Talking Walls

1. Talking Walls Jeff Bishop July 10, 2006

2. When was America first settled?

3. Human settlement • Paleoindian Period (ca. 12,000–8000 B.C.) • Archaic Period (ca. 8000–1000 B.C.) • Woodland Period (ca. 1000 B.C.–A.D. 1000) • Mississippian Period of North Georgia (ca. a.d. 1000–1540)

8. Rangel on Ulibahali: “a very fine village close to a large river.” • Sept. 1540 • Elvas: “large timber sunk deep and firmly into the earth, having many long poles the size of the arm, placed crosswise to nearly the height of a lance, with embrasures, and coated with mud inside and out, having loop-holes for archery.” • Rangel said that, at a distance, such timbers looked “like a fine wall or rampart and that “such stockades are very strong.”

9. Elvas: “Ten or twelve chiefs came to him on the road, from the Cacique of that province, tendering his service, bearing bows and arrows and wearing bunches of feathers.” • There were “many Indians lying in wait for them planning to rescue the chief of Coça from the Christians because they were his subjects,” said Rangel. “They had determined to wrest the Cacique of Coça from his power, should that chief have called on them,” reports Elvas. • But instead the “chief of Coça ordered the Indians to lay aside their arms, and it was done,” said Rangel.

10. As usual, DeSoto required food, labor, and women. “After some words between him and the Governor, proffering mutual service, he gave the tamemes that were requisite and thirty women as slaves,” said Elvas. Rangel reports that only twenty women were given, but agrees that the discussions were “peaceful.”

11. DeSoto lost two men here, a Spaniard and a black man. The white man, a “gentleman of Salamanca named Mancano,” was apparently quite taken with the local cuisine. The grapes, Rangel said, were “as good as those grown in the vineyards of Spain.” And while they had reported that in Coosa “they had eaten very good ones, these of Ulibahali were the best.”

12. Elvas agrees it was the grapes that got him. Mancano “strayed off in search of the grapes, which are good here, and plenty,” he said, and he “was lost.” • Rangel noted that Mancano had “kept by himself” for some time, “walking alone and melancholy.” He had “asked the other soldiers to leave him to himself,” and he went missing shortly thereafter. So it was impossible to say whether Mancano had left DeSoto’s group “of his own will or whether he lost his way.” • The other man, Johan Biscayan, a “negro, who spoke Spanish and who belonged to Captain Johan Ruiz Lobillo, was also missing.” said Rangel.

16. Davila Padilla: • “It was God’s will that they should soon get within sight of that place which had been so far famed and so much thought about (Coosa) and, yet, it did not have above thirty houses, or a few more. There were seven little hamlets in its district, five of them smaller and two larger and Coza itself, which name prevailed for the fame it had enjoyed in its antiquity. It looked so much the worse to the Spaniards for having been depicted so grandly, and they had thought it to be so much better. Its inhabitants had been said to be innumerable, the site itself as being wider and more level than Mexico, the springs had been said to be many and of very clear water, food plentiful and gold and silver in abundance, which, without judging rashly, was that which the Spaniards desired most. Truly the land was fertile, but it lacked cultivation. There was much forest, but little fruit, because as it was not cultivated the land was all unimproved and full of thistles and weeds. Those they had brought along as guides, being people who had been there before, declared that they must have been bewitched when this country seemed to them so rich and populated as they had stated. The arrival of Spaniards in former years had driven the Indians up into the forests, where they preferred to live among the wild beasts who did no harm to them, but whom they could master, than among the Spaniards at whose hands they received injuries, although they were good to them. Those from Coza received the guests well, liberally, and with kindness, and the Spaniards appreciated this, the more so as the actions of their predecessors did not call for it ... Every day little groups of them went searching through the country and they found it all deserted and without news of gold ... “

17. “Woe is our nation!” their descendants later recalled in a myth about the destruction of Coosa. “We were the greatest of all the nations; our tus-e-ki-yas were numerous, reaching out and known and dreaded the world over. But it is not so now … great is the humiliation that has fallen on us. Shame and humiliation is now our portion.”

18. Cherokees – 1760s • Coosawattee • Ustanauli • Hightower

19. Thomas Petitt, a mixed-blood Cherokee, reported in 1829 that: • “Toward the close of the Revolutionary War, General Pickens, with an army, burnt the towns of Chota ... He was taken prisoner with his mother and many others, but the general left him and his mother in the Nation when he took most of the prisoners away with him.” • John Wright, a white man married to a Cherokee, also said in 1829: • “About the close of the Revolutionary War, General Andrew Pickens of South Carolina and old General (Elijah) Clark of Georgia marched an army into the Nation and penetrated the country as far down” the Etowah as the Oostanaula, “into the latter river. He was then a boy in the Hightower Village. The inhabitants run and left their town but the army did not cross the river at that place nor attack the Hightower Village.

20. A Cherokee named Rain Crow remembered: “After the close of the Revolutionary War, his father, for fear of the whites, fled” from Seneca, South Carolina to a new Cherokee town at the confluence of the Etowah and Oostanaula rivers in Georgia. The town – previously the Coosa town of Ulibahali -- was now known as “Hightower” or “Etowah Old Town.” Even though it was acknowledged as an old site, white man John Wright reported that when he came there in about 1770 there was “no respectable village at that place.”

21. Richard “Dick” Rowe, a mixed-blood Cherokee, said in 1829 that: • “His father many years ago lived up the Holston and when he was a small boy about the close of the Revolutionary War, the war between the whites and the Cherokees became very oppressive to the Cherokees, so much so, that his father removed the family to the south side of the Etowah or what is commonly called the Hightower, where his father considered them safe.”

22. The Creeks were still living there when the Cherokees came. • “At the time they settled there, there was a small Creek village ... His father had not been there a year when the Creek village broke up and moved down the country to the Newyorker villages on the Tallapoosa.” • When Rain Crow came to Hightower he “was a small boy and did not travel much.” But even as a boy he knew that Creeks still lived on the south side of the Etowah, and joined by an ever increasing number of Cherokee refugees on the north side. • The Creeks agreed, he said, that “should the whites drive the Cherokees from their towns, they might go and settle on the south side” of the Etowah River, “where they would be out of reach.” The Creeks, Rain Crow said, “never gave them the land, only allowed them to live there on these conditions.”

23. John Sevier, whom the Cherokees knew as “Nolichucky Jack,” was notorious for his scorched earth raids into these Cherokee towns. Now, in the fall of 1793, he was leading another punitive raid of 800 volunteers against the Cherokee; he wound up fighting a decisive battle at the very spot visited by DeSoto and the Coosa chief 150 years earlier.

24. “I marched in pursuit of the large body of Indians,” Sevier reported. He and his party of about 700 militiamen marched straight for the heart of the Cherokee Nation, reaching the capital town of Oostanaula on Oct. 14. • “We there made some Cherokee prisoners, who informed us that John Watts headed the army lately out on our frontiers,” said Sevier. The prisoners informed him that the warriors came from Turkey Town (modern day Centre, Alabama), Salacoa ( just below Fairmount), Coosawattee (Carter’s Lake), “and several other” principal towns. The Cherokee warriors “almost to a man (were) out, joined by a large number of the upper Creeks,” who had passed through Oostanaula only a few days before Sevier’s arrival.

25. The warriors had “made for a town at the mouth” of the Coosa River, Sevier was told, for Hightower. • “We, after refreshing the troops, marched for that place, taking the path that leads to that town, along which the Creeks had marched, in five large trails,” Sevier said. This would have led them through Oothcaloga and what is known today as Adairsville and Shannon, then southwest along what is now called Old Calhoun Road. • On the afternoon of Oct. 17, Sevier and his troops arrived. Sevier ordered Col. Kelly to take his regiment and cross the Etowah River, but the “Creeks and a number of Cherokees had intrenched themselves to obstruct the passage,” he reported.

26. Col. Kelly and his men went “down the river half a mile below the ford and began to cross at a private place, where there was no ford,” Sevier said. Kelly and some of his men began to swim across and the “Indians, discovering this movement, immediately left their intrenchments and ran down the river to oppose their passage...” • Walking Stick corroborated this episode in testimony given Dec. 21, 1829: • A group of Cherokees met the whites on the Etowah River about one mile above the mouth of the Oostanaula, Walking Stick said. A “party of Cherokees met the general and fought him and he turned back again and recrossed” the Etowah. Walking Stick was among a group of 100 reinforcements who “arrived too late.”

27. But it was a diversion tactic – a lure. As soon as the Indians left their entrenchments, Capt. Evans “immediately with his company of mounted infantry strained their hoses back to the upper ford and began to cross the river,” said Sevier. • “Very few had got to the south bank before the Indians, who had discovered their mistake, returned and recieved them furiously at the rising of the bank,” said Sevier. “An engagement instantly took place and became very warm, and notwithstanding the enemy were at least four to one in numbers, besides the advantage of situation, Capt. Evans with his heroic company put them in a short time utterly to flight.” • The Indians “left several dead on the ground,” Sevier said, but carried others away “both on foot and on horse. Bark and trails of blood from the wounded were to be seen in every quarter.”

28. “The encampment fell into our hands, with a number of their guns, many of which were of the Spanish sort, with budgets, blankets and match coats, together with some horses. We lost three men in this engagement, which is all that have fell during the time of our route, although this last attack was the fourth the enemy had made upon us, but in the others repulsed without loss. • “After the last engagement we crossed the main Coosa, then proceeded on our way down the main river near the Turnip Mountain, destroying in our way several Creek and Cherokee towns, which they had settled together on each side of the river, and from which they have all fled with apparent precipitation, leaving almost everything behind them. Neither did they after the last engagement attempt to annoy or interrupt us on our march, in any manner whatever. I have got reason to believe their ardor and spirit was well checked. • “The party flogged at Hightower were those which had been out with Watts. There are three or four men slightly wounded and two or three horses killed, but the Indians did not, as I heard of, get a single horse from us the time we were out. We took and destroyed nearly 300 beeves, many of which were of the best and largest kind. Of course their losing so much provision must distress them very much. • “Many women and children might have been taken, but from motives of humanity I did not encourage it to be done, and several taken were suffered to make their escape. Your Excellency knows the disposition of many that were out on this expedition, and can readily account for this conduct.”

29. From Hughes Reynolds’ “Coosa River Valley”: • “The last sentence in this report was evidently intended to cover up a matter that happened immediately after the Battle of Etowah. An Indian woman who had been taken prisoner with her child was standing close by a wounded officer of Sevier’s army. The officer said irritably, “Take her out of my sight.” One of the officer’s friends raised his gun and shot the woman dead. He then grasped the child by the legs and dashed its brains against a tree.”

32. The Cherokee Way • The Seven Clans (Wolf, Deer, Bird, Paint, Blue Savannah, Wind/ Twisters / Longhair, Wild Potato) • Matrilineal • “Blood Law”

33. White Encroachment • The Traders / intermarriage / dependence on trade goods • The Federal Road • Inns / Taverns / Ferries • The 1802 Compact – Agreement with GA • “The Civilization Program.” • Missions • Acculturation / Constitution / New Echota • Clans abolished 1820. Blood law abolished. • Loss of land / Trade deficits / bribes

34. The Ross-Ridge Feud

35. Removal • Nearly every time anthropologist Charles Hudson refers to the removal of the Southeastern Indians from their eastern homelands, he puts the word ‘removal,’ in quotation marks. “Removal,” he said, “is a gentle, almost antiseptic word for one of the harshest, most crudely opportunistic acts in American history. It was act that could only have been perpetrated on a conquered people.”

36. May 24, 1838 (began on 26th) • In GA, 10 forts and five camps • Fort Means, located on a spring-fed creek along the old Cass County / Floyd County line (one land lot west of the current Bartow / Floyd line), served as the collection point for 467 Cherokee prisoners. Capt. John Means commanded 68 men from here. • Camp Scott in Western Floyd County.

37. Wm. Cotter spoke for most Georgians when he said the whites had a perfect right to demand immediate Cherokee removal: • “Mississippi was admitted as a State and had been in possession of her territory for twenty-one years. Alabama, admitted in 1819, had been in possession of her territory nineteen years. Much-maligned Georgia had been kept from her rights thirty-six years, from 1802 to 1838. Take notice of this when you see in encyclopedias and other books that Georgia is charged with robbing the Indians of their lands.”

38. Cotter sets the scene: • “The spring of 1838 opened most beautifully. There was no cold weather after the first of March. Vegetation advanced without any backsets from cold. The buds burst into leaves and blossoms; the woods were green and gay and merry with the singing birds. The Indians started to work in their fields earlier than ever before. ... That spring you could see the smoke of their log heaps or piles of ashes where the boys had been. Fence corners and hedgerows were cleaned out. The ground was well plowed and the corn planted better than ever before. Soon it was knee-high and growing nicely. They cultivated only the richest bottoms. … • “After all the warning and with the soldiers in their midst, the inevitable day appointed found the Indians at work in their houses and in their fields. It is remembered as well as if it had been seen yesterday, that two or three dropped their hoes and ran as fast as they could when they saw the soldiers coming into the field. After that they made no effort to get out of the way. The men handled them gently, but picked them up in the road, in the field, anywhere they found them, part of a family at a time, and carried them to the post.”

39. There are few records of the round-up that the Cherokees themselves recorded, but a woman named Oo-loo-cha, the widow of Sweet Water, wrote the following remembrance on Mar. 5, 1842: • “The soldiers came and took us from our home. They first surrounded our house and they took the mare while we were at work in the fields and they drove us out of doors and did not permit us to take anything with us, not even a second change of clothes. Only the clothes we had on. And they shut the doors after they turned us out. They would not permit any of us to enter the house to get any clothing, but drove us off to a fort that was built at New Echota. They kept us in the fort about three days and then marched us to Ross’s Landing. And still on foot, even our little children. They kept us for about three days at Ross’s Landing and sent us off on a boat to this country.”

40. Rebecca Neugin was only thee years old when her family was taken prisoner by the soldiers, but her mother had related what happened that day: • “After they took us away my mother begged them to let her go back and get some bedding. So they let her go back and she brought what bedding and a few cooking utensils she could carry and had to leave behind all of our other household possessions.”

41. Brainerd, May 26, 1838 [Saturday] • “...The soldiers at the various posts now commenced that work which will doubtless long eclipse the glory of the United States.... • “In Georgia were supposed to be about 8,000 Cherokees. These, in general were taken just as they were found by the soldiers, without permission to stop either for friends or property. • “As the soldiers advanced toward a ... house, two little children fled in fright to the woods. The woman pleaded for permission to seek them, or wait till they came in, giving positive assurances that she would then follow on, and join the company. But all entreaties were vain; and it was not till a day or two after that she would get permission for one of her friends to go back after the lost children. • “A man deaf and dumb, being surprised at the approach of armed men, attempted to make his escape, and because he did not obey and hear the command of his pursuers, was shot dead on the spot. • “One man it is said, had shot a deer, and was taking it home to meet the joyful calculations of his family, when at once he was surprised & taken prisoner to a fort. • “Women absent from their families on visits, or for other purposes, were seized, and men far from their wives and children, were not allowed to return, and also children being forced from home, were dragged off among strangers. Cattle, horses, hogs, household furniture, clothing and money not with them when taken were left. And it is said that the white inhabitants around, stood with open arms to seize whatever property they could put their hands on. Some few who had friends to speak for them, were assisted afterwards in getting some part of their lost goods.”

42. His fellow missionary, Rev. Evan Jones, said that “Well-furnished houses were left a prey to plunderers, who, like hungry wolves, follow in the trail of the captors. These wretches rifle the houses, and strip the helpless, unoffending owners of all they have on earth....” • Rev. Jones said it was “a painful sight” to see his fellow whites descend upon the Cherokee farms. “The property of many has been taken,” he said, “and sold before their eyes for almost nothing – the sellers and buyers in many cases having combined to cheat the poor Indians...”

43. Butrick continues: • “Thus in two or three days about 8,000 people, many of whom were in good circumstances, and some rich, were rendered homeless, houseless and penniless, and exposed to all the ills of captivity. • “In driving them a platoon of soldiers walked before and behind, and a file of soldiers on each side, armed with all the common appalling instruments of death; while the soldiers, it is said would often use the same language as if driving hogs, and goad them forward with their bayonets. • “One man, on being pricked thus, and seeing his children thus goaded on, picked up a stone and struck a soldier; but for this he was handcuffed, and on arriving at the fort, was punished and on starting again was whipped a hundred lashes.”

44. Mooney’s famous summary of the round-up also mentions “families at dinner ... startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway...” These families were “driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of travel leading to the stockades.” • Men were seized in the fields all along the roads. Women were taken from their wheels, and children from their play. In many cases, as they turned for one last look as they crossed the ridge, they saw their homes in flames, fired by the lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot and to pillage. So keen were these outlaws on the scent that in some instances they were driving off the cattle and other stocks of the Indians almost before the soldiers had started their owners in the other direction. Systematic hunts were made by the same men for Indian graves to rob them of the silver pendants and other valuables deposited with the dead.