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During the
latter part of the 1700s and early part of the 1800s, the
Cherokee commonly married French, English, German, and
Scotch-Irish. Both the Cherokee and the United States
Government encouraged these marriages. Some historians
credit the marriages for the rapid acculturation of the
Cherokee Nation. Many of the children of these marriages
rose to positions of leadership within the Cherokee Nation
Some of the most noted and influential of the leaders
included John Ross, Major Ridge, and his son John Ridge.
John Ross received his support from the more traditional,
full-blood Cherokee while the Ridge family obtained its
support from the more acculturated mixed-blood Cherokees.
The 1800s
moved the Cherokee Nation even closer to the United States
in ties via trade, familial interaction and customs, but the
years brought the demise of the majority of the Cherokee in
their original homeland.
The State of Georgia grew impatient with the lack of
fulfillment of the United States government's 1802 promise
to evict the Cherokee from the territory between Atlanta and
Tennessee in exchange for Georgia's relinquishment of its
claim to the territory extending west all the way to the
Mississippi River. Georgia lacked the wealth that other
earlier established colonies, (the states) had acquired and
Georgia's population blamed the Cherokee for holding back
the state's development. To heighten the dismay of the
Georgia citizenry, many Cherokees had surpassed the average
Georgian in wealth and commercial ability. In 1828, the
State of Georgia decided to take matters into its own hands
by passing legislation to annex Cherokee territory. Georgia
then made laws that purported to "annul" all laws made by
the Cherokee and went as far as forbidding Cherokees to own
land, to vote or to be a witness against a white person in a
court of law. Georgia's effort in stripping the Cherokee of
citizenship in their own Nation resulted in a holocaust to
the Cherokee residing in the territory claimed and "annexed"
by Georgia by the 1828 actions. Georgia unmercifully began
to beat, rob, and slaughter Cherokees with the consent of
the State of Georgia.
John Ridge brought suit in the United States court's in an
effort to thwart this outrage against the Cherokee. The
litigation became known as the "Cherokee cases" that
established many precedents for the principles of Indian Law
and relations in the United States today. In the first of
these series of cases, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall
avoided what he knew would be a decision that would be
unpopular among United States citizens by stating,
"..."since the Cherokee Nation was a nation inside a nation,
the Supreme court was not a high enough court to render a
decision, or hear the case."
Georgia's citizenry saw this first decision and the
abdication of Supreme Court responsibility to be Georgia's
cue that the federal government would not protect the
Cherokee and the citizenry pressed forward in annihilating
the Cherokee. Disappointed, but determined John Ridge
personally lobbied Congress, President Jackson and employed
Daniel Webster to represent the Cherokee.
The Georgia legislature then passed a law that no white man
could live in the Cherokee territory without the consent of
the Georgia legislature. This law struck directly at the
very concept of allowing mixed-blood marriages and
undermined the established U.S. and Cherokee law on property
ownership and the right to travel freely. Many mixed-bloods
moved to other states to escape Georgia's tyranny. Georgia
placed a bounty on Cherokees and made it clear that the
State legal system would support and defend any citizen who
killed a full-blood/mixed-blood Cherokee. In addition,
Georgia instituted the Lottery system whereby the State
asserted its dubious authority to divide the Cherokee Nation
into 160 acre tracts. Any Georgia citizen that took the
initiative to kill the Cherokee family that occupied the
tract could then acquire property rights to the tract with
the full protection of the Georgia Militia and the court
system.
This second Georgia Act resulted in a second United States
Supreme Court "Cherokee Case" that challenged the arrest of
a white missionary. The white missionary's crime had been
that he lived with the Ridge family within the Cherokee
Nation in violation of the Georgia law. Supreme Court
Justice John Marshall remembered the results of his first
indecision and rendered an authoritative determination that
"Georgia Laws could have no effect within the limits of the
Cherokee Nation." President Jackson, on hearing the Court's
decision, made his famous statement that "Well, John
Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it." In
effect, President Jackson would not lend support to the
Supreme Court's decision and Georgia could continue to urge
the destruction of the Cherokee people.
John Ross viewed the Supreme Court's favorable decision as
evidence that the Cherokee would eventually prevail. John
Ridge, on the other hand, viewed the lack of the President's
support of the Supreme Court to mean that the Cherokee faced
nothing less than genocide. He again met with President
Jackson who assured Ridge that the end result would either
be forced removal of the Cherokee or complete destruction,
either way, the Cherokee would not remain in Georgia. John
Ridge then decided to put the lives of his people ahead of a
false hope that the Cherokee would be able to remain in
their homeland against the tide and force of land-hungry
Georgian settlers and others. Resigned to the inevitable,
John Ridge then negotiated a Treaty with the United States
for the humane preservation of the lives of his countrymen
and the continued U.S. recognition of the Cherokee Nation as
a viable government.
The difference between John Ross's and John Ridge's
perceptions of the harsh realities and how to resolve them
erupted into a bitter feud between the two leaders. Each
accused the other of wrongdoing. John Ridge saw John Ross as
having a callous disregard for the atrocities that Georgians
had inflicted on the Cherokee. Ridge could not understand
Ross's efforts to negotiate with Mexico concerning the
interests of the Cherokee. John Ross saw John Ridge's
efforts to trade the Cherokee's eastern lands for an equal
amount of land in Oklahoma to be traitorous. This feud
transformed into a split of the Cherokee Nation between the
full-bloods led by John Ross, and the mixed-bloods led by
John Ridge.
On November 11, 1834, at his home in Running Waters,
Georgia, John Ridge, the son of Cherokee Chief Major Ridge,
officially organized the Ridge Band of Cherokees, also known
as the Treaty Party. (House Document 91, 23rd Congress
1834). President Jackson, the U.S. Congress, and the State
of Georgia immediately recognized the Ridge Band. The Ridge
band members included the mixed-blood leaders that
negotiated the "Treaty of New Echota," which traded Cherokee
lands in the East for an equal amount of land in Oklahoma,
with the Cherokee to receive and additional $5 Million
Dollars for reparations against the State of Georgia. The
Treaty allowed those Cherokees that wished to remain in the
east to do so and become citizens of the states in which
they chose to reside. Andrew Jackson balked at this Article
within the Treaty, but the provision survived. Years later,
the Court in (U.S. vs. Boyd) looked to this provision in
recognizing that the Eastern Band of Cherokees had the right
to remain in North Carolina. The 1896 Indian Commissioners
Report also acknowledged this provision as key to the
Eastern Band's rights (pp.633-635). In a substantial degree,
the Eastern Band of Cherokees owe a great deal of its
current status to John Ridge's lobbying and draftsmanship
that came about from his establishment of the Ridge Band in
1834.
Five years later, in June of 1839, 25 members of the Ross
Party, brutally assassinated John Ridge at his home in Honey
Springs, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Ross group in
charge of assassinating the leaders of the Ridge Party also
killed John Ridge's father, Chief Major Ridge and his cousin
Elias Boudinot (Buck Watie) the same day in other locations.
The remainder of the Ridge family as well as many members of
the Ridge Band, fearing for their lives, left the Cherokee
Nation.
The bitter feud between the Ross Party and the Ridge or
Treaty Party escalated into open warfare. Ridge's son John
Rollin Ridge, shot a man that had been sent to execute
Ridge. John Rollin Ridge then moved to California to escape
the gallows administered by the Ross Party. Ridge's cousin
Stand Watie (Boudinot's brother), later became the highest
decorated Brigadier General of the Confederacy, the last
Confederate General, and the First Chief of the Southern
Cherokee Nation.
Immediately prior to the civil war, many full-blood members
of the Ross Party organized the "Pin" society for the
purpose of depriving all mixed-bloods from all political
power within the Cherokee Nation. A Missionary named "Rev.
Evan Jones" that had been among the Cherokee for more than
40 years became a force in establishing the "PIN" society as
an instrument for disseminating Pro-Federalist Politics. The
Ridge Band, led by Stand Watie, organized secret societies
such as the "Knights of the Golden Circle" that opposed the
Pins.
In spite of the feuding Bands, the leadership of John Ross
and Stand Watie United in supporting the South in the early
part of the Civil War. In August, 1861 John Ross called a
convention in Tahlequah in which Ross gave Free-Expression
to his views stating that the Confederacy was the best thing
for the Cherokees and that an alliance should be secured
with the South without delay; that as for Ross, he was and
always had been a Southern man, a States Rights man; born in
the South, and a Slaveholder; that the South was fighting
for its rights against the oppressions of the North and that
the True position of the Indians was with the Southern
people (a statement that he later denied to the US
government). After Ross's influential speech, four thousand
male Cherokees adopted without a dissenting voice, a
resolution to abandon Cherokee relations with the United
States and form an alliance with the Confederacy. Following
the Battle of Pea Ridge, in which Colonel Drew led a
regiment of pro-Ross Cherokee soldiers for the Confederacy
and Stand Watie led a regiment of anti-Ross Cherokee for the
Confederacy, Colonel Weir of the United States Army sent a
proposition to John Ross urging that the Cherokees should
repudiate their treaty with the Confederacy and return to
their former relations with the U.S., offering Safe conduct
to Ross. Ross declined peremptorily declaring that the
Cherokees disdained an alliance with a people who had
authorized and practiced the monstrous barbarities in
violation of the laws of war; that the Cherokees were bound
to the Confederate States by the faith of Treaty obligations
and by a community of sentiment and interest; that they were
born upon the soil of the South and would stand or fall with
the States of the South.
Col. Drew's poorly supplied Regiment abandoned the
Confederate service after 10 months and enlisted with the
United States Army. About that same time, Chief Ross decided
to leave the Cherokee Nation and moved to Philadelphia where
he remained for the duration of the War. Stand Watie then
became the Elected Chief of the Cherokee Nation. As a leader
in battle, Stand Watie burned Chief Ross's home in the
Cherokee Nation (now Oklahoma).
After the Civil War, the Cherokee Nation sought to resume
treaty relations with the United States. Three distinct
Cherokee Nation Bands sent delegations to Washington to
negotiate a new treaty. The Southern Cherokee attended at
the invitation of the United States Government. The
"Southern Cherokee Delegation" consisted of John Rollin
Ridge, Saladin Watie, Cornelius Boudinot, W. P. Adair, and
Richard Fields. After the United States negotiated with the
Southern Cherokee, the Western Band (Old Settlers), and
members of what had been the Ross Party, Congress ratified
the Treaty of 1866. In that Treaty, as discussed in its
specific negotiations with the Southern Cherokee, the United
States set aside a separate jurisdiction within the Cherokee
Nation for the Southern Cherokee with legal and local
governmental systems separate from that of the Ross Band.
(present day Cherokee Nation)
The Southern Cherokees, like the Cherokee legend of the Lost
Community of Kana'sta Cherokees, sought refuge with friends
but still existed side by side with their brothers of the
Eastern and Western Bands. The United States recognized them
as a Separate Band of the Cherokee Nation with separate
rights and jurisdiction. The Southern Cherokees operated
within the dictates of the 1866 Treaty in their Set-Aside
District defined in Article 4 of the Treaty as a loose knit
organization in the Canadian District of the Cherokee Nation
(Webbers Falls OK) as well as in the other States where
other members of the Ridge Band resided.
The Southern Cherokee maintained their Separate jurisdiction
in the Canadian District, including representatives on the
Cherokee National Council. Numerous Federal cases in the
Western District Court of Arkansas continuously upheld this
separate jurisdiction as required by the 1866 Treaty.
Prior to Statehood in 1901 Congress again recognized the
separate jurisdiction of the Southern Cherokee Canadian
District with an Act of Congress (21 Stat 846, Article 74)
which recognized the limits of the Cherokee Nations lands as
North of the Arkansas East of the Grand River, and North of
the Arkansas, North of Spavinaw Creek west of the Grand
River.
Following Statehood a Presidential appointed Chief
represented ALL Cherokees. One of these Appointed Chiefs,
W.W. Keeler, reported in his 1970 submission to Congress
that he represented the Old Settlers, Eastern Emigrant
Cherokees, and the Treaty Party (Southern Cherokee) and that
all three (3) groups comprised the then Federally Recognized
Cherokee Nation. Five years after his report (1975) the
present day Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) organized
under a new Constitution, Article 3 of that Constitution
requires Dawes lineage as a membership requirement. This did
not however affect the Treaty Rights of the Southern
Cherokee as they are a Congressionally Recognized Band of
the Cherokee Nation under an Act of Congress at 14 Stat.799.
This Act of Congress combined the "Treaty Party" and
"Freedmen" together as the "so-called Southern Cherokee",
and required the Southern Cherokee to vote, under a
Presidential called for election to Abrogate their Treaty
Rights in order to become members of the Cherokee Nation.
The Southern Cherokees remained a loose knit organization
within the Canadian District as well as other States where
the Ridge Band descendants resided until October 1988, when
Ridge family descendants met with Jonathan Taylor (then
Chief of the Eastern Band) and Wilma Mankiller (then
Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) at the
150th Commemoration of the Trail of Tears in Cherokee, North
Carolina. The Ridge family descendants resurrected the
Southern Cherokee Nation from the ashes as an assemblage of
mixed-blood descendants of the Southern Cherokee Nation, and
as successors in interest of the Southern Cherokee of the
Treaty of 1866 (14 Stat. 799 date 29 July 1866), Articles
4,5,6,7, and 8, specifically as well as others located
therein.
A brief history of how we ended up in KY. In 1866, after the
civil war, the Southern Cherokee people established a
government in Webbers Falls, Oklahoma. We were half bloods
and mixed blood Cherokee. Our Chief was Stand Watie. He
asked the U.S. government to provide protection for the
Southern Cherokee & from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma;
the full bloods. They burnt our homes and killed our people;
the Union Army said that they didn't have the troops to
protect us. Some of us stayed in the Webbers Falls area,
while many of us moved to other states; while still keeping
our government that we established. A few of these states
are Missouri, Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and
Kentucky. We are still Cherokee people and proud. We ask now
that you recognize us as the Cherokee people that we are. We
have a government here in Kentucky, and have been here since
the late 1800's, but we have people all over the United
States. Our people have existed since 1835 as the Treaty
Party/Southern Cherokee.
The Southern Cherokee became the Lost Cherokee Community as
depicted in the Kana'sta Legend of old. While many Southern
Cherokees continued to live in the Canadian District, yet
many other of these mixed-blood Cherokee, lived apart from
their Eastern and Western Brothers in all 50 states. Our
Southern Cherokee members have never relinquished or
forsaken the core Cherokee citizenship or heritage. These
mixed-bloods now are aggressively reviving the finer
elements of their traditional culture that may have been
temporarily set aside.
In 1906, thousands of these Mixed-Blood Cherokee
descendants, listed in an 8 volume set of books titled
"Cherokee by blood," attempted to rejoin their brothers, but
the U.S.'s Miller Commission forbade inclusion for various
reasons. Now most of these clearly Documented Cherokee by
blood are forbidden membership within the Cherokee Nation
due to "BIA Blood Percentages" originally used by the U.S.
Government for racial genocide, and the Cherokee Nation of
Oklahoma's (CNO's) Rigid application of the Dawes (only)
descendent requirements (Article 3 of the 1975
Constitution), in direct violation of the 1866 Treaty
obligations to the Southern Cherokee, which recognized the
Southern Cherokee as a Separate Band of the Cherokee Nation
with the Right to Representation on the Cherokee National
Council.
If you are a mixed-blood descendant of the Cherokee, and
would like to re-associate with and learn more about your
Cherokee Heritage and culture, you may do so as a member of
the Southern Cherokee Nation.
Although you Must Document your lineage, the Southern
Cherokee Nation does not require Dawes Roll lineage as a
membership requirement. Rather, Blood line must be
established through your Cherokee Lineage. Southern Cherokee
Membership cannot be purchased, and is given freely to those
of documented Cherokee lineage.
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