“Chief Junaluska was personally acquainted with President Andrew Jackson, Junaluska had taken five hundred of the flower of his Cherokee scouts and helped Jackson to win the Battle of the Horse Shoe, leaving thirty-three of them dead on the field. And in that battle Junaluska drove his tomahawk through the skull of a Creek warrior, when the Creek had Jackson at mercy.
“Chief John Ross sent Junaluska as an envoy to plead with President Jackson for protection for his people, but Jackson’s manner was cold and indifferent toward the rugged son of the forest who had saved his life. He met Junaluska, heard his plea, but curtly said, ‘Sir your audience is ended, there is nothing I can do for you.’ The doom of the Cherokee was sealed. Washington, D.C., had decreed that they must be driven West, and their lands given to the white man, and in May 1838 an army of four thousand regulars, and three thousand volunteer soldiers under command of General Winfield Scott, marched into the Indian country and wrote the blackest chapter on the pages of American history.
“Men working in the fields were arrested and driven to the stockades. Women were dragged from their homes by soldiers whose language they could not understand. Children were often separated from their parents and driven into the stockades with the sky for a blanket and the earth for a pillow. And often the old and infirm were prodded with bayonets to hasten them to the stockades.
“In one home death had come during the night, a little sad-faced child had died and was lying on a bear skin couch and some women were preparing the little body for burial. All were arrested and driven out leaving the child in the cabin. I don’t know who buried the body.
“In another home was a frail mother, apparently a widow with three small children, one just a baby. When told that she must go, the mother gathered the children at her feet, prayed a humble prayer in her native tongue, patted the old family dog on the head, told the faithful creature good-bye, with a baby strapped on her back and leading a child with each hand started on her exile. But the task was too great for that frail mother. A stroke of heart failure relieved her sufferings. She sank and died with her baby on her back, and her other two children clinging to her hands.
“Chief Junaluska who had saved President Jackson’s life at the Battle of the Horse Shoe witnessed this scene, the tears gushing down his cheeks and lifting his cap he turned his face toward the Heavens and said ‘O my God, if I had known at the Battle of the Horse Shoe what I know now, American History would have been differently written.’
“Being acquainted with many of the Indians and able to fluently speak their language, I was sent as an interpreter into the Smoky Mountain country in May 1838, and witnessed the execution of the most brutal order in the history of American warfare. I saw the helpless Cherokees arrested and dragged from their homes, and driven at the bayonet point into the stockades. And in the chill of a drizzling rain on an October morning I saw them loaded like cattle or sheep into six hundred and forty-five wagons and started toward the West.
“One can never forget the sadness and solemnity of that morning. Chief John Ross led in prayer and when the bugle sounded and the wagons started rolling many of the children rose to their feet and waved their little hands good-bye to their mountain homes, knowing they were leaving them forever. Many of these helpless people did not have blankets and many of them had been driven from home barefooted.
“On the morning of November 17th we encountered a terrific sleet-and-snow storm with freezing temperatures and from that day until we reached the end of the fateful journey on March 26th, 1839, the sufferings of the Cherokees were awful. The trail of the exiles was a trail of death. They had to sleep in the wagons and on the ground without fire. And I have known as many as twenty-two of them to die in one night of pneumonia due to ill treatment, cold, and exposure. Among this number was the beautiful Christian wife of Chief John Ross. This noble-hearted woman died a martyr to childhood, giving her only blanket for the protection of a sick child. She rode thinly clad through a blinding sleet-and-snow storm, developed pneumonia and died in the still hours of a bleak winter night, with her head resting on Lieutenant Gregg’s saddle blanket.
“I made the long journey West with the Cherokees and did all that a private soldier could do to alleviate their sufferings. When on guard duty at night I have many times walked my beat in my blouse in order that some sick child might have the warmth of my overcoat.
“I was on guard duty the night Mrs. Ross died. When relieved at midnight I did not retire, but remained around the wagon out of sympathy for Chief Ross, and at daylight was detailed by Captain McClellan to assist in the burial like the other unfortunates who died on the way. Her uncoffined body was buried in a shallow grave by the roadside far from her native mountain home, and the sorrowing cavalcade moved on. The Anglo-Saxon race would build a towering monument to perpetuate her noble act in giving her only blanket for comfort of a sick child. Incidentally the child recovered, but Mrs. Ross is sleeping in an unmarked grave far from her native Smoky Mountain home.
“Being a young man, I mingled freely with the young women and girls. I have spent many pleasant hours with them when I was supposed to be under my blanket, and they have many times sung their mountain songs for me, this being all that they could do to repay my kindness. And with all my association with Indian girls from October 1838 to March 26th, 1839, I did not meet one who was a moral prostitute. They are kind and tender-hearted and many of them are beautiful.
“The only trouble that I had with anybody on the entire journey to the West was with a brutal teamster by the name of Ben McDonal, who was using his whip on an old feeble Cherokee to hasten him into the wagon. The sight of that old and nearly blind creature quivering under the lashes of a bull whip was too much for me. I attempted to stop McDonal and it ended in a personal encounter. He lashed me across the face, the wire tip on his whip cutting a bad gash in my cheek. The little hatchet that I had carried in my hunting days was in my belt, and McDonal was carried unconscious from the scene.
“I was placed under guard, but Ensign Henry Bullock and Private Elkanah Millard had both witnessed the encounter. They gave Captain McClellan the facts and I was never brought to trial.
“When Scott invaded the Indian country, some of the Cherokee fled to caves and dens in the mountains and were never captured. At this time we are too near the removal of the Cherokees for people to fully understand the enormity of the crime that was committed against a helpless race, truth of the facts are being concealed. We are living on lands that were taken from a helpless race at the bayonet point to satisfy the white man’s greed for gold.
“Future generations will read and condemn the act. I can truthfully say that I did my best for them when they certainly needed a friend. However murder is murder whether committed by the villain skulking in the dark or by uniformed men stepping to the strains of martial music.
“Murder is murder and somebody must answer, somebody must explain the streams of blood that flowed in the Indian country in the summer of 1838. Somebody must explain the four thousand silent graves that mark the trail of the Cherokees to their exile. I wish I could forget it all, but the picture of six hundred and forty-five wagons lumbering over the frozen ground with their cargo of suffering humanity still lingers in my memory.
“Let the historian of a future day tell the sad story with its sighs, its tears and dying groans. Let the great Judge of all the earth weigh our actions and reward us according to our work.”12
Notes from the Old Books
Note 1—The People of the Caves
The Cherokee represented but one tribe of many between the great Mississippi River and the Atlantic coast, all outgrowths and related offshoots of the once mighty Hopewell and Mississippi mound-building native societies of ancient times. The Cherokee, or Tsaragi, were originally also known as the Ani-Kituhwagi, people of Kituhwa, the largest ancient city of the early nucleus of their nation. The actual origin of the name Cherokee is uncertain, and has been conjectured to mean Ancient Tobacco People, Red F
ire Men, Children of the Sun, Brave Men, or People of the Caves. Many of the tribes of the two American continents called themselves, not by the names given them by later European explorers, but simply The People. It is no doubt revealing of the Iriquois’ perception of themselves, and indicative of the status to which they would later rise among many indigenous tribes in European eyes, that they called themselves Ani-Yunwiya, The Principle People.
Cherokee culture and survival depended on hunting and fishing, but they were not as nomadic as their cousins of the northern plains. They had learned to grow a number of crops and made widespread use of maize as did the Sun People Cortez had encountered far to the south in Mexico. Water, fire, and the earth were the source of life and sustenance. From the great Mississippi, tribes spread in all directions up the rivers that fed it, and up the streams that fed them. Water gave the earth life, and from it they took abundant fish and hunted the animals that depended upon the waters for survival. Clans formed from family groups, then tribes formed from clan groups, and gradually villages sprouted up and down the river valleys. Along the banks of what they called the Tannassey, the land was rich and the Cherokee thrived.
Numerous Cherokee villages were separated by a day’s walk from one another. Some became cities and centers of trade and activity. Homes and lodges were made of wood, woven cane, and stone, and usually covered by bark, mud, or animal skins. Outside the villages grew fields of maize, tobacco, beans, and many varieties of squash. Smokehouses cured meat. Ovens and open fireplaces made baked goods from ground maize, and cured clay pottery. As villages and towns and cities grew, the greatest of the native tribes enlarged into nations with customs and laws and networks of travel, trade, and commerces. Some among them were fishers, others hunters, others warriors, others farmers. Women gathered nuts, wild roots, and berries, made pottery and baskets, cured skins, tended crops and fires, and even occasionally took up the bow or spear against the enemy. Each village had numerous chiefs, and the most important of these sat on the national tribal council. Some chiefs were leaders of war, others of peace. Women were as vital to the survival and provision of the tribe as were the men and had their own women’s council.
When Spanish explorer Hernando DeSoto landed on the coast of Florida in 1540, quickly conquering and enslaving native peoples both to guide him and carry his supplies, and then began his trek inland in quest of New World gold, hundreds of thousands of native peoples inhabited the southeastern portion of the continent north of the Mexican gulf. As the first white man to lay eyes on the Cherokee, DeSoto found a populous people throughout the river valleys of the southern Appalachians. Though there had already been much native blood shed by the Spaniards, DeSoto’s encounters with the Cherokee were peaceful and the Cherokee hospitable. Rumors of Cherokee gold led DeSoto into the inland regions inhabited by the Ani-Yunwiya. But though his men found evidence of copper mining, the gold buried beneath the ground eluded them and they did not remain long.
As the societies of Native American nations became more sophisticated over the centuries, it was not a sophistication of technology, invention, construction, knowledge, or wealth as was growing up in other parts of the world. It was rather a sophistication in knowledge of the earth and its ways. When DeSoto and his men appeared among them, wearing strange suits of metal, and carrying knives and chains and guns and swords, and confronting a people bare-skinned or clad in the skins of animals slain for food, and adorned by the simple feathers of the eagle or with necklaces of shells traded from the sea tribes, it was a clash of cultures from which there could be no turning back. These were peoples who had learned to live upon the earth while preserving its natural beauty, provision, and balance. They took no more from it than they needed, and it gave all they required. Theirs was a life based on natural balance and order and unity with creation.
It was a life no Spaniard, Englishman, nor Frenchman could grasp. To the European mind they were backward savages, to be exploited. They could not apprehend that perhaps these bare-skinned people were not so simple as they appeared, but had developed a way of life upon the earth that possessed as many benefits to humankind as ancient Athens or Rome, or modern Paris, Madrid, or London.
As a settled, agricultural people, the Cherokee lived in approximately two hundred villages, some of good size, usually consisting of thirty to sixty houses or lodges, and a large council house. These villages were spread out in three geographic regions: the Lower settlements along the headwaters of the Tugaloo River in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Middle settlements in the Joree and Unicoi Mountains between the Little Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers, and Overhill settlements between the Tennessee River and Smokey Mountains. Each had many villages and towns, numbering some thirty or forty in all.
The Cherokee Nation was comprised of seven clans: the Aniwayah or Wolf clan (the largest and most prominent of the clans), the Blue (or panther or wildcat) clan, the Long Hair (or wind) clan, the Deer clan, the Bird clan, the Paint clan, and the Wild Potato (or Kituwah, bear, or raccoon) clan. Most war chiefs came of the Wolf clan, peace chief’s came from the Long Hair clan. From the Bird clan came the keepers of the birds, those skilled in hunting and trapping birds. From the Paint clan came sorcerers and medicine men who made the red paint used in battle. From the Deer clan came the keepers of the deer, fast runners and messengers. Those of the Wild Potato clan gathered food in the wilds for their people, at first near the ancient capital town of Kituwah.
Cherokee society was matrilineal, like that of the ancient Picts of Scotland. Women were held in higher esteem in Cherokee culture and carried more responsibility than in white societies of the same era. Descent and clan designation progressed through the mother’s side of the family. Every newborn became a member of its mother’s clan. Houses were owned by the women. Men and other kinsmen resided in their women’s homes at the discretion and pleasure of wives, mothers, aunts, and sisters.
Occasional Beloved Women, or Ghigua, were chosen for bravery in battle or outstanding personal qualities. The Ghigua headed the Council of Women and held a voting seat in the Council of Chiefs. The Ghigua was given the responsibility for prisoners, was considered a sage and spiritual guide, and acted as ambassador and peace negotiator. After Nancy Ward became the most famous of all the Cherokee Ghigua, her name became almost synonymous with the term itself.
A river, or Long Man—any stream, creek, or body of moving water—was considered sacred, and its water used for purification and other ceremonies. A day or two after the birth of a child, a priest waved the infant four times over a fire while he addressed a prayer to the fire for special blessings. On the fourth or seventh day, the same priest took the child to a river and commended it to its Creator, praying that it might enjoy a long and happy life. While holding his hand over the infant’s mouth and nostrils, he immersed it seven times in the water, then returned the child to its parents. Then a naming ceremony was held. Most names were bestowed by a prominent elderly woman of the community or one of the Beloved Women, and were based on the infant’s fancied resemblance to some object, or upon something said or done at the moment of birth, or perhaps upon a physical or behavioral trait observed in the child. Later in life, depending on personality or achievement, a new name might be earned or given.
To some extent the tribal priesthood was hereditary. Yet some children were also chosen for the honor. A child born in unusual conditions, or during strange circumstances (an earthquake, storm, eclipse, draught, etc.) might be groomed as a visionary or prophet. Such a career was particularly marked out for twins. Such selected children were kept secluded during the first twenty-four days of their lives. They were not allowed to taste their mother’s milk, but instead were given water soaked in corn hominy. While such youngsters were growing up, they were encouraged to go out from the village alone in order to find comfort in solitude. Sons promised to the priesthood were called “devoted sons,” and their training was more demanding even than for young warriors.
Cherokee homes were circular wi
th an interwoven framework of logs and branches plastered over with mud and occasionally with bark and animal hides. In later periods log cabins came into use much like those observed in white settlements. Each village also had a much larger council house, up to fifty feet in diameter and located on a mound in the center of the village. They were used for meetings of the chiefs, general meetings, religious ceremonies, and to preserve the sacred fire, a vital ingredient of Cherokee culture and religion. These council houses were true “town houses” or community centers used by the whole town. Village inhabitants came and went freely, gathered together for meeting, discussion, or celebration, or merely came to sit alone and smoke a pipe of the tobacco plant whose properties they had discovered and would one day give as a dubious gift to the white man.
On a high mound in the national capital sat a large heptagon or seven-sided national council house of which each village council house was a smaller replica, its seven sides representing the clans of the nation. From this council house national festivals were celebrated and the nation was ruled by its leading chiefs.
As the ancient Cherokee lived in an alternating state of war and peace, their way of life called for a dual organization of tribal government ruled by the white, or peace, council, and the red, or war, council. Each had interdependent chiefs and functions.
White chiefs were often but not exclusively hereditary, subject also to appointment by the Great High Priest or tribal council. Each town was governed by its two chiefs, the white chief in peacetime and the red chief during war. An assembly of women, the “War Women,” was present at every war council to serve as counselors to the chiefs, and to regulate the treatment of prisoners.
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