I'm Anxious To Get Started Again

April of 2009 was my last post to this blog. How quickly the time has gone by. I laid Ancestry.com, all research, the addiction, and The James Scroll aside to take a break. I didn't realize it would be this long before I dove back in, but I am very excited to be starting again.

I was absolutely amazed when I opened The James Scrolls at the number of "hits"  (almost 21,000) and all the comments, which have been so wonderful for me. To each of you who took the time to read the posts and make comments, I offer a very heartfelt thanks. The information you gave and the validation in your comments left me soaring. When I first started this research, I knew I was part Cherokee, but I had no idea I would be able to trace so many Cherokee ancestors and have so many well-known ones in my line. It stupefied me, but in a wonderful way. I got carried away and posted some of the amazing Cherokees I learned about and was related to.

This time I want to start with my mother Thelma Roxanna James Reed to honor her and then try to post about and get to know her parents and grandparents and their ancestors who may not be as fascinating as Moytoy or Dragging Canoe, but hopefully will let me, my children,granchildren and future generations know more about our more recent relatives. As always, whoever might read these posts and can add to or correct any errors, please don't hesitate to comment.

So Thelma Roxanna James Reed, born December 8, 1908, in Ottawa, Miami, Oklahoma, the sixth child of Lucinda Miller James, and Albert Blunt James.
In June of 1965 she applied`for a delayed birth certificate because  there was not one on file in Oklahoma.
On this birth cerificate her color or race is listed as White and Indian. Both her parents were also born in Oklahoma.

              The Thirteenth Census of the United States 1910 - Indian Population


                  

Information Extracted As Follows:

Oklahoma

Ottawa County
Narcissa Township
May 9 , 1910


Name: Thelma James
Age in 1910: 1year 5 month
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1909 (The census estimates instead of asking) Mom was 1 5/12  born in 1908
Birthplace: Oklahoma
Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Home in 1910: Narcissa, Ottawa, Oklahoma

Marital Status: Single
Race: Indian (Native American)
Gender: Female

Father's Name: Albert James, Head of Household, Male,  Indian, 32, Born in Oklahoma, His Father was  born in Missouri, His Mother born in Kansas, Farmer, General Farm, Could both read and write,Owned home, Free of Mortgage
 
Mother's Name: Lucinda James Female, Indian, 29, Born in Oklahoma, Her mothers Birth Place: Arkansas, Her Father was born in Tennessee

Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members: Name Age
Albert James 32
Lucinda James 29
Cherokee James 10
Opal James 9
Calvin James 7
Mildred James 6
Eilleen James 4
Thelma James 1 5/12

Mark Evans 19  (Note: I imagine this is a farm hand)

Both parents and children listed themselves as 1/8 Indian and 7/8 White.

End of Census Information

There are 6 children on this Census. There were a total of 14 kids as follows.

Cherokee Marie James 1899 – 1995 (Cherry)

Opal Irene James 1900 – 1961

Calvin Dridge James 1902 – 1929

Mildred Drucella James 1903 – 1998 (Mill)

Eileen Allana James 1906 – 1981

Haskell Blunt James 1907 – 1907

Thelma Roxanna James 1908 – 1998

Paul Andrew James 1911 – 1991

Leila Stough James 1913 – 1984

Howard Woodrew James 1914 – 1942

Albert Blunt Jr. James 1917 – 1925

Virginia May James 1918 – 1980 (Jean)

Lorenzo Lee James 1920 – 2003 (Tiny)

William Penn James 1923 – 1947


There were 6 children older than Mom and 7 younger. I knew 7 of them but not William Penn who died in 1947, Albert Blunt Jr. who died in 1925, Howard who died in 1942, Haskell who died in infancy and Calvin who in 1920 was convicted with 2 other men of killing a Coast Guard patrol while smuggling rum into the US and was executed.


The death certificate of Calvin Dridge James 1902-1929 showing he was electrocuted in prison at the Western State Penitentiary in PA in January of 1929.

The Cherokee Nation

The Cherokees called themselves the Ani-Yun' wiya meaning leading or principal people. The original Cherokees lived early times in Georgia, Alabama, North and South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia.

The Cherokee seal (above) was designed to embrace the early government structure, and the eternal endurance of the Cherokee Indians. It was adopted by Act of the Cherokee National Council, and approved in 1871. The seven-pointed star symbolizes: (1). the seven age old clans of the Cherokee: (2). the seven characters of Sequoyah’s syllabary, meaning "Cherokee Nation." (The Cherokee characters are phonetically pronounced "Tsa-la-gi-hi A-yi-li") .. The wreath of oak leaves symbolizes the sacred fire which, from time immemorial, the Cherokees kept burning in their land. Oak was the wood traditionally burned, different species of oak having ever been indigenous to Cherokee country, both in North Carolina and Georgia as well as in the Indian Territory to which the Cherokees removed in the early 1800's...The margin wording proclaims the authority of the seal in both the English and the Cherokee languages, and records the date (1839) of the adoption of the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation West...This seal was imprinted on all documents until the dissolution of the Cherokee Nation at Oklahoma Statehood

Chronicles of OklahomaSEAL OF THE CHEROKEE NATION

Interpretation of the device in this seal is found in Cherokee folklore and history. Ritual songs in certain ancient tribal ceremonials and songs made reference to seven clans, the legendary
beginnings of the Cherokee Nation whose country early in the historic period took in a wide area now included in the present eastern parts of Tennessee and Kentucky, the western parts of
Virginia and the Carolinas, as well as extending over into what are now northern sections of Georgia and Alabama. A sacred fire was kept burning in the "Town House" at a central part of the old nation, logs of the live oak, a hardwood timber in the region, laid end to end to keep the fire going. The oak was thus a symbol of strength and everlasting life in connection with the sacred fire. The seven-pointed star centering the device of the Cherokee Seal represents
the seven ancient clans in tribal lore.

Catherine Kingfisher

Catherine Kingfisher 1752 - 1817 My 5G Grandmother (Nancy4 Ward, Tame Doe3 Raven, Anaway2 Nancy Moytoy, Amatoya1 Moytoy)

The most extensive Harlan family history states that Ellis Harlan married “Catherine Kingfisher, daughter of Kingfisher, a famous Chief, and Chigau”. Chigau is better known as Nancy Ward, from her marriage to a second husband Bryan Ward. This is the same Nancy Ward who was a friend to the whites, and aided the escape of Ezekiel Buffington from Cherokee upper town.

Catherine was the widow of John Walker at the time of her marriage to Ellis Harlan in Tennessee. Probably at the Inn operated by her mother at Woman Killer Ford on the Ocowee River.

Catherine "Ka Ti" KINGFISHER

Note:
"HISTORY OF THE CHEROKEE INDIANS", Dr. Emmet Starr, Hoffman Printing Co., Muskogee, 1984

She was a full blood Cherokee. She married Ellis Harlan a white man.

Sequoyah George Gist

Sequoyah George Gist 1767 - 1843 My 5G 3rd Cousin (Wurteh4, Chief3 Great Eagle, Chief Pigeon2 of Tellico, Amatoya1 Moytoy)
Sequoyah, named in English George Gist or Guess, was a Cherokee silversmith who in 1821 completed his independent creation of a Cherokee syllabary, making reading and writing in Cherokee possible. This was the first time in recorded history that a member of an illiterate people independently created an effective writing system.[3] After seeing its worth, the Cherokee Nation rapidly began to use his syllabary and officially adopted it in 1825.

Early life

Sequoyah's heroic status has led to several competing accounts of his life that are speculative, contradictory, or fabricated.[4] James Mooney, a prominent anthropologist and historian of the Cherokee people, quoted a cousin as saying that as a little boy, Sequoyah spent his early years with his mother in the village of Tuskegee. Estimates of his birth year ranged from 1760-1776. His name is believed to come from the Cherokee word siqua meaning 'hog'. This is either a reference to a childhood deformity or a later injury that left Sequoyah disabled.

His mother Wut-teh was known to be Cherokee, belonging to the Paint Clan. Mooney stated that she was the niece of a Cherokee chief. Sources differ as to the identity of Sequoyah's father. Mooney and others suggested that he was possibly a fur trader, who would have been a man of some social status and financial backing.[5] Grant Foreman identified him as Nathaniel Gist, a commissioned officer with the Continental Army associated with George Washington.[6][7] In one Cherokee source, his father is said to be a half-blood and his grandfather a white man.[8]
Sequoyah first married Sally, with whom he had four children. After her death, he married Utiyu, with whom he had three children. At some point before 1809, Sequoyah moved to Willstown, Cherokee Nation, in present-day northeast Alabama. There he established his trade as a silversmith.[9]

As a silversmith, Sequoyah dealt regularly with whites who had settled in the area. The Native Americans were impressed by their writing, referring to their correspondence as "talking leaves." Around 1819, Sequoyah began work to create a system of writing for the Cherokee language. At first he sought to create a character for each word in the language. He spent a year on this effort, leaving his fields unplanted, so that his friends and neighbors thought he had lost his mind.[8][10] Sequoyah did not succeed until he gave up trying to represent entire words and instead developed a symbol for each syllable in the language. After approximately a month, he had a system of 86 characters, some of which were Roman letters that he obtained from a spelling book.[8]

Unable to find people willing to learn the syllabary, he taught it to his daughter Ayokeh, and then traveled to present-day Arkansas where some Cherokee had settled. When he tried to convince the local leaders of the syllabary's usefulness, they doubted him, believing that the symbols were merely ad hoc reminders. Sequoyah asked each of them to say a word, which he wrote down, and then called his daughter in to read the words back. This demonstration convinced the leaders to let him teach the syllabary to a few more people. This took several months, during which it was rumored that he might be using the students for sorcery. After completing the lessons, he was further tested by writing a dictated letter to each student, and reading a dictated response. This test convinced the Arkansas Cherokee that he had created a practical writing system.[10]

When Sequoyah returned east, he brought a sealed envelope containing a written speech from one of the Arkansas Cherokee leaders. By reading this speech, he convinced the eastern Cherokee also to learn the system, after which it spread rapidly. In 1825 the Cherokee Nation officially adopted the writing system. From 1828 to 1834 writers and editors used Sequoyah's syllabary to print the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper of the Cherokee Nation with text in English and Cherokee.[11]

Life in Arkansas and further west
After the acceptance of his syllabary by the nation in 1825, Sequoyah walked to the new Cherokee territory in Arkansas. There he set up a blacksmith shop and a salt works. He continued to teach the syllabary to anyone who came to him. In 1828, Sequoyah journeyed to Washington, D.C. as part of a delegation to negotiate a treaty for land in Oklahoma.
His trip brought him into contact with representatives of other Native American tribes from around the nation. With these meetings he decided to create a syllabary for universal use among Native American tribes. With this in mind, Sequoyah began to journey to areas of present-day Arizona and New Mexico seeking tribes there.

In addition, Sequoyah dreamed of seeing the splintered Cherokee Nation reunited. Between 1843 and 1845, he died during a trip to Mexico seeking Cherokees who had moved there. His burial location is unknown.

Sequoyah's Cabin, a frontier cabin which he lived in during 1829-1844, is located in Oklahoma. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.

Nancy Ward

Nancy Ward 1738 - 1822 My 6 g Grandmother (Tame Doe3Raven, Anaway2 Moytoy, Amatoya1Moytoy)

Nancy Ward from the Cherokee Registry First Light on Line

Nanyehi Nancy Ward "The Ghi Ga U"

She was a Full blood of the Wolf Clan, born in Chota, the City of Refuge and Capitol of the Cherokee Nation. Her Great grandfather was Moytoy of Tellico Supreme Chief 1730 --1760. Moytoy's second daughter, born about 1663 and her husband, The "Raven" of Chotawere Nancy's grandparents.

Nancy holds a position of great significancein Cherokee history.
In 1738, Tame Do (the sister of Attakullakulla) and her husband, thought to be a Delaware Indian brave or Chief ( who died early in her life) gave birth to a daughter named Nancy, who in time became the last true Ghi Ga U or Beloved Woman of the Cherokees, and in who, in her views regarding Cherokee and white relationships, was an ally of Little Carpenter (Attakullakulla).

In the early 1750's, she married the noted war leader, Kingfisher of the Deer Clan, and was at his side when in 1755 he was killed by Creek warriors at the battle of Taliwa. She immediately picked up his weapons and rallied the Cherokee warriors to overwhelming victory. Back at Chota, she was chosen to fill the vacant position of a Beloved Woman. It was believed that the Supreme Beings often spoke to the people through the beloved women, and they were given absolute power in the question of what to do with prisoners taken in war, a power exclusive to Ghi Ga U. Nancy did not hesitate to use the power. She was also head of the influential woman's council that consisted of a representative from each clan, and she sat as a voting member of the council of chiefs.

In the late 1750's, about 1759, she married an already wed white trader named Bryant Ward, who before 1760 left her and returned to his white wife and children in South Carolina. In 1772, an English diplomat named Robertson visited Nancy's home at Chota, which he described as being furnished in a barbaric splendor that befitted her high rank. She was then thirty - five years old and he pictured her as "queenly and commanding"(Mooney -Myths of the Cherokeepg. 204 )

In June 1776, Dragging Canoe, Abraham and Raven , Cherokee War Chiefs, with 250 warriors each, at the instigation of the British, planned to attack Western settlements. Ghi Ga u warned the settlers of the impending attacks, then on July 20, 1776, Abraham, marching to attack Watauga in East Tennessee, captured Mrs. William Bean, mother of the first white child born in Tennessee. When the war party returned to Cherokee Country, Mrs. Bean was condemned to be burned at the stake. She was conducted to the top of a mound that stood in the center of Tuskeegee, which was located just above the mouth of the Tellico or Little Tennessee River. Bound at the stake, faggots piled around, torch about to be applied, GhiGau appeared , cut the thongs and took the captive to her home, where Mrs. Bean taught her how to keep house and make butter. As soon as it was safe, Ghi Ga u sent her brother, Tuskeegeeteehee, or Longfellow of Chistatoa and her son Hiskyteehee, or Fivekiller sometimes called Littlefellow, to escort Mrs. Bean to her husband. Numerous settlements had been made on Cherokee land, in direct violation of royal decree from England.

When the Revolutionary War broke out, the Cherokees again sided with the English. In 1776, the Cherokees prepared to attack simultaneously the frontier settlements of Virginia, the Carolinas, andGeorgia. The responsibility assigned to 700 warriors from chota was to strike the settlers who lived in the Watuga area. As much for theCherokees' sake as for that of the settlers, Nancy Ward helped IsaacThomas, William Fawling and another white man to escape from Chota to warn the Watugans in time to build fortifications. This act established Nancy's reputation as a friend of the settlers. When in October 1776 Colonel William Christian led nearly 2,000 troops in a devastating raid,out of respect for Nancy Ward he spared Chota, while most of the other Cherokee towns were ravaged. In 1780, at a time when most of the Wataugamen were away from home and engaged in the King's Mountain campaign, at the same time, the frontier rear guards became short on rations and NancyWard agreed to supply beef and had some cattle driven in, the Cherokees again prepared to attack the settlements in the Watauga area. Nancy Ward warned the whites a second time, but when the soldiers returned from King's Mountain and learned of the threat, they were enraged, and set out to teach the Cherokees a lesson they would never forget. Despite NancyWard's pleas for mercy and friendship, Chota was destroyed along withother towns, and for a short time she and her family were placed in protective custody. When they were released, they returned to help rebuild the town, and on July 20, 1781, she was the featured speaker for the Cherokees when the reeling people reluctantly accepted a peace treaty with the Wataugans.

When the Treaty of Hopewell was made in South Carolina in 1785, she offered another dramatic plea for continued peace between the Indians and the whites. Once the unhappy war years were ended she lived in Chota, where although it was no longer the capitol of the nation, it was still a city of refuge, and from all over the nation she took into her home orphaned and homeless waifs, including mixed breeds.

Nancy Ward died in 1822, a truly remarkable woman who learned a permanent place of honor in Cherokee and white history"( The CherokeePeople pp. 193 - 194) Ghi Ga u conducted an inn at the Womankiller ford of the Ocowee River for many years and became quite wealthy; her property consisted of livestock, slaves and money. Travelers called her "Granny Ward" because of her age and that she was the widow of Bryant Ward Nancy grew too old to meet with council and other chiefs, she sent her servant to take her walking stick, her badge of authority, to her appointed seat in the council building to assure that her spirit was there, most notably the council at Amoah, May 6, 1817, the renunciation of her delegated rights and in favor of the first Constitutional Enactment of the Cherokees. Nancy Ward died at her home at the Womankiller ford, in the spring of 1822. Her grave site, a designated state park, is located on a knoll next to U. S. Highway 411, just South of Benton, Tennessee. Buried beside her son, Fivekiller, a veteran of the War of 1812, and her brother Longfellow. Her grave site overlooks the site where Nancy ran her inn, where the old Unicoy Pikecrossed the Ocoee River.( the Pike was the main road from Knoxville intoNorthern Georgia and was a popular resting place for travelers)

Speech 1817
What follows was perhaps not a speech, but rather a written document which was not found in the Amovey Council memorandum. Dated May 2nd, 1817, it was found in the Andrew Jackson Papers, Book 29, No. 17, Volume 1, pages 6452-3:

The Cherokee ladys now being present at the meeting of the Chiefs and warriors in council have thought it their duty as mothers to address their beloved chiefs and warriors now assembled.
Our beloved children and head men of the Cherokee nation we address you warriors now assembled.

Our beloved children and head men of the Cherokee nation we address you warriors in council we have raised all of you on the land which we now have, which God gave us to inhabit and raise provisions we know that our country has once been extensive but by repeated sales has become circumscribed to a small tract and never have thought it our duty to interfere in the disposition of it till now, if a father or mother was to sell all their lands which they had to depend on which their children had to raise their living on which would be indeed bad and to be removed to another country we do not wish to go to an unknown country which we have understood would be like destroying your mothers. Your mothers your sisters ask and beg of you not to part with any more of our lands, we say ours you are descendants and take pity on our request, but keep it for our growing children for it was the good will of our creator to place us here and you know our father the great president will not allow his white children to take our country away only keep you hands off of paper talks for it is our own country for if it was not they would not ask you to put your hands to paper for it would be impossible to remove us all for as soon as one child is raised we have others in our arms for such is our situation and will consider our circumstance.

Therefore children don't part with any more of our lands but continue on it and enlarge your farms and cultivate and raise corn and cotton and we your mothers and sisters will make clothing for you which our father the president has recommended to us all we don't charge anybody for selling any lands, but we have heard such intentions of our children but your talks become true at least and it was our desire to forewarn you all not to part with our lands.
Nancy Wart to her children Warriors take pity and listen to the talks of your sisters, although I am very old yet cannot but pity the situation in which you will hear of their minds, I have great many grand children which I wish them to do well on our land.
Attested

Newspaper Article

The Cherokee Beloved Woman; Wild Rose of the Cherokee; Pocahontas of the West; War Woman; Prophetess; Granny Ward, these are a few of the names and titles given to Nancy Ward, the most powerful and influential woman in the Cherokee Nation during recorded history. She ruled over the powerful Council of Women and had a voting seat in the Council of Chiefs. During her lifetime the Cherokee moved from a matriarchal, clan-type of government to a republic much like our own.

She was born in 1738 at Chota and was loved and respected by the settlers as well as the Cherokees. She had absolute power over prisoners and on numerous occasions saved the lives of white people. On at least two occasions during the Revolutionary War period she sent warnings to John Sevier at the Watauga settlements of planned Indian attacks, thus giving them time to prepare a defense or counter-offensive.

She participated in the Treaty of July 20, 1781, and the Treaty at Hopewell, November 28, 1785, as a principal speaker. She alluded to her never ending desire to seek peace for her people and to hold on to as much of their land as possible. After the Hiwassee Purchase of 1819, she left Chota and settled on the Ocoee River near Benton, Tennessee. She operated an inn at Woman Killer Ford on the Federal Road until her death in 1822. She is buried on a hill nearby. In 1923 a monument was placed on her grave by a Chattanooga Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Chief Chuqualataque Doublehead

Chief Chuqualataque Doublehead 1744 - 1807 My 6g Grand Second Cousin Once Removed


Doublehead's Legacy

Perhaps the most interesting of the Cherokee chiefs in the Tennessee Basin of Alabama was Chief Doublehead or Talo Tiske meaning “two heads.” Chief Doublehead established a town on the Tennessee River at the head of Muscle Shoals in 1790. This village sat at the mouth of Blue Water Creek in Lauderdale County.

Muscle Shoals had always been an area of dispute between Chickasaws and Cherokees, though it was known as “Chickasaw Hunting Grounds.” When Doubleheads occupation of Muscle Shoals came into question, Chief George Colbert of the Chickasaws confirmed that Doublehead was at Muscle Shoals by his permission. This new agreement seems less unusual considering that Colbert had married two of Doublehead’s daughters.

Doublehead’s brother was Chief Old Tassel, one of the Cherokees most well-known and beloved chiefs. When he was murdered with the aid of the white mayor James Hubbert, Doublehead went on the rampage, attacking white settlers throughout the Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee. This six year warpath from 1788 to 1794 is well chronicled, and though it was no doubt exaggerated by the afflicted, the chiefs terrible “atrocities” certainly add up to a significant sum. He was even accused of encouraging his warriors to cannibalism of the dead during this escapade.

At the end of his warpath, Doublehead met with President George Washington at the nation’s capital, and he returned a changed man. Though he began to mimic the ways of the whites and built a large cabin, he continued to defend the Cherokees land rights in various treaties until his death. This change of heart was characteristic of the Cherokees during this time, many of whom adopted the manners and customs of the whites. He even went as far as forming the Doublehead Company that leased 1,000 acres to more than 50 white settlers between the Elk River and Cypress Creek.

Doublehead was murdered in a savagely interesting tale chronicled by the famous Indian canoe fighter, Sam Dale. On a trip to a ball game on the Hiwasee River, Doublehead engaged in a series of arguments with two Cherokee warriors and a white Indian trader.

Served under Chief Dragging Canoe

Chief Doublehead was a bloodthirsty Chief who served under Chief Dragging Canoe. He commanded the expedition against Knoxville in 1793.It is said that he traveled to Tennessee near now Athens, Tennessee in 1807 to attend a stick ball game and while there he bragged about having sold Cherokee Lands for a lot of money even though It was a death sentence to do so. He was attacked in the MCIntosh Tavern by Major Ridge,James Vann and Alexander Saunders, where he was wounded and fled to the home of James Black a missionary, where he died. It is said he was a brother to Old Tassel. He was a full blood Chickamauga Cherokee Warrior, as well as Tahlonteeskee, his Brother-in-law.

Death

In the summer of 1807, the Cherokees had a great ball play on the Hiwassee River. This was their national sport, and attracted immense crowds. On this occasion there were more than a thousand Indians present, besides the officers from Hiwassee Fort, and numerous traders attracted by the prospect of selling their merchandise.

The central figure among the Cherokees was the famous Chief Doublehead. Gen. Sam Dale, of Mississippi, then a Georgian Indian trader, who is authority for the following account of his death, knew Doublehead and called upon him. Sam, you are a mighty liar, was his greeting. When Dale demanded why he thus insulted him in public, a smile illuminated his grim face as he replied, You have never kept your promise to come and see me. You know you have lied. He then produced a bottle of whiskey, and invited Dale and the officers present to drink with him. When they had emptied the bottle, he rejected Dale's offer to replenish it, saying, When I am in the white man's country, I will drink your liquor, but here you must drink with Doublehead.

After the game was over a chief named Bone-polisher approached Doublehead and denounced him as a traitor for selling the land of his people. The stolid chief remaining tranquil and silent, Bone-polisher became still more angry, accompanying his abuse with menacing gestures. Then Doublehead spoke, quietly and without agitation: Go away. You have said enough. Leave me, or I shall kill you. Bone-polisher rushed at him with his tomahawk, which Doublehead received on his left arm, and drawing his pistol, shot him through the heart.

Some time after night, Doublehead, who had been drinking, came in to Hiwassee Ferry, and entered McIntosh's tavern. Among those whom he encountered there was a chief named Ridge, afterwards Major Ridge, a half-breed called Alex. Saunders, and John Rodgers, an old white man who had long resided in the nation. Rodgers began to revile him, much after the manner of Bone-polisher. Doublehead proudly rebuked him: You live by sufferance among us. I have never seen you in council nor on the war-path. You have no place among the chiefs. Be silent and interfere no more with me. The old man still persisted, and Doublehead attempted to shoot him, but his pistol, not having been charged, missed fire. The light was then extinguished, and at the same instant a pistol shot was fired. When the light was rekindled, Ridge, Saunders, and Rodgers had all disappeared, and Doublehead lay motionless on his face. The ball had shattered his lower jaw and lodged in the nape of his neck.

His friends now set out with him for the garrison, but fearing they would be overtaken, turned aside, and concealed him in the loft of Schoolmaster Black's house. Two warriors of the Bone-polisher clan traced Doublehead by his blood to his hiding place. At the same time Ridge and Saunders came galloping up, shouting the war whoop. Sam Dale and Col. James Brown, of Georgia, followed them. The wounded chief was lying on the floor, his jaw and arm terribly lacerated. Ridge and Saunders each leveled his pistol, but both missed fire. Doublehead sprang upon Ridge and would have overpowered him had not Saunders discharged his pistol and shot him through the hips. Saunders then made a rush on Doublehead with his tomahawk, but the dying chief wrenched it from him, and again leaped upon Ridge. Saunders seized another tomahawk and drove it into his brain. When he fell another Indian crushed his head with a spade. It is interesting to note that, after the tribe had been removed to the west, Major Ridge was himself executed in the same manner, for a like offense.

The murder of Chief Doublehead August 9, 1807

Cherokee Chief Doublehead is executed by The Ridge, James Vann and Alexander Saunders
It marked the end of an era in the Cherokee Nation and the rise of the republic.

Doublehead had grown powerful by giving Cherokee land to the government through the liberal bribes of Indian Agent Return J. Miegs. The tribal council had made it a crime punishable by death to cede Cherokee land to anyone. Doublehead continued to allow settlers into Cherokee land, and traded holdings with the United States.

Ridge, Vann and Sauders, possibly with the approval of the Cherokee Council, sought Doublehead. The first attempt to kill Doublehead ended when Vann, who was to perform the task, was too drunk. Other attempts followed, but finally Ridge succeeded.
Ironically, Ridge would receive the same punishment for signing the Treaty of New Echota in 1835

Hanging Maw

Chief Hanging Maw 1710 -1794 My 7 g Second Cousin by Marriage Once Removed. (Amatoya1Moytoy, White2 Owl Raven, Betsy3 Raven)


Scolacutta,Uskaw'lil-gutaU-s-quo-li=Abdomen/Stomach, Ga-dv-di=Hang
Principal Chief Between 1780 - 1792 - Source Emmet Starr
Full Blooded Cherokee
Hanging Maw fought with President Washington in the Franch and Indian War. Old Frontiers, John P Brown, pg 388

Following the death of Old Tassel, those Cherokee towns inclined toward peace had separated roughly into two groups. Hanging Maw had been selected as Principal Chief to succeed the Tassel, but the lower towns east of Lookout Mt. Coosawatie, Elijay, Ustinali, and Etowah recognized Little Turkey as their head man. Old Frontiers, John P Brown, pg 309.

Attended March 1775, Henderson's Treaty, Sycamore Shoals
Source: Cherokee Registry

Hanging Maw, or Uskwa'li-gu'ta in Cherokee, was the leading chief of the Overhill Cherokee from 1788 to 1794. He became chief following the death of Old Tassel, during the troubled period following the destruction of the traditional capital at Chota. His wife, Betsy, was the sister of Attakullakulla. Although he claimed the title by right of being the chief headman of the Overhill Towns, the rest of the nation had chosen Little Turkey as their First Beloved Man when they moved the seat of the council to Ustanali on the Conasauga River following the murder of Old Tassel.

He did take part in the Chickamauga wars, and in February 1786 along a wilderness creek in Middle Tennessee approximately twenty miles southeast of Lafayette, he led a party of sixty men in a skirmish with John and Ephraim Peyton, Squire Grant, and two other white men. Outnumbered, the white men successfully fled the area, but lost their horses, game, and surveying instruments to the band of Cherokees. The stream at the site of the skirmish became known as "Defeated Creek."

In 1793, a diplomatic party from the Lower Cherokee (as the division of Cherokee still at war with the U.S.A. were by then called) was attacked on its way to Knoxville, Tennessee, at the time capital of the Southwest Territory by colonial militia, who pursued them all the way to Chota on the Little Tennessee River, by then a former shadow of itself and no longer the seat of the Nation, that now being Ustanali, near the modern Calhoun, Georgia. When the militia couldn't find the fleeing diplomatic party, they attacked the people of the town, wounding Hanging Maw and killing Betsy.

The response of the Cherokee was an invasion of the Holston River settlements with the largest force of Indians ever seen, over one thousand warriors from both the Cherokee and the Upper Muskogee, under the chief of the Lower Cherokee, John Watts. Though its results were less than successful since bitter division among the Cherokee over the murders of a family at a small fortified settlement known as Cavett's Station after they'd been given safe passage by Watts, it is still notable for the size of the force that took to the field.

References
Litton, Gaston L. "The Principal Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation", Chronicles of Oklahoma 15:3 (September 1937) 253-270 (retrieved August 18, 2006).