O. Sanders (Execution of)

On September 8, 1876, a Cherokee man named Sanders was executed at Fort Smith (Sebastian County) for allegedly murdering Thomas H. Carlisle in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) in August 1875. Sanders’s story is an illustration of how difficult it is to reconcile contemporary reports of such executions. In various sources, his first name is given as Ozar, Ozee, Osea, Ossa, Osey, and Osee. Although generally rendered as Sanders, his surname is reported in one source to be Sands and another as Saunders. Sanders’s accomplice, also Cherokee, is variously reported as William Maltaur, Martier, or Matier. There seem to be no public records available that would clear up this confusion.

On August 6, 1875, Sanders and his accomplice approached the house of a prosperous farmer named Thomas H. Carlisle. Carlisle, a white man, was married to a Cherokee woman, and both men were known to the Carlisle family. Sanders and Martier found the family sitting on their porch, and the Carlisles asked one of their sons to go and open the gate. The Carlisles offered them chairs, but the visitors allegedly instead opened fire and shot Carlisle. His wife and children fled to a neighbor’s house. According to the Arkansas Gazette, before they left Carlisle’s home, Sanders and Martier cooked themselves a meal. According to the Van Buren Press, they then searched the house and departed with $1,500 in Cherokee scrip, some clothing, and Carlisle’s boots. Later that night, the neighbors brought Mrs. Carlisle back home, where they discovered Carlisle’s body. Mrs. Carlisle and her older children identified Sanders and Martier as the assailants. Sanders was captured on August 8 by Cherokee authorities and taken to Fort Smith. William Martier was killed as authorities were attempting to arrest him.

According to the Dallas Daily Record, Sanders was tried in January 1876. He was convicted, and sentencing was scheduled for February 5. According to historian Jerry Akins, “Sanders professed ignorance of having committed the crime, said he was convicted by false testimony and felt that he was innocent and his mind perfectly easy as to the future.” He was sentenced to hang in April. On February 17, commenting on the upcoming execution, the Memphis Public Ledger opined that “Arkansas, or that portion of it known as the Indian Nation, seems not to be in a civilized state, unless, according to a learned European scientist, you confess that the gallows is the emblem of civilization.”

According to Akins, between February and April, Cherokee authorities waged an effort to remove Sanders from the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas so that he could be tried by a Cherokee court: “Their argument was that the victim was an adopted citizen of the nation and that therefore the tribe had jurisdiction.” He quotes the May 3, 1876, edition of The New Era, which opined thusly: “Should this ruse be successful, Sanders will very probably not only go free, but it will establish the fact, that other Indians hung for murdering white men, adopted citizens, in the Territory, suffered death unlawfully and every white man in the Territory is at the mercy of an Indian assassin.”

According to the Van Buren Press, U.S. Marshal James Fagan continued to receive threats from Native Americans until shortly before the scheduled hanging. Sanders was reportedly a member of a secret Cherokee organization, “every member of which swears to live or die for his brothers.” They tried to interfere several times, but Fagan’s forces repelled them.

Sanders was issued a reprieve, but he was eventually hanged on September 8, 1876. According to the September 9 edition of the Arkansas Gazette, “The novelty of these executions has passed away, and now but comparatively few are drawn to the city through morbid curiosity.” The whole hanging “passed off very quietly.” Sanders maintained his innocence to the end, but the Gazette reported that while many believed him, he was tried fairly based on Mrs. Carlisle’s eyewitness testimony.

For additional information:
Akins, Jerry. “Hangin’ Times in Fort Smith.” Journal of the Fort Smith Historical Society Journal 26 (September 2002): 4–9. Online at https://uafslibrary.com/fshsj/26-02_Complete_Issue.pdf (accessed November 22, 2024).

“A Carnival of Hanging.” Van Buren Press, April 25, 1876, p. 3.

“Hanging Day.” Arkansas Gazette, April 21, 1876, p. 1

“Ledger Lines.” Memphis Public Ledger, February 17, 1876, p. 3.

“The Scaffold.” Arkansas Gazette, September 9, 1876, p. 1.

Untitled article. Dallas Daily Record, January 13, 1876, p. 1.

Nancy Snell Griffith
Davidson, North Carolina