Long wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern
relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now
nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca)
Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyada'ge`oñnoñ, a name rather freely
rendered "cave people." The latter call the Iroquois, or rather
their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndawe'gi,
Ani'-Nûn-dawe'gi, or Ani'-Se'nika, the first forms being derived from
Nûndawa'ga or Nûndawa'-ono, "people of the great hills," the name by
which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by
Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement,
from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina,
known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee.
The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of
the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated
all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms
against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According
to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having
attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west,
while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace
treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates. Whatever the cause,
the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league.
From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a
five days' journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance
was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a
series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds
of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated
by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois
boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough
to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably
in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for
either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally
made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary
between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by
the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit
of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was
recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution.
Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two
tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If
a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee
before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe
from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers,
if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but
they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering
to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the
Seneca and the Erie.
The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had
its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on
their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there
a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, "singing their
favorite songs," i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing
and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action
of the dance.
According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie,
the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent
a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the
southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition,
and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which
entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore
said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie,
at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained
ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the
same treaty described in the story of "The Seneca Peacemakers." A
formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through
the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768.
In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of
Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out
to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been
taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him
chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft
fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured
when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward,
when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe,
he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an
overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and
live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but
on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of
his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives,
if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his
kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca.
From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed
account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie,
and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford's information
concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two
eyewitnesses--Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ'wa`li,
"Hard-mush," who afterward explained the belt at the great council
near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota
conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few
miles away, while Gatûñ'wa`li was already a young man.
The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at
Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have
been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a
delegation of chiefs, headed by Âganstâ'ta, "Groundhog-sausage,"
of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760-61 against the
English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates
invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit,
but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and
in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against
the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is
probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at
Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the
formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north.
According to Sequoya's account, as given to Wafford, there had been
a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were
never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at
last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make
peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts
and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennessee river,
perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of
arriving at Itsâ'ti or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of
the Cherokee Nation--situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico
creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee--they found themselves
on the outskirts of Ta'likwa' or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10
or 15 miles to the southward.
Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their
number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened the chief
and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had
just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and
asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out
food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was
eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her,
and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his
tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the
chief's house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized
their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing
in the doorway kept them off, saying: "This man has come here on a
peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me." They
finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring
his companions to the chief's house, where they were all taken care of.
When they were well rested after their long journey the chief
of Ta'likwa himself went with them to Itsâ'ti, the capital, where
lived the great chief Âganstâ'ta, who was now the civil ruler of the
Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was
held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his
message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought
as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon
their backs.
He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make
peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country,
and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the
water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they
looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For
another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they
looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time
had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace
with their enemies.
The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and
other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other
belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual
round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people
in the north and the long war was at an end.
For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the
Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to
the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old
home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal
chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great
intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory,
in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker,
Gatûñ'wa`li, "Hard-mush," who had seen them delivered to the chiefs
of his tribe at old Itsâ'ti seventy years before. Wafford was present
on this occasion and describes it.
Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the
original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each
belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford's recollection, there
was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads
did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There
were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the
chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other
ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling
the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of
the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were
much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle
at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects
altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded
by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the
War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of
Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general,
Stand Watie.