​ A reminder for the first day of American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month: Pocahontas was a real person. She was part of a larger sacred story that has been polluted by Disney and others over the years, resulting in confusion and negligence. The next time (and there will be, trust me) a public official who should know better berates another through the defamation of an indigenous person, remember the integrity of those who were here before us. Those simply trying to play the hand dealt them. In this case, it was a young woman playing the hand dealt by others with power she didn’t have.


For an excellent report on this feminine force from the past, read this National Park Service essay by Sarah Stebbins or Jackie Mansky’s article from 2017. My point here is to remind, and to kick off this heritage month with a brief reflection. My Cherokee 3rd great aunt, Cynthia Rogers Lowe, named her first child “Julia Pocahontas Lowe,” (1846-1903), and I presume Aunt Cynthia did this out of genuine admiration for Pocahontas, not some cartoon-inflated fantasy that has served little purpose other than to entertain in an odd, “sippy cup” sort of way.


As you go about your business this month, especially as you celebrate what we have come to call “Thanksgiving,” please have a care and a pause now and again for the people who populated this land long before any of us were a thought or a prayer.


Wado! (Wah doh, thank you!)
Bryan

(Photo courtesy of The Claremore Daily Progress)

​**Though this series has been primarily about regular, “constitutionally-elected” chiefs, the author asserts that J.B. Milam deserves recognition due to his record of human service.

This is the eleventh in a series of profiles offering brief information on every constitutionally-elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation since 1828.

The first Presidentially-appointed Cherokee Nation Principal Chief since early tribal dissolution, Bartley Milam was designated Principal Chief by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941. Milam was born 10 March 1884 in Texas to William Milam and Sarah Couch. The Civil War had taken its toll on the Milam family and they retreated to Texas in 1863 to escape the war’s disastrous effects. A few years after his birth, his family returned to Indian Territory (I.T.) and settled near today’s Chelsea, Oklahoma.

Milam, like so many young Cherokee men of his day in I.T., attended the Cherokee Male Seminary. He later studied at the Metropolitan Business College in Dallas, Texas. He also held jobs in hardware, banking, and oil and gas. He and his brother-in-law founded Phillips and Milam Oil Company. He married Elizabeth McSpadden in 1904.

Milam became the president of the Cherokee Nation’s first bank, the Bank of Chelsea, in 1915. Milam wasn’t just an innovator; he was a forward-thinking leader with a broad perspective. Having acquired more than a reasonable amount of money, Milam funded Emmet Starr’s work, the most important Cherokee genealogical research at the time. On 8 August 1838, a group of Cherokees got together in I.T. to create a National Council in objection to Presidential appointments for Principal Chief. They elected Milam, and on 16 April 1941, President Roosevelt confirmed his appointment as chief. This was later reconfirmed by President Truman.

Robert J. Conley references biographer Howard Meredith regarding Milam’s concern for the confusion about ownership of the Grand River’s riverbed. Milam was convinced that it belonged to the Cherokees and argued for the rights to it. Milam did much for Cherokee language advancement and helped create the Cherokee National Historical Society, for which this author is extremely grateful. Milam was also a founding member of the National Congress of American Indians. By 1946, Milam had begun acquiring land to be installed in trust for the Cherokees. Later, in August of 1948, Milam was expelled from office after serious disagreements with the Cherokee National Assembly at a convention that was supposed to provide unity but instead turned divisive. Despite this, Milam did much for the Cherokee Nation and its history during his life of service.

Bartley Milam’s papers can be found in the McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Milam died on 8 May 1949 and is buried in Chelsea Cemetery, Chelsea, Oklahoma.

SOURCES:
Conley, Robert J. The Cherokee Nation: A History. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2005.
“J.B. Milam,” Wikipedia. Accessed 14 March 2020.

Public Domain Photo

This is the tenth in a series of profiles offering brief information on every constitutionally-elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation since 1828.

Born 13 December 1847, Rogers was a son to Charles Coody Rogers and Elizabeth McCorkle, “Old Settlers” who had settled in the new Indian Territory. He attended tribal schools and eventually became a farmer. He also built his own general store on his own property, and it is said that when Rogers founded the town of Skiatook, he named it for an Osage (Skiatooka) who had frequented his business.

Rogers served in the Civil War as a private in the Confederate Army, in Company E of the First Regiment of Cherokee Volunteers. In 1881, after spending many years in farming, he was elected as a representative of the Cooweescoowee District in Cherokee Nation politics. He was re-elected in 1883. Six years later, he ran for tribal senator and won. He married Nannie Haynie in 1892. In 1903, he ran against E.L. Cookson for Principal Chief and emerged victorious. During his tenure, Rogers was viewed by fellow Cherokees as acquiescing to the United States Government in their desire to bring an end to the Cherokee Nation. He was impeached and removed from office in 1905 by the National Council. The Secretary of the Interior stepped in and reinstated Rogers, insisting that he still had power to negotiate for the tribe. Rogers held this questionable position for the next twelve years.

Rogers died on 8 November 1917, and is buried in Hillside Mission Cemetery, Skiatook, Oklahoma.

***Bryan D. Jackson’s new release, Chattahoochee Rain (ages 12 and up), is on sale now. It is a historical fiction account that paints a portrait of events during the months leading up to the Cherokee Treaty of New Echota and features some of Bryan’s direct ancestors.

Public Domain Photo

This is the ninth in a series of profiles offering brief information on every constitutionally-elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation since 1828.

Thomas Buffington succeeded Chief Joel Bryan Mayes, who died in office in December, 1891. Buffington was born 15 October 1855, in the Going Snake district of Indian Territory. His parents were Ezekiel and Louisa Buffington; he a Georgia native, and she a native of Tennessee. As a youth, Buffington attended Baptist mission schools with other Cherokees. He owned and cultivated land near Mustang Creek in Indian Territory and was so active in agriculture that he was elected President of the Farmer’s Alliance.

In 1878, he married another Cherokee, Susan Woodall, who died in 1891. He later married Emma Gray. He moved to Vinita and served as mayor. He also served as a circuit judge for four years and was a devout Presbyterian and Mason. When Chief Mayes died, Buffington, who was head of the Cherokee Senate and had right of succession, assumed the duties of Principal Chief. He served for a short time, then later resigned as mayor of Vinita and ran for Principal Chief and won. He served until 1903. He served a second time and then went back to being Vinita’s mayor until 1917.

Chief Buffington died in Vinita, Oklahoma (Oklahoma achieved statehood in 1907) on 11 February 1938. He is buried in Fairview Cemetery, Vinita.

***Bryan D. Jackson’s new release, Chattahoochee Rain (ages 12 and up), is on sale now. It is a historical fiction account that paints a portrait of events during the months leading up to the Cherokee Treaty of New Echota and features some of Bryan’s direct ancestors.

Public Domain Photo - courtesy of Emmet Starr, History of the Cherokee Indians.

This is the eighth in a series of profiles offering brief information on every constitutionally-elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation since 1828.

Samuel Houston Mayes, younger brother of previous chief, Joel Bryan Mayes, was born 11 May 1845 in Muddy Springs, Indian Territory, near today’s Stilwell, Oklahoma. He was of Scots/English and Cherokee descent. Mayes received a Cherokee education at a tribal school and served in the Civil War as a Confederate soldier. Later, like so many, he was a cattle rancher. Later, he entered politics at the local level when he was elected sheriff of the Cooweescoowee District. He married Martha Vann on 9 November 1871.

In 1885, he was elected senator in the Cooweescoowee District and served until 1891. Congress created the Dawes Commission in 1893, the purported purpose being to register members of Native tribes and initiate and monitor allotments of tribal land. In 1895, Mayes was elected Principal Chief. During the first year of his term, the Dawes Commission (chaired by Senator Henry Dawes, a Republican from Massachusetts) essentially hijacked the Cherokee Nation under the cloak of “helping” the Cherokee to determine its rules of citizenship. The Cherokee resisted this encroachment as much as possible but in time were forced to negotiate.

Martha died in 1907, the same year Oklahoma became a state, and Mayes eventually remarried a widow named Minnie Ball, nee Harrison, who survived him. Mayes died on 12 December 1927 at his farm in Pryor Creek, OK. He is buried in Fairview Cemetery in Pryor Creek.

***Bryan D. Jackson’s new release, Chattahoochee Rain (ages 12 and up), is on sale now. It is a historical fiction account that paints a portrait of events during the months leading up to the Treaty of New Echota and features some of Bryan’s direct ancestors.

Public Domain Photo - Courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau

This is the sixth in a series of blog posts offering brief information on every constitutionally-elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation since 1828.

Joel Bryan Mayes was a Georgian, born 2 October 1833 to Samuel and Nancy Adair Mayes. Reports have indicated that the family relocated to Indian Territory in 1838, during the time of the Trail of Tears. Mayes attended the Male Seminary in Tahlequah in 1851 and graduated in 1855. He taught school for a while before moving to the Cooweescoowee District and entering the cattle business.

In 1855, he married Martha Candy, who died in 1857. Mayes enlisted as a private in the 1st Cherokee Regiment in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. By 1862, he attained the rank of captain and was the Assistant Quartermaster of the 2nd Regiment of Cherokee Mounted Volunteers. Two years later he was promoted to Major and assigned to the 1st Indian Brigade by General Stand Waitie. In 1863, Mayes married Martha McNair , who died in 1866 while they were living in the Choctaw region. After the war, he moved to Texas with his family. In 1869, Mayes married a widow, Mary Delilah Vann Drew.

Mayes began his political career as clerk of the Cooweescoowee district court in 1869. In 1881, he was appointed clerk of the citizenship court, which led him to later serve as clerk of the Cherokee Council. He was subsequently posted as an associate justice of the Cherokee Supreme Court, serving for one year before being elected as Chief Justice. On 1 August 1887, Mayes defeated Rabbit Bunch of the National party for Chief of the Cherokee Nation. A contested election, controversy surrounded the circumstances, leading Congress to intervene and create a federal court for the Indian Territory, undercutting previous tribal court authority.

Mayes was reelected to a second term on 3 August 1891. He died shortly thereafter, at his home in Tahlequah on 14 December 1891. Mayes is buried in the Tahlequah City Cemetery, in what is now Cherokee County, Oklahoma (Oklahoma becoming a state in 1907).
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***Bryan D. Jackson’s new release, Chattahoochee Rain (ages 12 and up), is on sale now. It is a historical fiction account that paints a portrait of events during the months leading up to the Treaty of New Echota and features some of Bryan’s direct ancestors.

(Photo courtesy of Wiki Commons - public domain photo)
 
 
This is the fourth in a series of blog posts offering brief information on every constitutionally-elected Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation since 1828.
 
Charles Thompson, or Utselata, was born sometime in the early 1800s in the Cherokee Nation East. While young, he attended the Baptist Mission School in Valley Town, now Andrews, North Carolina. He was heavily influenced by The Rev. Evan Jones and his son, John Buttrick Jones. Utsela’s family was forced to make the journey on the Trail of Tears and settled in what is now Delaware County, Oklahoma.

Utsela joined the Keetoowah Society in 1859.  He joined the 1st Regiment of the Cherokee Mounted Rifles during the Civil War on the Confederate side. In 1867, he was elected as a Delaware District senator to the Cherokee National Council. During this time period, he took the name Charles Thompson. While a senior senator in the Cherokee Senate, he was appointed to fill Chief Downing’s place during his dying days. On 1 August 1875, Thompson defeated William P. Ross in the election for Principal Chief, and served until 1879.
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Charles Thompson died 22 June 1891. He is buried in the old Indian cemetery Eucha, a town that was relocated in 1952. His grave, of course, was relocated at that time.

***Bryan D. Jackson’s new release, Chattahoochee Rain (ages 12 and up), is available for purchase for the holidays. It is a historical fiction account that paints a portrait of events during the months leading up to the Treaty of New Echota and features some of Bryan’s direct ancestors.