During the latter part of the 1700s and early part of the 1800s, the Cherokee commonly married French, English, German, and Scotch-Irish. Both the Cherokee and the United States Government encouraged these marriages. Some historians credit the marriages for the rapid acculturation of the Cherokee Nation. Many of the children of these marriages rose to positions of leadership within the Cherokee Nation Some of the most noted and influential of the leaders included John Ross, Major Ridge, and his son John Ridge. John Ross received his support from the more traditional, full-blood Cherokee while the Ridge family obtained its support from the more acculturated mixed-blood Cherokees.

 

The 1800s moved the Cherokee Nation even closer to the United States in ties via trade, familial interaction and customs, but the years brought the demise of the majority of the Cherokee in their original homeland.

The State of Georgia grew impatient with the lack of fulfillment of the United States government's 1802 promise to evict the Cherokee from the territory between Atlanta and Tennessee in exchange for Georgia's relinquishment of its claim to the territory extending west all the way to the Mississippi River. Georgia lacked the wealth that other earlier established colonies, (the states) had acquired and Georgia's population blamed the Cherokee for holding back the state's development. To heighten the dismay of the Georgia citizenry, many Cherokees had surpassed the average Georgian in wealth and commercial ability. In 1828, the State of Georgia decided to take matters into its own hands by passing legislation to annex Cherokee territory. Georgia then made laws that purported to "annul" all laws made by the Cherokee and went as far as forbidding Cherokees to own land, to vote or to be a witness against a white person in a court of law. Georgia's effort in stripping the Cherokee of citizenship in their own Nation resulted in a holocaust to the Cherokee residing in the territory claimed and "annexed" by Georgia by the 1828 actions. Georgia unmercifully began to beat, rob, and slaughter Cherokees with the consent of the State of Georgia.

John Ridge brought suit in the United States court's in an effort to thwart this outrage against the Cherokee. The litigation became known as the "Cherokee cases" that established many precedents for the principles of Indian Law and relations in the United States today. In the first of these series of cases, Supreme Court Justice John Marshall avoided what he knew would be a decision that would be unpopular among United States citizens by stating, "..."since the Cherokee Nation was a nation inside a nation, the Supreme court was not a high enough court to render a decision, or hear the case."

Georgia's citizenry saw this first decision and the abdication of Supreme Court responsibility to be Georgia's cue that the federal government would not protect the Cherokee and the citizenry pressed forward in annihilating the Cherokee. Disappointed, but determined John Ridge personally lobbied Congress, President Jackson and employed Daniel Webster to represent the Cherokee.

The Georgia legislature then passed a law that no white man could live in the Cherokee territory without the consent of the Georgia legislature. This law struck directly at the very concept of allowing mixed-blood marriages and undermined the established U.S. and Cherokee law on property ownership and the right to travel freely. Many mixed-bloods moved to other states to escape Georgia's tyranny. Georgia placed a bounty on Cherokees and made it clear that the State legal system would support and defend any citizen who killed a full-blood/mixed-blood Cherokee. In addition, Georgia instituted the Lottery system whereby the State asserted its dubious authority to divide the Cherokee Nation into 160 acre tracts. Any Georgia citizen that took the initiative to kill the Cherokee family that occupied the tract could then acquire property rights to the tract with the full protection of the Georgia Militia and the court system.

This second Georgia Act resulted in a second United States Supreme Court "Cherokee Case" that challenged the arrest of a white missionary. The white missionary's crime had been that he lived with the Ridge family within the Cherokee Nation in violation of the Georgia law. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall remembered the results of his first indecision and rendered an authoritative determination that "Georgia Laws could have no effect within the limits of the Cherokee Nation." President Jackson, on hearing the Court's decision, made his famous statement that "Well, John Marshall has made his decision now let him enforce it." In effect, President Jackson would not lend support to the Supreme Court's decision and Georgia could continue to urge the destruction of the Cherokee people.

John Ross viewed the Supreme Court's favorable decision as evidence that the Cherokee would eventually prevail. John Ridge, on the other hand, viewed the lack of the President's support of the Supreme Court to mean that the Cherokee faced nothing less than genocide. He again met with President Jackson who assured Ridge that the end result would either be forced removal of the Cherokee or complete destruction, either way, the Cherokee would not remain in Georgia. John Ridge then decided to put the lives of his people ahead of a false hope that the Cherokee would be able to remain in their homeland against the tide and force of land-hungry Georgian settlers and others. Resigned to the inevitable, John Ridge then negotiated a Treaty with the United States for the humane preservation of the lives of his countrymen and the continued U.S. recognition of the Cherokee Nation as a viable government.

The difference between John Ross's and John Ridge's perceptions of the harsh realities and how to resolve them erupted into a bitter feud between the two leaders. Each accused the other of wrongdoing. John Ridge saw John Ross as having a callous disregard for the atrocities that Georgians had inflicted on the Cherokee. Ridge could not understand Ross's efforts to negotiate with Mexico concerning the interests of the Cherokee. John Ross saw John Ridge's efforts to trade the Cherokee's eastern lands for an equal amount of land in Oklahoma to be traitorous. This feud transformed into a split of the Cherokee Nation between the full-bloods led by John Ross, and the mixed-bloods led by John Ridge.

On November 11, 1834, at his home in Running Waters, Georgia, John Ridge, the son of Cherokee Chief Major Ridge, officially organized the Ridge Band of Cherokees, also known as the Treaty Party. (House Document 91, 23rd Congress 1834). President Jackson, the U.S. Congress, and the State of Georgia immediately recognized the Ridge Band. The Ridge band members included the mixed-blood leaders that negotiated the "Treaty of New Echota," which traded Cherokee lands in the East for an equal amount of land in Oklahoma, with the Cherokee to receive and additional $5 Million Dollars for reparations against the State of Georgia. The Treaty allowed those Cherokees that wished to remain in the east to do so and become citizens of the states in which they chose to reside. Andrew Jackson balked at this Article within the Treaty, but the provision survived. Years later, the Court in (U.S. vs. Boyd) looked to this provision in recognizing that the Eastern Band of Cherokees had the right to remain in North Carolina. The 1896 Indian Commissioners Report also acknowledged this provision as key to the Eastern Band's rights (pp.633-635). In a substantial degree, the Eastern Band of Cherokees owe a great deal of its current status to John Ridge's lobbying and draftsmanship that came about from his establishment of the Ridge Band in 1834.

Five years later, in June of 1839, 25 members of the Ross Party, brutally assassinated John Ridge at his home in Honey Springs, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The Ross group in charge of assassinating the leaders of the Ridge Party also killed John Ridge's father, Chief Major Ridge and his cousin Elias Boudinot (Buck Watie) the same day in other locations. The remainder of the Ridge family as well as many members of the Ridge Band, fearing for their lives, left the Cherokee Nation.

The bitter feud between the Ross Party and the Ridge or Treaty Party escalated into open warfare. Ridge's son John Rollin Ridge, shot a man that had been sent to execute Ridge. John Rollin Ridge then moved to California to escape the gallows administered by the Ross Party. Ridge's cousin Stand Watie (Boudinot's brother), later became the highest decorated Brigadier General of the Confederacy, the last Confederate General, and the First Chief of the Southern Cherokee Nation.

Immediately prior to the civil war, many full-blood members of the Ross Party organized the "Pin" society for the purpose of depriving all mixed-bloods from all political power within the Cherokee Nation. A Missionary named "Rev. Evan Jones" that had been among the Cherokee for more than 40 years became a force in establishing the "PIN" society as an instrument for disseminating Pro-Federalist Politics. The Ridge Band, led by Stand Watie, organized secret societies such as the "Knights of the Golden Circle" that opposed the Pins.

In spite of the feuding Bands, the leadership of John Ross and Stand Watie United in supporting the South in the early part of the Civil War. In August, 1861 John Ross called a convention in Tahlequah in which Ross gave Free-Expression to his views stating that the Confederacy was the best thing for the Cherokees and that an alliance should be secured with the South without delay; that as for Ross, he was and always had been a Southern man, a States Rights man; born in the South, and a Slaveholder; that the South was fighting for its rights against the oppressions of the North and that the True position of the Indians was with the Southern people (a statement that he later denied to the US government). After Ross's influential speech, four thousand male Cherokees adopted without a dissenting voice, a resolution to abandon Cherokee relations with the United States and form an alliance with the Confederacy. Following the Battle of Pea Ridge, in which Colonel Drew led a regiment of pro-Ross Cherokee soldiers for the Confederacy and Stand Watie led a regiment of anti-Ross Cherokee for the Confederacy, Colonel Weir of the United States Army sent a proposition to John Ross urging that the Cherokees should repudiate their treaty with the Confederacy and return to their former relations with the U.S., offering Safe conduct to Ross. Ross declined peremptorily declaring that the Cherokees disdained an alliance with a people who had authorized and practiced the monstrous barbarities in violation of the laws of war; that the Cherokees were bound to the Confederate States by the faith of Treaty obligations and by a community of sentiment and interest; that they were born upon the soil of the South and would stand or fall with the States of the South.

 

 

Col. Drew's poorly supplied Regiment abandoned the Confederate service after 10 months and enlisted with the United States Army. About that same time, Chief Ross decided to leave the Cherokee Nation and moved to Philadelphia where he remained for the duration of the War. Stand Watie then became the Elected Chief of the Cherokee Nation. As a leader in battle, Stand Watie burned Chief Ross's home in the Cherokee Nation (now Oklahoma).

 

 

 

After the Civil War, the Cherokee Nation sought to resume treaty relations with the United States. Three distinct Cherokee Nation Bands sent delegations to Washington to negotiate a new treaty. The Southern Cherokee attended at the invitation of the United States Government. The "Southern Cherokee Delegation" consisted of John Rollin Ridge, Saladin Watie, Cornelius Boudinot, W. P.  Adair, and Richard Fields. After the United States negotiated with the Southern Cherokee, the Western Band (Old Settlers), and members of what had been the Ross Party, Congress ratified the Treaty of 1866. In that Treaty, as discussed in its specific negotiations with the Southern Cherokee, the United States set aside a separate jurisdiction within the Cherokee Nation for the Southern Cherokee with legal and local governmental systems separate from that of the Ross Band. (present day Cherokee Nation)

The Southern Cherokees, like the Cherokee legend of the Lost Community of Kana'sta Cherokees, sought refuge with friends but still existed side by side with their brothers of the Eastern and Western Bands. The United States recognized them as a Separate Band of the Cherokee Nation with separate rights and jurisdiction. The Southern Cherokees operated within the dictates of the 1866 Treaty in their Set-Aside District defined in Article 4 of the Treaty as a loose knit organization in the Canadian District of the Cherokee Nation (Webbers Falls OK) as well as in the other States where other members of the Ridge Band resided.

The Southern Cherokee maintained their Separate jurisdiction in the Canadian District, including representatives on the Cherokee National Council. Numerous Federal cases in the Western District Court of Arkansas continuously upheld this separate jurisdiction as required by the 1866 Treaty.

Prior to Statehood in 1901 Congress again recognized the separate jurisdiction of the Southern Cherokee Canadian District with an Act of Congress (21 Stat 846, Article 74) which recognized the limits of the Cherokee Nations lands as North of the Arkansas East of the Grand River, and North of the Arkansas, North of Spavinaw Creek west of the Grand River.

Following Statehood a Presidential appointed Chief represented ALL Cherokees. One of these Appointed Chiefs, W.W. Keeler, reported in his 1970 submission to Congress that he represented the Old Settlers, Eastern Emigrant Cherokees, and the Treaty Party (Southern Cherokee) and that all three (3) groups comprised the then Federally Recognized Cherokee Nation. Five years after his report (1975) the present day Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma (CNO) organized under a new Constitution, Article 3 of that Constitution requires Dawes lineage as a membership requirement. This did not however affect the Treaty Rights of the Southern Cherokee as they are a Congressionally Recognized Band of the Cherokee Nation under an Act of Congress at 14 Stat.799. This Act of Congress combined the "Treaty Party" and "Freedmen" together as the "so-called Southern Cherokee", and required the Southern Cherokee to vote, under a Presidential called for election to Abrogate their Treaty Rights in order to become members of the Cherokee Nation.

The Southern Cherokees remained a loose knit organization within the Canadian District as well as other States where the Ridge Band descendants resided until October 1988, when Ridge family descendants met with Jonathan Taylor (then Chief of the Eastern Band) and Wilma Mankiller (then Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma) at the 150th Commemoration of the Trail of Tears in Cherokee, North Carolina. The Ridge family descendants resurrected the Southern Cherokee Nation from the ashes as an assemblage of mixed-blood descendants of the Southern Cherokee Nation, and as successors in interest of the Southern Cherokee of the Treaty of 1866 (14 Stat. 799 date 29 July 1866), Articles 4,5,6,7, and 8, specifically as well as others located therein.

A brief history of how we ended up in KY. In 1866, after the civil war, the Southern Cherokee people established a government in Webbers Falls, Oklahoma. We were half bloods and mixed blood Cherokee. Our Chief was Stand Watie. He asked the U.S. government to provide protection for the Southern Cherokee & from the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma; the full bloods. They burnt our homes and killed our people; the Union Army said that they didn't have the troops to protect us. Some of us stayed in the Webbers Falls area, while many of us moved to other states; while still keeping our government that we established. A few of these states are Missouri, Arkansas, Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee, and Kentucky. We are still Cherokee people and proud. We ask now that you recognize us as the Cherokee people that we are. We have a government here in Kentucky, and have been here since the late 1800's, but we have people all over the United States. Our people have existed since 1835 as the Treaty Party/Southern Cherokee.

The Southern Cherokee became the Lost Cherokee Community as depicted in the Kana'sta Legend of old. While many Southern Cherokees continued to live in the Canadian District, yet many other of these mixed-blood Cherokee, lived apart from their Eastern and Western Brothers in all 50 states. Our Southern Cherokee members have never relinquished or forsaken the core Cherokee citizenship or heritage. These mixed-bloods now are aggressively reviving the finer elements of their traditional culture that may have been temporarily set aside.

In 1906, thousands of these Mixed-Blood Cherokee descendants, listed in an 8 volume set of books titled "Cherokee by blood," attempted to rejoin their brothers, but the U.S.'s Miller Commission forbade inclusion for various reasons. Now most of these clearly Documented Cherokee by blood are forbidden membership within the Cherokee Nation due to "BIA Blood Percentages" originally used by the U.S. Government for racial genocide, and the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma's (CNO's) Rigid application of the Dawes (only) descendent requirements (Article 3 of the 1975 Constitution), in direct violation of the 1866 Treaty obligations to the Southern Cherokee, which recognized the Southern Cherokee as a Separate Band of the Cherokee Nation with the Right to Representation on the Cherokee National Council.

If you are a mixed-blood descendant of the Cherokee, and would like to re-associate with and learn more about your Cherokee Heritage and culture, you may do so as a member of the Southern Cherokee Nation.

Although you Must Document your lineage, the Southern Cherokee Nation does not require Dawes Roll lineage as a membership requirement. Rather, Blood line must be established through your Cherokee Lineage.  Southern Cherokee Membership cannot be purchased, and is given freely to those of documented Cherokee lineage.