Hanging Maw

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hanging Maw
Died	c. 1792
Nationality	Cherokee
Title	Leading Chief of the Cherokee
Predecessor	Oconostota
Successor	Little Turkey

Hanging Maw was the leading chief of the Cherokee from 1780 to 1792. He became chief following the death of Oconostota, during the troubled period following the destruction of the tradition capital at Chota (also Echota, Chote, Chota-Tanasi, Chota-Tenase).

His wife, Betsy, was the sister of Attacullaculla and a granddaughter of Moytoy I. She was killed in a raid by whites.

In February 1786 along a wilderness creek in Middle Tennessee approximately twenty miles southeast of Lafayette, Hanging Maw led a party of sixty men in a skirmish with John and Ephraim Peyton, Squire Grant, and two other white men. Outnumbered, the white men successfully fled the area, but lost their horses, game, and surveying instruments to the band of Cherokees. The stream at the site of the skirmish became known as "Defeated Creek."

Preceded by Oconostota

Leading chief of the Cherokee tribe 1780–1792

Succeeded by Little Turkey

[edit] References

• Litton, Gaston L. "The Principal Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation", Chronicles of Oklahoma 15:3 (September 1937) 253-270 (retrieved August 18, 2006).

• THE HOUSE OF HUGHES AND DUNAHOE AND THEIR MANY RELATIVES, page 244.