Thrilling Events, Life of Henry Starr, Famous Cherokee Indian Outlaw (1914)

By Henry Starr

"He was the last of his kind, a true cowboy bandit." -Daily News, Aug. 29, 2010

"His record of bank and train robbery in the Old West was second to none." -Philadelphia Inquirer, Jul. 18, 1965

"Henry Starr was addicted to the thrill of robbing banks...led a gang in bank robb

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bookcrop
• Release date: Jun 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9781088192979

Book preview

Thrilling Events,

Life of Henry Starr,

Famous Cherokee Indian Outlaw

Henry Starr

(1873-1921)

Originally published

1914

Contents

HENRY STARR—HIS BOOK.

Eating Prairie Dog With the Preachers.

My Meeting With Warden Tynan.

HENRY STARR—HIS BOOK.

I was born near Fort Gibson, I. T., on December 2, 1873, and am of Scotch-Irish-Indian ancestry. My father, George Starr, was a half-blood Cherokee Indian; my mother, Mary Scott, is one-quarter Cherokee. There were three children by their union — Elizabeth, the eldest, Addie, the second, and myself, Henry George Starr, the youngest. I might mention that I was born in a cabin, the inevitable log-cabin, close to Fort Gibson, one of the oldest Forts in the West. It was here Sam Houston came when he fled from his beautiful wife and the governorship of Tennessee, and later married the fair Indian maiden, Talihina. Sam Houston was also famous for his ability to put much fire-water under his belt, and his accomplishments along that line were the envy of every Indian and soldier in that region.

Washington Irving also visited Fort Gibson, and it was while ruminating along the banks of the beautiful Grand River, that he wrote The Bee-Hunt and other stories.

James G. Blaine, he of the plumed-knight fame, after being so ingloriously unhorsed by fisherman Cleveland, sought to forget the sting of defeat by visiting the frontier, and stayed a long time at Fort Gibson as the guest of an army officer.

I spent my boyhood like thousands of other American boys. At the age of eight, I started to school, a distance of four miles, and I always made the trips to and from school on horseback. My teacher was a Scotchman from Canada — a highly educated and polished gentleman, but possessed of a most violent temper. All of the pupils were Indians and four-fifths of them of mixed blood. I went to school to this bullet-headed Highlander for two and a half years, and am proud to say that I held my own with all comers in class-work. At the age of eleven I was in what I should judge would be the sixth grade; that ended my schooling. My father's ill-health made it necessary for me to stay at home and I can honestly say that it was with regret that I gave up my books to help win our daily bread. It was decided that I should try my hand at farming, so I hitched two horses to a ten-inch plow and literally dug into our farm. Critical neighbors said I couldn't plow; my sisters said I was too small to plow. This comment got under my skin and I made up my mind that I would not only prove to them that I could plow, but that I could also raise a crop of corn. My furrows were neither straight nor regular, but, barring whacks in my ribs and stomach, received from the plow-handles, I got my field plowed O.K., and with only a few days' help from a neighbor at critical periods, I, really raised a splendid crop of corn.

This strenuous work taught me patience and self- reliance, and a stick-to-itiveness that has been of great value to me all my life.

The Cherokee Nation, up to the year 1904, elected a Chief, second Chief, Senate, Council, Judges, Clerks and Sheriffs by popular vote every four years. There was a penitentiary at Tahlequah, the capital. The convicts wore stripes, and as a child, the sight of them filled me with terror. There was also an Orphans' Home and a public school in all neighborhoods where there were ten or more children. In the early days there was no provision made for the education of white children in the Indian Territory. The tolerant Indian school directors allowed the white children to attend free. Since statehood, hundreds of full-blood Indians have quit at tending school because they are taunted and insulted about their nationality. The teachers were afraid to take the part of the little red children lest the white parents become miffed. The scandal became so widespread that the Federal government took cognizance of conditions. White men could not vote or hold office, or be arraigned in court for any offense whatever against the life or property of an Indian citizen.

In 1886 my father died, and few months later my mother married a man named C. N. Walker of Arkansas and Texas, a sallow, malarial, green-eyed reprobate who rented an adjoining farm. He was a greedy rascal who saw a fine chance for exploitation of rich lands, with free range and no taxes. There may be a few good step-parents (I have seen a few myself) but I hold it does not pay to examine a snake's tail to see if it has rattlers. I had always looked upon the Indian as supreme, and the white renters as poor white trash who moved from year to year in covered wagons with many dogs and tow-headed kids peeping out from behind every wagon-bow, and who, at the very best, made only a starving crop. In the days of my childhood the Indian landowner was looked up to by his white renters, and always treated with courtesy and respect; but the years have brought about a great change; the white man holds power, and the same hypocritical renter has grown arrogant and insulting; whenever the Indian is spoken to at all, it is with a sneer. The Indian, and especially the fullblood in Oklahoma, is an outcast in his own country, and it is with a feeling of sadness and apprehension that I think of his future. Broken treaties, misplaced confidence and insult have made him lose interest in life. I have more white blood than Indian, and with my knowledge of both races, I fervently wish that every drop in my veins was RED. I admit that the white race is the superior, but oh, the price he pays for his superiority!

From the first I seemed to be able to read my step-father like an open book, and we were secret, if not avowed enemies. He lost no opportunity to slip one over on me by exaggerating to my mother my most trivial misdemeanors, and was forever complaining of my utter worthlessness and meanness. I confess I was sullen and inclined to talk back, and if he asked me to do any work I complied with poor grace. Why should I work for this scheming renegade, when I KNEW he would take everything away from my mother, which he later did? It had always been the custom at home to allow the children to claim horses and cattle. I owned a saddle pony and