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To: Donald Meaker
So would you suggest that Buck Watie was a scalaway, in that he sold out the Cherokee for personal gain?

Did you mean 'scalawag'?

Anyway,

Scalawag - a white Southerner who supported Reconstruction policies after the American Civil War (usually for self-interest)

"Stand Watie was born Dec. 12, 1806, near Rome Georgia, and died Sept. 9, 1871, at his home on Honey Creek in Delaware County, Oklahoma, near the northwest corner of Arkansas. He learned to read and write English at a mission school in Georgia, and occasionally helped write for the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper (after Sequoyah developed the 86-symbol Cherokee syllabary in 1821) with his brother Buck Watie (who took the name of Elias Boudinot from a white benefactor). His father David Watie (or Oowatie) was the brother of Major Ridge, and the Ridge-Watie families became wealthy slave-owning planters in the new Cherokee constitutional republic that replaced tribal government in 1827. The state of Georgia opposed any form of tribal government and in 1828 began to pass repressive anti-Indian laws without any recourse for the Cherokee in state courts. After gold was discovered on Cherokee lands in northern Georgia, 3000 white settlers poached on Indian lands. Only the treaties with the federal government gave Indians protection from the states. The Supreme Court under John Marshall declared the repressive state laws null and void in the 1832 Worcester v. Georgia case, but President Jackson refused to enforce the court's decision. In 1832, Georgia confiscated most of the Cherokee land, including the estates of John Ross, and sold them in a land lottery to whites. The Georgia militia entered the Cherokee capital of New Chota and destroyed the Cherokee Phoenix. "

"The Ridge-Watie faction allied with President Andrew Jackson to sign the New Echota Treaty Dec. 29, 1835, that required Cherokees to leave Georgia in return for 800,000 acres in the Indian Territory and $15 million. The Treaty was opposed by tribal chief John Ross and the Council and most Cherokees who refused to leave their homes in Georgia. The Ridge-Watie group led the voluntary removal of 2000 Cherokees from Georgia to the Indian Territory in 1837, but Ross and 10,000 others were forced out on the "Trail of Tears" in 1838. Some members of the anti-treaty party decided to kill the leaders of the Treaty Party at a secret meeting at Double Springs on June 21, 1838, and the next day killed Major Ridge and John Ridge and Elias Boudinot. The executions were justified by a clause of the Cherokee Constitution that authorized the death penaly for anyone selling tribal land without authorization. Stand Watie was also marked for death, but was warned and escaped. The Cherokee nation was deeply divided by the experience of the Treaty and the Trail of Tears and the Ridge-Boudinot murders. Watie formed a band of warriors for protection and refused to disband after Ross complained to the Jackson government. This internal civil war lasted until a truce was established in 1846 and Stand Watie joined the Tribal Council 1845-1861 (although Ross would remain the official elected Principal Chief until his death in 1866) presiding over a Cherokee population of 21,000 in the Indian Territory in 1861."

Native Americans

I don't think you have a case, meaker.

614 posted on 07/15/2006 5:44:23 AM PDT by cowboyway (My heroes have always been Cowboys)
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To: cowboyway

I figure that the Ridge faction got the 15 million dollars, and first shot at the 800,000 acres of land.

Stand Watie would have noticed this, and when sent to the Confederate legislature, greatly impressed southern plantation holders (who because of poor farm practices, were always looking for more virgin land further west) with his willingness to provide that virgin land at the expense of his tribe, as had other members of his family.

As such he was a "confederate" version of a scalawag, but his plans did not come to fruition due to the Union victory.


618 posted on 07/15/2006 12:38:24 PM PDT by Donald Meaker (Brother, can you Paradigm?)
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