Old Tassel

Utsi'dsata (or Corntassel), known to history as Old Tassel, was "First Beloved Man" (the equivalent of a regional Cherokee chief) of the Overhill Cherokee after 1783. He continuously tried to keep the Cherokee people of the Overhill region out of the Chickamauga Wars being fought at the time between the American frontiersmen and the Chickamauga warriors under Dragging Canoe.

Family

Old Tassel's brothers were the warriors Pumpkin Boy and Doublehead. His maternal nephew was John Watts, also known as "Young Tassel."

Known history

Old Tassell became "First Beloved Man" of the Overhill, and other like-minded Cherokee, in 1783, after the tribal elders removed his predecessor, The Raven of Chota (also known as Savanukah). Being a strong advocate of peace, Old Tassel strove (with only some success), to keep the people of the Overhill towns out of the Chickamauga wars which were being fought at the time between the white settlers and the Chickamauga in what is now East Tennessee.

Notorious death

He and another pacifist chief, Abraham of Chilhowee, were murdered under a flag of truce during an entreaty to the State of Franklin in 1788. The act was considered an atrocity by the Cherokee, and briefly brought all the Cherokee to support the hostile actions of the warriors following Dragging Canoe.

Sources

• Alderman, Pat. Dragging Canoe: Cherokee-Chickamauga War Chief. (Johnson City: Overmountain Press, 1978)
• Brown, John P. Old Frontiers. (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1938).
• Haywood, W. H. The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from its Earliest Settlement up to the Year 1796. (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Publishing House, 1891).
• Moore, John Trotwood and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769–1923, Vol. 1. (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923).
• Ramsey, James Gettys McGregor. The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century. (Chattanooga: Judge David Campbell, 1926).