Background
John Ross was born near Lookout Mountain, Tenn. , on October 3, 1790. His Indian name was Cooweescoowe. His father was a Scotsman; his mother was one-quarter Cherokee and three-quarters Scot.
John Ross was born near Lookout Mountain, Tenn. , on October 3, 1790. His Indian name was Cooweescoowe. His father was a Scotsman; his mother was one-quarter Cherokee and three-quarters Scot.
Ross was educated by private tutors and then at Kingston Academy in Tennessee.
Ross's rise to prominence began in 1817, when he was elected a member of the Cherokee national council. Two years later he became president of the council, a position he held until 1826. In 1827 he helped write the Cherokee constitution and was elected assistant chief. The following year he became principal chief of the tribe, and he remained in this position until 1839.
In 1829 the state of Georgia ordered the Cherokees removed. Ross became a leader of the faction of the tribe that opposed removal, and he led in challenging the state ruling before the U. S. Supreme Court. His appeal was successful, but Georgia officials refused to obey the higher court's ruling.
In 1835 the U. S. government signed a treaty of removal with a small faction of the Cherokee tribe. Ross drafted an appeal against this treaty, saying that it was obtained by fraudulent means, and addressed it to President Andrew Jackson. Jackson approved the policy of removal, however, as did Martin Van Buren, and when Gen. Winfield Scott arrived in Georgia with troops, Ross and the Cherokee were forced to acquiesce. In 1838-1839 Ross led his people in the removal westward (known as the "Trail of Tears") to the Indian Territory (Oklahoma).
Once there, Ross was instrumental in drafting a Cherokee constitution that united the eastern and western branches of the tribe. That year he was also chosen chief of the united tribe, an office he held until his death. He settled near Park Hill in Oklahoma, where he erected a mansion and farmed, using his many slaves to cultivate his fields.
Ross believed that the Cherokee Indians should not participate in the Civil War, and on May 17, 1861, he issued a proclamation of Cherokee neutrality. However, slave-owning Cherokee brought sufficient pressure to force a council resulting in a treaty of alliance with the Confederacy signed in October 1861. When Union troops invaded Oklahoma in 1862, Ross moved to Philadelphia and repudiated the Confederate alliance. This move caused some Confederate sympathizers in the tribe to dispute his right as chief. Ross lived in Philadelphia until the end of the Civil War. He died while negotiating a treaty for his tribe in Washington, D. C. , on August 1, 1866.
John Ross was a chief of the American Cherokee Indians, headed his tribe during the saddest era in its history, when it was removed from its ancestral lands to Oklahoma.
The City of Chattanooga named the Market Street Bridge in Ross's honor, and a bust of Ross stands on the north side of the Hamilton County Courthouse lawn.
The city of Rossville, Georgia, located just south of the Tennessee state line, is named for Ross. It contains his former home, the John Ross House, where he lived from 1830–1838 until the state seized his lands near the Coosa River. One of the oldest surviving homes in the Chattanooga area, it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark.
Quotations:
"By peace our condition has been improved in the pursuit of civilized life. "
"If the world were a big apartment, we wouldn't get our deposit back. "
John Ross survived two wives and had several children. He married Elizabeth "Quatie" Brown Henley (1791-1839) in 1812 or 1813. She was a Cherokee, born in 1791 and a widow with one child. Her previous husband, Robert Henley, may have died during the War of 1812. Quatie Ross died in 1839 in Arkansas on the Trail of Tears as discussed below, but was survived by their children James McDonald Ross (1814 - 1864), William Allen Ross (1817 - 1891), Jane Ross Meigs-Nave (1821 - 1894), Silas Dean Ross (1829 - 1872) and George Washington Ross (1830 - 1870). John Ross remarried in 1844, to Mary Stapler (1826-1865) whom he survived by less than a year. Their surviving children were Annie Brian Ross Dobson (1845 - 1876) and John Ross, Jr. (1847 - 1905), although John Ross Sr. would be succeeded as chief by his nephew John P. Ross.
(1814 - 1864)
(1845 - 1876)
(1830 - 1870)
(1847 - 1905)
(1821 - 1894)
(1829 - 1872)
(1817 - 1891)
(1826–1865)
(born c. 1790–1839)
