Samuel Checote

Samuel Checote
Born	1819 Alabama
Died	1884 Okmulgee, Creek Nation, Indian Territory
Nationality	Muscogee
Occupation	Preacher
Known for	Principal Chief, Creek Nation

Samuel Checote (1819–1884) (Muskogee} was noted as a Methodist preacher in the Creek Nation, Indian Territory. He also served two terms as the first principal chief of the tribe to be elected under their new constitution after the Civil War. He had to deal with continuing tensions as there were traditionalists who were opposed to assimilation to European-American ways.

Checote was also a veteran: most of the Muskogee had allied with the Confederacy during the war. He served as a lieutenant colonel with a Creek mounted unit in Indian Territory. After the war he resumed preaching.

Early life and education

Checote was born to a Muskogee family in the Chattahoochee Valley near in what is now eastern Alabama. In 1829, he was forced to move with his parents and family to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) as part of Indian Removal. They settled near where the present-day town of Okmulgee developed.

As a child Samuel first attended the Asbury Manual Labor School near Fort Mitchell; the school was named for a Methodist leader. Later, he attended an academy founded by John Harrell, a Methodist missionary. He was very influential, persuading Checote to become a minister to the Creek (Muskogee).

Preacher

Following removal, the Lower Creek Council, which had earlier been dominated by those who wanted to take up some European-American ways, passed laws in 1832 and 1844 forbidding any tribal member from preaching Christianity. Checote and several other Creek preachers fled for their safety; they remained outside the Creek Nation until they were able to appeal to Chief Roley McIntosh. He overrode the council and repealed the law.

In 1852, Checote joined the Indian Mission Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The national church had split into North and South denominations because of disagreement over slavery.

Checote continued preaching until the Civil War began. He enlisted in the Confederate Army as captain of Company B of the First Regiment of Creek Mounted Volunteers on August 13, 1861, and on August 19, 1861, he was commissioned as lieutenant colonel of his regiment. He and his regiment participated in several actions against Union forces, including the 1864 Battle of Cabin Creek and a skirmish at Pryor Creek.

After the end of the Civil War, Checote resumed his career as a Methodist preacher. He served as a circuit rider and as a presiding elder of the Indian Mission.

Principal chief

Checote was elected as principal chief of the Creek Nation in 1867; he was the first to serve under the new postwar Creek constitution. He was reelected to a second term in 1871.

Checote's skills as a political leader were tested by tribal tensions and rivalries, which grew over the next decade. Many of the Creek were traditionalists who opposed assimilation into the white man's way of life. This group, initially led by Locha Harjo, opposed the new constitution.

They eventually formed a kind of rival government based in the town of Nuyaka. After the death of Harjo, the group turned to Isparhecher, a former Checote supporter and district judge, as their chief.

During this period, Checote remained affiliated with the Methodist Church. The Methodist Church, South, chose Checote as a delegate to the international 1882 Ecumenical Council in London, England. But he was unable to attend because of illness.

Troubles continued with rebel opposition in the Nation. In early 1883 Checote called on the Creek Lighthorse, the law enforcement unit, led by Pleasant Porter, to put down the rival movement. In February 1883, Porter's force defeated the Nuyaka rebels in a battle that came to be known as the "Peach Orchard War."

The Nuyaka men, accompanied by their families, moved to Anadarko, where they sought refuge among the Kiowa tribe. Isparhecher was not with them because he had gone to meet with some Cherokee, seeking their support. The Federal Government intervened, arrested the fugitives and delivered them to Fort Gibson. A U.S. Government commission came to meet with representatives of both Creek factions at Muskogee, seeking to resolve the dispute.

Checote resigned as Principal Chief in mid-1883 and called for a new election. It was a contest between Isparhecher and Joseph Perryman, a member of the Checote party. The election on September 3, 1883, was very close. While Isparhecher believed that he had won and briefly served as principal chief during December 1883, the Secretary of the Interior intervened. That department ruled that Perryman had won the vote count and was rightfully the principal chief.

The Perryman government named Isparhecher as its delegate in Washington, D. C. in 1884. It also compensated him for losses of his property and other expenses during the insurrection.

Checote died at his home in Okmulgee on September 3, 1884.

See also

Richey, Russell E., Kenneth E. Rowe, Jean Miller Schmidt. The Methodist Experience in America Volume 2: Sourcebook. "Creek Chief Samuel Checote pens Autobiographical Letter." June 1883.