Why Are We Still Arguing Over the Legacy of Cherokee ‘Outlaw’ Ned Christie?

Those Who Have Benefited Most From His Story Have Never Cared About the Evidence That Vindicates Him

On the spring evening in 1887 that he arrived in Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, U.S. Deputy Marshal Dan Maples was fatally shot in the chest by an unknown assailant hiding in dense brush. Murders, rapes, and thefts occurred almost daily in post-Civil War Indian Territory (later the state of Oklahoma), and the death of Maples was hardly surprising.

Also unsurprising was the mythology that grew around the supposed assailant and the lawmen who pursued him, for those stories served white narratives about Indian Territory and the American West. …