Tooan Tuh, or Spring Frog ~ A Cherokee Chief
This individual is a Cherokee of highly respectable character. He was born near the mouth of Chuckamogga Creek, in the vicinity of Lookout Mountain, about the year 1754, within the limits of the State of Tennessee. The place of his birth is no longer known as a wilderness tenanted by savage men, but is now a civilized country, inhabited by another race. The villages of his people, and the sepulchers of his fathers, have disappeared, the forests have been leveled, and the plough has effaced the scattered vestiges of their dwellings and places of assemblage.
In early youth, and throughout his life, until old age had impaired the elasticity and vigor of his muscles, Spring Frog was remarkable for his activity in the chase, his skill in trapping and killing game, and his success in the athletic sports of his people. With little of the ferocity of the Indian, yet excelling in all the arts of sylvan life, brave, but not addicted to war, he was a fine specimen of the savage man. He loved to roam the forest in pursuit of game; could sit patiently for hours by the sequestered stream, devising stratagems to entrap its tenants, or wander for whole days among the haunts of the deer, with no companions but his gun and dog. His mind, trained to these pursuits, was acute, and richly stored with observation on all subjects connected with his occupation. He watched the seasons, noted the changes of the weather, marked the hues of the water, and the appearances of the vegetation. Wherever he went, his keen eye rested, with a quiet but observant glance, on all the indications of the surrounding objects which might serve to forward the present purpose, or furnish information for future operations. He knew the habits of animals and their signals; the voices of birds were familiar to his ear; and he could sit for hours in the lone wilderness, an interested listener to sounds, in which one unused to the forest could detect nothing but the rustling of leaves, the rush of the winds, or the creaking of boughs. His practiced eye detected the footmarks of animals upon the ground, and his quick ear distinguished, even in the night, the difference between the tramp of the deer and the stealthy tread of the wolf.
This is the poetry of savage life. If there be any real enjoyment apart from civilization, it is in this close communion with nature. The exposure, the perils, the extremes of hunger and satiety, which fill up the whole life of those who depend on the precarious supplies of the chase for subsistence, throw a forbidding gloom around this mode of existence; but there are rich and noble enjoyments combined with the toils of the hunter, in the freedom from all restraint, and in the opportunities it affords for contemplating the beauties and the mysteries of nature. Few, especially among savages, have the heart and the intellect to appreciate such luxuries. The general tendency of the savage life is monotonous and debasing. But there are some gifted minds some of Izaak Walton's "fishermen and honest men" to be found in every region, whether civilized or savage, over whom such pursuits exercise an elevating and sooth ing influence. To this class belonged the subject of this notice; uniting with the keen and hardy character of the sportsman, the humane and meditative cast of the philosopher. He was an artless and harmless, but a shrewd and thoughtful man.
Spring Frog was passionately fond of all the manly sports of his people, but was particularly remarkable for his love of ball playing, in which he greatly excelled. This game requires the greatest muscular strength, swiftness of foot, and clearness of vision. The ball, similar in materials and construction to that used by our own schoolboys, is played with two sticks, one in each hand. These sticks are bent at the end, with strings drawn across the bow, so as to form an implement resembling a battle door. The ground on which the game is to be played is a plain, marked off by measuring a space of about three hundred feet in length, and placing two poles erect at each extremity, and one in the centre. The ball-players are divided, as nearly as possible, into two parties of equal skill, each of which has its leader, and its side of the play ground. The ball is thrown into the air, at the centre pole, and each party exerts it self to drive it through the poles on its own side. The party first carrying .the ball twelve times through its poles, wins the game. To effect this, it is considered fair to employ strength, activity, and stratagem in every form, provided that the ball is always propelled by the use of the stick. The parties may strike, trip, or grapple each other, knock away each other's sticks, or take any advantage which strength or cunning may give them.
These games are intensely exciting. The number engaged is often great, comprising the principal men, the most distinguished warriors, and the most promising young men of the band; for this is the great theatre on which the ambitious and aspiring exhibit those personal qualities that are held in the highest repute by the savage warrior. The whole population of the village pours out to witness the inspiring spectacle, and like the spectators of a horse race in Virginia, all take sides, and feel as if the honor of the country was staked upon the contest. The excitement is often increased by gambling to immense amounts immense for these poor savages, who have little to lose, and who freely stake all upon the game. The women and children share in the interest, watch the progress with intense anxiety, and announce the result by loud shouts. The contest is active, and even fierce. The parties exercise great command over their tempers, and usually conduct their sports with good humor and great hilarity; but the excitement is always high, and sometimes the deeper passions are awakened. The struggle then becomes fearful. A number of muscular men, inured to toil and danger, savage, irascible, and revengeful by nature and habit, are seen, with their limbs and bodies naked, and oiled, to enable them the more readily to elude the grasp of an adversary now rushing after the ball with uplifted sticks, now gathered round it, striking at it with rapid blows, darting upon each other, pulling, wrestling, and presenting a medley in which it seems hardly possible that heads and limbs must not be broken. Blows are received as if upon bodies of iron. Men are prostrated and trodden under foot. But none are killed; the wounded soon forget their bruises, and the beaten bear their discomfiture without murmur.
Though Spring Frog was an ardent and successful ball-player, and the most patient of anglers, he devoted much of his time to the more profitable, though less genteel employment, of raising cattle, trading in horses, and cultivating beans, corn, and pumpkins. His agriculture was not upon an extensive scale; but it was enough to furnish the means of a comfortable subsistence, and a generous hospitality; his friends were always welcome to his cheerful fireside, and the stranger, to use the figure of one of the noblest spirits of our land, " never found the string of his latch drawn in."
Gifted with a discriminating mind, he was a strong man in the council. Amiable, kind, placid in his disposition loving peace and pursuing it, he always advocated conciliatory measures, and was useful on many occasions in softening and restraining the fiercer passions of his warlike countrymen. But although his inclinations were pacific, he lacked neither energy nor courage, when the interest or honor of his nation required the exercise of those qualities. In 1818, the Osages murdered several Cherokees in cold blood. Upon the reception of the news of this injury, the Cherokees flew to arms, and instantly adopted measures to revenge the outrage. Spring Frog, although he was then in his sixty-fourth year, was among the first to take up the war-club in this quarrel; and uniting himself with a party of his tribe, marched in pursuit of the murderers. So rapid and secret was the movement, that the track of the offenders was found and pursued, and they, ignorant that any pursuit was on foot, were scarcely arrived at their village when the avengers of blood were at their heels. The village was surprised and burned; eighty of the Osages were killed and captured, all their provisions were destroyed, and the band, for the present, broken up. Thus Spring Frog and his party appeased, as they supposed, the manes of their slaughtered friends; and thus dearly did the Osages atone for an outrage committed in mere wantonness, by one of their marauding parties.
He served also under General Jackson in the campaign against the Creeks, and fought gallantly in the battle of Emuckfaw, and in that of the Horse Shoe. His coolness in battle, and his habits of discipline and obedience, on all occasions, were conspicuous.
He was among the earliest of the emigrants to the country assigned the Cherokees, west of Arkansas, and we hope that he lived to be satisfied of the advantages of that movement. The change has thus far proved eminently successful. Many of the Cherokees have large farms, under a good state of cultivation, and large droves of cattle and horses. Their dwellings and other improvements are comfortable and well constructed. They have mills, schools, mechanics, and many other of the evidences and arts of civilized life. An intelligent traveler, who lately visited their country, says "We passed many fine farms on our way, and as evening fell, came to the missionary station of Dwight, with which we found ourselves much pleased. This institution has for its object the advancement, scientifically and morally, of the Cherokees. It was founded some twenty years ago, and has continued faithful to the Indians through all that long period. It was first commenced in the year 1821, in what is now called Pope county, on the waters of Illinois bayou, where suitable buildings were erected, farms opened, and schools established, in which were gathered the children of the then wild Cherokees, to the yearly number of one hundred. The Cherokees were a portion who had removed from their old country at an early period, and were denominated Western Cherokees, but are now distinguished as the old settlers"
Those missionaries have resided there for many years undisturbed, in the peaceful discharge of their duties, and on the kindest terms with the Cherokees. They have witnessed the commencement and whole progress of this interesting colony, and have been identified with its entire history. They have done great good to the Cherokees, and are entitled to their gratitude.
John Ross, long-time leader of the Cherokee Nation, was born on October 3, 1790, in Cherokee territory now part of Alabama. He grew up near Lookout Mountain on the Tennessee-Georgia border. Ross served as president of the Cherokee's National Committee (their legislature) from 1819 to 1826, as delegate to the Cherokee constitutional convention in 1827, as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1839, and finally as principal chief of the United Cherokee Nation from 1839 until his death in 1866. In these roles, he successfully led the Cherokee people through some of their most difficult circumstances.
Although his father was Scottish and his mother was of mixed descent, John Ross grew up as a full-fledged member of the Cherokee community. Known as Tsan Usdi (Little John) in his youth, he acquired the Cherokee name Kooweskoowe at adulthood. His parents also provided him with a European-based education, at first through a private tutor at home and later at an academy in South West Point (now Kingston), Tennessee. Thus Ross learned to function fully in white society while maintaining strong Cherokee ties. He later used his knowledge of both cultures to his peoples' advantage during repeated negotiations with the U.S. government.
By 1816 when he entered politics as a Cherokee delegate to Washington, D.C., John Ross was a successful merchant with a wife and several children. Having fought with Andrew Jackson in the Creek War of 1813-14, he went on to establish a ferry and warehouse for his trading firm at Ross' Landing, now Chattanooga, on the Tennessee River. Ross also inherited a family home at Rossville, now in Georgia, where he increasingly took on the role of a southern planter. By the time that he moved to Head of Coosa (now Rome, Georgia) in 1827, Ross owned nearly 200 acres of farmland worked by slaves and was one of the Cherokee Nation's wealthiest men.
Despite the encroachment of white settlers and extensive cessions of their territory, by the early nineteenth century the Cherokee people still held a sizeable tract of land spanning parts of southern Tennessee, northern Alabama, northern Georgia, and western North Carolina. Following the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory by the U.S. in 1803, many Americans—not the least of them President Thomas Jefferson—sought to move the Cherokees along with other eastern tribes to unincorporated land west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokees' adoption of agricultural practices, a written alphabet, and a constitutional form of government all were intended to accommodate Europeans and forestall relocation. By 1830, however, discovery of gold on Cherokee land, paired with Georgia's attempts at legislative annexation and the U.S. Indian Removal Act, made that relocation look increasingly inevitable.
White Chief Of The Cherokee
(Will Thomas)
The story of William Holland Thomas is much of the story of the Eastern Band of Cherokee from 1839, when he became Chief of Quallatown, until 1893 when he died. He was the only white man to ever serve as a Cherokee Chief. He was born in 1805 on Raccoon Creek about two miles from Waynesville, North Carolina. His Virginian father was accidentally drowned before his birth. At the age of twelve an Indian trader, Felix Walker, at a trading post on Soco Creek employed him. He quickly learned the Cherokee language as he bargained with them for ginseng and furs. Drowning Bear, chief of Quallatown, took a keen interest in the bright young man. When he learned that the boy had no father or brothers and sisters, he adopted Will as his son when Will was only thirteen. Will's best friend was an Indian boy who taught him the ancient customs, lore and religious rites. Will's employer went broke in the business and gave Will the remaining stock at the trading post and some old law books. Will studied the law books and developed a legal knowledge that later allowed him to become the legal representative for the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
When the Cherokee gave up the lands on the upper Little Tennessee River, Will settled his mother on a farm on the Oconaluftee River. His trade with the Cherokee prospered. By the time of the removal, Will owned five trading posts within the Cherokee Nation and was still studying law. During the Trail of Tears forced removal, Will Thomas was involved in the tracking down of Tsali. His motive, of course, was to help the Quallatown Cherokee to remain in North Carolina. Shortly after Tsali's execution, Thomas went to Washington to try to work out some legal arrangement to allow the Quallatown Cherokee to have a permanent settlement. When he returned home in l839, Chief Drowning Bear, over eighty years old, was dying. On his deathbed, Drowning Bear asked the Quallatown Cherokee to accept Will Thomas as their chief, which they did without question.
Thomas went to Washington to argue for many Cherokee claims against the government regarding annuity payments, individual allotments, preemption rights and loss of improvements. In l840 the government Indian Office appointed him to take a census of those Cherokee in the east and to act as the government's disbursing agent. Thomas used the money to begin the purchase of more than 50,000 acres of land for the Cherokee in his own name. The Indians were not allowed to own land in their name. He was strongly criticized for this, but this was the very action that resulted in the Eastern Band of Cherokee remaining in their beloved homeland.
In l842, the government was still attempting to remove all of the Cherokee to Oklahoma. James Robinson, a merchant from Franklin, North Carolina, was appointed as a special agent to persuade them to go. Under the terms of the New Echota treaty, each individual was to be paid $53.33 to remove. Robinson and his assistant, John Timson, began taking their own enrollment. Some Cherokee began to negotiate with them. But other Cherokee were returning from Oklahoma and the government's policy was to make them return to Oklahoma. The state of North Carolina still refused to confirm any claims to state citizenship to the Cherokee. The bulk of the Cherokee demanded their $53.33 without removing. By l844, the government had backed off, somewhat, on the removal issued. But Indians were still fighting for government payments. In l848 John C. Mullay, a clerk in the Indian office, began making his own census roll. It would be the most important one, for most later payment rolls were based upon it, Mullay traveled more than 300 miles by horseback from one isolated settlement to another in the rugged mountains. By l855, many Cherokee claimed they had been omitted, so the Mullay roll was expanded in that year. By the end of Mullay's second trip, he had l,5l7 Cherokee listed on it. By l855, the citizenship issue was still unresolved. Governor Thomas Bragg claimed that the Cherokee were not North Carolina citizens, as they did not "exercise the ordinary rights of citizens." But, they were allowed the "right" to pay taxes on the land they occupied!
An author by the name of Lanman visited the Eastern Band in l848. His following description gives an excellent picture of the life of the Eastern Band a decade after the removal:
"About three-fourths of the entire population can read in their own language, and though the majority of them understand English, a very few can speak the language. They practice, to a considerable extent, the science of agriculture, and have acquired such a knowledge of the mechanic arts as answers them for all ordinary purposes, for they manufacture their own clothing, their own ploughs, and other farming utensils, their own axes, and even their own guns. Their women are no longer treated as slaves, but as equals; the men labor in the fields and their wives are devoted entirely to household employment. They keep the same domestic animals that are kept by their white neighbors, and cultivate all the common grains of the country. They are probably as temperate as any other class of people on the face of the earth; honest is their business intercourse, moral in their thoughts, words, and deeds, and distinguished for their faithfulness in performing the duties of religion.
They are chiefly Methodists and Baptists, and have regularly ordained ministers, who preach to them on every Sabbath, and they have also abandoned many of their more senseless superstitions. They have their own court and try their criminals themselves. They keep in order the public roads leading through their settlement. By a law of the state they have a right to vote, but seldom exercise that right, as they do not like the idea of being identified with any of the political parties. Excepting on festive days, they dress after the manner of the white man, but far more picturesquely. They live in small log houses of their own construction, and have everything they need or desire in the way of food. They are in fact, the happiest community that I have yet met with in this southern country.
Will Thomas continued to purchase land for them in his own name. By l860 a large block of land known as the Qualla Boundary had been purchased. One of the stories of how the name Qualla came to be applied to this land is worth telling. Will Thomas's wife was named Polly. As the Cherokee language did not use words that required the mouth to close, they called her Qualla. Throughout these years the North Carolina Cherokee maintained their traditionalist culture. That is why that by l887-90, when James Mooney lived with the Cherokee, he was able to preserve so many of their myths and ceremonies. Over half of Mooney's information came from an old medicine man by the name of Swimmer. When Swimmer died in l899, Mooney wrote, "for with him perished half the tradition of a people.
During the Civil war, more than 400 of the Eastern Band of Cherokee served in the Confederate forces, under the leadership of William Thomas. That was almost one-fourth of the entire Eastern Band's total population of about 2000. Thomas's Confederate Legion of Cherokee was enlisted at Quallatown, North Carolina on April 9, l862. Will Thomas was elected their captain. The Cherokee served mostly in East Tennessee with Major General Kirby Smith's army. Thomas marched his Legion down the Valley River and over the mountains by the Unicoi turnpike, through Coker Creek and Tellico Plains to Sweetwater, Tennessee. From there they rode the train to Knoxville, where they paraded down Gay Street. One of their first assignments was to proceed to Strawberry Plains where they were to guard the bridge over the Holston River from the pro Union bridge-burners. There the Cherokee warriors became bored and decided to play a game of stick ball. While they were playing stick ball, the bridge burners burned the bridge! The story of Will Thomas and the Cherokee Legion is well told in Vernon E. Crow's excellent book, Store In The Mountains.
After the Civil War, the U.S. Federal government had less sympathy for the Cherokee than it had prior to the war. The Cherokee had fought for the Confederacy. Added to that was the fact that open warfare had broken out between the Indians of the Great Plains and the U.S. Army. By l870, there was much division among the Cherokee in North Carolina. George Bushyhead had been named Principal Chief at the Cheoah Council in l868. Will Thomas believed that Bushyhead was a false prophet. Bushyhead believed that Thomas was using the Cherokee for his own selfish profit motives. However, through Bushyhead's efforts, Congress allowed suits to be brought in Federal courts on behalf of the Cherokee against former and present agents who had cheated them. This l870 law was the first time the government officially designated the Cherokee in North Carolina as the Eastern Band. The threat of dispossession loomed very large in l870. From l870 to l872 several hundred more Cherokee traveled to Oklahoma, trudging to Loudon, Tennessee, and then by rail. Many difficulties were incurred in this emigration, and when they arrived in Oklahoma, they were treated like second class citizens there. The government added to the divisiveness in North Carolina by recognizing John Ross as Principal Chief. Ross and others were accused of defrauding the Cherokee out of their payments. To make matters worse, Will Thomas, still legally owned the Cherokee land in North Carolina. But due to his indebtedness, a North Carolina sheriff by the name of Johnston had taken sheriffs' titles to the land. In long, drawn out litigation, the Cherokee right to the Qualla Boundary was upheld. But they still had to pay Thomas, who still had to pay Johnston, a large sum of money. Eventually most of the money from the government's l848 fund was used to clear up the matter of the various and complicated land deeds.
In l867 Will Thomas's health failed. The war ruined his finances, which were hopelessly entangled with the business of the Cherokee. However, in l876, the United States government finally granted the Cherokee land titles. In l882 the Supreme Court declared that the Eastern Band was a tribe, like any other. That put it outside the jurisdiction of North Carolina and under the exclusive authority of the Federal government. A roll taken by Joseph G. Hester in l884 listed 2,956 Cherokee; l,88l in North Carolina, 738 in Georgia, 213 in Tennessee and 7l in Alabama. Many Cherokee complained that there was a host of non-Indians included on the roll. Certainly there had been much intermingling with the whites. In March l889 the North Carolina legislature recognized the Eastern Band as a corporate body that could sue and be sued in property matters. In l892 the Federal government assumed the responsibility for Cherokee education. James Bllly the won a political battle with Nimrod Smith and was elected Chief in l89l.
In l867 Will Thomas's health failed. The war ruined his finances, which were hopelessly entangled with the business of the Cherokee. However, in l876, the United States government finally granted the Cherokee land titles. In l882 the Supreme Court declared that the Eastern Band was a tribe, like any other. That put it outside the jurisdiction of North Carolina and under the exclusive authority of the Federal government. A roll taken by Joseph G. Hester in l884 listed 2,956 Cherokee; l,88l in North Carolina, 738 in Georgia, 213 in Tennessee and 7l in Alabama. Many Cherokee complained that there was a host of non-Indians included on the roll. Certainly there had been much intermingling with the whites. In March l889 the North Carolina legislature recognized the Eastern Band as a corporate body that could sue and be sued in property matters. In l892 the Federal government assumed the responsibility for Cherokee education. James Billy won a political battle with Nimrod Smith and was elected Chief in l89l.
Will Thomas died May l0, l893. He was 88 years old. But without Will Thomas there would have been no Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. Their 57,000 acre Qualla Boundary, thanks to Will Thomas, is not a true reservation as are the other western Indian reservations. Their land is held in trust by the Federal government, as communally owned land. It is just a small dot on the map of the more than 56,000 square miles the Cherokee claimed when the first white men came to America. Except for Will Thomas, they would not have had that.
By Lowell Kirk
Although his father was Scottish and his mother was of mixed descent, John Ross grew up as a full-fledged member of the Cherokee community. Known as Tsan Usdi (Little John) in his youth, he acquired the Cherokee name Kooweskoowe at adulthood. His parents also provided him with a European-based education, at first through a private tutor at home and later at an academy in South West Point (now Kingston), Tennessee. Thus Ross learned to function fully in white society while maintaining strong Cherokee ties. He later used his knowledge of both cultures to his peoples' advantage during repeated negotiations with the U.S. government.
By 1816 when he entered politics as a Cherokee delegate to Washington, D.C., John Ross was a successful merchant with a wife and several children. Having fought with Andrew Jackson in the Creek War of 1813-14, he went on to establish a ferry and warehouse for his trading firm at Ross' Landing, now Chattanooga, on the Tennessee River. Ross also inherited a family home at Rossville, now in Georgia, where he increasingly took on the role of a southern planter. By the time that he moved to Head of Coosa (now Rome, Georgia) in 1827, Ross owned nearly 200 acres of farmland worked by slaves and was one of the Cherokee Nation's wealthiest men.
Despite the encroachment of white settlers and extensive cessions of their territory, by the early nineteenth century the Cherokee people still held a sizeable tract of land spanning parts of southern Tennessee, northern Alabama, northern Georgia, and western North Carolina. Following the acquisition of the Louisiana Territory by the U.S. in 1803, many Americans—not the least of them President Thomas Jefferson—sought to move the Cherokees along with other eastern tribes to unincorporated land west of the Mississippi River. The Cherokees' adoption of agricultural practices, a written alphabet, and a constitutional form of government all were intended to accommodate Europeans and forestall relocation. By 1830, however, discovery of gold on Cherokee land, paired with Georgia's attempts at legislative annexation and the U.S. Indian Removal Act, made that relocation look increasingly inevitable.
White Chief Of The Cherokee
(Will Thomas)
The story of William Holland Thomas is much of the story of the Eastern Band of Cherokee from 1839, when he became Chief of Quallatown, until 1893 when he died. He was the only white man to ever serve as a Cherokee Chief. He was born in 1805 on Raccoon Creek about two miles from Waynesville, North Carolina. His Virginian father was accidentally drowned before his birth. At the age of twelve an Indian trader, Felix Walker, at a trading post on Soco Creek employed him. He quickly learned the Cherokee language as he bargained with them for ginseng and furs. Drowning Bear, chief of Quallatown, took a keen interest in the bright young man. When he learned that the boy had no father or brothers and sisters, he adopted Will as his son when Will was only thirteen. Will's best friend was an Indian boy who taught him the ancient customs, lore and religious rites. Will's employer went broke in the business and gave Will the remaining stock at the trading post and some old law books. Will studied the law books and developed a legal knowledge that later allowed him to become the legal representative for the Eastern Band of Cherokee.
When the Cherokee gave up the lands on the upper Little Tennessee River, Will settled his mother on a farm on the Oconaluftee River. His trade with the Cherokee prospered. By the time of the removal, Will owned five trading posts within the Cherokee Nation and was still studying law. During the Trail of Tears forced removal, Will Thomas was involved in the tracking down of Tsali. His motive, of course, was to help the Quallatown Cherokee to remain in North Carolina. Shortly after Tsali's execution, Thomas went to Washington to try to work out some legal arrangement to allow the Quallatown Cherokee to have a permanent settlement. When he returned home in l839, Chief Drowning Bear, over eighty years old, was dying. On his deathbed, Drowning Bear asked the Quallatown Cherokee to accept Will Thomas as their chief, which they did without question.
Thomas went to Washington to argue for many Cherokee claims against the government regarding annuity payments, individual allotments, preemption rights and loss of improvements. In l840 the government Indian Office appointed him to take a census of those Cherokee in the east and to act as the government's disbursing agent. Thomas used the money to begin the purchase of more than 50,000 acres of land for the Cherokee in his own name. The Indians were not allowed to own land in their name. He was strongly criticized for this, but this was the very action that resulted in the Eastern Band of Cherokee remaining in their beloved homeland.
In l842, the government was still attempting to remove all of the Cherokee to Oklahoma. James Robinson, a merchant from Franklin, North Carolina, was appointed as a special agent to persuade them to go. Under the terms of the New Echota treaty, each individual was to be paid $53.33 to remove. Robinson and his assistant, John Timson, began taking their own enrollment. Some Cherokee began to negotiate with them. But other Cherokee were returning from Oklahoma and the government's policy was to make them return to Oklahoma. The state of North Carolina still refused to confirm any claims to state citizenship to the Cherokee. The bulk of the Cherokee demanded their $53.33 without removing. By l844, the government had backed off, somewhat, on the removal issued. But Indians were still fighting for government payments. In l848 John C. Mullay, a clerk in the Indian office, began making his own census roll. It would be the most important one, for most later payment rolls were based upon it, Mullay traveled more than 300 miles by horseback from one isolated settlement to another in the rugged mountains. By l855, many Cherokee claimed they had been omitted, so the Mullay roll was expanded in that year. By the end of Mullay's second trip, he had l,5l7 Cherokee listed on it. By l855, the citizenship issue was still unresolved. Governor Thomas Bragg claimed that the Cherokee were not North Carolina citizens, as they did not "exercise the ordinary rights of citizens." But, they were allowed the "right" to pay taxes on the land they occupied!
An author by the name of Lanman visited the Eastern Band in l848. His following description gives an excellent picture of the life of the Eastern Band a decade after the removal:
"About three-fourths of the entire population can read in their own language, and though the majority of them understand English, a very few can speak the language. They practice, to a considerable extent, the science of agriculture, and have acquired such a knowledge of the mechanic arts as answers them for all ordinary purposes, for they manufacture their own clothing, their own ploughs, and other farming utensils, their own axes, and even their own guns. Their women are no longer treated as slaves, but as equals; the men labor in the fields and their wives are devoted entirely to household employment. They keep the same domestic animals that are kept by their white neighbors, and cultivate all the common grains of the country. They are probably as temperate as any other class of people on the face of the earth; honest is their business intercourse, moral in their thoughts, words, and deeds, and distinguished for their faithfulness in performing the duties of religion.
They are chiefly Methodists and Baptists, and have regularly ordained ministers, who preach to them on every Sabbath, and they have also abandoned many of their more senseless superstitions. They have their own court and try their criminals themselves. They keep in order the public roads leading through their settlement. By a law of the state they have a right to vote, but seldom exercise that right, as they do not like the idea of being identified with any of the political parties. Excepting on festive days, they dress after the manner of the white man, but far more picturesquely. They live in small log houses of their own construction, and have everything they need or desire in the way of food. They are in fact, the happiest community that I have yet met with in this southern country.
Will Thomas continued to purchase land for them in his own name. By l860 a large block of land known as the Qualla Boundary had been purchased. One of the stories of how the name Qualla came to be applied to this land is worth telling. Will Thomas's wife was named Polly. As the Cherokee language did not use words that required the mouth to close, they called her Qualla. Throughout these years the North Carolina Cherokee maintained their traditionalist culture. That is why that by l887-90, when James Mooney lived with the Cherokee, he was able to preserve so many of their myths and ceremonies. Over half of Mooney's information came from an old medicine man by the name of Swimmer. When Swimmer died in l899, Mooney wrote, "for with him perished half the tradition of a people.
During the Civil war, more than 400 of the Eastern Band of Cherokee served in the Confederate forces, under the leadership of William Thomas. That was almost one-fourth of the entire Eastern Band's total population of about 2000. Thomas's Confederate Legion of Cherokee was enlisted at Quallatown, North Carolina on April 9, l862. Will Thomas was elected their captain. The Cherokee served mostly in East Tennessee with Major General Kirby Smith's army. Thomas marched his Legion down the Valley River and over the mountains by the Unicoi turnpike, through Coker Creek and Tellico Plains to Sweetwater, Tennessee. From there they rode the train to Knoxville, where they paraded down Gay Street. One of their first assignments was to proceed to Strawberry Plains where they were to guard the bridge over the Holston River from the pro Union bridge-burners. There the Cherokee warriors became bored and decided to play a game of stick ball. While they were playing stick ball, the bridge burners burned the bridge! The story of Will Thomas and the Cherokee Legion is well told in Vernon E. Crow's excellent book, Store In The Mountains.
After the Civil War, the U.S. Federal government had less sympathy for the Cherokee than it had prior to the war. The Cherokee had fought for the Confederacy. Added to that was the fact that open warfare had broken out between the Indians of the Great Plains and the U.S. Army. By l870, there was much division among the Cherokee in North Carolina. George Bushyhead had been named Principal Chief at the Cheoah Council in l868. Will Thomas believed that Bushyhead was a false prophet. Bushyhead believed that Thomas was using the Cherokee for his own selfish profit motives. However, through Bushyhead's efforts, Congress allowed suits to be brought in Federal courts on behalf of the Cherokee against former and present agents who had cheated them. This l870 law was the first time the government officially designated the Cherokee in North Carolina as the Eastern Band. The threat of dispossession loomed very large in l870. From l870 to l872 several hundred more Cherokee traveled to Oklahoma, trudging to Loudon, Tennessee, and then by rail. Many difficulties were incurred in this emigration, and when they arrived in Oklahoma, they were treated like second class citizens there. The government added to the divisiveness in North Carolina by recognizing John Ross as Principal Chief. Ross and others were accused of defrauding the Cherokee out of their payments. To make matters worse, Will Thomas, still legally owned the Cherokee land in North Carolina. But due to his indebtedness, a North Carolina sheriff by the name of Johnston had taken sheriffs' titles to the land. In long, drawn out litigation, the Cherokee right to the Qualla Boundary was upheld. But they still had to pay Thomas, who still had to pay Johnston, a large sum of money. Eventually most of the money from the government's l848 fund was used to clear up the matter of the various and complicated land deeds.
In l867 Will Thomas's health failed. The war ruined his finances, which were hopelessly entangled with the business of the Cherokee. However, in l876, the United States government finally granted the Cherokee land titles. In l882 the Supreme Court declared that the Eastern Band was a tribe, like any other. That put it outside the jurisdiction of North Carolina and under the exclusive authority of the Federal government. A roll taken by Joseph G. Hester in l884 listed 2,956 Cherokee; l,88l in North Carolina, 738 in Georgia, 213 in Tennessee and 7l in Alabama. Many Cherokee complained that there was a host of non-Indians included on the roll. Certainly there had been much intermingling with the whites. In March l889 the North Carolina legislature recognized the Eastern Band as a corporate body that could sue and be sued in property matters. In l892 the Federal government assumed the responsibility for Cherokee education. James Bllly the won a political battle with Nimrod Smith and was elected Chief in l89l.
In l867 Will Thomas's health failed. The war ruined his finances, which were hopelessly entangled with the business of the Cherokee. However, in l876, the United States government finally granted the Cherokee land titles. In l882 the Supreme Court declared that the Eastern Band was a tribe, like any other. That put it outside the jurisdiction of North Carolina and under the exclusive authority of the Federal government. A roll taken by Joseph G. Hester in l884 listed 2,956 Cherokee; l,88l in North Carolina, 738 in Georgia, 213 in Tennessee and 7l in Alabama. Many Cherokee complained that there was a host of non-Indians included on the roll. Certainly there had been much intermingling with the whites. In March l889 the North Carolina legislature recognized the Eastern Band as a corporate body that could sue and be sued in property matters. In l892 the Federal government assumed the responsibility for Cherokee education. James Billy won a political battle with Nimrod Smith and was elected Chief in l89l.
Will Thomas died May l0, l893. He was 88 years old. But without Will Thomas there would have been no Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation. Their 57,000 acre Qualla Boundary, thanks to Will Thomas, is not a true reservation as are the other western Indian reservations. Their land is held in trust by the Federal government, as communally owned land. It is just a small dot on the map of the more than 56,000 square miles the Cherokee claimed when the first white men came to America. Except for Will Thomas, they would not have had that.
By Lowell Kirk