Is Eastern Oklahoma the site of the worst injustices committed against Indigenous girls in the US?

A newly acquired archive gives clues about what happened to Indian land and wealth after Oklahoma statehood in 1907. VNN Oklahoma is sharing those stories in a new series that puts names and faces to them.

(TULSA, Okla.) In 1923, Martha Axe Roberts (Washington) was searching for a way to care for her sick 14-month-old child. She had no money, no possessions and no way of even reaching a doctor because her car had been taken by her guardian T.A. Hill of Hominy, Oklahoma. 

The reason: Martha refused to move back to Hominy from Craig County where she was living with her Shawnee family, caring for her two young children.

Martha inherited one and half headrights from her former husband, an Osage man named To-wha-e-he and cycled through a series of guardians in Osage County before becoming the ward of a man named T.A. Hill. 

By all accounts, Martha was a wealthy Shawnee woman with an annual income of $12,000. Calculated for inflation Martha would be earning more than $224,000 in today’s dollars.    

Accounts published in court records, personal accounts and letters to the Department of the Interior, showed Martha’s guardian was taking money from her estate to enrich his own lifestyle. He purchased hogs and other livestock-something Martha says she did not want- and paid someone to care for them, all out of Martha’s money. And, when Martha moved away from Osage County after accusing Mr. Hill of mismanaging her estate, he cut off her income completely, took her car, and all of her furnishings in her home in Craig County, even the stove.

When Marthe begged for money to care for her sick child, he refused until she agreed to move back to Osage County. The child eventually died.

This and names of countless Indigenous women were documented by the Indian Rights Association, an organization that sought to record corruption, land theft and swindle that were committed against Indigenous people all over the country in the early part of the 20th century. That archive is now available to the public at the Tulsa City-County Library thanks to a gift by VNN Oklahoma, which funded the license through Gale Publishing it in 2024.

As part of Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Awareness Day, VNN Oklahoma will begin publishing stories mined from the Indian Rights Association database, investigations into current cases, circumstances that allow Indigenous people to go missing or be murdered, and what is being done to stop it. These stories are being researched and written by Indigenous journalists who attended an archival reporting workshop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last winter at the Tulsa City-County Library. 

Inside the archive, these reporters learned about young girls like Ledcie Stechi. She was a seven-year-old Choctaw girl who died without food or clothing and was believed to be poisoned. Ledcie had inherited valuable oil land, but her guardian had permitted only $10 a month for her care. And Akey Ulteeskee, a wealthy Muscogee girl taken by her guardian at age four and raised as his own child. Her allotted lands in Bartlesville had oil and when Akey turned 18, her guardian owed her more than $18,000, more than $280,000 in today’s dollars. He was also the father of her illegitimate child.

The Indian Rights Association was founded in 1882 by humanitarians from New York and Philadelphia who aimed to "uplift" Indigenous people. They criticized corruption and fraud against Native Americans, but they also supported assimilation policies like the Allotment Act of 1887, individual property ownership, and citizenship. The Indian Rights Association believed communal land holding as practiced by Native people prevented progress and that Native people should assimilate into American society to avoid poverty.

At the same time, the organization wanted a thorough reform of Indian policy and practice. They believed that many of the problems afflicting Indigenous peoples were a consequence of corruption in the Indian service, theft and nefarious intent of white people who were grafters looking for Indian lands. Hence the treasure trove of accounts where people affiliated with the organization would spend time in Oklahoma attending court hearings of Indigenous wards like Ledcie Stechi and Martha Axe Roberts.

The organization also employed a woman named Gertrude Bonnin-better known by her Dakota name Zitkala-Ša, who met with Martha and Ledcie to hear their stories. Today, Zitkala-Ša is an inspiration for some who have started their own organizations to help families of missing and murdered Indigenous women. 

In the coming weeks, you’ll hear more about her and other Indigenous people whose stories deserved to be told.

This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Two Spirit and Transgender People (MMIWG2T).