"I have signed my own death warrant!": Major Ridge of the Cherokee

What to do about encroaching White settlement was a never-ending question for Native leaders.  Some believed in co-existence, in giving up land and adopting European ways in an effort to co-exist and preserve something for their own people.  Others were for resistance.  Often, these stances changed over time, as circumstances changed.  And, almost always, without fail, no matter what these men tried to do or the motive behind their actions, it ended up in tragedy.

Major Ridge (c 1771-1839), was born in the Cherokee town of Great Hiwassee, in present-day Tennessee.  His mother was Cherokee and Scottish, his father was most likely full-blooded Cherokee.  Like many mixed-race young men of that era, he took his status from his mother's clan, the Deer Clan and received his warrior's training from the men of her family.  Because her father had returned to Scotland, Ridge did not receive what was called at that time an English Education, though he later learned the language, but could not write it.  There was plenty for a young warrior to do during the Cherokee-American Wars, 1775-1795.  Ridge's name as a young man, Nunnehidihi meant, he kills the enemy in his path, shortened to Pathkiller.  He is sometimes known as Pathkiller II to distinguish him from a Cherokee leader with the same name.  Later, Ridge received the name Ganundalegi, meaning, he walks along a high mountain.  This was shortened into English as, The Ridge, which is how many White men knew him. 

In time Ridge married a woman named Sehoya or Susanna Catherine Wickett, a mixed-race Cherokee, and had two children, John and Sarah.  He determined that John would receive a full education and sent him to the Foreign Missionary Society school in Connecticut.  John's cousin and Ridge's nephew Elias Boudinot, whom we've already met, was also a student there.  In this, Ridge was not alone.  Along with two other prominent leaders of the time, Charles R. Hicks and James Vann, also of mixed-race, he believed that the young men needed to be able to communicate with and function in White society if their people were to be successful in co-existing with White Americans.  In time, Ridge rose to prominence, becoming a planter, businessman and owning a ferry, a lucrative income in those days.  He served as a mentor to a younger man, John Ross, though the two would part ways in later years. 

Ridge attained a seat on the Cherokee National Council and was directed to be part of the party that executed another Cherokee leader, Doublehead, who had ceded some land without the Council's permission, something Ridge knew to be a capital offense.  The killing of Doublehead, along with other events, would led to a terrible blood feud that would follow the Cherokee to Oklahoma and fester until the Civil War created tension of its own.  Ridge opposed Tecumseh's Revolt (1811-1813).  Being present when Tecumseh made a speech to leaders in a Creek town, Ridge stepped across the Shawnee's path and warned him that if he came into Cherokee Country and tried to spread his message there, Ridge would kill him personally.  He later led Cherokee warriors under Andrew Jackson during the Creek War and the New Orleans campaign, earning the military rank of Major, which became part of his name in White reference.

After returning from the War of 1812, Ridge moved his family to present-day Rome, Georgia, where his home still stands.  In addition to his plantation and ferry business, he went into partnership with a White man dealing in Calico and other fabrics, another lucrative trade item.  For years, as the federal government tried to induce the Cherokee to part with more land, Ridge was one of those who stood firm.  However, as Georgia officials became more restrictive in their laws toward the Cherokee, such as disallowing Whites to work for Native or forbidding Whites to enter into business dealing with Natives, John Ridge persuaded his father that perhaps giving up the lands in the east and striking their best deal for land out west was the better option.  Hoping to make the best terms possible, Ridge became a leader of what was known as the Treaty Party.  He was one of those who signed the Treaty of New Echota in December, 1835, though he knew what it would mean.  "I have signed my own death warrant," he said.

As Cherokee families packed up and prepared to leave, White officials in Georgia didn't bother to wait, auctioning off Cherokee property in lotteries and seizing livestock and other property.  Ridge moved his family west in 1837, traveling by flatboat and steamer to Honey Creek on the Arkansas, Missouri border.  This was outside of the Cherokee Nation boundary, but Ridge knew he was no longer welcome among his people.  Too many Cherokee, over 4,000 had died in the trek known as the Trail of Tears and many believed that Ridge, as leader of the Treaty Party, should pay with his life as Doublehead had.  In June, 1839, Major Ridge, his son John, their nephew Elias, and Ridge's other nephew Stand Watie were ambushed.  Only Watie escaped, though severely injured.  More on him and this feud later. 

Ridge's home in Georgia is now a museum on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.  Ken Burns included Ridge's life in a documentary called "We Shall Remain", part of his American Experience series.  

Treaty: The Tragedy of New Echota December 28, 1835

The Treaty of New Echota ceded the last of the Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi, with the exception of North Carolina.  It also exposed deep fissures in the Cherokee Nation as to how to deal with the onslaught of settlers encroaching on Native land.

From the beginning of the Republic, from Washington's Administration through that of John Quincy Adams (1824-1828), the federal government had enacted a policy of treating Native tribes as sovereign nations.  In theory, this mean allowing each tribe to handle its own internal affairs.  In practice, the federal government and state governments often interfered directly in tribal government, usually by appointing leaders or favoring leaders who appeared willing to cooperate by ceding land and ignoring the claims of those who weren't.  This interference made divisions within each tribe worse, as some leaders believed that cooperation and co-existence were the best answers to the inevitable displacement off tribal land.  Others were willing to resist encroachment, by force of arms if necessary.  These breaches led to civil wars within some tribes, for example the Creek, or blood feuds, as anger and resentment of each faction's motives gave way to violence.

By 1828, Cherokee land in Georgia had been guaranteed by a series of treaties, as had Cherokee rights to sovereignty.  The state of Georgia, wanting more land for incoming settlers, had pressed the John Quincy Adams administration to rewrite the land treaties with a view toward removing the Cherokee from their land altogether.  Otherwise, Georgia threatened to act on its own, nullify the treaties, disband the Cherokee National Counsel and begin forced removals.  In a windup to the Indian Removal Act, incoming President Andrew Jackson urged Native leaders in the South to cooperate with efforts at removal.  A minor gold rush in Georgia in 1829 sped up the inevitable and Georgia began taking repressive measures against the Cherokee, surveying their lands and holding a lottery to disburse the lands to White settlers. 

Led by Principal Chief John Ross, the Cherokee National Council brought suit in state courts and all the way up to the United States Supreme Court, where Chief Justice John Marshall ruled Georgia's actions unconstitutional.  This, however, did little to address the situation on the ground, as Georgia began forced removals of Cherokee families anyway.  The Jackson Administration sent representatives to persuade the Cherokee to give up their land, including promises of compensation, self-government and relocation assistance.  With these assurances, a faction within the Council began to believe that cooperation with the removal would be the best way of dealing with the inevitable situation.  Members of the Ridge, Boudinot and Watie families urged fellow Council members to cooperate with removal but most were firmly opposed.

These leaders began negotiations with Jackson's Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, seeking the best terms possible in the face of what they perceived to be inevitable removal.  John Ross tried to put a stop to their negotiations, but to no avail.  He openly condemned the treaty negotiations, with the result that the Treaty Party split from the National Council and began holding their own meetings.  Tempers flared and violence broke out amidst the various factions.  Finally, in 1835, Jackson sent a delegation to negotiate a final treaty with the Cherokee.  Ross's faction proposed a counter-offer and a meeting was set in 1835 to take place at New Echota, the Cherokee capitol at the time.  In late December, 1835, as delegate arrived at New Echota, the weather prohibited some leaders from attending.  Despite this, the leaders present agreed a treaty that did not have the approval of Principal Chief John Ross or a vote of the National Council.

Per the terms of the treaty, the Cherokees would receive compensation for the land given up, additional monies for educational funds, an amount of land in Indian Territory equal to the amount ceded back east, and individual compensation for any property left behind.  The treaty contained a clause allowing individual Cherokee to stay and become citizens, but Jackson ordered that provision stricken.  The Treaty negotiations concluded on December 29, 1835 and the formal treaty was signed on March 1, 1836.  With publication of the terms of the treaty, John Ross and the National Council objected and stated that they did not approve the treaty.  Ross went to Washington to urge the Senate not to ratify the Treaty but it was ratified any way.  The incoming Van Buren Administration directed the Army under General Winfield Scott to begin forced removals. 

The forced removal known forever as the Cherokee Trail of Tears began in 1836, but even deeper fissures were running through the Cherokee Nation.  Treaty Party versus National Party, East versus West, Old Settlers versus Late Settlers, families and clans against each other and even brothers and cousins against one another.  The anger at those who had dared to sign the treaty, or against those who felt they were making the situation worse by resisting would wear on for decades, even as hundreds of Cherokee died of hunger and exposure along the trail and in the next few years of settlement in Oklahoma.