“Civilization” and Southern Identity: A Cultural and Political History of the Cherokees of the Old South, 1540-1866
by F.B. Bullard, M.A.
The history and traditions of the Cherokee Indians of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries are inextricably linked to the history and traditions of the white southerners. Many facets of Cherokee lifestyle and other Indian tribes in the Southern United States were modified and adapted from white methodology. Aspects of those cultural features were rooted in pre-Columbian traditions. The Celtic culture of people who colonized the Southern United States and that culture’s characteristics were the catalyst of what was arguably the most pivotal event in American history, the War Between the States. Many respected scholars have argued that the ante-bellum south was different than the north, in its lifestyles, philosophies and mores. The southern states and their populations were undeniably different in nearly every socioeconomic and political aspect from the northern states and their respective populations. The destinies of the white southerners and Indian were connected in many ways. They had a number of common interests, traditions, ideals and goals. Some of these similarities were chance, others were due to an intimate relationship developed over centuries of close contact, a relationship created by the dynamic elements in the Cherokee’s new familiarity with their white neighbors and their culture.
The Cherokee adopted some practices willingly, others were forced upon them and some were already in place in some form in their traditional culture. Charles Hudson speculates in his work that the Cherokee and other tribes adopted the measures of civilization in acquiescence to the inability of the Cherokee to compete militarily with the white populous.[1] In actuality the Cherokee and other tribes had adopted the techniques and social concepts of white “civilization” long before they were encouraged to do so by whites and their military intimidation. Concepts like a man or woman’s honor were familiar in Cherokee tradition. The Cherokee and the white southerner could also relate to the fear of subjugation, the aversion to formal education, the Southern fondness for fighting and hunting’s traditions and rituals. Both groups feared the loss of their social traditions. For the white southerner the danger of cultural deterioration was embodied in the Yankee. For the Indian, all white men were a threat to their traditions and cultural tenets. The use of a caste system was a part of the Cherokee’s social structure even before contact with whites. The white South created its own social caste system with white planters as the aristocracy and the African slave at the peon. The caste system created structure for both groups, an ability to control the functions of the community. The Cherokee identified with the South and identified himself as a Southerner. Along with that identity would come the responsibility for both groups to cooperatively protect the institutions belonging to that collective identity through legislation, acculturation, inculcation of their respective populations and eventually by force of arms.
The colonists who settled in the south were different than their counterparts in the North. The primary heritage of the southern colonists was Celtic in contrast to the English heritage of the colonists who settled in the north. The Celtic heritage these Southern colonists brought to North America from Europe had a profound effect on their folkways as well as influencing their Indian neighbors. The Celts that migrated to the southern colonies from Scotland, Ireland and Wales came early in the colonial period. Most of the significant migration of Celts to the Southern colonies occurred before 1800. [2] Similar to the Cherokees in North America, the English would try to acculturate and “civilize” the Celts. The English made several attempts to assimilate the Celtic peoples and their culture that were similar to the efforts to “civilize the Cherokee”.[3] Although the efforts of the English produced some adjustments, they did not have the longstanding or immediate effects that “civilization” efforts did among the Cherokee.
The Cherokee and other Southern Indians were similar to these Celtic peoples in many ways even before their contact with white colonists. These similarities grew over the period of their close contact with these Celts. Traditional Cherokee lands had incorporated all of Kentucky, much of Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, North Carolina and a small part of Virginia and what is now West Virginia. This spatial proximity was one reason for the development of an identity with the Southern colonists and their institutions and traditions.
The Texas Cherokee, a band of the tribe that had moved to Texas early in the colonial period are a case study in the opposite effect. Their contact with Europeans was limited to a few diplomatic relations in the local vicinity. When this group rejoined the nation after the removal to Oklahoma they were an anachronism. They practiced a primitive form of sedentary agriculture and were similar to the main body of the tribe of 100 years earlier. Due to lack of contact they had not adopted the European and Celtic folkways that their eastern counterparts who lived in close contact with white southerners did other than those indigenous to the tribe from the pre-Columbian period.[4]
Settlement in the Southern United States led the Cherokee to identify with Southern traditions and the adaptation of the southern white institutions. In the early 19th century Alexis DeTocqueville noted this phenomenon in Democracy in America:
“Several considerable nations in the South, among them the Creeks, have found themselves practically surrounded all at once by Europeans who landed on the Atlantic coast and came simultaneously down the Ohio and up the Mississippi. These Indians were not chased from place to place, as were the Northern tribes, but had been gradually been pressed within too narrow limits, as if by hunters encircling a corpse before they finally break into it. The Indians, thus faced with the choice of civilization or death, were reduced to living shamefully by their labor, like the white man. So they became cultivators, and not entirely giving up habits and mores, sacrificed only as much of them as was absolutely necessary for survival.”[5]
In this commentary DeTocqueville makes some interesting observations regarding the Indian lifestyle in the South. He goes out of his way to mention the difference between the Indians in the South and the Indians in the North. DeTocqueville notes the Indian propensity for hunting and their unfortunate position in having to turn to laboring as planters and farmers as they were “civilized”. In essence, the different type of encroachment by the southern colonists was the means by which an intimate realtionship eveolved between the white man and his Indian neighbor. The methodology of the northern colonials would in contrast mean the destruction and alienation of many of the tribes of the northwest.
The Cherokee reliance on slave labor for their prosperity was a key adaptation of Cherokee culture to white southern methodology. There was also a similarity of cultural traditions and societal mores of both groups. The Cherokee had a reliance on and tradition of a somewhat different variety of slavery. A form of enslavement in which members of the opposing tribes captured in war were used in labor and agriculture was common among many of the Indian tribes of North America before contact with Europeans. During the latter half of the 18th century black slavery was introduced to the Indians. They were introduced for the first time to the idea of black slavery and the trafficking of slaves as a profit-seeking endeavor by the Celts who colonized the south. The Cherokee had used slavery before the white man ever set foot on North America. Generally these slaves were taken in battle with other tribes and were called atsi nahsa’i or “one who is owned”.[6] The term slave really is not the accurate description of these captives as they enjoyed a somewhat higher status than that of their African counterparts. This may account for what has been recognized by some scholars, as a more “benevolent” Cherokee slavery.
The tribe’s dependence on the Southern tradition of African slavery became more integral to their economy and agriculture as time went on. Much like the southern white population, the vast majority of the Cherokee did not own any slaves. In 1809 there were 589 slaves owned by 125 families (less than 5%), 75 free blacks and 12,395 Cherokee (2,400 Households) living in the Cherokee nation.[7] These numbers represent the infancy of slavery in the Cherokee South. During the boom period of slavery and agriculture before the relocation of the tribe by 1835 those numbers had tripled and doubled to 1592 slaves owned by about 300 families out of 3,300 (nearly 10%) with a total of 16,395 Cherokee.[8] Before the removal the institution of slavery thrived. In 1835 in Georgia alone there were 1,461 Cherokee heads of household with 96 slave owners and 776 slaves.[9] The majority of the slaves held in Georgia could be found along the larger streams of the Piedmont, Ridge and Valley provinces. Large concentrations could also be found in the Etowah and Chattahoochee River valleys. Two of the largest Cherokee slaveholders, one was Martin Vann, owned well over 100 slaves each in 1835.[10] After removal in 1839, the 1859 census estimated that 21,000 Cherokee and non-citizens lived within the Cherokee Nation. The same census shows only 17 free Blacks and approximately 3,504 to 4,500 slaves living in Cherokee territory.[11] Only 384 out of 4,200 families were slave owners actually reported in the census, around 11% of Cherokee families owned at least one slave. At one point in the 1830’s the gender breakdown among the total slave population was 1,122 males and 1,282 females.[12] The statistics demonstrate the growth of the “peculiar institution” among the Cherokee and their white counterparts. The interesting revelation of the last statistic is that there were apparently more agricultural functions filled by the female slaves in the Cherokee nation than there were on the white plantations because of the gender acceptability of those functions in Cherokee tradition.
The white south had a population of approximately 12,000,000 by 1860 with almost 4,000,000 slaves and 25,000 free blacks. [13] This would mean that approximately 28% of the slave states population figure were slaves. Comparable to the Cherokee figure of 1860 which would have represented 21% of the population. There were 385,000 owners of slaves among the 1,516,000 free families. [14] This means that approximately 25% of free families owned at least one slave. This compared to only 11% of the families having at least one slave in the Cherokee Nation. Nearly 88% of the slaveholders held less than 20 slaves, 72% less than 10 slaves and 50% less than five. The vast majority of southern slaveholders were not among the “planter class”.[15] This was also true of the Cherokee. They were in fact small farmers who used a small number of slaves to work their farms.
The typical planter would work a moderate size gang of slaves numbering between 20 and 50. The average number of slaves per slaveholder was 10.2. Less than 3,000 of the slave owners owned more than 100 slaves like Martin Vann one of the largest slave-owners in the Cherokee Nation.[16] Vann would later become a controversial figure as he accepted a $300 bribe to approve a road that would pass through the Cherokee Nation close to his plantation.[17] Similar to southern whites the typical Cherokee slave holder was a farmer not a planter. In fact in the census 71% of the Cherokee masters listed their occupation as farmer with only 6% as planers with 2% calling themselves overseers.[18] The self-image of the typical slaveholder was not necessarily as an elite but as a common farmer. But the idea of the planter class was definitely present among the Cherokee. Other than the higher ratio of female slaves, the Cherokee figures are comparable to those relating to white plantation owners in the Southern United States in the ante-bellum period.
Indian agent for the United States, George Butler, commented that he felt the majority of the material progress in the Indian Territory was a result of slavery. The age of the masters measured in the distribution in slaves provides evidence for the upward mobility of slavery for the Cherokee. The mean number of slaves held by Cherokee aged 15-29 was 6.1 at age 60 or over that number more than doubles to 13.1.[19] The institution of slavery was the grease, which allowed the wheels of capitalism to turn in the Colonies of the Western Hemisphere.[20] Boudinot said at the time that the Cherokee Nation was “rising from the ashes of her degradation” in an address to whites in Philadelphia.[21] With respect to the financial status of the tribe and its elite he was most certainly right. Clearly, the road to advancement in the ante-bellum South was thought by both white and Cherokee to be paved by slavery.
The principal difference from the white south was the treatment of slaves in the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee avoided mistreatment of the slaves and Major Ridge's wife Susanna would not even use the word “slave”.[22] There are many indications that the Cherokee treated their slaves comparatively well, one former slave of Martin Vann, commented that “they (the slaves) had to be feed well, clothed well, and housed well to get the best labor attainable from them”.[23] Another former Cherokee slave commented that, “we always have good eating” and that she and her family lived in a single log house with a stick and dirt chimney.[24] Most of the slaves were allowed to educated and ministered to by the missionaries in the Nation. One missionary commented, “their masters…are all willing to have them instructed and are generally very indulgent in giving them time to attend meeting”.[25] This was an aspect of the peculiar institution that was not generally acceptable in the white south. Victoria Taylor Thompson commented that, “So was the master good, too. None of us was ever beat or whipped like I hear about other slaves.”[26] The good treatment of the slaves in the care of Cherokee masters was also noted by some neutral observers. One observer wrote to the editor of a Richmond, Virginia newspaper that: “They are, however, generally well treated, and they much prefer living in a nation (The Cherokee Nation), to a residence in the United States”.[27] Historian Richard Halliburton summarized the Cherokee feelings regarding slavery well in his book Red Over Black: “Black slavery was thought to be a part of the Cherokee economic, social, and political systems. It had existed for three-quarters of a century and was thought to be necessary for the continued material development of the nation.” A group of Cherokee slaveholders acknowledged that the new government in Washington represented a threat to a prosperous practice and its expansion. A letter to the governor of Arkansas written on July 25, 1863 stated, “Negro slavery exists in the Indian Territory, and is profitable and desirable there, affording a practical issue of the right of expansion, for which the war began.”[28]
There is also evidence to suggest that some blacks were utilized as overseers. Rochelle Ward said that her father was made an overseer after they were sold to a new master. She also noted that many of the slaves “work around and get money and pay this money to their master for their freedom, so there was some freed before the close of the war”.[29] In this respect the slaves owned by Cherokee and other Indian masters have considerably more ability to better themselves and determine their own fate than some historians propose. In essence, slaves were given liberties not often prescribed to slaves in the white South and demonstrate agency by effecting the production capabilities of the plantation through covert methods.[30] This represents another difference in the operations of the plantations in the Cherokee Nation and the white South.
Among the Cherokee and the white South the lack of regard for formal education was evident. It was believed by many in both groups that education was a method of “cultural cleansing” by whites and the Yankees respectively. The aversion to formal education was related to a desire on the part of both groups to “favor skills that would sustain not help to destroy their culture”.[31] Both groups indeed had a fear that their culture and traditions would be destroyed by outside influences whether overtly or tacitly. Despite this aversion to education, the Cherokee were a well-informed people. Sequoyah’s creation of the written form of the Cherokee language in 1821 allowed for the creation of a Cherokee newspaper. The newspaper had been stipulated in the recently ratified constitution of the Cherokee Nation. Sequoyah’s system was simple to understand and many Cherokee learned to read and write the new language within a few days.[32] The newspaper would be known as the Cherokee Phoenix. The Phoenix was a sign that “civilization” efforts had clearly evolved into true manifestations white trappings of an “advanced” civilization. Elias Boudinot would be made the editor of the paper that was printed in the English and Cherokee languages.[33] In Democracy in America, DeTocqueville notes that the Cherokee “had a newspaper before they had clothes”.[34] By 1830 it was estimated that close to half of the adult male population could read and write and many of them graduated from colleges and universities.[35] This trend further facilitated the adoption of the traditions of white southerners into the lives of the Cherokee. Much of the resistance to formal education was overcome by necessity. Many of the Cherokee had accepted that in order to succeed in the New World of the white man they needed to understand his ways.
One group within Cherokee society that was becoming increasingly educated in the white ways and culture were those with white forbears known as “half-breeds”. Many of the “half-breeds” were especially aware of the southern way of life and conformed to it on many levels. The “half-breeds” and their influence on the Cherokee culture was noted by DeTocqueville:
“The presence of half-castes has especially favored the growth of European habits among the Indians. Sharing his fathers enlightenment without entirely giving up the savage customs of his race on his mother’s side, the half-caste forms the natural link between civilization and barbarism. Everywhere that half-castes have multiplied, the savages have gradually changed their social condition and their mores”[36]
DeTocqueville explains many of the Cherokee’s cultural alterations as a concession to the traditions of their white forbears. DeTocqueville also notes the influence of the “mixed bloods” on the other full blooded Indians in regard to the expansion of white institutions and practices.
The most common agents of change among the Cherokee lifestyle were resident traders, missionaries and government agents.[37] The Cherokee modified their traditions for many reasons, among these reasons were: to placate white politicians and land grabbers and reinforce the federal government policies, philanthropists who wanted to “civilize” them and most important of all voluntary adaptation in an effort to preserve at least some of their tribal traditions. The progressives, as they were called, argued that they had to adapt to some of the white traditions and methodology simply to insure the longevity of their tribe and facilitate their survival.
Religion and Christianization was another force of inculcation into the white southern lifestyle. The Cherokee were heavily ministered to in the early colonial period and this practice continued indefinitely. The early effects of the missionary efforts were a transformation of the belief and social systems, which fit the model of the white southern methodology much better than the Cherokee’s indigenous systems of religion. The initial effort was a pro-slavery or slave-neutral evangelistic effort by the missionaries. After the removal to Indian territory the nature of these efforts would be altered dramatically in that respect. This missionary effort resulted in the majority of the Cherokee progressive mixed bloods being inculcated in a Protestant belief system. This Protestant influence helped guide the Cherokee even further along the white, but more importantly, southern path. Not all of the Cherokee were taken in by the missionary effort. Chief Drowning Bear responded to being read some passages in Cherokee from the bible, “It seems a good book but it is strange that the white man who has heard it so long is no better”.[38]
Hunting and the ritualization of hunting were one common interest of both Southern whites and the Cherokee. This was not to say that the Cherokee depended on hunting for their subsistence, on the contrary they had become farmers and cultivators. Elias Boudinot, in response to a publication of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1830, warned of discontent among the tribe because of the lack of game available in the Cherokee territory, in this forceful rebuttal:
“Whoever believes that the Cherokee subsist on game, is most wretchedly deceived, and is grossly ignorant of existing facts. The Cherokees do not live upon the chase, but upon the fruits of the earth produced by their labor. We should like to see any person point to a single family in this nation who obtain their clothing and provisions by hunting. We know of not one. We do not wish to be understood as saying that they do not hunt- they do hunt some, probably, about as much as white people do in new counties…” [39]
There is little reason to doubt Boudinot’s contentions, clearly the burden for production of Cherokee foodstuffs and cash crops was firmly in place on the shoulders of the African slaves and Cherokee yeoman farmers. The Cherokee had become a nation of farmers and plantation owners who, much like the white South hunted game for sport and occasional dietary variety but relied primarily on both cash crops and staple crops for their livelihood. The preference, as Boudinot also points out in his writings, would be for the Cherokee to return to hunting for subsistence by many in the tribe. He acknowledges however that this would be a detriment to the development of the Cherokee as a nation and a people.[40] Like the white Southerner the Cherokee were somewhat reluctant participants in the role of agrarian and farmer.
Cherokee and white southerners alike, were stereotyped by their aversion to labor, particularly in cultivation. In 1850 one Englishman visiting North America wrote, “The Creeks have the greatest possible repugnance to regular labor; they delight in …war or hunting; but the labor of agriculture, as a regular employment, is intolerable to them”.[41] This visitor also observes that the Creeks shared the Southern “fondness for whiskey”, another trait shared by the white South.[42] Alexis DeTocqueville observed: “Whatever the vices and prejudices preventing the North American Indians from becoming cultivators and civilized, necessity sometimes drives them to it.”[43] One missionary, having lived with the Cherokee for many years, wrote, “The people were naturally indolent and despised labor, as is common in slave communities”.[44] Many observers commented similarly about the Celts that colonized the Southern United States. The general consensus at the time was that the Celts were “lazy, herding people who preferred their pastoral ways to tillage, agriculture, towns and business.”[45]
Indolence was the cause, many of their contemporaries felt, for the dependence of both groups on slavery and slave labor. This may be the case but just as important was the need and dependence on slave labor. That dependence would later yield a crop of a caste system and a new aristocracy. A New England schoolteacher visiting the Cherokee nation lamented that all of the family members, children included had almost every menial task performed by slaves. She noted that the slaves fanned the children at night while they slept.[46] Henry Timberlake, who had spent a great deal of time among the Cherokee as a trader commented that “their government…is a mixed aristocracy and democracy”.[47] Annie Abel called the Cherokee “the truest aristocrats the world has ever known” in her book The Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist.[48] Valid or not, the aversion to manual labor, attributed to the hunting tradition created an acceptance of the use of the African slave as a laborer. This was especially the case after it became clear that in order to survive the Cherokee would need to adapt to agricultural system that created a surplus income. Like the white Southerner, the harsh climate and aversion to working labor intensive crops themselves created the need for inexpensive and efficient labor. Cotton was introduced to the Cherokee as a crop in 1790. The crop caught on very quickly among the Cherokee and Cherokee women proved very willing to experiment with growing and spinning the cotton into cloth the men resisted. As a result of Cotton becoming more prominent in the Cherokee fields, hunters began to loose their prominence as providers. The more the hunters lost status and social importance the Cherokee women gained status. Some of the Indians complained to Benjamin Hawkins, “if the women can clothe themselves they will be proud and not obedient to their husbands.” [49] Eventually the men would begin to understand the validity of cotton as a cash crop and would begin using slave labor to mass produce it and spin it into cloth. Many of the Cherokee slaves in the Nation during the ante-bellum period worked in cotton. There was one major difference from the Southern cotton plantations, there were no cotton gins in the Cherokee Nation. All of the seed removal from the lint was performed by hand. Then that lint would be woven into cotton. This aspect of the cultivation of the crop led to a greater dependence on slave labor, as the finished product required even more man-hours to produce.[50]
There was even an effort afoot to solve the “Negro issue”, as it is called in some of the Southern Cherokee correspondence, through colonization. The American Colonization Society, an organization popular in the North in certain quarters and in the South among some liberals took on its own form in the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee formed their own version of the ACS called the African Benevolent Society. One observer noted, “ The presumption is, that the Cherokees will, at no distant day, cooperating with the humane efforts of those who are liberating and sending this proscribed race to the land of their fathers”.[51]
Slavery was not the only means by which the Cherokee upper class and farmers had succeeded as businessmen and women. Many of the Cherokee had done very well as cattle ranchers, especially after the removal to Indian territory. The Cherokee had also been efficient as raising other livestock including hogs and horses through which many generated a substantial income. In the Commissioner of Indian Affairs report of 1862 however, notes that by that time much of the wealth accumulated by the Cherokee in pig farming had been decimated by the troops North and South travelling in the territory.[52] The Cherokee plantations consisted of a variety of cash crops and staple crops. Major Ridge’s plantation consisted of an orchard with 1141 peach trees, 418 apple trees, 11 quince, 21 cherry, and plum trees. Ridges farm also boasted eight fields with 300 acres growing corn, wheat, cotton, tobacco, oats, indigo, sweet potatoes and Irish potatoes.[53] This variety of production and versatility was not unique to the Cherokee. The growing of multiple crops either for personal consumption or sale was not uncommon among white plantations in the South.
Whether by “necessity” or by willing adaptation of the white methods, the Cherokee and the other Indians of the South would find themselves in the role of slave masters on large plantations. Theda Perdue, in her research on the subject of slavery among the Cherokee, contends that the purpose for the use of slavery by the Cherokee was merely an attempt to gain acceptance by Southern whites. This premise is flawed because of one simplistic yet relevant fact: the Cherokee needed slave labor to continue to compete with white owned, and other southern plantations. The Cherokee had to keep up with the demand for labor in their farming operations. Slavery was not merely a vestige adopted from imitation, nor was it a means to gain the respect of whites; its roots were already firmly implanted in the Cherokee tradition. The institution merely had to be modified to fit within the framework of the Cherokee lifestyle, society and customs.[54]
Many of the Cherokee realized early on that the European encroachment would inevitably mean the destruction of the tribe or the adaptation of their methods, at least in part. Elias Boudinot commented on the necessity of adaptation around 1830 in the Cherokee Phoenix: “We may, by the improvement of our various departments of life, gain the respect and esteem of other nations.”[55] The Cherokee and other southern Indians also became yeoman agrarians similar in many respects to the white farmers in the region. The Cherokee had discovered the secret of the successful and wealthy white planters and had followed their lead.
When the Cherokee were relocated to Indian Territory they brought many of the traditions they had acquired with them on the trail of tears. A substantial portion of the pro-removal, pro-treaty faction among the Cherokee could be found among the wealthier planters and merchants. The wealthy landowners were the first to go as they realized the inevitability of the relocation and the impact of a forced relocation. These initial migrants also adapted the best to the new location of the tribe as they had a head start on those who had stayed behind. Many of these pioneers already had established farms and plantations as well as other businesses in Indian Territory before the others ever arrived. Those who were a part of the initial wave of the migration also had more opportunity to liquidate what assets they could before their move and as such made the long journey much easier and less hazardous.
A small portion of the tribe that stayed behind in North Carolina represented a fascinating example of the adaptation by the Indians of the white methodologies. William Holland Thomas was a case study in assimilation of a different nature, a white southerner that would become a part of the Cherokee tribe. William Holland Thomas would prove to be a savior for these North Carolinian Cherokee. He was adopted in to the Cherokee tribe of North Carolina and eventually would help to spare the Oconaluftee Cherokee from removal in the infamous “trail of tears”. Thomas used his influence to help the tribe often and eventually was elected chief of the tribe. Thomas’ strength was he was able to straddle the two worlds of the white man and the Cherokee and create connections which afforded his tribe great benefits. Thomas taught the Indians how to adapt the useful aspects of white society while still encouraging their cultural traditions. He was a frequent participant in the Green Corn dance as well as in the ballgames. Eventually he would lead a force of his adopted Cherokee kinsman in the War Between the States.[56] Devotion to Thomas and the cause of the South was unprecedented among these Cherokee even though most lived in a mountainous area and did not own slaves. Over 400 men of the eastern band of the Cherokee would serve the Confederacy in a mixed regiment of over 2,800. The 400 Cherokee who served under Thomas represented, according to one account, “about every able bodied man in the tribe”.[57] Thomas was a known secessionist and would later comment on the coming crisis that; “the Southern states remaining in the union could expect tyranny and oppression”.[58] Thomas would be the source of a great deal of outcry among the federal army when his men scalped some of the dead on the battlefield. [59]
The Cherokee lifestyle reflected the rural and agrarian aspects of the white South. Even as early as the mid-sixteenth century the Cherokee were sedentary farmers. Their first encounter with Europeans in 1540 yielded a quick change in how the Cherokee created necessary foodstuffs. Even in pre-Columbian times the Cherokee system had a great deal of flexibility about it and was often adapted to utilize the useful aspects of other native cultures.[60] Prior to the War Between the States, five of the southern states did not have a town with a population of over 10,000 including North Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and Texas. The only large city in the South was New Orleans that was legitimately a southern city. Thus slavery and the world the Cherokee and white southerners inhabited was a part of an agrarian civilization.
The Cherokee and other Southern tribes also venerated the woman’s place in the family and importance in society. Although the white Southern tradition for women was far less politically powerful and not quite as sexually liberal, the importance of women in the South and their society was clear. The white southern woman wielded power through a different methodology. Cherokee women exerted a great deal of control and influence with the male members of society. The Cherokee women were often slaveholders as the traditions of martilinealism meant that the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next often concentrated on wives and their families. This was not unusual among white women of the South; they were frequently the beneficiaries of large estates with substantial numbers of slaves as well. They like the Cherokee women assumed the role of master of the plantation during the War Between the States. As the primary beneficiaries of large estates they wielded power both politically and culturally. A large portion of the wealth that Cherokee men or women willed would be in slaves. Approximately 10% of the Cherokee masters recorded in the 1850 census were female. Comparatively speaking the median age for the female masters were 50 among the men it was 42.7. Another surprising statistic revealed that 46% of the female masters owned between $1,000 and $10,000 worth of land. This was not that different from the male figure of 55%.[61] Clearly matrilineal inheritance had a profound effect on the distribution of wealth in the Cherokee Nation according to gender. John Rollin Ridge of the southern Cherokee said that, “property belonging to the wife is not at the control and disposal of the husband”. [62] Ridge continued that women all over the Cherokee nation maintained “exclusive and distinct control” of their own property.[63] This created a problem in the efforts of “civilization” of the tribe. In 1806 President Thomas Jefferson encouraged Cherokee chiefs to rethink how property was inherited, “When a man has enclosed and improved his farm…he will wish when he dies that these things shall go to his wife and children, whom he loves more than he does his other relations.” Women wielded even greater influence among the traditional full-blooded Cherokee but still commanded power among the mixed bloods. It is important to note as Theda Purdue does in Cherokee Women that although the aristocratic “mixed blood” wielded even more power with the entire tribe (as opposed to within one group), they still did not approach gender equity.[64]
Cherokee women were generally traditionalists. They also were moral advisors to their husbands as were white women of the South. Stand Watie’s wife Sarah wrote him while he was away at war, “Be a good man as you always have been. At the end a clear conscience before God and man is the advise [sic] of your wife.” [65] In other passages the letter also conveys a great deal about her role in the family especially as her husband is off at war. Sarah took on all of the responsibilities of the family including the sole responsibility for their well being. The remainder of the letter does not convey confusion or bewilderment as might be expected despite the incredibly difficult circumstances. Much like the situation for white southern women there were no males to assume their traditional roles in the social organization of the community and the women assumed the burdens of survival and subsistence under terrible circumstance and did it quite well.[66]
While the ideas about women and gender among the Cherokee did not follow the model of the “civilization” effort their ideas regarding race were very similar to those of the white south.[67] As the trade in African slaves became more ingrained in the Cherokee culture, James Oakes in The Ruling Race, contends that, “many adopted the white racial attitudes that defined blacks as inferior, their skin color the outward sign of their predestined lot as slaves”.[68] This was primarily true of the planter class but filtered down to other castes of the Cherokee society. The Cherokee followed the lead of the white south and restricted marriages of Cherokee women to blacks. The marriage restrictions were among the first restrictions of the freedoms of Cherokee women. The restrictions on intermarriage within the nation also applied to men as well, the penalty for any white or Cherokee who had intimate relationships with black women was “25 stripes”.[69] Cherokee women traditionally had a much greater sexual freedom than did their counterparts in the white south. This was one aspect of the Cherokee lifestyle that would be molded to fit the southern concepts of a woman’s honor and virtue as well as the restriction of sexual freedoms for ante-bellum women in the white South.
Republican motherhood created a tremendous responsibility for the Cherokee women to inculcate their daughter in the virtues of purity and piety much like their southern counterparts. In the male children the attendant virtues that should be expressed by the proper progressive young man independence, moderation, reason and productivity. The lack of adultery restrictions for women among the Cherokee led James Adair to label the system “petticoat-government”. One trader reported that, “Cherokee men had nothing to say about their women’s behavior”.[70] The restriction of the sexual freedom of women would transform the basic tenet of the female code of behavior among the Cherokee into sexual purity, would create stability and would liberate women in the eyes of the progressives.[71] If the other aspects of the white south’s social structure and tradition were quickly adapted by the Cherokee then the methodology of dealing with women and their place in the social strata were only beginning to be brought into line in the ante-bellum period.[72]
The housing of the Cherokee also followed the white south’s pattern the wealthy planters lived in lavish plantation houses with the majority of the population living in “comfortable log houses, generally one story high, but frequently two” as the missionary Samuel Worcester described in 1830.[73] The accumulation of large amounts of personal property was a challenge to the community-orientated, clan-based Cherokee society.[74] Many of the Cherokee were astute businessmen with large land holdings, plantation houses to rival the most lavish of their white counterparts and holdings in slaves that were also substantial. Stand Watie, later General Watie, also had been a successful businessman. By 1861 Watie had a large tract of land along the Grand and Arkansas Rivers, a general store at Millwood and a successful law practice.[75] Even John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation and nemesis of Stand Watie, held a large number of slaves at Rose Cottage Plantation in Park Hill.[76] Watie would eventually burn Rose Cottage during a raid by his Confederate Cherokee in October of 1863.[77] Before and after the removal to Indian Territory from Georgia the Ross plantation was a formidable estate. The plantation on the Coosa River also included workshops, smokehouses, stables, corncribs, blacksmith shop, wagon house and quarters for his slaves, which numbered 19 at the time. The Ross plantation also boasted peach and apple orchards and also operated a very profitable ferryboat.[78] Although he was a slaveholder, by the end of the War Between the States, he became a close friend and political ally of Abraham Lincoln and outspoken advocate of manumission. Ross’s brother Lewis was a planter and master of over 40 slaves. He operated three large stores, a mill and three ferryboats. Some very surprised New Englanders visiting him described his home as, “an elegant white house near the bank of the river, as neatly furnished as almost any in Litchfield County and Negroes enough to wait on us.”[79] Elias Boudinot reported that in 1826 there were 22,000 head of cattle, 7,600 horses, 46,000 swine, 2,500 sheep, 762 looms, 2488 spinning wheels, 172 wagons, 2943 ploughs and 18 schools. Most of spinning looms Boudinot mentioned had been distributed in one of the federal government’s “civilization” efforts along with some of the other agricultural equipment mentioned.[80] Joseph Lynch, an attorney by profession, was the owner of one of the largest plantations in the Cherokee Nation he also owned a mill, salt works, plantation, and tannery.[81] He was not uncommon of the Cherokee upper class. There were many successful and wealthy Cherokee who both owned and traded in slaves and had other lucrative business ventures.
In an effort to protect their wealth and prosperity the Cherokee planters used legal means to enforce order within the nations and preserve the rights that allowed them to amass their wealth. The Cherokee modeled their government after the state and local governments of the southern states in which they lived. One surprising aspect of the Cherokee government system was that their women were disenfranchised despite the fact that they were among the wealthiest an most influential members of Cherokee society. The constitution and the legal system in the Cherokee nation provided for control of the slave labor population through slave codes, access to large sections of public domain land, and little or no taxation.[82] Although Duane Champagne in his book Social Order and Political Change asserts that the planters never had, “direct or total control” of the government, they apparently had the ability to control the policy makers who wrote the new Cherokee constitution and laws.[83] Albert Pike also made the valid point that “there was never a time when the “loyal” Indians could not have destroyed the southern Indians”.[84] The planter class, through their knowledge of politicking were apparently able to use the white, and often Southern advisers to enact and sustain the type of laws that they needed to maintain political control, albeit covertly.
Many white, southern politicians, Jefferson Davis included, pressed for Indian removal. In 1850 as a Congressman representing Mississippi he had said, “It is an object of great importance that the Choctaws should be removed and prevented from returning (to Mississippi)”.[85] The Choctaws in Mississippi were not looked upon fondly by the white southerners because of their intimacy with the black slaves. This type of activity created strong movement among Davis’ constituents to remove them.[86] The Eastern Cherokee consisted of about two thirds of the tribe that remained behind in the Southeast on a portion of the original tribal lands.[87] The removal and the arguments regarding it were the basis for the bloody feud between the Ross and his supporters and the Ridge-Watie-Boudinot division.
The practice of feuding and vendetta were common in the Cherokee Nation and were often precipitated by political disagreements and conflicts. These conflicts were also common in the white south. The white preference in the south was the duel. One traveler in Ireland noted that “It is not unusual for them to meet in clans or factions, for the avowed purpose of a battle”.[88] The Celtic tradition of violence may have had different methodology but often yielded a similar result. The Watie group would later be charged by the Ross faction of violation of tribal law for ceding tribal lands to the white man’s government without the permission of the tribe.[89] The penalty for this violation was death and the sentence would be carried out de-facto on many of the Watie faction.[90] Ross of course said that his group was innocent of these murders. President Andrew Jackson was also skeptical of Ross’s claim of non-complicity in the murders. In a letter written in October of 1835 to Watie and his colleagues, he reveals his sentiments regarding Ross’s activities, “I trust the president will not hesitate to employ all his rightful power to protect you and your party from the tyranny & murderous schemes of John Ross.”[91]
The grievances of the Cherokee with the federal government grew and no effort was made to counter act the growing animosity.[92] Several factions began maneuvering to take the power position. Both those who supported the treaty and those who did not began to jockey for position. None of the factions were completely in control. This power struggle caused the already weak government to begin to falter.[93] The Cherokee government was a weak political entity and was also bankrupt due to mismanagement of funds. John Ridge complained that, "Our Nation is crumbling into ruin".[94]
The Watie faction saw removal as inevitable and the only viable solution. The removal was forced later on those who remained. The suffering of the exodus would always be remembered as the "trail of tears". Nearly 12,000 Cherokee made the journey west and well over 400 of them died by official estimates.[95] Some estimates put the number higher when considering the deaths in the camps before and after the removal and those who died after arrival because of debilitation caused by the trip. All told the number of Cherokee killed by the process of removal was somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000.[96] John Ross said of the removal that the Cherokee had been “treated like dogs”. Ross went on to say that the Cherokee who remained would be like “a solitary tree in an open space, where all the forest trees around have been prostrated by a furious tornado.”[97] Ross could not have known how accurate his forecast could have been as that the remaining Cherokee were battered by the storm and once they were transplanted they had a much harder time growing new roots. It is easy to find fault with the advocates of removal. Theda Purdue makes a strong case in her book Cherokee Editor, “one is tempted to condemn Elias Boudinot for his part in negotiating removal but also for his narrow view of culture and society”, she continues, “but the issues of the twentieth century were not those of the nineteenth”. She correctly notes that the faction that negotiated the treaty did not know that 4,000 lives would be lost in transit.[98] Elias Boudinot would eventually pay with his life for his part in the removal. In the Cherokee and Southern tradition of vendetta and vigilante activity he would be murdered for participation in the treaty negotiations.
Differing from the tradition of the Southern duel but reflecting the violent tendencies of both groups these reprisals were not particularly chivalrous. John Ridge was removed from his bed where he was ill and stabbed to death in front of his wife and children.[99] The results may have been the same in the South but the methodology quite different. The practice of feuding among the Cherokee was even recalled by one former slave born in the 1830’s, “My master and all the rest of his folks was Cherokees, and they’d been killing each other off in the feud ever since long before I was borned”.[100] The feud had even evolved into attacks on the slaves themselves. Another practice that was not unheard of in the white south in a feud between clans or families, the destruction or damage of the others property. One slave recalled his mother going out for dying materials and never returning, her body was found later with her head clubbed in.[101] After the murders of June 22, 1839, the Watie group correctly assessed that there was a plot to destroy them by the murder of the entire group.[102] Elias Rector, who would later become the Governor of Arkansas, noted the trends and propensity for violence in his reports. Rector refers to profuse gambling, drinking and disorder in the Cherokee Nation.[103]
Groups of New England missionaries had been preaching the doctrine of abolitionism in recent years to the Cherokee agitating the divisions among the Cherokee.[104] These missionaries were active even before the removal to Indian Territory. As the southern states seceded the missionaries began to leave the Indian Territory. Most of them were outspoken against slavery but tolerated it in order to remain in the territory to preach the gospel. Most of the Cherokee slaveholders thought them to be abolitionist plants placed there to disrupt the harmony of the system.[105] Agent George Butler complained of the missionary activity and felt that the abolitionist preaching of the missionaries would only lead to slave uprisings.[106] Still the missionary effort had a great deal of influence on the Cherokee people and created an undercurrent of abolitionist sentiment among the Cherokee. In 1861 Governor Edward Clark of Texas contended that a northern missionary was, “said to exert no small influence with John Ross himself”.[107] By the end of the 1850’s the southern party had two prominent goals: drive the abolitionist missionaries from the territory and attract more white slave owners to the area to better combat the abolitionist efforts. This was also a trend very common in the South, if an abolitionist were caught distributing information to slaves or citizens, he or she would surely meat with a swift and violent death by vigilantes or slave patrols that kept a sharp watch for strangers and other agitators. The Federal government and its agents prior to the Lincoln administration supported the efforts of the southern Cherokee. To counter the sedition of abolitionists, in 1860 a plan was considered to divide the Cherokee Nation into plots and give each member of the tribe a homestead and open the rest to white slaveholding settlers from the south.[108]
The Cherokee began to divide themselves along conservative and progressive courses. The conservatives were, for the most part, abolitionist full bloods who believed in the retention of the old Indian ways of life. The increasing pro-southern sentiment, even among the non-slaveholders, was becoming more and more evident as the eve of the War Between the States drew closer. When Ross eventually signed the treaty with the Confederates nearly all of the Cherokee of eligible age joined the Confederate Army or were conscripted.[109] The Southern Rights Party and were ready to protect slavery's and the south’s interests by any means necessary.[110] Their primary function was to “protect their country from the ravages of abolitionists”.[111] Stand Watie's letter to the chief of the Creeks really put the argument in perspective and helps to clarify the Cherokee motivation for alliance with the Confederacy and their identification as Southerners:
“I believe that it is within the power other Indians unassisted but united and determined, to hold their country. We cannot expect to do this without serious losses and many trials and privations; but if we posses the spirit of our fathers, and are resolved never to be enslaved by an inferior race, and trodden under the feet of an ignorant and insolent foe, we, the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and Cherokees never can be conquered by the Kansas jayhawkers, renegade Indians, and runaway Negroes. It requires at this time, and will as long as the war shall last, all the Yankee forces of Missouri to hold that State against the friends of the South within her limits. The multitude of soldiers that the North has now, or may yet bring into the field, will have abundant occupation elsewhere, so that the only expect action of the North to conquer the Indian Nation is the traitors that have deserted us, the Negroes they have stolen from us and a few Kansas jayhawkers they can spare from that detestable region. Shall we ever suffer ourselves to be subjugated and enslaved by such a class! Never!”[112]
As the Cherokee were loyal to the South, the South was certainly proving loyal to them as well. The Charleston Mercury was enthusiastic about the alliance with the “civilized tribes” as an editorial reported in March of 1861:
“The Choctaw Indians have lately passed resolutions to go with the South. The Cherokees will follow suit. They are all slaveholders, and hard fighters; and, in conjunction with an army of Arkansas, will be a terror to the Abolition invaders.”[113]
This passage not only reflects the enthusiasm of a wartime ally but the political allegiance felt by white southerners in the knowledge that their allies were sincere in their support.
Chief Opothleyoholo of the Creeks was a reluctant ally of the Union because he feared vendetta reprisals from an ongoing feud with the McIntosh family and felt that only the union was strong enough to protect him. Opothleyoholo wielded a strong influence with the Seminoles as well as his own people. Ross conveyed his sincere belief in the alliance to the Confederacy to Opothleyoholo. In a letter to Opothleyoholo he wrote: “My advice and desire under the present extraordinary crisis, is, for all the red brethren to be united among themselves in the support of our common rights – and interest by forming an alliance of peace and friendship with the Confederate States of America.”[114]
Ross’s reluctant decision to ally with the Confederacy was met with great enthusiasm by General McCulloch and is evident in his letter to Ross on September 1,1861, “Permit me to congratulate you upon the course you have thought proper to pursue. The people of the Confederate States and those of the Cherokee Nation must share a common destiny. Their interest and institutions are the same. Then let us as brothers co-operate against a common enemy to us and those institutions, and drive them from our borders whenever they dare approach them.”[115]
Commissioner for Indian Affairs for the Confederacy David Hubbard assured Ross that if the North invaded everything would be lost but if they chose to ally themselves with the Confederacy their property and rights would be protected.[116] Hubbard also warned Ross of the coming rush of northern settlers upon Cherokee lands who would squat there and demand the type of government they desire free from slavery.[117] J.W. Washborne, in his letter to Stand Watie of May 18,1861, restated the danger that the conflict represented for the Cherokee institutions and ideals that were nearly identical to the white South’s. Washborne wrote, “The interest of the Cherokees are identical with ours, we feel them to be so and we will do all in our power to aid and protect them.”[118]
Superintendent Rector also weighed in on the logic of the Cherokee Confederate alliance in his letter to Ross on January 29, 1861: “Your people, in their institutions, productions, latitude and natural sympathies, are allied to the common brotherhood of the slave holding states.”[119] Ross replied to Rector that the Cherokee “institutions, locality and natural sympathies are unequivocally with the slave holding states”. Again the sentiment is that they are two people with a common cause, this would be reinforced by Ross’s reply. Ross then referred to the abolitionist influence when he commented, “you may rest assured that the Cherokee people will never tolerate the propagation of any obnoxious fruit upon their soil”.[120] Ross and the Cherokee were also eager to join the Confederacy as most of the other tribes had signed in alliance with the South and the Cherokee could not stand alone in their neutrality.[121]
The alliance with the Confederacy was made official by the tribe in September 1861.[122] It was hoped that the alliance with the confederacy would grant them the rights that they had been trying to secure from the union for many years. The treaty was eventually signed and the CSA agreed to guarantee the Cherokee lands and annuities, the agreement also said that the CSA would be responsible for protecting the Cherokee from invasion and provides them with arms and ammunition for their defense.[123] The new alliance between the Cherokee and the Confederacy also allowed for representation for the Cherokee in the Confederate Congress. Robert Utley contended in his book The Indian Frontier, “With the coming of the Civil War, many of the tribes entered a new and more traumatic phase of their relations with white people.”[124] I am not sure that I would agree with Utley’s contention. Certainly there is a traumatic loss of life for all parties involved, but the relationship with whites, especially the Confederacy and its representatives had never been better. The Cherokee had the most substantive representation in any white government during this time period than in any other up until that time. This also facilitated recognition from the government in Washington that had been condescending at best, up until that time, for most of the “civilized tribes”.
A large number of Cherokee troops were enlisted and Stand Watie was made Colonel of the First Mounted Cherokee Rifles.[125] Watie had made such a favorable impression on General McCulloch that he referred to him in his writing as "this gallant man and true friend of our country”.[126] Watie's ability as a commander was shown very early on in the war at the Battle of Pea Ridge in March 1862.[127] The battle of Pea Ridge or Elkhorn Tavern was probably the most notable engagement that the Confederate Cherokee fought in although definitely not the most successful. In all over 3,000 of the western band of the Cherokee would serve in the Confederate Army, with another estimated 8,500 supporters of the Confederacy remaining, mostly women and children, remaining behind until they were forced to leave their homes by Union invaders.[128] Even after some initial setbacks for the Confederacy and the Cherokee soldiers in her forces Ross remained true to the obligations of the Cherokee with a flat refusal to even hear the proposal of Union Colonel Weer. Ross reminded him that he had made an alliance with the Confederacy, “under the sanction and authority of the whole Cherokee people.”[129]
After the War Between the States the political divisions which had split the Cherokee for so long resurfaced. During the peace negotiations both delegations, the Ross faction and the Watie faction, claimed to be the real Cherokee authorities.[130] The commissioners said that by joining the Confederacy the Cherokee had forfeited all previous treaties with the United States.[131] The provisions in the new treaties included the abolition of slavery, ceding of Cherokee tribal land for freed slaves and other friendly Indian tribes, and that the Indian government would be reduced to one entity controlling the entire Indian Territory.[132] The Southern Cherokee returned to their homes to find them destroyed and their lands decimated, a homecoming not terribly different from their Southern counterparts.
The efforts of the Cherokee who fought with the Confederacy and the Southern Cherokee at home were monumental considering the obstacles that faced them in their undertaking. The Cherokee shared many things with the South, slavery as an institution and an economic necessity, agrarianism, social traits, the plantation system, propensity for violence and a caste society among others. Similar in nature to C. Vann Woodward’s connection of African Americans in the South and white southerners, the Southeastern Indians and the white south were inextricably linked. What Woodward said of that relationship can also be applied to the native-white relationship: “…confronting each other on their native soil for three and a half centuries, is the degree which they shaped each others destiny, determined each others isolation, shared and molded a common culture”.[133] For this kinship the Cherokee would also suffer the same terrible defeat and pain as their white counterparts. The Southerner would finally have an understanding of what it was like to be an Indian. They would begin to have an understanding of living under the repression of a government that does not represent your interests or ideals. On the other side of the equation, for a short time, a select few Cherokee understood what it meant to be wealthy planters and prosperous businessmen. Both the white South and the Cherokee saw an opportunity to overthrow a tyrannical government that they felt was not representative, as called for in the Constitution. Both groups of Southerners, Cherokee and white, were revolutionaries, their motivations no different than those of their revolutionary forbears. In summary, Cherokee society and white Southerners had fewer differences than either group realized. Both Cherokee and whites were made to atone for their sins. Ironically, most of the land that had been given in exchange for the theft of their true spiritual homes had been confiscated and redistributed to their former slaves and white settlers as surplus land. Similarly, the land of the South’s most prominent families and smallest farmers would also be “redistributed”. The penance would be paid by both white and Indian southerners with their lives, liberty and property. As they succeeded together in the fruits of slave labor they also shared the same disastrous result of their disobedience.
The Cherokee culture and peoples have survived and flourished and continue to do so even today. The first three centuries of Cherokee exposure to the Celtic folkways and lifestyle of the southern colonists were a pivotal phase in a long series of cultural changes for the tribe. Despite the drastic change in lifestyle, neither the culture of the Cherokee or the Cherokee people has disappeared. This perseverance seems to attest to the resilience of the Cherokee as a people and their adaptability to new elements within their culture. Cultures do not die, they simply adapt to fit the needs of the people whom they represent, changes in their environment and the temporal periods in which they exist.
[1] Charles Hudson. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,1972.p.449
[2] Grady McWhiney. Cracker Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989. P.38.
[3] Grady McWhiney. Cracker Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989. P.38.
[4] Dianna Everett. The Texas Cherokees: A People Between Two Fires. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. P111
[5] Alexis DeTocqueville, J.P. Mayer (editor), George Lawrence (translator). Democracy In America. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. p.329
[6] Theda Perdue. Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1979. p.4
[7] United States. Census Bureau. A Census of the Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington: GPO, 1909.
[8] United States. Census Bureau. A Census of the Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington: GPO, 1909.
[9] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.190
[10] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.192
[11] United States. Census Bureau. A Census of the Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington: GPO, 1909.
[12] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.117
[13] United States. Census Bureau. A Census of the Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington: GPO, 1909.
[14] United States. Census Bureau. A Census of the Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington: GPO, 1909.
[15] United States. Census Bureau. A Census of the Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington: GPO, 1909.
[16] United States. Census Bureau. A Census of the Population Growth from the First Census of the United States to the Twelfth, 1790-1900. Washington: GPO, 1909.
[17] Brown, John P. Old Frontiers: The Story of the Cherokee from Earliest Times to the Date of Their Removal to the West, 1838. Kingsport, TN: Southern Publishers, 1938. P.449
[18] J.D. DeBow. Statistical View of the United States. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1854. P.88-89
[19] J.D. DeBow. Statistical View of the United States. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1854. P.88-89
[20] Eric Williams explores this idea in his groundbreaking work called Capitalism and Slavery (1944), which, as the title indicates, explores the symbiotic relationship between these economic expansion and the growth of the institution of slavery. Williams’ work is one of the most important works ever produced in the field of the history of slavery in the Western Hemisphere.
[21] Steven Mintz Ed. Native American Voices: A History and Anthology. St. James, NY: Brandywine Press. 1995. P.121
[22] John Ehle. Trail Of Tears: The Rise and Fall Of the Cherokee Indian Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. p.296
[23] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.75
[24] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.146
[25] Joyce B. Phillips and Paul Gary Phillips, Editors. The Brainerd Journal: A Mission to the Cherokees 1817-1823. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. P.56
[26] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.151
[27] Theda Perdue. Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1979. p.93
[28] Annie Heloise Abel. The American Indian As Participant In The Civil War. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1910. p.298
[29] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.156
[30] Eugene Genovese explores these and other ideas in Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1972). His thesis is in essence that the slaves had a great deal more ability to control their world and surroundings than is often indicated by many historians of black slavery and is approached from a Marxist methodology.
[31] Grady McWhiney. Cracker Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989. p.214
[32] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.4
[33] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.3 **Note Elias “Buck” Boudinot (b. ca. 1804) referred to in this commentary is the older brother of General Stand “Dedegodoga – He Stands on Two Feet” Watie and E.C. Boudinot. Referred to later in this essay is Stand Watie’s nephew, who survives the war and represent the Southern faction in negotiations after the War Between the States.
[34] Alexis DeTocqueville, J.P. Mayer (editor), George Lawrence (translator). Democracy In America. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. p.329
[35] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.4
[36] Alexis DeTocqueville, J.P. Mayer (editor), George Lawrence (translator). Democracy In America. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. P. 330
[37] William Anderson. Cherokee Removal: Before and After. Athens, GA, 1991. P.1
[38] Clarke, Mary W. Chief Bowles and the Texas Cherokees. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. P.6
[39] Theda Perdue, Ed.. Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996. p.114-15
[40] Edited by Theda Perdue, see Cherokee Editor (1983) for additional commentary by Boudinot on the various aspects of the “civilization” of the Cherokee. The book is a compilation of Boudinot’s submissions to various publications and his work as editor of the Cherokee Phoenix Newspaper.
[41] Grady McWhiney. Cracker Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989. p.21
[42] Grady McWhiney. Cracker Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989. p.21
[43] Alexis DeTocqueville, J.P. Mayer (editor), George Lawrence (translator). Democracy In America. New York: Harper Collins, 1988. p.328
[44] William G. McLoughlin. After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees and Their Struggle for Sovereignty 1839-1880. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. P.124
[45] Grady McWhiney. Cracker Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989. p.41
[46] William G. McLoughlin. After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees and Their Struggle for Sovereignty 1839-1880. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. P.163
[47] Edmund Morgan. American Slavery, American Freedom. New York: Norton, 1975. P.49
[48] Annie Heloise Abel. The American Indian as Slaveholder and Secessionist. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1915. P.46.
[49] McLoughlin, William G. Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. P.62
[50] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.75
[51] Theda Perdue. Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society 1540-1866. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1979. p.93
[52] Annie Heloise Abel. The American Indian and the End of the Confederacy. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1910. P.73 the citation is a correspondence from Carruth and Martin to Coffin, July 25, 1862, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Report, 1862, p.160.
[53] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.21
[54] Theda Perdue discusses these topics at length in Slavery and the Evolution of Cherokee Society (1979)
[55] Theda Perdue, Ed.. Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996. p.11
[56] For more on William Thomas and his life see E. Stanley Godbold and Mattie U. Russell. Confederate Colonel and Cherokee Chief: The Life of William Holland Thomas. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1990.
[57] Russell Thornton. The Cherokees: A Population History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. P.97
[58] E. Stanley Godbold and Mattie U. Russell. Confederate Colonel and Cherokee Chief: The Life of William Holland Thomas. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press, 1990. p.91
[59] Confederate Military History Vol. I-XII. Indiana: Guild Press, 1997.Volume IV p.148
[60] Dianna Everett. The Texas Cherokees: A People Between Two Fires. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1990. P.5
[61] J.D. DeBow. Statistical View of the United States. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1854. P.88-89
[62] Sarah H. Hill. Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. P.95
[63] Sarah H. Hill. Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. P.97
[64] Purdue, Theda. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. P.185
[65] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. P.126
[66] Drew Gilpin Faust explores the topic of white southern women during the War Between the States in Drew Gilpin Faust. Mothers of Invention. New York: Random House, 1996.
[67] Gregory Evans Dowd. A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian Struggle For Unity 1745-1815. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins university Press, 1992. P.153
[68] James Oakes. The Ruling Race. New York: WW Norton, 1998. p.45
[69] McLoughlin, William G. Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986. P.340
[70] Thornton, Russell. The Cherokees: A Population History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. P.45
[71] Purdue, Theda. Cherokee Women: Gender and Culture Change. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. P.191
[72] Sarah H. Hill. Weaving New Worlds: Southeastern Cherokee Women and Their Basketry. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. P.163
[73] Jack and Anna Kilpatrick, Editors. New Echota Letters: Contributions of Samuel A. Worcester to the Cherokee Phoenix. Dallas, TX: Southern Methodist University Press, 1968. P.79
[74] Joyce B. Phillips and Paul Gary Phillips. The Brainerd Journal: A Mission to the Cherokees 1817-1823. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998 p.15
[75] Laurence Hauptman. Between Two Fires: American Indians In the Civil War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. p.46
[76] Laurence Hauptman. Between Two Fires: American Indians In the Civil War. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995. p.46 Watie would eventually burn Rose Cottage during a raid by his Confederate Cherokee in October of 1863. See Kenny Franks. Stand Watie. Memphis, TN: Memphis State University Press, 1979. P.148 for more on the military actions of the Watie and Ross factions.
[77] Kenny Franks. Stand Watie. Memphis, TN: Memphis State University Press, 1979. p.148
[78] William Anderson. Cherokee Removal: Before and After. Athens, GA, 1991. P.63
[79] William Anderson. Cherokee Removal: Before and After. Athens, GA, 1991. P.63
[80] Brown, John P. Old Frontiers: The Story of the Cherokee from Earliest Times to the Date of Their Removal to the West, 1838. Kingsport, TN: Southern Publishers, 1938. P.449
[81] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.74
[82] Champagne, Duane. Social Order and Political Change: Constitutional Government Among the Cherokee, The Choctaw, The Chickasaw, and The Creek. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. P.183.
[83] Champagne, Duane. Social Order and Political Change: Constitutional Government Among the Cherokee, The Choctaw, The Chickasaw, and The Creek. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1992. P.141
[84] Annie Heloise Abel. The American Indian As Slaveholder and Secessionist. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1915. P.139
[85] Jefferson Davis. The Papers of Jefferson Davis. Vol. I-VII. James McIntosh, Linda Crist et al., Eds. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1971-1992. Vol. IV p.91
[86] Abel, Annie The American Indian as Slave Holder and Secessionist p.20
[87] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.4
[88] Grady McWhiney. Cracker Culture. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1989. p.152
[89] John Ehle. Trail Of Tears: The Rise and Fall Of the Cherokee Indian Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. p. 375
[90] John Ehle. Trail Of Tears: The Rise and Fall Of the Cherokee Indian Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. p.375
[91] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.17
[92] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.56
[93] John Ehle. Trail Of Tears: The Rise and Fall Of the Cherokee Indian Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. p.271
[94] John Ehle. Trail Of Tears: The Rise and Fall Of the Cherokee Indian Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. p.271
[95] John Ehle. Trail Of Tears: The Rise and Fall Of the Cherokee Indian Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. p.391
[96] John Ehle. Trail Of Tears: The Rise and Fall Of the Cherokee Indian Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. p.391
[97] Steven Mintz Ed. Native American Voices: A History and Anthology. St. James, NY: Brandywine Press. 1995. P.123
[98] Theda Perdue, Ed.. Cherokee Editor: The Writings of Elias Boudinot. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1996. p.31
[99] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.16
[100] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.168
[101] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. p.168
[102] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.4
[103] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.116
[104] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939.p.56
[105] Richard Halliburton. Red Over Black. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1977. P.103
[106] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. P.119
[107] McNeil, Kinneth. Chronicles of Oklahoma Confederate Treaties With the Tribes of Indian Territory p.409
[108] William G. McLoughlin. After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees and Their Struggle for Sovereignty 1839-1880. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. P.164
[109] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.122
[110] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.122
[111] Kenny Franks. Stand Watie. Memphis, TN: Memphis State University Press, 1979. P.112
[112] United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: GPO, 1880-1901. series I volume XXII pt. 2 p.1104
[113] The Charleston Mercury “Kansas in Crisis” March 16,1861
[114] W. Craig Gaines. The Confederate Cherokees: John Drew’s Regiment of Mounted Rifles. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 1989. P.29.
[115] United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: GPO, 1880-1901. Series I volume III p.690
[116] Morris L. Wardell. A Political History Of The Cherokee Indian Nation. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1938. p.129
[117] Annie Heloise Abel. The American Indian and the End of the Civil War. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1910. p.145
[118] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.106
[119] United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: GPO, 1880-1901.series I volume XIII p.490-1
[120] United States. War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: GPO, 1880-1901. series I volume XIII p.491-92
[121] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.100
[122] Clarence C. Buel and Robert U. Johnson Eds. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War Vol.I-IV. New York: Century, 1884-1888. p.336
[123] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.100
[124] Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West 1846-1890. Albequerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1984. P.72
[125] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.100
[126] Frank Cunningham. General Stand Watie's Confederate Indians. San Antonio: The Naylor Company,1959. p.45
[127] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.101
[128] Thornton, Russell. The Cherokees: A Population History. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. P.90
[129] Annie Heloise Abel. The American Indian As Participant In The Civil War. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1910. P.135 Note that the citation is originally found in the Official Records vol. XIII p.464.
[130] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.306
[131] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.306
[132] Edward E. Dale, and Gaston Litton. Cherokee Cavaliers. Norman: University Of Oklahoma Press, 1939. p.306
[133] Eugene D. Genovese Roll Jordan Roll: The World the Slaves Made. New York, NY: Random House, 1972. P. xv
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