The Indian Civil War, Part Two

Troy D. Smith

In my blog post last month, I set the stage for the “Five Civilized Tribes” to get involved in the American Civil War (you might want to re-read that one first!) Now, it is time to see how the war started in Indian Territory.

Each of the Five Tribes were divided between “modernists” who adopted white ways and views and “traditionalists” who had not been as eager to do so. Many of those modernists (though not all) were also mixed blood (with white fathers or grandfathers), and quite a few ran successful businesses or plantations (and owned black slaves). It was common for them, therefore, to identify culturally more with the Southern states than with Northern ones, and to sympathize with the Confederacy. 

Traditionalists, on the other hand, tended to view their tribes’ treaties with the United States as sacrosanct –their word given was their word kept (whether the other side did so or not). In addition, many (though not all) traditionalists either opposed slavery outright or viewed it more from a traditional native approach.

This divide was not the same among all five nations, it fell along a spectrum. At one end of that spectrum you found the Choctaws and Chickasaws, among whom support for slavery and sympathy for the Confederacy was by far a majority opinion. In the middle you found the Cherokees and Creeks, who were both pretty well evenly divided in their support –those divisions falling along the same lines as the previous divisions between pro-Treaty and anti-Removal factions, with those who had opposed Removal most likely to support the Union (but the federal government removed them! one might say… however, it was done at the behest of the Southern states. Those tribesmen most inclined to “take the deal” offered by Southern states during the Removal period were then more likely to support the Confederacy and the South). At the other end of the spectrum we’d find the Seminoles. They had a higher proportion of traditionalists, had violently resisted removal, had more readily accepted runaway slaves into their tribe, and still tended to treat their “slaves” as semi-autonomous.

The U.S. had established several forts in Indian Territory around the time of Removal, and part of the removal treaties was a promise to protect the Indians in their new homeland. Most folks don’t stop and think about this, but when the government removed tens of thousands of Indians from the South to Oklahoma, there were already indigenous people living there who didn’t appreciate their neighborhood becoming so crowded all of a sudden. This included, in the western part of the territory, Comanches and Kiowas (designated “wild Indians” at the time) who were prone to raid their new “civilized Indian” neighbors.

When war began between the U.S.A and the C.S.A., those federal forts were in a tenuous position, located so close to the Confederate states of Arkansas and Texas (and therefore so difficult to reinforce and re-supply if the Confederates attacked.) Federal forces abandoned the forts, therefore, and fell back north to Kansas. Many tribal members viewed this as a violation of the U.S. treaty obligations. Confederate troops moved in and occupied the forts.

Union forces may have retreated from Indian Territory, but the Confederacy looked upon it as a prize –for several reasons. First, there were a lot of valuable resources there, controlled by the Indians –including enough saltpeter mines, it was estimated, to manufacture gunpowder sufficient to supply the entire Confederate Army. There was also the matter of strategic location. The Confederacy had designs on the American Southwest, and if they controlled what is now known as Oklahoma they could cut that region off from the rest of the Union.

The Confederacy definitely wanted to negotiate with the Five Tribes, and gain them as allies.

They sent a diplomatic mission to Indian Territory, led by someone uniquely suited for the task: Albert Pike. Pike was born and raised in Massachusetts, but had spent most of his adult life in Arkansas. He was a newspaperman, a poet, and a lawyer. In that latter capacity he specialized in representing removed tribes in their financial claims against Washington to get full value for the lands they had been forced to cede. He worked, at various times, for the Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw nations, and was respected and well-regarded by all of them. 

Pike’s military escort for this mission was led by legendary Texas Ranger Ben McCulloch, now a Confederate brigadier general.

(note: Pike was also a high-ranking Freemason, and is still honored as such. There is also evidence he was highly placed in the Ku Klux Klan after the war.)

Not limited to the Five Tribes, Pike negotiated with the “wild” Comanches and Kiowas. He got them to sign what was essentially a nonaggression pact; they would not be allies of the Confederacy, but would maintain a truce and not attack them. Pike had higher aspirations for the “civilized” tribes in the eastern half of the territory, though, and –meeting with the leadership of all five tribes –had some attractive offers for them.

First, he pointed out that the federals withdrawing from their forts in the region had been a treaty violation. Then, for those Indians who still had a sense of loyalty to the Union because of the treaties the tribes had signed, he argued that was well and good, but with secession the “Union” with which they had signed those treaties no longer technically existed (a point that a lawyer for the other side, had one been present, could have argued against). Then came the enticements. Ally with us, Pike said, and you will get the following:

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                   We will take over the U.S. obligations to you, re: annuity payments for your lost lands.

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                   We will recognize your sovereignty, and your own legal jurisdiction. That is, if for example someone from Texas comes to the Creek Nation and kills a tribal member, we will recognize your right to prosecute him under Creek law (this is something the U.S. NEVER did).

·                

                                        If you agree to raise troops from your tribe for our cause, we will pay to arm and equip them.

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                   We will guarantee that each of your tribes has a seat in the Confederate Congress.

These were, surprisingly, very good terms. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was equally surprised, as he had not authorized them and believed the Confederate Congress would never agree to them all. In the long run, it didn’t matter, since the Confederacy lost. In the short term –it worked. Pike was able to get the leaders of almost all the tribes to sign a treaty of alliance, even the Seminoles. There was only one holdout.

John Ross, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

Ross, who had been in office 34 years, was a traditionalist. This was true even though he was, by blood, 7/8 Scottish, and was a slave-owner. He had been backed for chief in 1827 by the principal traditionalists of that time, and had resisted ceding his people’s homeland until the bitter end: his own wife perished on the Trail of Tears, dying of exposure after giving her blankets away to freezing children. While not a member of the traditionalist Keetowah Society (some of whom were abolitionists), he was strongly supported by them. His counterpart among the modernist Cherokees was his longtime opponent Stand Watie, who had been part of the pro-Treaty faction during the Removal period and had barely escaped an assassination attempt upon the nation’s arrival to Indian Territory.

Ross met with Pike and McCulloch, but stressed to them his determination to remain neutral in the coming conflict. There were many reasons for this: his people were divided on the subject; he was still making frequent trips to Washington to get the rest of the money owed to his people, and signing an alliance with the Confederacy would risk losing all claim; like many of his people, he preferred to honor his people’s treaties; and, most importantly, a point of geography. The Cherokee Nation was in the northeastern corner of Indian Territory, sharing a border with Kansas. If the Union Army decided to invade Indian Territory, his nation would be where it happened, and his people would take the heaviest brunt of the fighting. In contrast the Choctaws and Chickasaws, who were most eager to join the fight on the side of the Confederates, lay farther to the south.

The Confederate representatives were not pleased at all. Pike and McCulloch made a point of immediately having a meeting with Ross’s rival Stand Watie, whose pro-Confederate sympathies were well-known. The implication to Ross was clear: Just like in the lead-up to Removal, if you won’t sign our treaty we know Stand Watie will. This was probably primarily meant as a threat to Ross’s political standing among his own people, and he may have recognized it as such, but it also brought a new factor into the discussion for him.

After the Trail of Tears, the anti-Removal faction who supported John Ross and the pro-Treaty faction who had followed Stand Watie’s family fought bitterly for over a decade. It started with the assassinations of Watie’s brother Elias Boudinot, their cousin John Ridge, and their uncle (and leader) Major Ridge. After that, there was an ongoing bloody feud, tantamount to a civil war, in the newly located Cherokee Nation (other principal combatants included the Starr family, some of whom would be famous half-a-century later as Wild West outlaws). After much death on both sides, a peace had been negotiated, and all involved came together to form a unified Cherokee government, followed by a decade of relative peace and prosperity.

Pike’s threat of negotiating with Watie instead of Ross threatened to re-ignite the Cherokee civil war.

John Ross, therefore, agreed to a compromise. He would call for a national referendum of the Cherokee people, and allow them to vote on whether to ally with the Confederacy or not. The vote was held, and the pro-Confederates won. John Ross, reluctantly and against his own judgment yet with a desire to represent the will of his people and maintain tribal unity, signed the alliance treaty. While significant portions of each tribe opposed the alliance –including a minority even among the Choctaws and Chickasaws –the official tribal governments of all Five Tribes had joined themselves to the Confederate cause.

Ross’s longtime ally Opothleyahola, the traditionalist Creek chief, was deeply saddened that his old friend was casting his lot with the Confederacy, which Opothleyahola refused to do despite being in a similar situation (supported by traditionalists but outvoted). Opothleyahola and Ross had been on different sides in the Creek War of 1813-1814 (Ross fought among Andrew Jackson’s Cherokee allies against the Red Stick Creeks), but as fellow traditionalists had been on the same side since the Removal period. Opothleyahola had supported the death sentence carried out on William McIntosh, who was a Creek version of Major Ridge (having signed away the tribal lands).

Opothleyahola made it clear that he would not personally support the alliance his people had made with the Confederacy. Pro-Union people started streaming to his camp –at first the traditionalist Creeks, but then Seminoles, Chickasaws, and a few Choctaws… as well as free blacks and runaway slaves.

Meanwhile, the Native American Confederate army was being raised and quickly taking shape. Uniformed soldiers were equipped from all Five Nations. The two initial Cherokee regiments were commanded by Colonel John Drew (whose men were mostly full bloods loyal to John Ross) and Colonel Stand Watie (whose troops were mostly mixed-blood modernists loyal to Watie). The two initial Creek regiments were commanded by the sons of William McIntosh (Daniel and Chilly), whose father had died at Opothleyahola’s command. Albert Pike was commissioned brigadier general, a rank held later in the war by Stand Watie.

Opothleyahola and his motley collection of Unionists felt threatened by the Confederate forces coalescing around them. He sent a letter to President Lincoln, asking for sanctuary in Union Territory. Meanwhile, a Confederate brigade was being sent to give Opothleyahola’s group one last opportunity to change their minds, at gunpoint if necessary. It was commanded by Douglas Cooper, who had before the war been the U.S. Indian Agent to the Choctaws and Chickasaws. In addition to those two tribes, the brigade included three Texas regiments, John Drew’s Cherokee regiment… and the Creek regiment led by Daniel McIntosh.

The confrontation was about to begin.

Next time: the Flight of Opothleyahola

Troy D. Smith is a history professor at Tennessee Tech, where he teaches Native American History, Environmental History, and the U.S. West. As an author of western fiction, he is a past winner of the Peacemaker Award and two-time winner of the Spur Award. His award-winning novella Odell's Bones centers on the Civil War in Indian Territory; one Spur judge described it as "reading like a lost chapter of Lonesome Dove."  

The Indian Civil War, Part One

Troy D. Smith

The Civil War in the American West does not get a lot of attention compared to the events east of the Mississippi, even though a lot of very significant things happened out there. I would argue that even less is known by the average American about a specific part of the West: what we now know as Oklahoma, and at that time was Indian Territory. In fact, the average person (though this does not hold true for many of those reading this post) is surprised to learn that there were American Indians fighting in that war. In organized military units, and in uniform.

When those interested in Western history do think about Indians during that conflict, they think of more “traditional” circumstances: the U.S. Army (and sometimes the Confederate Army) fighting Apaches and Navajos in the Southwest, Comanches in Texas, Cheyenne and Arapaho in Colorado, Sioux in Minnesota. Those things happened, but I’m talking about North vs. South.

Roughly a quarter-century before the war, the “Five Civilized Tribes” of the American South (Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles), along with some smaller groups, had been removed west of the Mississippi, many of them against their will. There they re-established themselves, setting up governments and working to repair the rifts that had grown within their tribes by the experience. Among all five tribes –but especially the Cherokees and the Creeks –there had been bitter division during the removal period, with one faction in each tribe wanting to remain in their ancestral homeland and a second faction accepting the government’s deal for land and signing the treaties that led to the whole tribes’ removal. Those in the first group often viewed those in the second group as sell-outs, even traitors, and in both tribes some of the individuals who signed the treaties were killed by members of their own nations. Among the Cherokees, famously, these two factions were the Ross Party (loyal to Principal Chief John Ross, and unwilling to leave their homes) and the Ridge Party, also known as the Treaty Party (led by Major Ridge, his son John, and his nephews Elias Boudinot and Stand Watie). For several years after removal, the Cherokees engaged in an unofficial civil war of their own, with a lot of bloodshed, until finally the two factions –and a third faction which had accepted the government’s terms much earlier and come West –came together again as a unified Cherokee Nation.

A lot of folks also don’t know that the Five Tribes had, by the 19^th century, adopted the American-style plantation slavery, also called chattel slavery, buying black slaves in large numbers. Many of those who made the brutal winter trek known as the Trail of Tears had been the black slaves of the Cherokees.

The two factions of each tribe, one acquiescing to removal and the other resisting it, can be classified along other lines, as well. Those who were willing to “take the deal” also tended to be what I call “Modernists,” individuals who were willing to adopt (white) American ways of doing things in order to adapt to their new reality. These Indians often dressed and spoke like their white neighbors, and many operated small businesses. They also were usually the ones who used chattel slaves.

The other faction of each tribe, which had resisted removal for as long as possible, were what I shall refer to as “Traditionalists.” While they may have made some changes, such as no longer wearing the old top-knot hairstyles, they had held on to as many traditional ways as possible, and often spoke little or no English. They tended to live up in the hills, surviving by hunting and subsistence farming. When they had slaves, they did not treat them as chattel (non-human property) but rather in the kinship slavery manner that was traditional for most North American tribes. This meant they were treated as members of the household with less status, and were often eventually adopted into the tribe. Among the Cherokees in particular, however, Traditionalists were often abolitionists as they considered “modern” American-style slavery as a violation of their traditional views.   

In most cases the Modernists were biracial “mixed bloods”, the offspring of Indian mothers and white fathers who had married into the tribe and taught their children European ways, whereas the Traditionalists were usually “full bloods” (“half-breed” was not considered an acceptable term by them then or now). This was not always the case, however. Major Ridge, leader of the Modernists (until soon after removal, when he was killed), had spoken hardly any English. John Ross, leader of the Traditionalists (and of the Nation), was 1/8 Cherokee and spoke hardly any Cherokee. Nevertheless, Ross was backed by the Traditionalists, and –his suit and tie notwithstanding –he backed them.

I mentioned that Major Ridge was killed. So was his son John and his nephew Elias Boudinot (the first Cherokee newspaper editor). Boudinot’s brother Stand Watie was the only leader of the Treaty Party to remain, surviving the assassination attempt on him. John Rollin “Yellow Bird” Ridge, son of John Ridge and grandson of Major Ridge, later moved to California and became the first Native American novelist (and also the first California one), writing a book in 1854 about the adventures of Mexican bandit Joaquin Murieta (I suppose in a way this also made him a Western Fictioneer.)

In the years just before the Civil War, Traditionalist Cherokees formed a somewhat secret society to try to keep their old ways alive, and to resist efforts by both whites and Modernists to make them change. They called it the Keetowah Society. Keetowah, also spelled Kituwa, was the Cherokee town in North Carolina (near the present day home of the Eastern Band) that Cherokees considered their “mother town,” the first Cherokee community from which the others had spread. The Cherokee, or Tsalagi, people also had in the past sometimes referred to themselves as Ani-Kituwa, “people of Kituwa.” The very usage of that town’s name, therefore, implied a strong connection to tradition. They were also called “Pin Indians,” from their practice of wearing two crossed pins on their lapel as a marker. Keetowah Society members, it should be noted, tended to be bitterly opposed to slavery.

Some of the Modernists had a secret society of their own. Stand Watie had organized a Cherokee chapter of the Knights of the Golden Circle, which was a sort of pre-war version of the Ku Klux Klan that had chapters throughout the South. They were dedicated to the spread of slavery to new territories.  The “Golden Circle” of their name referred to the area around the Caribbean, so conducive to sugar plantations and other enterprises, which many Southerners wanted to grab and claim for the U.S. as they had done with the territory taken from Mexico. Southerners –including Jefferson Davis –had financed filibuster attempts to take Cuba and some Central and South American countries.

Thus, even though the Cherokees and other tribes had technically settled their internal differences, leading to the 1850s being a prosperous “Golden Decade” in Indian Territory, old  scores had not really been completely forgotten and the stage was set for America’s coming national conflict to also become an Indian Territory civil war.

In next month’s entry, we will begin the hostilities.

American Indians and the Law, part 2

Troy D. Smith

Last month, in part one of this discussion -you can read it here- I talked about the fact that many of the most significant battles between the U.S. government and American Indians have taken place in the courtroom. Part one ended with Indian Removal, and I plan to eventually discuss, first, the western tribes and then, ultimately, all tribes in the 20th century (contrary to popular belief, reinforced by the fact that most high school and college American history classes never mention native peoples after this point, American Indian history did not end at the Wounded Knee massacre.)

Before I begin that, however, I want to use this space today to mention several important Supreme Court cases that led up to Indian Removal. These three cases in particular are known as the Marshall Trilogy, as all three were decided during the tenure of Chief Justice John Marshall (the fourth Chief Justice, serving from 1801 to 1835.) These cases remain very important, for many of the principles presented in them have provided precedent; much of modern-day American Indian Law is based upon them.

JOHNSON V. M'INTOSH, 1823   The Johnson in question was Thomas Johnson, first governor of Maryland and a member of the first cohort of the Supreme Court. In 1773 and 1775 Johnson bought some land from the Piankeshaw band of Miami Indians. The land was passed down in the family after Johnson's death. Eventually the fur trader William M'Intosh (pronounced McIntosh) obtained a grant for the land from the federal government. The Johnson family went to court to evict M'Intosh off what they considered to be their land.

The Marshall Court ruled in favor of M'Intosh. In his opinion, Marshall traced the history of land ownership where Europeans and Indians were concerned, summarizing the European "law of nations" as articulated in 1557 by the Dominican scholar Franciscus Victoria, to wit: any land without an owner can be claimed by the first person to find it (the "doctrine of discovery".) Since Indians had "no concept of personal property" and did not "use" the land, it was impossible for them to own it; they only had the right to inhabit it. Therefore, the first European power to "discover" land with Indians on it could claim that land, under right of discovery. (And, again according to Franciscus -whose arguments formed the basis, or justification, for Spanish dominance- if the Indians resisted the Europeans taking their land or extracting the minerals from it, it was legally justifiable to kill them, for they were interfering with the Europeans' natural rights.) This doctrine began with the Spanish (Ferdinand and Isabella consulted with lawyers immediately upon getting a report back from Columbus) -who based it on the precedent of taking infidels' lands during the Crusades -and was itself used as precedent by the English when they started colonizing in North America.

According to Marshall, when the United States of America was formed during the Revolution, it thereby immediately took over the English rights of discovery. And since Indians can't own land, Indians can't SELL land to individuals; they could only sign it over to the federal government, per the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The Johnson family's claim, based on a private transaction with Indians, was therefore void. The federal government took the land from the Miami Indians when they took up arms against the U.S., then transferred it to M'Intosh.

This case continues to be used as precedent, and is usually one of the first cases studied by beginning law students, as it helps provides the basis for land ownership law in the U.S.

I feel compelled to point out the chain of legal events here. American law is built on precedent. Modern-day American Indian Law is based on the precedent of Johnson v. M'Intosh -which was based on the precedent of English law articulated in the early 1600s -which was based on the precedent of Spanish law articulated in the 1500s -which was based on the precedent of medieval church law dealing with the Crusades. So if the government's dealing with indigenous tribes seems outdated at times, remember it is ultimately rooted in the Crusades.

CHEROKEE NATION V. GEORGIA, 1831   In the 1820s, the state of Georgia began agitating for the removal of the Cherokees and Creeks from within their borders. Two decades earlier, Thomas Jefferson had promised federal aid in doing just that in return for Georgia ceding part of its western claims to the U.S., but Jefferson's approach was a very long-term one that did not involve physical coercion. By the late 1820s, Georgia passed several laws that interfered with the Indians' sovereignty, in essence treating them as citizens of Georgia (one of those laws forbade any white person from living with the Indians without obtaining a state license to do so -this was aimed at preventing missionaries from encouraging the Indians to resist giving up their rights.) Georgia's aim was to make the Indians' lives miserable enough that they would leave the state voluntarily.

Cherokee Principal Chief John Ross took the matter to the federal courts, suing the state of Georgia. While the case made its way to the Supreme Court, The Indian Removal Act was passed.

The Supreme Court heard the case, but refused to rule on its merits. In his opinion, Chief Justice Marshall explained that -while referred to as "nations" -Indian tribes were not actual foreign nations. Instead, they were "domestic dependent nations," whose relationship to the federal government was like that of "a ward to its guardian." Therefore, the Cherokee Nation had no right to sue Georgia. This decision did not in itself support Georgia's right to pursue its policies; the Court left open the possibility the case could be heard in the future, just not as a foreign nation suing an American state.

This, too, laid the groundwork for all American Indian Law to follow, establishing a special ward-guardian relationship between Indians and the U.S. government.

WORCESTER V. GEORGIA, 1832   This case revolved around that Georgia law that made it illegal to live with Indians without a state license. This time -in view of Cherokee Nation v. Georgia -it was not the Cherokee Nation that brought suit against Georgia, but the missionary Samuel Worcester, who had been arrested for violating Georgia law.

The Marshall Court ruled in favor of Worcester. As Marshall explained, the Constitution gives the federal government the exclusive right to treat with, and interact with, Indian tribes -not individuals, and not states. Georgia, therefore, had no right to pass laws dealing with Indians. As you are no doubt aware, though, President Jackson -a staunch supporter of Removal -refused to intercede when the state of Georgia continued its actions, even though they had been ruled unconstitutional.

Nonetheless, the Court's ruling in this case has been cited ever since in support of the concept of limited Indian sovereignty. Indian tribes are nations -kinda sorta -but not foreign nations. Therefore, they have local sovereignty -state and local governments have no jurisdiction over them. The federal government, however -as established in Johnson v M'Intosh -does.


There is one more pre-Civil War case that has bearing on this discussion, which revolves around events that occurred in Indian Territory after Removal. This one is closely attached to the Marshall Trilogy, but took place during the tenure of Marshall's successor Roger Taney (of Dred Scott fame.)

U.S. V. ROGERS, 1846    This case deals with the murder of Jacob Nicholson by William S. Rogers. A fairly simple and straightforward situation -except for one detail. Both men, U.S. citizens, had been adopted by the Cherokee Nation and lived among the Cherokees in Indian Territory. Rogers argued that the U.S. did not have the authority to arrest him, as he was a Cherokee citizen; his fate must be decided by the Cherokee courts. The Supreme Court ruled to the contrary; being adopted by an Indian tribe did not absolve an American of their responsibilities as a U.S. citizen.

Interestingly, when the Confederacy was trying to woo the Cherokee Nation into an alliance during the Civil War, one of the things they promised was that the C.S.A. would never interfere with Indian sovereignty and jurisdiction; if a white man from Texas committed a crime in the Cherokee Nation, he would be subject to Cherokee justice. The U.S., however, never made that concession.

Next time: American Indian Law goes West!


(Troy D. Smith teaches American Indian History, Cherokee History, American Indian Law, and Environmental History at Tennessee Tech University.)

THE STORY OF YELLOW BIRD AND ELIZABETH WILSON by CHERYL PIERSON

This love story starts many years before the lovers ever met. It begins with something that happened when John Rollin Ridge was an eleven-year-old boy, and witnessed his father’s bloody murder.

John Rollin Ridge, called Cheesquatalawny, or “Yellow Bird,” by his fellow Cherokee tribesmen, was the son of John Ridge, and the grandson of a prominent Cherokee leader, Major John Ridge. Major Ridge was one of the most powerful and wealthy members of the eastern Cherokee tribes in the early 1800s. By the time John Rollin Ridge was born in 1827, the State of Georgia had discovered gold on Cherokee lands and wanted them relocated. Cherokee leaders, at first, were opposed to signing treaties with the U.S. Government, refusing to go.

JOHN ROLLIN RIDGE AS A YOUNG MAN
But the State of Georgia confiscated Cherokee lands in 1832, including the homes and thriving plantation owned by some members of the tribe, including another prominent family, the Waties. Major Ridge and his son John opposed the removal, but because of the inevitability of the outcome of the situation, they and some of the other leaders reversed their stance on negotiating with the federal government. Major Ridge, and John Ridge, along with Stand Watie and his brothers, formed the powerful Ridge-Watie-Boudinot faction of the Cherokee council, standing in favor of the Cherokee Removal. Their signing of the Treaty of New Echota sold Cherokee lands and facilitated the removal of the Cherokee people to Indian Territory—what is now Oklahoma—an act considered treasonous by many.

Another faction of Cherokees following John Ross refused to ratify the treaty signing. This segment was known as The Anti-Removal National Party. The word was out—traitors were to be executed.

Blood Law (also called blood revenge) is the practice in traditional customary Native American law where responsibility for seeing that homicide is punished falls on the clan of the victim. The responsibility for revenge fell to a close family member (usually the closest male relative). In contrast to the Western notion of justice, blood law was based on harmony and balance. It was believed that the soul/ghost of the victim would be forced to wander the earth, not allowed to go to the afterlife, unless harmony was restored. The death of the killer (or member of the killer's clan) restored the balance. READ MORE HERE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_Law

Members of this group targeted Stand Watie and his brother, Elias Boudinot, along with their uncle, Major Ridge for assassination. On the morning of June 2, 1839, John’s father, John Ridge, was dragged from his bed by some of the tribesmen of The Anti-Removal National Party and murdered as his wife and children, including young John, looked on. This event would color John’s life until the end.

Mrs. Ridge took her family to northwestern Arkansas. Young John’s thirst for vengeance was tempered only by a young woman he met and fell in love with, Elizabeth Wilson.

They first met when John was studying Latin and Greek with a local missionary. Elizabeth worked for the missionary. John wrote to his cousin, “There is a prettily shapely girl of about 16 or 17 years, who is very friendly and gives me a quantity of enjoyment in her company, whenever I get tired of dusty pages of legal technicalities.”

Elizabeth was part Native American, and John was half Cherokee. To her, he was the handsomest man she’d ever seen, and she believed him to be a talented writer—one of the most intelligent men in the country. John was not only entranced by Elizabeth’s beauty, but the sweet honesty and goodness of her character, and her brilliance. They married in May, 1847, and though they were happy, their love couldn’t overcome the bloody images that John tried to forget, the tragedy that consumed him.

ELIZABETH WILSON RIDGE
As an adult, he often dreamt of the morning of his father’s murder, awakening from sleep screaming. Elizabeth was at his side, calming him. She promised to help him fulfill his desire for revenge any way she could.

“There is a deep seated principle of revenge in me which will never be satisfied, until it reaches its object,” he told her.

Eventually, they traveled to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma) where they joined forces with other allies of the Ridge faction, all of them eager to track down and punish those responsible for the deaths of the Major Ridge, and members of Stand Watie’s family. In the end, thirty-two of the thirty-six men who had been responsible for the murders were found and killed.

John squared off against one of the four remaining assassins, Judge David Kell. When Kell advanced on John, John shot him, claiming it was done in self-defense. But John had no faith in getting a fair trial (Cherokee court) and he and Elizabeth ran to Missouri, settling in Springfield.

John became a freelance writer, selling articles to various newspapers to supplement his salary in the county clerk’s office. He and Elizabeth now had a baby girl, Alice.

When news of the discovery of gold in California hit Springfield, John left his clerk’s position and joined a group of men heading west to seek their fortunes. He promised Elizabeth that he would send for her as soon as he could. During the time he was gone, he had no luck mining, although he loved the West. In 1853, he left mining in search of other work, accepting a clerk position in Yuba, California.

During this time he wrote for a New Orleans newspaper under the name “Yellow Bird.” About this time, he also contributed poetry and drawings to The Pioneer, a San Francisco publication.

But in 1853, something else happened to John. He wrote a letter to his mother, describing an illness he’d come down with, “billious fever,” which caused “ulceration of the bowels.” He was alone, with no one to care for him, and was, in fact, dying. Leaving Alice in the care of John’s mother, Elizabeth headed west in the company of a family going to California.

AN OLDER JOHN
John was near death when Elizabeth arrived, but through her constant care, she got him through it and back on his feet. “You bless me with your love, dear Lizzie,” he told her.

Elizabeth returned for their daughter, and once again traveled to California. John had, at her encouragement, sold several sonnets he’d written about the beauty of California. He seemed less angry, and gave credit for his improved temperament to his writing endeavors.

JOHN ROLLIN RIDGE AND DAUGHTER, ALICE BIRD
John wrote a book about the notorious outlaw, Joaquin Murieta, a crowning literary achievement. He never received any royalties, since his publisher went bankrupt, but because the book had been so popular, he was able to rise to full time editing jobs for such newspapers as the Marysville Democrat, the Grass Valley Union, and the Sacramento Bee.

After the Civil War, Ridge was invited by the federal government to head the Southern Cherokee delegation in postwar treaty proceedings. Despite his best efforts, the Cherokee region was not admitted as a state to the Union. In December 1866, he returned to his home in Grass Valley, California, where he and Elizabeth had made their home for more than fifteen years. Their daughter, Alice, married.

ALICE BIRD RIDGE
The Ridges lived an idyllic life. But John’s health failed him at the age of thirty-nine. He became afflicted with “softening of the brain,” a disease that took its toll quickly through the spring and summer of 1867.

John Rollin Ridge, Yellow Bird, died on October 5, 1867, leaving behind a collection of fine articles, sketches and poetry. In 1868, Elizabeth published an anthology of his poetry.

TREE PLANTED BY ALICE

Elizabeth died in 1905 and was buried beside her husband in Grass Valley.

JOHN ROLLIN RIDGE PLAQUE











OF HER I LOVE
I read but a moment her beautiful eyes,
I glanced at the charm of her snowy-white hand
I caught but the glimpse of her cheek's blushing dyes
More sweet than the fruits of a tropical land;

I marked but an instant her coral-hued lips,
And the row of sweet pearls that glimmered between--
Those lips, like the roses the humming bird sips
On his bright wing of rainbows, when summer is green.

I timidly gazed on a bosom more white
Than the breast of the swan, more soft than its down--
To rest on whose pillows were greater delight
Than all else of rapture that heaven may own.

I gazed but a second on these, and on all
That make up the sum of her angel-like form,
And ere I could think I was bound in her thrall,
And peace fled my breast, as the birds flee a storm!
I am bound in love's pain, and may never be free,
Till the bond is dissolved in her own melting kiss:
Till her loveliness, like the embrace of a sea,
Enclasps me, and hides me in the depths of its bliss.

John Rollin Ridge

(Credit to WIKIPEDIA article for many of the facts of this blog.)