KENTUCKY'S NATIVE PAST
by
Kenneth Barnett Tankersley, Ph.D.,
Professor of Anthropology, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati,
OH
Excerpt
from
Kentucky Cherokee:
People of the Cave
Copyright 2004-2011
by Dr. Tankersley
Book in Progress:
Used by Permission of the author
For more than 200 years, American
historians have argued that the Cherokee never lived in Kentucky;
rather, it was a hunting ground, a middle ground for all Indians,
which was at the center of many dark and bloody disputes. Actually,
many Nations of American Indians have lived in Kentucky since
time immemorial.
John Filson, an opportunistic investor,
land speculator, and entrepreneur, created this myth and many
others in a book, The Discovery, Settlement, and Present State
of Kentucke, published five years after his death in 1788. The
book included "an account of Indian Nations inhabiting within
the limits of the thirteen United States, their manners and customs,
and reflections of their origin." It told readers that there
were no Indians living in Kentucky, they were located in the other
states. Filson emphasized that the Cherokee and other Nations
had no valid claim to Kentucky because it was originally settled
by an ancient white race that greatly predated the Indians. Ironically,
the very people Filson claimed did not live in Kentucky killed
him.
Filson's book was widely printed
and circulated in England, France, and Germany as a way to entice
Europeans to immigrate to the United States and settle in Kentucky.
To further allure them to this new land of opportunity, Filson
created a story about John Swift and his lost silver mine. This
story emphasized that Kentucky was a land filled with riches just
waiting to be taken.
Unfortunately, all of Filson's myths
about the native people of Kentucky were perpetuated and elaborated
upon in subsequent books on the history of the state such as Lewis
Collins' 1847 Historical Sketches of Kentucky, Richard Collins'
and Lewis Collins' 1874 History of Kentucky, Bennett Young's 1910
The Prehistoric Men of Kentucky, and W. D. Funkhouser's and W.
S. Webb's 1928 Ancient Life in Kentucky. To make matters worse,
these myths are still being taught in some quarters of the state
today.
The Cherokee call themselves Tsa'lagi',
the Real People or the Principal People. The word Cherokee comes
from the 1557 Portuguese narrative of DeSoto's expedition, which
was then written as Chalaque. It is derived from the Choctaw word,
choluk, which means cave. Mohawk call the Cherokee Oyata'ge'ronoñ,
which means people who live in caves or in the cave country. In
Catawba, the Cherokee are called Mañterañ,
which translates as the people who come out of the ground.
Kentucky is the land of caves, home
to the longest cave in the world, and home of the Cherokee. Kentucky
caves are full of evidence of Cherokee people, from salt and crystal
mines to exploration and habitation. As the Cherokee explored
Kentucky for the first time, they came across the entrances of
great caves, some of which were filled with mineral resources
that extended many miles underground. They ventured into caves
in search of protection from the elements, to mine minerals, to
dispose of their dead, to conduct ceremonies, and to explore the
unknown, as indicated by the footprints, pictographs, petroglyphs,
mud glyphs, stone tools, and sculptures they left behind. Wherever
the Cherokee found a dry cave in Kentucky with a reasonably accessible
opening, they entered and explored it systematically.
Before European colonization, Kentucky
was a significant part of the Cherokee country, representing the
northern quarter of the Cherokee Nation since time immemorial.
Its boundaries extended to the Ohio River in the north, the Cumberland
River in the west, and the Great Kanawha River in the east. By
the end of the American Revolution, the northern boundary of the
Cherokee country was moved southward to encompass the land below
the Cumberland River. At the Final Cession, some 38,000 square
miles of Cherokee land in Kentucky had been extorted in what some
call the Trail of Broken Treaties between the English and United
States.
The earliest known contact with
Europeans occurred in 1540, when a party of warriors successfully
defended the northwestern border of the Cherokee country against
the advances of Hernando DeSoto and his Spanish soldiers. They
were forced to retreat to the north side of the Ohio River at
present-day Fort Massac, Illinois.
After the English arrived on the
present site of Jamestown, Virginia in 1607, there was continuous
contact with Cherokee from Kentucky as English traders strengthened
their alliances and worked their way into the Appalachian Mountains.
Perhaps the earliest evidence of an English trader with Cherokee
in Kentucky is in Wolfe County, where a date of 1717 and five
or six traditional symbols of Anitsisqua, the Cherokee
Bird Clan, are incised on a sandstone outcrop overlooking Panther
Branch.
Cherokee claims to Kentucky were
seriously challenged when the Tuscarawas joined the League of
the Iroquois (Iroquois Confederacy, Haudenosaunee, People
of the Longhouse including the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas,
and Senecas) in 1722. They expanded by alliance and conquest deep
into the state. The newly formed Six Nations took over control
of all of the land north of the Cumberland River.
By 1729, the Shawnee were serving
as guides into northern Kentucky for the French military who considered
Kentucky part of New France. At this time, the Cherokee were busy
fighting the Choctaw, Creek, and Yamasee to the south for their
English allies. As a gesture of thanks, Sir Alexander Cuming took
seven of the principal Cherokee Chiefs to England with him in
1730, including Oukah (King) Ulah, brother of Moytoy,
uncle of Wilenawa (Great Eagle), father of many well-known
Kentucky Cherokee leaders including Doublehead, born in McCreary
County. Although this visit strengthened allegiance with the British,
the Cherokee population in Kentucky and elsewhere was cut in half
by smallpox just eight years later, making it difficult to defend
their northern borders. To make matters worse, the Creek and Choctaw
had allied themselves with the French.
At the onset of the French and Indian
War (1750-1754), Cherokee, Delaware, Shawnee, and Wyandot leaders
seeking inter-tribal peace traveled back and forth through Kentucky
on the Great Warrior Road in route to council meetings with representatives
of the Six Nations. While the Cherokee were granted permission
from the Six Nations to return to their land north of the Cumberland
River, it was a political exchange for their partisan position
against the French and all villages sympathetic to French traders.
As part of the peace agreement, Shawnee families began to spend
winters with the Cherokee, and Cherokee warriors began to spend
time with the Shawnee.
During the French and Indian War
(1754-1763), blockades cut off salt shipments from the West Indies.
Salt springs and licks in Kentucky became an important resource
to the colonists. Shawnee made salt at Big Bone Lick (Boone County)
and Blue Licks (Nicholas County) in the north, the Cherokee made
salt and buried their dead along Goose Creek, near the mouth of
Collins Creek, in Clay County. The abundance of salt in Kentucky,
north and south did not escape the eyes of the Europeans and later
became an issue of national importance.
With the signing of the Treaty of
Paris in 1763, France gave up all claims to Kentucky and its resources.
In exchange for their help during the war, the British victors
proclaimed that Kentucky was to be recognized as Indian Territory
and no person could make a treaty with the Cherokee or buy land
from them without their permission. While the treaty of 1763 allowed
the Cherokee to retain all of their land in Kentucky, their possession
was short-lived.
In 1768, the British superintendent
of Indian Affairs convinced the Cherokee to cede their holdings
in what is today the state of Virginia to prevent conflicts with
encroaching colonists. Most of the contact with the settlers in
Kentucky was friendly, as evidenced by the autumn 1769 meeting
of Long Hunters with Cherokee Chief Dick (namesake of Dick's River)
and his warriors along Skagg's Creek near the Rockcastle River.
Nevertheless, British representatives later insisted on a new
treaty (October 18, 1770), which moved the northeastern boundary
of Cherokee country from the New River of West Virginia to the
land within the extreme western corner of Kentucky (Pike County).
Two years later, England requested yet another treaty to purchase
all of the land between the Ohio and Kentucky rivers. Not all
of the Cherokee agreed with the sale, and fighting broke out along
the Great Warrior Road along Station Camp Creek in Clay County
in defense of their territory. Land speculators considered the
1772 skirmishes as minor incidents because they wanted to sell
central Kentucky to European immigrants.
Entrepreneur and colonial judge
Richard Henderson, his agent Daniel Boone, and other private citizens
met with Cherokee Chiefs along the Watauga River on March 17,
1775. Henderson and Boone illegally negotiated the cession of
all of the land in between the Kentucky, Ohio, and Cumberland
rivers to the privately owned Transylvania Company. Although it
has become known as the Treaty of Sycamore Shoals, the entire
event was in direct violation of the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
On behalf of England, the colony of Virginia, which then included
Kentucky, revoked the treaty. However, it did not stop Boone and
the Transylvania Company from creating the Wilderness Road, which
opened the way for an unstoppable and limitless flow of European
immigrants into Kentucky and in direct conflict with the Cherokee.
The Treaty of Sycamore Shoals was
negotiated just one month before the beginning of the American
Revolution. Most, but not all, of the Cherokee supported the British
through the war and beyond to 1794. Following the example of the
Delaware Chief Coquetakeghton (White Eyes), who served as a guide
and lieutenant colonel in the American army, a number of Cherokee
living in Kentucky agreed to serve as scouts. At the decisive
Battle of Kings Mountain, October 7, 1780, there were Cherokee
warriors from Kentucky fighting on both sides.
By 1782, individual Cherokee political
alliances had become extremely complex. Some traveled to St. Louis,
Missouri, to seek protection from the Spanish government, while
others moved north and joined the Shawnee on the Scioto River,
getting supplies and council from the British military. At the
same time, representatives of the Wyandot, Chippewa, Ottawa, and
Potawatomi traveled to the Cumberland River valley to council
with the Cherokee about joining them in an all-out war against
the United States.
The American Revolution ended on
September 3, 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. The
Cherokee were not consulted and many did not recognize England's
cession of Kentucky to the United States. To make matters worse,
a group of Tennessee colonists illegally created the State of
Franklin with John Sevier as their Governor. On May 31, 1785,
Major Hugh Henry, Sevier, and other representatives of the self-declared
state met with Cherokee Chiefs to negotiate the "Treaty of
Dumplin Creek," which promised to redefine and extend the
Cherokee boundary line. Because the United States government did
not recognize the State of Franklin (1785-1788), the Treaty of
Dumplin Creek was deemed illegal. Sevier and his Franklinites
engendered a spirit of distrust between all subsequent treaty-makers
and the Cherokee, which led to many bloody conflicts and, ultimately,
genocide in Kentucky.
The first official treaty between
the United States and Cherokee Nation was negotiated at Hopewell,
South Carolina, on November 28, 1785. The Hopewell Treaty included
the cession of all land in Kentucky north of the Cumberland River
and west of the Little South Fork. Although Cherokee Chief Corn
Tassel (brother of Doublehead) signed the treaty, other leaders
of the Paint Clan did not, which began a war between the Euroamerican
settlers and the Cherokee in the Cumberland valley. They fiercely
resented the intrusion of immigrants and were determined upon
their expulsion or extermination.
Many Cherokee warriors from Kentucky
joined the northern confederacy of the Shawnee-Delaware-Wyandot-
Miami who continued to be supplied and encouraged by England to
defeat the newly formed country. For the next thirteen years,
they waged war upon the settlements in their land. Although most
American history books do not include this war, it was the first
to be declared by Congress in 1790. It has been referred to as
President George Washington's Indian War ~ the struggle for the
old northwest. In December of 1790, Kentucky settlers petitioned
Congress to fight the Cherokee in whatever way they saw fit. A
Board of War was appointed, and on May 23, 1791, it authorized
the destruction of Cherokee towns and food resources by burning
their homes and crops.
In an attempt to make peace with
the Cherokee, and redefine the new boundary lines in Kentucky,
the United States negotiated the Treaty of Holston on July 2,
1791. It restated that the Cherokee land in Kentucky was restricted
to the area east of the Little South Fork and south of the Cumberland
River. The treaty was signed by Kentucky Cherokee Chief Doublehead,
his brother, Chief Standing Turkey, their nephew, John Watts,
and witnessed by Thomas Kennedy, representative of Kentucky in
the Territory of the United States South of the Ohio River. Unfortunately,
the boundary line remained unclear and disputed by Cherokee not
present at the treating signing, and the fighting continued for
the next seven years. One of the last skirmishes in Kentucky occurred
at the salt works and Cherokee burial grounds on Goose Creek in
Clay County, on March 28, 1795.
The Treaty of Greenville, negotiated
in Ohio on August 3, 1795, ended the war. It was made between
Major General Anthony Wayne, commander of the army of the United
States, and the Wyandot, Delaware, Shawnee, Ottawa, Chippewa,
Potawatomi, Miami, Eel River, Wea, Kickapoo, Piankeshaw, and Kaskaskia.
Although the treaty tried to settle controversies and to restore
harmony and friendly intercourse between the United States and
all Indian Nations, Cherokee chiefs, shamans, and warriors were
not permitted to attend. Cherokees who were living north of the
Ohio River returned to their homes in southern Kentucky.
On October 2, 1798, the first Treaty
of Tellico was negotiated with the Cherokee Nation. It allowed
for safe passage of settlers using the Kentucky road, running
through Cherokee land between the Cumberland Mountain and the
Cumberland River, in exchange for hunting rights on all relinquished
lands, a further refinement of the Holston Treaty of 1791.
In 1803, the demand for salt produced
on Cherokee land in Kentucky dramatically increased when England
seized American ships involved in the salt trade. In 1805, the
remaining Cherokee land in Kentucky was considered crucial to
the security of the United States. Between October 25 and 27,
1805, Kentucky Cherokee Chiefs Doublehead and Red Bird singed
the final Treaties of Tellico, ceding the land south of the Cumberland
River. Doublehead was later executed by his own people, who felt
they had been betrayed and sold out.
In 1810, the "War Hawks"
were elected to Congress. They expressed their concern about the
"Indian presence" in the East, and on January 15, 1810,
they extinguished all Cherokee land claims in southern Kentucky.
Although Chief Red Bird made every possible concession to maintain
peace between his people and the United States, most of the white
settlers made no distinction between them and the Chickamauga
supporting Tecumseh. Sometime in the late summer or early Fall
of 1810, more than 100 innocent Cherokee old men, women, and children
were cruelly massacred at a place known today as Yahoo Falls in
the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area of McCreary
County, Kentucky. The bodies of the slaughtered Cherokee were
buried in a mass grave in the rockshelter behind the falls. On
January 31, 1811, just months after the Yahoo Falls massacre,
the surrounding Chickamauga lands were granted for sale at the
minimal price of ten cents an acre in order to encourage the development
of salt works. As salt was an expensive commodity at $25.00 a
barrel, the local white settlers who orchestrated the Yahoo Falls
massacre purchased the land containing salt springs and became
rich.
The white settlers' hatred of Red
Bird and his people grew, in part, out of their indifference between
the Chickamauga who fought with the Shawnee in the Northwest Territory
against Kentucky troops at Fallen Timbers, Tippecanoe, and the
River Raisin, and Cherokee who fought alongside American forces
in the Southeast against the Creek at the Battle of Horseshoe
Bend. It was this ignorance and arrogance that led to the murder
of Chief Red Bird and his crippled friend Jack in Clay County.
They were brutally attacked in their sleep by a party of white
hunters in the river bottom, just above the mouth of Hector's
Creek, on the west side of the Red Bird River, directly across
from its confluence with Jack's Creek where Chief Red Bird's cabin
was located. An angry young man in the party that had lost his
father, some say at the Yahoo Falls massacre, mutilated Chief
Red Bird and Jack with their own tomahawks. The murderers threw
the bodies of Red Bird and Jack into a place called "Willie's
Hole," and stole their belongings. Not long after the crime,
Red Bird's longtime friend, John Gilbert, discovered the slaughtered
bodies. The angry young man, said to have had an odd surname,
returned to the scene just as John Gilbert was pulling the bodies
ashore. Together, they buried the elder Cherokee in the sandy
floor of a nearby rockshelter.
After Red Bird's murder, remnants
of his people lived along Little Goose Creek, in Clay County,
which was the dividing line between the Cherokee and white settlers
until the end of the Trail of Tears in 1839. Some of the Cherokee
on the Trail of Tears escaped and secretly joined their extended
families in Clay County. Since then, the Cherokee people of Kentucky
have suffered genocide and today they are subjected to ethnocide.
Ironically, outside of the reserve lands in North Carolina and
Oklahoma, there are more people of Cherokee descent in Kentucky
than any other state.
Following
pages used by permission of
Kenneth B. Tankersley, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology,
University of Cincinnati; Natural History Unit, BBC: