Brainerd Mission Cemetery | |
 Brainerd Mission Cemetery | |
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| Location | 5700 Eastgate Loop, Chattanooga, Tennessee |
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| Area | 1 acre (0.40 ha) |
| Built | 1817 |
| Architect | William Crutchfield |
| NRHP reference No. | 79002435 [1] |
| Added to NRHP | December 6, 1979 |
The Brainerd Mission was a Christian mission to the Cherokee in present-day Chattanooga, Tennessee. The associated Brainerd Mission Cemetery is the only part that remains, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Brainerd Mission was established in 1817 by Cyrus Kingsbury, working on behalf of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM). The site was a tract on South Chickamauga Creek, near present-day Chattanooga. It was previously owned by John McDonald, a former Scots trader and grandfather of John Ross, the future principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. [2] [lower-alpha 1] Originally named Chickamauga Mission, it was renamed Brainerd Mission several months later, in honor of David Brainerd, an early New England missionary to Indians. [3]
When the site was acquired, it contained only a dilapidated gristmill and a few other buildings. Within a short time, the missionaries, assisted by Cherokee living nearby, had added separate schoolhouses and dwellings for boys and girls, a cemetery, sawmill, blacksmith shop, wash house, meat house (smokehouse), corn house, and stables. They also built a missionary residence. By the end of the year, they had also cleared and fenced about 40 acres (160,000 m2) to create a farm. [2]
The mission was intended to provide a basic education to Cherokee children, while also instilling Christian religious values. [4] Specifically, this included learning to read and write the English language, and to read the bible in English. The missionaries also taught life skills: for the girls, spinning, knitting, and sewing. The boys were taught animal husbandry, farming, and mechanical skills. [2]
Before the end of 1818, the ABCFM withdrew Kingsbury and sent him to Mississippi as a missionary to the Choctaw Nation. Kingsbury continued serving the Choctaw for the rest of his active career.
On May 27, and 28, 1819, President James Monroe visited Brainerd Mission with General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. His was the first presidential visit to the Hamilton County area. [3] He donated $1,000 to the work of the mission.
The mission officially closed on October 2, 1838, because of Cherokee removal to Indian Territory. [2] In total, the Brainerd Mission served over 300 male and female Cherokee over its 21 years of operation. [4] It was modestly successful in reaching its stated goals, providing many of its students with a basic level of English proficiency. It was less successful in its goal of religious conversion, as only a few Cherokee joined the church. [4]
All that remains of the mission is the cemetery. [2] The former site of the mission has been redeveloped most recently as the Eastgate Shopping Center. The cemetery is one of the oldest in Hamilton County and consists of 60 graves, most of which are missionary workers. The Daughters of the American Revolution has been integral to preservation of the site. They continue to own and maintain the cemetery. [2]
Several prominent missionaries served at Brainerd Mission at various times; people such as
A relatively small number of students who had graduated from Brainerd Mission became notable figures later in life. The number includes: [2]
The Cherokee are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, southwestern Virginia, edges of western South Carolina, northern Georgia and northeastern Alabama consisting of around 40,000 square miles
Park Hill is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in southwestern Cherokee County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 3,909 at the 2010 census. It lies near Tahlequah, east of the junction of U.S. Route 62 and State Highway 82.
John Ross was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828 to 1866; he served longer in that position than any other person. Described as the Moses of his people, Ross influenced the nation through such tumultuous events as the relocation to Indian Territory and the American Civil War.
Elias Boudinot, also known as Buck Watie) was a writer, newspaper editor, and leader of the Cherokee Nation. He was a member of a prominent family, and was born and grew up in Cherokee territory, now part of present-day Georgia. Born to parents of mixed Cherokee and European ancestry and educated at the Foreign Mission School in Connecticut, he became one of several leaders who believed that acculturation was critical to Cherokee survival. He was influential in the period of removal to Indian Territory.
Elias Cornelius Boudinot was an American politician, lawyer, newspaper editor, and co-founder of the Arkansan who served as the delegate to the Confederate States House of Representatives representing the Cherokee Nation. Prior to this he served as an officer of the Confederate States Army in the Trans-Mississippi Theater of the American Civil War. He was the first Native American lawyer permitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Treaty of New Echota was a treaty signed on December 29, 1835, in New Echota, Georgia, by officials of the United States government and representatives of a minority Cherokee political faction, the Treaty Party.
Missionary Ridge is a geographic feature in Chattanooga, Tennessee, site of the Battle of Missionary Ridge, a battle in the American Civil War, fought on November 25, 1863. Union forces under Maj. Gens. Ulysses S. Grant, William T. Sherman, and George H. Thomas routed Confederate forces under General Braxton Bragg and lifted the siege of the city.
New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the Southeastern United States from 1825 until their forced removal in the late 1830s. New Echota is located in present-day Gordon County, in northwest Georgia, north of Calhoun. It is south of Resaca, next to present day New Town, known to the Cherokee as Ꭴꮝꮤꮎꮅ, Ustanali. The site has been preserved as a state park and a historic site. It was designated in 1973 as a National Historic Landmark District.
John Ridge, born Skah-tle-loh-skee, was from a prominent family of the Cherokee Nation that had a lot of status, then located in present-day Georgia. He went to Cornwall, Connecticut, to study at the Foreign Mission School And was very educated. He met Sarah Bird Northup, of a New England Yankee family, and they married in 1824. Soon after their return to New Echota in 1825, Ridge was chosen for the Cherokee National Council and became a leader in the tribe.
The Cherokee Phoenix is the first newspaper published by Native Americans in the United States and the first published in a Native American language. The first issue was published in English and Cherokee on February 21, 1828, in New Echota, capital of the Cherokee Nation. The paper continued until 1834. The Cherokee Phoenix was revived in the 20th century, and today it publishes both print and Internet versions.
Samuel Austin Worcester, was an American missionary to the Cherokee, translator of the Bible, printer, and defender of the Cherokee sovereignty. He collaborated with Elias Boudinot (Cherokee) in Georgia to establish the Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspaper, which was printed in both English and the Cherokee syllabary. The Cherokee gave Worcester the honorary name A-tse-nu-sti, which translates to "messenger" in English.
Elias Cornelius (1794–1832) was an American Christian missionary and ordained minister.
Red Clay State Historic Park is a state park located in southern Bradley County, Tennessee, United States. The park preserves the Red Clay Council Grounds, which were the site of the last capital of the Cherokee Nation in the eastern United States from 1832 to 1838 before the enforcement of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. This act resulted in a forced migration of most of the Cherokee people to present-day Oklahoma known as the Cherokee removal. At the council grounds, the Cherokee made multiple unsuccessful pleas to the U.S. government to be allowed to remain in their ancestral homeland. The site is considered sacred to the Cherokees, and includes the Blue Hole Spring, a large hydrological spring. It is also listed as an interpretive center along the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
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 Foreign Mission School was an educational institution which operated between 1817 and 1826 in Cornwall, Connecticut. It was established by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The ABCFM was focused on sending missionaries to non-Christian cultures, mostly overseas.
Harriet Ruggles Gold Boudinot (1805–1836) was notable as the wife of Cherokee Elias Boudinot, who became a leader in the Cherokee Nation and editor of its newspaper The Cherokee Phoenix. Harriett was the youngest of fourteen children of Colonel Benjamin and Eleanor Gold of Cornwall, Connecticut; they were a prominent Congregationalist family of English descent.
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.
Cherokee removal, part of the Trail of Tears, refers to the forced relocation between 1836 and 1839 of an estimated 16,000 members of the Cherokee Nation and 1,000–2,000 of their slaves; from their lands in Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama to the Indian Territory in the then Western United States, and the resultant deaths along the way and at the end of the movement of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee and unknown number of slaves.
Cyrus Kingsbury was a Christian missionary active among the American Indians in the nineteenth century. He first worked with the Cherokee and founded Brainerd Mission near Chickamauga, Tennessee, later he served the Choctaw of Mississippi. He was known as "the Father of the Missions" in Indian Territory.
Sophia Sawyer was an American educator. She taught in Cherokee mission schools and founded the Fayetteville Female Seminary.
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