He once forced his way into a house where a young girl had been playing the piano after she stopped, he held her at gunpoint and made her continue playing. The Union veteran was described as often drunk. Both Proctor and Beck had white fathers themselves, but identified as Cherokee. In 1872 Proctor thought Polly Beck should not be in a relationship with a white man she had been widowed in an earlier marriage to a Cherokee. These members disapproved of Cherokee women being involved romantically with white men. Proctor was a member of the Keetoowah Nighthawk Society, which strongly believed in the preservation of traditional ways, and was trying to resist European-American encroachment on land and culture. Most of the Cherokee Nation was allied with the Confederacy many of its members were slaveholders, and the Confederate representatives had promised the Cherokee and other Native Americans an Indian state if they were victorious in the war.įollowing the war, tensions between the Proctors and the Becks were high due mostly to the wartime loyalties, but also to Proctor's alleged romantic interest in Polly Beck. All of the Beck family men, also Cherokee, fought for the Confederate Army. ĭuring the Civil War, Ezekiel "Zeke" Proctor, a Cherokee who had been removed from Georgia, fought for the Union Army. The incident has also been called the Goingsnake Tragedy, the Cherokee Courthouse Shootout and the Proctor-Beck Fight. īut, shooting broke out in the crowded courtroom during the proceedings: one of the US Deputy Marshals and seven men associated with him (including three Beck clan) and three Cherokee citizens were killed in the méleé, including the defendant's attorney and the defendant's brother. If Proctor was acquitted by the Cherokee court, the US Deputy Marshals were ordered to arrest him on federal charges in the attack on Kesterton and bring him back to Fort Smith for trial. The posse members included two regulars and six newly appointed white men from Fort Smith. The US District Court had assigned two Deputy US Marshals to lead an eight-man federal posse to attend the trial. It had jurisdiction over non-Native federal crimes in Indian Territory, and all federal crimes in western Arkansas. Because Kesterson was white, the US District Court said it had jurisdiction to prosecute Proctor for his attack on the non-Native, although the incident occurred within the Cherokee Nation. The United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas had limited jurisdiction in Indian Territory. Secondly, the Cherokee and the United States had a jurisdictional dispute over prosecution of the shooting of Kesterton, because he was a white man. First, there were strong family ties between the accused and victims. The trial was highly charged for both personal and political reasons. Another ten men were wounded, including both Cherokee and white men.Įzekial "Zeke" Proctor (Cherokee) was being tried for fatally shooting Polly Beck (Cherokee) and wounding her husband Jim Kesterson, who was white. The Goingsnake Massacre refers to the eleven victims of a fatal shootout on April 15, 1872, that broke out during a murder and assault trial in the Cherokee court in the Goingsnake District of the Cherokee Nation (now within Adair County, Oklahoma.) The dead included three Cherokee on the defendant's side, including his attorney and a brother a US Deputy Marshal and four members of his federal posse, plus three relatives of the Cherokee murder victim. Goingsnake District (now Adair County, Oklahoma) JSTOR ( May 2020) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: "Goingsnake massacre" – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. This article needs additional citations for verification.
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