Hitchcock County was a proposed political subdivision created by the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention. The convention, meeting in Muskogee, Indian Territory in 1905, established the political and administrative layout of a prospective U.S. state it called the

State of Sequoyah The State of Sequoyah was a proposed U.S. state, state to be established from the Indian Territory in Eastern Oklahoma, eastern present-day Oklahoma. In 1905, with the end of tribal governments looming, Five Civilized Tribes, Native Americans (th ...

. Sequoyah was an attempt by the

Five Civilized Tribes The term Five Civilized Tribes was applied by the United States government in the early federal period of the history of the United States to the five major Native American nations in the Southeast: the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee (Cr ...

and others in the

Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...

—who did not wish to be incorporated into an American state—to establish full statehood for the territory. Although their attempt to achieve statehood was unsuccessful, many of their deliberations in establishing proposed counties proved useful to the framers of Oklahoma, who met just two years later for the purpose of establishing the

State of Oklahoma Oklahoma ( ; Choctaw: , ) is a landlocked state in the South Central region of the United States. It borders Texas to the south and west, Kansas to the north, Missouri to the northeast, Arkansas to the east, New Mexico to the west, and Colo ...

. The boundaries of modern-day

Choctaw The Choctaw ( ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States, originally based in what is now Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The Choctaw language is a Western Muskogean language. Today, Choct ...

Pushmataha Pushmataha ( – December 24, 1824; also spelled Pooshawattaha, Pooshamallaha, or Poosha Matthaw) was one of the three regional chiefs of the major divisions of the Choctaw in the 19th century. Many historians considered him the "greatest of a ...

and McCurtain counties in Oklahoma are derived largely from the work of the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention. Hitchcock County, with Hugo as its

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

, was proposed, in general, to take the place of

Kiamitia County Kiamitia County, also known as Kiamichi County, was a political subdivision of the Choctaw Nation, Indian Territory. The county formed part of the nation's Pushmataha District, or Third District, one of three administrative super-regions. Kiamiti ...

(Kiamichi County),

Choctaw Nation The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American reservation occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. At roughly , it is the second-largest reservation in area after the Navajo, exceeding t ...

, which would be abolished with the advent of Sequoyah statehood. The county was named in honor of Ethan Allen Hitchcock (1835-1909), the federal Commissioner to the Five Civilized Tribes, formerly the American minister (

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or so ...

) to the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. Hitchcock County was created and sized appropriate to the economic heft of Hugo

merchants A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...

, whose trade territory was to be included, more or less whole, in the new county. The usefulness of these arrangements did not escape the attention of Oklahoma's framers, who in 1907 borrowed, largely intact, the concept and proposed boundaries of Hitchcock County for

Choctaw County, Oklahoma Choctaw County is a County (United States), county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 14,204. Its county seat is Hugo, Oklahoma, Hugo. Formerly part of the Choctaw Natio ...

. The recorded minutes of the Sequoyah Constitutional Convention's committee on counties have been lost, so no additional information on the proposed Hitchcock County is available.Amos Maxwell, ''The Sequoyah Constitutional Convention'', 1953.

References

Indian Territory