T
HE STILL-YOUNG AMERICAN nation had all but moved heaven and earth by the mid-1830s to force the southeastern Indian Republics and other tribes west to its new Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The Southern Great Plains tribes, however, along with their own mortal enemies, the still-sanguinary Osage, remained oblivious to all the federal government’s best-laid plans.
The Plains tribes, which included the Comanche, Kiowa, and Wichita, thwarted the U.S. government’s promised plans of peace for the transplanted woodland tribes of eastern and southern Oklahoma by raiding and plundering them. The Osage, meanwhile, refused to move north to Kansas from Verdigris River enclaves in the heart of the Cherokee country as earlier agreed upon. They stole Cherokee and Creek horses, along with other property. All these tribes also imperiled the travel of American citizens traversing Indian Territory, whether to settle farther west or conduct other business. The presence of such small tribes as the Shawnee, Seneca, and Quapaw presented another lingering dilemma. They remained on land overlapping that of recently arrived groups such as the Cherokee. President Andrew Jackson appointed the three-man Stokes Commission, headed by North Carolina Governor Montfort Stokes, to address ARTIST GEORGE CATLIN’S RENDERING OF HENRY all these problems. This group DODGE, RENOWNED FOR HIS EXPLOITS IN BOTH THE succeeded in settling the tribal BLACK HAWK WAR AND INDIAN TERRITORY, AND LATER boundary disputes. Handling GOVERNOR OF AND U. S. SENATOR FROM WISCONSIN.
