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A B C D E F G H I J K L M Mc N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Indian Pioneer History Project for Oklahoma
Date: August 31, 1937
Name: Robert Johnson 
Post Office: Spaulding, Oklahoma 
Date of Birth: 1876 
Place of Birth: Southeast of Wewoka 
Father: Silas Johnson 
Place of Birth: Florida 
Information on father: 
Mother: Lucy 
Place of birth: Florida 
Information on mother: 
Field Worker: Nettie Cain 

Robert Johnson is a Seminole and was born in 1876, southeast of Wewoka in the Seminole Nation. His father and mother came from Florida in 1858 or 1859, just two or three years before the Civil War.

At the beginning of the Civil War the Seminoles left everything they had and started north. John Chup-co was the Seminole Chief or leader and several hundred of them under the leadership emigrated to the North. They had many hardships, one being that they had very little to eat once they reached Kansas. The Government then fed them.

Some of the men came back into the Territory while serving in the Civil War. After the close of the war, these service men returned to Kansas, got their families and returned to Ft. Gibson, staying about one year, then moving to the Seminole Nation.

The United States Government issued food and clothing to the Seminole Indians after the close of the war as they had very little to live on, no homes or anything left and having to start life all over.

The Seminole men cut logs and built log houses, putting clay in the cracks between the logs to keep out the cold.

The United States began the allotment of land to the Creeks and Seminoles in 1897. A treaty was made between the Government and the Five civilized Tribes for the allotment. Some of the Indians were very mad about the treaty, thinking they had been mistreated as the Government had given the Indian Territory to the Indians and they did not want it divided into sections. They wanted to so wherever they went, they would still be home and have the free range for their stock. They knew too under the Government plan for settlement of the Territory the wild game would soon be gone. Some even rebelled and refused to take the allotments that had been given them. 

Robert has a picture taken of the last Indian man executed at Wewoka under the tribal Government in 1896. He saw this man, Pul-musky, executed. Pul-musky and John Factor got drunk and got into a fight and John Factor was killed. Pul-musky was given the death sentence. When he was sentenced under the Indian law, he was turned loose to be free until the day of the execution and when the time, day and hour, came the prisoner was there among the crowd and he walked forward. He was blindfolded, and he sat on a rock by a tree; a white paper heart was cut and placed over his heart and then two Lighthorsemen were selected to shoot him. Cumsey Bruner and Ceaser Payne were the ones and they were negroes. This picture was snapped by a little white girl about twelve years old, who happened to be there with a Kodak.

Submitted to OKGenWeb by Janet Johnson janetcreeknation@hotmail.com January 2004.