Jackson Barnett was an easy-going, illiterate, uneducated Creek Indian who lived near Henryetta, Oklahoma. The federal government forced him to accept an allotment in Drumright, near Cushing. Boy, did they regret doing that, as you will see. Barnett did not go and live on his allotment, because he wanted to be near family and friends in Henryetta. Some whites considered this to be a sign of incompetence, but it just sounds like he wanted to live near the people he knew and loved. My grandfather did not live on his allotment either.
But it turned out Jackson’s land was right over the Cushing oil field, one of the biggest in the world. Cushing still calls itself the oil capital of the world. There was so much oil that it seeped up in Barnett’s land. Jackson Barnett even looked a little bit like Jed Clampett from the Beverly Hillbillies; only, unlike Jed, Jackson did not have to go “shootin’ at some food, and up from the ground come a bubblin’ crude.” It was just bubblin’ by itself.
Suddenly, Jackson was very rich. We are talking millions. Or he would have been, except his county-court appointed guardian Carl O’Hornett controlled the money. And from there things started to get complicated. I am writing from memory, based on my reading of Tanis C. Thorne’s excellent biography, The World’s Richest Indian.
The federal government controlled Native tribes not through the Department of Justice, but the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA, which could also stand for Bossing Indians Around), as if Indians were natural resources, not people. When the BIA started hearing about guardian abuses (as described in the previous essay), they wanted to bring the situation under control. Actually, the federal government also wanted part of the action. So the BIA wanted to prevent O’Hornett from having so much power over Barnett. Eventually, the Department of Justice and Congress got into the fray also.
The state of Oklahoma got into the fray. Kate Barnard was driven—I mean driven—by the purest of motives, which led to her breakdown and premature death. But other members of her staff also had careers to build. And the state legislature got involved also.
Oh, and the Baptists. They talked Barnett into promising them a bunch of money.
Of course, the county where Jackson Barnett lived—Okmulgee County—wanted to keep control over Jackson’s money also.
The feds fought the state which fought the county which fought the Baptists in all possible combinations and in a series of laws and lawsuits that this here poor Injun can’t keep track of. The game piece was flying around like it was a game of stickball.
Of course, there was more. There was the woman Anna Randolph Lowe Sturgis who got a taxi ride down to see Jackson Barnett. She told the driver she was going to marry Jackson Barnett, whom she had never met. Now, Jackson was a nice but rather clueless guy, who either did not recognize Anna as a gold-digger or else thought a gold-digger was as good of a wife as any other woman would be. Anyway, they got married right away, though they had to drive real fast over the state line to Coffeyville, Kansas, to do so. So now, by law, she was entitled to half of Jackson’s worth. The other people mixed up in all this were not pleased. To her credit, Anna stayed with Jackson the rest of his life, even or especially when she bought them a mansion in Los Angeles. She made sure he stayed clean and well dressed and kept his Jed Clampett stubble shaved off.
Of course, nobody could actually say that Barnett was mentally incompetent, because that would make their contracts with him (for example, his marriage to Anna, but also his promise to give the Baptists a lot of money) invalid.
Everybody was upset about everything, except Jackson Barnett, who just rolled in a blanket by the fire and stayed happy. He had what he needed, more than he wanted, and was puzzled that everyone was so upset, especially Anna. After Jackson died, Anna went insane or close to it.
The point of this essay, as of the last, is that racism has no scientific basis. Jackson Barnett did some things—and seemed to enjoy doing them—that made people think he was incompetent to handle his money. But if he had been white, nobody would have questioned his right to do anything he wanted with his money. Examples abound, such as Donald Trump, but let me use a fictional example you might know about: The Great Gatsby in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel. Of all of the empathetic things that Fitzgerald wrote about Gatsby, he never once said Gatsby did not have the right to spend his money as he did. Probably most of the white people who were criticizing Jackson Barnett’s strange expenditures were spending their own money in an even more reckless fashion. Everyone, that is, except Kate Barnard, who died intestate.
Now suppose you wanted to move to another county. Jackson (and Anna) decided to move from Okmulgee to Muskogee County within Oklahoma. But they were almost not allowed to do it, because O’Hornett would not have authority over Barnett outside of Okmulgee County.
Isn’t it just like white people (including most of my ancestors) to think they know what everyone else should do with their money or their lives.
The Jackson Barnett case generated a lot of negative publicity about Oklahoma grafters, because so much money was involved. But there were tens of thousands of lesser Native victims, very few of whom ever had their fortunes restored.
No comments:
Post a Comment