“In Governing the Indian, Use the Indian!”

John Oskison
Case and Comment. Volume 12, Issue 722 February 1917
Excerpts
Alyne Queener Massey Law School Library

Cherokee writer John Milton Oskison observed William Wirt Hastings brutally cross-examining Cherokee Freedmen land claimants and reasoned that because Hastings was as effective as any white lawyer, the Cherokees had shown that they were capable of governing themselves. In Jim Crow-Era Oklahoma, one of the primary functions of government involved constructing and maintaining a rigid color line that impoverished and disenfranchised African Americans. By placing the Cherokee Nation in line with Jim Crow, Hastings was both suggesting the Nation’s capacity for sovereignty and helping Cherokee leaders assimilate into the power structure of the newly formed state of Oklahoma. By 1915 Hastings would be serving in the U.S. House of Representatives as an Oklahoma Democrat.