Kenton Harper, Letter of Thanks from the Chickasaw Nation, March 9, 1861 

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• Lot Description
  Edmund Pickens, Sampson Folsom, and James Gamble LS to Kenton Harper, Washington, D.C., 1p, Mar. 9, 1861.
  
  A highly unusual letter written on the eve of the Civil War from three of the leading figures in the Chickasaw nation:
  
  Edmund Pickens (Okchantubby) is distinguished as the first elected Chickasaw Chief and a key architect of Chickasaw independence; Sampson Folsom was an omnipresent figure in Chickasaw diplomacy and nation-building, and James Gamble was an important figure in the new Chickasaw government who became one of the signatories to the "treaty of friendship and alliance" made between the Chickasaws and Confederate States of America on July 12, 1861. In this letter, the trio relay greetings and thanks to Harper for his role as Indian agent a decade before. The letter reads:
  
  The undersigned your friends of the Chickasaw Nation, would respectfully tender their highest regard and esteem for the many kind attention which they received at your hands while sojourning in their country as United States Agent for the Nation in the year 1851 & 1852. They merely make this presentation to renew to you their gratitude for what you have done for their people, & hope that these few lines will find you in good health.

  
  

  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

  Good condition with expected wear.
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