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TELL THEM THEY LIE
THE SEQUOYAH MYTH by TRAVELLER BIRD
Westernlore Publishers, 1971 Los Angeles
Acknowledgments: THE PREPARATION OF this biography on my direct blood ancestor,
George Guess, alias Sequoyah was a tremendous undertaking and has not been
accomplished alone.
In the winter of 1961, we the seventeen direct heirs met in a cabin on the North
Carolina Cherokee reservation to plan and work on this book. Two of us live in
the United States; the other fifteen live in Mexico. We speak, read and write
our native language in three of the six dialects. This book is an attempt by
the direct heirs of George Guess to correct histprical guesswork. Who George
Guess was and what he did for his people will be chronicled in this book,
contradictory to all literature notwithstanding.
All unpublished documents quoted in this book are in the collection of the
author and the other sixteen heirs apparent of George Guess.
In translating Cherokee documents, we have employed the modern Cherokee system
of orthography to equate with the English language. An interlinear translation
and spelling in English does not equate with that in the Cherokee syllabary.
Most of the old Indian manner of speaking had to be sacrificed in order to
achieve modern day readability. Words in brackets and parenthesis are mine,
except those quoted from colonial newspaper articles. We have chosen not to
translate other Indian tribal names, leaving them by their European given titles
for the reader's clarity.
I wish to express my deep appreciation to members of the Original Cherokee
Community Organization of Eastern Oklahoma for their assistance and valuable
suggestions. Also, last, but certainly not least, to my friend, the late Clyde
Warrior I owe an incalculable debt of gratitude. Before his untimely death in
1968, this Indian warrior encouraged and assisted the seventeen heirs to take
this
one great step to restore our ancestor's fullblood heritage for the sake of
future historians of Cherokee history. His research made possible certain
government documents necessary in the prepamfion of this book. As for my own
thoughts as they reveal themselves throughout the hook, I apologize to no one.
TRAVELLER BIRD
Contents
Acknowledgements v
Introduction 11
Chapter 1- THE DEVIL'S GANG PLACE
Chapter 2- FLAMES IN THE MOUNTMNS 29
Chapter 3- WARRIOR REVENGE, AND A NEW NAME. 39
Chapter 4- MARRIAGE AND THE PEACE ~ .. 49
Chapter 5- THE UPSETTERS 6i
Chapter 6- CHEROKEE FALL 69
Chapter 7- THE TEACHER AND WESTWARD FOOTSTEPS 79
Chapter 8- RETURN TO THE OLD NATION 91
Chapter 9- BRANDED 99
Chapter io-THE CONSPIRACY 111
Chapter 11-INDIAN TURMOIL IN THE WEST 121
Chapter 12- A BUFFALO ROBE OF inS OWN 131
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 143
Index 145
Illustrations
PAGE
Who is this man? Frontis.
A copy of the original 92-Symbol Cherokee Syllabary 18
Photocopy from the supposed Army record of George Guess 6o
Photocopy from the supposed Army record of George Guess 90
Photocopy of the i8i6 Treaty with the United States 97
Photocopy of the i8i6 Treaty (lower portion) 98
Photocopy of the 1828 Treaty with the United States 119
Indians crossing a river in the West 120
Affidavit to establish Bounty Land Claim for Sally Guess 130
Introduction: For A QUARTER of a century - from the year 1821 until 1845 -
Sequoyah's name appeared intermittently in the missionary tracts, local and
national newspapers throughout the United States and Europe.
Invention of Letters By A Cherokee Indian. It appears that an Indian, of the
name of See-quah-yah is the inventor under such disadvantageous circumstances as
render him, in our humble opinion, one of the most extraordinary men that the
world has produced. The Universities and other learned societies in Europe would
be only doing common justice to Seequahyah in granting to him the highest
literary distinctions... 1
His life had, in the press, the beat of a spectacular serial story. Over and
over again, the discovery of the Cherokee syllabary by the American press and
public in 1825 proclaimed Sequoyah a Cadmus and the bastard son of a white man
who traded with the Cherokees east of the Mississippi River during the middle of
the eighteenth century.
Like sainthood stories of that period, nothing about Sequoyah's life was known
to the press and the American public, except for
1 Londan Courier, reprinted in the New York American, Vol. IX, No.970; June 8,
1830.
11
the "made-up" information that the missionaries and the progressive leaders
desired to become known. The missionaries wrote an episode in Cherokee history,
and they wrote it to fit their purpose. They twisted the facts to fit the
picture desired. They tagged their fake name "Sequoyah" - a Taliwa tribal name,
and made George Gue~s the helpful "hero" to their civilization movement, knowing
that this Cherokee could do nothing about it. The formal English name of George
Guess is correct.
Sequoyah was a fighting warrior-scribe of twenty-six on that night in 1792 when
the great war chief of his people's faction was shot down. He was known to all
his tribesmen by his given name "Sogwili," meaning "Horse" in the Cherokee
language. The word Sequoyah is meaningless in Cherokeean. But by the end of
those crushing wars of 1794 - the Cherokee fall, and on into the first quarter
of the nineteenth century, his fake name of Sequoyah was to become a symbol of
intellectual achievement in an American Indian society outside the Cherokee
Nation. Inside the nation, east of the Mississippi River, Sequoyah's name for
two decades was a "mark" of resistance to the progressive New Order movement of
mixed-blood leaders, and friendly Cherokee traitors toward Anglo-Christian
civilization.
Indian Sequoyah was unable to challenge the press, missionaries, and the
Cherokee leaders' "two-faced" fallacy, since non-conforming Cherokees were
considered savages. In October 1816, Sequoyah was caught and tried before a
general council of mixed-blood judges, Cherokee police, and warrior chiefs in
the New Order of the Cherokee Nation. He was charged with witchcraft and
encouraging his mountain clansmen in Tennessee and North Carolina to emigrate to
the West beyond the limits of the United States - to his settlement on the
Brazos River, in what is today Texas.
The Cherokee General Council convicted Sequoyah for witchcraft. The conviction
was an excuse by the ruling leaders to set an example before the Cherokee people
of the "power" of the New Order adopted from the white man's Christian
civilization program.
12
Sequoyah was branded on the forehead and back. So was his wife. His fingers on
both hands were cut off between the first and second joints, leaving the stubs
and his thumbs. His ears were cropped off, the "mark" of a traitor to the
Cherokee Nation in the southeast for anyone desiring, and encouraging removal
of the people to the West. In the fall of 1816, he and his wife barely escaped
from their tormentors with their lives.
The syllabary had publicly been used since 1795 as a "weapon" to block the
"great experiment" forced upon the Cherokees by the United States government in
order to control and civilize the Indians by the Anglo-American social
standards. As early as 1806, the leaders and the missionaries had seen the
Cherokee marks (symbols) written on homes, barns, fences, trees, leaves, rocks,
and dirt roadways by those trusted conservatives living in the mountains of
Tennessee, Georgia, and North Carolina. They had seen the Cherokees and their
children reading the marks. But the superstitious whites and mixed-bloods
believed them to be the work of Indian children or sorcerers. Perhaps most
important was the United States government's knowledge of the syllabary since
1791.
The nation split wide open in 1806, and the conservative Cherokees resisted the
teachings of the missionaries and their fault findings. The conservative leaders
of the nation's faction signed treaties with the United States; ceded lands in
the old na-tion east of the Mississippi for new lands west of the Mississippi,
newly acquired by the United States in its purchase of the Louisiana Territory.
In the fall of 1816, a letter written in the syllabary by Sequoyah to his
halflblood brother, Whitepath, was accidentally intercepted by the Cherokee
police or socalled "Light-Horse Guard" of the nation. Whitepath was forced to
read the contents of the corn shuck letter to the leaders and missionaries, and
to take them and the Cherokee police to the North Carolina mountains where
Sequoyah was staying with his inlaws and his new wife.
It was in the North Carolina mountains, at the village of Sequoyah's father-in-
law, Tsatsi Ughvi, that the Cherokee lead-
13
ers first tried Sequoyah, and learned that many thousands of Cherokees wrote and
read in their native language. The leaders then began to believe there was such
a mode of Cherokee mark writing and reading. But the idea of a Cherokee native
method of writing and reading was rejected and fought by the missionaries living
in the nation, who felt that anything of Indian origin was repugnant and savage.
These white missionaries came to the Cherokee Nation to stamp out Indian
heritage and culture, and they meant to do exactly that.
The white missionaries, thinking they were a superior race, could not afford to
let mere Indian pagans outwit them and the United States Government's great
civilization prQgram. Therefore, until 1821, the Cherokee syllabary was
concealed from the American public, even though a majority of the fullblood
conservatives were writing and reading their own native language. These rejected
the teachings of the missionaries to become like the whites, for the language
and ways of the foreigners was the destroyer of their inheritance and tribal
life.
In 1816, a tangled web began in the life 0£ George Guess, alias Sequoyah, when
he was caught, tried, and convicted; a web that would indirectly cause the
death, slavery, exile and a Cherokee guerrilla war in the Southeastern, as well
as the Western Cherokee Nation of thousands of Cherokees during the first and
second quarter of the nineteenth century.
Sequoyah was a fullblood Indian of the Cherokee, Taliwa and Tasgigi Tribes who
desired to remain Indian, and to hold fast to his tribal heritage and cultural
teachings. Nearly six feet tall, he was a rugged man, with a keen knowledge and
memory.
In 1797, Sequoyah led a group of emigrant Cherokees beyond the sovereignty of
the United States - lands beyond the Red River ruled by Spain. This decision to
leave the homelands of his ancestors was to protect his nonconforming people
from destruction as a tribal people. He refused to make peace and acknowledge
the United States Government's forced "great experimental" civilization program
upon himself, and his people near the end of the eighteenth century, when the
govCrnment's armies finally crushed the resisting Cherokee fighting forces.
14
The armies of the "new guardian" government had so reduced the Cherokee Nation
to a state of poverty and death of its fighting leaders that it was shattered.
They gloated over the helpless conditions of the Cherokees. Stripping the
Indians of everything, the government sought to take away their dignity, self
respect, and further land cessions by regulated credit trade - dependency. White
man's'ethics were rammed down their throats in the name of conformity, and to
destroy tribal life-ways.
Truly, Sequoyah was different from his reticent tribesmen. He was not a "good
little Indian" who smiled, nodded, and remained silent. He had the guts to stand
and face the conquering for-eigners who were taking his people's life and their
homelands. He was cruel to those who threatened new changes for himself and his
mountain conservatives. But most of all, he hated the fullbloods - "white
Indians" who turned their backs on their own people, heritage, and followed the
Anglo civilization. His devotion to his wives, children, clansmen and tribe was
deep -a devotion that only Indians know and understand. He was a fighter, a
contributor of deeds, for Indians are taught and expected to contribute to the
well-being of their clan and tribe.
Sequoyah gained his training, skills, and knowledge from the cradle - from the
elder ones, fighting leaders, and chosen scribes of the eighteenth century who
dared not quit and give up their lands to the white invasion. These Cherokee
fighters were to become known in Cherokee history as the "hostiles" or outlaws.
They fought violently until their great leader, Dragging Canoe, and most of his
assistant chiefs were killed by the white armies in 1794. 4. Many Cherokee
leaders and warriors influenced the early life of Sequoyah, but none had the
molding of the boy's life more than the great war chief of the Cherokee Nation's
f6ction, Dragging Canoe (Tsiyogunsi).2 Thirty nine years of Sequoyah's early
life was lived in his beloved mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. Among
the documents which he left that escaped the fires of his enemies
2 The Cherokee meaning of this word is, "the Otter lifts it." Commonly referred
to in literature as Dragging Canoe.
15
(and he had many) - are those handwritten and handprinted ledger hooks of his
eight children. These present a picture of a gifted, sensitive and strong man
who began life in July 1766 in a brushcovered dirt floor summer Osi 3 in a
Cherokee settlement in the North Carolina mountains.
In 1871, two grandchildren of Sequoyah's daughter Gedi, living in the United
States, sent their grandmother a copy of Harper's Magazine, dated 1870, which
contained an article and the supposed picture of Sequoyah and the syllabary.
These children asked their grandmother many questions about that article and
picture. She wrote to them, saying:.
... Now, the people that write in the newspapers Phoenix and Advocate, and
Harper's book are pretender liars. That which I say to you my grandchildren is
duyughodv (right, just) about my father Sogwali and your grandfather.
That picture I saw of that man they call Sogwali (Sequoyah) in Harper's book is
a joke. That is not the picture of your grandfather Sogwali. That is not the way
he looked. My father Sogwali had no ears, no long fingers. They cut off. That
picture is a fraud. That man is Thomas Maw. Just like that paper that Thomas Maw
is holding in his hand is not the right one. The writing is not right. Just like
what the Rulers say in that book, Laws of the Tsalagi (Cherokee)4. They say my
father went to Washington City, and signed a paper with the unegvs (whites).
They say he went to the meetings when all the people come West. Signed his name
there on their paper. They are liars. He was never in Washington City. He not go
to council in June 1839. He dead. My father Sogwali not live in Indian
Territory. He live in Mexican lands with others of our people in Texas where I
was born.
... He not give our people that which they have... He teach them. Now, my father
Sogwali was no more the son of a white person, than I am the daughter of a black
person. No, they lie. Any fool can make a mark and say Indian did it. Not so! My
father Sogwali not intend our writings be for the whites and traitors to use and
learn....
3 Cone-shaped and completely clay-covered, the winter Osi was used by the
Cherokees for a sleep house. The summer one was primary used for the birth of
children.
4 See Laws of the Cherokee Nation, Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation (C.N.). Cherokee
Advocate Office, 1852.
16
The events that shaped Sequoyah's life and the action he took as he grew up,
began in the first quarter of the eighteenth century. For that reason, it is
necessary to return to that period in this history.
One
THE DEVIL'S GANG PLACE
THE CHEROKEES WERE a highly civilized tribe by the end of the seventeenth
century, with an organized government that included many chiefs and priests.
United with the great Appalachia confederacy during the fifteenth century, the
tribe had created its own method of writing and reading, which was comparable to
that of the white invaders. This symbol system had been used by the tribe for
nine summers before European invasion on Gvana-hani (San Salvador Island).
The Peace Chief held the title of Amedohi-The Water Traveler, often recorded in
literature as Moytoy. His council consisted of seven Beloved Men who were elder
statesmen, each of whom represented his respective clan. The Peace Chief
presided over the council, who concerned themselves with the management of
lands, the public granary, and laws of a general nature.
The most influential Peace Chief of the nation was one chsen by the people who
was also a religious leader. He chose his own successor, subject to council
approval, and he had veto power over the selection of the War Chief.
All land was owned by the Cherokee Nation, and it was parcelled out to family
groups according to their individual needs. There was no rental fee.
Agricultural products were given to the public granary on a voluntary basis, and
was then used for the needy. Widows, orphans and old persons were provided for,
and there were no taxes levied.
Cherokee women had many rights and privileges other than domestic duties. Not
only did married women own property,
19
such as homes, horses, cattle and fields of growing crops and fruit trees, but
they also participated in both the fighting of wars and the Council of War, and
sat with the Civil Council of Peace. Lineage was traced through the Women's
clan.
The most powerful Cherokee village during the eighteenth century was ItsOdi
(Chota), often called the City of Refuge. It was the religious center and the
original headquarter5 of the Ani-wodi Clan, whose specialization was the
Priesthood. But to say that Chota was the capital of the nation is like saying
that Lon-don is the capital of the earth, and that the Bishop is the King. Next
to Chota in power was the village of Sogwiligigageihiyi, the headquarters of the
Scribe Society referred to by the Anglos as Serowee, Soquee, Skeequoyah, or the
Devil's Gang Place. 1
After the Appalachia confederacy was shattered in 1716, due to traders'
knowledge of Cherokee religious rituals and the powers of the Peace Chief and
the Women, an enterprising Englishman by the name of Sir Alexander Cuming came
to Chota in the Cherokee Nation in the spring of 1730 to pawn thirteen Cherkee
women and children, kidnaped Slaves, to their relatives, and a quantity of guns,
ammunition and other presents to the Keta-gustah 2 - the Peace Chief. Among the
thirteen Cherokee slaves was one of Chief Tsamasgula's wives, and three of his
children.
There were many days and nights of great feasting, speeches and dancing in
gratitude for the return of the slaves to their relatives. The whiskey jugs and
barrels of white traders were emptied, and bellies were bloated with the
sweetened foul-tasting water.
On the night of March 13, 1730, while a group of the Indians were assembled at
Chota, Sir Alexander Cuming prevailed upon Chief Tsamasgula to drink to His
Britannic Majesty on bended
1 So~called by the whites during the eighteenth century who referred to the
Cherokee symbol writings as "the scratchings of the Devil -Skeenab." Hence
George Guess's fake name. The remnant Taliwa Tribe incorporated with the
Cherokees during the fifteenth century, and. brought their symbol Writings with
them. Descendants of this tribe were often called Saloquoyah, Skeequo-yah, or
Soquee. The Taliwa tribal word means two" in their language. In Cherokeean, the
word "Sequoyah" is meaningless.
2 Uguwiyuhi is the Cherokee term for chief, ruler, king, or anyone with great
authority.
20
knee as he and Ludovick Grant, a trader were doing - to thank the English King
for returning his people whom Cuming said the English had rescued from the
French. This strange white man ceremony Cuming regarded as the Peace Chief's
acknowl-edgment of King George's sovereignty over them. With this much success
Cuming persuaded the drunk chief to relinquish his enormous ceremonial white
heron feather headdress, and his chieftainship, to appoint Attakullakulla, 3 the
English educated half-breed, as "Super-Chief" and himself as Emperor and advisor
to govern the wh4e Cherokee Nation - the white man's scheme to become viceroy of
the Cherokee Nation.
Surprise, anger and jealousy arose among the various village chiefs when Cuming
had Attakullakulla installed as "Super-Chief" at Nequassee (Nunegwasi).
Attakullakulla's mother was a Lumbee-Cherokee woman who had no clanspeople. She
had married a white man by the name of John Carpenter.
Each white nation's king made it a policy of his colonist governor and his
agents to kidnap and send hack to that particular white nation a number of
Indian slaves. These were educated and instructed in the white man's mode of
civilization in order to further negotiations between the whites and Indian
tribes they could not conquer. "Fuse the blood of the two races" be-came the
byword of the Anglos, and there were many Cherokees named Prince Philip, Prince
George, Princess Ann and Princess Marie Louise.
It became apparent to the whites, as well as to the fullbloods, that mixed-blood
loyalties and sympathies lay in their direction. The practice of white-sired
Cherokees of Indian slaves was a method employed by the Anglos to divide and
conquer. This led to hatred and jealousies within the tribe, and to mixed-blood
ap pointed chiefs. So the Cherokee fullbloods formed their own united and
private
fuflblood organization - Anisunoi, of the Seven Clan Society, which excluded
mixed-blood Cherokees.
3 Atagvnahila, called by the conservative Cherokees Tsalagidihi (Cherokee
killer) because of his love and loyalty to the whites, and his spying activities
among his own people for the benefit of himself and the Anglos.
21
To show the conquest of the Cherokee Nation and to obtain his viceroyship,
Cuming took Attakullakulla and six chosen mixed-blood Cherokees to England in
1730, where they were entertained, and the Cherokees signed a peace treaty of
alliance and trade with the English. After their return to the Cherokee Nation,
for two years Cuming, and his Jesuit missionaries, reorganized the Cherokee
government, and directed his "Super-Chief", Attakullakulla in the political
affairs of the Cherokee Nation. In turn Attakullakulla bribed fifteen village
chiefs to follow him, and to become allies to the English. But he knew that the
Cherokees would follow the most wise and strongest leader. Indeed he was the
pet' and bribed figurehead of the colonist governors of Carolina and Virginia.
Like kernels of corn shelled one by one from a large cob, the Cherokee Nation
broke into bits. Their organized government fell apart.
The early seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were those of Indian
extermination wherever the Anglo desired important Indian lands. Cherokee lands
were not only important to the whites for trade routes from the southeast to the
southwest to the Gulf, and west to the Mississippi River, but also for the
minerals - gold, silver, copper and lead.
Whenever the Anglos could not force the Cherokees into alliance and s&talled
land~eding treaties, a pretext was found by the colonists and their armies to
come into the Cherokee Nation, rape their women burn their villages, kill both
the old and young, friendly and' hostile, and take others into slavery. Cherokee
warriors who retaliated were hunted down by the whites with men and trained
dogs.
A common practice of the conqueror was to set the woods afire to flush out the
savages, and to burn them out.
Cherokee extermination is given in the records of a scribe born in 1677, and
dying during the Yamasi War of 1715. Writing on white goat skin, he relates his
experiences and that of a clansman, Utsawi:
... The dogs I hear. Utsawi sees them coming to cave. I stand in cave entrance,
bow in hands. Utsawi has gun. I see many men, white, brown, and black persons
coming with dogs. Running. I shoot two
22
dogs. Utsawi shoot dogs. White, brown, and black persons come. Shoot guns where
we stand. Tell dogs: Go, go go! Utsawi and me run to cave in river. Hide. Men
come. Shoot in water, not find. Go away. In the fal1 of 1779, the Indian
settlement of Redhorse, 4 birthplace of Sequoyah, remained unconquered. Half the
forty~ix villages throughout the Cherokee Nation could boast as much during the
last sixty years of the white invasion, and the devastating wars to gain a
foothold of southern Indian trade, alliance and lands.
Young Warrior (Gvlihuanida), the village chief, fought back the white intruders
who were vying for his vfllage trade alliance, and who had their eyes on his
valuable lands with trained wolves, skflled scouts and gunmen, and a fleet of
canoes on the villager's river. These invaders were like wild hogs, with snouts
in good acorn ground, rooting and pushing. From his father, Long Warrior, and
the Red Organization of the Warrior Society, he had learned judgment and Indian
strategy in the counter attack.
Isolated like an island, when the French and English began fighting each other
during the middle 1750s, Young Warrior and his villagers were just one of the
Cherokee settlements throughout the vast Cherokee Nation - which included parts
of the states now known as Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina, Virginia,
the whole of Tennessee and Kentucky to the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers - who
used Indian judgment in staying out of the white man's wars. He united his
warrior forces under the leadership of the great War Chief of the nation's
faction, Dragging Canoe, in an effort to hold back the Anglo invasion.
Under the leadership of Dragging Canoe, the Cherokee fighting faction had one
ace in the h4e - an effective weapon. This weapon was the Gohwelodi 5 - the
secret written symbols which represented parts of ~lables of the Cherokee
language. It could be written anywhere - on trees, rocks, leaves and the earth.
It sent messages to tribesmen living in parts of seven states, which
4 In the Cherokee language, Sogwiligigageiyi means Redhorse Place - after the
scribe of the village Redhorse, who was Sequoyah's father. The village was
located on Sumac River in Rutherford County, North Carolina. Commonly referred
to in literature as Soquee, Serowee, Skeequoyah, and Talohtefke.
5 "To write, one," a scribe.
23
was their nation. Yet, it could not be read by the Anglos, nor enemy Indians. It
first had to be deciphered. Only the Cherokee scribes could translate their
writings.
Sequoyah's father, Sogwiligigagei was one of the chosen scribes of the Anisahoni
Clan,6 and a member of the Seven Clan Scribe Society. Different clans were noted
for their ability to handle various types of responsibilities. The Anisahoni
Clan specialized in script, although members of the Seven Clan Scribe Society
were chosen from all seven of the Cherokee Clans who had the ancient Taliwa
blood and the superior learning and memory ability. By the beginning of the
eighteenth century, it excluded the mixed-bloods and the friendly traitors.
The Seven Clan Scribe Society realized, early in the eighteenth century, that in
order to protect their lands, they must learn what the white man said - his
language and all about his papers called "treaties." They agreed to try to learn
the foreign language in order to outwit, and combat the foreigners.
Cherokee scribes learning the white man's language would be ironical, except for
one thing - the tribe had, by 1700, one hundred and sixty years' association
with the Anglos. First the Spanish, then the French and English. Each white
nation's colonist governor set up his own missionary projects, and his own
scheme to convert the "heathens."
Some of the friendly Indians from the different tribes fell for the sweetened
water, and the words of the black robe priest or the missionary and his Good
Black Book. But the fullblood conservative Cherokees valued their own religious
beliefs and rites of the Ancient One Above, and could not understand the white
priest or missionary words of a God who would punish people in the burning fires
of hell they talked about for the wrongs called "sins." It didn't make good
sense to the Cherokees, for the whites continually committed wrongs against
their own, their black people, as well as Indians, and the Cherokees thought the
foolish white priest and preacher's mind were confused by the
6 Anisahoni is one of the seven clans of the Cherokees which means "feline." No
Cherokee will accept "Blue" as the clan translation. Some of the clan names as
they appear in literature are mistranslated.
24
evil spirits. The Indians could certainly see that wherever the glory seekers
went in Indian country, they destroyed Indian religious rituals, and paved the
way for other whites to conquer and exploit. These "good men" preached peace and
brotherhood, and in the same breath endorsed slavery, and wars of their nation.
Although the Cherokee scribes knew that Indian converts could teach them 'the
white man's language, these Christian Indians were encouraged to "go teach their
heathen brothers."
One teacher was a northern Indian by the Cherokee name of Hogshooter. He and his
three able assistants taught Sequoyah's father, Young Warrior, and the Scribe
Society the Latin, French, and English languages, even though there were in them
a concoction of dialect forms. Another Florida Indian priest, named Contri by
his Spanish conquerer, taught them Spanish.
After many years of work and study, a few Cherokees of the Scribe Society were
able to master the foreign language, and could listen to the white man's talk,
though they pretended not to understand what was said.
The Scribe Society taught the young boys not only their own native written
syllabary, but also the three foreign languages. The scribes used a dictionary
for each particular language, given to them by converted Christian Indians. Boy
scribes were chosen from each of the seven Clans to take the elder scribe's
place when going out with the warriors to fight the enemy, and to record the
deeds of their people who were kflled or taken by the enemy.
Although the Cherokees had their own written language, oral story telling was an
art and necessity. The Indian's method of teaching was to instill in the child a
desire to become a good speaker, a brave warrior, a strong and wise leader, and
a study of nature and tribal history.
Indian children were taught from birth. Each child participated in every phase
of tribal life. The tragic conditions which threatened the lives of their people
were understood by even the smallest children.
Sequoyah was born in a time of Cherokee war and constant turmoil, not only with
the white conquerer, but also with other Indian neighbor tribes whom the Anglos
paid to help break
25
down the fighting Cherokees. His Cherokee-Taliwa wisp of a mother, Lisi, had
fought on the borders of the nation and the bloody battlefields within the
nation by the side of her Cherokee-Tasgigi husband Sogwiligigagei. She had
distinguished herself many times through her bravery in capturing enemy Indians,
and drawing the Anglo enemy into ambush, where the warriors waited to annihilate
them. For her bravery, and also because she was a Dasgidigi (medicine woman),
she attained the rank of Agiyvgvga - Beloved Woman.
Indeed, as Sequoyah grew up he acquired warrior skills as well as being chosen a
scribe, learning to keep the records of the Aniwahhya (Wolf) Clan, of which his
mother was a member.
In the fall of 1778, Lumbee Indians, whom the Cherokees called "Slave Catchers,"
escorted a white trader by the name of Butler over the Indian mountain path to
their village. They led a train of horses tied tail to tail, and packed high
with foreign goods. A bell tinkled around the neck of the lead horse to let the
Cherokee villagers and their tame white wolves know that white traders were
coming with new and better goods than that which they had been traded with
various Indian traders throughout the north and southwest. "I sell cheap,"
Butler told each Cherokee village he visited.
But Young Warrior told trader Butler: "I only talk with Indian traders. As for
the whites, where they live, I have nothing to say to them, and they shall never
come here."
With this unexpected blast of Cherokee talk, the trader thought he could get
around the scribe of Sogwiligigagei village to talk more favorably on Cherokee
trade business. What Sequ~ yah's father Redhorse told trader Butler confirmed
the thinking of Young Warrior. He said to Butler: "Where the white man walks, my
people disappear. We have nothing to trade to the whites."
Trader Butler was red-faced and angry. He shook his fist at both Cherokees, and
said: "By God, you GM' damned red bastards will break. Our armies will come here
to these mountains with guns, and your people will all die. Your villages will
burn
26
to the ground like the others. You will hear my words again, you red Skeequoyahs
- Devils."
The Indian trade was a business with the Anglos. Each European nation played
against the other in the contest for the Indian continent. The English vied
against the French and Spanish people. The Indians were caught fighting in the
middle, trying to carry on trade with their own Indian traders, hundreds and
even thousands of miles away.
For the most part, Indian to Indian traders were curtailed and put out of
existence by the mid-eighteenth century. Yet, there were still some few in the
southwest and northeast who came by canoes, bringing not only their own trade
goods, but Aso those foreign made goods that Indian traders obtained from the
French and Spanish people.
The Spanish learned from the Indian traders in Florida, and on the coast of what
is now Texas, that the Cherokees traded their sacred gold to Indians. Since gold
was what the Spanish wanted, they gladly trained their Indian trader vassals the
technique of trading for gold in exchange for their germ-infested merchandise.
By 1780, there were only six mountain Cherokee villages remaining in the nation
where gold could easily be taken out of the ground and streams. Nuggets,
sometimes as large as a quail's egg were washed out by flood waters Aong the
creeks and rivers where these villages were located. Redhorse village was one
where gold, the gift of the Earth Mother, had been taken for Cherokee rites for
more than a thousand years.
For more than fifteen years, during the middle of the eighteenth century, the
Cherokee village of Sogwiligigageihi had become well-known to the South Carolina
colonists. The following article appeared in the Boston Gazette on May 22, 1763
- A Report From Charles Town:
... The Talk From the Standing Turkey is full of Pretences. That he is desirous
of Peace; that all things past may be forgot, and trade restored and carried on
in the usual manner; that every thing was now quiet over the Hill; that he had
indeed heard a Noise of Guns and went to see what was the Matter, and was very
much surprised to find
27
the young People firing at Turkeys (Tufkegee, Fort Loudoun) that after four days
he bid them be quiet, and all Differences should now be forgotton; that he had
sent for all Parties out at War to come in, and was desirous of burying the
Hatchet, &,&,&. The String of Wampum has one black Bead on it, which he desires
may be thrown away by the Governor, as it represents the Young Warrior of
Skeequoyah, (Serowee, Devil's Gang Place) whom he blames for the present
Disturbances. At the same time that this Peace-Talk is come, we hear of the
scalping Gangs of Cherokees being more numerous than ever, and extending in the
Settlements from the Little Saloquoyah quite to Salibury in North Carolina....
28
Two
FLAMES IN THE MOUNTAINS
IN THE SPRING of 1779, the two Cherokee factions had three things to show for
more than two centuries of dealing with the whites: Their nation had been
whittled in size by many millions of acres in fiction treaties with the English
colonist - the biggest slice of land having been ceded to Richard Henderson and
Nathaniel Hart. This tract of land is today the states of Kentucky and
Tennessee. Almost half of the Cherokees had died from "planted" germ-infested
traders' merchandise and wars with the Anglos.
Their war-torn nation sported two former English forts 7 trader's villages
dotted the nation, English and rebel American government agents, white squaw men
and women - citizens of the na-tion who had obtained their citizenship by
marrying a friendly's daughter, sister, or brother; white squatters living on
lands not ceded, rogues looking for a place to escape and for the excitement of
stirring up trouble among the Cherokees, and public roads which criss~rossed the
nation from the four cardinal points. All these conquests that the Anglos had
been able to achieve was due to the superb feat of the white's trained spy and
figurehead, Attakullakulla, and his paid followers.
Time after time, the Aniwahhya Clan sent out its selected warriors to eliminate
Attakullakulla, only to find that he was too well guarded in one of the Anglo's
forts, or his own Fort Attakullakulla on the Little Tennessee River. Even when
he left the forts, he was always protected by a white guard of ten men who
29
escorted him from place to place in the nation and the white setilements.
The Cherokees living in the remote mountain coves of Tennessee, North Carolina,
and Georgia were not about to give up their homelands to the invading Anglos.
Spring was a time of planting - of going to school with nature. While groups of
women, girls, and boys planted the plowed fields in corn, beans, peas, cotton
and melons, armed guards of young boys and old men were posted day and night on
the mountain ridges surrounding the villages and the paths leading down to their
homes. Everyone worked, even the smallest child helped its mother or father in
whatever each was doing.
One of Sequoyah's duties was that of night guarding the mountain path leading
down to his village.
The drive and warning to break the Cherokees given to Young Warrior and
Sogwiligigagei by trader Butler in the fall of 1778, came as true as the wild
turkeys going to their roosting place each night in the tall pines at the foot
of the Big Mountains.
Colonist armies came in the month of April (Guwoni) 1779, as they had in
previous years by the easy-to-reach water routes along the Big Tennessee, Saluda
and Chattahoochee Rivers, leaving the stockade fort of Attakullakulla safe.
Every Cherokee village throughout the Big Mountains was full of refugees -
brothers and sisters and their families fleeing the white armies with their big
iron guns, the dead and burning villages left behind them. Running to the one
place of safety, which had in times past, protected them from their enemies -
the Big Mountains.
Among the eleven villages destroyed in the spring of 1779 was one belonging to
the great and beloved War Chief of the nation 5 faction, Dragging Canoe, and
those villages of his assistant chiefs located within five to eight miles of
each other on the Cherokee River Lthe Holston of the whites]. Dragging Canoe and
his clansmen sought sanctuary with their brothers and sisters in Sogwiligigagei
village, and other mountain Villages
This giant of a man and war chief was the guiding strength and hope of his
peoples' faction. He was a man of action and
30
strong words. His deep and smoldering resentment over the years of being
swindled out of ancestral lands, and the political assassination of his father
Gvlihudhanisi (Tennessee Warrior) whom the little spy Attakullakulla pointed out
to the governor of South Carolina in 1761, led to friction and bad feelings
within the factions. Like his father, he had the judgment and guts to stand up
to the conquering Anglos and their friendly and paid puppets. To them, he was
the dust in their eyes.
There was much anger and uneasiness about the white man's destruction of
Cherokee villages; about the land ceding treaties made by the white appointed
chiefs living in the stockade built villages, called by the whites "Peace
Towns," along the upper reaches of the Big Tennessee and Saluda Rivers. There
was much flossip among the women of the village who, like hornets when their
nest is torn up by wild hogs, demanded their men and women warriors fight back
the whites and protect their homelands.
During the month of October (Duninodhi) 1779, a council was held in
Sogwiligigagei Village in the newly erected, large seven-sided council house of
all the village chiefs, and their warriors from the thirty-two fighting villages
throughout the nation. They were advised by Young Warrior to come to the council
to hear the "talk" of their great war leader, Dragging Canoe, and to decide what
to do about their appointed White Chief of Ithe whole nation, Attakullakulla,
and his unauthorized and continual ceding of their lands, and constant spying to
the for-eigners.
In the firelit council house, among the seven boy scribes who sat in the far
back row in space assigned to his clan, the Aniwahhya, was the boy
Tahlontisoge,1 son of Sogwiligigagei, the village scribe. He was called by all
in the village Sogwili, which means "horse" in Cherokeean. In the years that
followed, this boy's name was to become changed by the whites, and become the
hated symbol of resistance to the foreigners' teachings.
Only thirteen, his scalplock (guedla) almost reached his tall father's gold band
earrings, Sequoyah had killed his first enemy,
1 One who upsets horse.
31
a Lumbee Indian, squatting in the tall canes along the Sumac River early one
morning the previous summer. The Lumbee, waiting to capture a Cherokee woman
from the village when she came for the clear running river water, and sell her
to the white slave buyers on the Amegwa (Big Water); Sequoyah shot him with bow
and arrow in the butt, just above the Indian's anus. After removing his scalp, a
group of gadugi2 buried the Indian.
Sequoyah listened attentively to each of the council speakers. This was part of
his training and apprenticeship into the Seven Clan Scribe Society. It was an
important society, and it stood apart from others in a particular way. This
difference - this superiority had come about a long. time ago. Before the white
man came, there had been received into the population of Sogwiligigageihi a
small group of immigrant Indians from the Southwest. The immigrants were a
wretched people, and they had experienced great suffering. Their lands were the
plateau country of the Great Plains. For many years thieves and hunters had
taken a toll of their people. At last they had given themselves up in despair -
their spirit broken. But it was not a human enemy that had overpowered them. It
was famine. No rain fell. Crops failed, and game left their lands. Less than
twenty-five survivors remained of this tribe. It is said the Great Sun told them
of their distant relatives in the Great Mountains to the East. They walked
there. It took more than a year to reach the mountain valley of
Sogwiligigageihiyi. It is said that the great, great, great grandfather of
Sequoyah's mother went out with a delegation to welcome and escort the Taliwas
into their village. The ragged group brought with them little more than the
clothes on their backs, but even in this moment of deep hurt and humiliation
they brought, of themselves as a people, one great gift - the thin gold plates
of their written language. Now, after the intervening years and generations, the
ancient blood of this tribe still ran in the veins of men of the Seven Clan
Scribe Society.
Scribes recorded the cultural and historical events of the tribe, and
participated in all council meetings, national as well as local.
2 A group of volunteer unpaid workers.
32
They took part in recording feats of bravery, death and action on the border and
battleground warfare. Not only was it a requirement to have a keen learning and
memory power, but also they were trained warriors, with stamina and daring
courage.
After the council adjourned, Sequoyah and the six boy scribes would write the
words of the Ancient Ones. Writing on corn shuck pressed paper, they remembered
the exact words spoken by each of the speakers in his or her dialect of the
Cherokee language.
Sequoyah's writing and that of the other six boys was carefully read by
experienced and elder scribes, to determine whether the boys had good memories,
and had written accuratcly all that was said by each of the council speakers.
That windcold evening in October 1779, Sequoyah listened to the speech of Young
Warrior, who reminded the people that he knew the weakness of the one the whites
called Attakulla-kulla, one not of the people's choosing - one who whispered to
the enemy, and pointed his finger in the direction of those villages whose
chiefs fought and defended their homes, women, children and lands; who refused
to become allies and follow forced orders of any white nation. These were the
villages that disappeared in the smoke of the white man's fire.
Young Warrior told them that he was aware of Attakullakulla's spies-the Lumbees,
Slave Catchers, who stole Cherokee women and children for the white slave place
on the Big Waters. Young Warrior ended his talk by saying: "Chief Tsalagidihi
has no clanspeople. He is weak. Only fools follow a weak leader who works for
the enemy. I have not forgotten my brother, killed by his hands. I think this:
We should be guided in the tracks of our great leader among us - him there,
Tsiyogunsi."
When the Red War Chief of the nation's fighting faction spoke, the Council House
was quiet. All one could hear was the rhythmical breathing of the people. He
said:
Beloved brothers and sisters, in times like these I say this that I am thinking:
No more will our people run, like the black fox to the mountains and caves to
hide. No more will we listen to the weak ones
33
that drink the whites' sweet water, go mad like the wild dogs in the mountains.
Give our women, our children, our lands to the whites. No! We fight. The
Northern Indians say they help; the Southern Indians say they help. We
Anitsalagi unite with them, use our strength; build brown wall to the east of
the Big Mountains, hold back whites. I say this: We break the Weak One, like the
bad bird egg that is pushed from the nest, he must go....
In February 1780, fourteen-year-old Sequoyah watched and listened as his father,
Sogwiligigagei wrote the names of the forty warriors who were carefully selected
by Dragging Canoe to destroy the fort of Attakullakulla, located on an island in
the Little Tennessee River.
Led by Young Warrior and his assistants Bench, Doublehead, and Black Fox, he
watched as they marched off in small groups across the zig-zag mountain path
toward Attakullakulla's stronghold. Finding the fort deserted, it was an easy
matter to burn it down - after first helping themselves to the white trader's
stock of goods.
Scouting the area of the island, the warriors found the Cherokee Killer with all
his family, guards, slaves, and many other white people hiding in the woods. The
warriors fought the white man's friendly Cherokees all night. When daylight
came, Young Warrior had lost nine good warriors, and five were wounded. But
Attakullakulla and most of his family, slaves and many of the whites were dead.
A few fled into the icy waters of the Little Tennessee and escaped.
Among Sequoyah's documents is the South Carolina Gazette, with a small article
on Attakullakulla's death. It appeared on July 3, 1780:
... An Account is juft now received, that the Little Carpenter (Attakullakulla)
and his Women and Children have been lately killed, and scalped in their own
Country by their own people; and that two very large Gangs of Cherokees, one of
them being Otter Tale (Dragging Canoe), the Other Young Warrior, are fet out for
the Frontiers of North Carolina while the others pretend to treat of Peace with
us....
34
Although the Cherokee fighting faction knew that reprisals on the white's spy,
Attakullakulla would be forthcoming, the Cherokee push and war was on all along
the borders of their nation. War with the whites became strong and bloody.
Chief Young Warrior and his warriors were constantly away from their village,
with Dragging Canoe's forces on the borders of Tennessee and North Carolina,
fighting the white enemy.
Then in the early daylight hours in the late spring of 1780, the colonial army
came to Sogwiligigagei village.
Silently they came, in canoes, through the heavy fog that hung over the valley
and Sumac River. Like cats stalking through the tall grass, the foot soldiers
slipped through the tall canes along the river upon the sleeping village of old
men, women and children, and sick persons.
Sequoyah, a boy of fourteen, and Uhyalug, were night guarding the only trail
leading into the settlement from the mountain above. At the same time, they were
keeping watch on the village milk cows and horses night grazing on the side of
the mountain below them. The boys looked down through the haze and caught a
glimpse of the soldiers creeping toward the village. Sequoyah wondered why the
pack of tame wolves and dogs failed to charge the enemy, and awaken the people.
He could not then know that Choctaw scouts had slipped in during the night, and
laid poison meat along the river for the animals, all were dead.
Sequoyah and Uhyalug gave the distressed turkey cry to the sleeping people, and
began shooting at the soldiers. Uhyalug ran to the top of the mountain to beat
the drum that had been hidden away in the cave for the purpose of signaling for
help from neighbor villages over the mountains. 8
When the first shot was fired, the people came out of ?heir homes - old men and
women, shooting and clubbing with guns, knives and hatchets. The younger women
ran with the children toward the river and the fleet of canoes, only to be met
by the
8 Drums were not used by Woodland rndians for signals, since the sound could not
carry any distance because of heavy woods and mountains. In this one Cherokee
village, the drum was used. From the top of the Mountain to the valley below, a
distance of 4½ miles, the drum was very effective.
35
blast of guns from the soldiers who were left guarding their escape route.
Sequoyah saw his sick father and tiny mother shot down in Ifront of their home,
as they came out firing at the soldiers. He saw his three elder sisters running
toward the river and the woods, and tall canes along the river, where all young
women and chil-dren were attempting to escape to their canoes. He crept closer
to the village, and was joined by Uhyalug, who informed him that horse soldiers
were coming over the mountain trail to the village.
The boys kept firing at the soldiers until their ball and powder ran out. All
they could do then was to watch from a tall bushy pine tree, where they were
forced to retreat and wait for help to come from other villages.
But the help they wished and waited for never came. Soldiers were also
destroying the other mountain villages nearby.
Sequoyah looked down in pain, anger and distress upon the one-way slaughter of
his people, unable to help them. The peopie were fighting with all their Indian
skill and strength against the guns and swords of the white and black soldiers.
Smoke rose in the village from the hundreds of guns firing. Sequoyah could see
and hear the thrust of steel swords into Indian bodies. There was yelling,
yelling, yelling of the soldiers, and the screaming of Indian children who
managed to escape the gun blas?. Mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers
and sisters lay about like rocks.
Hundreds of mounted soldiers arrived over the mountain trail to help in the
Cherokee slaughter. Having killed all the old men and women fighters, having
shot those who were wounded, to make sure they died, the soldiers began rounding
up and dragging the women and children out of the tall canes and woods along
Sumac River. These were marched back to the scene of the battle. Women and
children who were injured were shot. Sequoyah's eldest sister Guyutse, wounded
in the legs, was killed alongside the Sumac River.
Mounted soldiers, in groups, rode wildly through the planted fields of young
corn, cotton, beans, peas and potatoes; swinging their swords, slashing and
destroying with the trampling feet
36
of their horses. All Cherokee horses and cattle within the valley were shot.
Then the soldiers plundered the smokehouse of hams and other dried meats. They
took all fruits and vegetaNes that were easy to load on horses or in canoes. The
communal corn cribs and Cherokee homes were set afire.
While the women and children watched their homes burn, all around them they saw
their dead, and the few soldiers hlled lying in their blood. White and black
soldiers began their work of collecting Cherokee scalps and privates, throwing
them into Cherokee made baskets, and putting some of the women's breasts in
their pockets.
Cherokee children screamed, and the women sang their magic protection
idigawesdi, 4 for they knew they would be killed - or worse, taken into slavery.
In less than four hours from the start of the massacre, every Cherokee man and
woman fighter was killed, fields and homes destroyed, and the horses and canoes
of the murdering soldiers were packed with cured meats, fruits and vegetables.
Soldiers ordered some of the women and children to the Cherokee canoes on the
Sumac River, where they were taken into slavery. Home soldiers led the way,
others behind and on each side of the remaining women and children, marched them
out of the valley, over the mountain trail, using them for a shield and
protection to reach the white settlement in South Carolina.
After the soldiers marched out of Sogwiligigagei valley, Sequoyah and Uhyalug
descended to the ground, and ran to their burning village to see if some of
those shot were still alive. What greeted their eyes was one of butchery -
Cherokees with their heads cut off, scalped heads, private parts cut off, and
their bodies slashed open. Others had been thrown into burning homes.
Finding none of their people alive, the boys ran, following the horse soldiers,
and giving the eagle distress call for help to those who might hear in the other
villages. Help never came.
4 "To say them, one," the plural of igawesdi. A magical incantation which a
Cherokee can merely think, sing, or say. The power in the magical charm is in
the thoughts of the one who says the text, directed toward the recipient.
37
The boys followed the horse soldiers and their people to the white settlement in
South Carolina. In no way could they get close enough to the women and children
to help them escape. They had only rocks in their hands for weapons.
Sequoyah and Uhyalug returned to their nation, and walked through the mountains
to Dragging Canoe's newly built village on Crawfish Creek, a tributary of the
Big Tennessee River, near what is today Chattanooga.
Groups of volunteer workers from Dragging Canoe's village went to the valley of
Sogwiligigagei, and buried the dead. The village was never rebuilt.
Chief Young Warrior and his force of sixty-nine warriors, including Whitepath, a
shaman and the halfblood brother of Sequoyah, and the two boys, remained in the
village of Dragging Canoe. He was their great war chief and brother.
38
Three
WARRIOR REVENGE, AND A NEW NAME
To THE CHEROKEES throughout the nation, the news of the attack on the powerful
and beloved village of Sogwiligigagei, and the other eight villages in the Big
Mountains, raised the war whoop and the blood-red war hatchet. Never had the
fighting Cherokees been whipped like this - a whole village wiped out at the
hands of the enemy, almost one hundred left dead on the ground, their women and
children carried off into slavery by the white enemy.
Sequoyah strained for revenge on the whites. His one desire and objective was to
kill as many Anglos to pay for the deaths of his mother and father, and his
other relatives, and to capture whites for Cherokee slavery whenever and
wherever he could find them in his nation. He knew that fighting the enemy was
not done haphazardly. Training and experience had to be gained first, and
learned under the wisdom and guidance of a great war leader.
Nowhere in the Cherokee Nation could he have "walked in the tracks" of a greater
war leader than Dragging Canoe.
Dragging Canoe was trained from birth for his position as war chief of the
nation. Nineteen years before, his father Gvlihudhanisi, chief of Tellico (Tahli
or Taliwa), located on the Long Island of the Holston (Cherokee) River, was one
of the twentyfour village chiefs who were murdered by the soldiers at Fort
Prince Ceorge under a pretense "peace treaty" between Governor Lyttelton and
Attakullakulla.
39
Dragging Canoe was shrewd and skilled. In his youth he had become a master of
the English, French and Spanish languages. [Je had been taught by several
different white educated Indian teachers in the Northeast, as well as southern
Indian Spanish teachers. All were able men.
Sequoyah lived in Dragging Canoe's village. He and Uhyalug became his adopred
sons after the massacre of their people. But the free times away from the whites
were over for the mountain boys. Dragging Canoe's new village was only a
distance of nine miles from the Great Island1 in the Tennessee River, formerly
Attakullakulla's "peace town Fort, where colonist Indian commissioners and
traders had set up their trading place and whiskey still. Every Anglo spy,
murderer, thief, whore, robber and runaway army deserter and bound slaves, both
white and black, congregated in this "White Roost," and others like it in the
Cherokee friendlies' villages throughout the vast nation.
During the hot summer of 1780, while Dragging Canoes forces fought on the
borders of their nation, volunteer groups of workers had built six additional
new warrior villages near his village on Crawfish Creek. This chain of villages
was for the purpose of controlling the white invasion that used the main water
route through the nation - the Tennessee River, and the confederation with the
Creeks and Chickasaws. The viUages were Fighting village on Ocee (White) River,
just over the Tennessee line, today Walker County, Georgia; Red Clay on Red Clay
I,Creek, below today Chattanooga in Dade County, Georgia; Lookout on the east
side of Lookout Creek near Lookout Mountain; Chestua (Tsistu) on Rabbit Creek, a
tributary of the Tennessee River near Cleveland; Running Water near the present
Hale's Bar Lock and Dam; and Crow village on Crow Creek near the present
Stevenson, Alabama. After these villages were built, they were filled to
capacity with a village chief, trained warriors and their famflies of the
Cherokee Nation's fighting faction, and confederacy with the
1 Great Island has been confused in literature as Long Island, or one of
Dragging Canoe's seven (not five) Chickamauga (Crayfish) towns. It was given by
Attakullakulla to his white friends.
40
northern, southern, and southwestern Indians who were striving to hold their
lands from the white ones who called themselves Americans.
In the late summer of 1780, Sequoyah went with Dragging Canoe and a delegation
of assistant village chiefs and warriors to the Cherokee settlement on the Ohio
River that was united with the Shawnees,' and other tribes of northern Indians.
The Cherokees attended a council of the Shawnees, their socalled enemies, and
listened to the speakers in which Dragging Canoe and Sequoyah wrote in two of
the six different Cherokee dialects the Shawnee talk:
... Beloved brothers we are glad to see our southern neighbors among us All that
is passing among us, you are to know. We have our war hatchets, our guns, they
shall not be buried until all whites go beyond the sea. The Long Knives will be
soon coming to your country. We will help you. Our warriors, our guns, they
shall help you drive them out. We ask our southern brothers to go visit all our
brothers, and take this straight and strong talk. .
The Cherokees took the talk of their northern brothers to the Isouth - to the
Creek and Chickasaw fighting confederacy; and to other tribes in the southwest
who were struggling for their homelands, and had not become household pets of
the white man and his sweetened water, words and presents. They opened their
fortified villages and hospitality to the fighting Shawnees, Miami, Creeks and
Chickasaws, and everywhere in the nation the whites pushed for the prized
Cherokee lands they became a battleground of Indian and white slaughter.
The friendly agency chiefs, seeing the confederated fighting movement in the
nation, came to Dragging Canoe's village, bringing along their white advisors to
talk peace and friendship with the white ones. These Uncle Tomahawks who had
found security in the white establishment were unable to move unless a white man
was tagging along with them. Tassel (Old Tassel), who replaced Attakullakulla as
peace chief of the friendly faction of the nation, and his chosen war Ichief,
Hanging Maw (Hanging Paw) were educated, advised, and bribed by the colonist
Indian agents.
41
To Dragging Canoe, his assistants, and warriors, these two good Cherokees told
of the changing times that had come to their nation since the white's
Revolutionary War. And the good ones thought, now that the white Americans had
beaten the Fnglish king's armies, that Indians should live in peace beside their
white neighbors. Tassel said: "It is of no use to fight so many. They are as the
stars above, count them! We keep the peace....
But Dragging Canoe replied: "You say you keep the peace with the whites. Not
fight. How you keep our lands? How you protect our women and children whites
take for slaves to use? No! You give to whites, enemies of our people. I listen
no more to evil weak ones. Go to your side of upper mountains, live with whites.
We fighters take care of ourselves, our people. ..
Sequoyah, uneasy and troubled, sat in the firelit Council House listening to and
writing of the talks of the leaders of the split nation.
Indeed, the pampered friendlies and the fighting Cherokees were constantly at
one another's throats through the agitation of the whites. The friendlies sat
around the traders' stockade village; drinking the white man's whiskey and
receiving his bribes for helping the colonist armies whip and destroy their own
fighting people. These "good Indians" in every tribe in Indian America killed
their own clansmen and tribesmen. The trained scourge and Uncle Tomahawks of the
white man, who when com-manded to squat, these good tools squatted. They had
become so obligated to the Anglos that they were unable to see or to learn that
the whites made no difference between their friendly "pup-pets" and the
hostiles, when it came time to rid the country of the Cherokees. The friendlies
were shot and killed the same as their fighting brothers as quickly as their
useful purpose had been fulfilled.
By the time Sequoyah was seventeen he was a trained and skilled warrior, and had
mastered the duties of scribe under the guidance of Dragging Canoe.
In the white settlement between the rivers called by the whites Clinch and
Powell, Sequoyah, war painted, and having said a
42
battle charm for power and protection, raided the new white settlement on
Cherokee burned-out village lands early one morning in May 1783. Led by Crane,
one of Dragging Canoe's assist-ant war leaders, the small party of eighteen
warriors surprised the whites when they came out of their homes to get water at
the spring and to tend their livestock. The warriors opened fire upon them,
killing eight% while others fled in many directions to hide in the woods and
along the creek. Capturing a man by the name of Fitzgerald, the warriors set the
homes afire, and Sequoyah tying Fitzgerald's hands and legs together with
mulberry rope, ripped off his scalp of long red curls. Then he pushed him into
the flames of a burning log house.
They returned to Dragging Canoe's village the horses and cattle which had been
stolen by the whites in that settlement. These Cherokee horses and crossbred
buffalo and wild Spanish cattle were branded with a small notch-like V taken
from the tip of the right ear.
During the bloody wars of the middle and late 1780's, in which the white
settlers' stride for Cherokee lands was in full swing, and the Cherokee faction
and confederacy were fighting a die-hard stand against them and the bribed
chiefs, Sequoyah, his brother Whitepath, and a group of eight warriors ran a
flatboat line on the Tennessee River. Using the boats, they traded gold to the
Spanish in Florida and Louisiana Territory for arms and ammunition.
In Florida, Sequoyah and Whitepath were invited to attend a council of the
governor, Don Estevon Miro. The governor's officers escorted the Cherokees to
the governor's brick walled palace courtyard, where palm covered sheds were set
up, and low split log tables were loaded with the food offered by their host,
and served by cheek-branded Florida Indian vassals.
The Indians feasted on venison, turkey, melons, fruits and breads of a great
variety. Wines and liquors were offered, and some of the Cherokees drank it.
Sequoyah and Whitepath said they preferred the black drink. 2
2 Chocolate and coffee made with coconut milk. A Florida Indian drink which the
Spanish people adopted.
43
There were many Southern Indian leaders and warriors from other tribes attending
the council. The Spanish governor made a small but imposing speech to his Indian
guests:
I wish to welcome our red brothers to my lands and my home. Here you see we live
in peaceful surroundings. Our red brothers are not 'I without friends. The
Americans have no chief, no king. They are men that are lost and wander in the
woods like the wild ox. They are but It's nothing unto themselves. They will
soon be settling in your country. Your people will become their slaves. Consider
well my talk7 for the Spanish people are your friends. We do not set down in
your country. We do not wish it. We will assist you, and jou shall want for
nothing.
Take up your guns and fight them. Give them no rest until they are subdued, and
driven beyond the waters of the mighty ocean. Our boats will come up the
Tennessee with guns and ammunition. You shall be well supplied. Unite and show
them your strength. 3
The Cherokees could look around themselves, and see just how free Florida
Indians were under their Spanish conquerors. Florida Indians, who managed to
escape extermination by the Spanish, were branded on the cheek, forehead or the
arm with the Spanish owner's initial. The French and English followed suit in
branding their Indian slaves. The only difference with the Spanish was that the
people stayed out of Cherokee lands.
The Spanish wanted the Cherokee gold trade, and the only way they could get that
gold was by offering fair exchange trade goods, supplied by their Indian trader
vassals under orders and command of Spanish officers.
Springfrog, an assistant chief in Dragging Canoe's fighting Iforces, with a
group of warriors and their families, lived at the Spanish lead mines - Mine de
Mota in what is today Missouri -where powder and lead were shipped up the
Mississippi to the Ohio River, thence down the Tennessee to the Cherokee War
Chief, Dragging Canoe and his fighting warriors.
With the supply of arms from the Spanish, the Cherokee warriors' drive to hold
back white invasion from their nation pene-trated every path, every river and
creek in Tennessee, North
3 George Guess documents, 1786. The speech of Governor Miro was written
in Spanish by Sequoyah. Translated by the author (verbatim et literatim).
44
Carolina and parts of Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Virginia and the whole
of what is now Kentucky.
Attakullakulla, the former peace-appointed chief, and his war chief, Oganasdoda
of the friendly faction, had, in 1775, given Kentucky away - the hunting lands
of the Cherokees - to Richard Henderson and Nathaniel Hart in exchange for
trading goods. But the Cherokees still fought for it.
Dragging Canoe was the recognized war chief of the Cherokee people and the split
nation, and was backed by the majority, although the appointed chiefs and
pampered pets of the Colonial Government and its agents were led to believe
otherwise.
In the late spring of 1786, while scouting on the Saluda River in South
Carolina, Sequoyah and Uhyalug came upon two white men in the tall canes along
the river who had butchered three head of Cherokee cattle and were skinning and
cutting up the meat. One man was killed. The other, wounded, jumped into the
river to escape, but was captured by Sequoyah, who tied his hands together with
sinew, and took him and the Cherokee horse that he had stolen back to Dragging
Canoe's village.
After much prodding with the sharpened end of a green cane jabbed into the white
man's groin, the sullen man told Sequoyah that his name was George Guess, and
that he and his dead partner were new settlers from a white settlement in South
Carolina.
The Beloved Woman Oh, mother of Dragging Canoe, pondered over what method to use
to dispose of their unwanted guest. Dragging Canoe, who had been wounded a few
days before with a musket ball in the leg, sat on the clay floor of his home
with his back propped against a bale of bearskins. He told Sequoyah: "My young
son, you say you need another name -other than what you have to use with the
unegvs (whites). Now, that white man there, he have name of George Guess. He
need it no longer. You take his name. That horse he stole. George is name of
white Uguwiyuhi over there across the Amegwa. 4 Guess is anybody. We know that
from that dictionary book. That white man our guess now.
4 Big Water.
45
It is recorded that Sequoyah took Dragging Canoe's suggestion and accepted
George Guess for his formal name - a name spelled in the Cherokee syllabary as
Tsatsi Tvsis.
There was a victory dance and feast on the night that Sequoyah acquired his new
name. Whitepath sang out his brother's new name for all in the village to hear,
waving the red stick and eagle feathers 'that symbolized power. Sequoyah carried
the painted red stick, eagle feathers dangling with the scalp of George Guess,
dancing, dancing, dancing the Victory Dance. He felt peace within his soul in
the revenge of the deaths of his mother, father, and sister. He sang out, for
all to hear, the feats that he had accomplished during the year.
Sequoyah's new name spread from village to village. Conditions worsened in the
nation because of the settlement of whites on Cherokee lands, and by the
colonist government's fraudulent land ceding treaties made with the unauthorized
appointed chiefs, living at the Indian agency's stockade village. There they
were kept drunk on traders' whiskey and were obligated to the whites for
protection from fighting clansmen. Against this despair and defeat, the daring
feats which Sequoyah seemed driven to achieve, spread his fame far and wide over
the nation, to the Ohio, and to the Mississippi Rivers.
Battle after bloody battle was fought with the squatting white settlers and the
colonist armies. Sequoyah, the warrior-scribe, recorded the work and deeds of
his fighting people and those of himself in the small black leather£overed
ledger books bought from Spanish traders.
As his count of "white hair" grew, so did his name at village dances and feasts.
The shy young girls would whisper among themselves: "There is the one that
writes. The brave warrior Tsatsi Tvsis that follows in the footsteps of our
great war chief, Dragging Canoe. He is to be watched, he will bring much good
power to our people. He is a good catch."
During the summer of 1788, when Dragging Canoe and his fighting warriors were on
the borders of the nation in what is today Kentucky, three Choctaws came to
Crawfish Place. Finding only old men and women warriors and a few black
prisoners
46
guarding the homes, the Choctaws told Dragging Canoe's first wife that she and
her daughter, a child of six, were wanted by Dragging Canoe on White Ridge to
help in his camp. Of course, it was a ruse. The Choctaws captured Eni, and her
child Ewi.
Months later, Dragging Canoe learned that his wife and child had been sold to
the whites in Virginia. Through messengers, the whites began to negotiate for
the exchange of prisoners. By the end of 1789, Dragging Canoe had exchanged
three black and two white prisoners for his wife Eni.
But the whites demanded all white prisoners in the Cherokee Nation in exchange
for his daughter Ewi. Therefore, the parley dragged on. Dragging Canoe had no
assurance whatsoever that his daughter was safe, other than the white Indian
agent's written message, sent through bribed friendly Cherokees.
Knowing that the whites had no more regard for the life of an Indian child than
that of a wild goat, Dragging Canoe waited until he and his scouts could go into
the white settlement, where Ewi was being held.
It was a three-day journey by foot from Dragging Canoe's village on Crawfish
Creek in Tennessee, to the white settlement of Hillsville in the mountains of
Virginia, where Ewi was being kept in the home of a white man by the name of
Hill. Dragging Canoe, with assistant chief Crane, Sequoyah, and four scouts,
left his village on the night of June 16, 1790. Walking through the mountain
paths into Virginia, they arrived on the third day at Hill's settlement. It was
evening, and the settlers were out milking their cows, and cutting wood for
their fires.
Knowing that their own lives were in constant danger on lands the whites - lands
which once belonged to the Cherokee Tribe, they took no chances coming in
contact with them. Crawling on their bellies through thickets and tall grass
until within viewing distance of the white man Hill's home (Hill's house had
been fully described to Dragging Canoe by an Indian informer, they lay and
watched for signs that his small daughter was still there. M eanwhile, Sequoyah
and Black Fox crawled within a few yards of the spring which served the
settlement. Watching from
47
their places of concealment, they saw a few white children running and playing
with dogs, rolling wooden hoops, and carrying wood into the houses. Men and
women were milking cows, and feeding chickens, geese and horses in the log
corral.
Nowhere was there any evidence of the Cherokee child Ewi. Just at dusky dark, a
woman came to the spring for water, and to place wooden 'pails of milk in the
cold spring. Silently, Sequoyah came behind her as she bent down into the water.
Covering her mouth with one hand, while he held her arms behind her with the
other, he took her to Dragging Canoe so that he might question her about his
daughter.
Shaking like a rabbit caught between the paws of a cat, the white woman told
Dragging Canoe that there was no Indian child in the settlement; that she was
there many weeks ago, but became sickly, and Mr. Hill gave her to a traveling
preacher who came to preach in their settlement once a month. The preacher's
name was John Craig, who lived in the town of Petersville, across the mountains,
about two days' walk. She did not know exactly where Mr. Craig lived in the
town.
Dragging Canoe knew that it would be a fruitless search to continue on to
another white settlement in Virginia. So he and his warriors returned to their
village with the white woman pris-oner. The woman, Daisy Spinks, was given to an
aged Cherokee family who had lost their sons and two daughters in the wars with
the whites. She was forced to work in the fields, as well as around the house,
chopping wood, carrying water, and cutting up the meat brought to all aged
Indians unable to work.
White people taken prisoners by the Cherokees were treated well in most cases,
and made to work in the fields and help in the Indian homes. Prisoners were
taken for the same purpose as that with which the whites took Indians - they
were a valuable means of exchange and slave labor. The women were not raped like
the Indian slaves of white owners. Neither were the white females and males
beaten, unless they tried to escape, refused to work, or played trickery with
Cherokee owners.
48
Four
MARRIAGE AND THE PEACE TREATY
ALTHOUGH wars between the Anglos and Cherokees were fought in their nation and
on its borders, Cherokee tribal traditions and customs continued on throughout
their country.
Sequoyah was twenty-three, tall, lean and girl-shy when he found Tsini, the
eldest daughter of Tsatsi Ughvi, while attending one of the Friendship Dances in
the mountain village of her father.
His love affair was one-sided - at first, Tsini seemed not to be interested in
him, nor even to notice him. So he asked Whitepath, a Didahnvwisgi 1, for a
magic charm which he could use to think, say, and do to attract her to him - to
see that he was a handsome and strong man, and would be a good provider.
One of the magic texts that Sequoyah perhaps used goes like this:
Now! Listen! Now, Red Raven.
I am dressed as well as the Redtail Hawk.
I am as handsome as the Redbird.
I am as beautiful as the Hummingbird.
As the Redtail Hawk is masculine, I am masculine.
1 A didahnvwisgi, "curer of them," he or she, is both physician and priest. A
shaman. There was the dasgidigi, commonly referred to as the Medicine Man who
conducted ceremonies for the prevention of, as well as the treatment of,
disease. The didahnesegi ("putter-in and drawer out of them, he") was a
sorcerer, a witch, who used his knowledge for evil purposes, and therefore never
positively identifiable.
49
As the Red bird can do much, I can do as much.
As the Blue Dove can say much, I can say as
much: Gule! Gule! Gule! 2
The magic charm seemed to have cast its love-spell upon Tsini. Sequoyah asked
his foster mother Eni and the Beloved Woman Oh to take the sacred white deerskin
from the deer he had killed the previous winter to Tsini, and to tell her that
he wished her Ito "follow behind him."
When the women returned from Tsatsi Ughvi's village on the Iseventh day, they
brought Sequoyah the sacred ear of colored corn and a white and red horsehair
belt, woven with tiny cut white clamshells Tsini had made for him to tie around
his hunting shirt for all to see that "he was taken."
So it was settled. Tsini became Sequoyah's wife in December, 1789.
Unlike most Cherokee men when they marry in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, it was customary for the young couple to live in the same village
with the wife's clanspeople -not in the same house, but near by in a home of
their own. Most often, their home was built by a group of "free labor" workers
from the wife's clanspeople and furnished with items made by the group, and
other clansmen.
Usually women relatives of the bride gave freely of their time and talents.
Handmade household items such as quilts, blankets, clay pots, bowls, painted
skins, cane and bark mats, and baskets made from the honeysuckle vine, the oak,
pine and mulberry trees were some of the useful gifts bestowed on the new wife.
Sequoyah's duties as scribe and warrior in Dragging Canoe's fighting forces
required him to be closer to his "works." So a group of his clansmen composed a
free labor force, and built for him and Tsini, a tw~room log house on Crow Creek
near what Iis today Stevenson, Alabama, where his brother Whitepath lived with
his wife, whom he had married two years previously. Also
2 "Attraction" idigawesdi may be said or sung, used in "going to the water"
ritual where the entire Cherokee nation is unified and spiritually reassured in
face of some force which threatens its life, and also utilized in "remaking"
tobacco.
50
living in this Cherokee settlement, which became known to the whites as "Crow
Town," was Young Warrior and his wife and six children.
Sequoyah's father-in-law Tsatsi Ughvi was a weAthy Cherokee village chief.
Back between two lofty mountains in North Carolina, where his forefathers had
discovered gold more than six hundred years before, he and others of his clan,
and his wife's clan had buflt their settlement along White Fires River. It was a
valley that ran for miles before it was stopped short by another towering
mountain. From his mountain valley stronghold, Tsatsi Ughvi fought back white
invasion, and the Anglos' lust for his gold and rich farm lands, by posting
armed guards along the three entrances to the valley and with crossbred wolf-
dogs - a unique and vicious animal.
When Tsatsi Ughvi's daughter married Sequoyah, he and his wife spared no expense
in setting them up in housekeeping. Supplying the young couple with fine horses,
cattle and hogs which Tsatsi Ughvi bought from the Spanish in Florida and the
Louisiana Territory with gold that he and his clansmen mined in his valley. His
viflage was just one of the many that supplied Dragging Canoe's fighting forces
with farm products, and gold for guns and ammunition.
During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, when the Cherokees were being
pushed on all sides by the Anglos, and the new United States' armies were
striking devastation to Cherokee viflages for the final crushing blow to bring
them to their knees, about the only crops that co&d be grown successfully was
the main staple, and their staff of life - corn.
Corn had to be grown by the older men, women and young boys and girls, some
white and black slave prisoners. These prisoners were distributed among the
various villages where the need was greatest for field-work.
The Cherokees in Tsatsi Ughvi's village supplied many of the other vfllages
throughout the nation with their three hundred acres of corn. The corn was
plowed with a type of oxen similar to those of the white man, and which had been
used for centuries.
51
The wooden plow was copied after that of the Indians who lived to the southwest
beyond the Big Waters.
As soon as the corn was mature and dry, it was shelled and stored underground in
caves to prevent confiscation or destruction by the white armies, and the
settlers who stole and plundered Cherokee villages like hungry wild dogs
smelling out another's food supply. An even greater sport and dirty game was to
steal the Indians' horses, cattle, hogs and sheep. If there were too many of
these animals to drive across the nation's boundary lines to the stockade forts,
and the white settlements, Cherokee horses, cattle, sheep, hogs and tame fowl
were killed and left to rot anywhere that herds were found and unguarded.
Seven hundred Cherokee warriors and their families were settled on the Ohio
(Uwagi) River near what is today the Kentucky and West Virginia line, fighting
with their brothers and allies, the Shawnees.
Sequoyah, with his wife Tsini, and a group of scouts and warriors carried
messages and supplies of arms, ammunition, and shelled corn up the Tennessee
River to where the Ohio drains into the Amaegwa (Mississippi). And when squatter
white settlements sprang up along the Tennessee River on Cherokee lands, and
evil and foul-talking whites prevented Indians from using the river by firing
upon them, the Cherokee fighting forces and their allies burned their
settlements, captured and killed the squatters.
These strange wild people - prisoner debtors, murderers, and runaway renegades
from the poor-houses of Europe, spewed out over Indian lands, killing and being
killed. It seemed not to matter to them, for they were determined to become the
master of Indian America like the kings and lords they had left behind. They saw
the chance to take, to grab and to steal possessions of the Indians which they
had never owned in the country from which they came. In this white sickness, the
Great Spirit chose the American Indian Tribes to be the goat.
So the tiresome Cherokee-white wars continued by that faction of Cherokee
confederacy headed by the war chief, Dragging
52
Canoe, and the forty-one of the sixty-two villages throughout the whole nation
that followed his leadership and guidance.
Early one morning in the fall of 1790, Tsinj came walking slowly from the Osi,
carrying her son wrapped in white goatskin. The young parents called him Tvsisdi
(Young Guess). On the fourth day of the child's life, the young parents took
their baby to the running stream of Crow Creek for baptism. The priest and
physician faced the rising Sun and held the child over the water, while saying a
prayer for his good life in his future; offering him seven times to the water
without yet touching it. Then Tsini dipped her fingers into the water and gently
placed it at her son's head and body. Others of the village immersed themselves
seven times in the running waters, while the priest said prayers for each one.
In the following year of 1791, Sequoyah took another wife -a Shawnee whom he
found wandering and dazed from the bru-tal rape and beatings at the hands of
three white men. She was called Tsisdunigisdi (Wild Rose).
Another log room was built on to the house which he, Tsini and their baby
occupied on Crow Creek across the Tennessee River in Alabama.
When the newly elected Great White Father, George Washington, ordered William
Blount, the governor over the territory of the United States south of the River
Ohio, and superinten-dent of Indian Affairs for the southern district, to
assemble the Cherokee chiefs and headmen together at White's Port on the Holston
River to make another peace treaty with the friendly appointed chiefs, Dragging
Canoe decided for once that he and his assistant chiefs and warriors would
attend the "peace meeting." They wanted to see for themselves if the whites
really wanted to stop the war on the Indians, or if the assemblage was for the
purpose of gaining another foothold on Cherokee lands. 8 Also, to see what the
results of attending the whites' meeting would have on the bribed and guarded
chiefs of the twentynine villages in the nation.
3 See Cherokee Nation Treaties Between the United States of America and the
Cherokee Nation from 1785, pp.89-94.
53
Dragging Canoe's assistants and warriors dressed in their finest clothes to meet
the white government agent of the new smafi nation on the first day of July,
1791.
Their fringed hunting shirts and drawstring pants were a mulitude of colors -
red, white, brown, yellow and turquoise painted buckskin, and homespun cotton
and wild flax cloth. A beaded belt made of dyed horsehair and buckskin was tied
on the left around their hunting shirts. Soft moccasins were painted and beaded,
and an assortment of Ahhunwogi (turbans) completed their dress. Over Dragging
Canoe's shoulders was draped his prized war mantle, worked with thousands of red
bird feathers, and upon his head, he wore his red headdress of bird feathers.
The Cherokee horses were decked out in handwoven red, white and brown striped
blankets, and red and white eagle feathers were tied upon their horsehair
bridles. The heads and nimps of the horses were painted in Cherokee symbols,
denoting their power. The saddles were made by the Cherokees, and some were
obtained from Spanish traders.
Sequoyah and three selected scouts led the procession through the mountain
paths, followed by the great war chief, Dragging Canoe, his assistants and
warriors. They traveled to the fort of Mr. White, where the French Broad River
empties into the Holston. (White's Fort is known today as Knoxville.)
Dragging Canoe and his people camped several miles away from the fort on the
night of July 1. About a mile away, Standing Turkey (Gvnagadoga), who had taken
the leadership of Hanging Maw (killed by the whites), his assistant Boot, and
their paid followers of two hundred and eighty-nine men and women, waited in
camp. They had gathered there two days previously.
The Cherokees were awakened at daylight by the ringing of the fort bell. While
Dragging Canoe and his assistants ate from their buckskin bag of ghvhwisidi,4
Sequoyah and six other scouts skirted the general area of the fort.
4 Parched corn pounded into meal. often mixed with crushed hickory nuts, which
Cherokees prepared for a journey.
54
Finding that the area was not patrolled by the whites, and guards were only
around the fort, Dragging Canoe and his people - who numbered over nine hundred
- rode on in and stopped on the open grounds along the two rivers below the
fort. He sent Whitepath, Bloody Fellow, Doublehead and Sequoyah to the guard at
the fort gate to inform the governor that he and his people - the recognized
chief of the Cherokee Nation, had come to hear his talk." And that they would
wait down by the river in the open grounds.
Not long after Dragging Canoe and his people arrived at the fort, Standing
Turkey, Boot, Rising Fawn (George Lowery), and their followers, rode up to the
fort, dismounted, and talked to the guards. They were decked out in the finery
of the white man, with scarlet velvet knee pants, ruffled white and lace shirts,
knee stockings, black brass buckled slippers and three-sided black hats with
white feathers on two
The friendlies remained outside in front of the fort gate. And in daring
boldness, Standing Turkey paraded himself back and forth before the gate
entrance, like a strutting turkey gobbler before his small flock of hens.
Dragging Canoe, knowing that this parade performance was done on his behalf,
angrily called out to Standing Turkey: "Be still. You will get to see your Great
White Brother. He not leave you.
Dragging Canoe's group retired to the shade of the sycamore trees, from the hot
July sun. There they waited, resting, and telling jokes about the whites.
Sequoyah and another scout by the name of Two Killer, curi-ous about the fort
and the people inside, walked past three out-side guards and peeped between the
stockade poles.
Inside all was a bustle. Soldiers were setting up the government's "presents" -
wagon loads of all kinds of goods, from bolts of bright colored cloth to huge
brass pots, fancy knives, horse bridles, saddles, mirrors, black hats, and the
like. These were being unloaded from the wagons, and displayed in piles on the
fort grounds so that the Cherokees could better examine the fine things the
Great White Father had sent to his "red" children to
55
be good, and not fight anymore with his white ones. Missing from the piles of
goods were guns and ammunition. These had been given to the friendlies in
previous years, to use against their own brothers.
Sequoyah saw white women working over large pots of food to feast the Great
White Fathers' red children.
About noon, the mixed-blood interpreters, John Thompson and James Carey, came
out of the fort with guards. They informed both groups of Cherokees, the
friendlies and the hostiles, that Governor Blount was ready for them to come
inside. They were told that no type of weapon would be allowed.
Chiefs from Dragging Canoe's group had previously placed handmade hunting knives
inside their shirts. Dragging Canoe's assistants were Bloody Fellow, Doublehead,
Young Warrior, Daksi, Whitepath and Sequoyah. They followed the two interpreters
and five guards inside.
Seated in the shade of a large oak was the white-haired Governor Blount. He had
the treaty papers spread out in front of him, on a table made of split logs.
Beside him were his aides. Some were standing; some sat. Split log tables, piled
high with food, were placed all around inside the fort grounds.
The mixed-blood, James Carey, introduced Governor Blount to the Cherokee chiefs.
The governor arose, bowed, and told the Cherokees: "Welcome my red brothers! My
Great Father ex-tends his hand in friendship to all his red children. I speak
for him. My Great Father wishes peace with his red children. His words are in
this paper that I hold in my hands. He wishes his red children to bury the Red
Hatchet forever, and the path be-tween his white children and his red children's
nation to be swept clean of all past wrongs. So that both his white and red
children may sleep in their homes undisturbed, and the hair on their heads shall
become white as the snow with the age of passingyears. . . 5"
5 The speech in part, given by Governor William Blount to the Cherokees is
translated by the author from the Cherokee syllabary writings of George Guess,
July 2, 1791.
56
The interpreters, John Thompson and James Carey, told the Cherokees to go
forward, bow, and shake hands in friendship with Governor Blount, the Great
White Father's assistant.
Most of the Cherokees did as they were told. They bowed from the waist to the
governor, and shook hands with him. Dragging Canoe, Bloody Fellow, Whitepath and
Sequoyah refused. They saw no reason to kowtow and shake hands in friendship
with a white man until the treaty papers with the Great White Father's words
upon it were read to them. To them, this was being pretending fools.
The purpose of Dragging Canoe and his assistant chiefs in coming to the meeting
was to hear, with their own ears, the treaty conditions set up by the new Great
White Father. And another thing which prompted Dragging Canoe, Whitepath, and
Sequoyah's attendance there on that hot July day in 1791, was the rumor that the
Great White Father's treaty with the Cherokees would stipulate the release of
thousands of Cherokee slave prisoners, held by the whites all over the eastern
states.
So it was in Article III of the Treaty of Holston that held out some faint hope
to Dragging Canoe that he might obtain the release of his small daughter. And to
Sequoyah and Whitepath it meant that their two sisters, slave prisoners of the
whites for many years, might be restored to them. Article III in the Treaty of
Holston reads:
The Cherokee Nation shall deliver to the governor of the Territory of the United
States 6f America, south of the River Ohio, on or before the first day of April
next at this place, all persons who are now prisoners, captured by them from any
part of the United States: And the United States shall on or before the same
day, and at the same place, restore to the Cherokees, all the prisoners now in
captivity, which the citizens of the United States have captured from them.
That day, after feasting the Cherokees, and supplying gourds of whiskey
processed at Mr. White's whiskey still, peace pipes were smoked. Most of the
whites and Cherokees were too drunk and sick to think about the peace treaty
papers.
Dragging Canoe, Whitepath and Sequoyah carried Bloody Fellow, Doublehead, Young
Warrior and Daksi out of the fort,
57
and dumped them into the river so that they might regain their senses and become
clean of spirit and mind again.
Next day, July 3, 1791, in the afternoon, after feasting the Cherokees again,
the treaty papers were read by the governor, and interpreted by mixed-bloods,
John Thompson and James Carey, to the two groups of the Cherokee faction.
Governor Blount informed his interpreters that the cession of Cherokee lands in
Tennessee and North Carolina should not be read to the red sons-of-bitches in
Article IV. "Read only that part of the Article IV where it says that certain
valuable goods and money is to be given to the bloody bastards," he told the
interpreters. Article IV reads as follows:
The boundary between the citizens of the United States and the Cherokee Nation,
is and shall he as follows: Beginning at the top of the Curahee mountain, where
the Creek line passes it - thence a direct line to Tugelo river-thence North
East to the Occunna moun-tains, and over the same along the South Carolina
Indian boundary to the North Carolina boundary - thence North to a point from
which a line is to be extended to the river Clinch, that shall pass the Holston
at the ridge which divides the waters running into Little river, from those
running into the Tennessee - Thence up the river Clinch to Campbell's line, and
along the same to the top of Cumber-land Mountain - thence a direct line to the
Cumberland River to a point from which a South-west line will strike the mouth
of Duck river.
And in order to preclude forever all disputes relative to the said boundary, the
same shall be ascertained, and marked plainly by three persons appointed on the
part of the United States, and three Cher~ kees on the part of their Nation.
And in order to extinguish forever all claims of the Cherokee Nation, or any
part thereof to any of the land lying to the right of the above described,
beginning as aforesaid at the Currahee mountain, it is hereby agreed, that in
addition to the consideration heretofore made for the said land, the United
States will cause certain valuable goods to be immediately delivered to the
undersigned Chiefs and Warriors, for the use of their Nation, and the said
United States will also cause the sum of one thousand dollars to be paid
annually to the said Cher~ kee Nation - And the undersigned Chiefs and Warriors,
do hereby
58
for themselves and the whole Cherokee Nation, their heirs and descendants, for
the considerations above mentioned, Release, Quit Claim, Relinquish and Cede,
all the land to the right 0£ the line de-scribed and beginning as aforesaid.
Article 14 in the Treaty of Hoiston was not read to the Cherokees. None of the
Indians were permitted to read the treaty papers before the signing - the
governor thought Dragging Canoe savage to ask for such a request.
The two factions of Cherokees retired to an area of the fort under trees to
discuss and argue the points of the Great White Father's peace treaty. Standing
Turkey said it was good to stop the bloody wars with the whites; that .the Great
White One loved his Indian children same as his white ones. "Did they not see
the wagonloads of good presents he send to them? And money was coming too."
"Now, you not see the white's money?" Dragging Canoe told him. "How you know
money come? Who wants money? You chief of white man. I, Tsiyogunsi, war chief of
our people. They love me, I not give my hands to whites for presents."
In the middle of these hot arguments of the chiefs, the two interpreters voiced
their opinion that should the chiefs fail to agree and not sign the "peace
treaty" of the Great White Father, Ithat his armies would come to their nation
and crush it with their big iron cannon - that many Cherokees, young and old
would die.
After two days and nights of heated discussions between the two factions of the
nation, they finally agreed to sign the "peace treaty papers.
Dragging Canoe and his six assistants signed the Treaty of Holston, which they
understood to be merely a "peace treaty" between the United States and
themselves. Each one gave his Icorrect name, and touched the tip of Governor
Blount's quill.
This was the first and last time that Dragging Canoe, Sequoyah, and Whitepath
signed their names to a United States treaty.
All the Cherokee signers received the Great White rather's Peace Medal with his
picture on one side, and hands clasped in
59
friendship on the reverse, and tiny clay pipes with the typical long cane stem
made by the white man.
The Great White Father's presents were distributed to the various Cherokee
chiefs and warriors by Governor Blount's sol-diers at the fort. Many of the
wagons were reloaded and driven outside the fort gate, where the majority of the
Cherokees waited to receive their "bribe" of the white government. Huge brass
and iron pots, given to Cherokee chiefs, could not be carted back to their
country on horseback. These were left at the fort for the whites
to use.
Five
THE UPSETTERS
HARDLY HAD THE ink dried on the Great White rather's treaty at Hoiston with the
Cherokees, when floods of white rogues crossed the French Broad and Hiwasse
Rivers, and began building their homes on Cherokee lands. They appropriated and
cultivated Cherokee cleared farm lands, and drove Indians out of their vfllages
by firing on the people and their stock. Like black droves of mosquitoes that
sucked the blood from any and all animals, the wild whites grabbed Indian
possessions, fighting among themselves over choice lands, orchards and
waterways.
In early August 1791, Sequoyah, Uhyalug, and Dagvni, under the leadership of
Young Warrior, were scouting the area near the Hiwasse River when they found
men, women and boys picking apples in a large Cherokee apple orchard. The Indian
owners had been run out of their village to the mountain caves. Many whites were
killed in the orchard, and some of the white children ran to escape in the deep
thickets.
The South Carolina Gazette on September 9~ 1791, carried the bold headlines of
the "Cherokee Massacre" on the whites, and the whites' retaliation:
... That on the i7th ultimo settlers living near the Cherokee Nation feemed to
be thrown into a fresh Consternation by the loss of four Men at Nottely, a
Woman, and four children at Unicoye, and three men at Hywaffee, all of which
were killed while picking apples, and scalped. At this place (Hywaffee) is a
large town having upwards of ninety houses, and large quantities of corn,
potatoes, pease,
61
beans and hogs. Captain Handley ordered our men to fpread out in companies, and
destroy, cut down, and burn all belonging to our heathen enemies. This being no
small undertaking. They being so plentifully supplied. Indeed, we find here
curious buildings and great apple orchards, and white-man like improvements,
these we destroy of our enemies.
Nowhere in the historical period of Anglo invasion or Indian America was the
idea of the s~called "hunter-state" myth of Indian tribes imbedded in the mind
of the white public as it was in the office of the president of the United
States. This "hunter" lie was for one purpose - to move Indians off their
valuable lands, and cleared fields east of the Mississippi to the unpopulated
lands west of the Mississippi River, and to populate the lands with white
settlers from the poorhouses and debtors' prisons of Europe.
Nowhere in American history books is there mention of southern Indian
agriculture - done with oxen and wooden plows -skills copied by the Anglo
settlers from the southern Indians. In early November 1791, Dragging Canoe sent
a delegation of seven assistant chiefs to Philadelphia to protest to President
Washington the serious situation of the white settlers moving on to those
Cherokee lands, not then ceded in the Holston treaty.
Headed by Bloody Fellow and Whitepath, Dragging Canoe took advantage of Article
XII of the Treaty of Hopewell that was unauthorized and signed by a few friendly
appointed chiefs which stated:
That the Indians may have full confidence in the justice of the United States,
respecting their interests, they shall have the right to send a deputy of their
choice, whenever they think fit, to Congress.
Sequoyah, sick with the "black yellow," was unable to make the trip to
Philadelphia, and was replaced by Two Killer.
After an eighteen day horseback journey from their village in Tennessee, the
seven Cherokees reached the city of Philadelphia, and inquired at the Congress
House to see the Great
1 A condition in Cherokee semejology which might roughly equate a circulatory
disorder.
62
White Father. Secretary of War, Henry Knox, sent the Cherokees, with two aides
of his, to a hotel to be properly "cloathed" and "mannered" before meeting their
Great White Father, George Washington.
The traditional Indian garb of white buckskin, red, white and brown striped
homespun cotton and flax shirts, and buckskin knee boots were ndt the social
taste for President Washington. White officials insisted that the seven
Cherokees be fitted by a staff of tailors. The clothes were free, given to them
by their Great White Father, so they were told. It took more than a week to make
the clothes for all.
In the meantime, the Cherokees were shown how to relieve themselves in the city.
Thomas Whitehead showed them a white pot with a lid on top, called a chamber
pot. He proceeded to teach the Indians how to use it. Next they were shown the
outside privy behind the hotel which the white people used. In the hotel dining
room, Whitehead and his aide, James Pickle, pro-ceeded to teach the Cherokees
the white man's table etiquette, telling them to follqw their procedure. And
during the waiting period, the Cherokees were shown the sights of Philadelphia,
which included a trip in a fine carriage to the Big Waters (ocean) where the
Great White Father's fleet of ships and cannon were maintained.
Finally, the Cherokees were decked out in white ruffled shirts, black knee
pants, white knee-stockings, garters, black buckle slippers, scarlet vests, and
long black frock coats. On their heads, they wore three cornered black hats.
Since Bloody Fellow was the leader of the group, white officials figured that he
should have a distinctive white man's garb to impress the others. So Secretary
of War Knox informed his aide, Leonard Shaw, to have the tailors make a
brigadier general's uniform for Bloody Fellow to wear to his meeting with
President Washington.
After the formalities of bowing from the waist and handshaking were dispensed
with, President Washington admired the uniform that Bloody Fellow wore so much
that he thought he would look more outstanding with a medal of the president's
likeness around his neck. President Washington took from a
63
small black covered box, a medal with a picture of himself on one side, and
crossed hands clasped in "friendship" on the reverse side. He placed it around
Bloody Fellow's neck on a gold chain. In return for the Great White Father's
gift of obligation, Bloody Fellow presented the president with his handmade
carved gold-handled knife, and a string of blue-white cut shell beads. The other
six men received long stem clay pipes from their Great White Father.
When the formality of gift exchanging was over, wine and liquor were served by a
black servant to the Indians, the president, and his aides, before any Indian
business was conducted.
The Great White Father and his aides knew just how to deal with the Indians.
When Bloody Fellow did get to state the purpose of the journey to Philadelphia,
he read from his black book the letter written by Dragging Canoe, in the
syllabary, to President Washington: Great White King:
I send my assistant chief to read you my words. His name Tsitagigahi. Now, I say
this to you White King: That paper I mark for your assistant chief, the one
called William Blount that lives at the place called White's Fort, I sold not my
peoples lands. That place where your white children dwell, the place where they
lodge, the place they fortify which they think to establish themselves master of
that place called by themselves Buchanan and Greens Place is mine. I am sprung
from this land as does the grass. I wish not for war with your white children,
but should they not leave my lands, should you, their king, not force them to
leave, I and my warriors will come and kill all we find now living on my lands.
I, Tsiyogugvnsini just spoke.
After President Washington heard the words of Dragging Canoe, he hum-hawed
around Bloody Fellow, and browbeat the near drunk Indian into signing another
treaty, which increased the annuity payments to the Cherokee Nation from $1,000
to $1,500 annually for being good red children. But the new treaty did not
relinquish the United States cession of Cherokee lands taken from them without
their knowledge in the Treaty of Hoiston. Whitepath warned Bloody Fellow that he
had no authority to sign treaties with the Great White Father without the vote
of the majority of the people.
64
President Washington was bold enough to ask the Cherokee leaders to help fight
their northern and southern neighbors, which they flady refused to agree to do.
The great White Father gave Bloody Fellow an American Flag to present to
Dragging Canoe when he returned home.
The Cherokees returned to their hotel with the white officials, who kept watch
over the Indians like a hawk watches young juicy rabbits it plans to catch. The
Indians took off the white man's clothes and put on their own. Whitekiller
jokingly told Bloody Fellow and the others that: "It would be a good joke to
play on Chief Tsiyogugvnsini to put the White King's flag alongside of that red
one of our chief that he has flying on pine tree-top in his village. Let him
find it there in daytime, see what he will do."
So when the Cherokees arrived back in their nation after a sixteen-day horseback
trip from the east, the seven Indians reported to Dragging Canoe at his village
before going on to their homes.
Whitepath, Bloody Fellow and Doublehead did not present the American Flag to
Dragging Canoe on their arrival home. Instead, they waited until after midnight;
climbing up the tall branchless pine tree. At the top the blood-red Cherokee
Nation Flag, symbolizing power and victory, was flying in the breeze over the
Cherokee Nation. Whitekiller tied the American Flag a little below the one of
the Cherokee Nation.
When morning came, Dragging Canoe found the American flag. Grabbing his gun, he
shot it full of holes. Sequoyah wrote that: "It sounded like soldiers shooting
at our village." The joke that Whitekiller thought up backfired. Dragging Canoe
did not think the Great White Father's flag flying in the Cherokee Nation was
funny, and the seven assistants were reprimanded.
When Dragging Canoe asked Bloody Fellow and Whitepath for the "Day Book7" a
?ecord written in the Cherokee syllabary of all that was said and done by them
and the white officials in Philadelphia, and a description of the white country
in which they traveled, neither could find it among their personal effects. Some
months later, Bloody Fellow, Whitepath, Doublehead and
65
Sequoyah, who had recovered from his illness, were in a Creek village in Georgia
rounding up some white prisoners to exchange for Cherokees, when they saw in
that village a white man with their "Day Book" of writings, and a Cherokee
friendly traitor reading it to him.
The white man, Leonard Shaw, was one of the white officials who generously to4k
the Cherokees "sight-seeing" in the city of Philadelphia in a splendid carriage
with a black driver and footman, and dined with them at the hotel many times.
The Cherokees were as angry as stirred-up yellow jackets. Sequoyah snatched the
book from the hands of the friendly, and sealed his mouth with one knife stab in
the heart. After searching Shaw, Bloody Fellow told him: "You leave Indian
lands. Now!" Shaw took his advice, and asked for a guard of Creeks to escort him
through the Cherokee Nation to White's Fort.
Sequoyah took from Shaw's personal papers a letter written by the Secretary of
War, Henry Knox, which was Shaw's spying instructions while in the Cherokee and
Creek nations.
The Cherokees kept Shaw's letter from the Secretary of War Knox, and his
instructions to Shaw reads in part (verbatim et lit-eratim):
... You will endeavor to learn their language; this is essential to your
communications. You will collect materials for a history of all the southern
tribes, and all things thereunto belonging. You will en-deavor to ascertain
their respective limits, make a vocabulary of their respective languages, teach
them agriculture and such useful arts as you may know how or can acquire. You
will correspond regularly with Governor Blount, who is superintendent for Indian
affairs, and inform him of all occurrences. You will also cultivate a
correspondence with Brigadier General McGillivray (the Creek chief), and you
will also keep a journal of your proceedings and transmit them to the War
Office. You are to exhibit to Governor Blount the Cherokee book, and all the
Writings therein....
It is doubtful whether the Cherokee dated book of symbol writings and Leonard
Shaw's letter from Secretary of War Knox (containing the government's knowledge
of Cherokee writings) would have affected Sequoyah's trial twenty-five years
later
66
(October 1816) before a general council of mixed-blood and friendly fanatics,
even if available as "proof" that the Cherokee tribe had been using their own
native method of writing and reading for hundreds of years.
In March 1792, Dragging Canoe, with his assistant chiefs and forty warriors,
took a group of forty-four white and Mack prisoners to White's Fort, less than a
day's journey by dugout canoes up the Tennessee River to the Hols ton and French
Broad Rivers.
Governor Blount sent a letter by Utsvtiselu (Corn Tassel) to Dragging Canoe,
advising him that his Great White Father was ready to exchange Cherokee
prisoners for his white children being held by the Cherokees.
Dragging Canoe did not take all the white prisoners in the nation on this, the
first exchange with the whites. He wished to make certain that the whites meant
what they said, and that they lived up to the agreement in Article III in the
Treaty of Holston. Sequoyah and Whitepath, as well as Dragging Canoe, had a
vital interest in the exchange of prisoners. Perhaps many Cherokees would be
reunited with the tribe - a lost wife, daughter, sister, grandmother, son or
grandfather.
The Cherokees arrived at White's Fort on a rainy day in late March.
Dragging Canoe sent Sequoyah, Bloody Fellow, Young Warrior and Doublehead to the
Fort to inform the white officials that they had arrived with their white
prisoners. In a little while, the Cherokees returned with three soldiers, and
the interpreter James Carey, who told Dragging Canoe that the governor would see
him at the Fort, and that he was to release his white and black prisoners to the
soldiers.
The white-haired Governor Blount said to Dragging Canoe: "Your people who are
prisoners of the citizens of the United States will arrive here on the morrow.
You and your warriors may camp down there in the open grounds by the river until
they arrive.
Hopefully, Dragging Canoe and assistants, Sequoyah and Bloody Fellow, returned
to their canoes, and the white prisoners were taken inside the fort.
67
Dragging Canoe's wisdom and the words of Whitepath, the conjurer, told him not
to accept Governor Blount's invitation to camp on the fort grounds. Instead, he,
with his assistants and warriors, returned miles down the river, camping in a
swamp that March night.
Like so many promises in the past with the whites whose words were never kept,
no Cherokee prisoners ever arrived on the "morrow." Nor did they arrive in the
following years.
There did arrive the next morning, just at daybreak at the swamp where the
Cherokees were camped, a detachment of soldiers, who fired into the swamp on the
Cherokees, wounding eleven, among whom was Young Warrior, who later died.
Sequoyah received a musket ball in the shoulder.
The Cherokees escaped through the swamp, taking their wounded men back across
the mountains, leaving their canoes behind. Sequoyah and Whitepath realized that
their sisters and relatives were entirely lost to them, and Dragging Canoe knew
that he would never find his daughter.
It was treachery such as this that fanned the red fire flames of war hatred for
the whites in the hearts of the Cherokees.
In late May 1792, Tsisdunigisdi, Sequoyah's second wife, gave birth to twin
boys. He was now the proud father of three boys. The twins were named Tsuhli
(Fox) and Doi (Beaver).
As much as he wished to remain with his family and clan relatives, conditions in
the nation prevented him and other warriors and scribes from doing so. They
would be at home one day, and weeks away in other parts of the nation's borders,
fighting to move off the white settlers from their lands. As his shoulder wound
healed, Sequoyah was often on the flatboat to Florida or across the Mississippi
River, boating supplies of arms and ammunition from the Spanish in exchange for
Cherokee gold mined from his father-in-law's gold mine in the North Carolina
mountains. Many times one of his wives went along with him, while the other
stayed at the village, caring for the children.
68
Six
CHEROKEE FALL
As SUMMER CAME ON, war conditions worsened with the Anglo settlers who flooded
the nation and its borders.
Since the Great White Father and his agents refused to move settlers from
Cherokee lands, Dragging Canoe with assistant chiefs, and four hundred warriors,
marched in four groups one night in November 1792 to the white man's stockade,
Buchanan, near what is now Nashville. They attacked the stockade with a constant
firing of guns, bows and arrows. Lighted pine knot torches were thrown on the
roofs of the houses.
Daring and bold, Dragging Canoe got in the way of the white's gun fire, and was
shot. Sequoyah and Doublehead saw their great leader fall, and ran to his side
to pull him back out of the range of the stockade gunfire. Dragging Canoe was
shot in the head, and died instantly. Now he could no longer direct their war
battles with the whites.
The assistant chiefs and warriors, pained that their great chief was dead,
called off the attack. They returned the body of Dragging Canoe to his village.
For seyen days and nights none of Dragging Canoe's warriors fought the whites,
in respectful observance of their chief's death and burial. Messages were sent
to villages throughout the nation advising the village chiefs that their war
leader was dead.
Seven priests, who represented his respective clan, came to the village, washed
Dragging Canoe's body in sacred herb medicine, and wrapped him in white
handwoven cotton cloth. His war mantle, worked with thousands of red bird
feathers, was placed
69
on his body. His enormous red headdress of woven bird feathers was placed on his
head.
The coffin, which had been hollowed out from the trunk of a cedar tree, was
draped on the bottom, and on each side, with milk-white and blood-red handwoven
cotton cloth.
A group of workers from his clans, dug his grave, and lined it on each side and
the bottom with large flat stones. Dragging Canoe was placed inside the coffin.
On his breast was placed a small bowl of salt, around his neck, four large
strands of gold cut beads, and by his side his gun and gold-handled hunting
knife. Then the Death Dance and feast was performed.
All the people came and took his right and left hands before the hand-split
boards were laced over the coffin. Seven chosen warriors, each from his
respective clan, carried his body to the side of the mountain for burial. One of
the seven was Sequoyah. The people followed, and put a stone on the grave of
their great war chief.
Both of Dragging Canoe's widows rent their clothing, casting them away, and cut
off their hair just below the ears. The shorn hair was collected in a basket, to
be scattered later on the grave of their husband.
According to custom, neither of the widows could remarry until her hair had
grown long enough to cover her shoulders.
After Dragging Canoe's burial on the seventh night, Bloody Fellow, now the
chosen war chief of the Cherokee Nation fighting force of warriors, called for
the Elohi Gaghusdvdi 1 to be performed.
This Cherokee ritual is symbolic of "going to the water," where the whole nation
is unified, and spiritually reassured in the presence of any force which
threatens its life. It is performed when death occurs to a great and outstanding
leader of the people, and the departed leader's place must be filled with
another chosen chief. Also, when direct hostilities from white pressure involves
the Cherokee people.
1 The Elohi Gaghusdvdi is a ritual performed for national emergencies when the
survival of the Cherokee people is at stake. The word elohi (world) is employed
for "life." Gaghusdvdi is any support or underpinning: Hence, "The Support or
Foundation of Life" for continued existence.
70
The Elohi Gaghusdvdi is performed seven times in consecutive order. Seven
priests, each representing his respective clan, brings with him to an arranged
spot upon the west bank of a river, a bag of tsolagayvili. 2 The tobacco is
placed in a pile, and at midnight the representative of the Aniwahhya Clan
stands facing the east, and recites over it the Elohi Gaghusdvdi text four
times. The other six priests do the same in order of clan rep-resentation:
Anisahoni, Anigilohi, Aniwodi, Anitsisghwa, Anighahwi, and Anigodagewi. Each
clan representative, in the order given, takes a pipeful of tobacco, lights it,
and while smoking, slowly walks in a counter-clockwise circle. Smoke is blown
toward the east before the priest walks, and at each of the cardinal points
reached in the circle. He pauses, and facing squarely the respective direction,
blows smoke toward it. The entire ritual is repeated six more times, and the
series is spaced so that the final feat is completed just at dawn. The remaining
tobacco is divided among the seven priests, to be smoked at a later time.
Immediately after the ceremony, Sequoyah and Uhyalug, painted for war, 3 and,
under the leadership of assistant chiefs Doublehead and Bench, set out for
Buchanan's stockade. Just before they reached the trader's road, they saw two
white men sitting by a well-known Indian spring, eating and drinking from a clay
jug. Nearby, they saw three Cherokee women naked, lying on their backs with
their arms extended behind their heads, fled to trees. One woman was dead. She
had been slashed all over,
2 Tsolagayvli is a small leaf, pale white tobacco, which grows wild in the
southeastern states. It is a very old tobacco which Cherokees of the Wolf clan
claim was obtained by the wolf. Sacred because of its white color. One 0£ the
magic color symbolism associated with both compass points and qualities. white -
south, happiness and peace.
3 Battle idigawesdi for making wodi (paint) for protection during the battles
involved a great deal of time. The Cherokees made war paint from a variety of
materials selected for different reasons. Hematite was highly prized because it
is found inside stone, and no one can shoot through stone. The paint-maker went
at dawn to a secluded place to "work." He said his battle-charm four times over
his handiwork, blew his breath upon it, and held it up to the rising sun after
each recitation. Cherokee battl&charms and war paint for the ex-press purpose of
protection were synonymous. Each depended upon the other for the desired
results.
70
and her pregnant belly entrails hanging out in a puddle of blood.
Sequoyah and Uhyalug crawled on their bellies behind the whites, while the
chiefs covered them with their guns in case of an escape. Sequoyah captured one
white man from behind, while Uhyalug downed the other. In Indian fury and
disgust for the whites, they scalped both alive, and then proceeded to cut them
to bits, scattering the white man flesh over the Cherokee lands. 4
Continuing on to Buchanan's stockade, the Cherokees waited and watched the place
until late in the afternoon, when they were reinforced by another group of
warriors. Taking no chances that a mishap would prevent them from driving the
whites out of the stockade, when it became dark, the warriors crept to the
portholes of the stockade, and began shooting at the whites inside. At the same
time, other warriors kept up a constant firing of guns and throwing torches on
the houses inside. Outside, fires were built against the stockade walls. Nine
white men were killed, and eleven women and children were taken prisoners by the
Cherokees. The stockade was burned down, and stolen Cherokee horses were
recovered. Dragging Canoe's death had been avenged.
The Cherokees returned to their respective villages, satisfied with the eleven
scalps. The warriors, under command of Chief Bloody Fellow, took the white women
and children to their village, where they were sent ihroughout the nation to
work in the fields and around Indian homes. The twenty-two horses were divided
among the warriors. That night all the warriors gathered Ifor the "Victory
Dance." (Commonly called the Scalp Dance.)
Although Cherokee warriors had avenged the death of their great chief,
leadership under the new war chief Bloody Fellow was not the same. It lacked the
wisdom of Dragging Canoe, and his forceful drive and tactics which had been the
mark of power and destruction for the Anglos for twenty-nine years.
4 The so-called Dripping Spring atrocity committed by the Chickamaugans on
Captain William Overall and Burnett, which in literature states that Doublehead
and his assailants scalped the two, then stripped their flesh, roasted and ate
it. Grace Steele Woodward, The Cherokees, p. 115.
72
When news of Dragging Canoe's death reached the white army on the upper
Tennessee River, Governor William Blount, the Indian agent, decided it was an
ideal time to strike - to destroy and burn all Cherokee villages in the nation,
leaving only those which could not be easily reached and destroyed without great
loss to the white-man army. Of course, the army was instructed to spare the
bribed friendlies' villages, in which there were a total of approximately 7,SOO-
or one-fourth of the Cherokee population.
At daybreak, one day in September 1794, the white army surprised the village of
Tsisdvnoyi, where they opened fire with their cannons, and slaughtered Indian
warriors, women and children. Both of Dragging Canoe's widows, and two of his
daughters, were killed, as was Bloody Fellow. Twelve miles below, at Crow Place,
Sequoyah, Whitepath, Chief Glass and others were awakened by the sound of
cannons. A runner came, telling them that the village of Tsisdvnoyi and Running
Water were burning; that warriors, women and children had been killed. "Run with
the women and children to the mountains, and come fight the whites," the runner
Ig told Chief Glass and Whitepath.
Quickly, warriors grabbed their guns, and ran up the Tennessee River to
counterattack.
Chief Glass instructed Sequoyah, Uhyalug, and Tsisgwanida to go with, and
protect the women and children of the village, on their way to the mountains in
North Carolina.
Leaving all except the clothes on their backs, and their horses, Sequoyah
snatched his gun and four of the clan record books. The people of Crow Place
crossed the Tennessee River into the state of Tennessee, many miles below what
is today Chattanooga. That warm September day in 1794, babies rode in blankets
and and cradleboards upon the backs of their mothers. Sequoyah scouted in front,
and Uhyalug and Tsisgwanida covered the rear of the three hundred and eighty-
nine people. They rode across to Fishinghawk Place, where food was given the
group, and warriors of the village quickly ran to help those whose villages were
being destroyed by the white army on the tributary
73
of the Tennessee River. Another group of women and children, and old persons,
joined Sequoyah and his people, who were fleeing to the mountains in North
Carolina. All day, and all night, and a part of the next day, was spent in
reaching the village of Sequoyah's father-in-law, Tsatsi Ughvi.
When Sequoyah, Uhyalug and Tsisgwanida had eaten, they took fresh horses from
his father-in-law's large herd, and again returned back over the mountains to
their villages to fight the soldiers. On the way, they met another group of
Cherokees whose village had been destroyed in Georgia. Proceeding by a shorter
path through the mountains, they arrived more than a mile away from what had
once been the village of Tsisdvnoyi - Crawfish Place.
It was now in ashes. Like storm-torn leaves, mangled bodies of Indians lay
twisted about, along with the dead horses, cattle and dogs. Their bodies were
bloated, and there were gaping holes, where the cannon shells had ripped them
open. Wolves and panthers had eaten their fill. Along the banks of Crawfish
Creek, and in the woods for miles, bodies of dead Indians, some in the waters,
some in the woods, floated in pools of blood.
Doublehead, Whitepath (who was shot in the arm and leg), Chief Glass, and a
group of warriors, met Sequoyah and his two companions below the slaughter place
of Crawfish. There the three warriors were looking in pain and seething anger at
the destruction, and at the torn body of Chief Bloody Fellow. Doublehead
informed Sequoyah that assistant chiefs Bench and Breath had been killed in
Running Water village; that the white army was then down at Crow and Lookout
villages burning them, and that chiefs, warriors, women and children had been
taken prisoners.
Soldiers guarded the burning Cherokee villages, waiting for the warriors to
return for their dead and the final fight. On top of Dunasi (Lookout) Mountain,
where much of their arms, ammunition, corn and other foodstuffs were stored in
what is today known as the Cave Of The Winds, soldiers confiscated Cherokee 'war
goods, and destroyed their reserve food supply.
C74 Sequoyah wrote of the tragedy. He said:
I stand, I look. All around, everywhere I see my dead people. Villages gone in
the smoke of the white's fire. Horses dead. Cattle dead, dogs dead. Canoes gone.
Over there, wolves and panthers feast on the dead. The hawk flies above, waiting
to strike. All around there is stillness, the dead. Over there on the river, I
hear the guns of the whites....
Indeed it was a Cherokee defeat. Not only had they lost three valuable chiefs,
but also their villages, many warriors, women and children, and their ammunition
depot.
Doublehead, now taking the leadership of the Cherokee Nation's fighting force of
warriors, decided that they would retreat to their confederacy, the Cherokee-
Creek Chief, John Watts, in the village of Wilistown, over in Alabama on Wills
Creek. There, they hoped to secure help and arms and ammunition to back them in
driving out the white armies from their nation.
But Doublehead's plan to seek help from the Creek confederacy was badly shaken.
When he arrived, he learned that John Watts5 had been notified by the Spanish a
few days before that they too were fighting and guarding their borders against
an invasion of the French and white Americans, and that in order to obtain the
needed war arms and ammunition, the Creeks and Cherok&es must get together and
send warriors to help them. As a result, more than nine hundred Cherokee
warriors were in a helpless condition without the needed powder and lead made at
the la Mines de Potosi in the Louisiana Territory. Cherokee guns were useless.
Sequoyah with the others waited, watched, and Jistened to the talks of
Doublehead, Bowl, Glass, Whitepath, John Watts, Will Webber and John McDonald. A
free-for-all fight broke out when the chiefs and maddened warriors argued. They
had become sodden drunk on whiskey made and supplied by Will Webber and John
McDonald. Sequoyah, Whitepath, Tsisgwan-
5 1n the literature, John Watts has been termed the chief of the Chickamaugans
after Dragging Canoe's death. This is a fallacy. He was an assistant chief only
of the Cherokee-Creek confederacy, and lived at Willstown. Wills town belonged
to the Creek Nation up until 1819.
75
ida with Uhyalug thrown across his horse, and less than two hundred warriors,
left Will's place in disgust.
Sequoyah had drunk the sweetened whiskey once before, becoming sick and addle-
headed, and unable to walk for several days. It had convinced him that the
sweetened burning water was an evil force and he should leave it alone. Even the
enticement by the white wives of mixed-blood and fullblood Indians in the
village coutd not induce him and the others to drink it.
The nondrinking little group retreated to Sugar Place, across the Alabama border
in Georgia, to await the outcome of Chief Doublehead's drunkenness, and his war
efforts with John Watts.
Meanwhile, the leaderless warriors, who had a supply of ammunition, went in
small groups to fight back the white army along the Tennessee and Coosa Rivers.
They were having a fieldday destroying Indian property.
Not only was the Cherokee Nation "struck down" from the Tennessee side by the
government's armies, but also by the armies coming up the Coosa River in Georgia
after the first onslaught in Tennessee. People, villages, livestock, and
foodstuff were cut down.
Five days after the white army invasion into the Cherokee Nation, the seven (not
five) socalled Chickamauga towns near the Tennessee River lay in waste. The
number of dead and prisoners was unknown. The Cherokees were unable to collect
their dead, since soldiers were stationed nearby to prevent them from doing so.
"Let the red bastards smell their own stink, it'll do them good - gentle them up
some," the soldiers told one another.
On the sixth day after the invasion, Governor Blount sent a message by a
Cherokee friendly named Broom to Doublehead and John Watts at Willstown. He
informed them that if they wanted the release of their warriors, women and
children, and no more destruction of their villages and people, they must sign
another treaty with the United States Government, and release all white and
black prisoners in the Cherokee Nation. Otherwise, their warriors would be shot;
the women and children and old ones sent into slavery.
76
The message had its effect. The Great White Father and his commissioners knew
that the most effective means to break the fighting spirit and resistance of the
Cherokee people, and to gain their lands, was to burn their villages, kill the
leaders and warriors, and take women, children and the old people prisoners.
Repeating this procedure every few years - when Indian lands were needed for the
white settlers - would break any Indian nation, and cause it to fold. It had
been very effective in past times with the fathers of the white ones who called
themselves Americans.
In utter defeat, Sequoyah, Whitepath, Uhyalug and almost two hundred warriors
returned to the vitlage of Tsatsi Ughvi in the North Carolina mountains. Along
the way, warriors stopped off in villages where their families had taken refuge
with clan relatives.
Groups of Cherokee volunteer workers were permitted by Governor Blount, under a
white flag of truce, to clean up the mess of dead in the burned-out villages in
Tennessee and Georgia. Two weeks later, Doublehead and John Watts released all
the white and black prisoners in the nation, and signed the treaty for the so-
called resister faction of the nation at the Tellico Blockhouse in early
November 1 794~ Additional Cherokee lands in Tennessee and North Carolina were
ceded to the United States. This cession of lands sealed the doom for thousands
of Cherokees who were followers of Dragging Canoe's fighting force, and on whose
lands at the time were five working gold mines, three on lands ceded.
Navigation on the Tennessee River by Cherokees, who since 1780, had traded their
gold directly to the Spanish for needed war supplies, and other trade goods, was
all but stopped. After the destruction of the seven fighting villages near the
Tennessee River, the whites patrolled and controlled the river route. Also,
white settlers had settled on the west side of the river, and fired upon the
Indians in their canoes whenever they used this route of travel. Since the
Treaty of Holston in 1791, in which Article V Istated: "It is stipulated and
agreed, that the citizens and inhabi-
77
tants of the United States, shall have a free and unmolested use of a road from
Washington district to Mero district, and of the navigation of the Tennessee
River."
The river became a traffic jammed highway, flooded with white boats. When the
Cherokees signed the treaty with the whites, they thought that the whites would
abide by the treaty agreements. None 'ever did.
Article VI in the Treaty of Holston, gave the United States the sole right to
regulate Cherokee trade. This further crushed the fighting villages. Cherokee
gold, mined and hidden away in the caves, could never be used as a medium of
exchange with the United States.
Sequoyah's father-in-law, Tsatsi Ughvi, was indeed a lucky man. His village
lands and gold mine were not on the lands ceded to the United States. But the
Anglo squatters continued their push. Like the red-tail hawk flying over the
mountains and valleys, looking for nests of rabbits in the tall grasses and
brush, they settled within six miles of Tsatsi Ughvi's winding mountain cove.
Although Sequoyah's father-in-law and the people in his village were well-fixed
with a good fall harvest, the winter of 1794-95 was a lean one of near
starvation for many thousands of Cherokees living with clan relatives after the
devastating war with the whites. Tsatsi Ughvi shared his communal harvest with
tribesmen, many of whom had nothing but the clothes on their backs.
78
Seven
THE TEACHER AND WESTWARD FOOTSTEPS
DURING THE WINTER of 1794-95, Sequoyah had the opportunity to take a good slow
look about his nation, where boundary lines had been marked with the United
States red and white tin markers, telling the Cherokees that they were
trespassing on lands taken from them, and closing in on the Indians a circle of
white settlements, like horses trapped on an island pasture. He pondered Indian
freedom and independence under the mighty power of the United States Government
- to become an "ant," or to seek independence and freedom to "become my own
master," like other groups of Cherokees who had given up the homelands of their
ancestors in the East for new homes in the West controlled by Spain.
He patiently waited, watched and wrote, for his concern was for those of his
people who, like himself, desired Indian freedom and independence.
Meanwhile, Doublehead, whom the people depended upon to show strength and sense
to the United States Government agents, turned out to be a sodden drunkard. He
lived in the government's newly built house on Wills Creek, where whiskey was
made, and flowed like a river.
The Indian agents were instructed to pamper the remaining so£alled "resistive"
chiefs. The Great White Father's dealings with Indians to gain their "good
will," dependence, and land cessions was to build the chiefs a fine log house
like the whites; set them up with a few black slaves, horses, cattle, and hogs,
which the government's armies had raided and previously con-
79
fiscated from the Cherokees all over their nation; give them and their families
fine clothes made by the whites - their styles to impress upon the rest of the
people a desire for wealth and material things like the Anglos accumulated for
social and political status.
Many Cherokee chiefs could not be "bought." But there were some who could be. It
was from taking the Angl~American bribes, and other clever ways thought up by
the whites, that the Indian nation was divided. By such means the whites were
able to gain control of the people, destroy tribal life, and monopolize Indian
trade without the consent of the majority of the tribe. These tactics had caused
confusion, scattered, and split factions among Indians, ever since the Pilgrims
landed on the rock.
Since the United States Government had knowledge of the Cherokee syllabary, and
the Indians were a divided and helpless people, the government decided it was
time to strike - to experiment with an entire tribe. The Great White Father
thought that if Indians could read and write their own language, they could be
forced to learn another - English. If the ''venture" worked, the government
would appropriate money to civilize and educate the heathens. 1
Once before in 1730, this "great experiment" had been tried, by the British, on
the small Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina.. The Lumbees readi,~ly adopted the
white man's language, customs and culture, and became "copies of white people."
Tribal life-ways were destroyed. And during the early seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, many sons and daughters of the chiefs and mixed-bloods from the
northern and southern Indian tribes had been sent to England, Scotland, Spain
and France to become civilized" and white educated. But the earlier test was on
a smaller scale.
So on September 30,1795, William Blount called for a national council of all the
village chiefs in the Cherokee Nation, to be held at the Tellico Blockhouse.
1 In 1803, Congress appropriated $3,000 to civilize and educate the heathens.
"Chronology of Indian History: 1492-1955," American Aborigine, Vol. IV, No.1.
80 Sequoyah went to the meeting. With him was his father-in-law, Tsatsi Ughvi,
and Whitepath. He was not a chief. The purpose of this meeting was to introduce
to the Cherokee chiefs the United States Government's "great experiment" plan by
missionaries named Christian Frederic de Schweninitz and Abra ham Steiner. After
the council, Sequoyah wrote, both in the syllabary and in English, Rev.
Schweninitis talk. It is given in part, with corrected spelling and punctuation,
as follows:
I am come to you by the desire of your Great Father, the president of the United
States, and of your good fathers of the Society of United Brethren. The day of
wars are now past. A glorious day is dawning. Never before was the prospect for
Cherokees so bright. Your fathers, the Christian white people, are rejoicing in
these events, and praying to God for their red children. They are making plans
for your happiness. The president, your great Father and the Congress of the
United States, the great council of our nation feel for you, and wishes to
promote your welfare. I am come in behalf of your Great Father to offer you the
hand of sincere friendship, and the blessings which he has to bestow upon you.
You, the Cherokees, have been chosen over all other tribes of Indians to receive
these blessings. We wish you to receive them, because we know if you do they
will make you and your people happy. If you refuse them, the consequences to
you, and your posterity will be lamentable. Your game is already diminishing and
soon will be gone. You will waste away and perish as hundreds of tribes of your
brethren in the country East of you have so successively perished before you...
Children, your father, the president, thinks that a great change is necessary in
order to save his red children from ruin, and to make them happy. I will now lay
before you some of the reasons why he believes that such a change in your
situation is necessary for your existence and happiness.
Children, listen attentively to what I am now about to say to you. It is for
your life and the life of your children.
Your fathers once possessed all the country, East and South, North and West to
the great waters. They were numerous and powerful, and lived chiefly by
lijinting and fishing. They had brave warriors, orators, and eloquent men in
council. Then a great pestilence spread among Indians on the coast of the great
ocean to the East, and swept away a great part of them. Just after this great
plague, the white peo-
81
ple began to come across the great waters. They settled first on lands where no
Indians lived; where all had died. Other white people came. These white people
came as friends of the Indians. They purchased of them a little land to support
them and their children by agriculture. God prospered the white people, and they
have since increased and multiplied. They became a great and powerful nation,
and now spread over a wide extent of the country of your fathers; and are
spreading still more over other parts of it, purchasing millions of acres of
your good lands, leaving for you and your children, reservations.
Indians cannot associate with the white people as their equals, while they still
retain their present language, dress, and habits of life. They will feel
inferior to the white person. Where Indians have no game to hunt, to furnish
them with furs to trade and with food to eat, they become poor people, wretched
and spiritless. They give themselves up to idleness, ignorance, and drunkenness
and waste away. You cannot go to the East or West for the great ocean will stop
you, and besides either course are the hunting grounds and dwelling places of
other tribes of your red brethren. Nor can you go to any other country and live
as you now live, the countries are already in-habited... This prospect must fill
your minds with sad apprehensions for yourselves and your children, and sink
your spirits as it does my own... Children be of good cheer. Though your
prospects may now be gloomy, they can change for the best if you wish it. If you
desire to be happy, you can be happy. They are now freely offered to you.
Children listen. I will tell you in a few words what your Great Father and
Christian white people desire of you. We lay before you our opinion for you to
consider. Consider our advice well. Your father, the president, wishes Cherokees
to partake with his white children, in all the blessings which they enjoy; to
have one country, one govremment, the same laws, equal rights and privileges,
and to be in all respects on equal footing with them. These blessings Cherokees
cannot enjoy while they remain ignorant of our laws, language, religion, our
government and modes of life - while you live in hunter state, dress as you now
dress, and live in small villages.
Your father would have you learn our language. You who are old may not be able
to learn it, but you can have your children learn it. Your father wishes you to
quit hunting for your food, and live by cultivating the earth. Your father
wishes you to divide your lands into townships and farms, as the lands of the
white people are di-
82
vided; each man to have a farm of his own with title which he can transmit to
his children; a house and barn, oxen, cows, and horses; fields of corn, wheat
and potatoes, gardens and fruit, and to dress and live like the white people; to
have one language and to enjoy all the comforts of life. In this way you would
avoid the evils which you are now suffering... You would then be companions and
equals with your white brethren, and be prepared, in due time to sit and
deliberate with them in the councils of the nation. To accomplish these good
purposes, your Great Father, the president, and your Christian fathers will send
among you at their own expense, good white men and women to instruct you and
your children in everything that per-tains to the civilized and Christian
life... We would wish the Cher~ kees to accept these offers... All who accept
them will be saved and raised to respectability and usefulness in life...
Civilization or ruin is the only alternative of the Cherokees....
The speech of the missionaries tore into Sequoyah's soul like a winging arrow.
These white people, whose armies had shattered the Cherokee Tribe and had taken
their lands, were saying to the Indians, give up your culture - your life-ways
which we don't like, nor understand - and do as I do. Destroy every living thing
that stands in your way to accomplish this purpose in life, like white people
did. It was like telling birds to become like snakes.
Chief Doublehead told the missionaries, on behalf of the subdued fighting
faction of his people, that no missionaries, nor anyone else who wished to
change tribal life would be permitted to come and live in the nation. But many
of the friendlies and mixed-blood village chiefs agreed to allow the
missionaries to live in their village, and to teach them and their children.
On their return to their village, the former fighting faction of chiefs held a
general council in Tsatsi Ughvi's village. Sequoyah made a great decision at
that council. It was decided to forego the requirement of ancient Taliwa blood;
admit all trusted Cherokees to the Seven Clan Scribe Society, and to fight the
"great experiment" civilization program of the United States government with
their own syllabary, to be taught to all who wished to learn their own writing
and reading. Sequoyah was
83
the only scribe left in the nation. Others had been either killed, or had
removed to the West.
So the teaching task began in October 1795. In each village chief's council, the
people gathered and were informed about the ninety-two symbols that represented
parts of syllables in their language, and were shown the ancient thin gold
plates upon which the symbols' were engraved by their forefathers - the Taliwa.2
He explained to ihem that many of the symbols and syllables stood for different
word meanings, and that there was no capitalization, nor punctuation to be used
in writing the syllabary. The people were instructed on how to write the
symbols, and how to read them according to the dialect that they spoke, using
one of the six symbols as a mnemonic key to their own particular dialect.
Sequoyah showed them how to use the mnemonic key symbols the length and pitch
sounds of the spoken language. A symbol syllabary, and a hard-printed dictionary
of all Cherokee words and their meanings were presented to each village, along
with a Cherokee number syllabary up to one million.
During Sequoyah's teaching session, he was busy part of the time compiling names
of tribal members of each of the seven clans. A record of those members trusted,
and those known to be traitors among the tribe were listed on thick logbooks.
These tribal name records are the property of descendants living in Mexico and
Central America whose ancestors fled into exile.
In late December 1795, Sequoyah's second wife, Tsisdunigisdi, died after giving
birth to a baby girl. The baby lived, increasing his family to three boys and
three girls. Whitepath and his family, and many of the former warriors and their
families, moved from Sequoyah's father-in-law's valley to their newly-built
village at the foot of Turnip Mountain on the North Carolina and Georgia line.
Sequoyah's teaching task did not begin too soon. In the spring of 1796, there
came, into the four corners of the Cherokee Na-
2 There are 92 symbols in the original Cherokee syllabary. Seven symbols were
discarded by the Rev. Samuel A. Worcester, and many others were reworked within
the framework of the Roman letters. Six of the discarded symbols served as a key
to the six different dialects in the language.
84
tion, the worst invasion of whites that had occurred since the late wars with
the white armies two years previous. The Great White rather began his push to
civilize the Cherokees, and to force them to become like the whites.
Teachers and missionaries of every sort came to the nation to teach the heathens
English and Christianity. Blacksmiths, carpenters, millers, tinsmiths, cobblers,
weavers, dressmakers and the like, both men and women, flooded the nation.
Others came to build roads, to mine the ore in the earth, and to spy for the
Great White Father and his Indian agents. These "good government workers," whose
own education and talents were limited, stole and raped the defeated Indian
nation.
The "experiment" began at the mixed-blood and friendlies villages, which were
located nearer to the white settlements and the public roads being built in the
nation. The mass of the Cherokees did not want nor desire the white conformity
program forced upon them, nor the constant arguing and quarreling of the
missionaries and teachers who, when confronted with Indian stubbornness and
silence, taunted the Indians by poking fun at their color and cultural heritage,
low-rating and stripping the elders in the eyes of their young.
One night in August 1797, Sequoyah became ill with a burning fever, and for two
days fell into a deep sleep. In that sleep, a dream came to him. He heard cries
of women and children. He saw great warriors, with whom he had once fought and
who had taken much "white hair," standing at the white man's fort in their
country, holding out their hands for the Angl~American made goods. He saw
soldiers grinning like 'possums, handing out gourds of whiskey to the warriors
and their women from wooden barrels, and ears of corn to the children from a
corn pile at the fort gate. On and on he heard the women and children crying.
Then he saw an Indian man on a red horse trotting toward him from the east. The
man wore a white buckskin shirt and leggings. His head and feet were bare. On
the man's shoulder, rode a white buzzard. As the Indian passed toward the west,
he yelled to Sequoyah, "Ka! Ka! Ka!" Then he vanished into white clouds.
85
When Sequoyah awoke, he asked for Whitewater, the conjurer and special diviner
of Tsatsi Ughvi's village. He told him of his dream He asked Whitewater to go
with him to the top of Unegv (White) Mountain, to the sacred white pool of water
that flowed from a bubbling spring, to determine the cause of his illness and
the meaning of his dream. He gave Whitewater a large gold nugget for his
services.
On top of Unegv Mountain, beside the pool of clear white water, Whitewater cut a
stick three feet long from a cedar tree, and at daybreak went alone to tha edge
of the pool. Facing the reddening Fast, he put one end of the stick in his mouth
to moisten it, and told his name, his patient's name, and both clan names. Then
he placed the unmoistened end of the stick down into the water until it was half
immersed. Slowly, he made four counterclockwise circles of two feet in diameter,
timing each with a full statement of a prayer, until the text of the divining
charm was fully stated. When the prayer was finished, Whitewater brought the
stick to the center of the circle, where it rested, while he studied the
appearance of the water within the circle. The water in the pool remained clear
and still. Nothing moved. Whitewater told Sequoyah that the still water was a
bad omen; that he was that man on the red horse in his dream going to the West
to find a new place for their crying women and children, and that he would give
him a special idigawesdi for his protection when he was ready to go.
At a general council in Tsatsi Ughvi's village, of all conservative village
chiefs of the nation's faction, and Chief Doublehead, Sequoyah told the people
his dream. He told about the evil sign, and his decision to go to the West.
Village chiefs said that they wished him to go and see the Western country -
what it was like - and to return to the old country when his family was settled.
"They too would want to go if it was a good land," they said.
When Sequoyah told his people of his decision to go West, he never thought that
many might wish to go with him and his family. But it became evident when Tsesi
Tsola, whose village was destroyed in 1793, and his lands ceded to the
government,
86
told Sequoyah that he and another village chief, Canon, their families and
clansmen wished to leave the nation with him.
Preparations were made for the western emigrants. From Tsatsi Ughvi's village,
clansmen donated eighteen horses that had escaped the white armies' destruction.
Some of these were packed with Indian dehydrated food, a little clothing and
blankets, axes, bows and aTrows, and a few guns and ammunition.
On the sixteenth day of October, 1797, Sequoyah, with his wife and six children,
and Tsesi Tsola, political chief of the group of eighty-nine Cherokees, began
their journey to the West. The men and women walked, while the children rode the
packed horses through their southern neighbors' country, the Creeks and
Chickasaws of Alabama and Mississippi.
Sequoyah's position with his small group was that of scribe, guide and speaker,
since he spoke several Indian languages, as well as Spanish, fair English, and
phonetic French. His knowl-edge of the country beyond the Mississippi was vital
to the small group of emigrant Indians. He had been there many times on missions
for Chief Dragging Canoe. But the political responsibility of the group was
under the leadership of Tsesi Tsola, brother of one of Dragging Canoe's deceased
wives, and his assistant, Canon.
Sequoyah never wished to become a leader - a chief, and he never considered
himself as one - he never referred to himself as Chief Tsatsi Tvsis. His
mountain people chose him to lead and guide them because of his judgment, keen
knowledge, understanding, and action. In him, the people saw and felt the
strength of endurance as a people.
Tsatsi Ughvi gave each man, the head of a family, a buckskin pouch of gold
nuggets - a tribal religious gift of the Earth Mother. The old man gave his
eldest daughter, wife of Sequ~ yah, seven buckskin pouches of gold, for her to
give as presents to the tribe on whose lands the Cherokees would be bound to
settle.
They crossed the Mississippi River, at a place known today as Memphis, and
continued their journey through the Spanish
87 Territory to the Trinity River in what is now Texas. There Chief Springfrog
had his Cherokee settlement.
Many groups of Cherokees had emigrated to the West during the early seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries, under leadership of chosen chiefs. Some of these split
groups settled on lands which belonged to the Osage Tribe, without the Osage
permis-sion. The Osage were trying to hold on to their hunting lands and the
profitable fur trade with the French fur traders who had established trading
stores among them. Like the Cherokees, other emigrant tribes from east of the
Mississippi were crowding in on Osage lands, and taking their hunting lands for
themselves.
There were many battles between the Osage and the older roups of Cherokees who
had settled in what is today known as Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kansas.
Fighting other tribes of Western Indians did not appeal to Sequoyah, and Tsesi
Tsola, who knew of the Cherokee and Osage battles, chose to go farther beyond
across the Red River. Here there were more lands, and less crowded.
The Cherokees were agricultural people - the same as most Indian tribes. They
hunted to provide their meat and some clothing supplies. There was no
compulsion, nor desire to store up material wealth as the whites' accumulated.
Cultural teachings taught Indians to share what they had with other members of
the tribe. Not to share brings humility and shame upon any conservative Indian.
Indians who emigrated to the West needed little of the material goods. The lands
provided food, clothing and shelter. All that they desired was independence and
happi-ness.
Sequoyah and his group arrived at Chief Springfrog's settlement on the Trinity
River in mid January of 1798. They were welcomed by their tribesmen, and the
emigrants lived in the homes of their kinsmen for more than a year.
In the late summer of 1799, Sequoyah, Tsesi Tsola and Ganon settled their group
along a clear river, a day's horseback ride from Springfrog's settlement - lands
that belonged to the Comanches. Grass in the valley was head high. Along the
river were pecan, oak, and walnut trees for building their homes.
88
The first few years in the West were different and peaceful for Sequoyah and
Tsesi Tsola's group, even though the emigrants missed the homelands of their
ancestors. Few white people lived in the West, for the Spanish had done little
to populate Indian lands with their people.
The Spanish operated a trading post and garrison on what is now the Louisiana
and Texas line at Nacogdoches. The El Camino Real (the King's Road) began out of
Coahuila to San Antonio (a Spanish mission), on to Bexar (another mission), and
to Nacogdoches. But the Cherokees, as well as some other emigrated Indians,
lived away from the Spanish. The Indians did not wish to be controlled by white
men and their laws, which they did not understand, nor wish to understand.
Indians traded with Indians. They hunted the wild sheep, goats, buffalo, horses
and wild cattle on the plains and in the mountains. The lands gave them
everything they needed and wanted, even to gold and silver for jewelry, and a
medium of exchange with other tribes whenever they needed other trade goods.
89
Eight
RETURN TO THE OLD NATION
IN THE EARLY summer of 1806, Sequoyah, Uhyalug and assistant Ganon returned to
the southeastern Cherokee Nation. Sequoyah told his people about the Western
country and their
peaceful settlement on the Brazos River. Encouraged and sattisfied with the
"painted" description of the West, Sequoyah led
another group of eight hundred and twelve of his people to the
West
This was the year of near starvation of the people in the old nation. Crops
failed. The year of the smallpox epidemic in the East as well as the West - one
of the white man's bad diseases. In Springfrog's settlement on Trinity River,
Springfrog and many of his people died from the plague. It was also the year
that Chief Doublehead chose to emigrate the majority of his people to the West.
Since the fall of the nation in 1794, up to 1806, under forced pressure from the
United States Government and its agents, Chief Doublehead had signed one land
ceding treaty after another, every year or so, until very little of their lands
re-mained in the southeast nation. The lands ceded in 1806, by Chief Doublehead
and other village chiefs, were exchanged with the government - with the usual
money bribes, and annuities in trade goods - for new lands in the newly
purchased Louisiana Territory. These new lands of the Cherokees emigrating to
the West, who still remained under the sovereignty of the United
States, were in the Arkansas Territory, extending to the Missouri
90 Territory. There were already many thousands of Western Cherokees scattered,
in small groups with their chosen leader, who lived from the White River in the
southwest corner of the Missouri Territory to the headwaters of the Arkansas in
the Rocky Mountains, and southwestward between the forks of the Canadian and
Colorado Rivers in the Spanish Territory.
The Cherokees who wished to remain under the sovereignty of the United States,
moved years later to the old and established settlements in what is today
Arkansas and Eastern Oklahoma, under the leadership of Chief Digadoya.1 Other
Cherokee groups moved across the Red and Colorado Rivers, which was then the
dividing line between the United States and Spain.
The United States GovernmenCs "great experiment" had worked so forcibly on the
mixed-blood and friendly Cherokees that, in 1803, three thousand dollars were
appropriated to civilize and educate the heathens. In 1804, the Cherokee removal
clause was attached to the Louisiana Purchase provision. Chief Doublehead and
other village chiefs of the nation, who signed a land ceding treaty with the
government that year, learned about it. President Jefferson told the Cherokee
chiefs that they would follow the civilization and educational program set up by
President Washington, or be crushed by it; that they could remove to the West to
avoid it if they wished. Chief Doublehead said that he would divide the nation -
those of his people who wished to become educated, and like the white people
could live in one part, and those who wished to retain their own native laws,
culture and tribal heritage, could live in the other part. But the United States
Government would not listen, nor would they agree to Doublehead's wishes. The
Indians were wild animals and "wards" of the white man's government and its laws
- they were told what to do. Indians, as far as the United States Government was
concerned, had no wishes, nor desires of their own. These wild animals were to
be tamed by the Great White Father, and his "dogooders." So the only recourse
and escape left to Doublehead was to immi-
1 The Man Stands, commonly referred to in literature as Takotoka.
92
grate the mass of his people to the West - exactly what the United States
Government knew an Indian chief whose concern for his people would do.
The government gladly furnished Doublehead with flatboats, and promised him a
part of the annuities paid to the southeast nation for land cessions; and
between the summer of 1806 to 1808, Chief Doublehead, with much help from
Sequoyah, Ganon, Uhyalug, and many Western Cherokees, moved more than five
thousand of their people to the West.
But when Chief Doublehead returned in 1808 for several more boatloads of
emigrant Indians, he was shot and killed by John Ridge, a fullblood white-
educated traitor who had sold his soul to the white man for material wealth,
social and political prestige - the socalled "good capitalist way.' The
government had trained the friendlies to turn their backs on their own people,
heritage and tribal welfare. These "good Indians" were ashamed of being Indians.
They were ashamed of being brown-skinned.
The friendlies figured that should the majority of their people emigrate to the
West, the minority would be forced by the government to join their brothers.
Approximately nine to ten thousand Cherokees had learned the United States' mode
of capitalism. These had no intention of leaving their homelands. To prevent the
majority of the people from emigrating, and further land cessions to the United
States, John Ridge was selected to eliminate Chief Doublehead - the majority's
chief of the split nation. Without the wisdom, judgment and leadership Iof their
chosen chief to help the mass of the people to the West, the Indians would give
up the idea, become confused and reconciled to live under the "New Order" 2 of
Cherokee government and leadership.
2 The New Order Cherokee government and leadership was based on European concept
of dominance by a central figure, which began in 1730. The principal chief was
selected by the president of the United States because of his military aid and
alliance to the small nation, and his power to destroy tribal life-ways.
93
Again in 1809, Sequoyah and Ganon returned to the southeast nation to move
another small group of their mountain people to the settlement on the Brazos
River. Sequoyah saw the drastic changes that had taken place in his tw~year
absence. Those Cherokees who lived in the northwest corner of Alabama, north
Georgia, and some near the Tellico trading factory and garrison in southeast
Tennessee, were following the Anglo's culture and customs to become capitalists.
They accepted the civilization and educational program that offered the white
man S teachings, his religion and his materialistic wealth, in order to live in
their native homelands and to compete with the whites.
The conservative faction, who lived in the mountain coves of Tennessee and the
western corner of North Carolina refused the "great experiment" - to abandon
their tribal heritage, culture and language, and take up the white man's mode of
civilization in order to "please the whites." They grubbed their living out of
the ground, as they had done in the past. But there was a drastic change and
difference from past times. Conservative Indians could hunt the game to
supplement their food sum ply, and could use their hidden gold whenever there
was a need for trade goods to trade with Indian traders or the Spanish in the
IiSouthwest. This was of critical import in a crop failure - they were able to
get agricultural products for gold. Now the wild game was gone from their
closed-in nation. Their gold was useless. They could neither eat it, wear it,
nor trade it with the Angl~Americans who regulated Cherokee trade. And noncon-
forming Cherokees were told by the New Order principal chief and the
missionaries to accept the whites' civilization program; or to "root hog or
die!"
Indeed, in the year 1809, Sequoyah urged Whitepath and his father-in-law, and
all conservatives living in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, to
fight the "rulers," and preserve their heritage. He said, "You must not become
like them. You will be destroyed. The children must learn to write and read our
language . .. what others write to them, a mile away, or a thousand miles away."
He told them that their most
94
effective and defensive tool against the teachers and missionaries of the United
States Government was their written syllabary, and he asked them to use it to
communicate with others throughout the nation and in the West, but to keep the
"secret weapon" their own heritage and gift from the ancient ones. Sequoyah and
Ganon promised they would return in a year to emigrate the balance of nearly
three thousand of their people to the West. Whitepath and Sequoyah's father-
in4aw, Tsatsi Ughvi, remained in the old nation to help their people - the
nonconformists.
In the summer of 1810 an epidemic of cholera broke out in Tejas (Texas), and the
War of Independence began in Mexico the same year. Also, in December of 1811, an
earthquake occurred in Tennessee, on the Mississippi River, which was felt by
the Indians as far west as the Colorado River. In Tennessee, areas of land sank,
forest and ~l, and into this hole of the Earth Mother, overflowed the waters of
the Mississippi River, trapping and killing whites and Indians alike. The place
today is known as Reelfoot Lake. In the West, on the Brazos River, Cherokee
emigrants and other Indian tribes felt the blunt of the earthquake. The Earth
Mother shook herself so hard that she split herself open, swallowing up whole
forests, creating the falls of the Brazos, and leaving a trim line of "Tall
Timbers" (forest), five to fifty miles wide from the Trinity northward to the
Arkansas. Indian settlements were shattered.
Because of these conditions, and the cholera which Sequoyah contracted, he and
his assistants were forced to wait until the following year to move the balance
of his people to the West.
But the United States war with England began in the year 1812, and the little
new nation needed the Cherokees and other eastern Indian tribes to help defend
the sovereign country. Too, there was the Spanish to contend with, and so close
- the United States Government could not afford to allow any more southern
Indians to move to the West at that critical period. They were fearful that the
dissatisfied and conquered Indians might unite and fight on behalf of the enemy,
which many tribes did.
95
So in order to keep the Western chiefs happy and contented, and allies to the
United States, 3 the United States Government hurriedly sent emissaries to carry
the Great White Father's "presents" to the Western Cherokees, and to force them
to choose sides against Great Britain. The most qualified and trusted allies
that Indian agent, Return Jonathan Meigs could find was the future chief, John
Ross, and his selected partisans, George Lowery, his brother John Lowery, and
John Ridge.
Sequoyah and Ganon were unable to emigrate the Cherokee faction from the old
country until the white people stopped fighting among themselves - if they ever
stopped.
3 Aside from the fact of the so-called evidence of George Guess's war record in
the Creek War of 1813, and Sally Guest, his supposed wife's affidavit with
Indian agent George Builer in October 1855 for government bounty land; no
Cherokee could own land privately in the Cherokee Nation. Improvements such as
homes, barns, and aops on the lands were private property. The lands were tribal
property. Chief John Ross and his assistants knew this when they made the sworn
statement before a Jusfice of the Peace in Washington in May, 1860.
Nine
BRANDED
THERE WAS an interval of six years before Sequoyah returned to the southeastern
Cherokee Nation. During the waiting period his first wife Tsini died from the
cholera. When he received a letter from his brother Whitepath, and one from his
father-in-law, informing him that they were ready and waiting to move their
faction of the people to the West in the summer of 1816, he decided that it
would also be an excellent time to "hunt" for a wife while in the old nation.
In one of his father-in-law's previous letters, he had related to Sequoyah that
his youngest daughter, Eli was a recent widow, caused by the beating given her
husband by Joseph Vann. Sequoyah thought that the sister of his first wife would
be an ideal wife, if she would marry him. He thought that her shorn hair should
be shoulder length in two years' time.
In late September 1816, Sequoyah and Uhyalug crossed the Mississippi River into
Mississippi, riding the land route through the Choctaw and Creek Nations,
leading one pack horse loaded with presents for relatives in the old nation. To
impress Eli and his in4aws, Sequoyah wore his finest clothes of white buckskin.
His hunting shirt was fringed around the sleeves and bottom. Across the back and
down the front were brilliantly cut beads of turquoise and red polished stones.
The shirt reached to his knees, and was tied with a belt made of interwoven red
and white horsehair. Under the shirt, he wore white buckskin pants, drawstring
tied around the waist. His moccasins were dyed
99
brown from the walnut smoke, and his companion, Uhyalug was equally as well
dressed.
Whitepath had informed Sequoyah of the nation's new police force, the "Light
Horse Guard," who patrolled the nation and its borders, preventing intruders
from entering unless they had a little piece of paper with their name upon it
stating their business in the nation, and issued by the principal chief of the
New Order Cherokee government. The paper was called a pass." The Indian agent,
Meigs had instructed the principal chief and his assistants how to use it.
Sequoyah and Uhyalug were watchful when they crossed into the old country, and
climbed their horses into the mountains across to North Carolina and into the
valley of Tsatsi Ughvi.
Four hundred and sixty-two people were in the village to welcome Sequoyah and
Uhyalug home. But due to illness, Whitepath and his family were unable to attend
the celebration and homecoming.
Through Uhyalug, Sequoyah presented to Eli a sacred white buffalo robe, and she
returned to him the sacred ear of colored corn, her willingness to become his
wife. So the Blanket Dance and feast was held on the seventh day.
Neither Sequoyah, nor Eli was considered young. He was fifty, and she was
thirty-nine. He had seven living children.
Her two by Dayi had died in infancy. Sequoyah, nearly six feet tall, wore his
hair shoulder length. It is said that Eli was short, little and light, like a
child.
Sequoyah and Eli lived temporarily in a house in his father-in-law's village
until arrangements and a council of all conservatives who wished to emigrate to
the West could be held at Tsatsi Ughvi's village.
When Sequoyah had received no message from Whitepath in two weeks, he had sent a
letter to him, by Uhyalug, "to see what was the matter. And another letter was
written to a vilage chief, Tsulogilia whose village Uhyalug would pass through
on his way to Whitepath. The words in the corn shuck letter that Sequoyah wrote
Whitepath are the following:
100
Beloved brother: Now, Now I send you 'this letter. I wish you come to my in-laws
place, Tsatsi Uglivi. The one called Eli walks behind me. It happened fourteen
suns ago. We are to talk about going where the sun goes down. I ask you to come
my brother, and bring the others to talk, and the tobacco. I, Tsatsi Tvsis just
wrote this, October 28, 1816.
While riding through the mountains, on his way to Whitepath's village, Uhyalug
was discovered by the Cherokee Nation police. They asked to see his pass, and
searched him, since the clothing he wore was evidence to them that he was not a
permanent Cherokee resident of the nation. And any Cherokee from the West was
considered an enemy and traitor by the Iron Rule progressive leaders.
The Indian police found the letter to Whitepath, and being ignorant of the
Cherokeean written symbols, they asked Uhyalug what they were, and where he was
going. He refused to divulge the secret written syllabary and his destinaton.
The police beat him with their gun butts. Still Uhyalug refused to tell them
what they wished to know. In order to obtain the information from him, the
police took hirn to Major John Ridge, at Ridge's Ferry on the Tennessee River.
At Major Ridge's place, the New Order Cherokee Rulers, composed of Major Ridge,
Chief Pathkiller, George Lowery, John Lowery, John Ridge (Major Ridge's son),
Thomas Sanders, David Vann and James Brown tortured Uhyalug by whim ping his
bare back with a green cut stick. When this method failed to produce the desired
results, they cut off his nose; then his ears and fingers. Still they got
nothing from him. Then they sent out among the people for those who had gone
raving crazy from the religiously fanatic teachings of the missionaries. These
crazy Cherokees were told that Uhyalug was a witch, and to kill him. The crazy
ones immediately did as they were told - cutting Uhyalug to pieces with knives
furnished by the destroyers.
Before Uhyalug died, he uttered one word of his magic charm which the Rulers
understood to be Whitepath. So the Cherokee police and the others, except Chief
Pathkiller, proceeded to Whitepath's village. The police and Major Ridge found
the
101
ideal method by which they forced Whitepath to read and explain the strange
symbols to them-even though he was sick, and lying on a feather mat on the floor
of his home. The police took his wife away from him with the threat of bonded
slavery to her; therefore, Whitepath was forced to reveal to them the contents
of Sequoyah's letter.
After Whitepath read Sequoyah's letter to the group, he proudly said to them:
"We got our own talking leaf. It is written; there you see! We have no need for
the white man's words, his laws."
Whitepath was forced to take Major Ridge, George Lowery, John Ridge, David Vann,
James Brown and two preachers by the name of Potts and Turtle Fields, and the
eight police to the village of Tsatsi Ughvi. There Sequoyah was staying with his
new wife. Whitepath was a member of the newly formed Cherokee council. 1 His
conservative people had chosen him for that position. He was the one village
chief whom the nonconforming Indians could depend upon for good judgment, to
"show strength," and to watch and listen to the talks of the leaders for the
benefit of the people waiting to emigrate to the West.
Gedi, the daughter of Sequoyah and Eli, describes in one of her ledger books
what happened to her father and mother when the rulers of the southeastern
nation discovered the one whose force shadowed the Cherokee syllabary, and that
the "marks" really did "talk":
... Now many times my father, Sogwali and my mother Eli tell me, my sisters and
brothers how the Rulers stole our writings, and made the symbols over. And the
reason my father Sogwali was cut it" and branded.
My father Sogwali was living at my grandfather Tsatsi Ughvi's place on White
Fires River with my mother Eli in North Carolina. They come. Yes! George Lowery,
John Lowery, Major Ridge, John Ridge, James Brown, preachers by the names of
Potts and Fields, and the Light Horse Guard. Whitepath was made to bring them.
1 Laws of the Cherokee Nation, Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, (C.N.), Cherokee
Advocate Office, 1852. Pp 213-215.
102
They are the ones who first formed a council to judge my father Sogwali. They
not know that most of our trusted people could rea and write our language.
Hundreds of years, our people hide what they write from the unegvs {whites] and
traitors.
They come riding down the side of the mountain to my grand father's place. The
place where my father and mother was living wa about half mile away. That
traitor, Major Ridge, and whiteblood George Lowery were the speakers. They tell
my grandfather they want to see the man that wrote that letter to Whitepath, and
sign his name Tsatsi Tysis. Whitepath tell my grandfather, Tsatsi Ughvi "Beloved
brother, I did not wish to bring them here; they forced me to come. I do not
wish you and my brother Sogwali evil from them..." My grandfather say to Major
Ridge that he would go to the house of my father Sogwali, and tell him he was
wanted by members of the council of the nation. George Lowery7 John Ridge, anc
Fields went with my grandfather. Others sat on kanons and the ground in the yard
of my grandfather's home and waited.
It was middle of morning in November i8i6.
My father Sogwali and mother Eli returned with grandfather and the others. My
mother's sisters and my mother's brothers, and many people of grandfather's
village come when they see that they were it the company of men from Dunasi
(Tennessee]. All went to the council house. My father Sogwali, went to Whitepath
and took his hands. Whitepath say to him that he was truly pained to cause him
trouble and to say his igawesdi....
Then Major Ridge spoke to my father. He said: "We saw that letter you wrote with
marks; we heard the words read by White path, your brother. We do not like what
we heard from thai piece of corn shuck paper. Our people do not leave the lands
of their Old Ones. We have preachers, teachers, and black books to teach Iour
people and their children wavs of the whites. We are learning. You that come
back from the West, put evil thoughts in our pco pIe's heads. Our people don't
learn. They want to leave the old country. We want to see you write your magic
marks. We want you to read what you write."
George Lowery tell my grandfather to bring pen and paper. Young Squirrel,
grandfathers son, go to his house and bring back corn shuck paper and charcoal.
He give these to my father Sogwali. My father asked what he should write. Major
Ridge tell him to write what he should like that he can read to them. My father
wrote in the
103
Anitasgigi dialect; these words: "The lands of our Old Ones are the lands of the
whites and black coats. Our people will die in the smoke of the white fire
kindled by the whites among them. Like the mad dog, they will die." He read the
words to them.
George Lowery and Turtle Fields jumped to their feet, and called my father a
devil. A Sigwoyi. A evil man. They hit him with guns. Then they took my father
Sogwali by the arms and tied him. Major Ridge say to my father that he was a
witch. "You know what will happen to you if you are found to be a witch. You
will be cut-up and burned."
The preachers, Potts and Fields, say that my father Sogwali was a sorcerer. That
the devil was in him, to kill him there. Quickly. Major Ridge say: "No, we will
take him to the King's District and let our judges decide about him."
Then my mother, Eli, tell Major Ridge that she can write and read what she has
written. He tell her to write. My mother Eli write this: "Over there in the
Light of the Seven Heavens, I appeared. Those of the Seven Clans who think evil
of me lie about." My mother read the symbols she write to them.
All the evil people there yelled that my mother, Eli too, was a witch. The
preachers tell Major Ridge the world would come to end. Their God would bring
the fire of Hell to burn the Cherokee Na-tion of people. The preachers grabbed
my mother's arms and held her.
Major Ridge ask my grandfather if anyone else write the marks. IMy grandfather
say to him: "All through the mountains, the Seven Clan Society of our peoples,
thousands of our people read their words, and other's words. You will need to
kill us all. Other Indians of other tribes, living with our people, write and
read our language. Hundreds of them across the Amaegwa [Mississippi River] write
and read. We have no need for the white preachers and the teachers."
Major Ridge tell my grandfather Tsatsi Ughvi that he and my grandmother Eni
[Annie] would be permitted to remain in their village. They were old ones, he
say. George Lowery, John Lowery and James Brown tied my father and mother hands
together with horsehair rope. Major Ridge tell my grandfather to get them horses
to ride. They go and bring two of my grandfather's good horses for my father and
mother to ride to Gigageyi ~Red Clay], over there in Dhunisi [Tennessee], many
miles from my grandfather's place in North Carolina.
104
Yes, the white bloods and the traitors took my father and mother away out of the
mountains, and they had a council. They judged them. That white blood Charles
Hicks and Chief Pathkiller, the traitor. Others were Major Ridge, John Ridge,
George Lowery, John Lowery7 James Graves, David Brown, and white preachers named
Kingsbury, Homes, Potts and Fields. They sent for all the Tsalagi [Cherokee]
that were evil and traitors. Ones who were like white people and the ones that
were crazy. In the open Council House at Charles Hicks place, all assembled.
There they had a big Feast for all that come to see, and to judge my father
Sogwali and my mother, Eli.
They tied my father to one tree, and my mother to another one away from him.
Then the white preachers started talking and praying to their God to help the
Sinners from HeH's Fire. My mother, Eli say they were down on their knees in
front of her, throwing their arms in the air, and crying like sahonis [cats].
The evil ones give food and water to my mother, Eli, and to my father, Sogwali.
My father and my mother not eat; not drink. The day after they arrived at
Gigageyi, they had the council.
Whitepath, my father Sogwali brother, was forced to sit with all the evil people
to judge my father and mother.
Major Ridge and James Craves untied my father's and mother's hands. They kept
the ropes around their body and legs to the trees. Then they make them write.
They make my father Sogwali read what my mother write, and my mother Eli, read
what my father write. Just this time, my father and mother write names and
places of evil people in the old country. All that both write was passed out
among the people to see the secret symbols that they not see before. The evil
ones asked my father Sogwali many questions about it, and about the country in
the West. Those evil people decide my father, Sogwali and my mother, Eli were
witches, and evil to want to move our people to the West. They tied their hands
together again around the trees. Then they give a knife to Major Ridge and John
Lowery. Others heated a iron rod in the fire. When they did that, Whitepath
broke away from that place where he was sitting, and ran off in the woods.
Yes, they branded my father Sogwali and my mother Eli while the white preachers
prayed to their God. While the crazy ones jumped and sang their songs. My
father, Sogwali and my mother Eli was branded on the forehead; on their backs.
Major Ridge and John
105
Lowery held my father's hands against the tree, and cut off his fingers on both
hands up to the joints. They cut off my father Sogwali's ears. All he could do
was say his igawesdi, and blow his breath in their faces.
They did not get to cut poor mother Eli. My grandfather, Tsatsi Ughvi had
followed the Rulers with our trusted people, and the people of Whitepath's
village, and other villages. Whitepath knew my grandfather and the people were
close by; they surrounded Hick's place, and grandfather, Tsatsi Ughvi and
Whitepath say to evil ones to let my father and mother loose. That they would
kill them all if they not let them go. Major Ridge and George Lowery cut my
Father Sogwali's ropes. John Lowery and James Graves cut the ropes loose around
my mother, Eli. Whitepath and my grandfather, Tsatsi Ughvi come on the grounds
with some of their people. My father grabbed at Major Ridge, but got James
Graves. He threw him over to one of the open pots and put his head under the hot
food where it killed him there. My grandfather had two of his wolves with him on
a rope. He turned them loose on the evil people. Then he and some of his men
helped my father, Sogwali and my mother, Eli on horses. Quickly, my father and
mother were taken away from Gigageyi. They ride quickly away in the night. My
grandfather, Tsatsi Ughvi knew that the police would come with their dogs
looking for them in the big mountains.
Now, my father, Sogwali did not get to finish his work helping our people there
in the old country. No, he was caught in a fish trap. My father and mother run,
like some hunted animals to the mountains. They hide in cave like the hunted
bears. There they stay many months, while my grandfather's son help to heal
their wounds. The evil ones hunt them with dogs.
All through the villages in the old country, Whitepath and his men, my
grandfather and his sons go tell our people not to listen to the white people,
preachers, teachers and the Rulers. This work of Whitepath and my grandfather,
Tsatsi Ughvi make the whites and the Rulers angry. The preachers tell them they
would burn in the white man's Hell....
Indeed, Whitepath's war was on, and resistance to the white man's religion,
teachings and new laws enforced upon the pe~ ple of the old nation, and the
previous teaching of many Cher~ kees to write and read their own language was
the "weapon"
106
used to block the progressive movement carried out by the leaders of the
nation and the whites to change Indian culture and
language. Whitepath used his weapon, the syllabary to the fullest extent. He
and former old warriors painted the symbols on
homes, barns, trees and leaves in red paint made from the mulberry, pokeberry,
and elderberry. Messages were written on
pieces of white cloth, leaves, corn shuck, pressed paper and the
inner bark of the cedar tree. In every village of a conservative
Cherokee, from a pole, the village chief flew a piece of white
cloth with symbols of the syllabary painted in red thereon, containing
messages to the people who fought for their tribal hen-
tage.
However, the Cherokee symbols were confusing to the whites and the progressive
leaders who could not decipher them. It was the conservative Cherokee's method
of symbolizing power and victory over the white man's teachings.
In the year 1816, with prestige and pride lost by the advent of the Cherokee
syllabary, the wheels of the missionaries' efforts to teach their religion to
the Indians had been clogged. But it did not prevent them and the teachers from
continuing their IGospel preachings, and their teaching the English language to
the young children they had taken away from parents of the mixed-bloods and
friendlies. Even though forced by the Whitepath War, the missionaries took the
children to the Tellico Blockhouse, where a force of government troops were
stationed in order to teach them.
Not for one moment did Whitepath and the conservatives let the whites, mixed-
bloods and friendlies forget their hideous crime committed upon Sequoyah, Eli
and Uhyalug.
John Ridge signed his death warrant in the year 1817, eighteen years before he
signed the 1835 Removal Treaty with the United States government agents, when he
placed a notice in the Knoxville Gazette January 19,1817:
Ridge's Perry, Cherokee Nation, 19th January 1817. To The Editors Of Newspapers
In Tennessee. Gentlemen:
You will confer a favor on certain citizens of the Cherokee Nation, by giving
publicity of the following description of a Cherokee,
107
who committed a crime of witchcraft, and murder to one of our citizens on the
22nd November last. This man is called by the white people, Seequoyah. He is
about 6 feet high, upwards of 50 years old; his appearance is rather rough, and
attempts some times to speak English; his face is somewhat slender, and several
weeks ago, he was disfigured by cutting his ears and fingers off by another
Indian. He I believe, has a circle on his forehead, artificially placed by
burning. He has sparse whiskers, most of them bear frost of age. His hair, I
believe is about shoulder length.
These are about the most prominent deformities of his person by which he may be
known. His wife may be with him. She, I believe, is rather small, and has a
circle also on her forehead. I was not much acquainted with him, but know him
when spoken of, represented to be an ungovernable, headstrong, and fierce
animal. He has seen civilization, in its habiliments of ornament, art, taste,
and beauty; but his heart never could derive polish from its force, or his
intellect expound on the varity of its invitations. I have been requested to
make a communication of this to the public. It is wished that if Seequoyah
should appear in Tennessee, or elsewhere, that he should be apprehended and
secured in a prison; and that notice be given of his arrest, so as to enable the
Nation to get him, and sentence him to a fate which justice so imperiously
demands.
I am yours,
JOHN RIDGE.
John Ridge's physical description of Sequoyah is quite correct. Needless to say,
Ridge paid with his life years later for his part in the crime committed upon
Sequoyah, Eli and Uhyalug.
Sequoyah never asked anyone to follow him. The nonconforming people recognized
that what Sequoyah did was for the best, and was for the people. The people saw
and felt the destruction of themselves and their homelands. They could use their
own judgment to go or to stay. Not one Cherokee desired to leave the homes of
their ancestors, but the nonconforming Indians felt the whiplash of the white
sea surrounding them, and the "New Order Laws" enforced by the progressive
group.
They realized too well that in order to survive Indian culture and tribal
lifeways and to live independently, they must abandon their lands in the east
for new lands in the West, even though
108
the cardinal point West in Cherokeean belief means death and disaster. It was
the only place in this native land of theirs that Iheld out hope of escaping the
civilization program by the Anglo~ American government, and the sovereignty of
the United States.
The new written laws which began in the year 1808, 2 and enforced by the
progressive leaders in the nation, forbade the practice of their culture
customs. No longer could the people practice their ancient religious ceremonies
of "going to the water prayers. No longer could Cherokees attend their various
social and religious dances, feasts, shooting matches, and ball games. And no
longer could they wear their hair long, and dress the way they wished. There
were fines and punishment imposed upon anyone caught for these s~called heathen
offenses against the nation. Quarrels with the missionaries and teachers about
"foolish Indian customs," shamed and stripped nonconforming Cher& kees of their
dignity, self-respect, and low-rated them in the eyes of their young.
Taxes were imposed upon the people. Indians unable to pay their taxes, or fines
for offenses they had committed under the new laws, were sent into bondage to
work off their debts. Whippings and cropping of ears were ideal punishment
enforced to "show power of the progressive leaders. And the most effective
method of all was to take their children and women away, and place them into
bondage with whites, to teach them white civilization and submission.
Not only was Sequoyah endeavoring to help mass removal of his conservative
people to the West, but also Tahlonteesgee, assistant chief of the Western
Cherokee Nation, was aiding the United States Government in its efforts to
remove the south-eastern Cherokees.
In 1808, Tahlonteesgee was one of the chiefs who had signed the treaty with the
United States, relinquishing lands in the southeast nation for lands in the
West, taken from the Osage Tribe in the Arkansas Territory. A portion of the
annuities paid by the United States Government to the entire Cherokee Tribe for
lands ceded was set aside for the Western Cherokees.
2 Vide Liws of the Cherokee Nation, p. 212.
109
Sequoyah, and several groups of Cherokees living beyond the Red River on lands
of the Comanche Indians, received nothing, and wanted nothing from any Anglo
government. They were their own masters as long as they lived away from white
people.
Lands in the interior of America had hardly been explored by the whites by the
year 1816, except by the fur traders.
110
Ten
THE CONSPIRACY
THE UNITED STATEs Government's "great experiment" backfired in 1817, when the
Great White Pather sought to acquire the balance of Cherokee lands in the
southeast for his white children. By appointing the principal chief, dividing
the Indians against themselves in order to control them, and sending
missionaries and teachers among the people as "instruments" to civilize and
attach their interest to the small nation, had fouled up the govemment's plans.
At the time, there were many white educated Cherokees who had thrown their
heritage to the winds. They had enjoyed the fruits of Angl~American social and
political power too long to give it up. They knew and understood their rights as
original owners of the lands and their value. They had sacrificed most of their
original country, and had become copies of white people - "white Indians" in
order to live there. Only the color of their skin remained the same. The flower
had bloomed, but its stem remained the same. To the whites, the brown skin of
the Indians was revolting and dirty.
The progressive Cherokees were enjoying the profits of labor from the gold mines
in the nation. Any Cherokee, on whose lands the gold mine was located, was
allowed to keep one-fourth, and three-founhs was paid into the treasury of the
nation. As Cherokee progress speeded up, all gold mines, like the salt mines in
the nation, were confiscated by the principal chief. All that the principal
chief and his ring of assistants had to do was store their gold in caves, or
send it by flatboats down the Mississippi to relatives for "investments," the
adopted status form of the AngloAmerican capitalist.
These progressive leaders sat back in their fine homes, built by government
hired help, and watched brown and black slaves work their gold mines and vast
plantations. When their crops Ifailed, the conservative Cherokees in the
mountain coves and hills practically starved, or were forced to accept the
government's hand-out from the credit trading factory in the nation. These
Cherokees refused to submit to progressive conformity, compete to store up vast
amounts of riches and goods-the motto instilled by the missionaries and
progressive leaders.
The majority of the Cherokees wished to be free and independent. They wished
freedom from the white man, and the civilizing program that had been thrust down
their throats by the United States Government. Their hope of mass removal
depended upon Sequoyah and leaders who lived in the West.
In 1817 there were approximately 22,900 Cherokees living in the old country,
including the bonded slaves of the whites. Of this number, one-half desired to
emigrate to the West. Nearly 3,000 wished to move beyond the boundary of the
United States. While the Indian agent, Return J. Meigs, found this to be true,
the educated leaders and progressive movement had gone too far on the white
man's road to turn back to heathen Indian culture and customs. So the United
States Government still had one more alternative out of its predicament without
resorting to force - to seek the aid of the Western Cherokee Nation's chiefs to
further the removal of their eastern brothers.
Tahlonteesgee, the Western Cherokee Nation's assistant chief, went to Washington
City in 1817 to talk to the Great White Father. He had questions about that part
of the unpaid annuities for ceded lands in the old nation between the years 1802
to 1816, and the United States' promise to run boundary lines on their western
lands to separate them from the white settlers in Arkansas. Again the government
managed another "sweet-talk" bribe to get around him, and another treaty cession
of southeastern lands was made.
112
With further bribes to Tahlonteesgee and his assistants, the government arranged
emigration of several thousand Cherokees to the Western Cherokee Nation before
the old nation's leaders put a stop to it. Protest of lands ceded in the old
country, and a delegation of the progressive leaders sent to VVashington,
prevented any more conservative Indians from emigrating by government flatboats
to the Western Nation.
Sequoyah removed his people on his own efforts - by walking them overland
through the southern states to Texas, using a few horses for the old persons to
ride.
The progressive leaders knew that should mass removal continue, they too would
be forced to emigrate, and this they flatly refused to do, even though the
government offered those wishing to remain in the southeast, a reservation of
640 acres on lands ceded in fee-simple. The Cherokee Nation was a nation, they
argued, the same as the United States - and they were right, but the United
States Government was its shepherd.
Among Sequoyah's documents is a letter written by a white teacher named Charles
Pelham to his sister in 1818. The letter was taken from the mail coach in the
southeast nation, along with other leader's mail, by Whitepath's skillful "old"
warriors, and sent to Sequoyah in the West:
George Guess is his name. He caused it. This Cherokee Indian commenced writing
letters to his countrymen, which they could read. It was soon discovered that
Indians could talk on paper to their friends here in the Nation, and five
hundred miles beyond the Mississippi. I presume you will feel surprised when I
tell you there are ninety-two syllables in the Cherokee language. The alphabet
is thought by some of the educated Cherokees to need improvement, but as it is,
it is read by a very large portion of the people. There is no part of the Nation
where it is not understood. There is no doubt that it will prevail over every
other method of writing. If books were printed in the Cherokee Characters found
upon the person of Guess's aide, there are those in every part of the Nation who
could read them. Probably fifty times as many would read one printed in Guess's
Characters as would read one printed in English.
It would be a vain attempt to persuade them to relinquish their own method of
reading and writing. Tell them now of printing in
113
the English language, and you throw water on the fire you wish to kindle. To
persuade them to learn another, would be a hopeless task. A crisis caused by
Guess, and some others in the Nation is passing IIby. A few months or years may
decide its fate....
Sequoyah certainly caused a crisis in the southeast nation, and upset the United
States "great experiment" plan of its "instruments" to teach the. Cherokees the
English language and culture. The progressive leaders, teachers, and
missionaries were now hampered by the public use of the syllabary by the
majority of the Cherokees. The whites and progressives were unable to learn and
decipher the native syllabary. One cannot merely read Cherokee, like ancient
Greek, it must be deciphered. There must be a knowledge of pitch and sound of
the syllables, and a key symbol denoting this in the written language, as well
as the key symbol to the six different dialects in the language.
The news of the branding and treatment of Sequoyah, his wife, and the death of
Uhyalug at the hands of the progressive Cherokees, spread like a wind-fanned
prairie fire to the Western Cherokee Nation. Its chief settlement was located in
what is today eastern Oklahoma and extending into the state of Arkansas. Years
later, indirecdy, this savage treatment would be felt in the Cherokee guerrilla
war in the Indian Territory. A tribal law of blood.
The progressive leaders and missionaries in the old nation found themselves in a
tight and embarrassing situation. They had branded the scribe George Guess - the
Skeenah or Saloquoyah, a devil, as the missionaries called anyone who resisted
their teachings and made the "marks." And they had fought to banish the weapon
that he and his people used to block white Christian teachings, and the foreign
English language taught to the children.
Realizing their great mistake, and that one day the American public would be
certain to find out about the Cherokee syllabary, and their crime upon these
three Cherokees, the only recourse left for the leaders and the missionaries was
to do an "about-face," and play up the discovery of the syllabary. They would
pretend to the United States Government and the American public that the
Cherokee Nation was indeed becoming civilized, and had pr-
114
duced a genius. But they would make certain that the Cherokee Indian who "caused
it" was known to the public as the bastard Cadmus of a white man. He must have
that stain of white blood in order to have the ability to use his brains. They
dared not reveal to the American public that this Indian man was a fuliblood of
the Seven Clan Scribe Society - an ancient society which ex-cluded mixed-bloods'
and traitors.
The traitor, George Guess, they thought, was somewhere in the West. George Guess
was a "marked devil." He would never show his branded face in the old nation
again. And if he did, who would believe him and his "marks" and those words of
his heathen mountain brothers, compared to the polished words of the good
Christian progressive Cherokees, and the missionaries?
But to be on the safe side, they would name a few friendly good ones, George
Guess and Sequoyah. Why not? This common practice of giving an influential
Indian's name to friendlies would produce George Guess, alias Sequoyah anytime
progressive leaders and the missionaries had a need for the Cadmus to serve
their scheme and to further their cause toward white man S progress. Not to be
forgotten was another fuliblood Cherokee by the name of George Gist, living near
Willstown, Alabama. The names of these two Indian men being almost the same, the
American public would never know the difference.
Now, George Gist of the Paint Clan could neither write, nor read in his native
syllabary. The leaders knew that he had emigrated to the Western Cherokee Nation
in May 1817, for his name was on the enrollment list of the nation and the
United States.
The progressive leaders and missionaries had no idea of what the Cherokee
Indian, George Gist looked like, nor did they care. That little detail would be
worked out later. He would serve their purpose of becoming a scapegoat and pawn
for their calculated scheme, whether he wanted to or not, in order for the
progressives to ease out of a bad situation in the eyes of the government and
the American public. But to save face" and not to be outsmarted by a fullblood
Cherokee heathen, they would make sure George Gist, the scapegoat, was also
known to the public as a
115
mixed-blood - the bastard son of a German peddler. The Cherokees would never
have had a syllabary unless there was a little "refined white" blood flowing
around in Indian bodies.
Beginning in 1821, when the leaders and the missionaries realized they could no
longer prevent the nonconforming Cherokees from using their own method of
writing and reading, and to help prevent mass removal by the government, the
missionaries, backed by the nation's progressive leaders, published Sequoyah's
glorious deed in the Missionary Herald and New York newspapers:
George Guess came to rescue his people from darkness, and lead them into the
light of civilization by the invention of the Chera kee Alphabet - an unlearned
mixed-blood Cherokee Indian....
An honorable way out of a "crisis." Indeed!
The American public was impressed with the publicity handed out by the
missionaries and the leaders. They took immediate heed to the "saintly"
eloquence of Sequoyah. The public had no way of knowing the naked truth outside
the Cherokee Nation in the southeast, and would the public have given a damn one
way or another?
But the United States Government had knowledge of the Cherokee syllabary, and
the Great White Father and his Indian agents just smiled and waited - waited for
a ripe time to use it to remove the Indians from the east.
The missionaries advised the leaders that it would be an ideal gesture to have a
medal made and presented to George Gist - the scapegoat. So the leaders informed
the Secretary of War in Washington that the Cherokee Nation wished the War
Department to have a medal struck to honor their Cadmus, and to be paid for out
of the Cherokee Nation treasury.
Secretary of War, Thomas L. McKenny, thought it was a great idea and an honor.
But he suggested to the leaders that the most impressive medal to honor
Seequahyah or George Gist would be one of President James Monroe's Indian
medals. The Cherokee leaders agreed, for it cost them nothing, and the James
Monroe Presidental Indian medal was promptly sent to Charles B. Hicks, Assistant
Chief, to Principal Chief Pathkiller in the old nation. 1
1 Charles H. Hicks (1767-1827). He was principal chief of the southeastern
Cherokee Nation for thirteen days, after the death of Pathkiller on January 7,
116
The strange thing about it was that the leaders of the old nation waited eight
years - until 1832, before sending the Great White Father's medal to George
Gist, their scapegoat. 2 They learned then from the Western Cherokee chiefs that
George Guess, the branded traitor, was invited and paid to come and teach their
native syllabary to the people in Chief Digadoya's settlement on the Illinois
River. In the spring of 1831, the Cherokee man who was sent to seek 6ut the
scribe, George Guess for Chief Digadoya, was none other than the scapegoat,
George Gist. The bucket had sprung a leak, a lasting leak which could only be
mended by its elimination.
The following is an excerpt from Chief John Ross's letter to George Gist:
Head of Coosa, Cherokee Nation, January 12, 1832.
Mr. George Gist: My friend, the legislative council of the Cherokee Nation in
the year 1824, voted a medal to be presented to you, as a token of respect &
admiration for your ingenuity in the invention of the Cherokee alphabetical
characters; and in pursuance thereof the late venerable Chiefs, Path Killer &
Charles R. Hicks, instructed a delegation of this nation, composed of Messrs.
George Lowery, Senior, Elijah Hicks & my self to have one struck, which was
completed in 1825. In the anticipation of your visit to this country it was
reserved for the purpose of honoring you with its presentment by the chiefs in
General Council. . . . 3
In 1828, the United States Government decided it was time to clear the lands of
the Cherokees in Arkansas, and move them into Ithe Indian Territory with others
of their tribe on assigned lands.
1827. He was injured when a small boy in the hip, and had a lame leg throughout
his life. Hence, the fitting description concocted for their scapegoat, George
Gist. 2 George Gist, the scapegoat of the conspiracy, was run out of the
Cherokee Nation in 1841 during the Cherokee guerrilla war in the Indian
Territory. He appealed to P. M. Butler for help in order to return to the
Cherokee Nation and his family in November, ~ 844. He died from a bullet wound
before Indian agent Butler could send help to him. Also, see John Howard Payne's
collection in the Gilcrease Museum, the Cherokee syllabary that was written by
George Gist, according to John Howard Payne's notations. 3 "George Gist come to
me, show medal of White King give to him by Chief John Ross. I read Chief Ross
letter to him. . . ." Writings of George Guess, July 24, 1832.
117
The western chiefs were forced to cede their improved lands in northwestern
Arkansas for lands known today as Eastern Oklahoma in the 1828 treaty with the
United States - the beginning work of the government's Indian Territorial Act of
1830.
The government Indian agents asked the western chiefs to sign their names in the
Cherokee syllabary. Since 1791, the government's knowledge of the syllabary
could now be employed to embarrass and demand that the Cherokee Nation's
southeast leaders, who refused and resisted emigration to the West must cede
their nation and join their western tribesmen. The "Cadmus" of their people was
living in the West, why not they?
John Lowery signed Sequoyah's name to the treaty of 1828 with the United States.
This was a common joke among the Western Cherokees in the nineteenth century. No
one had to look at the treaty signature to establish this fact. Signing another
important Indian's name to a white man's piece of paper had been the custom
since the foreigners discovered Indian America. But when an artist in Washington
City thought that it would be a great asset to Indian progress to paint the
Indian George Guess or George Gist, Western Cherokee treaty signers were at a
loss to find a solution to an embarrassing issue. Nevertheless, they solved the
problem by substituting Thomas Maw, the son of Hanging Maw, to take the place of
George Guess and George Gist. The painting that hangs in the Library of Congress
is not that of "nc~eared" George Guess, nor the scapegoat, George Gist, but that
of Thomas Maw.
Eleven
INDIAN TURMOIL IN THE WEST
THE NEW SHOOTS of spring grass were inching from the brown earth along the lower
slopes of the North Carolina mountains in 1817, when Sequoyah, his wife Eli, and
her brother, Ig fled to the West, and to his village on the Brazos River. The
fugitives took the land route through their southern neighbors' country - the
Creeks and Choctaws.
By no means did Sequoyah give up his desire and efforts to help his people in
the southeast to emigrate to the West, but he realized that he could do nothing
for them if caught and killed by the "rulers." He was now a marked man, and he
was wanted in the southeastern Cherokee nation as a traitor and murderer.
He felt that his soul had been killed by his disfigurement, and he was like a
dead man walking. He became more and more revengeful. At all times, he wore his
tribal head-dress, the turban. He continued his writing. Though his hands became
stiff and painful, he managed to grasp a piece of native lead, goose quill, or
white man's store-bought pen between both hands, and in this awkward manner he
scribed writings for those Indians who could not do so. Much later, he learned
to use a gun again with his stub fingers.
Sequoyah's and Eli's baby, a girl, was born in July, 1818. She was named Gedi
(Katy). Another child was born, a boy, in September 1820, but he lived only two
years.
In the late summer of 1820, Sequoyah's eldest son, Tvsisdi, Iwith a scout
Tsegwadihi, went to the southeast nation. With the help of Creek neighbors, some
of whom were intermarried into
121
the Cherokee Tribe, they were able to remove seventy-eight families during the
fall and spring of 1820-21. This process of removing small groups to the West
continued until 1825, when Sequoyah's son, Tvsisdi, and his brother, Whitepath,
were shot and killed by the Cherokee police.
After these two were murdered, the hope and spirit of the nonconforming
Cherokees were shattered. Without the leadership of Whitepath, on whose judgment
and strength the conservatives depended for help, they had to give up their
desire to remove beyond the limits of the United States.
On a windy day in late January, 1822, Richard Fields, John Bowl7 and Gatunweli
came to the village of Tsesi Tsola and Sequoyah. The settlements of these three
Cherokee chiefs were cated on the Trinity, Neches, and Sabine Rivers -
Springfrog's old community. They came to obtain the services of Sequoyah as
letter writer and interpreter.
When Springfrog had emigrated to the West in 1789, he and his warriors had been
given a land grant from the Spanish Gov-ernment for their service as allies in
the Spanish war with the French. Western Indian tribes, hostile toward the
whites were forced by Spanish officials to give up certain lands of theirs for
Springfrog's settlement. Springfrog had traveled to Mexico City, accompanied by
Spanish aides and the militia of Louisiana's governor, Don Esteban Miro, and had
been given title and map to the lands between the Trinity, Neches, and Sabine
Rivers. This land grant had been dated in Mexico City in the year 1792.
Springfrog was then subject to Spanish rule.
In 1819, Richard Fields, John Bowl and other Cherokees emigrated from the
Western Cherokee Nation to Springfrog's settlement. After the Mexican
Revolution, Cherokees who had Spanish land grants, wished to have them confirmed
by the new government. Sequoyah's settlement was not included in Springfrog's
land grant. The letter that Sequoyah wrote for Fields was brought about by the
changed conditions which had freed Mexico from Spain. The following is a copy of
the letter written in English; the usual copy retained by Sequoyah, dictated by
Fields, who could speak fair English, but could not write it:
122
feburey the fust Day 1822
Apacation mad to the subsprem Governer of the Provunce of Spain.
Diear Sir I wish to omblay ask you what must be Dun with us pur Indians.] we
have som Grants that was give to us when we live under the Spanish government
and we wish you to send us nuws by the Next mal whather tha wil be Reberbd or
Not.] and if wer commited we wil corn as 'soon as posbie to persent ourselves
befor you in a maner agreeable to our talants.] if we do pesant ourselves in a
Rou maner we wish you to Rite us.] our intenson ar good to wards the government.
you sas a chaf of the Charkee Nation.
RICHARD FELDS.
After Richard Fields received a reply to his letter in July, l822, he asked
Sequoyah to go with him, and twenty other Cherokees from Springfrog's
settlement, to see the governor of the province of Texas. Sequoyah went as
interpreter for the group of his Itribesmen, since he spoke and wrote Spanish
and the English languages. An agreement was interacted between Governor
Trespalacios, and Richard Fields as follows:
Articles of Agreement made and entered into between Captain Richard of the
Cherokee Nation, and the Governor of the Province of Texas.
Article 1st. That the said chief Richard with five others of his tribe,
accompanied by Mr. Antonio Mexia and Antonio Walk who act as Interpreters, may
proceed to the court of the Empire, to treat with his Imperial Majesty, relative
to the settlement which said chief wishes to make for those of his tribe who are
already in the Iterritory of Texas, and for those who are still in the United
States.
Article 2nd. That the other Indians in the city, and those who do not accompany
the beforementioned, will return to their village in the vicinity of
Nacogdoches, and communicate to those who are at the said village, the terms of
this agreement.
Article 3rd. That a party of the warriors of said village must be constandy kept
on the road leading from this province to the United States, to prevent stolen
animals from being carried thither, and to apprehend, and punish those evil
disposed foreigners who
123
form alliance, and abound on the banks of the river Sabine within the Territory
of Texas.
Article 4th. That the Indians who return to their village, will appoint as their
chief the Indian Captain called Kunetland, alias Tong Turqui, to whom a copy of
this agreement will be given, for the benefit of those of his tribe, and in
order tbat they may fulfill its stipulations.
Article 5th. That meanwhile, and until approval of the Supreme -Government is
obtained, they may cultivate their lands, and sow their crops, in free and
peaceful possession. Article 6th. That the said Cherokee Indians, will become
immediately subject to the laws of the Empire, as well as all others who may
tread her soil, and they will also take up arms in defense of the nation if
called upon to do so.
Article 7th. That they shall be considered Hispanismo-Americans, nd entitled to
all the rights and privileges granted to such, and to the same protection should
it become necessary.
Article 8th. That they can immediately commence trade with the other inhabitants
of the Province, and with the tribes of Indians who may not be friendly to us.
This Agreement comprising the eight preceding articles, has been executed in the
presence of twenty-two Cherokee Indians of the Baron de Bastrop, who has been
pleased to act as Interpreter, two members of the Ayuntamiento, and two officers
of this Garrison. Bexar, 8th November 1822.
Signed:
Jose Felix Trespalacios
Jose Flores
Naborr Villarreal
Richard (X) Fields
El Baron De Bastrop
ManuelL Iturri Castillo
Fracode flu Castenda. 1
Since the Spanish Agreement enforced their laws upon the Cherokees, Sequoyah
refused to go with Richard Fields to Mexico City. Some Cherokees, like other
Indian tribes, accepted de-
1 I translated this from a copy of the original
Mexican Agreement which was given to the Indian called Kunetland, alias Tong
Turqui. A great, great nephew owns the original copy of the 1822 Agreement.
124
feat and submission to white man's laws and culture. Others did not.
The five Cherokees who accompanied Richard Fields to Mexico City on November 10,
1822, were John Bowl, Jose' Nicolet, John Rock, Diver Glass and Joseph Bags.
They traveled by horseback and wagons, stopping along the route at Indian
villages to replenish their food 'supplies, and arrived at Saltillo on December
14, 1822. At Saltillo, the Indians were lodged at the garrison and were
entertained for eight days by feasting, dancing, horse racing, and bull
fighting. Resuming their journey to Mexico City, they arrived on January 22,
1823.
A colonization law was approved by Seflorita Junta Instituyente and Emperor
Austin de Iturbide on January 4, 1823. But a revolution against Emperor Iturbide
caused this law to become void.
The six Cherokees waited in Mexico City, at the garrison where they were housed,
and on April 17, 1823, Richard Fields and his five assistants, petitioned the
Executive Council direct.
The supreme executive power of the Mexican Nation was, at that time, placed with
three men called the Executive Council, after the revolution in which Emperor
Iturbide was ousted. Members of this council were Nicolas Bravo, Guadalupe
Victoria, and Pedro Celestino Negrete. Nicolas Bravo verified the Agreement
granted by Territorial Governor Trespalacios to Richard Fields. Fields and his
assistants, after achieving their pursuit for permanent lands, returned to
Texas.
The flood of white American settlers to Texas began in 1824, after the Mexican
general colonization law. The troubles of the Cherokees and those of other
tribes who lived adjoining them began with the new arrival of the whites. The
same thing that had occurred in the southeastern Cherokee country was happening
all over again. These white settlers were poor people. Ragged and wild, they
lived by stealing, and trading stolen goods. Indian farm lands, herds of horses,
hogs and cattle were too much for these poor Anglo settlers to swallow.
Therefore, they stole, burned and plundered the Cherokees, as well as the other
Indian tribes in Texas. There was no other recourse for the Indians, but to
125
fight back at this white robbery and burning, by, in turn, attacking and burning
white settlements.
In 1825, there came to the settlement of Richard Fields' and John Bowl, a white
man by the name of John Hunter. This man, as well as S. F. Austin, who had
settled a white colony in Texas, had in mind the making of Texas into an
independent AngloAmerican Republic within the year. To establish this purpose,
Austin spread rumors to the Mexican authorities of dissatisfaction among the
Cherokees, and other associate tribes. He prophesied that there was going to be
an Indian war in Texas against the whites. At the same time, he encouraged white
settlers to plunder and burn Indian settlements.
John Hunter went to Mexico City on behalf of Richard Fields to ascertain the
validity of the Cherokee land grants-pretending to be the friend of the Indians.
He found that Field's agreement for lands had become void. He then schemed with
Austin, and another white man named Edwards, to gain the confidence of the
Cherokees and associate Indian tribes to unite and fight the Mexican government.
It was then that Sequoyah and Tsesi Tsola broke tribal ties with Richard Fields.
The Treaty of Alliance which Richard Fields and John D. Hunter secretly signed
as representatives of the twenty-three tribes, including the Comanches and
Kickapoos, stirred the hatred among various chiefs of those tribes, including
the Cherokees. When Fields and Hunter had the gall to come to the village of
Tsesi Tsola and Sequoyah in an effort to obtain warriors to fight in the white
colonists' army against the Mexican government, they met with failure. The
following speech by Sequoyah, given on behalf of the sick Chiefs Tsesi Tsola and
Ganon and the people of their settlement, to Richard Fields and John Hunter was
recorded by Sequoyah's son, Doi:
2 Richard Fields, of the Texas Cherokees, is not to he confused with the Richard
Fields in the Southeastern Cherokee Nation who led a peace delegation for Chief
John Ross to the Florida Seminoles in 1836, to persuade the chiefs to surrender
to the United States armed forces. Many Cherokee men were named Richard Fields.
126
... In times past, in the lands 0£ our old ones, our warriors fight. I fight.
Our lands are taken. Our people die. In times past, I look over these lands our
peo~e come to set our fire down on. I found plenty to give our people. But 0£
late, it is not so. No! I find these lands empty. Our corn is often stolen. Our
houses burned. Cattle and horses gone. Buffalo there on the plains are driven
away. And what is the cause of this? Why was it not so in former times when more
Indians live on these lands than are now? The reason I find is this: It is none
other than the white man, and the chfldren of him that proceeded from the belly
of that white man's Indian wife which child is the half-breed. That white man
having gained strength in times past by help of Indians, and his half-breed
child grown to manhood has become master of these lands, and kaves our people
with the wolves and dogs to take what leavings we find. I am led to think that
my Old One, Him Above There, put it in my heart no more to aflow ste~ng and
pillaging these lands from me and my people. I have no bad feelings, and wish
not to use my strength, and the strength of our young men to fight the Mexicans.
I have no quarrel with them.
We now look at these lands and what our Old Ones said to us. Keep my children,
the lands for your own selves, and let not the white man take them. Let them
stay among their own. I wish to be my own master and do as I please with what is
my own... I now say this: I hold back and will not use my strength against the
Mexicans. I now close by saying this - I wish it to be as our old fathers tell
us; for the half-breeds to stay with the white man, and take care of the black
coats, and we will take care of our own selves. For me, I give not my hands to
the pigs. Let me see them where I will. Now, I Tsatsi Tvsis, just spoke.
The speech delivered by Sequoyah to Fields and Hunter roused their anger. They
retaliated by t~ing Sequoyah and Chief Tsesi Tsola to leave the Brazos River
area. Sequoyah and Chief Tsola refused to leave their improved settlement.
Sequoyah was not concerned with Mexican control of Texas lands, for he thought
that no white person had the right to put on a piece of paper their foreign laws
to control Indian lands and lives. The lands were Western Indian lands, and it
was from the Comanches that he and Chief Tsesi Tsola obtained permission to
establish their settlement on the Brazos.
127
When Sequoyah and Chief Tsesi Tsola refused to move, and took a firm stand
against the power which Fields and Hunter had thought to enforce upon the
Indians, Fields and Hunter and other Cherokees from Springfrog's settlement,
along with white rogues, drove off their horses, hogs, and cattle, destroyed
their planted fields, and burned the corn stored in the corncribs. Determined to
hold on to their settlement on the Brazos, Chief Tsesi Tsola and Sequoyah asked
their friends, the Comanches, for help. But even with the help of the Comanches,
the summer of 1825 was one of constant friction and fighting. Their final
efforts to stand. firm and hold their homes and lands along the Brazos, came to
a climax in the fall. Fields and Hunter's agitators succeeded in burning many of
their homes, and in this Indian battle, Chief Tsesi Tsola was wounded, as were
seventeen more Brazos Cherokees. Two small children were killed, including a
grandson of Sequoyah's.
In order to live free and independent, and not to be driven by the power of
Richard Fields and John Hunter, Chief Tsesi Tsola, Canon and Sequoyah selected
lands in the central part of Texas on the Colorado River, which adjoined lands
of a Comanche vil-lage - more than two hundred miles from their old settlement
on the Brazos.
The Indians who had emigrated to Texas during the latter part of the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, did not go along with the Western Indian
confederacy which Fields and Hunter intended to enforce upon them. Fach western
tribe had its own laws and customs, which were radically different from each
other and the emigrated tribes from east of the Mississippi. And the idea of a
white man heading any Indian confederacy was most revolting to them.
The white uprising in Texas, backed by a few Cherokees which Fields and Hunter
were able to "pay" for their warrior service, was put to an end when Richard
Fields and John Hunter were killed by orders from Chief John Bowl in January,
1827.
For their efforts in helping to stop the white American settlers, Chief John
Bowl and Gatunweli were given a commission in the Mexican Army, and additional
lands for "the regular" settlement
128
of the Cherokee Tribe - those yet to be emigrated from the United States. The
new grants of land were those of Chief Tsesi Tsola, Ganon and Sequoyah's
settlement on the Colorado River, known today as San Saba County, Texas. This
action by the Mexican government on behalf of Chief Bowl was unknown to Chief
Tsesi Tsola and Sequoyah until 1834.
129
Twelve
A BUFFALO ROBE OF HIS OWN
NOTHING COULD HAVE stopped Eli from returning to the old nation in the early
summer of 1828, when she received a message from her mother, sent by Going Wolf,
who had managed to flee to Texas.
Eli's mother said that the nation's police had found their village gold mine.
The police had tried to make her father, Tsatsi Ughvi tell them where he had
hidden the gold the villagers had mined. When he refused, they had tied him to a
tree and had beat him to death. All the people had been whipped in the village,
one hundred lashes on the bare back, and were dispossessed of all possessions.
The families had moved four ridges farther into the Big Mountains. She wished
her daughter Eli, and her son Ig to come and help her and their clansmen.
Eli, her ten year old daughter Gedi, and Ig rode horseback across Texas and
Arkansas to the Mississippi River. Sequoyah and a younger son, Tsuhli, traveled
with his wife, daughter, and brother-in-law as far as to the Mississippi.
At a trading post on the River, Sequoyah bought Eli a pistol, and a folding hand
knife. He gave his ten-year-old daughter Gedi, a tan leather diary and native
lead with which to write. With their trading accomplished, the following June
night, Eli, Gedi and Ig left Sequoyah and Tsuhli• They stood, in the moonlight,
on the banks of the Mississippi River. Gedi describes their departure in one of
her small twfrhundred-page diaries:
Too many times I hear my father say to go to old country was to die. I not ask
him to go with us. I just wished. He marked man. My father Sogwali tell me to
help my mother and my grandmother. To write in my book what I see... We turned
our horses away from the river that June night. I look back to where my father
and brother Tsuhli was standing, the sky became bright like sun. I hear loud
roaring above like strQng wind. I look up. I see coming down out of sky, a round
ball of red fire. We stop the horses. Got off. Look. We say igawesdi... I had a
strange feeling that something would happen to us. My father, Sogwali and my
brother Tsuhli, and to us, going to the old country... Then the ball of red fire
was gone; the noise stopped. We get on our horses, ride on....
It took three weeks to reach the mountains in North Carolina by horseback,
traveling over the Indian paths through Mississippi and Alabama, avoiding the
public traveled roads through their southern neighbor's country with whom they
sought refuge. Rivers, often rain-swollen, were crossed at night, swimming their
horses at the well-known and safe points on the river crossings. These
precautions were taken because Indian travelers returning to the southeastern
nation were often shot by the whites for the "fun of it." And the southeastern
Cherokee Nation's police treated returning Cherokees from the West with a dim
view. To them, they were traitors to the homeland. During the daytime, the
Indian travelers rested with clansmen, or in well-known caves; caves in which
they took their horses with them, cutting a little cane for the horses to feed
on during the time inside.
When they finally arrived at the home of Eli's mother and relatives, what met
their eyes was poverty. There was no prosperous valley with rich farming lands,
log homes and cribs full of Icorn. No cattle and horse herds were grazing on the
mountain side. No clear flowing river. A spring furnished water to the
dispossessed settlement, and it flowed from the roots of a beech tree a mile
from the home of Eli's mother. Only Eli's mother's house had been built, while
other relatives lived in nearby caves.
In a short period of twelve years, Eli's relatives had been reduced to
destitution. This situation not only happened to one conservative Cherokee
settlement, but throughout the whole nation.
132
Progressive Cherokee "power" rule was the order of the principal chief - the
order of the Angl~American government, and greed. Village chiefs were stripped
0£ their local leadership, and their villages were broken up. Heads of families
were ordered by the appointed principal chief and his chosen assistants, to
settle on plots of land away from their clansmen. Tribal life had been
abolished.
To further enforce submission of the conservative Cherokees to the New Order
Government of the nation, the leaders imposed the fine of whipping, and bondage
to the whites, for anyone caught "doing" sotalled Indian heathen customs.
Taxation was imposed upon the people, and the nation was policed with the "Light
Horse Guard," and dogs, to avert disturbances and emigration. A sample of
Cherokee white man's laws are given:
Resolved by the National Committee, and Council, that any person or persons,
whatsoever, who shall choose to emigrate to the Arkansas Country, and shall sell
the improvements he or they may be in possession of, to any person or persons
whatsoever, he or they, so disposing of their improvements shall forfeit and pay
unto the Chero-kee Nation the sum of $150.00 dollars; and be it further
Resolved, that any person or persons whatsoever who shall purchase any
improvements from any person or persons emigrating, he or they so offending,
shall also forfeit, and pay a fine of $150.00 dollars to the Nation, to be
collected by the marshal of the district.
By order of the National Committee.
(Signed):
JOHN Ross
President, National Committee
ALEXANDER McCoy, clerk
Approved: October 27, 4821.
PATHKILLER, His mark X. CHARLES HICKS.
The whipping which the Cherokee police gave Eli's mother, Negi (Maggie) had
caused her to become a cripple. She could walk only with the aid of two walking
sticks. Eli, and her daughter Gedi, and Ig, had lived at her mother's home for
almost a year before clan relatives of James Graves
133
found out that the wife of Sequoyah had returned and was living in the nation.
Tribal law demanded that her life be given for that of James Graves, whom
Sequoyah had killed thirteen years previously, when he and his wife were
convicted in the s&called witchcraft trial, and for aiding his people to remove
to the West. A law of blood for blood.
But first, clan relatives had to capture Eli. They waited and watched for this
chance. Then one day, in the spring of 1829, a converted Cherokee preacher, who
made the rounds as "circuit rider," preaching the white man's gospel to the
mountain Cherokees, discovered ten-year-old Gedi at the spring, and kidnapped
her. John Huss, the Cherokee preacher, took Gedi down into Georgia to the school
of the white preacher and teacher, Isaac Proctor. 1
The kidnapping of her daughter brought Eli and her brothers out of the mountains
to negotiate with the Rev. John Huss, who lived in Tennessee - Chattooga
District of the nation. She was seized, and put in jail. Eli was again tried,
found guilty and sentenced. She was hanged in the Reverend John Huss's district
of the nation, in the early summer of 1829. Eli's daughter, Gedi remained in
Preacher Proctor's school, until Georgia state laws broke up his mission in
1831. It was then that Gedi's uncles resIcued her from Proctor by paying him
twelve buckskin pouches of gold.
When the whites in Georgia discovered the Cherokee gold mines, and the laws of
the state of Georgia were enforced over the Cherokee Nation, John Ross's power
held off mass removal of the people for nine years. The Cherokee people were
sacrificed to wholesale murder, slavery, imprisonment and starvation by the
whites. John Ross's greed for gold and political power is asserted in the
following article which he wrote for the Cherokee Phoenix, dated June 6,1832:
The gigantic silver pipe which George Washington placed in the hands of the
Cherokees, as a memorial of his warm and abiding friendship, has ceased to
reciprocate; the vivid curling smoke riseth 1 Isaac Proctor, assistant
missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.
134
not to the mountain's top; it lies in a corner of the executive Chamber, cold,
like its author, to rise no more. With these disasters r& curred to but in part,
I think are adequate to prove the instability of the American Government, so far
as it has duties to perform towards the Cherokees. What then must be done? Our
New York friends advise us to go, but where? West of the Mississippi? The time
being propitious to drive a bargain, the value might otherwise be lost. The
value of the Cherokee Nation can hardly be set down in figures. It is worth more
than one hundred million of dollars. Let us estimate. From Frogtown near the
source of the Chestatee, commences the gold region, and is termed the limits of
Georgia. From this point almost one hundred miles on a straight line south, or
towards the western comer of Carroll county, is one continued bed of gold, one
pit after another, with intermediate strips of land, and where also gold is
found. The width of this region is not yet known, but at the southern part it is
something like thirty miles broad. Millions of dollars worth of gold have been
taken here by thousands of intruders. There are also mines on the Tennessee and
North Carolina side of the Nation where hundreds of Cherokees are engaged
unmolested in mining operations. There is gold enough in the limits of Georgia
alone to corrupt a world of Governor Lumpkins, Gilmers, and Troups. If all the
slaves in bondage under the freemen of the Southern States, were sold in Brazil
for diamonds, and sold among all the crowned heads of the east, the proceeds of
these gems would be but pittance, towards the payment of the Cherokee mines not
including millions of acres that ought to be worth as much as any lands in the
United States.
COOWEE SCOOWEE.
While Chief John Ross was striving to pit his political strength against that of
the governor of Georgia to prevent sale of the nation to the United States
Government, and removal of the people to the West, Sequoyah's daughter remained
trapped in the old country with the confused and silent majority of the
Cherokees, who retreated into the mountains, trying to escape destruction.
Meanwhile at the settlement on the Colorado River, Sequoyah knew about the death
of his wife Eli, and his daughter's kidnaw ping. He saw the whole happening
through a vision. He was a man torn to bits. His magic charms, which all
conservative fullblood Cherokees believe and practice, helped him mentally. But
physically, his crippled hands - his disfigurement - prevented
135
the fighting action which he had done in the past. This was the awful truth that
there was nothing, absolutely nothing, that he could do about it, but to wait.
It is said that he drank heavily for the first time in his life.
During the years after the white uprising in Texas, the Texas Indians were
caught in the middle of two fires. On one side they had the invading
Angl~Amen.can settlers with which to contend. These invaders took and scraped
from the Indians everything they saw and wanted. On the other side of the fence,
Mexican military officials tried to overthrow the central Mexican Government,
and set up a dictatorship in the state of Texas. One white man's government was
the same as another - each one was thinking of power and greed over the weak.
And the Indians were being pushed into a corner. There was no other place to
run, to escape the whites and the destruction they inflicted upon Indians. There
were also the various tribes of northern and southern Indians who were being
herded across the Mississippi River to the West. Since there were many Plains or
Western tribes, without the additional new tribes, Plains Indian fighting became
a game - an Indian game of life to prevent their hunting lands from being taken
over by the newcomers. Sequoyah remained neutral, and took no active part in the
Plains and emigrant Indian wars. He was a friend, letter writer and associate of
many Plains Tribes, and had adopted some of their customs. Many members of his
settlement had married Plains Indians, and their lands like the Cherokees, were
being encroached upon.
In June 1831, George Gist, his sons Tsatsi and Tsesi, and Will Tsola, came to
Chief Tsesi Tsola's settlement on the Colorado looking for the scribe, George
Guess. Chief Nuya Digadoya, son of the old Chief Digadoya, sent George Gist to
ask the scribe George Guess to come to their settlement in the Western Cherokee
Nation, and teach the people to write and read their native syllabary. George
Gist, said that the black coats 2 had followed
2 The conservative Cherokees referred to the missionaries as digasalena gvhnage,
meaning "black coat" in their language because white preachers wore long black
coats.
136
them, were quarrelling with their people, trying to persuade those m Chief
Digadoya's setdement to allow the missionaries to preach their gospel and teach
the children the English language.
From July 1831, until the middle of October, Sequoyah taught the syllabary to
the people in Chief Digadoya's settlement, which was scattered over an area of
more than twenty-five miles. George Gist, who was about the same age as Sequoyah
(65), became one of his adept pupils, as well as many of the older men and
women.
Again in the summer of 1832, Sequoyah returned to Chief Nuya Digadoya's
settlement to see how well the people were learning the syllabary, and to obtain
news from the southeastern Cherokee Nation. It was on this visit to the Western
Cherokee Nation that George Gist showed the Indian medal and letter sent him by
Charles H. Vann from Chief John Ross, and warned him of an assassination plot by
clansmen of James Graves and selected Cherokee police from the southeastern
nation.
Sequoyah and his son Doi, and others from Chief Nuya Digadoya's settlement set
up an ambush for the would-be assassins in the woods near Chief Nuya Digadoya's
house, where the assassins were told that Sequoyah and his son were teaching.
One night the group of more than twelve men rode up shooting, and then threw
lighted torches on Chief Nuya Digadoya's house and set it afire. Sequoyah and
the men of Chief Nuya Digadoya's settlement fired upon the assassins from the
woods, killing five, and wounding one. Others rode away quickly, only to be shot
and killed from the trail.
When the war in Texas began in 1836 between the Americans and Mexicans, Chief
Tsesi Tsola was forced, under pressure of Mexican officials, to send sixty-four
warriors from their settlement to fight in the Mexican Army. The old Cherokee
men did spy work doser to their settlements. Other Indians and tribes fled to
the Rocky Mountains to avoid the white man's war. But to prevent alliance of
Chief John Bowl's settlement with the Mexicans, as well as other tribes living
in his area between the Trinity, Neches, Sabine, and Red Rivers in Texas, the
United States Government sent troops into that area. But it was too late. Many
Cherokee
137
warriors and warriors from other tribes were already in the service of the
Mexican Army.
When Chief John Bowl, and his aides, signed a treaty of alliance with Sam
Houston and John Forbes in November 1835, this Indian treaty and afliance was
understood by Chief BoW to be valid for his settlement only. No others. But the
treaty controlled sequoyah's settlement, causing the Cherokees and the Comanches
to destroy their villages in 1836, and necessitated their retreating farther
into the mountains of Mexico.
In February 1839, Dagwadihi, with three others from the Western Cherokee Nation,
came to the Cherokee village in the Mexican mountains (Mexico in 1839 was part
of New Mexico today), looking for Sequoyah, whom he was told would be found
living there. He told sequoyah about his group, who were emigrating to the West,
and who had broke away from the appointec Cherokee leader. He revealed that the
group of less than onc hunidred, were camped on the west side of the Mississippi
River They were sick, starving and dying, and needed help -clothing, and horses
to transport the sick and old ones to the new country. Sequoyah's daughter, Gedi
was among them.
Sequoyah took twenty-three horses, packing these with pounded parched corn meal,
shelled corn, dried buffalo, honey, blankets, buffalo robes and other clothing.
With these, he and eight Cherokee and intermarried Comanches, set out eastward
with their loaded horses toward the Mississippi River.
Six weeks later, after crossing the Indian territory and part of southwestern
Missouri, they found the little group of ninety-three men, women and children,
camped under an over-hang a high bluff of the Mississippi River.
Their dead were buried in the ice and snow drifts, covered over with logs and
tree limbs. The people had no shovels; no tools to dig the graves.
Gedi was now a thin young women of twenty. She had married Wagigu the previous
spring of 1838. Her husband had been shot and killed while resisting a force of
whites to pay a "toll fee" on the Walderns Ridge Toll Road in Tennessee.
138
Sequoyah was overjoyed at seeing his daughter for the first time in eleven
years. He burned with anger and revenge when he learned of the treatment of his
daughter, and the others, in the white man's stockade in the old nation. For the
moment though, his concern was to feed the hungry, help the sick, and to get the
group of emigrants safely to their village in Mexico.
Gedi gives a description of their journey from the Mississippi to the West:
We started at daylight on the fifth day after my father, Sogwali come to help
us. I rode behind my father on his horse. All the other horses were used for the
old and sick ones, two and three to a horse. Young sick children rode in front
of the old ones. Our people stay close together. We had a long way to go. There
were white people's places that we pass. They send their dogs on us. The white
frogs laugh and call us names....
At a white trader's place, my father send my brothers, Doi and Tsuhli to buy
food and more clothes for our poor people. I went with them to the white man's
place. My brother, Tsuhli carried three gold nuggets, and three gold Mexican
money. He say to the white man that he wanted to buy food, coats, shoes and
blankets For our people walking to the West. The white man say, 'CYou got money,
Indian?" My brother say he did, and show him a Mexican gold piece. The white man
say he not take Mexican money. Then my brother Tsuhli show him a gold nugget,
size of my thumb. The old white man say, 'CYou got more of them Indian?" My
brother mumbled. He know that white man just as soon kill and rob us there. The
old white man got sacks and put corn meal he grind in it. In another sack, he
put two hams. That little food he charged my brother one gold nugget. My brother
say to old white. man that he have one more gold nugget. The white man say that
would buy three coats, eight pair of shoes, and three blankets. My brothers and
me know that the white man cheat us. We need the food and clothes for our people
waiting for us near that place. My brother give him the gold nugget. We take all
men shoes. Our women wear men shoes, same as the men... Our little children feet
we wrap in clothes.
We put the sacks of food and clothes on the horses, and ride back to our people
waiting for us. While we are eating, there ride up some white men, five in all.
They say to us, "Get on your way redskins!" My father say to them that we go as
soon as our people eat. White
139
men say, "Get going now, redskins!" My father tell our people to take their food
in their hands and start walking. It was of no use to use strength against the
whites there on their lands. Our people start walking and the white men shoot
their guns at us, hitting my mother's brother's wife in the back. She die.
Quickly, white men ride away....
Sequoyah and his group of emigrants took the well known Indian path through
southwestern Missouri and the central part of the then, Indian Territory, today
the state of Oklahoma. Small game supplemented their food supply. Corn was
obtained on two occasions at an Osage settlement.
When they reached the village of Comanche Chief Gihliunega, near the Red River,
in early May 1839, they rested with their friends to regain strength and health.
While the emigrants rested, Sequoyah, his two sons, and Eli's brother, Ig, rode
to Chief Nuya Digadoya's settlement on the Illinois River in the Western
Cherokee Nation to visit clansmen who still desired to remove beyond the limits
of the United States to their new settlement in Mexico. He wanted also to look
for the "rulers" who had caused his wife's death, his disfigurement, and death
of his clansmen - the Indian law of blood.
Camped along the Illinois River, in donated government tents, those Cherokees of
Situwakee's group had many reasons for their pent-up hatred of Iron Rule
leadership. Situwakee was a clansman of Sequoyah's wife Eli, and her brother Ig.
He boiled with anger when he related to Sequoyah and Ig the conditions forced
upon his people during the "march" West. As head teamster, he had seen and
experienced as much sorrow as Gedi's group. Reaching the Ohio River in late
December, ice and snow had frozen it over. The ferry was unable to transport the
people across the river, and the ice was not thick enough for the teams and the
people to walk across. But the Rev. Evan Jones, a Baptist preacher in charge of
the Indian group thought so. Jones disregarded Situwakee's warning that the ice
was thin and would break. So on the white man's Christmas Day 1838, preacher
Jones, by gospel harassment, lined up three teams and wagons loaded with old
people, sick and small children, cooking utensils, and a little bedding to cross
the ice-
140
covered Ohio River. Situwakee warned the converted Baptist teamsters not to risk
the ice. Jones said, "My prayers to God will see them across. The first wagon
almost reached the other side to safety when the ice gave away, plunging all
three wagons into the icy waters, where all were drowned. Situwakee had seen the
hor-ror, and had heard the screams. He had dived into the icy waters, Itrying to
rescue his people, but it had been to no avail - the peopie were gone to the
bottom of the river.
Fights immediately broke out among the freezing and starving converted Baptist
Cherokees and the non£onverted. Many were wounded, and six Cherokees were
killed. Preacher Evan Jones cried and prayed to his God.
Although Sequoyah planned revenge on those who had branded him and caused the
death and misery to thousands of his tribesmen, the Cherokee civil war began
before his arrival into the Western Cherokee Nation, and had spread like a
windstorm. The part Sequoyah played in the Indian civil war is gleaned from the
pen of his daughter Gedi:
Now, I say this to you, my grandchildren; my father Sogwali and brothers Tsuhli
and Doi worked and fought in that war our people fight over there in Indian
lands. Our people that want to be their own masters, my father, my brothers
help. They fight them! Yes!
Now, John Bowls (son or old chief John Bowl) and Joseph Bags come to our place
on river where we are staying. They say to my father and Chief Cihliunega that
they need warriors to help them fight. The white people take their horses and
cattle, tell Indians leave their places. Move across the lied River to Indian
lands they say to Chief John Bowls. John Bowls tell my father that a man he
wanted had come to live in their village. If he want him, come and get him. He
was one of the evil ones. My father Sogwali, Chief Gihliunega, his men, they
talk. They vote to go help Chief John Bowls and our people. Many warriors get
ready to go. My father, brothers Tsuhli and Doi, and my dead husband's brother,
Diver. Many women go with the men to help. The old women make bags of food for
all persons to tie on to their saddle.
At daylight next morning, men and women ride toward Chief Bowls' place. John
Bowls and Joseph Bags lead the way. That ght we camp in a canyon. Guards were
'jut around the camp. Next
141
morning before daylight, we eat, saddle our hobbled horses, and start again to
Chief Bowls' place.
We ride that day crossing little creeks. Then we come to a big river that we
have to swim our horses across. John Bowls, Joseph Bags, my brothers Tsuhli and
Doi, Driver and my father lead the way across. We women were behind them. Scouts
were in front, on the sides and behind the women. Just as my father Sogwali got
across the river, many soldiers come running their horses up, shooting at us.
Our people that were crossing the river turned our horses down stream, and ride
back across the river. My horse was shot by the soldiers, and fell in the water.
I jump off as the horse goes down, and swim hard to the side where we come into
the river. Woti's brother come to me, lift me on his horse. Quickly, we run away
from the river. The men tell the women to take our horses into thicket with some
of theirs where we would be protected. This we do. Down the river, we hear
shooting. Soldiers come back to where we cross the river. Our men not shoot at
them until some of the soldiers come across the river. Then our men shoot
soldiers. Our men on horses, waiting behind our scouts, ride to fight the
soldiers, killing the ones that come across the river. Three of our men are
killed. The soldiers across the river run off. We wait a long time. Then our men
tell the women to come out. Some of our men ride across the river looking for my
father Sogwali, my brothers, Driver, John Bowls, Joseph Bags, and the other
scouts. We wait a long time, then they come. I see my brother Doi leading my
father's horse, and my father Sogwali across the horse like a sack of corn. I
know my father is dead. My brother Doi was bleeding. Joseph Bags is dead. Others
of our people, six in all. Dead. My brother Tsuhli and Driver alright. My heart
pained when I see my father Sogwali dead... Quickly, we ride away from the
river....
The Cherokee Indian, known by the names of Sequoyah and George Guess, was shot
and killed by soldiers in Texas, on the Brazos River, on June 9, 1839. His
daughter Gedi, and other relatives returned with his body to the Comanche
village, where he was prepared for burial. Wrapped in buffalo robes, Sequoyah
was buried beyond the Comanche village in Texas.
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Bibliographical Note
By TRAVELLER BIRD
A LONG TIME ago, the begetting of this book had begun. The flame was lit when I
was eight. On a rare occasion in school one day, the teacher asked me to tell
the story of Sequoyah. She knew nothing of my blood relationship to my ancestor.
I did, but not as she knew it. I was paddled on the tongue with her ruler until
it bled for telling "such a fantastic story."
The "source" of what I have written comes from more than six hundred documents
written by George Guess himself on thick ruled ledger books, small leather-bound
note books, scraps of paper, edges of early eighteenth and nineteenth century
newspapers, white buckskin, corn shuck paper, and mulberry and cedar bark. It
comes from the mass of writings by his children, grandchildren, and great
grandchildren. It comes from the old war chiefs, village chiefs, and old
warriors whose words were carefully preserved along with the cultural records of
the tribe. Added to this volume of writings are important documents of the
government's chosen Cherokee leaders, from the period 1795 to 1845 - Charles
Hicks, Isaac McCoy, John Ross, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, George Lowery, John
Lowery and others-along with pertinent documents of non-Indians which bear
directly On our hidden historical facts. Their words are there in box upon box,
yellowing with age, and a little mouldy from being buried in caves.
I have recreated my ancestor in his own image through words and thoughts of a
foreign language - not from the books in libraries, nor government records. In
so doing, I have sought the truth as it exists in the hearts and minds of some
13,000 fullblood kinsmen living in the hills of Eastern Oklahoma, the Smoky
Mountains of North Carolina and those of Mexico who sull speak, read and write
our native language, and who have managed to keep our culture, values and sane
life-ways. Whether this is your truth, I don't know, nor does it matter - it is
mine, and that of the minority faction of my people, whose ancestors refused to
yield.
The life of my ancestor, George Guess, lives on today the same as it did 131
years ago, outside the books that have been written about him by the non-Indian
and the "good Cherokee" who lost his identity in an alien white world of muddled
thoughts of what George Guess ought to be. He over-shadows that stereotppe in
which writers have placed him.
Although history is a fact of life, historians of Cherokee history had the power
to condemn that fact to death, or, cleverly Iwritten, to conceal facts.
Considering that every aspect of Indian lives have been run by the government
since 1776, there is a vast amount of government documents on the Cherokees.
From this material I confirmed my ancestor's documentation of the particular
points brought out in the "Conspiracy" chapter.
ADDITIONAL SOURCES
American State Papers, Documents, legislative and executive, of the Congress of
the United States. Class II, Indian Affairs, Vols. I-ILIV. Military Affairs,
Vols. VI-VII. VVashington, D.C. 1832-60.
Indian Tribal Records, Documents and Laws. Cherokee Agency. Letters Received by
the Office of Indian Af-fairs, The National Archives of the United States,
Wahington, D.C.
Cherokee Agency, West. Letters Received by the Office of In-dian Affairs, The
National Archives of the United States, Washington, D.C.
The United States War Department, Record Files, Washington, D.C.
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