Editing Pushmataha County, Oklahoma (section)

===The Indian Territory===
Pushmataha County's modern origins lie in the [[Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma|Choctaw Nation]], during its time as a sovereign nation in the [[Indian Territory]], prior to [[Oklahoma]] statehood.

====Political Organization====
The Choctaw territory comprising the modern county was, until statehood in 1907, divided among two of the three administrative districts, or regions, comprising the nation – Pushmataha and Apukshunnubbee. Each of these districts was subdivided into counties. The modern county fell within [[Cedar County, Choctaw Nation|Cedar County]], [[Nashoba County]] and [[Wade County]] of the [[Apukshunnubbee District]]—today the county's eastern area – and [[Jack's Fork County]] and [[Kiamitia County]] (Kiamichi County) of the [[Pushmataha District]] – today the county's western area.<ref>Morris, John, Charles R. Goins, and Edwin C. McReynolds.  ''Historical Atlas of Oklahoma'', plate 38. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986.</ref>

====The American Civil War====
During the [[American Civil War]] federal troops withdrew from the Indian Territory and the Choctaw Nation allied itself with the [[Confederate States of America]]. The Choctaw government sent a representative to the [[Confederate Congress]], meeting in the Confederate capital at Richmond, Virginia, and raised battalions of warriors to participate with Confederate troops.

[[File:Peter perkins pitchlynn.jpg|left|220px|thumb| [[Peter Pitchlynn]], Principal Chief of the Choctaw Nation during the Civil War.]]

Although no battles were recorded as occurring within the present-day confines of Pushmataha County, the Battle of Perryville occurred just outside modern-day [[McAlester, Oklahoma|McAlester]] and the Battle of Middle Boggy Depot took place outside present-day [[Atoka, Oklahoma|Atoka]]. Numerous Choctaws left their homes in the present-day county to join the battalions and participated in the [[Battle of Pea Ridge]], in Arkansas, and at the [[Battle of Honey Springs]] in the Cherokee Nation, which pitted them against a Unionist faction of Cherokee Indians.

Contemporary accounts make mention of many refugees streaming through the Kiamichi River valley. The war itself finally ended with the surrender of the last Confederate army—Cherokee General [[Stand Watie]]'s forces, who surrendered at [[Fort Towson]] in June 1865, over two months after General [[Robert E. Lee]] surrendered the [[Army of Northern Virginia]]—and with it any chance of Confederate success.

{{Infobox song
| name       = Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
| cover      = SwingLowSweetChariot1873.jpg
| alt        =
| caption    = Page from ''The Jubilee Singers'', 1873
| type       =
| artist     = [[Fisk Jubilee Singers]] (earliest attested)
| album      =
| EP         =
| written    = Prior to 1862
| published  =
| released   =
| format     =
| recorded   =
| studio     =
| venue      =
| genre      = [[Spiritual (music)|Negro spiritual]]
| length     =
| label      =
| writer     = [[Wallace Willis]]
| composer   =
| lyricist   =
| producer   =
| prev_title =
| prev_year  =
| title      =
| next_title =
| next_year  =
}}

Sometime before 1862 a Negro slave, [[Wallace Willis]], composed the Negro spiritual "[[Swing Low, Sweet Chariot]]". He was then working at Spencer Academy, a Choctaw Nation boarding school located at [[Spencerville, Oklahoma|Spencervile, Indian Territory]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://usatoday30.usatoday.com/printedition/life/20060815/d_sweetchariot.art.htm|title=Story behind spiritual 'Swing Chariot' emerges|website=usatoday30.usatoday.com|access-date=December 4, 2018}}</ref><ref name="Tulsa World, January 28, 2019">{{cite web | url=https://www.tulsaworld.com/homepagelatest/michael-overall-how-an-oklahoma-slave-came-to-write-one/article_89101718-6427-5b56-bcb0-a17f798589be.html  | title= Michael Overall, How an Oklahoma slave came to write one of the world's most famous songs | publisher=Tulsa World, January 28, 2019| access-date=January 28, 2019}}</ref>  The site of the academy and old Spencerville was located less than 1,000 yards from the current southern border of Pushmataha County. Known as Uncle Wallace, Willis may have resided in Pushmataha County. He died in present-day [[Atoka County, Oklahoma|Atoka County]] and is buried in an unmarked grave.{{citation needed|date=January 2016}}

====Railroads arrive====
The Choctaw people were sedentary. Their lives were tied to their farms and small acreages. The Choctaw Nation was not home to industry of any sort. As a result, the territory comprising modern-day Pushmataha County was still virgin wilderness decades after the Choctaws’ arrival.

During the 1880s the [[St. Louis and San Francisco Railroad]] – popularly known as the Frisco—built a line from [[Fort Smith, Arkansas]] to Paris, Texas. The federal government granted the railroad rights-of-way in Indian Territory to stimulate development and attract European-American settlers. Station stops were established every few miles, both to aid in developing towns and also to serve the railroad.

The Frisco's route traveled along the Kiamichi River valley, entering the present-day county near [[Albion, Oklahoma|Albion]] and leaving the river only at Antlers, to skirt the massive bluff where it is located.  
[[File:George Mayo Map.png|left|thumb|400px|This 1887 map shows the newly opened Frisco Railroad. Its construction stimulated development of a massive logging industry, attracting workers and other immigrants from the United States to the Choctaw Nation—and communities along its length.]]
The railroad stimulated development of businesses and other ties to mainstream United States society. The [[telegraph]] was developed and constructed along with the railroad, providing rapid news of events outside the Choctaw Nation.

Logging companies opened operations immediately. Rough-and-tumble sawmill communities began growing up around the railroad station stops.  [[Kosoma, Oklahoma|Kosoma]], a veritable boomtown, boasted several hotels, doctors’ offices, and general stores during its heyday.

During the next few decades, loggers harvested the entire region, using the railroad stations as transshipment points. These transshipment points developed into the present-day communities of Albion, [[Moyers, Oklahoma|Moyers]], and Antlers. Other communities along the railroad between these points later vanished or are today only place names, such as [[Kellond, Oklahoma|Kellond]], [[Stanley, Oklahoma|Stanley]] and [[Kiamichi, Oklahoma|Kiamichi]].

For decades the Frisco constituted the greatest feat of engineering and manmade structure in Pushmataha County. Workers moved and shaped huge amounts of earth to form its elevated roadbed, and constructed numerous wooden trestles over creeks and rivers. Once in place the railroad attracted commerce and industry, where white men in the Indian Territory hoped to stake a claim.

====Bid for self-determination====
Although the [[Five Civilized Tribes]] of the Indian Territory opposed being incorporated within a United States state, by the turn of the 20th century, statehood of some sort appeared inevitable. A group of leaders from the Five Civilized Nations – Choctaw, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole – met at Muskogee in an attempt to seize the initiative and fashion a state from the Indian Territory, a jurisdiction to be controlled by Native Americans. Their meeting, which came to be known as the [[Sequoyah Constitutional Convention]], established the proposed [[State of Sequoyah]].<ref>Amos D. Maxwell, ''The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention'', pp. 60–61; Plate 56, Historical Atlas of Oklahoma.</ref>

The leaders meeting in Muskogee recognized that the counties of the Choctaw Nation, drawn to reflect easily recognizable natural landmarks such as mountain ranges and rivers, were not economically viable. Jack's Fork County, as example – in which Antlers was located – was a vast territory whose tiny county seat was Many Springs (modern-day [[Daisy, Oklahoma]]). But the only commercially successful town within its boundaries was Antlers, and it was situated in its far southeastern corner.

County boundaries for the new State of Sequoyah were crafted to take into account the existing towns and the range of their commercial interests. County seats were centered geographically within the populations of the areas they would govern.

The area comprising modern-day Pushmataha County proved a particular challenge. Huge areas of its eastern portion had few people. Its population was centered in towns along the railroad in the Kiamichi River valley. A county was eventually drawn with the crescent of the Kiamichi River valley forming its commercial heart, and it was to be called [[Pushmataha County, Sequoyah]].<ref>Morris, ''Historical Atlas'', Plate 56.</ref>

Records of the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention's committee on counties are lost, and no evidence remains to document the committee's deliberations. They wanted an area named after their [[Pushmataha|Chief Pushmataha]], and singled out the future Pushmataha County, Sequoyah for this honor.

Hugo's businesses served an area extending as far north as [[Kent, Oklahoma|Kent]], [[Speer, Oklahoma|Speer]], [[Hamden, Oklahoma|Hamden]], and nearly to [[Rattan, Oklahoma|Rattan]]. As a result, the county boundary for the proposed [[Hitchcock County, Sequoyah|Hitchcock County]] – with Hugo as county seat – was established along the line of the existing boundary between Choctaw and Pushmataha counties. Similar considerations governed the establishment of the county's northern, eastern and western borders.

The United States Congress failed to admit the proposed State of Sequoyah into the Union, preferring to await a possible federation of the Indian Territory and [[Territory of Oklahoma]]. This was soon proposed. In 1907 the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention met in [[Guthrie, Oklahoma|Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory]] to create the new State of Oklahoma. During these deliberations it became clear that the work of the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention had been groundbreaking: the Guthrie meeting essentially adopted nearly the same boundaries for Pushmataha County, Oklahoma as were proposed earlier for it in the state of Sequoyah, again identifying Antlers as county seat.