Posted on 01/09/2003 7:51:29 PM PST by stainlessbanner
Rep. Wayne Pettigrew wants the public to know that he’s after historical accuracy, not bringing up specters of a painful part of American history in his effort to have the Cherokee Brave Confederate flag flown at the state Capitol plaza.
However, one African-American lawmaker and a spokesman for the Cherokee Nation both question Pettigrew’s motives and historical accuracy. Meanwhile, an Edmond Civil War historian is supportive of the representative’s effort.
Pettigrew, R-Edmond, introduced House Bill 1007 on Monday, in which he seeks to remedy inaccuracies in the 14 flags that are supposed to be flown at the state Capitol in the plaza. The 14 flag poles now sport only current Oklahoma state flags by order of Gov. Frank Keating as part of the recent Capitol Dome dedication ceremonies.
However, those poles, by Senate Joint Resolution 48, are supposed to bear the 14 historic flags that have flown over Oklahoma territories, including one that represents Confederate interests. The other flags represent various periods of history from Spain, Great Britain, France, the Choctaw Nation, Mexico, two Texas flags and two Oklahoma flags. After Keating leaves office Monday, the 14 historical flags are supposed to be replaced, Pettigrew said, and he wants to ensure that they all are accurate.
“I am opposed to the battle flag being flown,” Pettigrew said Wednesday. He is referring to the flag featuring the St. Andrew’s Cross that is most widely identified with the Confederate South and now often associated with white supremacist groups.
His intent is to ensure that the battle flag is never flown over the state Capitol, he said. By placing a flag of historical significance to Oklahoma on the pole through law, Pettigrew believes, is the best way to make that happen. The other reason he is opposed to the Confederate battle flag is that it was not an official flag of the Confederacy. “It would be a historically inaccurate flag to fly anyway, nor was it ever present in Oklahoma,” he said.
However, Rep. Kevin Cox, D-Oklahoma City, whose district previously included a small portion of Edmond, said it makes no difference what Confederate flag is flown.
“It doesn’t give me any type of relief,” Cox said Wednesday. “I don’t know why we are honoring a treasonous group that tried to overthrow the United States government.”
Mike Miller, a spokesman for the Cherokee Nation based in Tahlequah, said the tribal government was caught by surprise Wednesday over the bill.
“It’s a little bit awkward and frustrating that we were not consulted about this bill,” Miller said. “In general the flags (supposed to be flown at the plaza) represent nations. This flag never did that — it never represented the Cherokee Nation.”
A matter of accuracy
Pettigrew said he is deriving his information from the Oklahoma Historical Society and an Oklahoma Attorney General’s opinion from a 1998 court case over this same issue.
The flag Pettigrew believes is the most historically accurate Confederate flag to fly in Oklahoma is known as the Treaty Flag, or the Cherokee Brave flag. That flag was based on the First National Flag of the Confederacy, which was flown from 1861-63 across much of the South. It was given to the Cherokees by the Confederate Commission when some Cherokees entered the war on the Confederate side.
Cox, who is African-American, said the flag is the First National Flag’s first cousin and represents hatred, discrimination, death and destruction to a group of people just like the many other Confederate flags.
“There are different types of Confederate flags, strains of smallpox and anthrax and whatever else you want to talk about,” Cox said.
The only differences between the two Confederate flags is that the Cherokee Brave flag has five red stars in the center of a circle of white stars on a deep blue background. The five red stars represent the Five Civilized Tribes, while the white stars represent the states of the Confederacy, said Jeff Massey, an Edmond attorney and Civil War historian. Also, the Cherokee Brave flag has those two words emblazoned on one of the flag’s stripes.
Pettigrew said he has considered flying the Cherokee Brave flag without those words on it so that it would represent all of the Five Civilized Tribe members who fought on the Confederate side of the Civil War.
Massey is the international commander general of the Military Order of Stars and Bars, which is an international group of descendants of those who were either officers in the Confederate forces or worked as civil servants in the Confederate government. He agrees with Pettigrew that the Cherokee Brave flag has particular Oklahoma significance, and if any Confederate flag should be flown at the Capitol that it probably should be this one.
The Cherokee Brave flag was adopted by Confederate Gen. Stand Watie, a Cherokee leader and the only American Indian general in the Civil War, as his personal battle flag. The flag was flown only in Oklahoma and parts of Arkansas, Massey said.
The Five Civilized Tribes were mainly from the South and had been removed to Oklahoma from their ancestral homes by the U.S. government, so it was not surprising that many from the tribes came in on the Confederate side of the war, Massey said. The five red stars on the flag signify that the tribes would have been given the same status as the states if the Confederacy had won the war, he said.
“The flag issue has been hijacked by political malcontents who cannot achieve their objective through cultural divisiveness,” Massey said. “This is a non-issue. This is not a black and white issue. This is an issue about political correctness.”
From Massey’s viewpoint, if the historical flags are to be flown at the Capitol, the Cherokee Brave flag also should be flown there.
However, Miller of the Cherokee Nation said he does not see how the Cherokee Brave flag fits in with the other flags that are supposed to be flown in the plaza, particularly when the flag represents civil strife among Cherokees. Stand Watie is a controversial figure in Cherokee history because he mainly fought and killed other Cherokees during the Civil War. It turned into a civil war among the Cherokees, Miller said.
“The Cherokee Nation voluntarily repudiated slavery before the United States during the Civil War,” Miller said. “The civil war the Cherokees had was over this issue.” Gen. Stand Watie burned down the Cherokee Nation government buildings in Tahlequah as part of his campaign, he said.
Both Massey and Pettigrew said if objections to the flag center on civil rights and racial issues, then the other flags of Spain and France also should not be flown because they condoned slavery at certain points in their countries’ histories.
“I support history,” Massey said. “History demands that a Confederate flag be flown (with the other flags) — whether you agree or disagree with that impact (of the Confederacy). You can’t censor history and that’s exactly what’s been done.”
Massey said flying the Cherokee Brave flag will commemorate Confederate veterans, specifically American Indians who fought for the South at that time.
Cox counters that no Confederate veterans are alive, and there is no need to honor those whom he considers traitors to the country. He compares them to the terrorists plaguing the nation today.
Pettigrew said he was motivated by a constituent request, a desire to make things accurate and to try to resolve the issue once and for all.
Cox, however, said he is mystified as to why Pettigrew wants to rehash the issue when the Civil War is so far in the past.
“I wonder why he is so hell-bent on bringing this issue forward,” Cox said.
Miller said this legislation is just another example of Pettigrew’s divisiveness on a variety of issues. “He kind of bends over backwards to set people against each other,” he said. “I don’t see where this legislation is going to create jobs or solve the state budget crisis.”
Cherokee Nation government officials will consider what their formal response to the legislation will be, Miller said, but made clear that he views it as an issue taking away time from the more serious work of the Cherokee Nation to improve its peoples’ lives.
Rep. Cox opposed Pettigrew on this issue in 1998 when the Edmond representative authored a similar bill that died in a House committee.
Pettigrew said he and Cox agree that if the state cannot restore all of the historical flags to the plaza, then there should be no flags flown at all.
“Either put them all up right or take them all down,” Pettigrew said.
He does not deem the 14 flags as an inappropriate commemoration of state history.
“These are the 14 flags of Oklahoma. It tells our history. We can’t really go back and change that history,” Pettigrew said. “There’s probably some people who would like to go back and rewrite it.”
Pettigrew is not sure yet which committee will hear his bill or who in the Senate might provide support if the bill makes it that far in the legislative process. The state Legislature convenes Feb. 3.
A bald-face lie. The Confederate States never sought to, or attempted to, overthrow the United States government. They sought independence from that government. Even the term "Civil War" is a lie, as the CSA were in rebellion and soufght independence, as the 13 colonies had done not 100 years before.
Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation
"But in the Northern States the Cherokee people saw with alarm a violated Constitution, all civil liberty put in peril, and all the rules of civilized warfare and the dictates of common humanity and decency unhesitatingly disregarded. In States which still adhered to the Union a military despotism has displaced the civil power and the laws became silent amid arms. Free speech and almost free thought became a crime. "
| Cherokee Nation Flag | Cherokee Peace Flag |
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What an ass! The Confederates never wanted to overthrow the US Government. They only wanted their own government.
Incredibly this was written in 1861. Striking just how applicable this is today.
True enough, but there's no telling what the reaction of the Confederate government would have been had the Army of Virginia been successful at overrunning Washington and capturing Lincoln. Having bowed to the temptation to institute conscription it's difficult to consider the possibility that had the Confederacy been given the opportunity to not only remove the possibility of a future threat to their northern border but to return the former states of the Union to a governmental system within the bounds delineated by the constitution, they might well have done so.
Alternately, the possibility that at least some of those conquered territories might have been traded to England in return for the diplomatic recognition and military support sought by the Richmond government, particularly along the Canadian border, is at least within the realm of possibility, and would have left the Yankees less able to later stage a future retaliatory war against their Southron neighbors.
But of course their act was, as you note, not treasonous but rebellious. It was Lincoln whose actions were acts of treason to the constitution and gave those seeking the dissolution of the Union the moral justification for their actions.
-archy-/-
.....that's quite true.....in a civil war you have two [or more] factions each trying to sieze control of the government....the "late unpleasantness" of 1861-65 was a war of secession & partition; a concept as American as apple pie......
as a PROUD desendent of a Cherokee warrior who rode with GEN Stand Watie's First Mounted Cherokee Rifles, i'm OFFENDED at his presence in the statehouse & his HATEFILLED LIES about our tribe's HERO-MARTYR, period, end of story.
unless you happen to be Cherokee, you should PROMPTLY close your trap, Mr. Cox and slink away into the darkness, from whence you came!
FRee dixie,sw
FRee dixie,sw
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