William Wirt Hastings was an American politician. He served as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Oklahoma's 2nd district.
Background
William Wirt Hastings was born on December 31, 1866 in Benton County, Arkansas, near the Indian Territory boundary. His father, William Archibald "Yell" Hastings, a native of Arkansas from a Tennessee family of English origin, had served in a Cherokee regiment on the Confederate side in the Civil War. His mother, Louisa J. (Stover) Hastings, was one-sixteenth Cherokee by blood, a descendant of the tribally prominent Ward family.
Hastings grew up on a farm in the prosperous Cherokee settlement of Beattie's Prairie, the middle child, with an older brother and a younger sister, and also an older half-sister, a daughter of his mother by an earlier marriage.
Education
Hastings received his early education in the tribal schools, first in the log schoolhouse of the neighborhood, then in the Cherokee Male Seminary, from which he received his Bachelor of Science degree in 1884.
He taught briefly in the tribal schools before he went on to Vanderbilt University, from which he was graduated with a Bachelor of Law degree in 1889.
Career
Hastings went to practise law in the Cherokee Nation, settling at Tahlequah, the tribal capital. While his practice was building up he served as principal of the Cherokee Orphan Asylum. Political advancement came naturally to ambitious young citizens of this small republic.
Hastings served as tribal superintendent of education one year (1890-1891) and attorney-general four years (1891-1895) and was appointed several times to represent the Cherokee Nation at Washington. But during the same decade in which Hastings was rising to leadership among his people, Congress was gradually liquidating the self-governing tribes of the Indian Territory. When their courts were abolished in 1898 he continued his law practice by representing Cherokee interests and prosecuting Cherokee claims before the federal agencies and courts.
In 1901 the Indians were made United States citizens in preparation for eventual statehood. Meanwhile the western half of the Indian Territory had been opened to white settlement and organized as the Territory of Oklahoma. The Indians were determined that the two sections should remain separate. In 1905 they met in convention with some white men of like mind to organize a State of Sequoyah; and Hastings served as chairman of the committee that drew up its constitution. Although Congress refused to accept their plan and provided for union of the two territories, many of their principles were embodied in the constitution adopted by Oklahoma at statehood in 1907.
During this period of transition Hastings began early to look beyond tribal politics. In 1892 he presided over the first Democratic convention convened in the Indian Territory. In the early years of Oklahoma statehood he continued his intimacy with the state officials who had been his associates in the Sequoyah Convention. In 1912 he was a delegate to the state Democratic convention and to the national convention, where he was an active supporter of Woodrow Wilson.
In 1915 he entered Congress, where except for his one defeat in the Republican landslide of 1920 he served continuously until his voluntary retirement in 1935.
For many years he was a member of the Indian Affairs Committee; later he served on the Appropriations Committee, but he continued his leadership in Indian legislation.
After his retirement from Congress Hastings continued his law practice and his extensive banking and landed interests at Tahlequah.
He died in a hospital at Muskogee, Oklahoma, of a gall bladder ailment with complications, and was buried in the Tahlequah cemetery.
Achievements
William Wirt Hastings was a notable politician and is remembered as a United States Representative from Oklahoma.
He was truly one of the ablest men who have ever represented Oklahoma in Congress. Through his efforts, Tahlequah had received an Indian hospital as a Christmas present in 1935. For all his service Hastings was greatly loved and trusted by the Indians.
Politics
Hastings was a Democrat and active supporter of Woodrow Wilson.
As a former tribal citizen who had attained distinction in a white society he believed in federal protection of the Indians' land (an ideal he had to modify somewhat to suit Oklahoma demands) and intensive education to fit them for eventual integration.
Personality
Hastings was five feet ten inches tall, and weighted 140 pounds. He was a gentleman of courteous manners and pleasant address, with an education far above the average, and bids fair at an early day to shine in his profession.
He showed his Cherokee blood in the planes of his face and his dark Indian eyes.
Interests
Politicians
Woodrow Wilson
Connections
In 1896 Hastings married Lulu Starr, a member of a leading Cherokee family; they became the parents of four daughters.
