Chronicles of Oklahoma Volume 34 No. 5 Summer 1956
THIS IS A VERY LONG ARTICLE
Below is an article which appears in the Chronicles of Oklahoma Volume 34 No. 5 Summer 1956. It is obvious that Oliver Knight took the best information for the time and tried to make common sense of it as it pertained to the numerous groups of tribes the United States called the Cherokee Nation. We should not fault a writer who has accepted the morbid myth, legend, fairy tales, and lies the Oklahoma Cherokee Nation espoused after their savage, barbaric, genocidal actions in the late 1830’s against the Chickamauga who signed the 1835 New Echota Treaty.
It is time to set the record straight concerning the Chickamauga not being Cherokee. The United States found it easier to lump all of the Cherokee speaking tribes into one group and call them all Cherokee. This demonstrated the laziness of the United States and her elected and non-elected leaders in dealing with multiple groups of people of which many hated each other over religious and traditional aspects of the various groups of Indians.
Historically, anthropologically, and archaeologically it is documented in over 620,000 pages of academically verified research acquired by The Chickamauga Nation that the Chickamauga are a different race, ethnicity, culture, tradition, and religion from the Canadian, Great Lakes originating Cherokee who were expelled from the Iroquoian Confederacy after the Beaver Wars.
The Chickamauga are from the Mound Building traditions along with their cousins the Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Natchez. The Chickamauga held to the traditions of the Mound Building Culture which in part still exists within The Chickamauga Nation today.
It is not the fault of the Chickamauga that the United States demonstrated laziness in discussing the Chickamauga. Almost every one of the following treaties are addressed to the Cherokee Nation and even a few are addressed to the Western Cherokee. The United States was relentless in their laziness in calling the Chickamauga, “Cherokee,” that the Chickamauga began using the name to keep from causing issues with the United States and the various states. This is so evident in the following treaties:
Hopewell – 7 Stat. 18 (1785) at least 10 signatories are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Holston – 7 Stat 39 (1791) at least 37 of the 39 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse – 7 Stat 43 (1794) at least 11 of the 13 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Tellico – 7 Stat. 62 (1798) at least 36 of the 39 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Tellico – 7 Stat. 288 (1804) ALL 10 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Tellico – 7 Stat. 93 (1805) ALL 34 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Tellico – 7 Stat. 95 (1805) ALL 14 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Washington – 7 Stat. 101 (1806) ALL 17 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Washington – 7 Stat. 138 (1816) at least 5 of the 7 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty with the Cherokee – 7 Stat. 139 (1816) at least 5 of the 7 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Chickasaw Council House – 7 Stat. 148 (1816) at least 15 of the 17 signers are Chickamauga; Ratified by the whole Cherokee Council All 10 Chiefs are Chickamauga
Treaty of Cherokee Agency – 7 Stat. 156 (1817) at least 23 of the 31 East of Mississippi signers are Chickamauga; All 15 of the Arkansas signers are Chickamauga
Treaty of Washington – 7 Stat 195 (1819) at least 2 of the 12 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Washington – 7 Stat. 311 (1828) ALL 9 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Ft. Gibson – 7 Stat. 414 (1833) ALL 5 signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of Camp Holmes – 7 Stat 474 (1835) ALL 43 (Cherokee) signers are Chickamauga;
Treaty of New Echota – 7 Stat 478 (1835) ALL 20 signers are Chickamauga;
The one thing that is glaringly obvious is how the United States did not differentiate between the various “Cherokee Nations” because they expected all those who spoke Cherokee to be of one mind and accept the Civilization the white men were forcing upon them.
As you read the following article in the Oklahoma Historical Society’s Chronicles of Oklahoma, remember the difference between the Cherokee and the Chickamauga.
First, it was against the Laws of the Cherokee Nation for any Citizen to leave the territorial boundaries of the Cherokee, including crossing the Mississippi River. Anyone who crossed the river and remained had their citizenship revoked. Blackhorse v Cherokee Nation is proof.
Second, the Chickamauga first began living west of the Mississippi River as early as the 1780s. In 1809 Thomas Jefferson and the Chickamauga traded lands in the east for lands in Arkansas.
Third, in 1817 a Treaty was signed by the Chickamauga Chiefs creating the Arkansas Reservation north of the Arkansas River.
Fourth, in 1820 the US geological Survey printed a map in the Arkansas Gazette documenting the Lands of the “Cherokee” in Arkansas which included the Agreed upon 1817 Treaty Lands as well as the lands from “the Little Rock to the Red River along the Red River to the Arkansas Oklahoma border then northward to Fort Smith.
Fifth, the 1785 Treaty requires the Congress of the United States to approve all changes in treaties and the governments of treaties.
Sixth, the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma claim a so-called “Act of Union” which was attained after killing the signers of the New Echota Treaty and then forced the Chickamauga at gunpoint to confession their evil ways and to support the new “Cherokee Government” of John Ross or be executed or driven from their newly attained lands.
Seventh, this so-called “Act of Union” was never ratified by Congress and is therefore illegal and non-binding upon the government created by the Chickamauga under the Treaty of New Echota for the Chickamauga west of the Mississippi.
