I'd like to meet:
aThe "Lords of the Plains," as the Comanches became known, are Native American Indians that were originally part of the Shoshone tribe of eastern Wyoming. The Pueblo Rebellion (1680) forced the Spanish to abandon their settlements in New Mexico and gave the Comanche Tribe their first horses. Their riding skills quickly became legendary and changed their lives radically as buffalo became easy prey. They epitomized the mounted plains warrior and had no equal. As moving targets the Comanche were difficult to hit and could fire a flurry of arrows towards an enemy while hanging under the neck of a galloping horse. They rapidly developed the light cavalry tactics that became associated with plains warfare.Comanche Divisions:
Hois (timber people), Jupe (or Hupene, Yupini), Kotsoteka (or Caschotethka, Koocheteka, Kotsai) (buffalo eaters), Kwahada (or Kwahadi, Kwahari, Kwaharior, Quahada) (antelopes), Parkeenaum (water people), Nokoni (or Detsanyuka, Naconee, Nakoni, Nawkoni, Nocony) (people who return), Pehnahterkuh (wasps), Penateka (or Penande, Penetethka) (honey eaters), Tahneemuh (or Dehaui, Tanima, Tevawish, Yanimna) (liver eaters), Tenawa (or Tahnahwah, Tenahwit) (those who stay downstream), Widyunuu (or Widyu Yapa) (awl people), and Yamparika (or Yamparack, Yapparethka) (root eaters).The raid leader always travels first, he goes to the first camp first and when he camps he looks back at the others one after the other, when they have all arrived he holds a council and says, "Back in the village I decided to go to war, everybody knows it, women and children. Now I see you here, I feel glad, a big party - We are going to war."
-Quanah Parker 1897The Tsalagi (Cherokee) are a nation of North American Indians that formerly inhabited the mountainous region of the western Carolinas, northern Georgia, and eastern Tennessee. An Iroquoian-speaking people, they originally lived near the Great Lakes they migrated to the Southeast, eventually becoming the largest and most powerful group in that region.
Their traditional culture included maize agriculture, settled villages, and well-developed ceremonialism. In 1827 the Tsalagi (Cherokee) established a constitutional form of government. The first explorers of the Southeast discovered the most talented Indians north of Mexico. Builders, agriculturists, artisans, fishermen, and hunters epitomized especially the Tsalagi (Cherokees)' varied skills. Knowledgeable in herb culture, they developed useful medicines from them that are still used today. They also developed environmental concepts about ecological thought and survival. We are blessed by the legacies of Tsalagi (Cherokee) oral traditions, providing ethnologists with opportunities
for cultural interpretations: legends about man, animals, supernatural deities, witches, and other evil influences. Their most famous leader, Sequoya, believing literacy provided power to the white man, alone developed the Tsalagi (Cherokee) alphabet (c.1820), and became immortalized when his name was given to Sequoia National Park in California. div A series of fraudulent, land-acquiring treaties were imposed on the Tsalagi (Cherokee) in the 1830s. The Treaty of New Echota (1835), in which a small tribal faction sold 2.83 million ha (7 million acres) of Tsalagi (Cherokee) land, required their removal westward within 3 years.div
The vast majority of the Tsalagi (Cherokee) Nation repudiated this
document, but under Gen. Winfield SCOTT, most remaining Tsalagi (Cherokee) were driven from their land and forcibly marched to Arkansas and Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) in 1838-39. About 4,000 of the more than 15,000 Tsalagi (Cherokee) who made the journey died of disease and exposure. In Indian Territory, they joined the CHICKASAW, CHOCTAW,The Plains Indians of North America lived for thousands of years without horses. The nomadic Blackfoot Indians in particular were known for their great skills in hunting the enormous buffalo long before the first pyramids of Egypt were built. It was after the introduction in 1730 of the animal named "elk-horse" for its great size that the Blackfoot tribes became renowned for their expert horsemanship and continued their dominance of neighboring Native American groups as they pushed westward toward the Rocky Mountains. They had a reputation as fierce warriors and by the mid-19th century controlled a vast amount of territory stretching from northern Saskatchewan to the southernmost waters of the Missouri. They were also known as the strongest and most aggressive military power on the northwestern plains, preventing white men, whom they considered poachers, from impinging on their land and their natural resources for a quarter of a century ("Blackfoot" Britannica ..). But the end of the nineteenth century saw a population decimated by the near extinction of the buffalo as well as repeated epidemics of smallpox and measles. And though still dependent on the land, the remaining were forced onto reservations by US policy and blindly placed into a way of life that lacked social cohesiveness and resulted in the weakening of native institutions and cultural practices ("Native American Peoples" Britannica ..).When Tecumseh, the Shawnee chief, welded a confederacy of tribes to block white man's expansion, arguing that the Indians must return to their old life to preserve their national existence, the Upper Creeks in Alabama eagerly accepted the doctrine. When war was declared between the United States and England in 1812, Tecumseh, at the head of 1,500 warriors, entered British service with the rank of general. The Creeks tried to enlist the Cherokees, and a medicine dance was held at Ustanali, the national capital, where The Prophet, Tecumseh's brother, warned the Cherokees they had broken the road given their fathers at the beginning of the world. They had taken the white man's clothes and trinkets, had beds and tables and mills, even books and cats. All this was bad, they were told, and must be thrown away so they could be Indians again. Of those present, only Major Ridge expressed opposition, warning that such talk would inevitably lead to war with the US and destruction. The followers of The Prophet attacked him and he narrowly escaped with his life. The Prophet threatened to invoke a terrible storm, which would destroy all but the true believers, who were told to gather for safety on one of the mountains. Many Cherokees abandoned their farms and slaves, and everything else that had come from the white man, and went to the mountains. When the appointed day came and passed, the movement died among the Cherokees. As Upper Creeks raged war across Alabama, in a series of battles that usually went bad for the Americans, the Cherokees and some Lower Creeks joined the fight against them. About 400 Cherokee warriors became part of the army of General Andrew Jackson; the Cherokee homefront helped provision the American troops. Cherokees garrisoned Fort Armstrong on the upper Coosa River. Among the places where battles involving Cherokees were fought were Turkeytown, on the upper Coosa River; near the present-day Jacksonville; on the site of today's Talladega; at Hillabee; near present-day Tuskegee; at Holy Ground; near today's Benton; and at Emukfaw Creek, on the northern bank of the Tallapoosa River, where Jackson was badly mauled and had to retreat. To the south, another American army, including another 400 Cherokees, was badly beaten by the Upper Creeks at Caleebee Creek, near today's Tuskegee. All this lead up to the final event of the Creek war, the battle of Horseshoe Bend, of which it can probably be said it was as much a Cherokee victory as an American one, and has been called as much a massacre as a battle. Having received reinforcements, Jackson, with 200 men, including about 500 Cherokee, and two small cannon marched on Horseshoe Bend, where the Creeks held a fortified position on a peninsula of the Tallapoosa River, some 100 acres containing 1,000 warriors plus about 300 women and children. Across the neck of the peninsula the Creeks had built a breastwork of logs, behind which were their houses, and behind those canoes for use if retreat became necessary. On the morning of March 27, 1814, Jackson sent a mounted force of 700 men, plus nearly all his Indian allies - 600, including the 500 Cherokees - across the river to surround the bend and block escape. Then he, with the rest of the army and cannon, assaulted the breastwork head-on. The fortification was 5 to 8 feet high, with a double row of portholes, and so planned that no enemy could approach without being caught in a crossfire. Two hours of cannonading and rifle fire did little. According to report of General Coffee, who headed the cavalry force: "The firing of your cannon and small arms in a short time became general and heavy, which animated our Indians, and seeing about 100 of the warriors and all the squaws and children of the enemy running about among the huts of the village, which was open to our view, they could no longer remain silent spectators. "While some kept up a fire across the river to prevent the enemy's approach to the bank, others plunged into the water and swam the river for canoes that lay at the other shore in considerable numbers and brought them over, in which crafts a number of them embarked and landed on the bend with the enemy. "Col. Gideon Morgan, who commanded the Cherokees, Capt. Kerr, and Capt. William Russell, with a part of his company of spies, were among the first that crossed the river. They advanced into the village and very soon drove the enemy from the huts up the river bank to the fortified works from which they were fighting you. They pursued and continued to annoy during your whole action." The Creeks had been fighting the Americans in their front at such close quarters that their bullets flattened upon the bayonets thrust through the portholes. This attack from the rear by 500 Cherokee diverted their attention and gave opportunity to the Tennesseeans, adopted Cherokee Sam Houston among them, to swam over the breastwork. With more than half their number dead upon the ground, the rest of the Creeks turned and plunged into the river, only to find the banks on the opposite side lined with enemies and escape cut off. The men sent out to count the dead found 557 warriors dead within the enclosure. Coffee estimated that another 250 to 300 were shot in the water. Jackson himself said not more than 20 could have escaped. There was no mention of any wounded. About 300 prisoners were taken, of whom only three were men. On the other side, 26 Americans were killed and 107 wounded, 18 Cherokee killed and 36 wounded, 5 friendly Creeks killed and 11 wounded. The loss of the Cherokee was out of all proportion to their numbers, their fighting having been hand-to-hand work without protecting cover. In view of the fact that Jackson had only a few weeks before being compelled to retreat before the same enemy, and that two hours of artillery and rifle fire had produced no result until the Cherokee attacked the rear of the enemy by crossing the river, this is considerable truth in the boast of the Cherokee that they saved the day for Jackson at Horseshoe Bend. In the number of men engaged and the immense proportion killed, this ranks as probably the greatest Indian battle in the history of the United States and effectively ended the war in Alabama. However, when the Cherokee returned to their home, they found them ravaged in their absence by disorderly white troops. Two years later, the government agreed to reimburse them for the damage. Among the Cherokee who fought with the United States in this war were Major Ridge (who was just The Ridge before getting his military title in the campaign), Col. Taylor, Adjutant John Ross, Chief Kunnesee, Chief Junaluska and a private named Sequoyah. Besides Jackson, who later became the Cherokees' worst political enemy, they had two great friends in this army - Houston and a scout who later also opposed their removal westward, Davy Crockett. Source: Past Times Magazine Aug. 1997Thanx to everyone for adding me as a Friend, your friendship honores me.
