|
Cherokee
Indians, a nation formerly inhabiting the hilly regions of
Georgia, western Carolina, and northern Alabama, and called the
Mountaineers of the South. They were among high hills and fertile
valleys, and have ever been more susceptible of civilization than any of
the Indian tribes within the domain of the United States. They were the
determined foes of the Shawnees, and, after many conflicts, drove those
tribes back to the Ohio. They united with the Carolinians and Catawbas
against the Tuscaroras in 1711, but joined the great Indian league
against the Carolinians in 1715.
When, early in 1721, Gov. Francis
Nicholson arrived in South Carolina, he tried to cultivate the good-will
of the Spaniards and Indians in Florida. He also held a conference with
the chiefs of thirty-seven different cantons of Cherokees. He gave them
presents, smoked with them the
pipe of peace, marked the boundaries of the lands between them and
the English settlers, regulated weights and measures, and appointed an
agent to superintend their affairs. He then concluded a treaty of
commerce and peace with the Creeks.
About 1730 the projects of the French for
uniting Canada and Louisiana by a cordon of posts through the Ohio and
Mississippi valleys began to be developed. To counteract this scheme,
the British wished to convert the Indians on the frontiers into allies
or subjects, and, to this end, to make with them treaties of union and
alliance. The British government accordingly sent out Sir Alexander
Cumming to conclude such a treaty with the Cherokees. It was estimated
that they could then put 6,000
warriors in the field. In April, 1730, Sir Alexander met the chief
warriors of all the Cherokee towns in council; informed them by whose
authority he was sent; demanded from them an acknowledgment of King
George as their sovereign, and a promise of their obedience to his
authority. The chiefs, falling on their knees, promised fidelity and
obedience. By their consent, Sir Alexander nominated Moytoy, one of
their best leaders, commander-in-chief of the Cherokee nation. They
brought a rude crown, five eagles' tails, and four scalps of their
enemies to Sir Alexander, and desired him to lay them at the feet of the
King when he should return to England. Six of the chiefs went to England
with Sir Alexander, and, standing before his Majesty, they promised, in
the name of their nation, eternal fidelity to the English. A treaty was
drawn up and signed by the Secretary to the Lords Commissioners of Trade
and Plantations on one side, to which the marks and tokens of the chiefs
were affixed. The chiefs were amazed at the magnificence of the British
Court and nation. They said: "We, came hither naked and poor as the
worms of the earth; but you have everything; and we that have nothing
must love you, and will never break the chain of friendship which is
between us." They returned to Carolina with Robert Johnson, who came
with a commission as governor.
For a long time the Cherokees and the
Five Nations had bloody contests; but the English effected a
reconciliation between them about 1750, when the Cherokees became the
allies of the British against the French, and allowed the former to
build forts on their domain. About that time they were at the height of
their power, and inhabited sixty-four villages along the streams; but
soon afterwards nearly one-half the population were swept off by the
small-pox. The Cherokees assisted in the capture of Fort Duquesne in
1758.
While the Cherokees who accompanied the
expedition against Fort Duquesne in 1758 were returning home along the
mountains on the western borders of Virginia and the Carolinas, they
quarreled with the settlers, and several white men and Indians were
killed. Some Cherokee chiefs were sent to
Charleston to arrange the dispute, when they were treated almost
with contempt by the governor of South Carolina. This was soon followed
by an invasion of the Cherokee country by Governor Littleton (October,
1759) with 1,500 men, contributed by Virginia and the Carolinas, who
demanded the surrender of the murderers of the English. He found the
Cherokees ready for war, and was glad to make the insubordination of his
soldiers and the prevalence of small-pox among them an excuse for
leaving the country. He accepted twenty-two Indian hostages as security
for peace and the future delivery of the murderers, and retired in haste
and confusion (June, 1760). These hostages, which included several
chiefs and warriors, were placed in Fort St. George, at the head of the
Savannah River. The Cherokees attempted their rescue as soon as
Littleton and his army had gone. A soldier was wounded, when his
companions, in fiery anger, put all the hostages to death.
The Cherokee nation was aroused by the
outrage. They beleaguered the fort, and
war-parties scourged the frontiers. The Assembly of South Carolina
voted 1,000 men and offered £25 for every Indian scalp. North Carolina
voted a similar provision, and authorized the holding of Indian captives
as slaves. General Amherst, petitioned for assistance, detached 1,200
men, chiefly
Scotch Highlanders, for the purpose, under Colonel Montgomery, with
orders to chastise the Cherokees, but to return in time for the next
campaign against Canada. Montgomery left Charleston early in April, with
regular and provincial troops, and laid waste a portion of the Cherokee
country. They were not subdued. The next year Colonel Grant led a
stronger force against them, burned their towns, desolated their fields,
and killed many of their warriors. Then the Indians humbly sued for
peace (June, 1761).
Cherokee Indians
In 1776 the Cherokees seriously
threatened the frontier of South Carolina. As these Indians had become
the dread of the frontier settlers of Georgia, North Carolina, and
Virginia, these three States joined in the defense of South Carolina.
Col. Andrew Williamson led an expedition into the Cherokee country,
destroyed all their settlements eastward of the Appalachian Mountains,
and effectually brought the natives to submission. This conquest was
effected between July 15 and Oct. 11, 1776. A military work named Fort
Rutledge was erected in the Cherokee country and garrisoned by two
independent companies.
In 1781 the Cherokees having made a
hostile incursion into the Ninety-six District, in South Carolina,
murdered some families, and burned several houses, Gen. Andrew Pickens,
at the head of about 400 mounted militia, penetrated into their country,
and, in fourteen days, burned thirteen towns and villages, killed more
than forty Indians, and took a number of prisoners, without losing a
man.
By a treaty concluded at Hopewell, on the
Keowee, between the United States commissioners and the head men and
warriors of all the Cherokees, the latter, for themselves and their
respective tribes and towns, acknowledged all the Cherokees to be under
the protection of the United States. The boundaries of their
hunting-grounds were settled; several mutual and pacific conditions were
agreed upon; and a solemn pledge was made that " the hatchet should be
buried," and that the peace reestablished should " be universal."
These Indians were friends of the United
States in the War of 1812, and helped to subjugate the Creeks.
Civilization took root among them and produced contention, a portion of
them wishing to adhere to their former mode of living, while others
wished to engage in the industries of civilized life. They were so
absolutely divided in sentiment that in 1818 a portion of the nation
emigrated to wild land assigned to them west of the Mississippi. The
Cherokees, in turn, had ceded large portions of their lands, and their
domain was mostly confined to northern Georgia. They were then making
rapid progress in civilization; but the Georgians coveted their lands.
The Cherokees were yet powerful in numbers, and were then considerably
advanced in the arts and customs of civilization. They had churches and
schools and a printing-press, issuing a newspaper; and they were
disposed to defend their rights against the encroachments of their white
neighbors.
President Jackson favored the Georgians,
and the white people then proceeded to take possession of the lands of
the Cherokees. Trouble ensued, and the southern portion of the republic
was menaced with civil war for a while. The United States troops had
been withdrawn from Georgia, and the national government offered no
obstacle to the forcible seizure of the Indian territory by the
Georgians. Some missionaries laboring among the Cherokees were arrested
and imprisoned for residing in their country contrary to the laws of the
State, and for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to Georgia. The
Cherokees then numbered between 14,000 and 15,000 east of the
Mississippi. The matter in dispute was adjudicated by the Supreme Court
of the United States, and on March 30, 1832, that tribunal decided
against the claims of the Georgians. The Georgians, still favored by the
President, resented this decision. An amicable settlement was finally
reached; and, in 1838, under the mild coercion of Major-General
Winfield Scott and several thousand troops, the Cherokees left their
beautiful country in Georgia with sorrow, and went to wild lands
assigned them, well towards the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains.
In 1861, John Ross, the renowned
principal chief of the Cherokees, who had led them wisely for almost
forty years, took a decided stand against the Confederates. He issued a
proclamation (May 17), in which he reminded his people of their treaty
obligations with the United States, and urged them to be faithful to
them, and to take no part in the stirring events of the day. But he and
his loyal associates among the Cherokees and Creeks were overborne by
the tide of secession and insurrection, and were swept on, powerless, by
the current. The betrayal of the United States troops by
General Twiggs into the hands of the Texas authorities left their
territory on the side of that State open to invasion. False rumors
continually disturbed them. Their neighbors, and the wild tribes on
their borders, were rallying to the standard of the Confederates. The
National troops in Missouri could not check the rising insurrection
there. The chief men of the Cherokees held a mass-meeting at Tahlequah
in Au-gust, when, with great unanimity, they declared their allegiance
to the " Confederate States." Ross still held out, but was finally
compelled to yield. At a council held on Aug. 20, he recommended the
severance of the connection with the national government. Ross's wife, a
young and well-educated woman, still held out; and when an attempt was
made to raise a Confederate flag over the council-house, she opposed the
act with so much spirit that the Confederates desisted.
During the Civil War the Cherokees
suffered much. The Confederates would not trust Ross, for his Union
feelings were very apparent. When, in 1862, they were about to arrest
him, he and his family escaped to the North, and resided in Philadelphia
for a while. In 1899 there were 32,161 Cherokees at the Union agency,
Indian Territory, and 1,351 at the Eastern Cherokee agency, North
Carolina. |
