Home |  PublicationsEncyclopedia |  Johnson, Grant

The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture

JOHNSON, GRANT (1854–1929).

Grant Johnson was one of the most noted peace officers in the history of the Indian Territory. Johnson's father was a Chickasaw Freedman, and his mother was a Creek Freedwoman. Born in 1854 in north Texas during the Civil War, Johnson began his tenure as a deputy U.S. marshal in 1888 working out of the federal court at Fort Smith, Arkansas. Judge Isaac C. Parker mentioned him as one of the best deputies that worked for his court. Johnson's work, in tandem with Deputy U.S. Marshal Bass Reeves, became legend in the Indian Territory. By 1898 Johnson transferred to the Northern District, which was headquartered at Muskogee. Johnson, the only deputy U.S. marshal for this area for many years, patrolled in and around Eufaula, Creek Nation. He developed one of the best arrest records of any of the deputies that worked the Northern District under Marshal Leo Bennett. In 1902 a group of disgruntled Creek full bloods and Freedmen led by Chitto Harjo created a disturbance in the Creek Nation. Harjo felt old treaties were being broken by the activities of the Dawes Commission, which was allotting land to the Indians and Freedmen. Johnson and a posse arrested Chitto Harjo and a group of his followers and put them in the federal jail in Muskogee. Johnson became a policeman for Eufaula in 1906, primarily patrolling the African American section of town. He died in Eufaula on April 9, 1929.

Art T. Burton

Learn More

Art T. Burton, Black, Red, and Deadly: Black and Indian Gunfighters of the Indian Territory, 1870–1907 (Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1991).

Citation

The following (as per The Chicago Manual of Style, 17th edition) is the preferred citation for articles:
Art T. Burton, “Johnson, Grant,” The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture, https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=JO007.

Published January 15, 2010
Last updated June 10, 2022

Copyright and Terms of Use

No part of this site may be construed as in the public domain.

Copyright to all articles and other content in the online and print versions of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History is held by the Oklahoma Historical Society (OHS). This includes individual articles (copyright to OHS by author assignment) and corporately (as a complete body of work), including web design, graphics, searching functions, and listing/browsing methods. Copyright to all of these materials is protected under United States and International law.

Users agree not to download, copy, modify, sell, lease, rent, reprint, or otherwise distribute these materials, or to link to these materials on another web site, without authorization of the Oklahoma Historical Society. Individual users must determine if their use of the Materials falls under United States copyright law's "Fair Use" guidelines and does not infringe on the proprietary rights of the Oklahoma Historical Society as the legal copyright holder of The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and part or in whole.