And Still the Waters Run : The Betrayal of the Five Civilized Tribes

Debo's classic work tells the tragic story of the spoliation of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole nations at the turn of the last century in what is now the state of Oklahoma. After their earlier forced removal from traditional lands in the southeastern states—culminating in the devastating 'trail of tears' march of the Cherokees—these five so-called Civilized Tribes held federal land grants in perpetuity, or "as long as the waters run, as long as the grass grows." Yet after passage of the Dawes Act in 1887, the land was purchased back from the tribes, whose members were then systematically swindled out of their private parcels. The publication of Debo's book fundamentally changed the way historians viewed, and wrote about, American Indian history. Writers from Oliver LaFarge, who characterized it as "a work of art," to Vine Deloria, Jr., and Larry McMurtry acknowledge debts to Angie Debo. Fifty years after the book's publication, McMurtry praised Debo's work in the New York Review of Books : "The reader," he wrote, "is pulled along by her strength of mind and power of sympathy." Because the book's findings implicated prominent state politicians and supporters of the University of Oklahoma, the university press there was forced to reject the book in .... for fear of libel suits and backlash against the university. Nonetheless, the director of the University of Oklahoma Press at the time, Joseph Brandt, invited Debo to publish her book with Princeton University Press, where he became director in 1938. The classic book that exposed the scandal of the dispossession of native land by American settlersAnd Still the Waters Run tells the tragic story of the liquidation of the independent Indian republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes. At the beginning of the twentieth century, about seventy thousand of these Indians owned the eastern half of the area that is now the state of Oklahoma, a territory immensely wealthy in farmland, forest, coal mines, and untapped oil pools. Farmers, cattlemen, and coal diggers held their land in common and maintained their own legislative bodies and educational and judicial systems. Their political and economic status in the area was guaranteed by treaties and patents from the federal government. But white people began to settle among them, and by 1890 these immigrants were overwhelmingly in the majority. Congress therefore abrogated treaties that it had promised would last “as long as the waters run,” and when Oklahoma was admitted to the Union in 1907, the Indians received what Angie Debo calls the “perilous gift of American citizenship.”This book—which Oliver La Farge labeled a “work of art”—documents the orgy of exploitation that followed. Within a generation, the Indians were virtually stripped of their holdings, and were rescued from starvation only through public charity. Discovery of oil only intensified the struggle, and “grafting off the Indians” attained the status of a major industry. This is the tragic story of the liquidation of the independent Indian republics of the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks, and Seminoles, known as the Five Civilized Tribes. In spite of solemn treaties that were to endure "as long as the waters run," the Indians saw their patrimony dissipated, their tribal identity submerged in the general citizenship, and their ancient culture destroyed. They were farmers, cattlemen, and coal diggers who held theri lands in common and led a civilized existence in the Indian Territory, with their own legislative bodies and educational and judicial systems. But land-hungry white men eager to "develop the country," clamored for abrogation of the treaties. Congress enacted laws, the tribal governments were dissolved, and the Indians became citizens of the United States. The Indians were outnumbered and bewildered, and the whole force of the white man's legal machinery was directed toward depriving them of their lands. Discovery of oil only intensified the struggle, and "grafting off the Indians" attained the status of a major industry At the beginning of the twentieth century, Native Americans owned the eastern half of the area that is now the state of Oklahoma, a territory immensely wealthy in farmland, forest, coal mines, and untapped oil pools. Their political and economic status in the area was guaranteed by treaties and patents from the federal government of the United States. But white people began to settle among them, and by 1890 these immigrants were overwhelmingly the majority. Congress therefore abrogated treaties that it had promised would last 'as long as waters run, ' and when Oklahoma was admitted to the union in 1907, the Indians received what Angie Debo calls the 'perilous gift of American citizenship.' This book ... documents the orgy of exploitation that followed EVERY American of Middle age can remember when his school geography showed to the south of Kansas a large unmarred expanse of map designated as the Indian Territory. Examines the policies of the federal government which led to the eventual liquidation of the Indian's territorial holdings in Oklahoma