by John Demos
Quite rapidly, the “Last Hours of Mrs. Boudinott”—a title supplied by the Observer—would gain a place in the lore of evangelical spirituality. In many ways, it mirrored accounts of Obookiah’s passing at the Mission School two decades earlier. Its focus was Harriet’s “religious exercises” as the end drew near; she was the center—the star—of an engrossing drama. Along with “extreme bodily suffering,” she endured deep anxiety about “the state of her soul.” As the days passed, she listened attentively while others read Scripture passages or sang hymns by her bedside. When her condition permitted, she exhorted her husband and weeping children to live “according to the rule of Christ.” At one point, she sent for a Cherokee neighbor and counseled him, through an interpreter, on “the importance of religion.” Friends came to pray with her—most notably John and Sarah Ridge, and Sarah’s parents (just then on a visit from New England). Eventually, she seemed to gain “assurance,” and said “her darkness was removed … that there was then a clear sky between her & her Redeemer.” Near the moment of death, Elias observed “a benignity and smile about her countenance that I had never noticed before.”66
Elias felt utterly devastated by his loss; as he wrote to one of his wife’s sisters and her husband, “All my plans are now disconcerted. I really do not know what to do. You cannot imagine the extent of my bereavement.” Still, he needed to act without delay to provide for his children (none older than ten); thus within days of their mother’s death, he put them in the care of a missionary family at a “station” some distance to the west of New Echota. He considered sending several of them “to the north”—that is, to their Connecticut aunts and uncles—but changed his mind when, the following spring, he made a new marriage to a New England woman working in the Nation as a schoolteacher. All the while, he remained in affectionate contact with Harriet’s parents, continuing to address them in letters as “Father and Mother,” and assuring them, about his second wife, that “your dear grand children could never expect a better friend, a better mother.”67
By this time, too, he was heavily involved—along with John Ridge—in the procedural side of removal. The two of them were part of an “Indian Committee” that assisted federal commissioners in resolving the claims of pro-removal Cherokees for compensation on their land and other properties. In November 1836, John wrote to one of his Northrup sisters-in-law about his own claims. “My place here [Running Waters] was valued at six thousand & seven hundred dollars”; additional sums for his crops, hogs, thirteen horses, ferry service, “other improvements,” and a second house in Alabama would raise the total to over $20,000. At the same time, he was “engaged in business in settling the affairs of the Nation as President of the National Com[mittee].” Finally, he was making his own preparations to leave: “We will send all blacks & horses to Arkansas under the conduct of Mr. [illegible name] except Maria which we will retain to cook for us, & Henry to drive our carriage & wait on us, and Mary to take care of the children.” (Undoubtedly, the last three named were slaves. There was, in addition, a pony named Dick, “which Rollin [his eldest son] will not allow to leave him.”) He wrote, too, of his father, who had prepared “a carriage for his negroes & a large wagon & a coach for himself.” It was clear that both families would travel in what (for the time and place) was comfortable style—in sturdy conveyances, and with slaves to look after their personal needs.68
Major Ridge, his wife, and their little retinue left in March 1837. Their journey was not uneventful, but—contrary to the usual pattern with Indian removals—no lives were lost, and, after about a month, it ended as planned in the territory that would henceforth be known as “Cherokee Nation West” (or, in some other renderings, “New Cherokee Nation”). In short order, Major Ridge purchased land and “improvements” for his own household at a place called Honey Creek (near the point at which the borders of the present-day states of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma are joined). There, with the labor of his eighteen slaves, he would soon build a handsome farm.69
John Ridge remained in the East throughout the summer, for one last round of dealings with federal commissioners sent to supervise removal. When, in late September, he resigned his position on the Indian Committee, the commissioners paid him strong tribute for his “lofty efforts…[as] the leader and guide of a whole nation,” compelled by circumstance to “sacrifice … the beloved land of his birth and that of his fathers for generations past.” Free at last of public responsibilities, he and Boudinot, with their respective families, set out for the West early in October. They chose a route, through parts of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, southern Illinois, and Missouri, and reached their destination after a journey of roughly seven weeks. (They made a stop en route at the Hermitage, home of Andrew Jackson, and were warmly received by the recently retired president. If John remembered at all his previous view of Jackson as a “chicken snake,” he gave no sign.) John chose to settle near his father, on land he described as “superior to any country I ever saw in the U.S.”70 His first concern was to build shelter for his family—what he would later describe as “a good double-log house.” His business records show an entry, dated December 21, for “eight hands to raise the house, $1 each.” A few weeks later, he paid $75 “for house carpenter work,” including “flooring, ceiling, 2 doors, 5 window frames, 72 sash lights [window panes], 1 table, shelves.” These details suggest a much less grand place than his Running Waters residence back in Georgia; perhaps he saw it as no more than temporary quarters. He began to farm; the same accounts include “hogs and the hire of two hands to drive them,” plus the purchase of a “new prairie plough.” And he joined Major Ridge in opening a large general store on Honey Creek.71
He was eager to see other parts of the Nation’s new home, and soon after his arrival spent several weeks traveling here and there. Then, the following spring, he and his wife undertook a much longer journey to New York and New England, leaving their children in the care of the Connecticut woman who ran a school on their property. It was, in part, a business trip; John needed to arrange the purchase and shipment of supplies for the store—foodstuffs, clothing, leatherwork, tools, hardware of many kinds, and more. But they seized the chance also to visit Sarah’s family in South Lee, Massachusetts. Unfortunately, John took sick while there, and, in a strange reprise of his experience at the Mission School long before, had to spend several months convalescing under the Northrups’ roof. Sarah, meanwhile, returned alone to Honey Creek to be with their children.72
By the time John got back, the major phase of removal was fully under way. In sharp contrast to his own experience the previous year, it was cause for enormous sorrow and suffering—on what has been known ever since as the Trail of Tears. The headlines are familiar and haunt us still.73
First, the “round up”: federal soldiers evicting thousands of Cherokee families from their land and other property.
Then: the incarceration of these thousands in “stockades” for weeks or months at a time, during which they endured extreme drought, rampant disease, and arbitrary, sometimes openly cruel, treatment by guards and other government officials.
Next: forced embarkation for the trip west. Wrote one missionary who stood by as they left: “It is mournful to see how these people go away—even the stoutest hearts melt into tears when they turn their faces toward the setting sun.”74
Followed by: additional months of laborious, often lethal, journeying, some by boat, some by railway, some on horseback, some by horse-drawn wagon, and, in by far the largest number of cases, on foot. Many Cherokees walked the entire way, covering distances of a thousand miles or more. And all this went on in the face of harsh weather conditions (summertime heat, followed by bitter winter cold), grossly inadequate provisioning, recurrent bouts of disease, and callous treatment by whites encountered along the way. A traveler from New England described one large detachment trudging through Kentucky: “Some carry a downcast dejected look bordering upon the appearance of despair; others a wild frantic appearance a
s if about to burst the bonds of nature.” Death repeatedly stalked their ranks; according to the most reliable estimates four thousand lives were lost, either during the initial roundup or on the route west, out of the approximately fifteen thousand directly involved.75
Finally: their arrival in the “Indian Territory”—that part of it specifically allotted to the Nation, in what is today northeastern Oklahoma—with its manifold challenges of practical and emotional adjustment: unfamiliar landscapes; uncertain reception by those already present (including the “Old Settlers,” Cherokees who had voluntarily removed themselves years, or decades, earlier); procedural confusion around every aspect of resettlement (obtaining land, building houses, putting in crops, and acquiring livestock, tools, and other necessities); and, not least, the toll taken by exposure and fatigue on their already weakened bodies and souls.76
Exactly when John Ridge returned from Massachusetts to confront this hugely forbidding prospect is unclear; pertinent letters and other evidence have not survived. We do know that he sought to assist new arrivals—and to capitalize on their needs—through his and his father’s general store. Business records reflect both the extent and the range of its offerings. When John left on a second buying trip to New York and New Orleans in March 1839, he had with him money orders, “drafts,” and cash totaling almost $17,000 (the equivalent of roughly $400,000 today); some was borrowed from his father, his brother, “Mr. Boudinot,” and Rev. Worcester. He returned with large quantities of corn, pork, salt, chickens, calico and other cloth, ribbon, and boots. His records also show “money loaned the emigrants”; in short, the store doubled as a bank. He planned to rebuild his life as a plantation owner, but was a businessman, too. He was no longer directly involved in public life, and it seems he wanted it that way. When he stopped in Washington during the second of his trips east and encountered his old negotiating partner, federal commissioner John Schermerhorn, he spoke of their joint service in the past tense: “My brother, we have been laboring long together…[for] the salvation and happiness of the Cherokees. You for what you have done, have been abused, misrepresented and slandered by your countrymen; and I might yet someday die by the hand of some poor infatuated Indian, deluded by the counsels of Ross and his minions; but we have this to console us, we shall have suffered and died in a good cause. My people are now free and happy in their new homes, and I am resigned to my fate, whatever it might be.”77
The idea that his fellow citizens were “free and happy” was, however, wildly off the mark—perhaps a form of willful denial. Most were struggling, with great difficulty, to make a new start. And many continued to think of both Ridges, father and son, as perpetrators of an unforgivable crime against the Nation. One immediate and vexing problem was meshing the “Late Immigrants” (as the newest arrivals were called) with the lives and political practice of the Old Settlers. A large majority of the Late Immigrants were committed to the leadership of principal chief John Ross; moreover, prior to removal they had bound themselves to continue the Nation’s established pattern of governance in the West. But the Old Settlers clung to their own system—a more austere and traditional version of conciliar rule—and hoped that it could work for all. In this configuration, the so-called Treaty Party, consisting of the two Ridges, Boudinot, and their followers, was more or less the odd man out.78
With the aim of resolving differences and creating a formal union, the various factions met in council in June 1839. Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot proposed to attend simply as onlookers, but when their presence aroused resentment among others of the Late Immigrants, they decided to leave. The meeting broke up without an agreement, and feeling on all sides sharpened ominously. The followers of Ross suspected that the Ridges and Boudinot had colluded with the Old Settlers to foment disunion. Although Ross publicly urged forbearance, a band of his followers met secretly and formed plans to invoke the Nation’s “Blood Law” against leaders of the Treaty Party. Its key provision, now held up as a kind of sacred commitment, read as follows: “[I]f any citizen or citizens of this nation should treat and dispose of any lands belonging to this nation without special permission from the national authorities, he or they shall suffer death.” (Did the plotters pause to recall that it was John Ridge himself who had put the law into writing a decade before?)79
As the sun began to rise over Honey Creek in the early morning of Saturday, June 22, a team of twenty-five armed men quietly surrounded the John Ridge house. Three who had been officially designated “executioners” approached the door, forced it open, stole upstairs, found John still asleep, dragged him outside, stabbed him repeatedly with knives, and stamped on his bleeding body one by one “as they marched over it single file.” Sarah ran to him, whereupon “he raised himself on his elbow and tried to speak, but the blood flowed into his mouth and prevented him. In a few moments more he died, without speaking that last word he wished to say.” His shocked children watched from inside the house as his killers galloped off. Years later, one of his sons would compose a vivid remembrance of the scene that immediately followed. “In a room prepared for the purpose lay pale in death the man whose voice had been listened to with awe and admiration in the councils of his Nation, and whose fame had passed to the remotest of the United States, the blood oozing through his winding sheet and falling drop by drop on the floor. By his side sat my mother, with hands clasped, and in speechless agony—she who had given him her heart in the days of her youth and beauty, left the home of her parents, and followed the husband of her choice to a wild and distant land. And bending over him was his own afflicted mother, with her long, white hair flung loose over her shoulders, crying to the Great Spirit to sustain her in that dreadful hour.”80
On the same morning, fifty miles to the south, a similar drama was unfolding in the village of Park Hill, where Elias Boudinot had decided to resettle his family. Elias was at that point living temporarily in the home of Rev. Samuel Worcester, his missionary friend and collaborator, since the building of his own house a short distance away was not yet finished. As Worcester would write a few days later to one of his colleagues at the American Board, “Last Saturday a horrid deed was done almost at our very door, and most afflictive to us all. Mr. Boudinot is murdered … by the hands of assassins.” That was the headline; details followed. “He went to his house … a quarter of a mile distant. There some Cherokee men came up, inquiring for medicine, and Mr. Boudinot set out with two of them to come and get it. He had walked but a few rods when his shriek was heard by his hired men, who ran to his help; but before they could come up the deed was done. A stab in the back with a knife, and seven gashes in the head with a hatchet, did the bloody work. He lived a few minutes, till we had time to arrive at the spot, and see him breathe his last, his wife among the rest, but was speechless and insensible to surrounding objects. The murderers ran a short distance into the woods, joined a company of armed men on horseback, and made their escape.”81
There would be still more killing that day. Major Ridge had left Honey Creek the previous afternoon to check on one of his slaves who had been hired out to a planter across the Arkansas border and now lay ill; he stayed overnight and then headed home. Another band of anti-treaty partisans learned of his plans and set an ambush alongside a creek. When he rode up at midmorning and stopped to water his horse, he was felled by a volley of rifle shots and died almost instantly.82
Three men down within the space of a few hours. Families ripped apart. Cleavage within the Nation driven so deep that vengeance murders would go on for decades. In retrospect, the events of June 22, 1839, might well be viewed as state executions. But why, then, their stealthy enactment? And what to make of the weapons used—traditional native hatchets and knives in two cases, the white man’s firearms in the third? And where to fit the ritual stomping (“single file”) of Ridge’s dying body? This mix of elements hints at the hybrid, in-between status of the Cherokees—too “civilized” to be fully “Indian,” too “Indian” to live in white-cont
rolled Georgia.
How had the two Ridges and Boudinot become leading advocates of removal in the first place—knowing, as they did, the grave risk they incurred? Their position was not lightly taken. Indeed, it had required a complete reversal of their earlier views. Yet once they switched, they never wavered.
To the Cherokee public, they stressed the immediate difficulties—the impossibility, as they saw it—of staying put. The pressure of white settlers, of squatters and other intruders, had become overwhelming. The state of Georgia was adamant in declaring its sovereignty over the Nation’s land and citizens. The federal government was unwilling to enforce the mandates of the Supreme Court. There continued to be many in the North who supported the Cherokee cause, but even these seemed more and more to accept the necessity of removal. When Boudinot looked back on the treaty making from two years later on, he commented, “Instead of contending uselessly against superior power, the only course left was to yield to circumstances over which [we]…had no control.”83
When, however, they wrote in private channels to known friends and sympathizers—to the missionary leaders in Boston, for example—they struck a different note. In that context, they would advance what was essentially a cultural argument. Their central point, repeated over and over, was the danger of “degradation” and “pollution” of Cherokee lifeways from the malign influence of whites intruding on the Nation. Ridge, in a letter to David Greene (at the American Board), offered an especially powerful statement: “I hope we shall still do well, if we can only induce our Indians to abandon the land of whiskey kegs & bottles, the vile corruptions of the whites, where our poor women are contaminated to become wretches, in the land where they once enjoyed peace & respectability.” In direct contrast, opponents of the treaty preferred to “amalgamate with [our] oppressors…[rather than] leave their nation to reunite with those who have gone before & and now enjoy liberty in the west.” Ridge found this possibility deeply repugnant: “[T]he thought of amalgamating our people to such creatures under such unfortunate circumstances, is too horrid for sober consideration.” For Ridge, whose calm judgment and mental balance were widely acknowledged by whites and Cherokees alike, these were extraordinarily strong words.84