On February 14, 1876 representatives of the Five Civilized Tribes gathered in Tahlequah, I.T. to institute the Indian International Agricultural Society. Belying the mundane title, this “Society” was a cross between a joint–stock company and the Populist cooperatives of the next decade. Whereas cooperatives depended on banks, the IIAS raised capital through membership dues and stock. Anyone could join for 5.00 and for 25.00 the purchaser became a voting, “director of the Agricultural Society.” Upon payment the purchaser received “stock certificates,” not to exceed the IIAS initial capitalization of 5,000.00.
This episode highlights two themes central to my dissertation project: high finance and Cherokee-Anglo cooperation in the creation of a fiscal-monetary state in the Cherokee Nation. While US treaty obligations did create the need for a centralized fiscal and monetary policy, the US never fulfilled its fiduciary responsibilities. Thus, the Cherokee elite were forced to construct their progressive institutions of social welfare and devise methods, as did the IIAS, for funding them without the so-called “help” of the US. My dissertation argues that under these circumstances, the Cherokees erected a fiscal-monetary state entirely on the basis of fiat currency and that the Cherokee model was the basis for the US fiat system of the twentieth century.
For this essay, in line with the conference theme of cooperation over corruption, I will examine the ideology of the Cherokee elite, many of whom were freemasons. In freemasonry, the source of Cherokee cosmopolitan internationalism and enlightened progressivism is readily apparent. The ubiquitous presence of freemasons suggests that the evolution of the Cherokee fiscal monetary-state was neither a case of conquest nor collusion, but was rather cooperation and coordination among men who shared a similar vision, deeply rooted in the “spirit of masonry,” of what constituted a civilized society.