Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1885

by Various

About two hundred cabins and wigwams, scattered, with some order but at wide intervals, along the bank of the river, composed the village. The cabins, like those of the white settlers, were square and built of logs; the wigwams were conical, with a frame of slender poles gathered together at the top and covered with buffalo-robes, dressed and smoked to render them impervious to the weather. An opening at the side formed the entrance, and over it was hung a buffalo-hide, which served as a door. The fire was built in the centre of the lodge, and directly overhead was an aperture to let out the smoke. Here the women performed culinary operations, except in warm weather, when such employments were carried on outside in the open air. At night the occupants of the lodge spread their skins and buffalo-robes on the ground, and then men, women, and children, stretching themselves upon them, went to sleep, with their feet to the fire. By day the robes were rolled into mats and made to serve as seats. A lodge of ordinary size would comfortably house a dozen persons; but two families never occupied one domicile, and, the Cherokees seldom having a numerous progeny, not more than five or six persons were often tenants of a single wigwam.

These rude dwellings were mostly strung along the two sides of a wide avenue, which was shaded here and there with large oaks and poplars and trodden hard with the feet of men and horses. At the back of each lodge was a small patch of cleared land, where the women and the negro slaves (stolen from the white settlers over the mountains) cultivated beans, corn, and potatoes, and occasionally some such fruits as apples, pears, and plums. All labor was performed by the women and slaves, as it was considered beneath the dignity of an Indian brave to follow any occupation but that of killing, either wild beasts in the hunt or enemies in war. The house-lots were without fences, and not an enclosure could be seen in the whole settlement, cattle and horses being left to roam at large in the woods and openings.

In the centre of Echota, occupying a wide opening, was a circular, tower-shaped structure, some twenty feet high and ninety in circumference. It was rudely built of stout poles, plastered with clay, and had a roof of the same material sloping down to broad eaves, which effectually protected the walls from moisture. It had a wide entrance, protected by two large buffalo-hides hung so as to meet together in the middle. There were no windows, but an aperture in the roof, shielded by a flap of skins a few feet above the opening, let out the smoke and admitted just enough light to dissipate a portion of the gloom that always shrouded the interior. Low benches, neatly made of cane, were ranged around the circumference of the room. This was the great council-house of the Cherokees. Here they met to celebrate the green-corn dance and their other national ceremonials; and here the king and half-king and the princes and head-men of the various towns consulted together on important occasions, such as making peace or declaring war.

At the time of which I write, several of the log cabins of Echota were occupied by traders, adventurous white men who, tempted by the profit of the traffic with the Cherokees, had been led to a more or less constant residence among them. Their cabins contained their stock in trade,—traps, guns, powder and lead, hatchets, looking-glasses, "stroud," beads, scarlet cloth, and other trinkets, articles generally of small cost, but highly prized by the red-men, and for which they gave in exchange peltries of great value. The trade was one of slow returns, but of great profits to the trader. And it was of about equal advantage to the Indian; for with the trap or rifle he had gotten for a few skins he was able to secure more game in a day than his bow and arrow and rude "dead-fall" would procure for him in a month of toilsome hunting. The traders were therefore held in high esteem among the Cherokees, who encouraged their living and even marrying among them. In fact, such alliances were deemed highly honorable, and were often sought by the daughters of the most distinguished chiefs. Consequently, among the trader's other chattels would often be found a dusky mate and a half-dozen half-breed children; and this, too, when he had already a wife and family somewhere in the white settlements.

These traders were an important class in the early history of the country. Of necessity well acquainted with the various routes traversing the Indian territory, and with the state of feeling among the savages, and passing frequently to and fro between the Indian towns and the white settlements, they were often enabled to warn the whites of intended attacks, and to guide such hostile parties as invaded the Cherokee territory. Though often natives of North Carolina or Virginia, and in sympathy with the colonists, they were, if prudent of speech and behavior, allowed to remain unmolested in the Indian towns, even when the warriors were singing the war-song and brandishing the war-club on the eve of an intended massacre of the settlers.

Living in Echota at this time was one of this class who, on account of his great services to the colonists, is deserving of special mention. His name was Isaac Thomas, and he is said to have been a native of Virginia. He is described as a man about forty years of age, over six feet in height, straight, long-limbed, and wiry, and with a frame so steeled by twenty years of mountain-life that he could endure any conceivable hardship. His features were strongly marked and regular, and they wore an habitual expression of comic gravity; but on occasion his dark, deep-set eye had been known to light up with a look of unconquerable pluck and determination. He wore moccasins and hunting-shirt of buckskin, and his face, neck, and hands, from long exposure, had grown to be of the same color as that material. His coolness and intrepidity had been shown on many occasions, and these qualities, together with his immense strength, had secured him high esteem among the Cherokees, who, like all uncivilized people, set the highest value upon personal courage and physical prowess. It is related that shortly before the massacre at Fort Loudon he interfered in a desperate feud between two Cherokee braves who had drawn their tomahawks to hew each other in pieces. Stepping between them, he wrenched the weapons from their hands, and then, both setting upon him at once, he cooled their heated valor by lifting one after the other into the air and gently tossing him into the Tellico. Subsequently, one of these braves saved his life at the Loudon massacre, at the imminent risk of his own. If I were writing fiction, I might make of this man an interesting character: as it is, it will be seen that facts hereinafter related will fully justify the length of this description.

A wigwam, larger and more pretentious than most of the others in Echota, stood a little apart from the rest, and not far from the council-house. Like the others, it had a frame of poles covered with tanned skins; but it was distinguished from them by a singular "totem,"—an otter in the coils of a water-snake. Its interior was furnished with a sort of rude splendor. The floor was carpeted with buffalo-hides and panther-skins, and round the walls were hung eagles' tails, and the peltries of the fox, the wolf, the badger, the otter, and other wild animals. From a pole in the centre was suspended a small bag,—the mysterious medicine-bag of the occupant. She was a woman who to this day is held in grateful remembrance by many of the descendants of the early settlers beyond the Alleghanies. Her personal appearance is lost to tradition, but it is said to have been queenly and commanding. She was more than the queen, she was the prophetess and Beloved Woman, of the Cherokees.

At this time she is supposed to have been about thirty-five years of age. Her father was an English officer named Ward, but her mother was of the "blood royal," a sister of the reigning half-king Atta-Culla-Culla. The records we have of her are scanty, as they are of all her people, but enough has come down to us to show that she had a kind heart and a sense of justice keen enough to recognize the rights of even her enemies. She must have possessed very strong traits of character to exercise as she did almost autocratic control over the fierce and wellnigh untamable Cherokees when she was known to sympathize with and befriend their enemies the white settlers. Not long before the time of which I am writing, she had saved the lives of two whites,—Jeremiah Jack and William Rankin,—who had come into collision with a party of Cherokees; and subsequently she performed many similar services to the frontier people.

Other wigwams as imposing as that of Nancy Ward, and not far from the council-house, were the habitations of the head-king Oconostota, the half-king Atta-Culla-Culla, and the prince of Echota, Savanuca, otherwise called the Raven. Of these men it will be necessary to say more hereafter: here I need only remark that they have now gathered in the council-house, with many of the principal warriors and head-men of the Ottari Cherokees, and that the present fate of civilization in the Southwest is hanging on their deliberations.

They are of a gigantic race, and none of those at this conclave, except Atta-Culla-Culla, are less than six feet in height "without their moccasins." Squatted as they are gravely around the council-fire, they present a most picturesque appearance. Among them are the Bread-Slave-Catcher, noted for his exploits in stealing negroes; the Tennassee Warrior, prince of the town of that name; Noon-Day, a wide-awake brave; Bloody Fellow, whose subsequent exploits will show the appropriateness of his name; Old Tassell, a wise and reasonably just old man, afterward Archimagus; and John Watts, a promising young half-breed, destined to achieve eminence in slaughtering white people.