INDEX GAUDS: C2ierokee Katiom. cavil. Sarly Ghurohei Li Ting Conditiocs Hid Game Tahlequtth.

Transcription

1 "'- // V 232 INDEX GAUDS: C2ierokee Katiom cavil Sarly Ghurohei Li Ting Conditiocs Hid Game Tahlequtth.

2 fey 7, - 3 P*o;Jcbot for Ofciahoma 23S -Worker 1 q mad on^d^te) Jtine 28 \9& ' 4 1 Kame lhoma«qrittg (Qhrok ) Post Office Address > Oklahoma Rt» 1 t Residence address (or location) third house east of Greece Spga* DATE OF BIRTH:" Month UnknoTO. Day Year Place of birth oae east of Si loam gpilnge, Arkansas 7 * Agency Record Name of lather Lole Gritti Place of birth In Georgia Other information abo'ut father Killed as direct result of woind ib the CiTil War# Name of Mother ftxakle Gritts Place of birth Other information about mother She died when I was seven or eight. years old* 6tes or complete narrative by the field worker dealing with the life and fcory of the person interviewed,- Refer to Manual for suggostod subjects Dd questions* Continue on blank sheets if-nocessary and attach firmly to }iis foim*' Number of sheets attached * v. '.

3 r 6383 GRITTS, THOMAS. INTERVIEW. / Ifyly Thornton, Field Worker * -2'$4 Indian-Pioneer History Life and experience of Thomas Gritts, Cherokee Indian, as told by himself in a personal interview with Wyly Thornton. Thomas Gritts was born in 1860^one mile east of Siloesi Springs, Arkansas. His father, Lole Gritts, and mother, Quekie Gritts, were born in Georgia and came to this place, east of Siloan Springs and settled and lived there until their deaths. V.y father joined the Army on the Union side at the startmof the Civil War. I remember I was to!': that a man named Caotain Fisher in the Union Army came by one morning and told my father he had to go and he got ready and went away. Mother said it was hard for him to leave on account of her and me -and said he would not have hated it,30 badly if my older brother, "Harne'tt," could be allowed to remain at home to look after us, but Captain Fisher forced brother Harnett to go along also. I never saw my brother and father but once after that day and that was about a year after "they went ave y. One day a man came and told ua brother Harnett was killed and was buried on the bav.tle-field, away ncrth somewhere; and later we were told my father was wounded seriously and died in a few days, and had been buried.

4 \GRITTS, THCfoAS. INTERVIEW, ' ' " I My mother died when I was about seven or eight year.s of age and that left me without a home* After my mother's death the neighbors came and got me and seemed to love and care for me the very best they could, but our old home place went down to nothing. School. The nearest school I can remember was located, I was told, ten miles west of Siloam Springs and that school was opened after I was about ten years <>. old. I didn f t want to go to school to that white woman teacher because I was told she whipped the other Indian children awfully hard. But I believe if I. had had someone who cared enough about me to have persuaded me, I might have gone to school. * Church,, I don't remember anything about church 'till I was about fifteen years of age. There was a Baptist church located near what is now called ' Terisita, ten or twelve miles north of Tahlequah and -_ -I:-do-^ceme^ejg =r^iej'9^w,e r rglab.out three In&jgrj)reachers coming there at different times ana it seems like one was named Joe Hust and one was something like Jenup Big. They tried awfully hard to get me to join

5 GRITTS,.THOMAS.- INTERVIEW, i i their church. They\said all I had to do was quit being mean and that f s why I didn*t join, because I wasn't doing anything mean, and you know I never have joined to this day. I believe God has been with me all my life ori I couldn f t be here now. - < I believe God above (raised n^trairtl~tipward-)-has-been with me and looked after, this old Indian in every way. Medicine I never have had a single enemy ariong the Cherokees or whites either and I have never taken a single dose of medicine c$f «ay kind. Mother used a lot of different kinds of rpots when she was sick but I am, sura it was fod*s will for her to go and that's.why the medicine didn't do any good. I be^ieve^in Indian herb doctors. ^ 1 Clothing i The' Indians ^made their clothing, spun the 'thread on looms adad knitted the cloth, and I i ber we had a good many sheep to furnish our wool but along later we began to,see clothing in they few stores in Siloam Springs; Stores I remember about three store's in Silosfo Springs

6 GRI'TTS, TH.OVJS. INTER7HW. 2X7 back when I was about seven or eight ;,y.ears fcld, and they were run by white men* I remember* too, we usually sold than a calf or hides for things we wanted at the stores, and I started to chewing tobacco about that time, I began chewing because it made me feel big, but later on after I was about fifteen years old I quit- chewing and began smoking. Mr. Gritts at this point brought a very old pipe out of his hip pocket and said he had had it for a long time,, io long he didn't know where he got it» After I was about fifteen years of age I began to roam around because I was very much dissatisfied, and I believe, too, it was because the Civil War had taken my father and brother, and iny mother was also gone. I felt like if I could get away from the scenes of my hardships and losses. I felt I must get away from these horrid scenes of killed men and the menory of starvation why it was common not to have bread for two or three days at a time. I got my bread from the Government bread man who came in a twohorse wagon loaded with sacks of crackers... These crackers* were our bread supply and looked just about like the crackers of nowadays, but not so white.

7 GRITTS, THO!AS. INTERVIEW, They were a little yellow like cakes, and we would get about two sacks full at a time. 5 Food ' I never knew anything about flour or biscuits until I was abtyat thirty or forty years of age, but wwe had corn bread made of corn pounded into meal in mortars or f a hole in a log or stump. For meat we had deer, squirrel, turkey, quail, and wild hog. We killed this wild game with flint lock rifles; and a little later on we learned to buy coffee and whiskey, that I drank a little of when I felt weak or tired. I decided to go to Tahleouah about this time and walked a trail and part of the time it was wide enough for a wagon. It wound around from Siloam toward what is now Kansas and Lo\Yrey f s Prairie, and down by where Teresita is now located, coming into Tahlequah right through' the grounds where the Teachers college now is located. A man named Deni» Hendrix lived right where those school buildings are located now. We Cherokees called him Denia Wagoner, and I don't know why the whites got to calling him Denis Hendrix. He had a boy we celled Jim Wagoner.

8 (/RITTS, THOMAS. INTERVIEW.' '.. Finally I reached Tahloqiiah the second day "and I fooled around town and I got in with a Cherokee named Ketcher Tehee. I don f t think he was' any kin to Houston Tehee though. He seemed to like me. and I worked for him about four' years. / Stores in Tahlequah I can remember only the names of three store- ' keepers in Tahlequah at that time and they were Henry/Woods, Johnson Thompson and Bob French. They dually had saddles, harness, wire fencing, guns, cartridges, horse shoes, wagons and neal and flout in the later years. ' i Cattle Buyers I remember some of the cattlemen were Tom French, Tom Finley and. I5ock Hayes, and others whose 'names I can't recall. We didn't know anything about dehorned cattle at that time. Larrisge About this time I was about nineteen or twenty years of age and I eame out on this creek and there was a man by the nme of Eagle Brown lived ri-ght down there below the Grease Spring, -right where that, graveyard is down there. He had a daughter by the name of Agnas whom I later married and by her I have A

9 GRITTS, THOMAS. INTERVIEW. ^ 240 the following childreoa: Levi, John, Burn, Steve, ThoroaS Jr. and Sam; Maggie,Sharlett, Lillie, and Lizzie* All but the youngest, Sam, had allotments. I want the Indian Agency to give me permissl on to deed this place here, the old home place, to Sam who did are < not receive an allotment. There/eighty acres in this homestead. I have about sixty acjjes in cultivation and I have a fair crop of wheat this year on all of it. I fi-gured wheat would be the surest crop this tv. / year, and the boys are cutting it now with a binder. My wife was an educated Indian and taught school several years after our marriage and I had to take care of the children while she taught school. My fath.er*ih-lew statted the burial grounds down there. He had a son by the name of Feather who died from a fever at the age of about thirty and this boy 'is buried there. Tom Greece of Celling can tell you more about that Graveyard then anyone in this country. I didn't favor statehood and I still say it was a bad thing for the Cherokees. ' First, the white man brought in the Fox and scattered our game with his dogs and he bought up our land too cheap, because

10 GRITTS, THOMAS. INTERVIEW we didn't know the real value of our homes and the value of our freedom. When asked what he meant by the dogs brought here by the white men, Mr. Gritts said the white main brought into the Indian country the first dogs; that the first hound he ever saw were down there in Tahleh. auah. Ke remembers how people stood around and! gazed at its great long ears. \ My wi.fe, Agnus, died in Way, 193E, and is buried down here in this Double- Springs buriel ground. \ \