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.
free dixie,sw
1. the damnyankees owned THOUSANDS of slaves themselves, which they planned to keep after the southland was beaten,
2.the many banks,insurance companies,railroads & other similar large business interests in damnyankeeland hurried in 1864-65 to protect their "rights to their slave property". unfortunately for the damnyankee revisionists, those records still exist.
3.no less a personage than MG benjamin "the beast" butler sent a letter to stanton asking him how the "contrabands" could be put in a "service of perpetual servitude".
4.high officers in the yankee army, as late as mid-1863 were still selling captured slaves & FREEMEN into slavery on the block in New Orleans. the African American museum in NO has the original documents of sale on public display.
unless you are willing to believe that the damnyankee elites were "men with two tongues, but no hearts" (as southrons & AIs have always said the damnyankees demonstrably are!) AND hateFILLED hypocrites, then by the damnyankees own actions,the WBTS was NOT ever about slavery!
for the south, the war was about LIBERTY;for the north the war was about imperialist conquest of a neighboring nation and/or attempting to coerce the southland to remain in a permanently subordinate position, relative to the north but within "the union of the unwilling".
free dixie,sw
you are EXACTLY correct.<P.free the southland,sw
offhand, i can't think of any men today who are worthy to stand in Marse Robert's boots. NONE!
free dixie NOW,sw
so did a major Boston,MA bank.
while chattal slavery was a HIDEIOUS EVIL,the damnyankees hands are anything but clean when it comes to having funded the slave trade, owning ALL the US-registry slave ships AND actually owning THOUSANDS of slaves themselves, until well after Richmond fell in 1865.
ONLY when it appeared that the south would win, did the war become a crusade against slavery!
no less a person than GEN U S Grant said,
"had the late war been to preserve the institution of chattel slavery,i would have offered my swords to the south."
also note, U S Grant was STILL holding slaves himself in 1866!
face it, from the north's perspective the WBTS was only about CONQUEST & POLITICAL ADVANTAGE. nothing more,nothing less.
Well, that was a stupid and completely unnecessary thing to do. The debate here isn't whether slavery was evil. We can't judge nineteenth century slavery by our own standards because we've had fifteen decades to refine our concepts on the subject. At the time in question opinion was very divided on the subject, not least because slavery as an institution had existed from the dawn of human experience, and most of the people engaged in the question had been born into a society where it had been taken for granted. The debate is whether the Southern states' need to expand the institution (not abolish it; for that wasn't the issue) trumped every other consideration. It did, and that's what initiated the conflict.
Today we see a similar situation in the abortion debate. There are many right-minded people who don't want to see abortion eliminated, but who want to see it contained by limiting its expansion toward such areas as partial-birth and other third-trimester procedures. Opposed to them are those who believe that any imposition on abortion would be a wedge that would ultimately lead to its abolition, and so they adamantly refuse to countenance any restrictions whatever on the procedure. If we could get those two factions lined up in separate geographical areas the resultant political situation would be similar to that existing prior to the civil war.
they SAID they wanted freedom for all the slaves but OBVIOUSLY wanted to KEEP the ones owned by the group!
as usual,yet another "oh so wonderful, righteous & marvelously PC" damnyankee group shows itself to be TWO-FACED!
free dixie,sw
that's why.
free dixie,sw
I think you would have found the gray filth far preferable to the blue, considering that they at least adhered to the principles espoused in the Declaration of Independence ... all men being created equal; endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; life, liberty, etc.
Hardly an a$$ whoopin', considering the blue-zone socialists suffered a much greater number of battlefield casualties. Considering their far superior numbers and materials at the time, their eventual victory is hardly an accomplishment that anyone should feel compelled to brag about.
That's what the Wehrmacht said.
did you REALLY mean to say that the southland was the better of the 2 nations???
free dixie,sw
Apparently you have a tin ear for irony.
face it, you've been LIED TO all your schools days & you've evidently swallowed it hook,line & sinker.
i,otoh, have been studying the ORIGIONAL source documents for about 30 years since i found out the truth about the INTENTIONAL slaughter of my family. AIs & southerners have LONG memories.
what i post may upset you, BUT it is the TRUTH! the original documents of damnyankee hatefulness do not lie.
free dixie,sw
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