THE PEACHTREE VALLEY AND VALLEY TOWN MISSION: A BAPTIST RECATEGORIZATION OF A CHEROKEE LANDSCAPE A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Western Carolina University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History. By James Anthony Owen Director: Dr. Andrew Denson Associate Professor of History History Department Committee Members: Dr. Richard Starnes, History Dr. David Cozzo, Ehtnobotanist Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians June, 2012 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my director, Dr. Andrew Denson, and my committee members, Dr. Richard Starnes and Dr. David Cozzo, each of whom provided support, encouragement, and an array of resources for conducting and analyzing this research. I would also like to thank Dr. Elizabeth McRae for inspiring me to take big jumps off of ideological cliffs, the Western Carolina University History Department and Writing and Learning Center for the challenges and motivations that have pushed this work forward. Much appreciation goes to Tom Belt and Dr. Hartwell Frances for their instruction and conversations about Cherokee language, landscape, and history, and T.J. Holland for open conversation about Cherokee history and mysteries. I want to thank my parents, Dr. Helen Owen and Daniel V. Owen for raising me in the southern mountain woods and encouraging me to dig in the dirt. I especially want to express my deep thanks for the patience, love, comic relief, and baked goods that my wife Anna Cox provided during the two and a half years of work presented here. 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Abbreviations………………………………………………………………….....v Abstract…………….……………………………………………………………………vi Introduction……….………………………………………………………………..….…7 1. Cherokee Cosmology and the Power of Place in the Peachtree Valley………...…...34 Cherokee “Ecology”: An Inclusive Society………………...…………………...34 Peachtree Valley Archaeology…………………………………………………...37 Peachtree Places………………………………………………………………… 41 Rabbit and the “Encrypted Encyclopedia” of Cherokee Culture………….……..46 Rattlesnakes Weaving Through the Cherokee World…………………………...53 Ukte’na: Mysteries, Knowledge, and the “Mythologized Landscape”…………62 The Thunder’s Necklace, Lightning, Honey Locust, and Ball Play……………..70 River Cane and Southeastern Social Ecology……………………………………77 Kwa’na, The Peach-Plum Naming Switch: An Early European Influence……...82 The Cherokee and The Natchez: Mississippian Culture on the Upper Hiwassee.84 The Cherokee World Viewed From Peachtree Valley…………………………..89 2. Charles Hicks: Language, Religion, and Landscape During Cherokee Transition….92 Cherokee: A Language Aligned with Well-Being…………………..………….97 Charles Hicks: A Respected Cherokee Voice………………………………….104 A Cherokee Christian…………………………………………………………...112 Hicks and Posey: A Shared Voice On a Changing Landscape………………...122 Categorizing Land Ownership………………………………………………….126 The Cherokee Syllabary: Charles Hicks, Sequoyah, and a New Social Capital..134 Charles Hicks’ Scrofula………………………………………………………...137 3. Reverend Humphrey Posey: Remaking the Spirit of a “Benighted” Land….…......142 Humphrey Posey’s Salvation…………………………………………………...145 The Reverend Humphrey Posey’s Circuit and “Articles of Faith”……………..150 Mountain Baptist Associations…………………………………………………156 Humphrey Posey and Northern Missionaries…………………………………..160 Unity in the midst of a “Great Dissension”…………………………………….164 “Among the Heathen”…………………………………………………………..170 A Clear Voice…………………………………………………………………..174 Missionaries Gather for Council………………………………………………..182 80 Acres at “Notchee Town”…………………………………………………...185 Tensions Grow………………………………………………………………….193 4. Evan Jones and Jesse Bushyhead: A Cherokee Christian Landscape………….......201 The Cherokee Category of “Politics”…………………………………………..201 European Economics on a Cherokee Landscape……………………………….204 Evan Jones’ Successful Mission……………………………………….............210 Changing Land, Changing Language, and Cherokee “Politics”………………..218 Jones’ and Posey’s Separate Paths……………………………………………...229 Jesse Bushyhead…………………………………………………………...……236 “A Remarkable Revival of Religion”…………………………………………..240 Murder Accusations, Oaths, and Arrests……………………………………….243 4 Conclusion………………………………………………………………….………….250 Bibliography……………………………………………………………….…………..259 5 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ABCFM……….American Board of Christian Foreign Missions BFMB…………Baptist Foreign Mission Board BJ……………… Phillips, Joyce B. and Paul Gary Phillips ed. The Brainerd Journal, A Mission to the Cherokees, 1817­1823. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1998. BMM………….. Baptist Missionary Magazine 11-15, 1816-1838. ECSEBCI.……..Cozzo, David. “Ethnobotanical Classification System and Medical Ethnobotany of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians.” PhD dissertation. Univerity of Georgia, Athens, 2004. HMSFC…….…. Mooney, James. History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees. Fairview, NC: Historical Images, 1992. HNCB……….....Paschal, George Washington. History of North Carolina Baptists Volume II. Raleigh: The General Board North Carolina Baptist State Convention, 1955. LDL…………… The Latter Day Luminary 1-6, 1819-1825. MSMC…..…..... McClinton‐Ruff, Rowena, ed. The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Volumes 1, 1805­1813, and 2, 1814­1821. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska, 2007. PBP…………..…Payne, John Howard, and Daniel Butrick. The Payne­Butrick Papers, Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. Editors William L. Anderson, Jane L. Brown, and Anne F. Rogers. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 2010. PCJR………….. Ross, John. The Papers of Chief John Ross, Volume I, 1807­1839, ed. Gary Moulton, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984. PMVS…………. Setzler, Frank M. and Jesse D. Jennings. Peachtree Mound and Village Site, Cherokee County North Carolina. Smithsonian Institution Bureau Of American Ethnology Bulletin 131, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1941. 6 ABSTRACT THE PEACHTREE VALLEY AND VALLEY TOWN MISSION: A BAPTIST RECATEGORIZATION OF A CHEROKEE LANDSCAPE James Anthony Owen, MA US History/ Cherokee Studies Western Carolina University (July 2012) Director: Dr. Andrew Denson Peachtree Valley in Clay county, North Carolina has a long history of diversity in plant, animal, and human habitation. The Cherokee, who have inhabited the valley for thousands of years, have a deep history of relationships with the cultural and biological diversity of the mountains. An intricate web of Cherokee knowledge and ways of thinking once maintained a sense of balance and well-being within existing ecological systems. The arrival of Europeans in the Cherokee world presented challenges in maintaining balance, communicating useful ideas, and establishing functional social and ecological relationships. The Baptists, who established a mission in the Peachtree Valley in 1819, were more successful in navigating Cherokee modes of thinking and communicating than other missionaries. Baptist success was rooted in their eventual willingness to learn from Cherokee systems. Cherokees categorizations of the world and engaged relationships with plants and animals of the landscape came to be connected with biblical ideas and Jesus’ morality through the work of Reverend Evan Jones and a small group of Cherokees he baptized and taught. The history of the Valley Towns Baptist mission demonstrates ways that ecological awareness and landscape-based sensibilities classified Christian and Baptist ideas in uniquely Cherokee ways, even as those same ideas simplified diverse Cherokee categorizations of the world. 7 INTRODUCTION When I began research for this project, the intent was to focus on Cherokee and pioneer Baptists and their relationships to the rivers of the Western North Carolina mountains. I initially began researching connections between Cherokee preacher Clifford Hornbuckle, who preached until the 1970’s, and my grandfather and his ancestors, the Owen and Moore families. As someone who was born and raised in the region by a long line of Baptist ministers, I grew up regularly attending Macedonia Baptist Church in Transylvania county and Hanging Dog Baptist Church in Cherokee county where Cherokee members and preachers were common, and hymns sung in Cherokee were not unheard of. I naively assumed that tracing a continuous history back to early Cherokee Baptists would be possible, and even straightforward. I had initially planned to discuss the similarities between Cherokee “going to water” rituals and full-immersion baptism, then to explore the differences in Cherokee and white ideologies centered on these same rituals. As research developed, I realized that simply discussing river relationships downplayed the complexity of Cherokee and white Baptist relationships to the landscapes on which they lived. As I delved deeper into the history of western North Carolina Baptists, I discovered Reverend Humphrey Posey, the first American Baptist Board Missionary to the Cherokee, and an associate of my great-great-grandfather, Reverend John Owen.1 I was then on the trail of the history of the Valley Towns Baptist mission that Posey established in Peachtree Valley in 1819. The story of the first Baptist mission to the Cherokee provided the perfect window into 1 E. H. Stillwell, Historical Sketch of Tuckaseegee Baptist Association, 1829- 1929, (Cullowhee, NC: Western Carolina Teacher’s College, 1929), 11-12. 8 the complicated landscape relationships and corresponding ideologies I hoped to discuss and I expanded the research to reflect that complexity. As I have compiled these pages, discussed ideas