Albert Pike was an American author, poet, orator, editor, lawyer, jurist and Confederate States Army general who served as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in exile from 1864 to 1865. He had previously served as a senior officer of the Confederate States Army, commanding the District of Indian Territory in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. A prominent member of the Freemasons, Pike served as the Sovereign Grand Commander of the Supreme Council, Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction from 1859 to 1891. He was a supporter of slavery, a staunch campaigner against the ideas of free Blacks and Black suffrage, and was affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan after the Civil War. Pike was also accused of treason by the Confederate Army and forced to resign his post in 1862, and as a former Confederate officer, later requested a pardon from U.S. President Andrew Johnson in 1865, which he was granted in 1866.