I thought the best way to tell about me, is to tell about my family. The following is a blog post someone shared upon the welcoming of our family back into the nation. (credit – J. Cooper – Two Days Too Late)
Two Days Too Late
Nancy J. Cooper et al. v. The Choctaw Nation is one of the classic botched cases in the annals of the Dawes Commission, the Federal government’s attempt to deal a death blow to tribal sovereignty at the close of the nineteenth century. I had heard rumors about my Cooper relatives and how they were kicked out of the Choctaw Nation. But I never knew the whole story until recently.
J. W. Howell mentions the case in a textbook studied today in law schools. John Cooper, our ancestor, was a Choctaw chief who owned a plantation near Linden, Tennessee. The family was seated at the dinner table one evening when a vigilante mob broke in. They were told at gunpoint to leave, their possessions forfeit.
The men swam their horses across the Mississippi River at Memphis and left the women encamped under the willows on the other side while they went back to try to recover some of their cattle. John and Nancy’s old mother, who was in her eighties, died before they returned, empty-handed. The party proceeded to Indian Territory.
In 1896, the family encouraged Nancy, blind, unmarried and no longer able to care for herself, to enroll with the Choctaw Nation. They and a large group of kinsmen won roll numbers. But they were all stricken from the rolls by an adverse decision of the Choctaw-Chickasaw citizenship court a couple of years later. More than a hundred of them joined in a class action suit.
“We’re still fighting it,” says Pam Kahler of Vian, Oklahoma. “My husband and I talked to the BIA in Muskogee and found out about the old ruling. They told us the reason it was overturned was because the people named in the court ruling were not living in the Choctaw area when they were added to the Dawes rolls.” They, in fact, were living in the Chickasaw area of Duncan, Comanche area, Stephens County.
Aunt Artie Meecie was told that the family was “too poor to be on the rolls.”
In February and March 1907 matters came to a head. The Attorney General of the United States declared the lower courts out of line and ordered that hundreds of Choctaw Coopers, Browns and others were, after all, entitled to enrollment.
The only trouble was that the Attorney General’s decision of March 4, 1907, did not reach the department until March 6, 1907, two days after the rolls were closed by operation of law. There was then no authority in the Secretary of the Interior, under the law, to enroll them.
Nancy Cooper was laid in a pauper’s grave. Not only was the family too poor to be Indian, it was two days too late.
Capt. John Cooper
Choctaw Indians Disenfranchised by Dawes Commission Case #1418, All Relatives of the Author of The Blog Post
Alice Brown
Amanda Brown
Amanda Jane Campbell Ofolter
Amanda M. Campbell
Amanda M. Nichols
Amanda Menirva Sanders
Andrew Jackson Peck
Andrew Peck
Arty M. Sanders –Arminda Mincey Nichols Sanders
Arty Mincy Sanders
Becky Brown
Benjamin Grant Peck
Bettie Brown
Caldonia Martin
Capt. John Cooper
Caswell M. Brown (aka Dan Casual Marion Brown)
Charlie J. Campbell
Dell May Nichols – Della May Scott, d/o James Burton Nichols
Dora Ann Cooper – Dona Ann Cooper Worsham
Earl Long
Elijah McFadden Sanders
Eliza Jane Bowen
Elizabeth Jane Bowen
Florence Peck
George Brown
George G. Brown – Grant George Ulsis Brown
George Long
George W. Bowen
George Washington Bowen
George Washington Martin
James B. Nichols – James Bruton Nichols
James Henry Martin
James Salathol Campbell – Dr. James Solathiel Campbell
James Sanders
James Spencer Bowen
James Willis Nichols – s/o Orin Mayberry Nichols
Jane Cooper Campbell
Jesse W. Sanders
Jessie Anderson Bowen
Jessie Anderson Bowen, Jr.
Jessie Wilson Sanders
John Cooper, Jr. – John Willis Cooper
John F. Campbell
John N. Sanders
John Newton Sanders
John Ray Sanders
John William Nichols – s/o James Burton Nichols
Joseph M. Sanders
Joseph Monroe Sanders
Joseph Ostin Sanders
Julia Ann Boen
Leona Isabel Campbell
Leona May Bowen
Lizzie Sanders
Long, T. T. – husband of Nancy J. Bowen
Lorrie Alta Nichols – Lonie Alta Nichols, d/o Orin Mayberry Nichols
Louisa Higgins
Lucinda Lonella Campbell
Maggie May Nichols = d/o Orin Mayberry Nichols
Mamie Brown
Mandie Long
Martha Jane Sanders
Mary Boen (Bowen)
Mary Brown
Mary R. Martin
Mary Rebecca Cooper Martin
Mary Sanders
Maudie Brown – Mandie Brown
Mincy Reynolds Sanders
Minnie Rachel Sanders
Monroe Sanders
Myrtle Nichols – Mettie Myrtle Nichols, d/o Orin Mayberry Nichols
Nancy A. Cooper Brown
Nancy Alice Brown
Nancy Barthena Bowen
Nancy Caroline Nichols
Nancy Cooper
Nancy Ellen Sanders
Nancy J. Brown Long – Nancy J. Bowen Long
Nancy Jane Boen
Nancy Jane Brown
Nancy Velmon Nichols – Nancy Velma Nichols d/o James Burton
Orin M. Nichols – Orin Mayberry Nichols
Orin Mayberry Nichols
Oscar Peck
Ozey May Sanders
Pearley Long
Polly Ann Brown Peck
Polly Cooper Bowen
Rebecca C. Brown – Rebecca Catherine Cooper Brown
Rebecca E. Brown
Robert Lawrence Martin
Rosa Boen
Rosa Clemy Martin
Rosa Evelin Bowen
Rosa Isabel Bowen Higgins
Sallie Sanders
Samuel H. Cooper – Samuel Houston, or Huston, Cooper
Sarah Boen
Sarah Brown
Sidney Long
Susie Brown
Thomas Wilson Sanders
Unknown Long
Walter Scotto Campbell
William Bluford Brown – husband of Rebecca Cooper Brown
William Ercell Sanders
William Houston Bowen
William Houston Cooper
William Knighten Brown.
William Long
William Newton Sanders
William Quitman Bowen
Willie Brown
Willie Emma Brown