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This is Native American Heritage month. Why not posts info about the tribes in Texas. It would be fun to perhaps list or have people lists the Indian words that are names of cities or counties or in use in our everyday language. For example, Caddo lake is named for the Caddo Indians....Wichita is and Indian tribe and city etc... So much history really.... Sweet Pea and I look forward to your discussion.

Tags: Native_Americans, Texas

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Here is the link to a wonderful website:


http://www.texasindians.com/


The Cherokees are one of the most important tribes in Texas History. They are not originally from Texas. They moved to Texas from the east around 1823. One reason the Cherokees are important is because Sam Houston was an adopted Cherokee. Sam Houston was the first President of the Republic of Texas and the General of the Texas Army that defeated the Mexicans in the Texas Revolution in 1835. From Tennessee, he followed his Cherokee family first to Arkansas in 1828, then to Texas in 1832. Sam Houston's Cherokee name was "the Raven".

The Cherokees are also important in Texas history because they took over the leadership role of the Indian tribes of East Texas from the Caddo. They became the dominant Indian tribe in East Texas.

The importance of the Cherokees in Texas is more historical than cultural. By the time they arrived in Texas their culture had become very much like the Americans and Europeans in many ways. To find the original Cherokee Indian culture you have to go back 200 years before they came to Texas.

The Cherokees are one of the five civilized tribes. They were called this because by the time large numbers of European settlers arrived around them, the Cherokees had already learned to make and use metal tools, European style clothes and European style houses.

In the east and in Texas the Cherokee were primarily farmers who lived in villages. They also hunted and gathered wild plants for food and medicines when they could. Before European contact, they farmed corn, beans, pumpkins, squash, and several other kinds of plants. They did not have domesticated animals like cows or chickens. They did have dogs.

They moved into the area of Texas the Caddo Indians lived in. By 1823 the Caddo had lost much of their former population to European diseases. By the time the Cherokee arrived, the Caddo were down to no more than two thousand. So, much of the land the Caddos had lived on was empty by 1823. Along with the Cherokee, several other tribes from the Southeastern United States also moved into this region of Texas. These were the Alabama, the Coushatta, the Shawnee, the Biloxi, some Creek Indians and a few other smaller groups.

They all arrived at a critical time in Texas history. Texas was part of Mexico in 1823. In the next 25 years there would be a revolution in Mexico, the Texas revolution, and Texas would become a part of the United States. During this same time period thousands of Americans and Europeans immigrated to Texas wanting land - including the land the Indians lived on.

In all these revolutions both sides wanted the Cherokees and the other tribes to take sides with them. This was dangerous for the Cherokees. If they chose sides with a loser, the winner would punish them afterwards and chase them off their land. They stayed neutral in these revolutions.

Even after Texas won the revolution, agents of the Mexican government came to the Cherokees and asked them to make war on the Texans. The Cherokees refused to do this.

In February of 1836 Sam Houston negotiated a treaty with the Cherokees on behalf of the Provisional Government of Texas. When Sam Houston became president of the Republic of Texas in September of 1836, he tried to get the 1836 treaty ratified by the new Texas Government. They did nothing about the treaty until 1837. In 1837 the Texas Senate rejected the treaty signed by Houston. Still, while Houston was president, things were all right for the Cherokee for several years. Then Texas elected a new President, Mirabeau Lamar. Lamar did not like the Cherokees, or any other Indians for that matter, and he said so. Lamar and other were also concerned because the Mexicans were trying to get the Cherokees and other Texas Indians to help them take back Texas.

The Texas Cherokees moved to Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. There, they were reunited with the eastern Cherokees. The eastern Cherokees had also been forced to move from their lands. The government of the United States and the State of Georgia forced the eastern Cherokees off their land and forced them to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. The United States Supreme Court ruled that this was an illegal act and broke treaties.
The Tigua are the only Puebloan tribe still in Texas. The Pueblos are a number of different Indian tribes who lived in the southwest. The southwest includes far west Texas, New Mexico, Arizona with bits of southern Colorado and Utah. All these different Puebloan tribes shared similar ways of living, even though they spoke different languages and had slightly different cultures. Other Puebloan tribes in Texas include the long gone prehistoric Pueblos along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle and probably the Jumano.

So Europeans and Americans share very similar culture, but they are also different in important ways.. The Pueblo Indians were like the Europeans and Americans. They spoke many different languages and had slightly different cultures. There were, and still are, Hopi Puebloans, Taos Puebloans, Jimez Puebloans, Zuni Puebloans and, of course, our Tigua Puebloans. These are all different tribes. But, because they share so much culture in common we group them together as Puebloan.

The main thing that sets the Puebloan Indians apart from other Indian tribes are their distinctive houses. They build Pueblos. Their name, Pueblo, is Spanish and means "town". That is what we still call Pueblo Indian towns, Pueblos. A Pueblo is also a big building with many rooms in it. Sort of like our modern apartment buildings. Families live in a group of rooms in a Pueblo. Often many families live in one Pueblo. Many Pueblos had hundreds of people living in them. Some Pueblos were 4 or 5 stories high. In larger Pueblos there are several individual Pueblo buildings built around a plaza or square. Really big Pueblos like the Zuni or some of the Hopi Pueblos have several squares or plazas. The plazas are used all year round for ceremonies and group activities. Puebloan Indians have lots of ceremonies. So when the Spanish saw the big towns with the buildings, the Pueblos, they named the people who built them Pueblo Indians.

Pueblo Indians, including the Tigua, are farmers. Most of their food comes from crops they plant and tend. Corn is the main crop they plant. Notice I used the verb "is" and not "was". The Pueblos are still here and they still farm. They also raised many other crops. For food they raised beans and squash. They also raised cotton that they used to make cloth. They also raised gourds that could be dried out and used as containers.

They stored and cooked their food in well-made pottery. The Tigua and other Pueblos are famous for their beautiful pottery. Much of this pottery has painted designs that are very pretty.

The men hunted deer, rabbits, antelope, bear and any other wild game they could find for meat. The women and children would collect wild foods like berries when they were in season.

They knew how to grow cotton and weave cotton cloth. So their clothes were made of cotton. They also used leather and fur on their clothes. The men would wear a breach cloth. A breach cloth is what Tarzan wears.

Near El Paso is a special place called Hueco Tanks. Hueco tanks are a rocky outcropping in the middle of a desert. There are many caves and springs with water in Hueco Tanks. The springs form lakes and pools in depressions and hollows in the rock at Hueco Tanks giving it its name. Hueco means bowl in Spanish and refers to the bowl like depressions in the rock and a tank is a small lake or pool of water. The Tigua consider Hueco Tanks to be a sacred place. They go there to worship. Hueco Tanks is now a Texas State park. The Park Service lets the Tigua in to worship. In the caves and cliffs there are pictures drawn on the rocks called pictographs. Many Indians, including the Tigua, made these pictographs.

By the 1930s many people thought the Tigua were extinct. But they were not. In the 1960s they began asserting themselves and laying claim to the land they had lost. In 1968 Texas finally recognized the Tigua as a tribe. Later in 1968 Lyndon Johnson signed an act of the U S Congress recognizing the Tigua as a tribe and making their land a reservation. This is where the Tigua still live.

Alabama-Coushatta to the Rescue: Aid to the Refugees During the Runaway Scrape (1836)
by Victor Vergara
After learning of the defeat at the Battle of the Alamo on March 6, 1836, General Sam Houston dispatched a message for the retreat of his troops and advised settlers to follow. As Santa Anna’s army quickly approached east, waves of families fled leaving their homes and properties behind. Throughout the escape, refugees endured an overwhelming low morale due to disease, starvation, and inadequate shelter that reduced them in numbers. While the settlers continued to flee east (reaching as far as Louisiana), the Alabama and Coushatta tribes aided the runaways in their escape to safety from the powerful Mexican army. Thus, the participation of these tribes during the events of the Texas Revolution earned them privileges and rights that were denied to other groups of Native Americans in the new republic. In gratitude of their generous and hospitable deeds, the tribes earned state recognition both under the provisional governments of Sam Houston and successor Mirabeau B. Lamar. Throughout an extensive period, the peaceful Alabama-Coushatta tribes experienced sporadic relocation, beginning with the occupation of British soldiers before the American Revolution. Progressively, they traveled further from what is now present-day Alabama, reaching parts of Louisiana and East Texas. Once arriving within the Spanish and French-American borders, the tribes were prone to the inevitable wages of Spanish-Franco conflict, the Mexican War for Independence, and later the Texas Revolution. Although the tribes remained separate, their common upbringings allowed the two tribes to cooperate and eventually settle together. Through their efforts in the Runaway Scrape, the Alabama-Coushatta determine their significance in the shaping of Texas history, thus creating opportunity for them to appeal to land.

Seeking new refuge, the Coushatta tribe sought to follow their neighboring Alabama allies to the southwestern territories of Louisiana and Texas where the groups hoped to make their new home. Upon the arrival of the Coushatta, the Spanish gladly opened their borders to the tribe. The Coushatta were then able to cooperate as a line of defense alongside the Eastern Texas border. By doing so, the Spanish were able to strengthen their borders and watch for any invaders that were constantly seen smuggling and wandering.[1] Interestingly, Coushatta loyalties would later shift. Texas still under Spanish rule, the tribe engaged their efforts in the fight for Mexican Independence. On March 29, 1813, under the command of Samuel Kemper, thirteen hundred men stood in awe of the sight of twenty-five Coushatta charging towards the Spanish line before the signal was given. The Battle of Rosalis ended in a victory for the Mexican supporters as Spanish troops retreated back to San Antonio. The Coushatta would thus develop a record of faithful service to Texas that would never be fully repaid.[2]

After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the Alabama-Coushatta again experienced the consequences of western expansion and again, the tribes were forced to relocate further west, where they settled in the Trinity and Neches Rivers. Under Chief Colita, the Coushatta erected three different villages along the Trinity where they remained until their relocation in 1845 after Texas became the 28th state of the United States.[3] Once Texas was opened to American settlers, conflict between the Mexican government and the Americans ensued. Loyalties would again be tested despite the call for neutrality. In the outbreak of the Texas Revolution, fear of retaliation and possible alliance with the Mexican forces, led General Sam Houston to ensure the neutrality of the Alabama-Coushatta and surrounding tribes:

“The parties declare, that there shall be a firm and lasting peace forever, and that a friendly intercourse shall be pursued, by the people belonging to both parties.”

In order to ensure peaceful relations, Houston appoints a representative (agent) to each tribe whose job it was to oversee governmental affairs and see that relations with neighboring Anglo settlers do not cause an outbreak, or rather see that no “injustice”[4] is done to the members of the villages. By establishing a friendly Indian policy, he became a favorable government figure for many tribes, including the Alabama-Coushatta, whom in 1859 appraised his role as Texas Governor, describing him as a “great and good man, a friend to the Indians”.[5] Though he had previously asked the tribes to remain neutral, their support and loyalty to the cause managed to serve him and the Anglo settlers well during the Texas Revolution.[6]

Upon receiving the news of the defeat at the Alamo, Houston then demands for settlers to evacuate their properties and flee to the eastern borders. In an account written by historian Henderson Yoakum, he describes the ill conditions the refugees experienced in the run for their lives during the Runaway Scrape:

"On every road leading eastward into Texas, were found men, women and children, moving through the country over swollen streams and muddy roads, strewing the way with their property, crying for aid, and exposed to the fierce northers and rains of the spring. The scene was distressing indeed: and being witnessed by the small but faithful army of Texas, whose families and wives they were, thus exposed and suffering, nerved their arms and hearts for the contest then not distant."

As principal chief of the Texas Coushattas, Colita was an instrumental figure in maintaining peaceful relations between the tribe and their Anglo counterparts. Evidently, in the events of the Runaway Scrape, he and the Coushatta assisted the fleeing settlers by providing them food and shelter, and personally helping them cross the Trinity River.[7] Through their efforts in the Runaway Scrape, the Coushatta once again showed where their loyalty stood. Their participation in the Texas affairs thus prompts the tribes to appeal for land grants in the 1850's through their respective agent, James Barclay.

http://alabamacoushatta.weebly.com/the-runaway-scrape.html

Native American ownership of black slaves came about as a way for Native Americans to illustrate their societal sophistication to white settlers.
How would slave ownership prove civilization? In capitalism-crazed America, slaves became tokens of economic success. The more slaves you owned, the more serious a businessperson you were, and the more serious a businessperson you were, the fitter you were to join the ranks of “civilized society.”
#BlackHistory #RealHistory DAY 11
HOW NATIVE AMERICAN SLAVEHOLDERS COMPLICATE THE TRAIL OF TEARS NARRATVE
"When you think of the Trail of Tears, you likely imagine a long procession of suffering Cherokee Indians forced westward by a villainous Andrew Jackson. Perhaps you envision unscrupulous white slaveholders, whose interest in growing a plantation economy underlay the decision to expel the Cherokee, flooding in to take their place east of the Mississippi River.
What you probably don’t picture are Cherokee slaveholders, foremost among them Cherokee chief John Ross. What you probably don’t picture are the numerous African-American slaves, Cherokee-owned, who made the brutal march themselves, or else were shipped en masse to what is now Oklahoma aboard cramped boats by their wealthy Indian masters. And what you may not know is that the federal policy of Indian removal, which ranged far beyond the Trail of Tears and the Cherokee, was not simply the vindictive scheme of Andrew Jackson, but rather a popularly endorsed, congressionally sanctioned campaign spanning the administrations of nine separate presidents.
These uncomfortable complications in the narrative were brought to the forefront at a recent event held at the National Museum of the American Indian. Titled “Finding Common Ground,” the symposium offered a deep dive into intersectional African-American and Native American history.
For museum curator Paul Chaat Smith (Comanche), who has overseen the design and opening of the widely lauded “Americans” exhibition now on view on the museum’s third floor, it is imperative to provide the museum-going public with an unflinching history, even when doing so is painful.
“I used to like history,” Smith told the crowd ruefully. “And sometimes, I still do. But not most of the time. Most of the time, history and I are frenemies at best.” In the case of the Trail of Tears and the enslavement of blacks by prominent members of all five so-called “Civilized Tribes” (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek and Seminole), Smith went one step further, likening the ugly truth of history to a “mangy, snarling dog standing between you and a crowd-pleasing narrative.”
“Obviously,” Smith said, “the story should be, needs to be, that the enslaved black people and soon-to-be-exiled red people would join forces and defeat their oppressor.” But such was not the case—far from it. “The Five Civilized Tribes were deeply committed to slavery, established their own racialized black codes, immediately reestablished slavery when they arrived in Indian territory, rebuilt their nations with slave labor, crushed slave rebellions, and enthusiastically sided with the Confederacy in the Civil War.”
In other words, the truth is about as far a cry from a “crowd-pleasing narrative” as you could possibly get. “Do you want to hear that?” Smith asked the audience. “I don’t think so. Nobody does.” And yet, Smith is firm in his belief that it is a museum’s duty to embrace and elucidate ambiguity, not sweep it under the rug in the pursuit of some cleaner fiction.
Tiya Miles, an African-American historian at the University of Michigan, agrees. At the “Finding Common Ground” event, she meticulously laid out primary-source evidence to paint a picture of Indian/African-American relations in the years leading up to the Civil War.
Native Americans, she said, had themselves been enslaved, even before African-Americans, and the two groups “were enslaved for approximately 150 years in tandem.” It wasn’t until the mid 18th-century that the bondage of Native Americans began to wane as Africans were imported in greater and greater numbers. Increasingly, where white colonists viewed Africans as little more than mindless beasts of burden, they saw Native Americans as something more: “noble savages,” unrefined but courageous and fierce.
Perversely, Native American ownership of black slaves came about as a way for Native Americans to illustrate their societal sophistication to white settlers. “They were working hard to comply with government dictates that told native people that in order to be protected and secure in their land base, they had to prove their level of ‘civilization,’” Miles explained.
How would slave ownership prove civilization? The answer, Miles contends, is that in capitalism-crazed America, slaves became tokens of economic success. The more slaves you owned, the more serious a businessperson you were, and the more serious a businessperson you were, the fitter you were to join the ranks of “civilized society.” It’s worth remembering, as Paul Chaat Smith says, that while most Native Americans did not own slaves, neither did most Mississippi whites. Slave ownership was a serious status symbol.
Smith and Miles agree that much of early American history is explained poorly by modern morality but effectively by simple economics and power dynamics. “The Cherokee owned slaves for the same reasons their white neighbors did. They knew exactly what they were doing. In truth,” Smith said, the Cherokee and other “Civilized Tribes were not that complicated. They were willful and determined oppressors of blacks they owned, enthusiastic participants in a global economy driven by cotton, and believers in the idea that they were equal to whites and superior to blacks.”
None of this lessens the very real hardship endured by Cherokees and other Native Americans compelled to abandon their homelands as a result of the Indian Removal Act. Signed into law in the spring of 1830, the bill had been rigorously debated in the Senate (where it was endorsed with a 28-19 vote) that April and in the House of Representatives (where it prevailed 102-97) that May. Despite a sustained, courageous campaign on the part of John Ross to preserve his people’s property rights, including multiple White House visits with Jackson, in the end the influx of white settlers and economic incentives made the bill’s momentum insuperable. All told, the process of removal claimed more than 11,000 Indian lives—2,000-4,000 of them Cherokee.
What the slaveholding of Ross and other Civilized Nations leaders does mean, however, is that our assumptions regarding clearly differentiated heroes and villains are worth pushing back on.
“I don’t know why our brains make it so hard to compute that Jackson had a terrible Indian policy and radically expanded American democracy,” Smith said, “or that John Ross was a skillful leader for the Cherokee nation who fought the criminal policy of removal with every ounce of strength, but also a man who deeply believed in and practiced the enslavement of black people.”
As Paul Chaat Smith said to conclude his remarks, the best maxim to take to heart when confronting this sort of history may be a quote from African anti-colonial leader Amílcar Cabral: “Tell no lies, and claim no easy victories.”
Exerpt Sources:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/…/how-native-american-slave…/
http://www.aboutnorthgeorgia.com/ang/John_Ross
https://civilwartalk.com/…/greenwood-leflore-choctaw-chief…/
https://www.findagrave.com/memor…/22190053/greenwood-leflore

On March 27, 1689, Spanish Governor Alonso de León, with a force of 114 men, including future San Antonio “founding father” friar Damián Massanet, soldiers, servants, and muleteers left Coahuila on his fourth and final Entrada (Expedition) into northern uncharted New Spain. Ten days later, the expeditionary group ran smack into a large village of native Americans and the two completely different cultures came face-to-face. And, the natives did something that the Spaniards weren’t expecting.
The natives welcomed them with their "legendary hospitality greeting"; a cry or a cheer. The leader of the Native Americans advance party that day greeted the Spanish with one word, just one word. The word he yelled was "tayshas". Tayshas translates to friends or allies in their language.
According to the friar, the Native Americans that they encountered that day were friendly, accommodating, attractive people with a beautiful countenance. And what De León saw and experienced upon entering the village for the first time — was, in his-own-words, impressive.
These people had sophisticated agricultural skills, commenting on their well-tended fields of corn, beans, squash and watermelons. He noted their many villages with permanent dwellings, their cleanliness, and organization. Who were these beautiful people who greeted newcomers and strangers to their village as friends?
History remembers them as the Caddo Hasinai.
The Caddos migrated into East Texas from the Mississippi Valley around 800 A.D. Their territory included parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana and East Texas. At the height of their mound-building culture around 1200 A.D. the Caddos numbered 250,000 people. The Hasinai Confederacy was a large confederation of Caddo-speaking Native Americans, who occupied territory between the Sabine and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas.
When the Spanish and the French encountered the Hasinai in the 1680s, they found a centrally organized chiefdom under the control of a religious leader, known as the Grand Xinesi. This leader lived in a secluded house and met with a council of elders. The chieftainship consisted of several subdivisions, which have been designated cantonments. Each was under the control of a Caddi. There were also men designated as Canahas and Chayas, who helped the Caddi run the system.
The Caddos were the most advanced Native American culture in Texas. They lived in tall, grass-covered houses in large settlements with highly structured social, religious and political systems.
The Hasinai were also the largest confederation of Caddos in Deep East Texas. They lived along the Neches and Angelina rivers, with one of their most powerful settlements being in the present Caddo Mounds area west of Alto. The Nacogdoches tribe is included among these Hasinai Caddos.
The Caddos were travelers and traders, men of business, and they greeted everyone they met in their travels with the cry of tayshas!
History remembers that because of that greeting, the Spanish then called and identified the Caddo's nation as – Los (The) Tejas. The Spanish Church even built a mission in east Texas for the exclusive conversion of the Caddo Hasinai that was named, San Francisco de los Tejas. Many years later, Spanish land east of the Trinity became known as the Province of Tejas, which later gave its name to all of Texas.
And just like that, the Caddo word tayshas morphed into the word — Texas.
The Caddo lived in tall cone shaped grass huts. To build a hut, they made a wood frame and covered it with cut cane and long grasses. These huts were nicely furnished inside with furniture and were quite comfortable. One of the reasons the Spanish seemed to like the Caddo was because they had beds and chairs inside these huts. This reminded the Spanish of their-own beds and chairs. They would use buffalo skins with the hair on them as blankets to keep warm in the winter. These huts could be very large. The inside of the huts had woven grass and split cane mats on the floors. These same mats were hung up as partitions inside the hut. Often several families would live in one hut.
The Caddo were great and skilled farmers. They planted crops in large clearings in the woods. They raised corn, beans and squash. They also hunted the deer, turkey, rabbits, squirrels and other animals in the pine-woods around them. The women would gather wild plant food like acorns, black berries, persimmons, roots and many other plants and fruits. But, farming corn, beans, and squash provided the main source of food.
Hunting parties of men would be formed to travel west onto the Southern Plains were there were many buffalo at certain times of the year. This was a long trip that could take several weeks. The men would dry the buffalo meat to preserve it so they could carry it home. They also saved the valuable buffalo skins to tan and use as robes. Buffalo skins with the hair on them are very soft and warm.
Early European explorers reported finding the woods cleared like a European park. This means the grass was short and the undergrowth was cleared away. The Indians did not have tractors or lawn mowers to do this. They would set fires in the woods to burn away the old taller grass and small shrubs and bushes without hurting the old trees with thick bark. If this is done every year or so, the fire keeps the undergrowth out. The Indians would do this in the fall and winter. In the spring new green grass would get more sun and grow better on the burned areas than in undergrowth. This tender green grass would attract deer and animals to hunt. These fires also made it easier to find acorns and nuts on the ground.
The Caddo society was communal, an integrated whole woven together and tightly bound by kinship, custom, and expectation. Each Caddo lived life according to the expectations and traditions of her/his community. Age, sex, and kin group defined the roles of men and women, girls and boys. Group solidarity was reinforced by shared activities — building houses, planting and harvesting crops, feasts, dances, and rituals.
It is estimated that in 1520, the people who would become the Hasinai, the Kadohadacho and the Natchitoches, numbered about 250,000. Over the next 250 years, the population of these Caddoan-speaking peoples was severely reduced by epidemics of endemic diseases carried by Spanish and French colonists and spread through indigenous trading networks. It is thought that the first epidemics of Old World diseases, to which New World peoples had no immunity, spread widely and cruelly across the densely settled Eastern Woodlands before Europeans ever visited most areas.
During the succeeding centuries of European colonization, wave after wave of Old World diseases swept across native North America. It has been estimated that Caddo population may have fallen by as much as 95% between 1691 and 1816, a catastrophic change few human societies have survived.
Today, Texas is known around the world for its hospitality and friendliness, as a matter of fact, the Texas State motto is one word: Friendship.
I’d like to believe that the authors of our Texas-Style hospitality trait were the beautiful people that history remembers as the Caddo Hasinai.
This post is dedicated to all Caddo Hasinai descendants living today in Texas and around the world that continue to carry the torch handed down to them by the Caddo Hasinai of our past. And, Thank you to all Caddo Hasinai for your warm, heartfelt, friendly greeting and hospitality –— an example that many Texans still practice today.
Sources:
HASINAI INDIANS by Russell M. Magnaghi TSHA Texas State Historical Association
TEXAS, ORIGIN OF NAME TSHA Texas State Historical Association
Hasinai Wikipedia
Caddy Wikipedia
Pic Credit: Caddo Grand Xinesi from Painting by Reeda Peel, based on descriptions by Spanish explorers in the late 1600s. Website: https://catchlightartgallery.com/reeda-peel

Endeavor to Persevere! Today in History -- On today’s date 157 years ago during the War Between the States on Friday, June 23, 1865 at Fort Towson near the town of Doaksville in the Choctaw Nation (present-day Oklahoma), & four days after the “Juneteenth” reading of General Order № 3 to the people of Galveston, Texas, famous Cherokee Confederate Brigadier General Stand Watie (1806-1871) surrendered the last sizable Confederate army -- thus becoming the last Confederate general in the field to stand down. General Stand Watie, C.S.A. was also known as Degataga (Cherokee for “Stands Firm”), Standhope Uwatie, & Isaac S. Watie. Note: In the 1976 Clint Eastwood movie “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” the fictional character Lone Watie, portrayed by Chief Dan George (1899-1981), is identified as a nephew of General Stand Watie. Upon meeting Josey Wales, portrayed by Clint Eastwood (born 1930), Lone Watie delivers the following monologue: I wore this frock coat to Washington before the War. We wore them because we belonged to the Five Civilized Tribes. We dressed ourselves up like Abraham Lincoln. You know, we got to see the Secretary of the Interior, & he said, “Boy, you boys sure look civilized.” He congratulated us & he gave us medals for looking so civilized. We told him about how our land had been stolen & how our people were dying. When we finished he shook our hands & said: “Endeavor to persevere!” They stood us in a line: John Jumper, Chili McIntosh, Buffalo Hump, Jim Buckmark, & me -- I am Lone Watie. They took our pictures. And the newspapers said, “Indians vow to endeavour to persevere.” We thought about it for a long time. “Endeavour to persevere.” And when we had thought about it long enough, we declared war on the Union. The photograph depicts an oil-on-canvas painting entitled “Surrender of General Stand Watie” by noted Oklahoma artist Dennis Parker (born 1954). This painting is now in the collection of Oklahoma State Senate where it is currently on display on the 4th Floor outside the Senate Lounge.

Watie was born in Georgia in 1806. He would be baptized into Christianity and learn to speak English and his family started a successful plantation. During the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Watie supported his people moving further out west to maintain their autonomy from the U.S. government. His position on this would put him and his family into conflict with other prominent Cherokee and led to the murder of his relatives. Watie managed to escape assassination and would become a prominent figure in tribal politics as the surviving member of his family. He would be a lifelong enemy of principal Cherokee Chief John Ross who would flee to Kansas during the war, making Watie the de-facto chief.
When the Southern states left the Union for independence in 1861, Watie signed an alliance with the Confederacy, viewing the federal government as the Cherokees’ principal enemy. He raised the first Cherokee regiment of the Confederate Army, the Cherokee Mounted Rifles, and helped secure the Indian Territory for the rebels early in the conflict. Watie’s regiment first earned prominence during the Battle of Pea Ridge in Arkansas in 1862 when they captured a Federal artillery battery. Watie’s superior General Albert Pike wrote this in his report after the battle:
“My whole command consisted of about 1,000 men, all Indians except one squadron. The enemy opened fire into the woods where we were, the fence in front of us was thrown down, and the Indians charged full in front through the woods and into the open grounds with loud yells, took the battery, fired upon and pursued the enemy retreating through the fenced field on our right, and held the battery, which I afterward had drawn by the Cherokee into the woods.”
For the remainder of the war, Watie’s men would cause trouble in the Oklahoma Indian territory, capturing steam boats and millions of dollars’ worth of Federal supplies. As the tide began to change against the Confederacy, most of the Cherokee abandoned the Southern cause. Watie remained loyal though and was promoted to brigadier general. He would finally surrender 75 days after Robert E Lee and would retire to rebuild his home where he would die in 1871. The Cherokee Nation would be punished for their rebellion against the Federal government and would be forced to undergo reconstruction. The U.S. government would also allow white settlers to start settling in the Oklahoma territory.

Cherokee Women and Their Important Roles:
Women in the Cherokee society were equal to men. They could earn the title of War Women and sit in councils as equals. This privilege led an Irishman named Adair who traded with the Cherokee from 1736-1743 to accuse the Cherokee of having a "petticoat government".
Clan kinship followed the mother's side of the family. The children grew up in the mother's house, and it was the duty of an uncle on the mother's side to teach the boys how to hunt, fish, and perform certain tribal duties. The women owned the houses and their furnishings. Marriages were carefully negotiated, but if a woman decided to divorce her spouse, she simply placed his belongings outside the house. Cherokee women also worked hard. They cared for the children, cooked, tended the house, tanned skins, wove baskets, and cultivated the fields. Men helped with some household chores like sewing, but they spent most of their time hunting.
Cherokee girls learned by example how to be warriors and healers. They learned to weave baskets, tell stories, trade, and dance. They became mothers and wives, and learned their heritage. The Cherokee learned to adapt, and the women were the core of the Cherokee.

Traditionally, the people now known as Cherokee refer to themselves as Aniyunwiya (ah nee yun wee yah), a name usually translated as "the Real People," sometimes "the Original People."
▪The Cherokee never had princesses. This is a concept based on European folktales and has no reality in Cherokee history and culture. In fact, Cherokee women were very powerful. They owned all the houses and fields, and they could marry and divorce as they pleased. Kinship was determined through the mother's line.
Clan mothers administered justice in many matters. Beloved women were very special women chosen for their outstanding qualities. As in other aspects of Cherokee culture, there was a balance of power between men and women. Although they had different roles, they both were valued.
▪The Cherokee never lived in tipis. Only the nomadic Plains tribes did. The Cherokee were southeastern woodland natives, and in the winter they lived in houses made of woven saplings, plastered with mud and roofed with poplar bark. In the summer they lived in open-air dwellings roofed with bark.
▪The Cherokee have never worn feathered headdresses except to please tourists. These long headdresses were worn by Plains Natives and were made popular through Wild West shows and Hollywood movies. Cherokee men traditionally wore a feather or two tied at the crown of the head. In the early 18th century, Cherokee men wore cotton trade shirts, loincloths, leggings, front-seam moccasins, finger-woven or beaded belts, multiple pierced earrings around the rim of the ear, and a blanket over one shoulder. At that time, Cherokee women wore mantles of leather or feathers, skirts of leather or woven mulberry bark, front-seam moccasins, and earrings pierced through the earlobe only. By the end of the 18th century, Cherokee men were dressing much like their white neighbors. Men were wearing shirts, pants, and trade coats, with a distinctly Cherokee turban. Women were wearing calico skirts, blouses, and shawls. Today Cherokee people dress like other Americans, except for special occasions, when the men wear ribbon shirts with jeans and moccasins, and the women wear tear dresses with corn beads, woven belts, and moccasins.
▪The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI) are descended from Cherokee people who had taken land under the Treaty of 1819 and were allowed to remain in North Carolina; from those who hid in the woods and mountains until the U.S. Army left; and from those who turned around and walked back from Oklahoma. By 1850 they numbered almost a thousand. Today the Eastern Band includes about 11,000 members, while the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma claims more than 100,000 members, making the Cherokee the largest tribe in the United States.
▪Cherokee arts and crafts are still practiced: basket-weaving, pottery, carving, finger-weaving, and beadwork.
▪The Cherokee language is spoken as a first language by fewer than a thousand people and has declined rapidly because of the policies of federally operated schools. However, since the tribe has begun operation of their own schools, Cherokee language is being systematically taught in the schools.
▪Traditional Cherokee medicine, religion, and dance are practiced privately.
▪There have never been Cherokee shamans. Shamanism is a foreign concept to North America. The Cherokee have medicine men and women.
▪"aho" is not a Cherokee word and Cherokee speakers never use it. Most are actually offended by the misuse of this word. It's not some kind of universal Native word used by all tribes, as many believe. Each individual tribe have their own languages. We can respect these languages by using them correctly or not at all.
▪In order to belong to one of the seven Cherokee clans, your mother had to have been/be Cherokee and her clan is passed on to you. If the maternal line has been broken by a non Cherokee or someone had all sons, you have no clan, which is the case with many today.
▪There is only one Cherokee tribe that consist of three bands. The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, United Keetoowah Band of Oklahoma and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina. All others who claim a different band than one of the three above are not considered Cherokee and are a direct threat to Cherokee tribal sovereignty. In fact, to be Cherokee, one must be registered with the tribe, as Cherokee is a citizenship granted through documentation. One can have Native DNA but is not considered Cherokee until they are a registered tribal citizen.
Via N. Bear
Cherokee man
North Carolina

"The land is the mother of all things. The land is sacred. These words are at the core of your being. The land is our mother, the rivers our blood. Take our land and we die." Native American Quotes, Proverbs and Poems

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