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Hello, and welcome to Beautiful Losers of History.  Episode 2, The Dawn of a Nation.

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Last episode, we saw the Cherokee Nation try and fail to assert its independence from the United States in a two-decade-long conflict known as the The Cherokee–American wars. These wars took place in the shadow of the American Revolution, and continued afterwards, from 1776 to 1794. We also met a Cherokee man named ‘The Ridge.’ As a child, The Ridge was forced to flee with his family into the wilderness to escape the devastation wrought by these wars.

Growing up in isolation, The Ridge learned the warrior traditions of his people and fought in the last stage of the Cherokee–American wars.

In 1793, he joined a military campaign led by a Cherokee Chief named Doublehead. Doublehead’s brother, a chief named Old Tassel, had been murdered by Americans despite being part of a diplomatic mission. But this would be The Ridge’s final campaign because Doublehead made the controversial decision to execute an American frontier family after they had already surrendered. This came to be known as the Cavett’s Station Massacre, and it inflamed tensions in an already divided Cherokee nation. 

In this episode, these tensions will only increase as the Cherokee grapple with the rapid developments within their Nation. Every aspect of Cherokee society– from politics, to law, to economics, and agriculture- will undergo major changes. 

These developments happened so quickly, their speed boggles the mind. It took European societies thousands of years to transition from a semi-nomadic hunting and gathering society to a settled, agrarian one. The Cherokee will make this transition in one generation.

In time, these modernization efforts will prove to be so successful that the United States will pass the Indian Removal Act in 1830 to prevent a fully-fledged Cherokee state from developing.

We’re still a few decades away from that, but the seeds are being planted in this episode, and they will eventually blossom.

For this episode, I am relying heavily on Thurman Wilkins  “Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People,” and John Ehle’s “Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation,” as well as “The History of the Indian Tribes of North America,” by Thomas McKenney and James Hall.

With that being said, let’s get on with the show…

***

We ended the last episode in 1793, at the Battle of High Town, where a Tennessee militia decisively defeated Cherokee forces. This would be the last battle between Cherokees and Americans until the Civil War.

But in our narrative, we will not see the Cherokee take up arms against the United States again. Instead, the Cherokee Nation will turn inwards and focus on internal developments and improvements. And the first of these developments was the creation of a national Cherokee government in 1794, one year following the Battle of Hightown.

I’ve been referring to “The Cherokee Nation,” but technically, that’s inaccurate. Before 1794, there was no Cherokee government or Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee people were highly decentralized, and their society was organized into a system of clans. 

A person’s identity was shaped by the clan they were a part of as each clan had its own traditions and philosophies. The Cherokee were a matrilineal society, which meant that children inherited their mother’s clan, so you couldn’t marry somebody within your clan because it was considered incestuous. So a Cherokee could move from one town to another, but no matter where they lived, their clan identity came first. 

Historians believe that there used to be more clans in the past, as many as 14, but at the time of our podcast, there were just seven. Sorry in advance for my mispronunciations, but in the Cherokee language, these clans were: The (a-ni-wa-ya) clan, the (a-ni-a-ha-wi) clan, the (a-ni-tsi-s-qua) clan, the (a-ni-gi-lo-hi) clan, the (a-ni-go-da-ge-wi) clan, the (a-ni-sa-ho-ni) clan, and the (a-ni-wo-di) clan.

In English, these are the Wolf clan, the Deer clan, the Bird clan, the Longhair clan, the Wild Potato clan, the Blue clan, and the Paint clan.

I mentioned there was no Cherokee government before 1794, though there were tribal councils, but these were not national governments in the modern definition. At these councils, representatives from each of the seven clans attended and temporarily appointed a council chief. But these chiefs mostly served as mediators between the clans or as representatives when negotiating with British or colonial governments. They had no real power over the Cherokee people, and the clans still dominated.

Coincidentally, this resembles the government of the United States around this same time under the Articles of Confederation, where people identified with their states, and the national government had no real power. But I digress…

Clans were also responsible for maintaining social order. The most notable demonstration of this came in the form of what’s known as “The Blood Law”. And just a heads up, the “Blood Law” will play an important role in this podcast, so you might want to pay attention.

The “Blood Law” was the foundation of traditional Cherokee communal justice. It was similar to the European concept of an “eye for an eye,” but the “Blood Law” held that blood must be spilled for blood. 

Under the Blood Law, if a Cherokee man was murdered, his clan was responsible for killing the murderer.

This was true even if the original death was accidental.

And if the killer could not be found, the victim’s clan could execute his nearest relative, even if they had nothing to do with the killing.

The problems with this approach to justice are obvious. A revenge killing, especially against a person uninvolved with a crime, easily provoked another revenge killing in response. This provoked a cycle of revenge-based violence between clans similar to medieval Europe, when noble families engaged in violent feuds.

For the Cherokee in the end 18th century, this clan-centric approach to governance was showing its limitations. 

All of this changed in 1794 when a national tribal council established a permanent government for the first time. Cherokee towns sent representatives to select a principal chief of the nation. The principal chief was analogous to the recently created position of the American president, while the national council functioned similarly to the American Congress.

Every Cherokee town selected a representative to serve in the national council, and in 1796, the town of Pine Log, in what is today northern Georgia, selected The Ridge to represent them. 

I mentioned this last episode, but the Ridge was notably poor. His parents had died, and he was responsible for raising his younger siblings. McKenney and Hall write that, when he first arrived at the national council, “He had no property but the clothes he wore, a few silver ornaments, and a white pony, stinted, old, and ugly.”

They go on to say: “When Ridge presented himself before the assembled nation, wretchedly mounted and in meager attire, he was held in such contempt, that it was proposed to exclude him from the council. But the old men invited him to a seat near them, and shook him by the hand, and the younger members one by one reluctantly extended to him the same sign of fellowship.”

Now, I personally think McKenney and Hall may have embellished this anecdote. The “snobby rich kids turning their nose up at the poor kid” isn’t just the formula for countless teen movies, it’s a storytelling trope as old as time. But it is true that The Ridge was poor and out of his element, so in his first appearance at the National Council, he didn’t even speak. 

It didn’t take long for The Ridge to find his voice, though, because at the second national council he attended, he proposed a radical measure: the abolition of the Blood Law. Specifically, he proposed that clans should no longer be allowed to seek revenge for accidental deaths, nor should clans be allowed to punish a relative of a murderer if the original killer couldn’t be found.

The Ridge argued against the injustices of the law, and the council agreed and supported his measure.

As I said, no real government apparatus existed to enforce laws, so The Ridge proposed one: he would enforce it himself. The only thing he asked was that the other chiefs give him their support. If the council stood united, the people would accept this change. And as luck would have it, a test case presented itself when a murder occurred, and the killer escaped before he could be captured. The victim’s family pressed their right to execute the brother of the killer, keeping in line with the traditional blood law. Friends of this man begged the Ridge to protect him.

The Ridge made it clear that if any Cherokee killed this man, the Ridge himself would personally kill whoever committed the revenge killing.

The clan of the initial victim howled in complaint at this affront to their ancient rights, but with the full backing of the council, The Ridge’s threat prevented any violence from occurring. 

In his first political act, The Ridge proved that the Nation could pass laws and enforce them. Instead of each clan pursuing its own approach to justice, now the nation moved forward as one, united by consensus. 

Some historians think the Cavett’s Station massacre, which I discussed last episode, influenced the Ridge’s criticism of the Blood Law. 

A quick refresher on the massacre: A Cherokee army under Chief Doublehead killed an entire family of White settlers, the titular Cavetts, after they had surrendered, and The Ridge witnessed all of this. These historians think this massacre turned The Ridge away from violence and toward the rule of law. Now, I personally think this is simplistic. After all, the problems with the Blood Law are apparent on the surface.

 But that being said, I do think it’s possible the massacre alongside the Ridge’s grueling experience at war could have influenced his dim view of the Blood Law. Remember, Chief Doublehead executed the Cavett family in part because he sought revenge after Americans murdered his Brother who was negotiating under a white flag of truce. None of these murders yielded any positive result, they just perpetuated the cycle of American-on-Cherokee violence. So it kind of makes sense that the Ridge would seek out a more rational approach to justice.

This sensibility wasn’t limited to politics. As we’ll see, the Ridge, and the Cherokee nation as a whole would embrace radical change in other spheres of life…

***

Around the time the Ridge joined the national council, he took another great leap forward in his life: he got married. History records his wife’s name as Susanna Wickett, though her Cherokee name was probably Se-ho-yah. Unfortunately, we don’t know a lot about her, though McKenney & Hall wrote that she was “handsome and sensible” and “possessed a fine person and an engaging countenance” and had “an excellent character.” Which is probably about the best you could hope for a 19th-century American man to say about an Indian Woman.

After their marriage ceremony, The Ridge would have taken Susanna to their new home in Pine Log. It probably looked like a typical Cherokee home at the time: a simple log house with a dirt floor and a bark roof with a hole in the center so that a fire could be made on the ground without filling the home with smoke. 

I’ve mentioned Pine Log and other Cherokee towns before, so now’s as good a time as any to clarify what these towns looked like. Generally speaking, they were a small collection of wooden houses like the one I described. As you probably know, Indian tribes didn’t have a concept of private land ownership like Europeans and Americans. 

So in Cherokee towns, near the collection of cabins, there would be a communal field where each family would farm a small plot to grow food. I say “the family” would farm, but it was almost always wives who practiced agriculture.

Husbands, like The Ridge, could be gone for months at a time on hunting expeditions. Sometimes these men hunted for meat, but more often it was to obtain animal skins and furs that commanded high prices from American and European merchants. Wives, like Susanna, would have to provide for their family in the husband’s absence, and she likely grew pumpkins, squash, melons, sweet potatoes, cabbages, and beans. 

Just as private property didn’t exist, neither did capitalism. The purpose of farming was to feed your family, not to sell crops for a profit. But times were changing, and the Cherokee began to grow a new crop. It was a plant that Southern White farmers had begun to invest heavily in, and it was a plant that would, over time, come to dominate the economy of the United States. This plant was cotton.

***

As I mentioned last episode, the American government didn’t quite know what to do with its Indian population. Later, it would settle on a policy of Indian Removal, but in the early years after independence, this solution hadn’t been determined yet.

President George Washington believed in a policy of controlled, gradual settlement of the West and avoiding war with Indians. Not only were these wars inhumane, but they were incredibly expensive.

 In 1789, Washington’s Secretary of War, William Knox, acknowledged the right of Indians to their lands.

“The Indians, being the prior occupants, possess the right of the soil,” Knox said. “It cannot be taken from them unless by their free consent…” 

He even echoed future critics of the Indian Removal Act, and said that taking these lands by force was morally unacceptable. In addition to the high cost, “the blood and injustice involved would stain the character of the nation.” (Now that’s what I call Foreshadowing)

The early American government tried to sidestep the issue of forced annexation by introducing a policy of “civilizing” the Indians. The idea was that if Indians adopted American agriculture practices, they would no longer need the extensive hunting grounds they possessed. These excess lands could then be purchased by the US government to be settled. 

In 1792, in pursuit of this “civilizing” policy, Congress appropriated funds for teaching Indian Women what was then known as “the domestic arts”, which included agriculture and weaving.

And in 1796, an Indian Agent arrived in Pine Log while the Ridge and other Cherokee men were away on a hunt. Indian Agents were officials who were authorized to interact with Indian tribes on behalf of the American government, and an agent named Benjamin Hawkins met with Susanna and other women of Pine Log. Hawkins encouraged the women to plant cotton and taught them how to use spinning wheels and looms to make cloth, which could be sold to American merchants. Hawkin’s wrote that the Cherokee women were intrigued by his offer, and took him up on it.

Records show that one chief returned home to find that the cloth his wife made was worth more than the entire haul of fur pelts he collected on his six-month long hunt.

We don’t know whether it was The Ridge or Susanna who convinced the other to embrace this new change in lifestyle, but in any case, both eventually agreed.

The Ridge gets most of history’s attention, but Susanna was clearly a powerful driving force behind her husband. Alongside Susanna, The Ridge took up farming and gave up the tradition of leaving home for several months at a time to go hunting.

He and Susana left Pine Log to settle in a rich valley along the Oothkalooga Creek in Northwest Georgia, near what is today the city of Rome. Just like American pioneers on the frontier, The Ridge chopped down trees to clear a plot of land and built a house. He must have had an eye for real estate, because over time, other Cherokee elite would follow and set down roots in the Oothkalooga valley, and it was said that Cherokees lived better there than in any other part of the nation.

Soon, they had their first child, a girl. I couldn’t find her Cherokee name, but her English name was Nancy. Next, in 1802, they had a son, named Skah-tle-loh-skee in Cherokee. In English, he would be called John Ridge. Just a heads up, John Ridge will play an important role later in this podcast. 

The Ridge would also adopt another farming tradition from the neighboring Americans: slavery. Specifically, he would enslave Black Africans whom he obtained from white slave traders.

Just as Americans hypocritically fought their war of independence in the name of freedom, while denying the same freedom to others, the Cherokee would pursue freedom from American domination while enslaving thousands of Black men, women, and children.

Remember, the Cherokee homelands were in the American South. When they adopted American ways of life in the name of modernization, slavery was central to this economic development, just as it was central to America’s own development. And just like the United States, the Cherokee Nation is still grappling with its history of slavery today.

Along with two or three enslaved people that he borrowed from a wealthier Cherokee, The Ridge built a two-bedroom cabin, which, though modest, did have the luxury of a chimney. He planted a small grove of seven apple trees, but over time, his holdings would expand greatly. Eventually, he would own apple and peach orchards, and grow corn and cotton, while breeding livestock such as cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep. In time, he would also invest in river ferries and trading posts, which, combined with his growing slave population, would make him one of the wealthiest Cherokees in the nation.

***

If you’re still with me, you may be wondering what any of this has to do with the Indian Removal Act. But, as we’ll see, all of these developments in Cherokee society will start ringing alarm bells across the southern states, where demand for Indian territory was strongest.

Ironically, Washington’s policy of “civilizing” the Indians to induce them to sell excess land also had the effect of centralizing what had previously been a decentralized society. Herein lies the contradiction of American Indian policy, because a more centralized Cherokee Nation would actually be harder to remove from their lands than if Americans played divide and conquer. 

I want to be clear, though, that Cherokee society wasn’t centralized solely because of America’s “civilizing” policy. 

Developments in agriculture, economics, law, and government were reached independently in response to the changing political order following American independence, not by edict from the Americans.

Now, the Cherokee are about to make another radical change, this time in the field of education. And just as Washington may seem a surprise defender of Indian sovereignty, support for education reform also came from unexpected outsiders.

This push came from the Moravians, a small but devout protestant Christian sect based in North Carolina whose members mostly spoke German.

In 1798, two Moravian Missionaries attended the Cherokee National Council and proposed sending teachers to establish a school in Cherokee territory.

The council was divided by the offer. 

Most chiefs supporting the offer came from the Upper Towns, where they had spent years working to maintain good relations with the Americans.

Gone were the days when the Indian and the White Man could live in two separate worlds, and these chiefs believed that an American-style education would strengthen the next generation of Cherokee leaders.

Americans often used deception and legal trickery when negotiating land deals. They would promise cash and safety in exchange for land, but put it down in a contract that the Cherokee could not read. Often, American settlers would later arrive and claim ownership of land that the Cherokee hadn’t even realized they had surrendered.

The only precaution the Cherokee had to prevent this was to hire an outside negotiator to represent them, which also carried the potential for abuse, because these representatives could also take advantage of them. 

Supporters of the school believed it would train new leaders to be more self-reliant in these kinds of negotiations.

Most chiefs who opposed the Moravians’ offer came from the lower towns. The Lower Towns had been built by the Cherokee, who evacuated their homelands because of American expansion. They understandably harbored more suspicions towards these outsiders promising to solve all of their problems. 

The leading voice opposed to the Moravians was none other than Chief Doublehead, the man behind the Cavett’s Station Massacre. 

Doublehead asked the Moravians whether they were coming to preach or to teach. The Moravians replied that they would do both. It was their holy duty to spread the word of God, and they could not separate the act of teaching from the act of proselytizing.

Next, Doublehead asked if Cherokee children would be charged for room, board, and clothing. Yes, the Moravians replied, for the children must learn the value of money.

These were not the answers Doublehead wanted to hear, and he told Moravians they should go home.

The council started to splinter as chiefs representing the Upper Towns turned against the missionaries.

But there was still a handful of chiefs who continued to lobby for the school. Two of these chiefs were named Charles Hicks and James Vann. Hicks and Vann had a mixture of Cherokee and European ancestry. This mixed lineage wasn’t unheard of, though. Like clan membership, Cherokee identity was matrilineal, meaning that if you had a Cherokee mother, you were considered just as Cherokee as the next member of the nation.

But Cherokee with European ancestry often had a degree of privilege because they were more familiar with American society and thus could serve as ambassadors between Cherokees and Americans. Politically speaking, mixed-blood Cherokee often supported modernization efforts more than pure blood Cerokee, and Hicks and Vann were the leading proponents of modernization efforts on the council.   

They were also the Ridge’s political mentors, so he deferred to them in the school fight.

Hicks and Vann were among the wealthiest Cherokee in the Nation, and they offered the Moravians land they owned to build a school, regardless of the council’s vote.

Tensions were high. If the council split on the matter, there was a risk that delegates from Upper Towns who supported the school could withdraw and set up their own national council.

Doublehead relented and allowed a vote. After a slow, tense tally, he announced that the measure had passed. A school would be built. Land would be provided by Hicks and Vann, but Doublehead warned that Moravians could be evicted at any time if they did not live up to their end of the bargain. 

Vann provided the Moravians a plot of land in the Oothkalooga valley to build their school. But lest you think this was all done out of altruism, he chose a spot along a proposed road that the American government wanted to build between Augusta, Georgia, and Nashville, Tennessee. Vann was a supporter of the road because it would increase the value of his property and allow him to build inns, taverns, and trading posts. 

The Ridge and Susanna welcomed the school for a more understandable reason: They had young children, and the school was only a two-day ride away. In a couple of years, their children would be able to attend.

 But before that could happen, the Moravians caused another headache.

***

It was 1800, and two years had passed since they had received permission to build their school, and it was still not complete. The national council was frustrated by this delay and told the Moravians so. To their surprise, the Moravians said they were disappointed too. The school hadn’t opened yet, but they had completed a church months ago, and they still hadn’t had a single Cherokee convert. And since they only planned on teaching the children of Christian Cherokee, well, you could see how that was a problem. 

What’s that you say? Only Christian Cherokee could be students? That was never the deal!

The Moravians insisted that this had always been their position. Oh, and they said they would only be able to accommodate four students. That’s right: FOUR. Numero Quatro.

The chiefs were apoplectic at this response. James Vann tried to calm things down, but he was beginning to appear compromised by the Moravians’ intransigence. After all, wasn’t it convenient that their so-called “school” was right on the proposed Federal Road that would enrich him? Perhaps that was the reason the missionaries were here, as agents, hired by Vann and sent by the new American President, Thomas Jefferson, to swindle the Cherokee out of their land to build the road.

Doublehead and the chiefs of the Lower Towns accused Vann of collusion and told the Moravians that if their school wasn’t open by the next National Council, they would be expelled from the Nation. The Moravians turned to Vann for support, but he gave them the cold shoulder.

At the next National Council, in 1803, it had been nearly four years since approval was given to open a school, and the chiefs were furious. After sticking their necks out for the Moravians, James Vann and Charles Hicks were too embarrassed to defend them. But with a stubbornness that only the pious could have, the Moravians refused to allow more than four students.

The council was about to call the deal off, once and for all, when, miracle of miracles, another Christian missionary arrived. This man, a Presbyterian minister named Gideon Blackburn, had traveled from Tennessee and asked to address the council. He told them that his church could provide three or four teachers if they were allowed to build a school. Moreover, each teacher could educate twenty-five to thirty students each. Compare this to the Moravians’ four.

Blackburn said the Presbyterians would also cover tuition, food, and uniforms, versus the Moravians, who would charge for all of this. 

Also, Blackburn promised not to work to convert the students. Hymns would be sung, yes, and stories from the bible would be included in the curriculum, but this was the case at every modern school in America, and wasn’t unusual. If an individual chose to convert down the line, Blackburn said they would be welcomed with open arms, but the Presbyterians would not require it to attend the school.

The council was elated at this news, and the Moravians were left with egg on their face. Having been outmaneuvered by these richer, more popular Christians, they agreed to open the school within a year and admit more students, as well as to drop the conversion requirement. 

***

You may be wondering why I took you along on this strange detour from the narrative. But trust me, it is important. They got off to a rocky start, but in time, Christian missionaries would become the closest allies of the Cherokee.

The Moravians would spend the next three decades in the Cherokee Nation, longer than any other Americans. Over this time, they worked alongside the Cherokee, and both people got to know each other intimately. Most Americans would never have these close relationships with Indians. All they would know about them was stories in a newspaper about distant conflicts on the frontier, where savages scalped and raped innocent, white, Christian souls.

By the time of the Indian Removal Act, it was the missionaries who defended the Cherokee and other tribes more than any other white people. It speaks to the contradictions of this time and how different it is from our own. 

Evangelical Christians today tend to be the most conservative faction of American society. And more progressive listeners may have a hard time seeing these bible thumpers as friends to the Cherokee, considering that their deepest desire was to convert all of them.

But, you have to keep in mind that America in 1800 is radically foreign to the America of today. Christianity permeated all aspects of society, much more so than today, so any constructive or progressive movement would be made of devout Christians, just as any reactionary or conservative movement would. It’s important to remember these seeming paradoxes because you may be inclined to judge individuals for not conforming to modern standards of allyship. 

Even these closest friends to the Cherokee still used terms like “savages” and “civilization” in ways that might make modern listeners wince. But know that this was common parlance at the time, and Cherokees who spoke English used this language and expressed similar sentiments. So I think it’s important to focus on the broad strokes of the story, and appreciate the complexity of all individuals involved, rather than get lost in the minutia.

With that being said, I’m gonna end this episode with one last story which wraps up the conflict between Doublehead on one side, and Vann, Hicks, and The Ridge on the other…

***

Over the years that the school debate was raging, the Cherokee Nation continued to develop. James Vann, Charles Hicks, and the Ridge all grew more prosperous by embracing these developments. But nobody grew richer than Doublehead.

All four men owned plantations, as well as shares in trading posts and ferry crossings.

But where Doublehead exceeded all others was in land cultivation. It became an open secret that American merchants and federal agents preferred negotiating with Doublehead because he accepted bribes. 

 Charles Hicks worked as a translator for an American Indian agent named Return J. Meigs (side note, many people in the 19th century had great names). This connection to Meigs got Hicks insider information about Doublehead’s double dealings.

In 1805, federal agents suggested that the Cherokee sell a large tract of land in Tennessee, but these agents made it clear they would only negotiate with Doublehead.

In a private negotiation, Doublehead ceded all lands north of the Tennessee River, including the best hunting grounds still claimed by the Cherokee in Kentucky. Hicks discovered that these agents gave Doublehead two tracks of high-quality land at river crossings as part of the agreement.

Adding insult to injury, Doublehead turned around and leased this new property to white farmers for a regular cash income. He wasn’t even farming the land he was bribed with, he was flipping it to the Americans!

It wasn’t just the shady land sales that turned people against Doublehead, McKenney & Hall wrote that he was becoming increasingly tyrannical in his leadership: “ He made himself odious by his arbitrary conduct. He not only executed the laws according to his own pleasure, but caused innocent men to be put to death who thwarted his views. The chiefs and the people alike began to fear him.”

Doublehead brushed off these criticisms because there was no legal way to restrain him. Remember, government and due process were new to the Cherokee, so any response had to be improvised. It had been custom that no Cherokee could sell land to outsiders without the council’s permission, but this was a tradition, not a law.

That was enough for most chiefs though. It was decided that Doublehead must be executed, and that James Vann, The Ridge, and a third Cherokee man, named Alexander Saunders, would be the ones to do it.

In August 1807, the three men travelled to the town of Hiawassee to surprise and kill Doublehead before the next national council, but along the way, Vann became ill, leaving The Ridge and Saunders to do the deed alone.

The two men arrived at a small inn called McIntosh’s Tavern, where Doublehead was expected to be. They had just missed him, though, as he had arrived earlier and left for a nearby town to take part in a Cherokee ball game, a sport resembling modern Lacrosse.

At the game, a man called Doublehead a traitor for his corrupt land sales. Doublehead shot the man in response, but failed to kill him. The man then attacked Doublehead with a tomahawk and cut his thumb off until it was hanging by a thread. Doublehead ultimately beat the man to death with his pistol.

All of this was unbeknownst to The Ridge and Saunders. It was late at night when Doublehead finally returned to McIntosh’s Tavern. He was reportedly drunk and agitated because of the earlier fight.

By now, news had reached the tavern about the incident at the ball game. An old man chastised Doublehead over it, and an argument broke out. Another man cursed Doublehead and shoved a cable in his face. The atmosphere was tense. Nobody made a move until, suddenly, The Ridge jumped up, blew the candle out, put a gun to Doublehead’s skull, and shot him. The bullet blasted through his jaw.

The Ridge and Saunders escaped, thinking their deed was finished, but hours later, they heard that Doublehead survived his wound and that he was hiding out in the home of one of the Presbyterian teachers who had recently arrived in the nation.

The Ridge and Saunders turned back, but now they were accompanied by two additional men related to the man Doublehead had killed earlier. Say what you want about him, but he wasn’t for a lack of enemies.

 The men arrived at the teacher’s home before dawn, and when they did, they let out a war whoop and rushed into the room where Doublehead was recovering. Despite his injuries, which by now included a severed thumb and a bullet in his jaw, Doublehead leapt out of bed with a pistol in one hand and a dagger in the other.  The Ridge and Saunders fired their pistols, but they both misfired.

The Ridge wrestled Doublehead to the ground before he could use his weapons, and it’s a testament to Doublehead’s strength that he was able to fight at all. But he didn’t last long. Saunders swung a tomahawk into the chief’s head with such force that it took two hands and a foot pressed against Doublehead’s skull to pry it loose.

Finally, one of the men related to the man Doublehead had killed earlier continued to beat his skull in with a shovel until it was crushed into a pulp. This brutality, motivated by revenge, goes to show that the lingering tradition of the Blood Law hadn’t been forgotten yet. 

Exhausted, they stepped outside and saw that a small crowd had formed in response to the commotion. The Ridge addressed the crowd and explained their actions and under what authority he took them. Nobody seemed too upset; they all agreed that, however crudely, justice had been done.

***

The first decade of the 19th century was an erratic one for the Cherokee. There were land cessions and political divisions, but it was also a time without war for the first time in memory. The Cherokee Nation was experiencing rapid developments in agriculture, education, law, industry, and economics. And many men like The Ridge were beginning to grow rich.

Many in the nation hoped that these developments would stem the tide of future American expansion, and for a moment, it looked like they might be right.

Next episode, we’ll take a step back from the Cherokee narrative and focus on the rapid changes happening in the young American Republic at this same time. And just around the corner is another war between the Americans and the British. Though in this war, the Cherokee will side with their new American partner, hoping it will lead to a partnership of equals. Unless, that is, a young general  named Andrew Jackson, has anything to say about that.

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Beautiful Losers of History is written and narrated by me, Nathan McDermott. Logo design is by Nicole Stallings-Blanche, and the theme music and transition sounds are from the Four Seasons, by Vivaldi, under a Creative Commons license. Background Audio is courtesy of Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com. Thanks again, and until next time, this has been Beautiful Losers of History.