Chitto Harjo

Chitto Harjo (also known as Crazy Snake, Wilson Jones, Bill Jones, Bill Snake, and Bill Harjo; 1846–1911) was a leader and orator among the traditionalists in the Muscogee Creek Nation in Indian Territory at the turn of the 20th century. He resisted changes which the US government and local leaders wanted to impose to achieve statehood for what became Oklahoma. These included extinguishing tribal governments and civic institutions and breaking up communal lands into allotments to individual households, with United States sales of the "surplus" to European-American and other settlers. He was the leader of the Crazy Snake Rebellion on March 25, 1909 in Oklahoma. At the time this was called the last "Indian uprising".

Born in the Muscogee Creek Nation in Indian Territory after the tribe was removed from Alabama in the 1830s, Wilson Jones was a full-blood Muscogee Creek Indian. He was better known by his Creek name of Chitto Harjo, meaning "Crazy Snake." Chitto means "snake" and harjo means "one who is brave beyond description, or foolhardy." He became a traditionalist, belonging to the minority of the tribe who remained loyal to the Union during the American Civil War.

Later in the century, traditionalists worked to reinstate the tribal government of 1867 and to enforce treaty rights with the United States. They opposed the extinguishing of government and allotment of lands to households under the Dawes Commission.

While a young man, Chitto Harjo was allied with the federalists or Loyalists led by Opothleyahola, who moved the group to Kansas in 1861 with the start of the American Civil War. They remained loyal to the Union when most Creek allied with the Confederacy. He and many of these Creek men were recruited to the Union Army and served with federal forces in the Civil War. In testimony in 1906, he said that he had believed this service, in a war between the white men and one which did not concern the Indians, would help ensure the maintenance of government promises to his people. The Civil War divided the tribe, as many Creek were allied with the Confederacy.

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