Postwar Years
Following the war, Boudinot and his uncle Stand Watie started a tobacco factory. They intended to take advantage of tax immunities in the 1866 Cherokee treaty with the United States. As the majority of Cherokee had supported the Confederacy, the US required them to make a new peace treaty. One of its requirements was that the Cherokee free their slaves and provide full citizenship to those who chose to stay in Indian Territory. The Cherokee had taken numerous slaves west during Removal.
Disagreeing that the 1866 treaty provided immunity for such operations, US officials seized the factory for nonpayment of taxes. In 1871, the US Supreme Court ruled against Boudinot and Watie. It said that the Congress could abrogate previous treaty guarantees and that the 1866 had not renewed or provided for previous tax immunities.
Boudinot continued to be active in politics and society in Indian Territory after the war. He helped attract railroad construction. Under changing Indian policy by the federal government, he helped open the former Indian Territory to white settlement with passage of the Dawes Act and allotment of communal lands to individual households of tribal members. The federal government declared any remaining land as "surplus" and allowed its sale to non-Native Americans. He founded the city of Vinita, Oklahoma.
He also spent time working in Washington, DC. Among his activities was lobbying for the railroads. Beginning in 1874, he served as private secretary to Congressman Thomas M. Gunter from Arkansas. He also was appointed to some paid committee clerkships. After Gunter left Congress, Boudinot became the secretary to U.S. Senator James David Walker of Arkansas. In 1885, he tried to gain appointment as Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Although supported by Arkansas politicians, he was unsuccessful.
He also practiced law in Arkansas with the politician Robert Ward Johnson (18-1879), who had been elected to both houses of Congress before the Civil War. Boudinot was active politically on issues related to the Indian Territory. He frequently spoke on the lecture circuit about Cherokee issues and development in the West, and was considered a prominent orator.
Boudinot contributed to the eventual formation of the state of Oklahoma in the early twentieth century. Many Cherokee and others of the Five Civilized Tribes had tried to gain passage of legislation to found a state to be controlled by Native Americans.
He continued his work as an attorney. He died at the age of 55 of dysentery in Fort Smith on September 27, 1890. He is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery there.
Read more about this topic: Elias Cornelius Boudinot
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