Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 15, No. 4
December, 1937
GOVERNOR CYRUS HARRIS
By John Bartlett Meserve.
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Oklahoma has no more substantial citizenship than may be recognized among the erstwhile members of the Chickasaw Nation and
their descendants who pause this year (1937) in thoughtful regard of their exiled ancestors who emigrated from Mississippi
to the old Indian Territory, a century ago. The Chickasaws sold their lands in Tennessee and Kentucky to the United States
Government, in 1818. In consideration for this cession, the United States paid each Chickasaw enrolled at that time $1,000
annually for twenty years. Such an income in those days was considered wealth and at the expiration of the twenty years the
majority of the Chickasaws had money, lands, slaves and livestock, and to some extent an educated citizenship. The Chickasaws,
in Mississippi, lived amid comfortable environs which their own efforts through capable leadership had made possible. These
Indians had been unremitting in their fidelity to the United States Government, but finally were induced to abdicate their
hereditary domain in Mississippi to placate the surge of white settlers which was overwhelming them. The "Promised Land" lay
beyond the Mississippi.
The old Indian Territory became a traditional home of adventure wherein tribal characteristics and ambitions were to be preserved
by effective separate grouping of the Five Tribes, the members of which were guaranteed the freedom to police their own tribal
affairs. The Chickasaws had purchased a one-fourth interest in the lands in the West, obtained by the Choctaws in the
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Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, in 1830, and on arrival in the Indian Territory a joint government was organized with the
Choctaws which proved unsatisfactory as the Choctaws were in such a large majority that the Chickasaws practically had no
voice in the government. Through discerning leadership, the independent status of the Chickasaws was preserved from ultimate
absorption by the Choctaws, by the tribal agreement made with that tribe at Doaksville, Indian Territory, on January 17, 1854,
and the treaty of separation entered into at Washington, on June 22, 1855.1 To effect more completely the independent status created by these agreements, the Chickasaws, in mass convention at Tishomingo,
on August 30, 1856, adopted a formal written constitution embodying the principles of a representative form of tribal government.
This organic law, modeled after the States, was in accord with similar action previously taken by the Cherokees and the Choctaws
and to be taken by the Creeks, and was voluntarily undertaken in response to erudite leadership.2 The Chickasaws had $2,000,000 in the United States Treasury at this time from the sale of their lands in Mississippi and
as there were only about 5,000 Chickasaws enrolled, this sum was sufficient to afford a liberal education for each child in
the Chickasaw Nation. For many years previous to this time the money received from the sale of lands in Tennessee and Kentucky
had been used to educate the youth of their Nation. So when the Chickasaws established their constitutional form of government,
they were quite competent to administer it. This valu-
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able experience in government enabled a more intelligent participation in American life, which lay in the future. The Chickasaws,
since statehood, have contributed most effectively to capable leadership in the political life of the State of Oklahoma.3
The administration of political affairs of the new Chickasaw Nation under its new constitution was initially undertaken by
Cyrus Harris,4 who became its first governor, in August, 1856. His background is one of more than passing interest.
The collapse of the Jacobite Uprising in Scotland, fomented by the Scottish adherents of James the Pretender, in 1715, and
the ensuing years of reprisal exacted by the English, influenced the emigration to America of many of the grim Highlanders.
The inflow continued for many years. The first contingent of these people to settle in Georgia arrived at Savannah, in January,
1736, and among these earliest arrivals was young Logan Colbert. He doubtless came with the party led by John Mohr McIntosh
which sailed from Inverness, Scotland, on October 18, 1735, on the ship "Prince of Wales" commanded by Capt. George Dunbar.
Soon after landing at Savannah, courageous young Colbert abandoned the white settlement, ventured to the far West and settled
among the militant Chickasaw Indians who then ranged along the eastern banks of the Mississippi from the mouth of the Ohio
to the vast stretches of the lower river. It was an adventurous undertaking and his life story, if known, doubtless
3Among whom should be mentioned the late Charles D. Carter, for many years a Congressman from Oklahoma; Reford Bond, Chairman
of the State Corporation Commission; Jessie R. Moore, a former Clerk of the State Supreme Court and today, a member of the
Board of Directors of the State Historical Society and its Treasurer; Douglas H. Johnston, Governor of the Chickasaws since
1898, (with the exception of the term that Palmer S. Mosley was chief); Judge Earl Welch, a Supreme Court Justice; W. C. Lewis,
United States Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma; Ben Harrison, a Secretary of State; Otis Leader, a noted World
War veteran; and former Governors Lee Cruce and William H. Murray, who became members of the Chickasaw Tribe by intermarriage.
4The Indian Champion (Atoka, Indian Territory), April 18, 1885; H. F. O'Beirne, Leaders and Leading Men of the Indian Territory (Chicago, 1891), I, 209; H. B. Cushman, A History of the Choctaw, Chickasaw and Natchez Indians (Green. ville, 1899), 513 et seq. Under the new constitution the title of "Governor" was substituted for "Chief."
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would be one of dramatic interest. He seems to have cultivated a sympathetic understanding with the Indians, married into
the tribe and became a character of much prominence among them and a renowned leader in their wars against the French. The
descendants of Logan Colbert in Oklahoma today, recall with much pride, the emigrant Scotch lad of the early days of the eighteenth
century.5 He met a tragic death at the hands of a negro slave who was accompanying him on a trip back to Georgia.
Major William Colbert, a son of Logan Colbert, became a famous war chief among the Chickasaws and early in life took an active
part in the political affairs of the tribe. He represented his people at Washington, upon numerous occasions, and in the very
early days, was received by President Washington, in Philadelphia. At the solicitation of Washington he led a contingent of
Chickasaw warriors in support of Gen. Anthony Wayne at the battle of Fallen Timbers, Ohio, on August 20, 1794, against Little
Turtle and the Northwestern Confederation of Indians. Major Colbert served nine months in the 3rd Regiment of United States
Infantry in the War of 1812, concluding his military career by an effective participation in the war against the recalcitrant
Creeks. As a commissioner from the Chickasaws, he was a signer of the treaty of October 4, 1801,6 and the treaty at Washington, of September 20, 1816.7 By the terms of the latter treaty, he was granted an annuity of $100 for the remainder of his life and was also styled a
major-general. He also signed the Chickasaw treaty of October 19, 1818.8 The major signed these treaties by mark, which would indicate his lack of any scholastic training, although he is recognized
as a character of pronounced native courage, ability and fine judgment. Major Colbert married a Chickasaw Indian woman by
the name of Mimey and lived at Tokshish, Mississippi,
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some four miles southeast of Monroe, and doubtless was largely instrumental in securing the establishment of the celebrated
mission at that place. He was a contemporary of the famous Chief Piomingo of the Chickasaws, and passed away at an advanced
age, sometime shortly before the Chickasaw removal of 1837-8.
An interesting character among the Chickasaws in Mississippi was Mollie,9 daughter of Major William Colbert. As a young woman she married Christopher Oxbury, a mixed-blood Chero-
9The life story of Mollie Colbert, the attractive Indian princess daughter of Major William Colbert of the Chickasaws, is one
of romantic interest. After the death of Christopher Oxbury, her Cherokee husband by whom she had several children, she married
James G. Gunn, a wealthy English planter. Gunn was a native of Virginia, fought with the British in our war of the Revolution
and after the war removed from Viriginia to the remote edge of white settlement and located among the Chickasaw Indians and
in what is today Lee County, Mississippi. He never composed his disdain for the new United States Government and would suffer
no observance of the Fourth of July to be held upon his plantation, although he thoughtfully observed the birthday of George
III. He died in 1826. Rhoda, the only child of James and Mollie Gunn was famed as a celebrated beauty and of her engaging
qualities much has been written. Perhaps the story which is handed on down, of her romantic marriage to Humming Bird, a Chickasaw
warrior, is more or less legendary. From his home at Mill Creek, C. N., Gov. Cyrus Harris, on August 10, 1881, wrote an interesting
letter to Harry Warren of the Mississippi Historical Society in which he narrates many interesting details, some of which
divest the romance from this oft repeated story about the marriage of Rhoda. He says, "Molly Gunn, my grandmother, was the
wife of the old man James Gunn, who died rich, leaving one child, Rhoda. She (Rhoda) died two years ago, on Red River (Indian
Territory) at her half-sister's, who was my aunt, a full-sister of my mother and a half-sister of my Aunt Rhoda. My grandmother's
first husband, my mother's father, was a Cherokee, named Oxberry. After his death, she married old man James G. Gunn. Rhoda
married Samuel Colbert, a nice man, but they separated and she married Joseph Potts, a white man. He died during the Civil
War (1862) by taking strychnine by mistake. He died at my house. Aunt Rhoda had two sons living, Taylor and Joseph Potts.
Her first child by Sam Colbert was a girl named Susan. She married and went off and never was heard of since. Malcolm McGee
was my step-father. He had one daughter by my mother and named her Jane. My sister Jane married Robt. Aldridge, a white man
who lived at Tuscumbia, but after they came to this country (Indian Territory) he got so trifling she drove him off. He then
went to Texas and died. They had one daughter who is yet living. Jane afterwards married a nice gentleman by the name of William
R. Guy and soon after she and Mr. Guy were married they went after sister Jane's father, old man McGee, and had him with them
at Boggy Depot, Chickasaw Nation, but he, being very old, lived but a few months after getting there. I saw the old man die
and was at his funeral. Old man McGee was a little over one hundred years old when he died. He was a long time United States
Interpreter for the Chickasaws and it was said he could beat the Chickasaws talking their own tongue. Mr. and Mrs. Guy had
nine children when Mrs. Guy died at Boggy Depot. About a year after her demise, Mr. Guy died at Paris, Texas, being there
on a visit." Harry Warren, "Chickasaw Traditions, Customs, etc.," Mississippi Historical Society Publications (Oxford, 1898-1914), VIII (1908) 546 n.; Harry Warren, "Missions, Missionaries, Frontier Characters and Schools," loc. cit., 587-8. E. T. Winston, "Father" Stuart and the Monroe Mission (Meridian, Miss., 1927), 50-51.
Among the nine children of Mr. and Mrs. William R. Guy above mentioned were William Malcolm Guy, who was born at Boggy Depot,
on February 4, 1845, and was Governor of the Chickasaw Nation, in 1886-8; Cerena Guy, who married Ben W. Carter and became
the mother of Hon. Charles D. Carter, a former congressman; and Mary Angelina Guy, who married Capt. Charles LeFlore and became
the mother of Mrs. Lee Cruce, the wife of the second Governor of Oklahoma.
Mollie Gunn seems to have been a member of the Presbyterian Church at Monroe Mission, but the following disquieting notation
appears in the old church records: "April 5, 1834, the following persons having been under suspension from the privileges
of the church for a length of time and giving no evidence of repentance, but continuing impenitent, were solemnly excommunicated,
viz: Mollie Gunn, Nancy Colbert, Sally Frazier, James B. Allen, Benjamin Love and Saiyo." Her father, Major Colbert, also
appears to have run counter to church discipline as it appears from the same record, "September 7, 1834. Session convened
and was constituted by prayer. Mr. William Colbert, a member and an elder of this church, having been cited to appear before
the session to answer the charge of intemperance, appeared accordingly, and having confessed his sin, expressed deep contrition
for the same, and promised amendment; the session resolved that it is a duty to forgive him after requiring him to make a
public confession before the congregation and promising to abstain in the future. Concluded in prayer. T. C. Stuart, Mod.
Examined and approved by Presbytery at Unity Church, March 7, 1835." The old major passed away a year or two later. See Winston,
op. cit., 40-41.
It is of interest to know that the Chickasaws had no clans as did most of the other tribes, but were distinguished by distinctive
House names, the ancestry being traced back through the mother. Mollie Colbert and her descendants were of the House of Inchus-sha-wah-ya.
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kee, a proficient interpreter and a person of high standing among the Chickasaws. They lived upon her comfortable estate three
miles south of Pontotoc, Mississippi, where her daughter Elizabeth or Betty was born. Her interesting home stood upon an ancient
mound, the highest point in that part of the State, and surrounded by 1,000 acres of beautiful table-land. All of her children
were born there as well as her famous grandson, Cyrus Harris, who was born there on August 22, 1817. The identity of the father
of Cyrus Harris is somewhat confused. He is reputed to have been a white man by the name of Harrison, the name being subsequently
shortened to Harris. Elizabeth's marriage to him was of brief duration, as she soon left him and returned to the home of her
mother, where her son, Cyrus Harris, was born. The father declined to remove with the Chickasaws, at first, although he later
attempted to join his son in the old Indian Territory. Cyrus Harris declined to have anything to do with him. Elizabeth married
Malcolm McGee,10 very shortly but again returned to her mother at
10Malcolm McGee, of Scotch parentage who had recently emigrated from Scotland, was born in New York City about 1757, his father
having been killed shortly before, at the battle of Ticonderoga, in the French and Indian War where he fought with the Colonial
troops. While he was quite young, his mother removed to and settled on the north bank of the Ohio River, in southern Illinois,
at Ft. Massac, and immediately across the river from the Chickasaw country. McGee had no schooling, but served as an interpreter
among the Chickasaws, for forty years. It is said, "He assumed the Indian costume and conformed to all their customs except
their polygamy." He married Elizabeth, a daughter of Christopher and Mollie Oxbury as his second wife, about 1819, and had
one daughter, Jane. Shortly thereafter Elizabeth left him, taking the child with her. The mother later returned the child
and she was placed by McGee in the home of Dr. T. C. Stuart, to be educated at Monroe Mission. In 1849, Malcolm McGee removed
from Mississippi to the old Indian Territory, where he lived at the home of his daughter, Jane (Mrs. William R. Guy), at Boggy
Depot, and where he died on November 5, 1849. Cyrus Harris became the guardian of their minor children whom he reared and
educated. For further details, see Winston op. cit., 84 et seq., and Cushman, op cit., 509 et. seq.
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Pontotoc.11 Mollie sold her famous home about 1830, to Robert Gordon, who thereafter erected the spacious plantation home "Lochinvar"
upon the site and where his son, Col. James Gordon, afterwards a United States Senator from Mississippi, was born. After the
sale, Mollie removed with her children, including Elizabeth, to Horn Lake, in what is today DeSoto County, Mississippi, where
she passed away shortly before the removal of the Chickasaws, in 1837-8. Elizabeth removed in the party with her son, Cyrus
Harris, to the old Indian Territory, late in 1837, where she died some years later, at Mill Creek, at the home of her famous
son.
The educational advantages of Cyrus Harris were very limited. In 1827, he was sent to the Monroe Presbyterian Mission, of
which school Dr. T. C. Stuart was in charge. In the succeeding year, he was entered at a small Indian school in Giles County,
Tennessee, under the tutelage of Rev. William R. McKnight. He returned home, in 1830, and after a few years' residence with
his mother and grandmother, who were then living at Horn Lake,
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he made his home with his uncle, Martin Colbert, near the same place.12
The Chickasaw Indians, in 1835, began intensive preparations for their en masse removal to the West. A government land office had been established at Pontotoc and, through interpreters, the individual
land holdings of the Indians were being identified and immediately bought up by land speculators. Young Harris sought employment
at Pontotoc, as he spoke both Chickasaw and English with tolerable fluency. He first became engaged in the trading store of
Capt. John Bell, but later was used as a contact man by Captain Bell and Robert Gordon, who were jointly engaged in purchasing
lands from the Indians, who were about to remove to the West. The sale of these lands was practically completed in 1836, and
the Chickasaws began their final plans for the emigration. Harris became an interpreter at the numerous Councils which were
held and at which the details for removal were arranged.
Cyrus Harris with his mother, Elizabeth, left Horn Lake, on November 1, 1837, for Memphis, to join a party of the emigrants
led by A. M. M. Upshaw, the emigrant agent. Within the next few days they crossed the Mississippi and proceeded overland to
Ft. Coffee. He tarried for a brief two weeks in camp at Skullyville and in the following year settled on the Blue River, in
what is today Johnston County, Oklahoma. His initial years in the West were simple and unexciting, having those idyllic, pastoral
qualities so engaging to the Indian of that period. Early in life, he evidenced an interest in the political affairs of his
people, and in 1850 was dispatched as a delegate to Washington, in company with Edmund Pickens. Upon his return home, he disposed
of his place on the Blue and removed to Boggy Depot where he lived for about a year, after which he established his home on
Pennington Creek, about one mile west of Tishomingo. He removed again in No-
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vember, 1855, to Mill Creek, northwest of Tishomingo, where he continued to reside until his death.
Cyrus Harris again was sent as a delegate to Washington, in 1854, and upon the adoption of the new constitution, in August,
1856, was chosen as the first governor of the Chickasaw Nation. In this memorable first election there were several candidates,
but when the results were totaled, it appeared that no one of the aspirants had secured a majority of the votes cast, and
as a consequence, the choice was delegated to the legislature, with the result that Cyrus Harris was chosen by that body by
a majority of one vote. The young governor organized the new government, served through the two year term and was succeeded
by Dougherty (Winchester) Colbert. He was reelected in the fall of 1860, but again was defeated by Dougherty Colbert, in August,
1862. These were the opening days of the Civil War and the Chickasaws were the first of the Five Tribes to evidence their
open preference for the Confederacy. Resolutions of secession from the Union were approved by Governor Harris, on May 25,
1861. An influencing factor in taking this action was the abandonment by the United States Government of Ft. Washita, thereby
leaving the Chickasaws at the mercy of the Plains Indians. It is said of Governor Harris that as he reviewed the Chickasaw
troops marching away to war, the tears ran down his cheeks as he stated that, "This was the first time in history the Chickasaws
have ever made war against an English speaking people." In the fall election of 1866, Cyrus Harris again was reelected as
governor and succeeded himself in 1868. His executive ability once more was recognized when he again was elected governor
of the Chickasaws, in 1872. He was chosen to the highest position among his people in the West, upon five different occasions,
which was a record to be unequaled among the Chickasaws. It was a marked evidence of the high esteem and regard in which he
was held by his people.
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A complete survey of the public life of Cyrus Harris, would involve a history of the Chickasaw Nation from 1856 to 1888. He
was in intimate touch with its political life during that period. They were the years of tragedy and of the reconstruction
after the Civil War. It was with unfaltering steps that he led his people through this crucial period. The matter of the establishment
of educational facilities received his marked attention. An appropriation of $2500 to repair the academies was approved by
him on September 18, 1872, and on September 21, 1872, he approved the establishment of a boarding school at Wapanucka.
The famous governor possessed a rare vision of approaching difficulties for his people which lay far in the years ahead. The
specter of the allotment of tribal lands in severalty and the destruction of their communal life, had not, as yet, engaged
the thought and attention of the Indians. Governor Harris saw its approach and in his message to the legislature on September
2, 1872, sounded a note of warning in courageous words, "Before closing my brief address, I wish to detain you a few moments
on a subject of much importance. Although it is unpopular among our people and I must candidly confess that I, as one interested,
could not consistently give my consent to its approval, had we any shadow of remaining as an independent nation, holding our
lands in common. But can we, with any degree of certainty, continue the hope of holding lands in common, when railroad agitators
and land speculators are using all available means to open our country to the settlement of the whites. Notwithstanding the
Indian policy of the President of the United States to consolidate and settle in the Indian Territory, all Indian tribes under
the jurisdiction of the United States, we hear, in the halls of Congress, the advocation of extending Territorial Government
over the Indian country. From this we must suppose that we are liable at any moment to be robbed of the rights to our lands.
The country we occupy, we hold under a patent granted by the United States to the Choctaw
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Nation, in which the Chickasaws have, by the consent of the former, acquired an interest...But we are told by these that seem
to know, that land held in common, does not meet with the approbation of the Government of the United States, although, by
that Government, we are promised protection against the inroads of any other tribe and from the whites; and also agreed to
keep us without the limits of any State or Territory. But can we depend on this much longer in consideration of the great
railroads and border states banded against us? If we can, I again say, let us live in peace, holding our lands as in the days
of old. Well, then under these circumstances, let us look a little ahead and perhaps we may imagine that something more than
usual is approaching.... There are many matters which could be enumerated to show why it is necessary to prepare for the approaching
events. Well, then, under all these circumstances, should we undertake to continue the holding of all our lands in common?
Or should we make an effort to divide all of our lands severally, as provided for in Articles 11 and 33 of the Treaty of the
28th of April, 1866? This is an important question and should be well considered and should not be delayed. By the plan latterly
mentioned, if successful in carrying into effect, will at once put a check upon the ingress of those who seek the downfall
of our nationality."13 His vision was thirty years ahead of what actually occurred but his surmises were accurate. The governor evidenced a distrust
of the Government in fulfilling certain of its treaty engagements, against which evasions the Indians had no recourse. Through
his firm reconstruction policy, the former slaves of the Chickasaws were denied tribal membership, but the adventurous whites
who were drifting into the Territory presented a more serious problem, but one which he doubtless felt was capable of solution.
His earlier experiences in Mississippi with the land speculators provoked grave apprehensions in the heart of Governor Harris,
as to consequences, if the influx of white settlers should assume
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proportions. The Chickasaw legislature, in 1876, rather complicated the situation by admitting the intermarried whites into
full tribal membership. An economic advantage thus was created and eagerly sought by designing white men. Marriage was easily
accomplished by the adventurous white man and thereby his tribal membership became fixed.14 Such marriages were not, of necessity, permanent and were easily dissolved by agreement and decree of divorce granted before
a court of competent jurisdiction and the white man was then at liberty to marry a white woman who at once acquired the tribal
status of her husband. Governor Harris in his message to his legislature on September 2, 1872, touched upon this question
in language which disclosed his complete understanding of the situation, "I would also call your attention to the mode and
manner in which the bonds of matrimony are dissolved. The records of the Courts of the Nation show that nearly all the divorces
granted are to parties who mutually agree to a dissolution, many of whom, perhaps, could have lived together in peace the
remainder of their lives but for the easy matter of procuring a divorce by mutual consent. I would recommend that there be
fines imposed in all cases of divorce by mutual consent, or, repeal the law authorizing divorce in toto. By repealing the divorce law, you put a check upon all who only marry for a foot-hold in the Nation, caring but little for
the women whom they take for wives."15 The advent of the whites in succeeding years and their participation in tribal government began to imperil the political
life of the Nation, as the native Indian understood it. Governor Harris was a progressive leader, but none the less a staunch
friend of the full-blood members of his tribe and as equally devoted to their interests. In
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his campaign for a reelection in 1874, these people supported B. F. Overton, who was elected governor, and reelected in 1876.
The concluding gesture of Governor Harris was made in the fall of 1878, when his candidacy for governor was inspired by his
legion of friends throughout the Nation. He was supported by the progressive mixed-blood and white citizens and probably received
a majority of the votes cast and should have been inducted into the governorship. His election was declared by the legislature
and on September 23rd, he took the oath of office. On the following day, a somewhat disorganized session of the lower house
of the legislature, acting under the inspiration of Governor Overton, reversed the former action, went through the form of
throwing out a sufficient number of votes cast for Harris and declared the election of B. C. Burney, by a majority of five
votes. The campaign had been tense but the aftermath was more so.16 Great dissatisfaction prevailed and threats of violence presaged armed strife. Governor Harris immediately withdrew from
the contest, conceded the election of Governor Burney and further trouble was averted. It was a patriotic finale to his long
and faithful service as a trusted leader of the Chickasaws. He gracefully retired to his home at Mill Creek, and announced
the conclusion of his public career. His interest thereafter, in the political concerns of his people, was not entirely negligible
nor passive. He emerged from his retirement and gave a militant support to William M. Guy, his nephew, who was elected governor
of the Chickasaws in the fall of 1886, on the Progressive ticket. The lines of cleavage between the "white" Indians and the
more conservative full-bloods, was clearly defined during the campaign with William L. Byrd representing the latter. The adopted
and intermarried whites were disfranchised by act of the legislature on April 8, 1887, and at the ensuing election of August,
1888, Byrd defeated Governor Guy, who was a candidate for reelection. The full-bloods triumphed again
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in 1890, when Byrd, who strove vainly to preserve the political life of the tribe for the native Indians, was reelected. But
the influence of the whites soon thereafter began to evidence itself and gather control. Rigor mortis already had set in on the political and communal life of the Chickasaws and the time was soon to arrive when the Government
was going to probate the estate and distribute the proceeds. Governor Harris, who had so accurately presaged the finale, passed
away on January 6, 1888, at his home at Mill Creek, in what is today Johnston County, Oklahoma, where he is buried.
Cyrus Harris was a farmer and, to some extent, engaged in the cattle business, which was an overshadowing industry during
that period. He was married three times. His first wife was Kizzia Kemp, sister of Joel Kemp. Upon the death of Tenesey, his
second wife, he married Hettie Frazier, a widow of Ishtehotobah, the venerable and beloved King of the Chickasaws.
No character during his generation impressed so strongly and effectively, the political life of the Chickasaw Nation as did
Cyrus Harris. Although practically devoid of trained educational advantages, nature had endowed him with unusual ability and
powers of discernment. He was a progressive and despite his early experiences in Mississippi, seemed in his later years to
compose his vision to the influence of the white members of the tribes, nevertheless he was unfaltering in his fidelity to
the best concerns of his people as he understood them. His high, patriotic character is evidenced in his generosity and self-sacrifice
in withdrawing from the post election troubles of 1878. Cyrus Harris was a character of the highest integrity and ever will
adorn the pages of Chickasaw Indian history, as one of its outstanding leaders.
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