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Black Fox (c. 1746-1811), also called Enola, was a Cherokee leader during the Cherokee–American wars. He was a signatory of the Holston Treaty, and later became a Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.
Named at birth Enola (also rendered Inali or Enoli), Black Fox was born about 1746. [1] [2] He was a brother-in-law of Chickamauga Cherokee leader, Dragging Canoe, and accompanied him on his migrations south to the Lower Towns during the Cherokee–American wars. Black Fox was the "Beloved Man" (headman) of Ustanali, an important Native American settlement site which is located in what is today New Town in northwestern Georgia. [3] As the fight with the frontier Americans drew to a close, he was one of the signers of the Treaty of Holston (July 2, 1791), an attempt at ending hostilities in the Holston River region.
In 1801 Black Fox was named by the council of chiefs of the Lower and Upper Towns to succeed Little Turkey as Principal Chief of the original Cherokee Nation. [4] The majority of Cherokee at that time lived in the Lower Towns. They were more isolated from European-American contact and tended to be more conservative, maintaining traditional practices and language.[ citation needed ]
During his term in office, Black Fox was the leading negotiator for the Cherokee people with the United States federal government. He is noted for relinquishing nearly 7,000 square miles (18,000 km2) of land in what is today Tennessee and Alabama (under the treaty of January 7, 1806), for which he was given a lifetime annuity of $100. [2] A controversial leader, Black Fox was deposed for a period, only to later be reinstated as Principal Chief in a compromise between two regional factions of Cherokees.
In 1807, Doublehead, who was then speaker of the National Council, signed a treaty without the authority of the council, ceding all Cherokee land west and north of the Tennessee River to the United States. This was land which for centuries had been used for foraging by the Cherokee. A separate arrangement reserved certain parcels of land for use by Doublehead and his relatives. Black Fox confirmed Doublehead's treaty, however, after Return J. Meigs, the United States Indian Agent, promised Black Fox he would receive $1,000 in cash and a regular annuity thereafter. [4] Doublehead was killed shortly thereafter for what many Cherokee viewed as a traitorous act.
In 1808, Black Fox and The Glass (Tagwadihi), another leading chief in the Lower Towns, were deposed by the "young chiefs." These were men mostly from the Upper Towns, led by James Vann and Major Ridge. The driving force of this revolt was due largely to the peoples' resentment of the National Council's domination by older leaders of the Lower Towns, as well as disagreement over the many recent land cessions. Some of the leadership of the Upper Towns were multiracial in ancestry; in addition, their communities were more closely engaged by trade and other links with those of the American settlers, whose frontier had continuously encroached on Cherokee territory. The Upper Town chiefs acquiesced to these territorial changes and desired to work more closely with the Americans.
Black Fox and The Glass were eventually reinstated in a compromise agreement between these two competing factions. This put an end to the councils of the Lower Towns meeting alternately in Willstown (near Fort Payne, Alabama) and Turkeytown (near present day Centre, Alabama), which were presided over by The Glass. Black Fox continued in the role of chief until the 1810 bureaucratic split with the "Old Settlers" then living in the west, remaining chief only of the people of the Cherokee Nation–East thereafter.
As the leading member of the National Council, and strongly influenced by the murder of Doublehead, Black Fox signed the law to end the Cherokee tradition of clan revenge in 1810. Upon his death the following year, he was succeeded by Principal Chief Pathkiller.
The Muscogee, also known as the Mvskoke, Muscogee Creek or just Creek, and the Muscogee Creek Confederacy, are a group of related Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands in the United States. Their historical homelands are in what now comprises southern Tennessee, much of Alabama, western Georgia and parts of northern Florida.
Major Ridge, The Ridge was a Cherokee leader, a member of the tribal council, and a lawmaker. As a warrior, he fought in the Cherokee–American wars against American frontiersmen. Later, Major Ridge led the Cherokee in alliances with General Andrew Jackson and the United States in the Creek and Seminole wars of the early 19th century.
Menawa, first called Hothlepoya, was a Muscogee (Creek) chief and military leader. He was of mixed race, with a Creek mother and a fur trader father of mostly Scots ancestry. As the Creek had a matrilineal system of descent and leadership, his status came from his mother's clan.
James Vann was an influential Cherokee leader, one of the triumvirate with Major Ridge and Charles R. Hicks, who led the Upper Towns of East Tennessee and North Georgia as part of the ᎤᏪᏘ ᏣᎳᎩ ᎠᏰᎵ. He was the son of ᏩᎵ (Wali) Vann and Indian trader Joseph John Vann. He was born into his mother's Clan, ᎠᏂᎪᏓᎨᏫ.
Hanging Maw, or Uskwa'li-gu'ta in Cherokee, was the leading chief of the Overhill Cherokee from 1788 to 1794. They were located in present-day southeastern Tennessee. He became chief following the death of Old Tassel, and the abandonment of the traditional capital at Chota after raids by European Americans.
The Cherokee–American wars, also known as the Chickamauga Wars, were a series of raids, campaigns, ambushes, minor skirmishes, and several full-scale frontier battles in the Old Southwest from 1776 to 1794 between the Cherokee and American settlers on the frontier. Most of the events took place in the Upper South region. While the fighting stretched across the entire period, there were extended periods with little or no action.
Overhill Cherokee was the term for the Cherokee people located in their historic settlements in what is now the U.S. state of Tennessee in the Southeastern United States, on the western side of the Appalachian Mountains. This name was used by 18th-century European traders and explorers from British colonies along the Atlantic coast, as they had to cross the mountains to reach these settlements.
Old Tassel — Reyetaeh in Cherokee language, Koatohee, sometimes Corntassel — was "First Beloved Man" of the Overhill Cherokee after 1783, when the United States gained independence from Great Britain. He worked to try to keep the Cherokee people of the Overhill region out of the Cherokee–American wars being fought between the European-American frontiersmen and the Chickamauga band warriors led by Dragging Canoe. He was murdered in 1788 along with another chief at Chilhowee by white settlers under a flag of truce.
Doublehead (1744–1807) or Incalatanga, was one of the most feared warriors of the Cherokee during the Cherokee–American wars. Following the peace treaty at the Tellico Blockhouse in 1794, he served as one of the leaders of the Chickamauga Cherokee, and he was chosen as the leader of Chickamauga in 1802.
John Watts, also known as Young Tassel, was one of the leaders of the Chickamauga Cherokee during the Cherokee–American wars. Watts became particularly active in the fighting after frontiersmen murdered his uncle, Old Tassel Carpenter (1708–1788), in 1788, while he traveled with Cherokee delegates to a peace conference.
Robert "Bob" Benge, also known as Captain Benge, was a Cherokee leader in the Upper Towns, in present-day far Southwest Virginia during the Cherokee–American wars (1783–1794).
Turtle-at-Home, or Selukuki Wohelengh, was a Cherokee warrior and leader, brother and chief lieutenant of Dragging Canoe, a war-chief in the Cherokee–American wars.
Ta'gwadihi ("Catawba-killer"), also known as Thomas Glass or simply the Glass, at least in correspondence with American officials, was a leading chief of the Cherokee in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, eventually becoming the last principal chief of the Chickamauga.
The Cherokee have participated in over forty treaties in the past three hundred years.
The Cherokee people of the southeastern United States, and later Oklahoma and surrounding areas, have a long military history. Since European contact, Cherokee military activity has been documented in European records. Cherokee tribes and bands had a number of conflicts during the 18th century with Europeans, primarily British colonists from the Southern Colonies. The Eastern Band and Cherokees from the Indian Territory fought in the American Civil War, with bands allying with the Union or the Confederacy. Because many Cherokees allied with the Confederacy, the United States government required a new treaty with the nation after the war. Cherokees have also served in the United States military during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Cherokee history is the written and oral lore, traditions, and historical record maintained by the living Cherokee people and their ancestors. In the 21st century, leaders of the Cherokee people define themselves as those persons enrolled in one of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, The Cherokee Nation, and The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.
The Cherokee Nation was a legal, autonomous, tribal government in North America recognized from 1794 to 1907. It was often referred to simply as "The Nation" by its inhabitants. The government was effectively disbanded in 1907, after its land rights had been extinguished, prior to the admission of Oklahoma as a state. During the late 20th century, the Cherokee people reorganized, instituting a government with sovereign jurisdiction known as the Cherokee Nation. On July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had never been disestablished in the years before allotment and Oklahoma Statehood.
The Chickamauga Cherokee were a Native American group that separated from the greater body of the Cherokee during the American Revolutionary War and up to the early 1800s.
The Treaty of Turkeytown, also known as the Treaty with the Cherokee and the Treaty of Chickasaw Council House (Cherokee) was negotiated on 14 September 1816, between delegates of the former Cherokee Nation on the one part and Major General Andrew Jackson, General David Meriwether and Jesse Franklin, Esq., who served as agents of the United States in the capacity of "commissioners plenipotentiary", on the other part. Conducted following the Creek War, the initial meeting was held at the Chickasaw Council House and stipulated a further meeting on 28 September 1816, to be conducted at "Turkey's Town", on the Coosa River, near the present day town of Centre, in Cherokee County, Alabama. The treaty was ratified by the Cherokee Nation at Turkeytown on 4 October 1816, and signed by Pathkiller, then Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.