
Before closing these sketches it is our duty to mention particularly one member of our mission family who has recently departed this life, in the faith and hope of the Gospel. In preparing this little volume there has been a studious effort to avoid any unnecessary mention of ourselves or family. We had no desire
The bell aroused us in the morning, at six o’clock, and we found ourselves the sole occupants of the building. It consisted of a single room, about twelve feet square, erected of small logs, “scotched down” with the broad-ax on the inside. The edifice was covered with “shakes,” had a rough, loose floor, two windows,
The Rev. John Smythe, of the Arkansas conference, was appointed to the Dry Run mission. It was a new field of labor in the interior, or rather verging toward the south-western corner of the state. He was an active, zealous, and earnest preacher, whose labors were crowned with abundant success. Before the close of the
