Goingsnake Massacre - Background

Background

During the Civil War, Ezekiel "Zeke" Proctor, a Cherokee from Georgia, fought for the Union Army, while all of the Beck family, also Cherokee, fought for the Confederate Army. Following the war, tensions between the Becks and the Proctors were high; mostly due to those former loyalties, but partly due to Proctor's alleged romantic interest in Polly Beck. Also, Proctor was a member of the Keetoowah Nighthawk Society, which strongly believed in the preservation of traditional ways, including a growing dislike of the European-American encroachment. This belief included disapproval of Cherokee women being involved romantically with white men. Thus, Proctor thought Polly should not be in a relationship with a white man, despite Proctor's and Polly Beck's fathers both having been white.

Proctor was the son of a known murderer and was often drunk. 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. He was involved in several saloon brawls in the small town of Cincinnati, Arkansas, but was also known for his trait of always returning afterward to pay for damages. He had also previously killed two Cherokee brothers from the Jaybird family.

Polly was said to have been an attractive woman of mixed race (her father being white). She was the widow of a white man, Steve Hilderbrand, who had been killed during the Civil War. She remarried several times, and Jim Kesterson or Chesterson, another white man, was either her fourth or fifth husband. Polly had one brother and two first cousins who were Deputy US Marshals.