Civil Warrior: Cherokee Chief John Ross's Defense of U.S. Constitutional Law and Indian Sovereignty During the American Civil War

During the nineteenth century, the United States frequently abrogated Senate-ratified treaties with Indian nations on its westward march across the continent, seizing tribal lands for its own use in the process. Perhaps no Indian nation understood the cruelties of this land grab better than the Cherokees who lost as much as a quarter of its population on the infamous “Trail of Tears” in the 1830s, and another third during the horrors of the 1860s. The Cherokees of the nineteenth century were a highly modernized people, possessing a constitution, an organized government, and their own alphabet and newspaper. Their constitutionally elected principal chief, a man named John Ross, was educated in the workings of constitutional government, and became the staunchest defender of indigenous rights in American history. As the United States erupted into Civil War in 1861, Ross and the Cherokees found themselves in the middle of a struggle between two white governments, both demanding the loyalty of the Indian nations. Ross’s decision to align with the Confederacy in response to the withdrawal of Federal troops from Indian Territory has been misunderstood – until now. His defense of constitutional law in the face of constant abrogation by the United States found an ally in President Abraham Lincoln, who was poised to reinstate the supremacy of the treaty-making process until his assassination ushered in a new era of attack on indigenous sovereignty. The punitive postwar treaty of 1866 began the process of dismantling that sovereignty. Moreover, the United States began a campaign to dismantle the entire process of treaty-making with Indian nations, depriving the tribes of the constitutional protections provided by Senate-ratified treaties. Ross’s efforts to adhere to the Cherokees’ treaties with the United States and his courageous defense of the process of U.S. constitutional law, even on his death bed, makes this Cherokee Indian a true American patriot and hero