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previous: Chapter 20 This webpage reproduces a chapter of The Five Civilized Tribes by Grant Foreman University of Oklahoma Press Norman, Oklahoma, 1934 The text is in the public domain. This page has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next: Chapter 22

[ Cherokee ]

 p281  Chapter twenty-one
Readjustment

The Cherokee Indians exchanged their residence in the East for a home in the West at different times and under different conditions. More than two thousand of them came voluntarily in the early part of the nineteenth century to Arkansas and afterwards in 1828 exchanged their holdings there for what became the permanent domain of the Cherokee Nation in the present Oklahoma.⁠1 After the enactment of the Indian Removal bill in 1830 several thousand more were induced to remove under Government supervision to their new western home. But the greater part of the tribe, refusing to remove voluntarily, were driven from their homes at the point of the bayonet, herded into concentration camps, and forced out of the country. A few thousand were taken west as prisoners on steamboats, but the great body of the tribe numbering on the 13,000 was brought in thirteen parties on overland journeys of from three to five months through Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas to the Indian Territory.⁠2 The hardship, suffering, and mortality to which these unhappy people were subjected were appalling.

No report was made of the number of Cherokee who died as the result of the removal. It was as if the Government did not wish to preserve any information touching the fearful cost to the helpless Indians of that tragic enterprise, and was but little interested in that phase of the subject. From the fragmentary official figures it appeared that more than 1,600 of those alone who removed under the direction of John Ross died on the journey. It is known that the rate of mortality  p282 was higher among the previously removed parties, whose suffering led to the proposition that the Cherokee officers be permitted to manage the remainder of the emigration. Hundreds died in the stockades, and the concentration camps, chiefly by reason of the confinement and the rations furnished them, flour and other provisions to which they were unaccustomed, and which they did not know how to prepare. Hundreds of others died soon after their arrival in the Indian Territory from sickness and exposure on the journey. A very small percentage of the old and infirm, and the very young survived the hardships of that ghastly undertaking. It has been stated upon good authority based upon all available data, that over 4,000 Cherokee Indians died as the result of the removal.⁠3

On arriving at the end of their journey, the misery of the expatriates was somewhat diverted by the task of preparing for their immediate needs, building shelters and homes, planting crops, and other employment of a thrifty people bereft of their homes and belongings.

Many of these people who lived in comfortable circumstances in their old homes arrived in the West destitute of every convenience and comfort. Fortunate were those able to bring with them some of their cherished household possessions. Too often as they pursued their sad journey, the wagons that carried their little children and meager personal belongings were re­quisitioned by the conductors, and the loved spinning wheel, the mortar and pestle with which they prepared their corn for food and other essentials of their home life were thrown by the wayside to make room for the sick and dying who at times filled to overflowing every wagon.

These unhappy people were delivered here upon the raw virgin soil, destitute, possessed of little besides the primitive instinct to live and protect the lives of their helpless children. They were compelled to start life anew, many of them fortunate to possess an axe with which to construct wherewith to shelter them against the storms and sun. One old woman who remembered that experience told the  p283 Author of her recollection:⁠4

While the great majority of the tribe was forced to this country in a destitute condition there were some parties containing a considerable admixture of white blood who were more fortunate, such as those who were known as the treaty party who came voluntarily ahead of the great movement of 1838, and arrived in the West in a state of some affluence. By reason of their compliance with the wishes of the Government they were able to dispose of their property in their old home to good advantage and a number including the Ridges settled on Honey Creek in the northeastern part of their new domain possessed of considerable money so that they were able at once to embark in merchandising, agriculture and traffic in live stock.⁠5

The immigration of the Cherokee Indians effected a marked change in the country and a large number of traders came to barter with the Indians. Gov. Montfort Stokes, Cherokee agent, explained the large number of licenses granted by him to traders in the Cherokee country in 1838, by the fact that numbers of emigrants like the Ridges had arrived with considerable money which they desired to invest in trade with the Indians. Besides there were white merchants lately come into the country attracted by the immigration of Indians who had money they must exchange for supplies in order to set themselves up in their new home. Some of the traders were driven from New Orleans and other cities to the Indian country by the panic of 1837 and the fact that the currency that circulated in their states was of such uncertain value that they brought their goods to the Indian Territory where payment was made to the Indians in silver which the merchants preferred to paper issues of the states.⁠6

As if the Cherokee Indians had not suffered enough from the rapacity of the white man and the hardships of the tragic removal, their cup of misery was filled to overflowing by the neglect and extortion of the contractors in their new home, the same contractors who added to the misery of the Creek and Seminole immigrants.

 p285  A contract was made with Glasgow and Harrison to ration the helpless and destitute immigrants upon arrival at their destination. Several places for issue of rations were established: one at Skin Bayou ten or fifteen miles from Fort Smith; another at the former home of Mrs. Webber, widow of Walter Webber, where W. A. Adair was living, near the present Stillwell, Oklahoma; another at the home of Rev. Jesse Bushyhead, which he called Pleasant Hill, a short distance north of the present Westville; because rations were issued here it became known as Breadtown; it was later called Baptist Mission from the mission that was established there. Another place of issue was near the home of the Ridges on Honey Creek; another at McCoy's afterward removed to Kesse's on the Illinois River near Park Hill.

Four of the issuing agents were discharged soldiers, all but one of whom were dissipated men who neglected their duties. The exception was named Daninburgh who was "a man of steady habits — a man of intelligence, and of business habits. He married a Cherokee woman, and now lives on a farm on the line dividing the Arkansas State from the Cherokee nation, his farm being partly in the State and partly in the nation," reported Benjamin F. Thompson of Beattie's Prairie, to Maj. E. A. Hitchcock.⁠7

Thompson said he saw many issues made and that the ignorant Indians were much imposed upon. He had seen cattle of all descriptions delivered to the Indians varying from good to those that were entirely worthless, such as old bulls and poor old worn out oxen, some so poor that they could hardly stand. They were issued to Indians who did not know how to protect themselves, at from a fourth to a third more than their actual weight. Much complaint was made of this imposition, by the more intelligent Indians. To circumvent exposure of their tactics, Thompson said, the agents Williams and Tree began issuing to the "common Indians" at the depot at daylight before the arrival of the more intelligent Indians who had been trying to protect their less fortunate brothers. During all the months the issues were being made, Thompson said he never saw or heard of an officer of the Government attending to see that the Indians were justly treated.

 p286  Thompson kept a public house for the entertainment of travelers near this place of issue; he knew the superintendent and Indian agent well and he said that neither ever came to the neighborhood. The detachments that came in here on their arrival from the east were Sittewakie's, Jesse Bushyhead's, George Hicks's, and Wofford's. The three detachments that came in at Fort Wayne were John Benge's, John A. Bell's and Richard Taylor's. Many witnesses testified to Hancock of short measures of corn and unwholesome or unpalatable meat. The most common form of fraud arose out of the custom the contractors evolved of issuing to the Indians certificates entitling them to certain amounts of rations. Their hirelings then purchased these certificates for a fraction of their face value and using them as evidence of satisfaction of the claim of the Indians they hugely increased their profits and the Indians were deprived of their just claims on the Government.

The Cherokee immigrants had been in their new country only a few weeks when their chief, John Ross, addressed a communication to General Arbuckle protesting against the impositions and neglect to which they were subjected. It was a formal and impressive appeal, said Major Hitchcock, dated April 23, 1839, accompanied by three papers from different sections of the country numerously signed by the principal men of the Cherokee Nation; all representing in simple but impressive language specified grievances suffered by them, growing out of the manner in which the contract of Glasgow and Harrison was executed. Their contract was dated January 15, 1839 and was to take effect March 1 following. The complaints arose almost immediately after the issuing of the rations began, Hitchcock said.

In due course the contractors were paid, their accounts closed, and their iniquity was thus protected against inquiry except for the belated, and as it developed, futile investigation by Major Hitchcock, ordered by the secretary of war when it was too late to be effective. When Hitchcock's report was filed the secretary of war delivered it to the solicitor of the treasury for an opinion as to the possibility of proceeding against the contractors criminally and for recovery of some of their loot. As if solicitous for the feelings of the culprits, the secretary wrote the solicitor

Solicitor Charles B. Penrose reported that the contractors did not faithfully perform their contract but as the department had ignored the complaints against them and had approved their accounts it was now too late to do any thing about it. As they had delegated their subordinates to do the work that brought on the criticism, there was no tangible evidence of conspiracy and no criminal action would lie against the principals. It was significant, said the solicitor, that few of the  p288 agents involved in the business can be found by Hitchcock, "and from those to whom Colonel Hitchcock had access, but little information of a positive nature could be obtained, as 'delicacy,' or 'unsettled accounts with the contractors,' were stringent reasons for silence." The solicitor evidently gave the secretary the kind of report that was desired as he recommended against any action either criminal or civil. Colonel Hitchcock concurred in the opinion as to the futility of an action against the contractors but he recommended the dismissal from public service of all the agents responsible for or having knowledge of the "abominations practiced" on the Indians, who he said, were "grievously and barbarously abused."⁠8

The occupation of the Indians in reëstablishing themselves in their new home demanded much of their attention, but could not entirely beguile them from their sorrows or soften their feelings against the persons and elements that had brought upon them so much wrong, suffering and unhappiness. And it would have been surprising if adjustment to their new surroundings had been accomplished in a tranquil spirit. But among them was no spirit of reprisal such as some of the officials were ready to ascribe to them.

Evilly disposed persons seeking to injure the newly arrived Cherokee immigrants caused a report to reach General Arbuckle that they planned an attack on Fort Wayne. General Arbuckle, surprisingly gullible at times, was sufficiently impressed that he called on Chief John Ross at Park Hill to assist in investigating and explaining the rumor. Capt. George A. McCall was sent from Fort Gibson to see Ross and then on to the Arkansas line. On his return he reported to General Arbuckle that everywhere he noted the Cherokee people engaged in building houses, clearing and fencing land, and planting. And the only meeting he could hear of among them was assembled to discuss the suppression of the sale of whisky. One was held at the home of Bushyhead, where resolutions against the introduction and sale of whisky in their country were signed by about 100 members of the tribe; and the same week another meeting at Judge W. A. Adair's was attended by 62 members, who signed similar resolutions.⁠9

A considerable number of the Treaty Party had previously arrived in the West in 1838 where their leaders alarmed and excited the Old  p289 Settlers:

The letter of Capt. John Stuart is significant; it reveals that what actually befell Boudinot and the Ridges the next year was under consideration by their allies, the "Old Settlers," in 1838; and that the unauthorized effort to sell their land by any member was held by all the tribe to be treason punishable by death.

While preparations for removal were going forward in the East, the Western Cherokee, through John Jolly and other chiefs, called a conference of Indians to be held at Takatokah or Double Springs. This meeting which began on September 15, 1838, was attended by representatives of the Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Seneca, Delaware, Shawnee, Quapaw, and Sauk tribes; the purpose as expressed in the invitations prepared with the help of their agent Governor Stokes, was to renew "the friendship once existing among their forefathers."

A tremendous uproar was made by Col. R. B. Mason and Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines, when they heard of this proposed conference; Mason then at Fort Leavenworth, wrote Gaines that the Cherokee had erected a council house larger than any theretofore erected, and that the meeting was to plan a concerted attack in the spring by the western Indians on the white "settlements of Arkansas and Missouri from Red River to the Upper Mississippi." This report seemed to throw Gaines completely off his balance, and he elaborated on the news in a letter to the governor of Tennessee in which he conjectured that the Cherokee were "instigated by agents of Mexico and are planning to bring into  p290 the field 20,000 warriors to lay waste all the settlements from the mouth of the Sabine to the Falls of St. Anthony." He associated this proposed council with efforts that had been exerted for two years by emissaries of Mexico to array the Cherokee Indians of Texas with all the Indians west of Arkansas in a force sufficient to destroy all the frontier white settlements. General Gaines simultaneously on August 8 wrote the secretary of war, and the governors of Tennessee and Kentucky, saying that he desired 10,000 troops with which to attend the council of Takatokah and cope with the threatened uprising. He induced the governor of Arkansas to issue a call for troops. For a few weeks the pages of the press bristled with news of imminent hostilities.⁠11 In compliance with his orders General Arbuckle had 350 muskets, cleaned and oiled, transported overland to Fayetteville, Arkansas, and delivered to I. Meek, designated as military storekeeper who was to hold them for use against the Cherokee.⁠12

Then in deep mortification and exasperation, the local agents for the tribes in the West reported that there was not the slightest foundation for the extravagant rumors concerning the Indian council, which was attended by Governor Stokes, General Arbuckle and Colonel Logan, the Creek Agent. William Armstrong, acting superintendent for the Indian in the West, reported that he was too ill to attend the meeting; that ". . . the Indians are quiet, no organization, no hostile movements, or even appearances of it, can be seen amongst them; numbers are sick — fully one third of the new emigrants; a great drought had prevailed through the whole Indian country."⁠13

As the truth became known, Gaines was discovered in a ridiculous position where his sanity almost was in question; the Louisville Journal wrote that "the extraordinary operations in which he is now engaged, are at least sufficient to create a strong apprehension that the day of his usefulness is well nigh past."⁠14

 p291  John Jolly, the principal chief of the West Cherokee died in December, 1838. The second chief, John Brown, having resigned, the chieftain­ship devolved upon the next in succession, John Looney, whose tenure of office was to terminate the next October. After the arrival of the late emigrants, the Western Cherokee decided to strengthen their separate organization and called an informal council for April 22. On this occasion John Brown was elected principal chief in place of John Jolly, and John Looney, and John Rogers were selected to serve with him until October.⁠15

The large body of more than 13,000 Cherokee having arrived in the spring of 1839, both factions found themselves in a peculiar and difficult situation. The late emigrants numbered more than twice as many as the remainder of the tribe, and they had a code of laws for their government. So had the western faction or "Old Settlers." Each faction was accustomed to looking to their respective chiefs and officers for advice and guidance in their tribal affairs; neither could have been expected to abandon their laws and chiefs for those of the other. Embodied within the same territory as both factions then were, it soon became apparent that serious contention and difficulty would arise unless steps were taken to effect an understanding for their future guidance.

The Western Cherokee occupied a position of strategic advantage, of which they proceeded to make use. They arranged a meeting for the purpose of welcoming the late emigrants. On Monday the third of June the meeting began at Takatokah⁠16 that grew in numbers until five or six thousand Indians were in attendance. After several days of visiting, the business of the conference was begun by an inquiry from the western chiefs as to the object and wishes of the late emigrants. On the tenth of the month the answer was made in a message over the signature of John Ross inviting the Western Cherokee to join them in setting up a government. The western chiefs the next day, pretended not to understand the request, and asked for a more definite statement of their purpose.

 p292  Two days later, the late emigrants adopted and submitted to the resident faction a set of resolutions proposing that each select three men and that the six should select three more, the nine to draft a code of laws under which the tribe could unite, which should be submitted for consideration and approval to a general council of the tribe to be held at a time to be agreed upon; but pending the adoption of the new code, the members of the tribe were to be governed by their respective laws as theretofore. The next day this proposition was rejected in a message from the chiefs of the western Cherokee, saying that the tribe was already united by the welcome of their western brothers whose laws must be accepted by the late emigrants as the law of the land. Though the latter asked the western chiefs to submit the proposition to their followers, the chiefs remained obdurate; John Brown, John Looney and John Rogers as chiefs of the western Cherokee, determined these matters without consulting the common people, but it was said that some of the leaders of the "Treaty Party" or Ridge faction attended for a short time and advised against accepting the proposition of the Ross faction.

On the twentieth, John Brown, first chief of the Western Cherokee declared that the general council was dissolved. Soon it became generally known by the people assembled that the western chiefs had prevented the measures for which they had attended, and there was great excitement and indignation. George Guess or Sequoyah, presiding in behalf of the Western Cherokee, and Captain Bushyhead for the late emigrants, immediately assembled the people in attendance, who adopted a resolution calling a general council to meet on July 1 for the formation of a government for the whole nation. The gathering then adjourned on the twenty-first.

The next day the whole country was thrown into great excitement by the brutal murder of Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot.⁠17 A party of Cherokee Indians proceeded to the home of John Ridge on Honey Creek in the northeastern part of the Cherokee  p293 Nation "and having surrounded the house with their rifles, three of them forced his doors, drew him from his bed midst the screams of his wife and children, and having given him twenty-five stabs in his body, left him dead in his yard." Major Ridge, the father of John, had "started the previous day, to Vineyard in Washington county Arkansas. He stayed on Friday night at the home of Mr. Ambrose Harnage, forty miles south of his son's residence. He was waylaid about ten o'clock on the same morning, by a party of Indians five miles west of Cane Hill and shot from a high precipice which commanded the road. It is reported that ten or twelve guns were fired at him; only five balls, however penetrated his body and head."⁠18

At about the same hour while Boudinot was engaged in building his house at Park Hill, he left with three men for the home of Doctor Worcester to secure medicine for them; about half way there his companions seized and killed him, and cut him to pieces with knives and tomahawks. There was no evidence that John Ross had anything to do with the killings, but it was obvious that they were committed by some of the recent emigrants. The bitterness against the signers of the Schermerhorn treaty, an act for which their laws prescribed the penalty of death, and the reported aid which the Ridge faction had contributed to the failure of the recent meeting to effect a union under a new government, furnished provocation if not justification for the bloody deeds that shocked the Nation.

 p294  John Ross, as chief of the majority faction, was therefore held responsible by the military authorities and General Arbuckle undoubtedly would have arrested him if he had been able to do so without inevitable bloodshed and further disorder in the tribe. But, as evidence of the murder was fastened upon three other men of the tribe, they were held to be the guilty ones and John Ross was reserved for the bitter vindictiveness of the authorities. Ross reported the murder to General Arbuckle the day it happened; he reported also that Stand Waitie,⁠19 the half brother of Boudinot, had determined on raising a company to take Ross's life as punishment for what Stand Waitie declared was his responsibility for the murder. Ross said that his friends to the number of several hundred had surrounded his home for his protection and  p295 asked General Arbuckle to send a force to prevent the bloodshed that would inevitably result if Stand Waitie attempted to make good his threat.

General Arbuckle invited Ross to come to Fort Gibson for protection, but the latter was too wily to chance either the loss of life the visit might entail or the arrest General Arbuckle would undoubtedly have imposed on him if he had gone to the army post; he replied that he was surrounded by a sufficient force for his protection and would remain at home. Arbuckle then requested Ross and other principal men of the tribe to meet at Fort Gibson on the twenty-fifth, so that the killing might be discussed and measures adopted to prevent further violence. Ross, however, was not to be beguiled from his position and the meeting was not attended by him. A few days later John Brown, John Looney, John Rogers⁠20 and John Smith, as chiefs of the Western Cherokee, were at Fort Gibson and at the apparent suggestion of General Arbuckle wrote a letter to Ross and his associates urging them to meet there on the twenty-fifth and abandon the meeting called for July 1, 1839; they suggested further that instead of meeting in a body proportioned to their numbers, each party send sixteen men to negotiate an agreement. At the same time, with the apparent purpose of forestalling the meeting called by Ross for July 1, General Arbuckle and Governor Stokes sent Ross a letter warning him that the eastern Cherokee must accept the terms offered them by the western Cherokee as a basis for union or accept responsibility for serious difficulties and disturbances.

---

The Author's Notes:

1 For an account of these migrations see Grant Foreman, Indians and Pioneers.

2 This tragic migration is described in Indian Removal by Grant Foreman.

3 James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokee. Nineteenth annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology; "Dr. Butler, one of the physicians of the emigrating Cherokee, computes that 2,000 out of 16,000, or one‑eighth of the whole number, have died since they left their houses, and began to encamp for emigration in June last" (New Orleans Bee, copied in Army and Navy Chronicle, January 2, 1839, VIII, 12; Arkansas State Gazette, December 19, 1838, from the Jackson (Mo.) Advertiser).

4 Mrs. Rebecca Neugin, who died near Hulbert, Oklahoma, in the summer of 1932 at the age of nearly a hundred years. Mrs. Neugin, who was a small child when her people removed from the east, could recall only one incident of that experience and that was of her pet duck that she cherished and would not leave behind. She carried it in her little arms until she squeezed the life out of it and grieved to see it thrown by the road side. The poignant memory of that childish love and grief remained with her more than ninety years.

5 "The Cherokee War Path" edited by Carolyn Thomas Foreman, Chronicles of Oklahoma, IX, 262.

6 Stokes to Armstrong, August 8, 1838, OIA, Cherokee file

7 U. S. House Executive Document, No. 219, Twenty-seventh Congress, third session: "Right of President to withhold papers — Frauds on Indians. Message from the President of the United States, transmitting the report of Lieutenant colonel Hitchcock, respecting the affairs of the Cherokee Indians, &c."

8 Hitchcock to Spencer, August 4, 1842, AGO, ORD, WDF, "H 244."

9 U. S. House Documents, No. 129, Twenty-sixth Congress, first session p42.

10 Stuart to Jones, June 9, 1838, OIA, "Fort Coffee."

11 Louisville Public Advertiser, August 24, 1838, p2, col. 2; Missouri Saturday News, September 1, 1838, p3, col. 3; New York Observer, September 8, 1838, p3, col. 3.

12 AGO, ORD. Headquarters second department Western Division, Order Book No. 24 order No. 72 August 15, 1838.

13 Armstrong to Harris, September 28, 1838, OIA; The Daily National Intelligencer, October 27, 1838, p3, col. 4.

14 New York Observer, September 29, 1838, p3, col. 4; General Gaines died of cholera at the St. Charles Hotel, New Orleans, June 6, 1849.

15 Jones to Payne, July 25, 1839, Payne Manuscripts, Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.

16 In the south half of the northwest quarter of the northeast quarter of section twelve, township seventeen north, range twenty-one east, where the Cherokee Negro Seminary was afterwards located.

17 Elias Boudinot (native name Galagina, 'male deer' or 'turkey'). A Cherokee Indian educated in the foreign mission school at Cornwall, Conn., founded by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which he entered with two other Cherokee youths in 1818 at the instance of the philanthropist whose name he was allowed to adopt. In 1827 the Cherokee council formally resolved to establish a national paper, and the following year the Cherokee Phoenix appeared under Boudinot's editor­ship. After a precarious existence of six years, the paper was discontinued, and was not resumed until after the removal of the Cherokee to Indian Territory, when its place was finally taken by the Cherokee Advocate, established in 1844. In 1833 Boudinot wrote Poor Sarah; or the Indian Woman in Cherokee characters, published at New Echota by the United Brethren's Missionary Society, another edition of which was printed at Park Hill in 1843; and from 1823 to the time of his death he was joint translator with Rev. S. A. Worcester of a number of the Gospels, some of which passed through several editions. Boudinot joined an insignificant minority in support of the Ridge treaty and the subsequent treaty of New Echota, by the terms of which the Cherokee Nation surrendered its lands and removed to Indian Territory. This attitude made him so unpopular that on June 22, 1839, he was set upon and murdered, although not with the knowledge or connivance of the tribal officers (Handbook of American Indians, I, 162.)

18 Account of John A. Bell and Stand Watie in Arkansas Gazette, August 31, 1839, p2, col. 4. Stand Watie lived four or five miles from Park Hill (Arbuckle to Jones November 24, 1839, AGO, ORD. Ft. Gibson Letter Book VI, p154); Sarah Paschal, daughter of Major Ridge, wrote an account of the killing December 21, 1839 that appeared in the Arkansas Gazette, January 15, 1840.

19 Stand Waitie (native name De gata ga, conveying the meaning that two persons are standing together so closely united in sympathy as to form but one human body) noted Cherokee Indian, son of Uweti and after the death of Boudinot a leader of the party which had signed the removal Treaty of New Echota. On the outbreak of the Civil War he and his party were the first to ally themselves with the South, and he was given command of one of two Cherokee regiments which joined the Confederate forces and participated in the battle of Pea Ridge and in other actions. Later he led his regiment back to Indian Territory and in conjunction with Confederate sympathizers from other tribes laid waste the fields and destroyed the property of the Indians who espoused the Federal cause. In revenge for the death of his brother he burned Rose Cottage, the handsome home of John Ross, the head chief. He is further noted as one of the principal authorities for the legends and other material collected by Schoolcraft among the Cherokee (Handbook of American Indians, II, 634).

Stand Watie had married before his removal to the West. His wife, Betsey, died in childbirth late in March 1846 (Lavender to Ridge, May 3, 1836, OIA, "Cherokee file"). The child died also. Stand Watie emigrated by water in 1837 with the Ridge's and the journal kept by Dr. C. Lillybridge, who accompanied that party, mentions his ministering to Mrs. Watie. There was also another wife. The files of the Indian office contain a letter written by K. W. Hargrove of Rome, Georgia, in behalf of Isabella Watie, wife of Stand Watie from whom he separated when he left for the West. She was formerly the wife of Eli Hicks by whom she had a child named Henderson Hicks. She afterward married Stand Watie and when he left her she and her child were "in a destitute situation having been forced out of a comfortable home with the usual means of living, through the cruel policy of the Georgia laws and the ill treatment of her husband," Stand Watie. She had been awarded $1,660 for her improvements and the writer of the letter who was trying to secure it for her learned that the warrant had been sent to the agent for the Cherokee Indian in the West where Stand Watie had gone (Hargrove to commissioner of Indian affairs, November 1, 1837, OIA).

20 "After the arrival of the late emigrants, the old settlers had a council on the 22nd of April, of which John Brown was made Principal Chief of Western Cherokee, in place of Jolly deceased, by vote of eight members of Council" (Evan Jones, Park Hill, July 25, 1839, to John Howard Payne, Ayer Collection, Newberry Library, Chicago.)

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