Legends of the Old West - OUTLAWS Ep. 4 | Ned Christie: “Making A Murderer”

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

When a deputy U.S. marshal is murdered in the Cherokee capital, a respected Cherokee statesman named Ned Christie becomes the prime suspect. Newspaper stories portray Ned as a ruthless outlaw who commits every crime in the book, but are the stories accurate? As the pressure mounts to bring Ned Christie to justice, legendary Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas is dispatched to confront the elusive fugitive.   Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join   Apple users join Noiser+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons. Click the Noiser+ banner on Apple or go to noiser.com/subscriptions to get started with a 7-day free trial.   For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.   On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On September 26, 1889, Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas and four other men rode into Indian territory on a daring mission. Thomas was holding a federal arrest warrant for a man who was suspected of ambushing and murdering Deputy U.S. Marshal Dan Maples. For more than two years, the alleged killer had eluded arrest. The suspect was Ned Christie, who was 36 years old and a highly respected member of the Cherokee National Council. But among the broader white population, Ned was known as a cold-blooded, unrepentant killer. The suspicion, as usual, was fueled by a combination of unsubstantiated rumors, wildly inaccurate newspaper stories, and bald-faced lies. Since he was first suspected of the murder, Ned had maintained his innocence. But he refused to

turn himself in because he believes there was no chance he would receive a fair trial in the courtroom of Judge Isaac Parker, who was nicknamed the Hanging Judge, and in front of an all-white jury. So, at the behest of Judge Parker, Deputy Marshal Heck Thomas took a small posse into Indian Territory. Just before dawn on that September morning, Thomas and his men crept quietly up to Ned Christie's house about 20 miles outside the capital city of the Cherokee Nation. As the lawmen moved closer, Ned's dogs started barking and blew the lawmen's cover. The lawmen took up positions around Ned's house, and Heck Thomas yelled at Ned to surrender.

In response, Ned climbed up into the attic, popped out a plank in the roof, and pointed his rifle at the marshals. Judge Parker's arrest warrant stipulated that women and children in the house should be allowed to flee unharmed. So, Thomas ordered his men to hold their fire until Christie's wife and a young boy ran out of the house. Blatantly ignoring the judge's order, one of Thomas' men shot the boy, piercing one of his lungs. After the first shot was fired, all attempts at civility were gone. Ned opened fire from the roof. The lawmen returned fire while they scurried for cover in the nearby trees. One of Ned's shots hit a lawman in the shoulder,

and the injury was serious. Ned kept firing and held the posse at bay until Heck Thomas decided to change his tactics. He ordered one of his men to approach the house from the rear and set it on fire. The man successfully started the blaze without attracting Ned's attention. Soon, flames roared through the house, and Ned Christie's gun fell silent. As the house started to collapse, Heck Thomas believed his work was done. There was no more gunfire, and they didn't see Ned run out of the house.

Thomas had an injured man who needed a doctor, so the posse packed up and rode away. When the lawmen reported to Judge Parker that the notorious killer and robber Ned Christie was dead, the lawmen were hailed as heroes. Newspapers ran big headlines about the death of the heinous villain who had caused so much horror in Indian territory. From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the stories of two outlaws,

stagecoach and train robber Sam Bass, and controversial fugitive Ned Christie. This is Episode 4, Ned Christie, Part 1 of 3, Making a Murderer. Making a Murderer Over the course of 300 years, the landscape and makeup of North America changed dramatically, more than it had in the previous 6,000 years combined. Estimates vary wildly for the number of indigenous people in North America before European colonization, but one of the newest estimates puts the number at roughly 60 million people. There are roughly 5 billion combined acres of land between the U.S. and Canada. That meant each person in North America could have about 83 acres of land to himself or herself.

about 83 acres of land to himself or herself. Then, in 1492, Christopher Columbus landed in the Bahamas, just a few miles short of the modern-day coast of Florida. Thirty years later, Spanish conquistadors began exploring the future American states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. Beginning in 1587, European settlers continuously landed on the east coast of North America. Within 60 years, the best estimates say the indigenous population dropped from 60 million to around 6 million people. Over the next 200 years, the United States was founded, settlers pushed steadily westward, and clashes with Native American societies were more or less continual. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson

signed the Indian Removal Act, and the story of the American West began in earnest. Native American tribes in the southeastern U.S. were forced to leave their ancestral homes and move west of the Mississippi River to land that was granted to them by the federal government. The land was formerly designated Indian Territory. Most of the people who were forcibly marched to Indian Territory were members of what were called the Five Civilized Tribes. The Seminole, the Chickasaw, the Choctaw, the Cherokee, and the Muscogee, who were also known

as the Creek. The forced removal of at least 60,000 people became known as the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee resisted until 1838, making them the last tribe to be removed. And when they all reached Indian territory, it wasn't like the land was uninhabited. It was already home to a revolving door of Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Osage, and many more. And the Indian Removal Act didn't just affect the tribes in the southeast. They received the most attention, but the same thing happened to tribes from the Midwest and the Great Lakes region. The Kickapoo, Pawnee, Shawnee, and many others were moved to the future state of Kansas. For those who were fans of the TV show Gunsmoke, you often hear about the Pawnee on the show, and you might think Kansas was their ancestral home.

It wasn't. They were moved to Kansas 40 years before Dodge City was founded, and that was why they were there to clash with white settlers and the army. In Indian Territory south of Kansas, the Cherokee adapted fairly well to their new homeland. In the eastern part of present-day Oklahoma, they built an advanced, self-governing society and declared themselves a sovereign nation. The Cherokee Nation modeled itself, to some degree, after the U.S. system of governance. They wrote a constitution and formed a centralized government with three branches. But as with any government, there were different ideas about how to advance as a nation.

There were those who wanted to assimilate with white culture, learn English, and adhere to white society's norms and laws. They were called the Progressive Party. They converted to Christianity, supported interracial marriage, and were proponents of Oklahoma statehood. On the opposite side of the political spectrum was the Nationalist Party. They were committed to retaining Cherokee culture and traditions and remaining separate from white society. Ned Christie was born into a large family of nationalists who were prominent and well-liked. They spoke mostly Cherokee, rejected Christianity, did not believe in interracial marriage, and did not endorse Oklahoma statehood. Ned Christie's grandmother had died during the Trail of Tears, and the family was fully

committed to preserving and protecting the way of life their ancestors had enjoyed. After relocation, the Christie family were among the lucky ones. They settled in a region called Going Snake, where timber and streams were plentiful. The land was ideal for farmers like the Christie's, and wildlife was abundant for hunting. Ned was born on that land in December 1852, a year and a half after Sam Bass was born in Indiana. Ned had a happy childhood, surrounded by his immediate family and a large extended family. He did well in school and could read and write and speak both Cherokee and English by the eighth grade when he left school to work full-time on the family farm. He also apprenticed with his father, who was a gunsmith and a blacksmith.

Among his other talents, Ned was also a self-taught fiddle player, and a good one. For 35 years, Ned made the best life that he could in Indian territory. But when he was 36, a trio of deputy U.S. Marshals rode into the capital of the Cherokee Nation to look for illegal whiskey sellers. Only two rode out again, and that was when Ned's former life became unrecognizable. As a podcast network, our first priority has always been audio and the stories we're able to share with you. But we also sell merch, and organizing that was made both possible and easy with Shopify.

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Because businesses that grow, grow with Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash realm, all lowercase. Go to shopify.com slash r-e-a-l-M now to grow your business, no matter what stage you're in. Shopify.com slash Realm. Despite the Cherokee Nation's claim of sovereignty, they were still living on land that was owned by the federal government. So they were not immune from federal laws. The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, with Judge Parker at the helm, had jurisdiction over the entire Indian Territory. And here's how it worked. If a Native American person committed a crime against a white person,

the crime went to Judge Parker's court. If a white person committed a crime against a white person, the crime went to Judge Parker's court. If a white person committed a crime against a Native American person, the crime went to Judge Parker's court. If a Native American person committed a crime against another Native American person, the crime went to a tribal court. Very quickly, a pattern emerged. Hardly any crimes of white people hurting Native American people went to court. And the ones that did, very rarely went in favor of the Native American person. That pattern was at the forefront of Ned Christie's mind when the chaos started in May of 1887, and it began with bootleg liquor. It was illegal to sell liquor in Indian territory,

which made bootlegging an extremely profitable enterprise. The U.S. Marshals who patrolled the territory spent much of their time stopping bootleggers, and that was what took Deputy Dan Maples, Deputy George Jefferson, and Deputy E.F. Stokes to the Cherokee capital. The Cherokee capital is the city of Tahlequah, and the word had reached Parker's court in Fort Smith, Arkansas,

that the whiskey trade in the Cherokee Nation had gotten out of hand. On the evening of May 4th, Maples, Jefferson, and Stokes set up camp outside town. It was near dark when Maples and Jefferson walked to a nearby store to buy some eggs for breakfast the next morning. On their way back to camp, as they began to cross a creek near their campsite, three or four gunshots rang out. The men dove for cover, but it was too late for Deputy Maples. He had been hit in the chest, and he collapsed into the creek. Deputy Jefferson, who had been unable to see the shooter or shooters, immediately tended to his injured partner. Sadly, Deputy Dan Maples died the next day. And in short order, the embellishments

began in the press. Newspapers like the Dallas Daily News reported that the two deputies had been shot at 11 times. Maples had fired three shots in return before collapsing, and Jefferson had fired six shots. The killers then ran up the creek, whooped like Indians, and disappeared. According to Deputy Jefferson, none of that happened. Neither deputy had the chance to draw his pistol, let alone shoot back. And with Maples severely wounded, Jefferson focused on pulling his partner to safety, not returning fire. And there was no whooping like Indians. But now, a white deputy U.S. Marshal had been ambushed and murdered in Indian territory.

And a trial for the crime would happen in the U.S. District Court of Western Arkansas under the supervision of Judge Isaac Parker. The U.S. Marshal in Fort Smith dispatched a posse of heavily armed lawmen to find the killer or killers. The day after the murder, the Cherokee chief, to whom Ned Christie served as one of three trusted advisors, immediately moved into damage control mode. The chief offered a $300 reward to anyone with information leading to the identity of the killer.

Residents of Tahlequah pooled their money to add to the reward. The first suspects were a group of six men who were seen in Tahlequah the night of the shooting. Five of the six were known criminals who had been convicted of crimes that ranged from theft to assault to attempted murder. They were all arrested and taken to Fort Smith, which was not their first time in front of Judge Parker. Although the men admitted to being in the area on the night of the shooting, they pointed to another man who they claimed had been with them earlier that evening. They said that man was the one who planned and executed the ambush, and his name was Ned Christie. On May 3rd, the day before the murder, Ned Christie was in Tahlequah to attend what would

turn out to be his last meeting of the Cherokee National Council. The next morning, he returned to his home about 20 miles outside town. His travels were later corroborated by his wife, his family members, and his neighbors. But it didn't take long for news to reach Ned that he was suspected of being the killer, and his arrest was imminent. Ned was stunned by the news. Understanding the gravity of the accusation, he was left with two choices. He could turn himself in, stand trial, and try to prove his innocence in a courtroom, or go into hiding. Unfortunately for Ned, the choice was an easy one. He believed an all-white jury would find him guilty regardless of the evidence he presented, and then Judge Parker would live up

to his reputation and sentence Ned to hang. It had been reported in several publications at the time, including the Cherokee Nation's own newspaper, that Judge Parker had sentenced 46 men to hang in the 18 months before Deputy Maples was killed. The judge was averaging two and a half hangings per month, and a high number were Native Americans, many of whom were Cherokee. So, while Ned hunkered down at his home, Judge Parker started the ball rolling. at his home, Judge Parker started the ball rolling. One week after the murder, a grand jury was seated in Fort Smith with Judge Parker presiding. Jurors heard testimony from the six suspects, from deputies Jefferson and Stokes, and from several people who shared second-hand stories that amounted to little more than rumor.

A good deal of the testimony from the six suspects came from a man named Charlie Bobtail. He asserted that the six men were aware of the murder plot, but it was Ned Christie who planned the ambush and fired the shot that killed Maples. Bobtail went on to claim that the day before the murder, he and another one of the six, John Parris, were at a store in the town of Oaks, 25 miles from Tahlequah. Deputy Maples and the two other deputies entered the store to purchase supplies. Bob Taylor said he and Parris heard the deputies telling the store clerk they were on their way to Tahlequah to investigate the unlawful sale of whiskey.

Bobtail told the grand jury that he and Paris went directly to Ned Christie and told him that deputy marshals were on their way to Tahlequah. Lastly, Charlie Bobtail said that Ned Christie vowed to murder them all. After all the testimony, the grand jury came back with four indictments. After all the testimony, the grand jury came back with four indictments. Three of the six primary suspects were free to go, and three were indicted for being tied to the murder plot. Those three were Charlie Bobtail, John Parris, and Bub Traynor. The fourth indictment was for Ned Christie. To the grand jury, the press, and Judge Parker,

Christie's absence was damning. It made him look guilty. But on the flip side, there was no physical evidence against Ned and no eyewitnesses to the crime. All the government had was hearsay, conjecture, and the word of Charlie Bobtail, an ex-convict with a lengthy criminal record. For the moment, that was enough, and Judge Parker issued an arrest warrant for Ned Christie. Meanwhile, Ned remained hunkered down near his home outside Tahlequah,

about 45 miles northwest of Fort Smith. When the Cherokee National Council met in Tahlequah on June 27, seven weeks after the murder of Deputy Maples, Ned did not appear for fear he would be arrested. Ned had been counseled by family, friends, and many others that his only hope to stay alive was to go into hiding. Because it was summer, Ned was able to spend much of his time deep in the wilderness. He was an outdoorsman at heart and well-equipped to survive in the wilds. He was an outdoorsman at heart and well-equipped to survive in the wilds. Hunting and foraging were second nature. On occasion, he went home to resupply.

When he did, friends and family were posted everywhere to serve as lookouts. And it was during that period of hiding that the media circus really took hold. Since Ned couldn't give his side of the story, the newspapers were free to run wild with every bit of rumor and speculation. Several papers reported that Ned Christie had been seen in the area on the day Deputy Maples was murdered, implying Ned must be the killer. But they failed to mention that Ned had been in the area because he attended the Cherokee National Council meeting, like he always did. Newspapers and magazines all over the country picked up the story.

Readers were fascinated by the menacing outlaw Indian who was being hunted by deputies. The more fantastic the stories became, the more newspapers were sold. In order to keep selling more papers, the press had to keep adding to the story, and thus unfolded the narrative that followed Ned Christie for the next 100 years. The legend of Ned Christie became more and more brutal and terrifying. Soon, the story was that he had killed a deputy U.S. marshal in a

cowardly ambush and then embarked on a murderous rampage. Suddenly, he was accused of killing 14 men, women, and children in a bank robbery where he stole $22,000. He had committed countless rapes, and he had robbed countless stores. In one alleged robbery, he rode his horse into the store, then tarred and feathered a white clerk before inexplicably pouring whiskey down the man's throat. He was accused of robbing Wells Fargo stagecoaches, and then he became the leader of a gang of train robbers. It went on and on, and eventually Ned Christie became a supervillain of mythic proportions. And while his supposed reign of terror was happening, Ned was home with his family and carrying on with business as usual.

Although he and his family remained vigilant, Ned returned to his quiet life on the farm and working in his blacksmith shop. He knew he was still a wanted man, but he refused to keep hiding in the woods. For the next two years, Judge Parker continued sending deputies from Fort Smith, who made several attempts to arrest Ned at his home, but all were unsuccessful. And during that time, Judge Parker's court effectively ended its investigation. Charlie Bobtail, John Parris, and Bub Traynor were released but ordered to return to stand trial at a later date, which was basically legal double talk that meant they were no longer serious suspects,

which made Ned Christie the sole suspect in the murder of Deputy Dan Maples. On its own merit, the case was probably going to continue no matter what. A deputy U.S. marshal had been killed in cowardly fashion, and the marshals and Parker wanted justice. But after Parker's death, speculation arose that there might have been a deeper reason why law enforcement became so focused on Ned Christie. As a staunch member of the Nationalist Party, Ned wanted to keep the Cherokees separate from white society as much as possible.

Recently, Congress wanted to revisit, to put it generously, the original agreement it made with the five tribes prior to relocation. And Ned was not shy about speaking out against Washington's new agenda. After relocation, each of the five tribes created their own insulated societies in Indian territory. The original agreement with the U.S. government included laws to prevent white settlers from encroaching on native land. But settlers did it anyway, in droves, and the government did nothing to stop it. After the Civil War ended, the problem grew exponentially as people poured into the land west of the Mississippi River. For almost 60 years, the five tribes used their land communally.

almost 60 years, the five tribes used their land communally. But then, in February 1887, three months before Deputy Maples was killed, Congress passed the Dawes Severalty Act, also known as the General Allotment Act. It was named for Henry Dawes, the senator from Massachusetts who authored it. And the most well-known provision was that the law required communal land to be divided into individual parcels. The government presented the act as a way to promote agriculture and self-sufficiency, but Christie and other tribal leaders believed the true purpose was to dissolve tribal sovereignty and destroy native cultures to speed up their assimilation into white society. In the case of the land, if it was all owned by individuals or families instead of the tribe as a whole, it made it easier for settlers to buy the land or take it by a variety of means.

And if an allotment system was going to be forced onto the tribes, someone had to decide who received an allotment system was going to be forced onto the tribes, someone had to decide who received an allotment. The question became, who was an official member of a tribe? How much Cherokee blood, for instance, was in your veins? Suddenly, a government commission would decide if you were Cherokee enough to receive an allotment or keep the land you'd already been living on. Everyone had to be registered, and determinations had to be made. At first, the law didn't apply to the five tribes in Indian Territory, but it didn't take a crystal ball to see that it would happen at some point in the near future. It did happen to the five tribes about 10 years after the law was passed. But in 1887, when the process was just

getting started, Ned and other tribal leaders rightly feared that allotment would make their land vulnerable to those from outside the territory who wanted to exploit it. Ned Christie spoke freely about standing up to the U.S. government and making it honor its past promises. Christie understood federal laws governing the Indian Territory, and as a member of the Cherokee National Council, he understood Cherokee law and tribal politics. Ned was intelligent, unintimidated, charismatic, and had command of the English language. He was exactly the sort of person the government might perceive as a danger. He was exactly the sort of person the government might perceive as a danger.

Now, no one is accusing the U.S. government of organizing the murder of a deputy marshal simply to frame Ned Christie. But once Ned became a suspect, rightly or wrongly, the later speculation said that it was in Judge Parker's interest to focus solely on Ned. And the U.S. government wasn't the only entity that may have had a motive to silence Ned Christie. There were members of the Cherokee Nation's Progressive Party who supported the Allotment Act. Ned was respected by most of his people, but not all. He had enemies, and they didn't want him or his nationalist party to decide the future of the Cherokee Nation. If Ned were removed from the equation because of murder charges, it would solve the problem. And so, after two years of hiding or dodging posses, Ned found himself cornered at his home in September of 1889 by Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas and his team.

1889 by Deputy U.S. Marshal Heck Thomas and his team. The posse allowed Ned's wife and a young boy, who was a cousin, to leave the house. But one of the lawmen shot the boy, and that prompted Ned to open fire on the posse from the roof of his house. The posse burned the house down, and, they presumed, Ned Christie with it. After they rode away, Ned's wife Nancy returned to the smoldering structure and found Ned lying in a nearby thicket of trees, injured and bleeding, but alive. He had escaped the house before it collapsed and crawled into the woods. During the shootout, a bullet had grazed the bridge of his nose and hit his right eye socket. Luckily, he didn't lose the eye, but his vision was permanently impaired. And the young boy survived as well.

It was an incredibly close call, but all three people in the house made it through the night. Back in Fort Smith, Judge Parker, U.S. Marshal Jacob Yost, Deputy Heck Thomas, and the other deputies were feeling pretty good about finally taking down the elusive Ned Christie. The press ate it up. Thanks to the non-stop spread of misinformation that had transformed Ned into a supervillain, his death was front-page news from New York to San Francisco. And true to form, most newspapers wrote exaggerated stories about the gunfight and the fire and how Ned's death happened. And they were all surprised about a week later when they

learned that Ned was not dead. He wasn't dead and he wasn't going to surrender. But he also wasn't going to pick a fight. Instead, he was going to rebuild his home as a fort. If the law wanted to take him, they were going to need some serious firepower. Next time on Legends of the Old West, while Ned rebuilds his home, the press ramps up the wild stories about him. home, the press ramps up the wild stories about him. They find more fuel for their fire when a Deputy U.S. Marshal and a detective are found murdered on Cherokee land. Then there's more insight into the possible truth of Deputy Maple's murder, and the Marshals make their first attempt to capture Ned at his fort. That's next week on Legends of the Old West. Members of our Black Barrel Plus program don't have to wait week to week to receive new episodes.

They receive the entire season to binge all at once with no commercials. And they also receive exclusive bonus episodes. Sign up now through the link in the show notes or on our website, blackbarrelmedia.com. Memberships are just $5 per month. This series was researched and written by Michael Byrne. Original music by Rob Valliere. I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer.

If you enjoyed the show, please leave us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening. Check out our website, blackbarrelmedia.com for more details and join us on social media. We're at Old West Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And all our episodes are available on YouTube. Just search for Legends of the Old West Podcast. Thanks for listening.