On January 1st, 1870, the United States Government held in trust for the Indians of Northeastern Oklahoma the following sums of money:
Cherokee National Fund $913,965.99
The Eastern Idea
One of the constant sources of diversion to the Indian Territory people in Washington City, both Indian and white, is the persistent association of the aboriginal Indian with the members of the Five Tribes, by the people of the Eastern States whose ideas of our Indians are based on ignorance and romance. They persist in wrapping the regulation blanket around our Indian, be the weather ever so hot and our protestations ever so vigorous.
They ram the peace-pipe into our mouths despite our defensive plea that it was discontinued by us several generations ago. They insist upon substituting the moccasins, leather breeches and feather head-dress of the Indian of their imagination for the modern up-to-date rigging with which our people are wont to bedeck themselves. But this is not all. The acme of their officiousness and the apex of their affectionate superintendence is reached when they address one of us as "Poor Lo" and trot him up before the "Great Father." This may be very well for the poor Kiowa or the uninitiated Ute of the far West, but the Indian of the Five Tribes of the present day knows him to be a monumental myth.