John Ross
Cherokee chief
Died when: 75 years 302 days (909 months)Star Sign: Libra
John Ross (Cherokee: ᎫᏫᏍᎫᏫ, romanized: guwisguwi) (October 3, 1790 – August 1, 1866), (meaning in Cherokee: "Mysterious Little White Bird"), was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866; he served longer in that position than any other person.
Described as the Moses of his people, Ross influenced the nation through such tumultuous events as the relocation to Indian Territory and the American Civil War.
Ross was the son of a Cherokee mother and a Scottish father.His mother and maternal grandmother were each of mixed Scots-Cherokee ancestry but brought up in Cherokee culture, which is matrilineal.
His maternal grandfather was a Scottish immigrant.At the time among the matrilineal Cherokee, children born to a Cherokee mother were considered part of her family and clan; they gained their social status from their mother.
The Cherokee absorbed mixed-race descendants born to its women.As a result, young John was raised to identify as Cherokee, while also learning about colonial British society; he was bilingual and bicultural.
His parents sent him for formal schooling to institutions that served other mixed-race Cherokee. (According to blood quantum policy of modern times, he would be counted as one-eighth Cherokee, but this misses how he identified and was acculturated.) After graduation, Ross was appointed as a US Indian agent in 1811.
During the War of 1812, he served as adjutant of a Cherokee regiment under the command of Andrew Jackson.After the Red Stick War ended, what was effectively a civil war among Cherokee, Ross started a tobacco plantation in Tennessee.
In 1816, he built a warehouse and trading post on the Tennessee River north of the mouth of Chattanooga Creek, and started a ferry service that carried passengers from the south side of the river (Cherokee Nation) to the north side (USA).
His businesses served as the start of a community known as Ross's Landing on the Tennessee River (now Chattanooga, Tennessee).
Concurrently, Ross developed a keen interest in Cherokee politics and attracted the attention of the Cherokee elders, especially Principal Chiefs Pathkiller and Charles R.
Hicks.Together with Major Ridge, they became his political mentors.Ross first went to Washington, DC, in 1816 as part of a Cherokee delegation to negotiate issues of national boundaries, land ownership, and white encroachment.
As the only delegate fluent in English, Ross became the principal negotiator despite his relative youth.When he returned to the Cherokee Nation in 1817, he was elected to the National Council.
He became council president in the following year.The majority of the council were men like Ross: wealthy, educated, English-speaking, and of mixed blood.
Even the traditionalist full-blood Cherokee perceived that he had the skills necessary to contest the whites' demands that the Cherokee cede their land and move beyond the Mississippi River.
In that position, Ross's first action was to reject an offer of $200,000 from the US Indian agent made for the Cherokee to relocate voluntarily.
Thereafter Ross made more trips to Washington, even as white demands intensified.In 1824, Ross boldly petitioned Congress for redress of Cherokee grievances, which made the Cherokee the first tribe ever to do so.
Along the way, Ross built political support in the US capital for the Cherokee cause.Both Pathkiller and Charles R.
Hicks died in January 1827.Hicks's brother, William, was appointed interim chief.Ross and Major Ridge shared responsibilities for the affairs of the tribe.
Because William did not impress the Cherokee as a leader, they elected Ross as permanent principal chief in October 1828, a position that he held until his death.
The problem of removal split the Cherokee Nation politically.Ross, backed by the vast majority, tried repeatedly to stop white political powers from forcing the tribe to move.
He led a faction that became known as the National Party.Others, who came to believe that further resistance would be futile, wanted to seek the best settlement they could get and formed the "Treaty Party," or "Ridge Party," led by Major Ridge.
The much smaller Treaty Party negotiated with the United States and signed the Treaty of New Echota on December 29, 1835, which required the Cherokee to leave by 1838.
Neither Chief Ross nor the national council ever approved this treaty, but the US government regarded it as valid.Ross and tens of thousands of traditional Cherokee people objected and voted against complying with an invalid treaty, which had been supported by a few hundred mostly assimilated Cherokee.
To enforce the treaty, the US government ordered the US Army to move those who did not depart by 1838; they rounded up all the people from numerous villages and towns and accompanied them to the west.
This action has since been known as the "Trail of Tears," both for the loss of their homeland and thousands of lives.
Some Cherokee remained in the wilderness to evade the army, and that remnant became the ancestors of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians.
About one fourth of the Cherokee who were forced to move died along the trail, including Ross's wife, Quatie.Ross attempted to restore political unity after his people reached Indian Territory.
Opponents of removal assassinated the leaders of the Treaty Party;Stand Watie escaped and became Ross's most implacable foe.The issue of slavery soon refueled the old divisions.
The Treaty Party became known as the "Southern Party," but the National Party largely became the "Union Party." Ross initially counseled neutrality, since he believed that joining in the "white man's war" would be disastrous for the future unity of their tribe.
After the Union forces abandoned their forts in Indian Territory, Ross reversed himself and signed a treaty with the Confederacy.
He later fled to Union-held Kansas, and Stand Watie became the de facto chief.The Confederates lost the war, Watie became the last Confederate general to surrender, and Ross returned to his post as principal chief.
The US required the Five Civilized Tribes to negotiate new peace treaties after the war.Ross made another trip to Washington, DC, for this purpose, and died there on August 1, 1866.
