Kenton Harper, Correspondence Primarily From Alex H.H. Stuart, Washington, D.C., Regarding Indian Affairs 

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Jun 13, 2014 - Jun 14, 2014

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• Lot Description
  27 items. 1851-1856.
  
  The items offered in this lot document the political maneuvering through which Kenton Harper secured his appointment as Indian agent. Offering rich insight into the process of political patronage and the expectations that an office brought with it, these letters are equally important for what they say about life in Washington as they are for life in the Chickasaw nation.
  
  Among the 27 items in this lot are six highly significant letters from Alexander H. H. Stuart, a fellow Virginian, former congressman, and Washington insider who served as US Secretary of the Interior in the administration of President Millard Fillmore (1850-1853). Beginning in March 1851, this lot chronicles Harper's progression from Washington to Fort Washita, Indian Territory, and back.
  
  Stuart's letters begin March, 1851, when Harper was considering the offer to become Chickasaw agent. Stuart informed Harper that while he had been approved for the post, he had not been granted the services of a clerk to assist him, but added that there could a sweetener: My impression however is, that if your sons were licensed as traders, & were to take a stock of a few thousand dollars worth of goods into the Indian Country, they could soon make a fortune.
  
  In the second letter, Stuart spells out the inducements to becoming Indian agent further, noting that Harper can expect an excellent house at his new post, a fine farm, a site near a fort for good society, and a good cash market for all your crops. Tellingly, Stuart added: The commissioner (who is a first rate gentleman) informs me that the last agent not only raised his own supplies, but made more money by the farm than from his salary, and in case Harper thought the position might expire when the political tides in Washington changed, Stuart assured him that he could work his Democratic political connections (he noted that he was a friend of Cass, Douglass, and Dickinson) to keep Harper in office regardless of who was President. The specifics of Harper's duties were spelled out on April 7: The Agent is practically the regulator of every thing within their agency – He nominates all the traders & employees, & has power to suspend all of them. Of course there is a supervisory power in the head of the Bureau, to correct any tyrannical or improper exercise of power by the Agent -- But it is just such a power as I exercise over the Bureaus in my Department, & as the President exercises over the heads of Departments. It is obvious that such a power must be reserved in the Executive, or the Indians & the traders & employees, would be at the mercy of an unworthy Agent... Much much more.
  
  When Harper finally took up his post in Fort Washita in October, however, he discovered that Stuart's rose-tinted glasses did not fit him Oklahoma reality. In a long, seven page letter, Stuart apologized profusely, saying in part: I regret exceedingly that your position falls so far short of our expectations – I was quite as much deceived as you were, or I should have been as averse to offering, as you to accepting the place. I have however given directions to the Comr. of Indian Affairs to go as far as the law will allow, if not a little further, towards relieving you from some of your difficulties & annoyances... The letter goes on to discuss the coming of Whigs into power in Washington and to parse politics generally: We anticipate an animated session [of Congress], & probably an excited one, as it immediately precedes the Presidential election, & all parties will seek to make the greatest possible amount of capital by commotion & recrimination...
  
  Also in this lot is a copy of a letter from the Chickasaw Commissioners in Washington dated May 1852, in which they discuss their long term strategy to win sovereignty from the Choctaws. The Commissioners write that they are seeking to effect an adjustment of their existing difficulties with the Choctaws, and secure the future amity of the two tribes by placing each under a government of its own, [they] feel constrained to bring to your notice the present posture of affairs in regard to this latter branch of their duties, and to ask, more earnestly, but respectfully, your friendly interposition... The terms of the agreement between the tribes, they write, specifies that matters should run through the Choctaws unless a disagreement should arise, in which case the Chickasaws could appeal to the president as final arbiter: The Commissioners have anxiously sought an adjustment of their difficulties with the Choctaws by negotiation but their proposition has been declined and they have been arbitrarily required to make their complaints to the “Choctaw Agent,” as the umpire provided by the Treaty between them. To this the Chickasaw Commissioners submitted – not that they were satisfied the reference was proper, but only because it was in conformity to the language of the Treaty; and they wished to raise no obstacle in the way of an adjustment. They do not believe it was designed to make the Agent of one party exclusively the umpire. At the time of the treaty the Choctaw Agent was also Superintendent, and it was doubtless in reference to this latter character, as one having a common care over both tribes, that the officer was designated...
  
  Finally, the collection includes several letters regarding Harper's efforts to settle his accounts for services as agent to the Chickasaws.
  
  Kenton Harper was the sort of remarkable man that the 19th century produced in seeming abundance. Born the son of newspaperman in Chambersburg, PA, in 1801, Harper was working as a printer in town when he made the decision to purchase his own newspaper in Staunton, VA, and to relocate there in 1823. By any reckoning, it was a good career move. An ambitious young man, he parlayed his success in publishing into social power, winning election to the state legislature and as mayor of Staunton, and reaping the rewards with patronage appointments from friends in the capitol. He fulfilled his military duty as well, first in the Mexican American War and then in the Confederacy Army, rather than Union, during the Civil War. Having carried a Major Generals' commission in the pre-war militia, Harper was appointed Brigadier General in the Virginia Provisional Army and was given command of the 5th Virginia Infantry, with the rank of Colonel in the Confederate States Army, which became one of the stalwart regiments in the famed Stonewall Brigade. Kenton barely outlived the war. A book entitled Kenton Harper of Virginia: Editor, Citizen, Soldier, by Thomas Tabb Jeffries, III, (Augusta Co. Historical Society) was just published in 2013 and provides an invaluable look at Harper's numerous accomplishments as a political leader, editor, soldier, and Indian agent.
  
  Smart, ambitious, and well conscious of his political connections, Harper was also a conscientious man when it came to fulfilling his patronage roles, and in that regard, one appointment stands out above the others. In 1851-1852, Harper played a brief, but fascinating part in the development of the Chickasaw Nation, accepting an appointment as agent to the tribe. One of the Five Civilized Tribes of the southeast, the Chickasaws were a vibrant tribe occupying lands centered on current-day northern Mississippi, but with the expansion of white settlers in the first decades of the 19th century, they were subject to a brutal ethnic cleansing sparked by the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Following the Choctaw (1831), Seminoles (1832), and Creeks (1834), the Chickasaws were forced to relocate westward in 1837, following the Trail of Tears.
  
  Unlike the other civilized tribes, the Chickasaw received some financial compensation for the lands they were forced to surrender east of the Mississippi, and at the Treaty of Doaksville in 1837, they agreed to lease the western portion of the Choctaw land in Oklahoma and settle there. Placed administratively under the Choctaw for purposes of the US government and granted representation on the Choctaw Council, the Chickasaws soon felt the need to regain their cultural independence and political sovereignty. Their leadership began developing their own constitution at a council held at Boiling Springs in 1846, expanding the document in 1846 and amending it further in 1849 and 1851, all while engaged in a complex bit of diplomacy with federal authorities and Choctaw alike to secure their independence. The new Chickasaw nation formally ratified their new constitution in August 1856.
  
  Lots 535-540 relate to the legacy of Kenton Harper and the negotiations that led to the formation of the modern Chickasaw nation. 

  Condition

  Generally good condition with minor staining and soiling and separation along the folds of a few letters.
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