John Ross 1st President of the Cherokee, the Rose Cottage, and the Last Battle of the Civil War
On March 27, 1814, Andrew Jackson led an army of 3,000 soldiers and over 500 Cherokee and Creek allies at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. A Cherokee warrior is said to have saved Jackson’s life. Jackson was battling a group of Muskogee rebels known as Red Sticks. The renegades were known as Red Sticks because of the prayer sticks which had been given to them by followers of Tecumseh. Despite being heavily fortified, the Red Sticks were annihilated that day, in large part because of a brilliant raid by John Ross’ Cherokee volunteers who pirated away all the Red Stick canoes. The War of 1812 had split the Southern tribes into alliances with British or American forces. In the Cherokee nation these political divisions would grow deep roots and bitter hatreds.
When the war of 1812 ended, most of the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw peoples still lived on their traditional lands. Most native leaders felt that survival not only required a peaceful coexistence with the whites but adoption of white ways as well. Across the American south, prosperous Native elites arose who wore silk suits, rode about in handsome carriages, and even lived in plantation mansions owning African slaves.
It was a Cherokee veteran of Jackson’s army at Horseshoe Bend, a man named Sequoyah who invented the Cherokee alphabet. Once Sequoyah had devised a Cherokee alphabet, literacy spread like wildfire among the Cherokee. By 1828 a newspaper was being published by Elias Boudiniot called The Phoenix with columns written in Cherokee and English. In that same year, the Cherokee adopted a whole new style of government, in essence believing that the Americans had begun a worldwide democratic revolution. They wrote a constitution, and a convention of tribal delegates established a tri-branch government with a principal chief, bicameral council, and a court system. The Cherokee expected to be treated as equals by their American neighbors.
John Ross was elected the first principal chief. Ross was mostly white and dressed like the dignified plantation owner he was. Son of a Scottish father and part Cherokee mother, Ross had been white educated and was able to brilliantly defend native rights in the American courts. Ross spoke little Cherokee, but his tenacious battling won him the support of most full bloods. Ross was able to build a beautiful capital called New Echota with impressive buildings for the institutions of government. A strong and prosperous agricultural economy was developed for the new Cherokee nation.
Andrew Jackson, a general whom Ross had once served in battle became his bitterest political enemy. After Jackson’s ascension to the presidency in 1828 Ross wrote an emotional letter to a good friend, a Congressman from Tennessee. Ross wrote eloquently both of his desire to live at peace with the US and his despair at the lack of respect his people had earned from their white neighbors. In the letter Ross pointed out that he had known Jackson “from boyhood” and counted Jackson among his “earliest and warmest friends” but “It is with deep regret, I say, that his policy towards the aborigines, in my opinion, has been unrelenting and in effect ruinous.”
Gold was discovered on Cherokee lands in Georgia in 1829 and thousands of whites soon violated the treaties and encroached on Native lands. The state of Georgia passed laws which forbade Cherokees from mining gold, to testify against a white man, or assemble for any purpose other than ceding land. These laws made it impossible for Cherokees to seek justice in the courts or to continue a functioning government. Leaders such as John Ross became instant criminals. The capital was moved to Red Clay and the government continued to meet, in defiance of the law. In 1829, the Cherokee councils mandated the death penalty for those who sold Cherokee lands and in 1830, Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act, proposing to move all Indians to the west.
The first to feel the cruelty of the new legislation was a Choctaw chief named Pushmataha who had been instrumental in keeping his people on the American side during the war of 1812. During the next four years, 4,000 of the 13,000 Choctaw sent west would die during the forced emigration. A Creek military rebellion in 1832 was suppressed in a desperate effort to restore peace by a chief named Opothleyahola, he was rewarded by having his entire tribe removed west immediately afterward. In 1836, 800 Creek men were led in manacles, with their families trailing behind, to a place in Arkansas which had been newly designated The Indian Territories. As the Choctaw and Creek were increasingly subjugated, the government began to turn their attention toward the Cherokee.
From 1830 to 1838, John Ross made repeated trips to Washington to fight removal. In 1832 Ross argued before the Supreme Court, winning a favorable decision in Worcester vs. Georgia which held that federal treaties rather than state law held sway in terms of Native American rights.
The Cherokees were elated believing that the Supreme Court ruling required the federal government to protect their rights. According to legend Jackson is reputed to have said, “Justice Marshall has rendered his decision, now let him enforce it.”
Jackson ignored the ruling and ordered all federal troops out of the state. Jackson even encouraged a Georgia senator to “Build a fire under them. When it gets hot enough, they’ll move.” Vigilante violence against the Cherokee occurred much more regularly.
As the situation grew more desperate, Cherokee leaders such as Major Ridge, his son John, and his nephew Elias Boudiniot, who had all once opposed removal now lost heart. They felt that removal was the only solution to avoid years of vigilante bloodshed. These men went to Washington and signed a treaty which sold all the Cherokee lands for five million dollars. When Ridge returned home the Cherokee National Council unanimously rejected the treaty. The Ridge faction met secretly in New Echota and signed the treaty, they honestly believed this was the only option to avoid bloodshed. A quote by Elias Boudinot shows how deeply emotions were running, “I know I take my life in my hand, as our fathers have also done… We can die, but the great Cherokee nation will be saved… Oh what is a man worth who will not dare to die for his people? Who is there that would not perish if this great nation might be saved.?”
Ross argued in the Senate and won the support of such noble senators as David
Crockett, Sam Houston, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, but despite Ross’s vehement arguments and powerful allies the treaty was ratified in the Senate by one vote. The treaty gave the Cherokee people three years to leave their lands. Although Ridge and his followers including Degataga or Stand Watie emigrated to the Indian Territory, the majority of the Cherokee people, remained in Georgia under Ross’ leadership.
In the summer of 1838, General Winfield Scott, who did not relish his assignment, arrived with seven thousand troops to remove the Cherokee by any means necessary. Thus began the “Trail of Tears” as thousands of Cherokee were rounded up by force of arms. Ethnologist James Mooney interviewed participants both Indian and white years after the fact and condensed their many accounts into one of his own. “Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows amid oaths along the trail that led to the stockade. Men were seized in their fields or going along the road, women were taken from their spinning wheels and children from their play…”
“One old patriarch when thus surprised calmly called his children and grandchildren around him and kneeling down bid them, pray with him in their own language, while the astonished soldiers looked on in silence. Then rising he led the way into exile…”
“The Cherokee fell sick in the holding camps. The main body departed west in the midst of a drought that made water and food scarce. They continued to travel into a viciously cold winter. People sickened and died and were buried along the way. The journey took an especially terrible toll of women and children. The road they traveled was the road they cried: the bitter Trail of Tears.”
A Cherokee chief named Tsunu Iahunski was attributed with the following quote, “If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes. I would have killed him at the Horseshoe.”
As the removal continued, John Ross asked for permission to take over removal from the army. Ross divided the exodus into thirteen parties, dividing his meager resources as equitably as possible. Ross and his wife left with the last contingent on a long grueling journey which took over six months to complete. Ross’ wife was among an estimated 4,000 Cherokee who died from exposure, hunger, or despair.
In the new Indian Territory, the Cherokee began to rebuild their fallen nation. They called the new capital Tahlequah and reestablished the institutions of justice and self-governance which they believed in. John Ross built a beautiful mansion known as the Rose Cottage which served as a symbolic Cherokee capitol for many years. An agrarian economy based on black slave labor was reestablished. A series of paintings by John Mix Stanley records a council of seventeen tribes hosted by Ross in Tahlequah to promote a spirit of cooperation among the many tribes thrown together in the Indian Territory.
Political divisions remained bitter and deep. Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were all assassinated in 1839 for their role in the Treaty of New Echota. The advent of the Civil War deepened this factionalism. John Ross had been embroiled in wars between white men before and felt no good could come from it, advocating neutrality. The Union and Confederacy both sent agents to sway Cherokee opinion.
The South sent the charismatic Albert Pike to the Rose Cottage. Albert Pike was well over six feet tall and weighed over three hundred pounds, curly locks cascading over his shoulders. He provided a great contrast with the diminutive Ross who stood only five and a half feet tall. Pike wanted to buy herds of Cherokee beef to feed the Confederate Army and Indian soldiers to defend the western flank of the South. Pike wanted to build a railroad all the way to the western shores of the continent, preaching the virtues to the Indian nations. Pike reminded Ross that the United States had taken their land and might do it again. Pike proclaimed that the Confederacy was willing to accept the Indians as neighbors and equals. Ross reminded Pike that it was southerners who had stolen their lands and looted their homes.
The people of the Five Civilized Tribes were divided. The Choctaw and the Chickasaw were nearly unanimous in their backing for the Confederacy and summoned a regiment of ten companies. Most of the Cherokee people favored the Union. Stand Watie became a Brigadier General for the South and led two companies of mounted rifles. The wealthier Cherokee, many Creeks, and some Seminole favored Ross’ stand of neutrality.
The Confederates won a smashing victory at Wilson’s Creek. Triumphant Confederate guerillas ran unrestrained through central Missouri burning bridges, wrecking trains, and spreading terror for weeks. This apparent Northern weakness brought a lot of political pressure on Ross to ally with the Confederacy at a time when Ross realized that neutrality was a luxury the Indian Territory could not afford. Ross surprised many of those gathered at the council meeting in Tahlequah when he declared, “Our general interest is inseparable from theirs (the Confederacy) and it is not desirable that we should stand alone.” A treaty was signed with Albert Pike.
Many Cherokee refused to abide by the treaty and several thousand loaded all their worldly possessions on to wagons and fled for Kansas. Twice they fought off Texans and Indian auxiliaries but on December 27, 1861, just as they were about cross the border they met more resistance and were shattered. Only a few hundred destitute refugees reached the Union sanctuary and scores of the survivors were so frozen that limbs needed to be amputated.
During the course of the Civil War, Stand Watie and swift riding mounted Cherokees fought in more battles than any other unit in the western theater of the war. As the war was ending, Watie found an avenue for taking personal revenge on his political rival John Ross. While most of the Confederate soldiers in the region were in ragged retreat, fleeing from vengeful Union soldiers, Stand Watie snuck his two companies of mounted rifles past enemy lines and destroyed the Cherokee capital at Tahlequah, torching John Ross’ beautiful Rose Cottage.
John Ross died shortly after the war, expiring on August 1st, 1866; dying in Washington DC, on yet another mission to defend Cherokee rights. Shortly before his death he was quoted:
“I am an old man and have served my people and the Government of the United States a long time, over fifty years. My people have kept me in the harness, not of my seeking but of their own choice. I have never deceived them, and now I look back, not one act of my public life rises to upbraid me. I have done the best I could, and today, upon this bed of sickness, my heart approves all I have done. And still I am, John Ross, the same John Ross of former years unchanged.”
