Elias Cornelius Boudinot Elias Cornelius Boudinot ( Cherokee ) ( August 1 , 1835 – September 27 , 1890 ) was an attorney , politician and military officer in the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War . Chosen as a delegate to the Arkansas secession convention , Boudinot served as a colonel in the Confederate States Army , and was elected as an Arkansas representative in the Confederate Congress . He was the son of Elias Boudinot , editor of the " Cherokee Phoenix " , the first Native American newspaper . His father and some other relatives were assassinated in 1839 as retaliation for having ceded their homeland in the 1835 Treaty of New Echota . The Boudinot children were orphaned by their father ' s murder , as their mother had died in 1836 . They were sent for their safety to their mother ' s family in Connecticut , where they received European - American educations . Following the Civil War , Boudinot participated in negotiations of the Southern Cherokee with the United States ( US ) before the tribe was reunited ; he was part of the Cherokee delegation to the US . In 1868 he and his uncle Stand Watie opened a tobacco factory , to take advantage of provisions under the nation ' s new 1866 treaty with the United States . It was confiscated for non - payment of taxes , and their case went to the United States Supreme Court , which ruled against them . Boudinot began to lobby for Native Americans to be granted United States citizenship in order to be protected by the Constitution . He was active in politics and society in Indian Territory and Washington , DC , supporting construction of railroads . He worked for two Arkansas politicians . He advocated termination of Cherokee sovereignty and allotment of land to tribal members , as was passed under the Dawes Act , and worked for the formation of the state of Oklahoma . In his 2011 history of America ' s transcontinental railroads , the historian Richard White writes of Boudinot : " [ He ] became a willing tool of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad . . . If the competition were not so stiff , Boudinot might be ranked among the great scoundrels of the Gilded Age . " Early life and education . Born August 1 , 1835 near Rome , Georgia , Boudinot was the son of Elias Boudinot , a Cherokee National leader , and his wife Harriet Ruggles Gold ( 1805 – 1836 ) , a woman of English descent from Cornwall , Connecticut . They had met there when his father was a student at a school for Native Americans . His father served as editor of the " Cherokee Phoenix " from 1828 - 1832 ; it was the first newspaper founded by a Native American nation . He published articles in English and Cherokee , and had type cast for the syllabary developed by Sequoyah . The newspaper was distributed across the United States and internationally . His parents named the boy after the missionary Elias Cornelius , who had selected his father to attend the Foreign Mission School . Elias was the fifth of six children . The year the boy was born , his father and other leaders had signed the Treaty of New Echota , ceding the remainder of Cherokee lands in the Southeast in exchange for Removal to Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River . Boudinot ' s mother Harriet died in 1836 , several months after her seventh child was stillborn . The family moved to Indian Territory prior to the forced removal of 1838 . In 1839 , when Boudinot was four years old , his father and other Treaty Party leaders were assassinated by Cherokee opponents for having given up the tribal lands . His uncle Stand Watie survived an attack the same day . For their safety , Boudinot and his siblings were sent back to Connecticut to their mother ' s family . The Golds ensured the children received good educations . As a youth , Boudinot studied engineering in Manchester , Vermont . Career . In 1851 at age eighteen , Boudinot returned West and taught school briefly . In 1853 he settled in Fayetteville , Arkansas near the Cherokee , and renewed contact with his uncle Stand Watie . He studied as a legal apprentice and passed the bar in 1856 in Arkansas . His first notable victory as a lawyer was defending his uncle Stand Watie against murder charges . Watie had killed James Foreman , one of the attackers of Major Ridge , Watie ' s uncle , who was killed in 1839 together with his son John Ridge and brother Elias Boudinot . Watie had survived the attack . Boudinot wanted to revive his family ' s prominence among the Cherokee . In Arkansas , Boudinot became active as a pro - slavery advocate in the Democratic Party , the majority position of party members . He was elected to the city council of Fayetteville in 1859 . That year , together with James Pettigrew , he founded a pro - slavery newspaper , " The Arkansan " ; it favored having railroads constructed into Indian Territory . Some of the American Indians did not want their territory broken up by such intrusions . Boudinot urged the territory to regularize its status with the United States , and later supported measures needed to admit Oklahoma as a state . The following year he was chosen as the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic State Central Committee and monitored rising tensions in the country . In 1861 , he served as secretary of the Secession Convention as the territory determined whether it would leave the Union . In 1863 , Boudinot was elected a delegate to the Congress of the Confederate States , representing the majority faction of Cherokee who supported the Confederacy . ( A minority supported the Union . ) During the American Civil War , Boudinot fought for the Confederate States Army under his uncle Stand Watie . Commissioned as an officer , Boudinot reached the rank of lieutenant colonel . After the war , Boudinot was chairman of the Cherokee Deligation ( south ) to the Southern Treaty Commission which renegotiated treaties with the United States . Marriage and family . Boudinot did not marry until 1885 , when he was 50 . He married Clara Minear and they had no children . After their marriage , they moved to Fort Smith , Arkansas , living there for the rest of their years . 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 . A bill was passed by Congressin 1873 to provide financial relief for Boudinot . However , this bill was pocket vetoed by President Ulysses S . Grant . 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 .