Major Ridge
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Major Ridge , also Pathkiller II (c.1771 – June 22, 1839) was a Cherokee Indian leader and protégé, along with Charles R. Hicks, of the noted figure James Vann.
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[edit] Background
Ridge was born into the Deer clan in the Cherokee town of Hiwassee along the Hiwassee River, an area later part of Tennessee. His father was named Tatsi (sometimes written Dutsi) and may have at one time been called Aganstata, but this was a common name among the Cherokee as was the practice of changing one's name, which Tatsi's son did. Ridge's maternal grandfather was a Highland Scot; thus Ridge was 3/4 Cherokee by ancestry, and one of the many Cherokees of his time with partial European (especially Scottish) heritage. He was named Ca-Nun-Tah-Cla-Kee (other spellings include Ca-Nun-Ta-Cla-Gee and Ka-Nun-Tah-Kla-Gee), meaning "The Lion Who Walks On The Mountain Top."
Until the end of the Chickamauga Wars, he was known as Nung-Noh-Tah-Hee, meaning "He Who Slays The Enemy In His Path" or Pathkiller (not the same as the chief). After the war, he changed his name to what the English version simplifies as "The Ridge" (as did Bloody Fellow to Clear Sky). He acquired the title "Major" in 1814, during his service leading Cherokees alongside General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War. He also joined Jackson in the First Seminole War in 1818, leading Cherokees against the Seminole Indians. After the war, Ridge became a wealthy planter and slave owner of African Americans. Major Ridge married Sehoyah (Susannah Catherine Wickett), daughter of Ar-tah-ku-ni-sti-sky ("Wickett") and Kate Parris, about 1800.
[edit] Cherokee Removal
Ridge long opposed U.S. government proposals for the Cherokees to sell their lands and remove to the West. However, the rapidly expanding white settlement and Georgia's efforts to abolish the Cherokee government caused him to change his mind. Advised by his son John Ridge, Major Ridge came to believe the best way to preserve the Cherokee Nation was to get good terms for their lands from the U.S. government before it was too late. On December 22, 1835, Ridge was one of the signers of the Treaty of New Echota, which exchanged the Cherokee tribal land east of the Mississippi River for land in what is now Oklahoma. The treaty was of questionable legality, and it was rejected by Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokee people. Nevertheless, the treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Ridge, his family, and many other Cherokees emigrated to the West soon after the treaty. The terms of the treaty were strictly enforced, and those Cherokees (and their African American slaves) who remained on tribal lands in the East were forcibly rounded up by the U.S. government in 1838, and began a journey known as the "Trail of Tears," during which thousands died.
[edit] Assassination
In the West, the Ross faction blamed Ridge and the other signers of the Treaty of New Echota for the hardships of removal. In June 1839, Major Ridge, his son John, and nephew Elias Boudinot, were assassinated by Cherokees of the Ross faction to remove them as political rivals and to intimidate the political establishment of the Old Settlers, which the Ridge faction had joined. Ridge's nephew Stand Watie, the future Confederate general in the Civil War, was also targeted for assassination, but escaped. He eventually became leader of the Western Cherokees.
Ridge and his son are buried along with Stand Watie in Polson Cemetery in Delaware County, OK.
[edit] Further reading
[edit] Primary sources
- Dale, Edwards Everett. Cherokee Cavaliers; Forty Years of Cherokee History as Told in the Correspondences of the Ridge-Watie-Boudinot Family. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1939.
[edit] Secondary Sources
- Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. ISBN 0-385-23953-X. Largely a biography of Major Ridge.
