Today in Chickamauga History - June 22
1780, June 22: Letter from T. Jefferson to W. Campbell giving command of militia - Orders have been sent to the county lieutenants of Montgomery and Washington, to furnish 250 of their militia to proceed in conjunction with the Carolinians against the Chickamoggas. You are hereby authorized to take command of the said men. - https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-15-02-0559
1828, June 22: ARKANSAS TERRITORIAL PAPERS VOL XX – Page 702 – 703 - HARTWELL BOSWELL AND JOHN REDMON TO GEORGE GRAHAM - [NA:GLO, Reg. and Rec. Lets., Batesville:LS] - Land Office at BATESVILLE June 22d 1828.
SIR/ As we are apprised that you await our Opinion as to the propriety of having a Sale of the public Lands in this district sometime the present Year, We therefore avail ourselves of the earliest opportunity to say to you that we are of Opinion that all the Lands bordering upon the Mississippi ought not to be delayed being brought into Market, as all the Valuable Timber is daily destroying & in a few Years will be totally consumed for the use of Steam Boats and timber for New Orleans; We think that there can be an extensive sale made of those Lands the coming Winter, which together with the Quapaw Lands lying near to Little Rock, the Lands in Crawford County near Fort Smith, with the addition of a few Townships near Davidsonville & this Town, that a sum of some fifteen or twenty Thousand Dollars can be collected. Provided, that our Superior Court has not passed many more of the Spanish Grants. and should not the Grants made to the Settlers upon Lovelys purchase & upon the Choctaw Lands not interfere at the time of the Sale-We have not seen the Law passed last Session in relation to those Grants,31 but we are well assured that if the provisions be in the Law that we have understood from Our
Delegate; does exist, that no more Cash of Consequence can be expected to be received at this Office, for we do believe that not less than 1000 Claims will be proven up, which together with the Law permitting the Soldiers of the late War to remove their Bounties Will in our Opinion take all the Saleable Land now surveyed within our District.32
Provided you should think it advisable to order a Sale of the Lands we think most desirable for the benefit of the Govt we reccommend a Sale to take place at this Office the latter part of December & January next.33
Respectfully Yr Mo Obt Servts.
H BOSWELL Regr
JOHN REDMON Rec•
GEO GRAHAM Esqr Com• &c
[Addressed] George Graham Esqr Commissioner of the General Land Office Washington City D. C [Postmarked] Batesville A Ty June 23d free
[Endorsed] Batesville: June 22d 1828. Reg & Recr Advising the Sale of Lands &c Ansd 19 July 1828
1839, June 22: – Second Cherokee Civil War begins. The Nation remains at war with itself and divided between the Old Settlers and the Treaty Party on one side, against the National Party on the other for several more decades with numerous murders for political reasons each year.
1839, June 22: Saturday Morning before Daylight - The Cherokee Registry” Emigration from Georgia – Three men had been mainly instrumental in making the treaty of 1835. They were Major Ridge, a full blood Cherokee of the Deer clan, horn at Hiwassee in 1771. When still a young man he adopted the manner of living of the white man, mastered their language and became a well educated man.
This course was at that time very unpopular, as the great mass of the Cherokee were still full bloods and very jealous of their old customs and any full blood that would attempt in any was to take up the ways of the backwoods provincials was certain to incur the scorn of his tribesmen. But by sheer force of character, integrity and worth he gradually forced himself to a high place in the nation. He had been president of the committee and was a major at the Cherokee allies of the Americans in the Creek war of 1814. His son, John Ridge, aged about forty years, had been educated in Cornwall, Connecticut, and had returned to the Cherokee nation in 1822. He was a close observer, a brilliant and convincing orator. The third of this trio was Elias Boudinot, born in 1804. He was the son of Oowatie, the interpretation of whose name was the ancient or revered. Oowatie was a full brother of Major Ridge. Killakeena or Buck (male deer) Oowatie or as they were later known as Watie, while on his way to school at Cornwall, where he attended with his cousin John Ridge, met in Philadelphia, Elias Boudinot of New Jersey, a signer of the national constitution and one of the most prominent men of his day. On account of some favor that he conferred, the boy Buck Watie adopted the name of his benefactor. Boudinot like his uncle and cousin had early ascended to high places in the councils of the nation and the three men seeing the hopeless condition of their exploited people in the east had made the treaty of 1835 that secured to the Cherokee Nation a splendid home in the west. Men of keen discernment, eloquent and fearless they were publicists to be dreaded.
Before daylight on the morning of Saturday, June 22, 1830 the home of John Ridge, near the northwest corner of Arkansas, was surrounded, entered and he was dragged into the yard where two men held his arms while others of their party stabbed hint repeatedly and then severed his jugular vein. A few hours later during the same morning while his father, Major Ridge, was traveling southward along the Cherokee Nation-Arkansas line road, he was fired on by an ambushed party and killed. This was some twenty-live or thirty miles from the scene of the murder of the son. At about the same time as the killing of Major Ridge, Elias Boudinot was shingling a new house near his residence and within two miles of the residence of Chief John Ross. Three Cherokees appeared and requested medicine of a sick child of one of the party. Mr. Boudinot had studied medicine so that he could give gratuitous services and medicines to the needy. He started with them to get the required treatment when one of the three stepping behind struck him in the spine with a bowie knife and his groan was the signal for the others to dispatch Uri with tomahawks. The place of his death was about thirty miles from the murder of Major Ridge and fifty miles from the assassination of John Ridge. Immediately after his death, Mrs. Boudinot sent word by Rufus McWilliams to Stand Watie and Watie sent his slave, Mike, to inform John Adair Bell, and in this manner those two escaped mobs that hunted them. Three days later a party that was hunting Stan Wade, searched the house of Rev. Samuel A. Worcester in their quest.
Chief Ross notified General Arbuckle on the twenty-second of the killing of Elias Boudinot and that Mrs. Boudinot had informed him that Stan Watie had determined on raising a company of men for the purpose of taking Ross’ life. He further wrote “I trust that you will deem it expedient forthwith to interpose and prevent the effusion of innocent blood, by executing your authority, in order that an unbiased investigation might he had in the matter.”‘ General Arbuckle invited Chief Ross to the post at Fort Gibson if he still thought that there was any danger, he also invited Chiefs Brown. Looney and Rogers to come to the post by the twenty-fifth so that they might concert action to avoid civil strife.’ Chief Ross on the twenty-third asked that a detachment of troops be sent to protect him. - https://cherokeeregistry.com/the-emigration-from-georgia-trail-of-tears/
1839, June 22: John RIDGE is dragged out of his home and stabbed to death in the morning in the presence of his wife and children by a party of twenty-five men that includes Daniel COLSTON, John VANN, Archibald SPEAR, James SPEAR, Joseph SPEAR, HUNTER, and others.
1839, June 22: Three riders appeared at the home of Elias BOUDINOT and approached BOUDINOT by his barn and asked for medicine which he kept to give to any persons being ill. He stopped his work on his barn and started for his house to get the medicine when the three men attacked him from behind with knives and hatchets. When his workers tried to help, a group of about thirty riders emerged from the nearby bushes and trees and killed BOUDINOT's helper. Assassins include JOHNSTON, SOFT-SHELLED, TURTLE, MONEY TALKER, CARSOOTAWDY, Joseph BEANSTALK, Edward GUNTER, SANDERS, and others.
1839, June 22: Major RIDGE had been to visit a sick friend, a former slave, at his home in Arkansas and was on the way to his daughter's house after spending the night with the HARNAGE family. On the way, he was bushwhacked, shot in the back and killed. Those whom fired upon him were James FOREMAN, Anderson SPRINGSTON, Bird DOUBLEHEAD, Isaac SPRINGSTON, James HAIR and Jefferson HAIR.
James FOREMAN and Isaac SPRINGSTON were the killers of John WALKER Jr. in Tennessee and the same men for whom John ROSS supplied the money for their defense and release.
1839, June 22: A fourth party was sent to murder Stand WATIE, but he fights them off and escapes to Missouri Territory.
Following the murder of BOUDINOT, Stand WATIE, himself oblivious to the danger he was in, appeared at Tahlequah and offered a reward of $1000 to anyone who would tell him who had murdered his brother, Elias BOUDINOT.
In May, 1842, James FOREMAN was shot and killed by Stand WATIE at the grocery store of Dave ENGLAND in Burton County, Arkansas. Less than a week earlier, Anderson SPRINGSTON was shot in the same location.
Stand WATIE, tried in the Arkansas Court (Washington County, AR), was released, having acted in self-defense.
The Treaty Party had lost its leadership. However, through treaty, the parties buried the hatchet. Political differences improved somewhat in the Territory, in appearances, but tribal differences under the law of revenge, blood law, persisted and a large number of Cherokee families were affected. Many persons still were victims to the political hostilities of John ROSS, and even bloodshed. The political killing of Jesse STARR, for instance, created its own blood war.
Much propaganda was issued about the Ridge Treaty Party backers being persons of mixed blood while the ROSS faction was backed by the full bloods. ROSS, however, was one-eighth Cherokee and seven-eighths white. The fact is that the ratio of mixed bloods and full bloods supporting either side was about the same for as long as the Treaty Party continued to exist.
The ROSS party did have the backing of most of the Christian full bloods. In the Treaty Party, Major RIDGE was the brother of OOWATIE (The Ancient One) whom was the father of Stand WATIE, RIDGE’s nephew. Major RIDGE was the first of the Ridges among the Cherokees. His Indian name, translated to English, meant "he walks the mountaintops", thus his translated name became "The Ridge". In 1812 in war, he attained the rank of Major and he went by that name the rest of his life. All of his offspring can be traced by a search for Major RIDGE in the World Family Tree where he is listed with his wife and children. He took his land in Arkansas where he was later murdered. He is the same Major RIDGE who, in 1807, had been one of a party that had killed Chief DOUBLEHEAD for signing a treaty in 1806 which ceded Cherokee land located in Tennessee and Kentucky to the United States. Some historians believe that DOUBLEHEAD had been bribed to sign the treaty. RIDGE had killed a Cherokee to denounce the man's treachery.
In the coordinated attacks on the RIDGES and Elias BOUDINOT in places scattered through the Cherokee Nation and Arkansas, as many as seventy other persons, though lesser known, were also killed. You can find their stories while doing genealogy on Cherokee surnames. The other brother of Stand WATIE, Thomas WATIE, and Stand WATIES's close friend James STARR were also murdered.
The bloodbath between the ROSS and Treaty parties finally ended with the treaty of 1846 which was signed in Washington by representatives of the Old Settlers, Treaty Party and the Ross Party. The treaty gave amnesty to fugitives on various crimes if they returned to the Cherokee Nation by December 1, 1846, provided for equal protection of all inhabitants, guaranteed trial by jury, decreed that all land in the Cherokee Nation was for the use of all Cherokees and set aside $115,000 for losses suffered by the Ridge Treaty Party, including $5000 for each heir of Major RIDGE, John RIDGE and Elias BOUDINOT. Among the signors were John ROSS and John DREW. This treaty dissolved the "Treaty Party”, but did not resolve the deep differences in the two groups.
Let’s take a look a letter written by John ADAIR and Stand WATIE to the Arkansas Gazette about the RIDGES and BOUDINOT murders:
Excerpt from a letter from John Adair Bell and Stand Watie to the Arkansas Gazette on the murders of the Ridges and Boudinot:
“On Saturday of the same week, it being the 22d of June, a party of 20 to 25 Indians proceeded to the house of John Ridge, on Honey creek, in the north part of the Cherokee nation, and having surrounded the house with their rifles, three of them forced his doors, drew him from his bed amidst the screams of his wife and children, and having given him 25 stabs in his body, left him dead n [sic] his yard.
Maj. Ridge had started on the previous day, to Vineyard, in Washington county, Arkansas. He stayed on Friday night at the house of Mr. Ambrose Harnage, forty miles south of his son’s residence. He was waylaid about 10 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 about 10 or 12 guns were fired at him; only five rifle balls, however, penetrated his body and head. Thus was the aged chief murdered from am [sic] ambush, without knowing the dastardly hands who sought his life. The murder occurred in Washington county. About the same hour, four Indians came to Mr. Boudinot, and after a friendly salutation, asked Mr. Boudinot to walk from where his hands were at work, and give them some medicine. Mr. B. who was ever found foremost in acts of charity, obeyed the summons.
Shortly after he left the workmen he was struck by these Indians in the back and head, and brought to the earth, with tomahawks, and then stabbed several times in the back with a bowie knife. These are the circumstances attending the deaths of these individuals.
It is notorious, that although the Ridge’s and Boudinot resided at the distance of seventy miles apart, yet report of John Ridge’s murder was circulation all through the rank of Ross’s party, before B’s death was known to his immediate friends. This can perhaps be best explained by the fact that Boudinot and Ross residing about one mile apart. It is equally true that a strong guard were collected around Ross and Gunter [Edward Gunter, a prominent leader of the Ross faction] on the same morning; and Ross has kept a guard of from 200 to 600 persons about his person ever since.
It is worthy of remark that Ross promises this guard at the rate of 25 dollars each per month, and gives his due bills to individuals, payable of the faith of the national treasury. These due bills are bought by his son-in-law and brother with goods. As soon as the undersigned, and some others of the proscribed, could pay the duties of interment to the bodies of their friends, the repaired to Fort Gibson, where they remained for ten days.
They there learned upon good authority that they were unsafe while in the power of Ross and his partizans. Since that time they have been generally embodied, for their protection.
The convention of John Ross assembled, or rather his guard increased, on the first of July, as anticipated. The subjoined manifesto or decree [giving amnesty to the murderers of the Ridges and Boudinot] will show how far their proceedings were intended to affect the remaining victims of their malice. At the same time these papers were drawn up, a resolution was passed, freely pardoning the murderers of Messrs. Ridges and Boudinot, and all this, too, after Mr. Ross’s denial of any knowledge or participation in the matter, and his promise to aid in securing the murderers. Of the documents everyone will judge for himself; but to us they sound very much like the language of an usurper, who first seizes upon the throne, and then requires all the people who have rightly opposed him to swear allegiance to his pretensions.
How far the Cherokees west united with the assumptions of Ross and his faction, they will in due time disclose for themselves. If Mr. Ross expects us to purchase our lives by swearing to the infamous oath which he put in our mouths, he very much mistakes the blood which runs in our veins. Sooner let us fall by the hand of the midnight assassin, than have our names loaded with infamy, and handed down to posterity as traitors, who had ‘saved their country from total destruction, by making the best treaty ever made for any Indians!” – The historian will do justice to the memories of the fallen. We will never cause their blood to ride in judgment against us, by casting obloquy on their characters.
Eight of our friends have abandoned us. [Eight Treaty Party members apologized for signing the treaty in return for amnesty from the Ross faction.] Be the matter with them and their God. We are conscious that we have gained many where we have lost one. The threatened denunciation still hangs over us. Well, if the impending vengeance must fall, let it come upon us with clear consciences.”
John A. Bell,
Stand Watie
1839, June 22: Major RIDGE, John RIDGE, and Elias BOUDINOT are murdered. On this same date, ROSS pens a letter to General Matthew ARBUCKLE advising of the death of these three men. ROSS believes that Stand WATIE is raising a company of men to kill him and asks for help. This letter is found on the Gilcrease Museum Collections.gilcrease.org.
1839, June 22: Major RIDGE, John RIDGE and Elias BOUDINOT were assassinated by ROSS followers. The Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, OK holds the original letter from John ROSS to General Matthew ARBUCKLE of Ft. Gibson. ROSS relates to ARBUCKLE that he had no idea the RIDGES and BOUDINOT were to be assassinated and asked ARBUCKLE for safety. ROSS accused Stand WATIE of raising a company of men to take his life. Stand WATIE’s brother was Elias BOUDINOT. Elias BOUDINOT was born KILAKEENA “BUCK” WATIE.