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Indian Pioneer Papers - Index

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: March 25, 1938
Name: Dick Banks
Post Office: Marlow, Oklahoma
Residence Address: Marlow, Oklahoma
Date of Birth:
Field Worker: Bessie L. Thomas
Volume: 99, Pages: 437 - 442

BANKS, DICK. FOURTH INTERVIEW. 10302

Interview with Dick Banks
Marlow, Oklahoma
March 25, 1938

In the winter of 1899, and the spring of 1900, I witnessed a small pox epidemic among the Indians. At this time I was working as a clerk in the Indian Trading Post, one mile west of the present town of Cache.

There had been an Issue Day in December and there were some five hundred Indians - men, women and children camped at this place. Some of them lived quite near this post while others lived twenty-five miles or more away, but this place was their trading post. When there was to be an Issue Day, the Indians would begin to come into camp, some two or three weeks ahead of time, bringing their tents, stoves, and general camping equipment and would visit with their neighbors. The men would play Monte and gamble and they usually spent every cent from one pay-day until the next for when an Indian has any money or anything to trade he is not long in disposing of either. He is always a free spender and a good trader.

While the Indians were encamped at this time, small-pox broke out among them and spread like a prairie fire. It first broke out, however, in a railroad grading camp on the Frisco right-of-way, about a mile distant from this trading post. A number of workers in the grading camp were Mexicans and were no cleaner in their mode of living than the Indians.

When this disease broke out it was not long reaching the Indians in camp and with the same ferocious destruction as is made from a wild prairie fire, was not long in thinning out the ranks. Many of the Mexicans would come over and gamble with the Indians, bringing the germs with them, and the toll of deaths was heavy throughout the Indian camp of Kiowas, Comanches and Apaches.

Medical aid was almost impossible to obtain. One doctor, located at Fort Sill, some twenty miles distant, had more patients than he could possibly wait on by going day and night so the Indian Medicine Man proceded to doctor the patients in their own crude way. They tried several ways to cure them, one way being to plunge the patient (with high fever) in the creek. This was a quiet and very effective way of "stopping" the disease, a number of them dying before they could be taken out of the water.

In February 1900, some two hundred Indians died like rats, within a almost a stone's throw of this trading post. Their crying and wailing was plainly heard all day and throughout the night, but it only meant to us in the store that another one of our Indian friends had gone to his "Happy Hunting Ground."

In those days sanitation was something unheard of among the Indians, neither did they know of the white man's way of doctoring and it took years of preaching and teaching from the white missionaries before the Indian would consent to our way of doctoring and sanitation. It was pitiful and horrifying to see this scourge takings so many lives and little or nothing could be done about it. They would come into the store in many different stages, some could not be recognized by their looks and the ones we knew best could only be recognized by their voices, their features being entirely obliterated from swelling. None of us in the store took it for we kept disinfectant out all over the store and after waiting on a customer would always wash our hands.

One young man and his wife, with a year old baby girl, were camped quite near the Post. They were in the store trading late one afternoon and both were found dead in bed the next morning. The baby, sleeping between them, survived and lives today near Cache.

West Cache Trading Post was located on West Cache Creek, four miles south of Chief Quanah Parker's home and one mile west of Cache. It was a Government licensed Post; license was granted to G. M. Harris and E. L. James in the year of 1896. There were about five hundred Indians who traded here regularly and were on the rolls at the sub-agency, located nearby. There were two payments made to the Indians annually, usually in June and December. About $100.00 per year per capita divided into two $50.00 payments. The Indians all had plenty of cattle and horses and were able to live in a very comfortable manner.

The store carried a line of general merchandise, from high-class silks and satins to fast colors of calico, all-wool blankets, and shawls, and imported Lisk-cloth. The store carried beads of all descriptions, bells, spangles, silver rings, and bracelets, all of which were in great demand. This trading post store was 75 x 125 feet and was well filled with first-class merchandise, including fresh and cured meats. The merchandise was bought in Eastern markets, shipped to Marlow and then freighted to the store in wagons, a distance of fifty miles.

Indians are good customers and very easy to please. If their credit is good, or if they are paying cash, they do not quibble or try to "jew" you on the price. They are very found of watermelons and I've seen them pay $1.50 for a twenty-five pound melon without a murmur. An Indian is honest at heart, if he makes you a definite promise you can depend on his fulfilling that promise. Somehow each Indian kept accurate accounts of the bills he owed, also the amounts he drew, and tried to be able to balance these accounts each pay-day. Some of the greedy Indian Traders would encourage the Indians to buy more merchandise than they had money to pay for, and in this way a great many of them were led into financial difficulties, thereby breaking down their good intentions.

At this time the older Indians did not speak English and the children who had benefit of schooling wouldn't talk it so the personnel of the store naturally had to understand and talk their language. The Indians would give all the white people in or connected with the store Indian names. For instance, E. L. James was name Hoke-a-to-nits (Running in the woods), so named because the first time he was seen by some of the Indians he was running. G. M. Harris was named Pie-won-ard, meaning, tall and slim. And I was named Tosh-vista, Nad-I-mo, Young store-keeper.

Transcribed for OKGenWeb by Greg James , May 2002.