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Harry Island
African Creek Interpreter
& Husband of Maggie Cow Tom
Harry Island served as one of the official U.S.
Interpreters with the Muskogee Creek Nation. He was present during many
official hearings during the 1860s and 70s in the years following the
Civil War.
The "official" perspective given by historians
about Harry Island is that the is believed to have "tricked"
the Creeks, by including benefits for Freedmen in all negotiations. Yet,
Harry Island was himself a citizens of the nation, having lived,
practiced the customs and spoken the language of the land of his birth
during his entire life. It would seem most improbable that he
would have excluded his own people, who were a part of the same nation,
from benefits accorded to his nation. It is interesting now that 20th
and 21st century scholars would have expected him to have ostracized
several hundred African Creek Citizens, or for any to have expected him
to do so. The late Angie Debo, noted Oklahoma historian wrote
about Harry Island in The Road to Disappearance the book about
the Creek Nation, and she described Harry Island as a "shrewd Creek
Negro who served as interpreter and apparently looked after the interest
of his race."1
Harry Island was utilized most often by the nation,
because of his fluency in both English and Muskogee. He had other
African contemporaries who were also interpreters—Silas Jefferson,
Robert Johnson, and John Meyers. During the hearings for the Loyal Creek
Claims, Harry Island served as government interpreter for Louisa Tiger
and others, who were refugees from the War, from the Muskogee Nation.2
Ketch Barnett and Cow Tom joined Harry
Island as part of the official delegation of African Creeks making
claims. Island is said to have been among the strongest voices to
insure that the Freedmen were included among the Loyal Creeks. The
reason is that the nation initially wanted to exclude their African
citizens from receiving benefits extended to the nation. This
attitude was to later come into fruition as years later in violation of
the Treaty of 1866, the nations would become successful of exclusion
once again.
In March of 1867, payments began to the Creek citizens
who remained Loyal to the Union in the Civil War. Dunn, and Indian
agent prepared a roll of the Negro Creeks, entitled to receive payments.
Sam Checote tried to exclude the blacks, and immediately Harry Island
went to Washington to protest. He was accompanied on this trip by
Cow Tom and Ketch Barnett. Harry Island is remembered for his
skills as a negotiator, and is remembered with reverence by the Freedmen
and descendants of Freedmen. During his lifetime, he was able to secure
the placement of the African Creeks in the nation.
He is buried at Agency Cemetery. The inscription on his
granite stone slab reads: Harry ISLAND, died August 15, 1872, aged 60
yrs. The cemetery where he rests is now abandoned with no
access outside Muskogee. Harry Island and other African Creek
leaders are buried there, forgotten by the community where they lived
and served.3
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*
1 Debo, Angie,
The Road to Disappearance,
Norman, OK: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1979.
2 National Archives RG 75, Claims of the Loyal Creeks
3 Indian Pioneer Papers Volume 111 Cemeteries.
Microfiche # 6046979
Source:
http://www.african-nativeamerican.com/harry_island.htm |
