2.  “The accompanying letters and reports from Commissioner Albert Pike addressed to your Department are respectfully referred to you, the affairs to which they relate being under your supervision and control.”—­Ibid., P-93.]

[Footnote 466:  A re-transfer to the State Department was proposed as early as the next November [Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, 489].]

[Footnote 467:  President Davis recommended the creation of the bureau, March 12, 1861 [Richardson, Messages and Papers of the Confederacy, vol. i, p. 58:  Journal of the Congress of the Confederate States, vol. i, p. 142].  On the sixteenth, he nominated David Hubbard of Alabama for commissioner [Pickett Papers, Package 88].  The bill for the creation of the bureau of Indian Affairs was signed the selfsame day [Journal, vol. i, 151].  S.S.  Scott became Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs before the year was out.]

things[468] it considered and in some cases favorably disposed of were, the treaties of amity and alliance negotiated by Albert Pike, the transfer of Indian trust

[Footnote 468:  The preliminaries of the negotiations with the Indians have not been enumerated here, although they might well have been.  On the twentieth of February, 1861, W.P.  Chilton of Alabama offered a resolution to inquire into the expediency of opening negotiations [Journal, vol. i, 70].  March 4, Toombs urged that a special agent be sent and offered a resolution to that effect [Ibid., 105].  The day following, Congress passed the resolution [Ibid., 107]:  but left the powers and duties of the special agent, or commissioner, undefined.  Davis appointed Pike to the position and, after Congress had expressed its wishes regarding the mission in the act of May 21, 1861, had a copy of the act transmitted to him as his instructions [Richardson, vol. i, 149].

The act of May 21, 1861, carried a blanket appropriation of $100,000, which was undoubtedly used freely by Pike for purposes connected with the successful prosecution of his mission.  In December, the Provisional Congress appropriated money for carrying into effect the Pike treaties.  The following letter is of interest in connection therewith: 

Richmond, Va., 9” December 1861.

Sir:  On the 1st or 2nd of August 1861, after I had made Treaties with the Creeks and Seminoles, I authorized James M.C.  Smith, a resident citizen of the Creek Nation, to raise and command a company of Creek Volunteers, to be stationed at the North Fork Village, in the Creek country, on the North Fork of the Canadian, where the great road from Missouri to Texas crosses that river, to act as a police force, watch and apprehend disaffected persons, intercept improper communications, and prevent the driving of cattle to Kansas.

The Company was soon after raised, and has remained in the service ever since.  At my appointment George W. Stidham acted as Quartermaster and Commissary for it, and without funds from the Government, has supplied it.