Posted on 01/07/2004 7:12:30 AM PST by Aurelius
Many have no doubt heard of the valor of the Cherokee warriors under the command of Brigadier General Stand Watie in the West and of Thomas’ famous North Carolina Legion in the East during the War for Southern Independence from 1861 to 1865. But why did the Cherokees and their brethren, the Creeks, Seminoles, Choctaws, and Chickasaws determine to make common cause with the Confederate South against the Northern Union? To know their reasons is very instructive as to the issues underlying that tragic war. Most Americans have been propagandized rather than educated in the causes of the war, all this to justify the perpetrators and victors. Considering the Cherokee view uncovers much truth buried by decades of politically correct propaganda and allows a broader and truer perspective.
On August 21, 1861, the Cherokee Nation by a General Convention at Tahlequah (in Oklahoma) declared its common cause with the Confederate States against the Northern Union. A treaty was concluded on October 7th between the Confederate States and the Cherokee Nation, and on October 9th, John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation called into session the Cherokee National Committee and National Council to approve and implement that treaty and a future course of action.
The Cherokees had at first considerable consternation over the growing conflict and desired to remain neutral. They had much common economy and contact with their Confederate neighbors, but their treaties were with the government of the United States.
The Northern conduct of the war against their neighbors, strong repression of Northern political dissent, and the roughshod trampling of the U. S Constitution under the new regime and political powers in Washington soon changed their thinking.
The Cherokee were perhaps the best educated and literate of the American Indian Tribes. They were also among the most Christian. Learning and wisdom were highly esteemed. They revered the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution as particularly important guarantors of their rights and freedoms. It is not surprising then that on October 28, 1861, the National Council issued a Declaration by the People of the Cherokee Nation of the Causes Which Have Impelled them to Unite Their Fortunes With Those of the Confederate States of America.
The introductory words of this declaration strongly resembled the 1776 Declaration of Independence:
"When circumstances beyond their control compel one people to sever the ties which have long existed between them and another state or confederacy, and to contract new alliances and establish new relations for the security of their rights and liberties, it is fit that they should publicly declare the reasons by which their action is justified."
In the next paragraphs of their declaration the Cherokee Council noted their faithful adherence to their treaties with the United States in the past and how they had faithfully attempted neutrality until the present. But the seventh paragraph begins to delineate their alarm with Northern aggression and sympathy with the South:
"But Providence rules the destinies of nations, and events, by inexorable necessity, overrule human resolutions."
Comparing the relatively limited objectives and defensive nature of the Southern cause in contrast to the aggressive actions of the North they remarked of the Confederate States:
"Disclaiming any intention to invade the Northern States, they sought only to repel the invaders from their own soil and to secure the right of governing themselves. They claimed only the privilege asserted in the Declaration of American Independence, and on which the right of Northern States themselves to self-government is formed, and altering their form of government when it became no longer tolerable and establishing new forms for the security of their liberties."
The next paragraph noted the orderly and democratic process by which each of the Confederate States seceded. This was without violence or coercion and nowhere were liberties abridged or civilian courts and authorities made subordinate to the military. Also noted was the growing unity and success of the South against Northern aggression. The following or ninth paragraph contrasts this with ruthless and totalitarian trends in the North:
"But in the Northern States the Cherokee people saw with alarm a violated constitution, all civil liberty put in peril, and all rules of civilized warfare and the dictates of common humanity and decency unhesitatingly disregarded. In the states which still adhered to the Union a military despotism had displaced civilian power and the laws became silent with arms. Free speech and almost free thought became a crime. The right of habeas corpus, guaranteed by the constitution, disappeared at the nod of a Secretary of State or a general of the lowest grade. The mandate of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court was at naught by the military power and this outrage on common right approved by a President sworn to support the constitution. War on the largest scale was waged, and the immense bodies of troops called into the field in the absence of any warranting it under the pretense of suppressing unlawful combination of men."
The tenth paragraph continues the indictment of the Northern political party in power and the conduct of the Union Armies:
"The humanities of war, which even barbarians respect, were no longer thought worthy to be observed. Foreign mercenaries and the scum of the cities and the inmates of prisons were enlisted and organized into brigades and sent into Southern States to aid in subjugating a people struggling for freedom, to burn, to plunder, and to commit the basest of outrages on the women; while the heels of armed tyranny trod upon the necks of Maryland and Missouri, and men of the highest character and position were incarcerated upon suspicion without process of law, in jails, forts, and prison ships, and even women were imprisoned by the arbitrary order of a President and Cabinet Ministers; while the press ceased to be free, and the publication of newspapers was suspended and their issues seized and destroyed; the officers and men taken prisoners in the battles were allowed to remain in captivity by the refusal of the Government to consent to an exchange of prisoners; as they had left their dead on more than one field of battle that had witnessed their defeat, to be buried and their wounded to be cared for by southern hands."
The eleventh paragraph of the Cherokee declaration is a fairly concise summary of their grievances against the political powers now presiding over a new U. S. Government:
"Whatever causes the Cherokee people may have had in the past to complain of some of the southern states, they cannot but feel that their interests and destiny are inseparably connected to those of the south. The war now waging is a war of Northern cupidity and fanaticism against the institution of African servitude; against the commercial freedom of the south, and against the political freedom of the states, and its objects are to annihilate the sovereignty of those states and utterly change the nature of the general government."
The Cherokees felt they had been faithful and loyal to their treaties with the United States, but now perceived that the relationship was not reciprocal and that their very existence as a people was threatened. They had also witnessed the recent exploitation of the properties and rights of Indian tribes in Kansas, Nebraska, and Oregon, and feared that they, too, might soon become victims of Northern rapacity. Therefore, they were compelled to abrogate those treaties in defense of their people, lands, and rights. They felt the Union had already made war on them by their actions.
Finally, appealing to their inalienable right to self-defense and self-determination as a free people, they concluded their declaration with the following words:
"Obeying the dictates of prudence and providing for the general safety and welfare, confident of the rectitude of their intentions and true to their obligations to duty and honor, they accept the issue thus forced upon them, unite their fortunes now and forever with the Confederate States, and take up arms for the common cause, and with entire confidence of the justice of that cause and with a firm reliance upon Divine Providence, will resolutely abide the consequences.
The Cherokees were true to their words. The last shot fired in the war east of the Mississippi was May 6, 1865. This was in an engagement at White Sulphur Springs, near Waynesville, North Carolina, of part of Thomas’ Legion against Kirk’s infamous Union raiders that had wreaked a murderous terrorism and destruction on the civilian population of Western North Carolina. Col. William H. Thomas’ Legion was originally predominantly Cherokee, but had also accrued a large number of North Carolina mountain men. On June 23, 1865, in what was the last land battle of the war, Confederate Brigadier General and Cherokee Chief, Stand Watie, finally surrendered his predominantly Cherokee, Oklahoma Indian force to the Union.
The issues as the Cherokees saw them were 1) self-defense against Northern aggression, both for themselves and their fellow Confederates, 2) the right of self-determination by a free people, 3) protection of their heritage, 4) preservation of their political rights under a constitutional government of law 5) a strong desire to retain the principles of limited government and decentralized power guaranteed by the Constitution, 6) protection of their economic rights and welfare, 7) dismay at the despotism of the party and leaders now in command of the U. S. Government, 8) dismay at the ruthless disregard of commonly accepted rules of warfare by the Union, especially their treatment of civilians and non-combatants, 9) a fear of economic exploitation by corrupt politicians and their supporters based on observed past experience, and 10) alarm at the self-righteous and extreme, punitive, and vengeful pronouncements on the slavery issue voiced by the radical abolitionists and supported by many Northern politicians, journalists, social, and religious (mostly Unitarian) leaders. It should be noted here that some of the Cherokees owned slaves, but the practice was not extensive.
The Cherokee Declaration of October 1861 uncovers a far more complex set of "Civil War" issues than most Americans have been taught. Rediscovered truth is not always welcome. Indeed some of the issues here are so distressing that the general academic, media, and public reaction is to rebury them or shout them down as politically incorrect.
The notion that slavery was the only real or even principal cause of the war is very politically correct and widely held, but historically ignorant. It has served, however, as a convenient ex post facto justification for the war and its conduct. Slavery was an issue, and it was related to many other issues, but it was by no means the only issue, or even the most important underlying issue. It was not even an issue in the way most people think of it. Only about 25% of Southern households owned slaves. For most people, North and South, the slavery issue was not so much whether to keep it or not, but how to phase it out without causing economic and social disruption and disaster. Unfortunately the Southern and Cherokee fear of the radical abolitionists turned out to be well founded.
After the Reconstruction Act was passed in 1867 the radical abolitionists and radical Republicans were able to issue in a shameful era of politically punitive and economically exploitive oppression in the South, the results of which lasted many years, and even today are not yet completely erased.
The Cherokee were and are a remarkable people who have impacted the American heritage far beyond their numbers. We can be especially grateful that they made a well thought out and articulate declaration for supporting and joining the Confederate cause in 1861.
PRINCIPAL REFERENCES:
Emmett Starr, History of the Cherokee Indians, published by the Warden Company, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 1921. Reprinted by Kraus Reprint Company, Millwood, New York, 1977.
Hattie Caldwell Davis, Civil War Letters and Memories from the Great Smoky Mountains, Second Edition published by the author, Maggie Valley, NC, 1999.
In the times and the context, I think more than one interpretation is reasonable. Hiring the labor of other people's slaves was very common, and renting out slaves was a major source of income for many who bought slaves as an investment, but didn't own significant agricultural property.
On the other hand, Mrs. Jackson's being mealy-mouthed is quite "in context," as well. Ladies didn't call a spade a spade, as we do in these air-conditioned times :-).
I don't care (except as an interesting historical question, "What do we 'know,' and why do we think we know it?") whether Gen. Jackson owned slaves. Is there a moral difference between owning a slave and renting the labor of one? Not to me. Is there a moral difference between owning a slave yourself, and your wife's owning a slave? Nope. Is there a moral difference between treating a person well, and treating a person poorly, irrespective of legal status? You betcha. No one has ever suggested that Jackson treated any person, in any context, without respect for his Christian dignity, and that's why I admire him.
I hardly think that is relevent to the discussion here, not even if it is posted twice.
Your complaint about hasty generalization/unrepresentative sample in the poster's supposed inductive error may be hard to support.
The question in court would be called "patterns and practices", and the question here is whether 1) the Cherokee were justified in 1861 in seeing parallels to their removal 25 years before in terms of federal policy and practice, and 2) whether their resulting support of the Confederate position supports Aurelius's writer in concluding that Cherokee agreement with the Confederates that USG had indeed engaged an abusive policy toward divergent (but presumably protected) interests, and that such actions were typical of the ninteenth-century United States Government, does in fact constitute contemporary support for the Confederate position on secession and the Civil War.
It doesn't exactly make the scales go "clang", but it's interesting that the Indian nations sided with the Confederates when they could have remained neutral, and that they said that they took sides out of their own perception, that the Lincoln Administration's policies toward the South reminded them of Jackson's policies toward them, which is a pretty damn strong thing to say, given what they'd been through.
The best way to subvert the document's apparent support would be to allege undue influence by Confederate agents, or some sort of credible coercion.
Then you have never read her book, have you?
ALSO, can you explain why his/her tax records show NO slaves EVER as personal or farm property????
Can you explain why Mary Anna Jackson would talk about slaves owned by the family if there were none?
And we all know that you as...whatever the hell you are, will deny every possible piece of information, regardless of all evidence to the contrary, that you view as negative towards your sothron heros. Lee, Jackson, Stand Watie all owned slaves.
Anyway, at the point I've just reached, he's declared himself a big fan of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston! I don't believe I've ever come across such a thing :-); gives me something new to hunt for in the library.
Do you have an opinion on Johnston, Stainless, or a book to recommend?
What existential or moral importance do you think we should attach to this statement?
Assuming arguendo that you are correct, what value does your statement have for the person reading American history? Is this information useful to know? If so, what is its utility for the modern American?
you are PARTIALLY correct that then ,as now, the well to do politicians DID lord themselves over the "common folk".
nonetheless, the typical CSA veteran KNEW precisely what he/she was fighting for = separation from the thew average southerner regarded as the damnyankee-controlled government, which they regarded as intrusive,coercive, dictatorial,anti-LIBERTY & NOT protective of their GOD-given civil rights.
whether you like this or not, that is the TRUTH.
free the southland,sw
i'm beginning to wonder if the "servants" she describes were "freepersons of colour", hired by the day/week/month OR if they were her father's slaves?????
otherwise the failure to tax his/her supposed "slaves property" for about 15 years makes no sense.
as such, i'll go look at her family's tax records. i'll let you know what i find.
once again, THANKS for your efforts.
free dixie,sw
That's what every faction in a democracy believes when the majority isn't on his side. It's been happening for years, and continues to happen. But in the instant case there was a single, overriding issue that trumped all else and successfully divided the nation geographically. Without that geographical division, there could have been no war. If we could get the abortion issue similarly divided geographically we'd be in the same situation.
as much as i would have liked to "offer my arm & my sword" to the TRUE CAUSE, i DO like my 21st century comforts too.
they also serve the TRUE CAUSE, who work NOW for dixie FREEDOM!
free the southland NOW,sw
those were WILD TIMES! especially in the west. my 87YO mother says, that when she was a girl, the one question that you NEVER asked anyone was, "what was your name in the states????". she said even in the 20s-30s, that was a really GOOD way to start a fight!
i recently found that "The Yellow Rose of Texas", a stunningly beautiful "freewoman of colour" had at LEAST SIX (6) men killed in duels over her, TWO (2) men tried for shooting other man because of jealous rage over her & FOUR (4)men who committed suicide, because they couldn't win her love!
she MUST have been SOMETHING to see!
free dixie,sw
i remember when Billy Mills came from NOWHERE to win the GOLD MEDAL!!! he wasn't even supposed to be in the top 10.
that was a real DAY OF PRIDE for every Indian!!!
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
might does NOT make right.
free dixie NOW,sw
Careful where that leads, non-seq. Walt will be coming after you in a second. Turns out his hero John Marshall owned ten slaves: (Marshall, evil slave holder).
if one insists on a simplistic answer to this complex question (and only simpletons want/need simplistic answers to such questions), let it be this:
southerners wanted to be FREE from a government that they believed no longer was interested in their rights & best interests. i.e.,it was precisely the same cause as the American Revolution.
free dixie NOW,sw
free dixie,sw
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.