Southern Reflections: Evolving Attitudes on Race and Region in Indian Territory

Abstract

Southern ReflectionsEvolving Attitudes on Race and Region in Indian Territory Linda English (bio) Key Words Indian Territory, women, African Americans, Native Americans, class, Great Depression, slavery “I had been married about six years when we decided to move to the Indian Territory, so a train of six wagons was formed with a family to each wagon and we started out, bound for the Chickasaw Nation,” Sarah Anne Wel-born revealed to journalist Hazel B. Green in an interview for the Works Progress Administration (wpa) on April 13, 1938.1 The interview focused primarily on Welborn’s migration to the south-central Great Plains in the late nineteenth century as well as her initial experiences with Native Americans. During the session, Welborn recalled the following story: When we first came over here I thought the Indians were awful looking and mighty ‘say nothin,’ and thought if I ever came in contact with them that I ought to treat them as we always had the negroes down in Texas. By that I mean we would not eat at the table with them and things like that. Shortly thereafter, Welborn confronted such a challenge after her husband suggested they invite some local Indian children to dine with them. She prepared the meal, but “ate before they came.” She continued, They came in and washed up and by signs I showed them everything. They could not speak a word of English, nor I Chickasaw. Well, I felt right ashamed of myself when they went to that table and bowed their heads and one of those little children returned Thanks. And they were nice and clean too.2 This experience led to a racial epiphany for Sarah Welborn. “After that I knew that I should treat the Indians as equals, because if they were just as good citizens as white people they were our equals, but if they were not good citizens they would not be our equals even if [End Page 365] their skins were white.”3 For Welborn, Indians turned out to be not so bad—they were clean, moral, and (if they acted like good citizens) equal. Despite the fluidity evidenced in her changing perception of Native Americans, her attitude toward “the negroes down in Texas” seems far more fixed. Initially she expected to treat the Native Americans like she treated blacks south of the Red River—not “eat at the table with them and things like that”—yet she evolved (at least toward the former group, but not the latter). Why the discrepancy? Why was dining with African Americans essentially “off the table”? This article examines the racial hierarchies that developed in Indian Territory in the mid-to the late nineteenth century and provides some insights into why such discrepancies in racial attitudes arose. Ultimately, several factors influenced perceptions of race and class in the region: the migration of southern sensibilities, the racial and power complexities of Indian heritage, Civil War resentment and loss in status tied to emancipation, women’s missionary work, adherence to Lost Cause sentiment, and the impact of the Great Depression. Race relations in Indian Territory during the nineteenth century were complicated not only by the tripartite racial categorizations of the period but also the fragile political and economic circumstances of the post-Civil War environment. While it is certainly not surprising to find racism in the nineteenth century or discover that those who settled in Indian Territory brought with them their racial biases, more perplexing is the willingness by some to temper their perceptions of one group (Native Americans) and not another (African Americans). In her study of white women’s attitudes toward Native Americans, Glenda Riley acknowledged that while white women were often able to extend their sympathies in a select manner to Native Americans, they did not apply their ability to change their views to all racial, ethnic, and religious “others” they encountered on the frontier. Riley explains that this was due in part because “women’s self-images did not undergo any changes that affected their feelings about these peoples.”4 Marginalized politically and economically, white women cast themselves at the top of the racial and social hierarchies that they, in effect...