1882 CHICKASAW NATION / INDIAN TERRITORY LETTER – HORSE THIEF PRISONER HELD FOR US MARSHAL AT FORT SMITH (JUDGE PARKER’S COURT)

1882 CHICKASAW NATION / INDIAN TERRITORY LETTER – HORSE THIEF PRISONER HELD FOR US MARSHAL AT FORT SMITH (JUDGE PARKER’S COURT)

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$150.00

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Item Code: 1309-866

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Original manuscript letter, in ink on a single leaf of red-ruled lined paper, written and dated at Tishomingo, Indian Territory — capital of the Chickasaw Nation — June 18, 1882, and addressed to the U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Arkansas at Fort Smith. In June 1882 that office was held by Marshal Thomas Boles, serving the federal court of Judge Isaac C. Parker — the "Hanging Judge," whose Fort Smith court held criminal jurisdiction over the entire Indian Territory.

The writer, a Chickasaw Nation official, reports that he is holding Sam Fillmore, a Chickasaw man, in the national jail at Tishomingo, charged with stealing a horse from Thomas Shauley, a white man, and asks the marshal to "send for him at once." The detail that the victim was a white (non-citizen of the Nation) is the crucial jurisdictional hook: such cases fell outside the tribal courts and were prosecuted federally at Fort Smith — which is exactly why a Chickasaw official is writing the U.S. Marshal to come collect the prisoner. A vivid, authentic artifact of frontier law enforcement at the intersection of tribal and federal authority in the Indian Territory, tying together Tishomingo / Chickasaw Nation, horse theft, and the Fort Smith federal court system.

CONDITION:   Single leaf, approx. 7.75 x 7.5 in., written to one side. Period folds with separation and minor loss along fold lines and edges; old chip at one corner. Professionally stabilized with acid-free archival tape on the reverse. Faint pencil notation on verso. Legible and sound, displays well.   [ss][ph:L]

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