CHAPTER 1 FAMILY, FRIENDS, AND HOME This son will be my greatest joy and greatest sadness. SKYAHETA “LYDIA” CHRISTIE, mother of Nede Wade From an early age, Nede Wade Christie listened to family stories of Cherokee life before removal. He learned about promises made and broken, the desire that non-Indians had for what Cherokees possessed, and just how far they would go to take those resources. He heard about the horrors of the removal trail, about the death of his relatives, and what the future might hold for the Cherokee Nation. Ned also knew just how much his own family lost. Those realities molded his attitudes towards the federal government. Ned’s ancestors were well established in the East. Nede Wade Christie’s grand- mother Quatse “Betsy” was the daughter of Hiketiyah, a Cherokee, and Dutch trader John Christie. Ned’s grandfather Wakigu “Lacy” Dalasini (also known as “Sugar Tree” and “Step-a-long”) was the son of Tsatsi Dalasini. They lived at the base of the Smoky Mountains in the forested Tahquohee District of the Cherokee Nation, in the village of Turtletown. Their son, who became Nede Wade’s father, Wade “Watt” Wakigu, was born in 1817 and he grew up in the same area.1 Nede Wade’s great-uncle Edward (Betsy’s brother), who also was known as “Nede,” and his wife, Sallie Peak Christie, lived on a productive farm on the north side of the Hiwassee River, in modern-day Murphy, North Carolina, less than twenty miles from Turtletown. Great-uncle Edward “Nede” and Sallie were not wealthy, but they lived comfortably in a seventeen-by-seventeen two-story log home with plank floors, a chimney made of sticks and clay, and an attached shed. Also on the property were a smaller log home with a chimney, a smokehouse, two large cornhouses, corncribs, stables and an old hill house. The Christies’ 23 24 Ned Christie most valuable assets were the sixty-five acres of cultivated land with almost two hundred peach, cherry, and large and small apple trees. They also had a son they named Watt (like Ned’s father) who was born in 1812 and later farmed at the mouth of the Valley River.2 The Cherokee Nation encompassed over 120,000 square miles of northern Alabama, northwestern Georgia, northwestern South Carolina, southwestern North Carolina, western Virginia, and eastern Tennessee and Kentucky.3 The areas around the Hiwassee River and its tributaries were fertile and abundant with iron ore and gold, which were greatly desired by intrusive white settlers whose hunger for the resource-rich Cherokee lands resulted in methodical reductions of the Cherokee land base. Between 1721 and 1785, the tribe lost more than half their lands. Then in 1785, after the Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Hopewell with the United States guaranteed the protection of the remaining Cherokee lands; however, over the next thirty years, more treaties were signed and the tribe lost two-thirds of the lands that were supposed to be protected.4 Lacy and Betsy witnessed the land reduction and no doubt worried they would lose more, if not all of it. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the stream of white intruders onto Cherokee lands had increased. In response to the persistent whites who wanted tribal lands, the government kept pressure on the Cherokees to move. Understanding that they would inevitably have to move anyway, almost 3,000 of the 15,000 Cherokees moved to Arkansas Territory in 1818. These “Old Settlers” were later forced to sign a treaty in 1828 requiring them to move farther west to northeast Indian Territory.5 A declining land base was not the only stressor in the Cherokee Nation. The Christie family also paid close attention to how Americans influenced their tra- ditional system of governance and social organization. Non-Indian men, such as the Dutchman John Christie, entered into the Cherokee territory and often married Cherokee women. By the late eighteenth century, the Cherokees’ asso- ciation with Irish, English, German, and other European traders, artisans, and merchants resulted in a significant population of mixed-bloods who adhered to the value systems of their non-Native fathers. Factionalism resulted between those Cherokees who desired wealth, to become Christians, and to leave the old ways behind, including the matriarchal system (that is, tracing descent and clan membership through one’s mother’s female line) and seeking advice from tribal doctors (medicine men and women). But some intermarried whites like John Christie (Ned’s great-grandfather) respected the Cherokees’ social organization and traditional system of governance, and their families continued to adhere to family, friends, and home 25 Lacy Christie, Watt’s father and Ned’s grandfather. Roy Hamilton Collection. Cherokee mores. The Christies continued to trace their Bird Clan line through the traditional way.6 In 1828, gold was discovered on Cherokee land in Dahlonega, an hour north of modern-day Atlanta, resulting in a renewed fervor for tribal land.7 Georgians were determined to take Cherokee property even though the tribe had created a government and declared itself a sovereign nation. The Georgia legislature abol- ished the Cherokee government and laws and prepared to take the tribal property and give it to white citizens. In 1830, Congress passed the Removal Act that authorized President Andrew Jackson to negotiate removal treaties with tribes.8 Two factions emerged among the Cherokees: those who believed there was no choice but to remove west to Indian Territory and those who vowed to fight leaving. Mixed-blood Guwisguwi, also known as John Ross, led the anti- removal National Party. The educated Ross campaigned tirelessly against removal, 26 Ned Christie Watt Christie, father of Ned, in Civil War uniform. Roy Hamilton Collection. including confronting Congress for compensation for Cherokee grievances in 1824. The tribe elected him chief in 1828 and he remained in that position until his death in 1866.9 The leader of the Removal Party, Degatada, also known as Stand Watie, served as speaker of the Cherokee National Council and worked as a businessman and lawyer. His brother Gallegina Uwati, also known as Buck Watie, attended the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, and while there converted to Christianity and married a white woman. He changed his name to Elias Boudinot and continued to argue for Cherokee acculturation.10 A prominent leader of the pro-removal Treaty Party was the wealthy plantation owner and slaveholder Nunnehidihi, or Ganundalegi, best known as Major Ridge or The Ridge.11 Chief John Ross, whom Ned’s father, Watt, knew well, sought an injunction with the Supreme Court arguing that Georgia had no constitutional rights to take family, friends, and home 27 Cherokee lands and Georgia laws violated the Cherokee Nation’s sovereign rights. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831), the Supreme Court ruled that it lacked the authority to hear claims of Indian nations because they are not foreign nations, but are dependent nations within the United States.12 The state of Georgia then passed a law requiring citizens who wanted to reside within the bounds of the Cherokee Nation to obtain a license. A missionary named Samuel Worcester, who established the newspaper Cherokee Phoenix with Elias Boudinot and who translated the Bible into Cherokee, refused to purchase a license and as a result Georgia tried and convicted him. The Supreme Court heard the case and ruled in Worcester v. Georgia (1832) that Georgia’s license law was unconstitutional; only the United States had power to negotiate terms of Indian lands. This ruling had virtually no effect. Georgia and President Jackson ignored it and the removal commenced.13 Even before these Supreme Court cases, the Cherokee Nation took steps to prevent the further loss of land. In 1829 the National Council revitalized a Cherokee law condemning to death any tribal member who sold lands without permission of the council.14 Despite the seriousness of that law, Stand Watie, Elias Boudinot, and Major Ridge signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835 anyway, thus committing the entire tribe to removal. Knowing full well what he had done, Major Ridge told Thomas L. McKenney after signing that “I expect to die for it.”15 And indeed he did, on June 22, 1839, at the hands of those furious at his deception. It did not matter that only a small portion of the tribe committed the entire Cherokee Nation to move. Thirteen detachments of Cherokees started west between January and March 1839.16 In the 1930s, numerous Cherokees inter- viewed for the Indian-Pioneer Papers oral history collection recounted what their grandparents told them. Stories range the spectrum of horrors: starvation, disease, hypothermia, injuries, and theft of personal property.17 Russell Thornton estimates that almost eight thousand Cherokees died as a result of removal. Some died en route to Indian Territory, although the majority of those who perished did so after arrival, from malnutrition, sickness, disease, and hypothermia. Choctaws, Chickasaws, Muskogees, and Seminoles underwent similar removals, resulting in thousands more deaths.18 The Christie family managed to survive, except for Ned’s great-grandmother Betsy who perished from cold and hunger on the trail.19 The Christies arrived in Indian Territory in 1839 during the winter and like other traditionalist fami- lies, they settled away from well-traveled roads. Watt and his first wife, Wadaya, established their home in Wauhillau, twelve miles east of Tahlequah on the banks 28 Ned Christie of the Barren Fork in the Goingsnake District and this is where Nede Wade was born.20 “Wauhillau,” a word that comes from the Cherokee awa’hili, meaning “eagle,” is named for Ned’s mother’s mother, Katie Eagle, who is also known as Wahila, or Goback.21 Other Cherokee families such as the Adairs, Sanders, Squir- rels, and Wolves also established homesteads in the area.22 In 1917, the Tulsa World published a story about thief Bob Davis, “notorious Oklahoma outlaw” who robbed the Bank of Canehill in Arkansas.