The Native American Experience

by Dee Brown

  “Many full-blood Cherokees began changing their names, so as to have first and last names like the Anglo-Americans. Uncle Opothle started using Kingsley for his last name—Kingsley was his father’s name as you know—and my cousin made me envious at school when he signed his name as Jotham Kingsley. For a while I called myself Dane Warrior, but Grandmother Mary always laughed uproariously at me for such false show and I soon dropped it.

  “It was at about this time that Andrew Jackson became President of the United States, and if the Cherokees had been allowed to vote, almost all would have voted for him. As you may recall, many of our leaders helped him win that battle at Horseshoe Bend, and they believed that as President he would now show his gratitude by protecting the Cherokees from ever increasing intrusions on our land by Georgia settlers.

  “To encourage President Jackson’s support, Chief John Ross led a delegation to Washington, and my father was one of those chosen for the journey. I found out afterward that Ross had first asked Grandmother Mary to go, but she had formed such a dislike in her heart for Andrew Jackson because of what he had done to the Creeks at Horseshoe Bend that she feared she would not be able to hold her tongue and thus do harm to the Cherokee cause. And so the Runner, my father, went in her place. At the time, I was so busy hunting after deer in the forest and girls in the town that I don’t even recall my father’s leavetaking, but I well remember the sullen anger that hung about him for days after he returned.

  “Grandmother Mary tried to get him to talk but he would say little more than that President Andrew Jackson was a betrayer of the Cherokees. In strong words Jackson had told the Cherokee delegation to move their people west before the whites of Georgia overran their towns and caused bloodshed. I think that what annoyed my father most was Jackson’s manner toward the Cherokee delegates, most of whom had been so loyal to him during the war. He called them ‘my children,’ as though they were unworthy of being treated as equals. And then when they went to seek help from congressmen, they met with the same patronizing talk. ‘The Congress has always aimed to own the Indian tribes,’ the Runner said to Mary, ‘and if they get away with that, someday they will think they own all the whites, too.’

  “But the most crushing blow of all came soon after my father returned from Washington. I could sense from the words and faces of the adults in Okelogee that we were under some great danger after the government of the state of Georgia declared there was no longer any Cherokee Nation. All lands claimed by Cherokees were now a part of the state of Georgia, soon to be opened for settlement by whites. In other words, the Cherokees no longer had any title to the land on which they lived. Furthermore, all our own Cherokee laws were wiped out. Whites no longer had to honor contracts made with Cherokees, and Cherokees could no longer testify against whites in any court, no matter the grievance. And what seemed harshest of all, we were forbidden to hold meetings.

  “I remember Grandmother Mary saying that the Georgia politicians were trying to frighten us into fleeing our country, but that we should refuse to be frightened. Every town in the Cherokee Nation held a forbidden meeting as soon as they heard about the Georgia law, and Chief John Ross was soon on his way to Washington to use the white man’s courts to challenge the law.

  “As you must know, it has never been easy for our people to be heard in your courts, and John Ross was not surprised to find doors being closed in his face everywhere he turned. The chief of the Supreme Court, a man named Marshall, claimed to be sympathetic toward the Cherokees, but he said his court could not hear our case against the state of Georgia because we were a foreign nation! It was as if we had no right to be in America. Ross and his delegation came home, believing that the United States recognized us as a nation, and hoping maybe that would keep the Georgia whites from invading our lands.

  “A few months later, however, all hope of aid from the United States was crushed when the Congress passed the Indian Removal Law. It was late spring, I believe in the Moon of Violets, with leaves full green on the trees, the air filled with blossom fragrance, birdsong, and insect buzzings, the Little Singing Stream running over its banks, when the news came to Okelogee.

  “Grandmother Mary had foretold this black day when all the tribes east of the Mississippi would be banished from their homelands. This was something that land-greedy old Andrew Jackson had wanted for a long time, and now he had used his power to get it written into law.

  “At the Okelogee council that my father as headman called immediately, Mary scolded the warriors unmercifully. I can remember some of her words, coming strong like a chant: ‘You refused to listen to Tecumseh. Instead you turned upon the very people who could have saved us. Now the sun has gone down on all that. We will not look behind us. Now we must face the Unegas who would drive us from the lands of our ancestors. I leave it to our leaders to tell us what we must do. If they tell us to fight and die here, Creek Mary will fight and die. My own feet will never willingly take me from these hills and waters that I have learned to love as I love my children.’

  “For several days the councils continued, and then one afternoon a runner came to our house from New Echota with a message for my father from Chief John Ross. President Andrew Jackson had summoned the leaders of Indian tribes east of the Mississippi to gather at Nashville. Jackson wanted to meet there to discuss conditions for immediate removal of their people to lands west of the Great River.

  “I could tell from my father’s face as he read the message that he was both angered and pleased. He called Mary to come and see it. ‘Little John Ross is going to defy the Sharp Knife Jackson,’ he shouted. ‘Not one Cherokee will attend the President in Nashville. Instead our nation will gather at New Echota to make our own decisions.’

  “For the first time in many days, Mary’s deep laughter came booming out in the house. ‘A national council in defiance of Georgia law,’ she said. ‘Hear, now, only the Maker of Breath can keep Creek Mary from speaking at that council in New Echota.’ ”

  19

  DURING THE LAST WEEKS of that summer of 1830, only a few sprinkles of rain fell, and on a certain day in early autumn an observer standing on the highest point of the Sleeping Woman could have marked the location of all trails to New Echota by lazy streamers of red dust lifting into the windless air above the trees. It seemed that every living soul in the Cherokee Nation was bound for the capital to learn what their leaders could tell them of their future. They came in wagons, in buggies, on horseback, and on foot across many miles of mountains and valleys. Some may have feared but none could accept the dreaded probability that this great gathering in defiance of the laws of Georgia and the demands of the President of the United States might be the last time they would ever see their elected council assemble in the roughhewn capital of this doomed democracy of the American Indians.

  At sunrise two of Opothle’s wagons left Okelogee loaded with nine passengers, blankets, bedding, tenting cloth, and foodstuffs to last three or four days. They started with Opothle and his wife Suna-lee, his daughter Priscilla, and Jotham in the first wagon, and the Runner, Mary, Dane, Isaac and Jerusha McAlpin in the second. At every stop, some of the young people would exchange places in the wagons, and when the going was slow on upgrades, they would get out and walk.

  Before that morning of departure the families held long discussions about who was to stay in Okelogee and who was to go to New Echota. The Runner’s wife, Walina, being shy and not caring for crowds, begged to remain at home to harvest her late summer garden. William wanted to go, but Opothle asked him to stay behind to look after the house, the livestock, and their black slaves. Of late, Opothle had been worried about reports of white riders from the south who called themselves Georgia Pony Guards. Pretending to be official keepers of the peace, the Pony Guards raided prosperous Cherokees and stole cattle, horses, and slaves. They had never come as far north as Okelogee, but Opothle warned William to keep a sharp lookout for strangers, and to make certain the slaves brought the livestock into the barns every night.


  “Would that you could go to New Echota,” Opothle told him. “John Ross asked that we bring our sons and daughters so that they may hear and remember what is decided, and can then tell it to their sons and daughters. The fate of our nation may be decided at this council. Each of us will try to remember what is said and tell you what we have heard.”

  Because the mission school was closed for the New Echota council, the Runner invited Isaac McAlpin to attend as an observer. Soon afterward, with Dane’s willing assistance, Jerusha managed to join the pilgrimage. If Harriet McAlpin desired to go or resented being left alone, she gave no clear indication of either. On the morning of departure, Harriet gave Isaac a quick farewell kiss on his cheek, but her bright penetrating eyes were fixed entirely upon Jerusha, who lifted her skirt to climb boldly into the wagon and place herself close beside Dane among the piles of bedding. Harriet cleared her throat loudly and sighed with exasperation as she watched the wagon roll away.

  The two wagons reached New Echota shortly before sundown, and by the time they found a camping place in a pine grove, built a cooking fire, and brought water from the ever flowing spring around which the new capital had been located, darkness was upon them.

  During the early evening, friendly visits were made back and forth among the families whose wagons and campfires ringed the broad level area from which they hoped would rise one day a capital worthy of the Cherokee Nation. There was no dancing or music; the occasion was too solemn for celebration. Yet all were dressed in their best clothing, the women and girls in bright-colored calicos, many of the men wearing Anglo-American shirts and trousers and an occasional beaver hat, but most still favored moccasins over the stiff uncomfortable trading-post shoes. Here and there was an old man in a deerskin or blanket tunic with a red sash around his waist and a blue cotton handkerchief fashioned into a turban, as in the old days.

  After suppers were finished and chores completed, hundreds of young people walked around the entire circle of campfires. Dane and Jerusha and Jotham and his sister Priscilla were soon joined by Griffa McBee, one of the half-blood Scots girls who had recently begun attending Isaac McAlpin’s school. Their progress was like a slow circling dance, and the firelight reflected on the moving figures lent a romantic air to the autumn night. Jerusha walked very close beside Dane, her body touching his in secret little caresses.

  “How handsome the Cherokees are tonight,” she whispered. “Especially you, Dane. When will we be married? So we can be together like this always!”

  Before he could say a word, Mary’s accusing face materialized out of the dim light, fading away when Jerusha’s quivering mouth touched his ear: “I would like to sleep on the ground with you this night, instead of in the wagon with your grandmother,” she said.

  That was always the arrangement when the Cherokees traveled by wagon; the women and girls slept on the wooden beds of the vehicles, with tent cloth draped across the sideboards to shield them from dew or rain and give them some privacy. The men and boys slept where they chose, sometimes under the wagons or sheltered by tent canvas beneath the trees.

  Next morning a yellow sun in a smoky sky promised another cool day. For the first time, they could see clearly the beginnings of New Echota—a huge log council house, a courthouse, four stores and trading posts, the printing shop of the Cherokee Phoenix, and six dwellings, some with brick chimneys and clapboard sides.

  Everyone was expected to attend the speeches, which began soon after breakfasts were finished, although the crowd—formed in a wide semicircle facing the council house—was so immense that not half the listeners could hear what was said. Around the fringes of the assembly, two companies of Cherokee Light Horse, wearing blue blanket-cloth tunics, kept a lookout for stragglers and strangers. This cavalry guard had been organized by Major Ridge to keep the peace, and its strength was increased for the council.

  Old Going Snake was chosen speaker for this council. Dressed in a frock coat and wearing the cockaded hat given him by Andrew Jackson at Horseshoe Bend, he used his voice like a trumpet: “The Unegas in their greed for our land are like the cougars we see in the forests, with slain deer all around them, so filled with meat they can scarcely drag their bellies across the ground, yet never satisfied, always wanting more. We hold this country from our ancestors. We have a blood right to it. We call on the Maker of Breath, of Earth, Sky and Weather to witness what we do here and help us choose what is best for our people.”

  The speeches continued through the morning. Many great leaders of the Cherokees made statements, including Major Ridge, his son John who had been educated in New England, editor Elias Boudinot, and his younger brother Stand Watie. Opothle spoke in favor of another appeal through the white men’s courts, but he also advised that the people of each town organize a local Light Horse company to defend themselves from marauding Georgians who under the new state law could no longer be brought to court by Cherokees for assaults on their persons or theft of their property. When it came Mary’s turn to speak, the listeners rose to their feet, crowding closer to hear her words.

  “I speak for the women of our people,” she cried, “for those who endured pain to bring all of you into this world, the women who cultivate our land, who grow the food that sates your hunger. Who, more than we women, knows the value of our lands? I speak to the men: Your mothers, your wives, your sisters, your daughters beg of you not to part with any more of our land, but keep it for our children. The Maker of Breath placed us here to live in peace, but we women have borne and raised up warriors to defend us in our villages. Do not behave like a craven dog that carries its tail on its back but when frightened drops it between its legs and runs. Our lives are in the hands of the Maker of Breath. He gave to our ancestors the lands we live upon. We are determined to defend them, and if it is His will, our bones shall whiten on them, but we will never give them up. Not one more foot of land to the Unegas!” Not one more foot of land to the whites! the crowd began chanting. Not one more foot of land to the whites! The sound rolled across New Echota like the low thunder of a summer storm.

  After the noon rest, Dane and his companions would have preferred wandering off into the surrounding woodland, but except for Jerusha McAlpin none would have dared being caught leaving the council grounds. When the crowd was reassembling in the afternoon, Jotham and Griffa McBee somehow became separated from Dane, Jerusha, and Priscilla. Long before the last oration was finished, Jerusha was asleep, her head resting against Dane’s shoulder with Prissie looking on disapprovingly.

  When they all met again at their camping place, the sun was still an hour high. While Suna-lee and the girls began preparations for supper, Jotham touched Dane’s shoulder and motioned for him to move away from the wagons. “Do you think you could persuade Jerusha to slip out of the wagon tonight?” he asked in a cautious whisper.

  Dane felt a sudden dryness in his mouth. “I will ask her.” He was eager for a night adventure, yet he feared that what might happen would draw him into a permanent commitment to Jerusha.

  “Griffa says she’ll come out if Jerusha will,” Jotham said.

  The arrangement was made while they were eating dinner in the twilight, Jerusha becoming so animated that Dane feared she would arouse everyone’s suspicions. At bedtime, which came soon after the campfire died to coals, the two boys took their blankets a few yards back in the pines from where their fathers and Isaac McAlpin bedded under a wide tent cloth slung over a tree limb. Wide awake with expectancy, the boys waited until the sounds of deep and regular breathing came from the tent. Then they left their blankets and crept deeper into the woods, to their prearranged rendezvous—a large chestnut tree with low-hanging branches.

  “Suppose the girls don’t come?” Dane said, half hoping they would and half hoping they would not.

  “Griffa will. Jerusha may be afraid.”

  A rustle in the dry undergrowth and a snapping of twigs announced the approach of someone. Although there was no moon, the starlight revealed a feminine
form moving uncertainly toward them.

  “Griffa!” Jotham called out in a loud whisper.

  “No, it’s me, Jerusha.” She laughed with sudden delight at finding them so easily.

  “Keep your voice low,” Dane warned her. She was still wearing the red dress with the neat white collar she had worn that afternoon. She seemed to float right out of the starlight to fling her arms around his neck and kiss him on the lips. “Your dear grandmother,” she said. “I think she may have seen me slip my nightgown over my clothes, but she went right to sleep, breathing a soft little snore. All I had to do was slide out of the wagon.”

  A few minutes later Griffa was there, almost startling them with her sudden appearance. Jotham pushed the low limbs of the chestnut aside. It was like entering a tent, the dancing leaves dimming the starlight and making the distant campfires flicker like fireflies.