Still, unlike another notable short-lived outlaw, Billy the Kid, this Bill went largely unremembered and is scarcely mentioned in print or on-screen. Arguably, the only outlaws in the history of Indian Territory to rival his notoriety would be the Cherokees Ned Christie and Henry Starr. In the 1890s the title belonged to the Cherokee freedman Goldsby.
In the 1880s the most infamous outlaw in the dangerous territory was a Creek freedman named Dick Glass.
Indian Territory had more than its share of outlaws-black, white, red and mixed-race.
#Cherokee bill full
A descendant of slaves on both his mother’s and father’s side, he was born in 1876 a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, the tribe having freed its slaves in June 1863 (five months after President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation) and granted full citizenship to its freedmen three years later. Crawford Goldsby was one such freedman, more noteworthy than most after garnering national press for his crimes as the outlaw Cherokee Bill. His father claimed Black, Sioux, Mexican, and white ancestry his mother was reported to be half Black, one quarter Cherokee, and one quarter white. After his death, his mother took his body to the Fort Gibson area, where he was probably buried.Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) was home to the Five Civilized Tribes-the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole-and living among them were former slaves and the descendants of slaves. Cherokee Bill was born Crawford Goldsby in 1876. Numerous publications recounted Bill's life of crime. This episode explores the ideas of law, order and. Judge Parker characterized Bill as a "bloodthirsty mad dog who killed for the love of killing" and as "the most vicious" of all the outlaws in the Oklahoma Territory. But both the New York Times and his own mother called him: Cherokee Bill. His last reported comment was, "I came here to die, not to make a speech." When the United States Supreme Court rejected his appeal of his first conviction, federal officials hanged him before hundreds of onlookers, on March 17, 1896. After an unsuccessful escape attempt in which he killed a jail guard at Fort Smith, Bill received a second murder conviction.
#Cherokee bill trial
However, Bill's lawyer appealed the conviction, maintaining that Bill had not received a fair trial in the court of Judge Isaac Parker, a jurist known for his disdain for lawbreakers. There he received a capital conviction for the murder of an unarmed painter who happened to witness Bill's participation in a robbery. With the assistance of acquaintances who hoped to receive part of a $1,500 reward, federal authorities captured Bill and transported him to the federal district court in Fort Smith, Arkansas. Bill later formed his own gang and also rode with such well-known outlaws as Henry Starr and Billy the Kid ( see MCCARTY, HENRY). Certainly by the time he reached eighteen he had joined the Bill Cook gang in bank and train robberies. He murdered at least seven people and may have killed as many as thirteen.
Biographers also are uncertain when he received the name Cherokee Bill. Others, however, believe that he killed his first victim when he was only twelve. Some of his biographers contend that he did not begin the exploits that made him infamous until the age of eighteen. He also attended the Carlisle Industrial School for Indians in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, for two years, but some sources state that he could barely read and write.Īfter leaving school he returned to Oklahoma. He moved with his mother to Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, and later attended a school for Indians in Cherokee, Kansas, for three years. By the time Bill had reached the age of seven, his parents had separated. The elder Goldsby was in the Tenth United States Cavalry and claimed to be of Black, Sioux, Mexican, and White ancestry Bill's mother was reportedly half Black, one-fourth White, and one-fourth Cherokee. Crawford Goldsby, an Oklahoma outlaw better known as Cherokee Bill, was born at Fort Concho, Texas, on February 8, 1876, the son of George and Ellen (Beck) Goldsby.
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