As with Cherokee and Civil War history
words wage a lasting battle
Visiting our past by Rob Neufeld
published January 14, 2006 6:00 am
`As a child, I had heard stories from my aunts about Cherokee women
who had such a need to write that they penciled poetry on weathered
kitchen walls … or stitched `little stories' together and stashed them
away in trunks and attics," Virginia Moore Carney writes in "Eastern
Band Cherokee Women: Cultural Persistence in Their Letters and Speeches."
History — not the doing of it but the remembering of it — is as
natural and urgent a need as procreation. It procreates identity.
Lydia Lowery, a 15-year-old Cherokee, had been sent to the Brainerd
Mission east of Chattanooga in 1818 as "a candidate for baptism." One
day, she was walking beside a stream, reciting, "He leadeth me beside
the still waters," when she decided to take a nap. In a dream, she saw
and heard a gathering of Cherokee people chanting a hymn that a spirit
was teaching them.
"God and I are friends," the hymn began, adopting a familial
relationship. "Though all the world be against me, I will still be
confident," it continued, anticipating the forced removal of her
people. Lowery has made the history books, credited with writing the
first Cherokee hymn. Under intense acculturation, she'd found a way to
perpetuate a trace of her heritage through an accepted form.
In contemporary Cherokee performances of gospel music, Sharlotte Neely
points out in her book, "Snowbird Cherokees: People of Persistence,"
Cherokee invite non-Indian singing groups to their Graham County event
"Trail of Tears Singing." The Snowbird singers perform last, singing
in their native language, making a harmony.
Words are powerful, the Cherokee believe. Written down, they can be
disastrous.
The forced removal that Lydia Lowery witnessed had not been part of
the infamous Trail of Tears but of an earlier event — the Treaty of
Tellico, a ceding of Cherokee land in the Great Smoky Mountains six
years after Cherokee warriors had saved Gen. Andrew Jackson in his
campaign against the Creek Indians.
One of the Cherokee soldiers — Yonaguska — had been allowed to stay in
Western North Carolina and establish near Bryson City a village that
later became known as Oconaluftee or Quallatown. William Holland
Thomas, a Waynesville merchant, befriended Yonaguska, learned the
Cherokee language, bought land for the Cherokee, and eventually became
Quallatown's executor.
Thomas' role in persuading Cherokee leader Tsali to surrender during
the Trail of Tears, guaranteeing Quallatown's survival, has been
dramatized in the Cherokee outdoor drama, "Unto These Hills," now
being rewritten. Less well-known is Thomas' fate after the Civil War,
during which he led a Cherokee Confederate legion.
Having used Quallatown as collateral in business loans, Noel Fisher
writes in his new book, "The Civil War in the Smokies," Thomas was
forced to repay his creditor, William Johnston of Asheville, with the
Eastern Band's homeland. The federal government stepped in and awarded
the Quallatown Cherokee 50,000 acres of their holdings.
The legal entanglements that followed required much historical
interpretation.
Rob Neufeld writes the local history feature, "Visiting Our Past," for
the Citizen-Times, and may be reached at 768-2665 or Rob Neufeld
CIVIL WAR TRUTH
Local Civil War historian Jeff Lovelace and military historian Peter
Lorenz will attempt to resolve a debate about what really took place
at the 1865 Battle of Asheville at a presentation at Pack Memorial
Library today, noon to 4 p.m. Lorenz will debut his model of the
battle in progress. Call 250-4700.
Link to Report
Contents
January 2006 Reports
Last updated on January 24, 2006