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Subject: [TSALAGI-MB] From the "Declaration of Designed Purpose"
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 02:06:46 EDT

>From the "Declaration of Designed Purpose"

By:
Chadwick =E2=80=9CCorntassel=E2=80=9D Smith - Cherokee Nation Principal Chie=
f
Hastings Shade - Cherokee Nation Deputy Chief

Alliances, Disease, and Genocide=E2=80=A6

Although De Soto=E2=80=99s march through the southeast probably brought the=20=
first
news of=20
European explorers to the Cherokees, intensive contact with Europeans did
not come until=20
almost 150 years later. By the late 1600s, the Cherokees were entering
more extensively into=20
trading relationships, primarily with the English in Virginia and South
Carolina.=20

An old Cherokee story prophesied the impact of the deer trade on the
Cherokees. From the=20
beginning, there had been an agreement between the Cherokees and the
animals that the=20
animals would sacrifice some of their own to sustain the Cherokee people,
provided the=20
people took no more than they needed to live, and provided they showed the
proper honor=20
and respect to the animal at the time of the kill. For many generations,
the Cherokees had=20
abided by this agreement as they hunted the animals, and the animals had
given their lives=20
without remonstrance. But a time came when the Cherokees began to be
greedy, and started to=20
take more of the lives of the animals than they needed. At last the
situation became=20
intolerable, and the animals called a council to discuss their situation.
They decided that since the Cherokees were killing them so
indiscriminately, they would do the same to the Cherokees to teach them a
lesson. At that council, each animal invented a new disease, and when they
left the council, they unleashed these new diseases on the outside world,
the world of the Cherokees.

Just as prophesied, the Cherokees began to hunt more of the deer that had
always been a=20
staple of their existence as the trade goods of Europeans became more
enticing to the=20
Cherokees. Now they traded these deerskins to the English for cloth,
blankets, brass kettles=20
and pots, and, most especially, guns. And as their contact with Europeans
increased, so did=20
their exposure to new diseases, diseases to which they had no immunities.
Finally, in 1738,=20
disaster struck as the most terrible smallpox epidemic they had ever known
spread throughout=20
the Cherokee towns. For eighteen months the Cherokees battled the scourge,
and as many as=20
half of the 20,000 people of the tribe perished.=20

The decentralized government of the Cherokees was not as effective in
dealing with the=20
colonial situation as it had been throughout earlier generations. Because
each town was=20
autonomous in its leadership, and there was no national structure of
leadership, the British=20
were often able to manipulate the towns against each other. This created a
situation of=20
competition between various Cherokee towns for the positions of privilege
and favor from the=20
British. Finally, by the 1750s, the Cherokee chiefs and headmen designated
Chota, an overhill=20
town in what is now north-central Tennessee, as the primary town of the
Cherokees. The=20
headman of Chota, a man named Old Hop, was selected as the =E2=80=9Cprincipa=
l
chief,=E2=80=9D or=20
spokesperson, of the Cherokees. At the same time, the Cherokees began
meeting regularly in=20
councils to communicate more closely with each other and to better resist
the=20
divide-and-conquer tactics of the British. This more centralized structure
of chief and councils also gave itself some measure of coercive authority
over Cherokees who were skirmishing with colonists on the borders of the
Cherokee territory. For the first time, this began to establish a level of
law beyond that of the clans and blood law.

The 1700s were also characterized by repeated periods of warfare. The
presence of=20
encroaching settlers, especially near the regions of the Lower Towns of
present day western=20
South Carolina, led to many border skirmishes between the English and
Cherokees. The=20
Cherokees as a whole were severely penalized for these skirmishes.
Although the Cherokees=20
entered into a treaty alliance with the British in 1755 at the outbreak of
the French and Indian Wars, the sympathies of most Cherokees began to sway
toward the French. Their British=20
allies actually began to attack Cherokee towns by 1759, and within two
years, most of the=20
Lower and Middle Towns of the Cherokees, in present day western South and
North=20
Carolina, were raided and the structures, dwellings, cornfields, and
orchards were burned,=20
livestock was run off or confiscated, men, women, and children were
killed, and perhaps 5000=20
Cherokees had been run into the mountains as refugees. By 1761, the
Cherokees were forced=20
to enter into a peace agreement with the British, which effectively
removed them from the=20
duration of the War.

In the following decade, with the outbreak of the American Revolution, the
Cherokees were=20
again sought as an ally. Once again the Cherokees allied with the British,
despite the tense=20
relationship between them. In response, the Americans launched a concerted
genocidal=20
campaign against the Cherokees in an attempt to eradicate the Cherokees
from the face of the=20
earth. In a strategic effort, the Americans in Virginia attacked the Upper
Towns of the=20
Cherokees, the militias in the Carolinas attacked the Middle and Valley
Towns, and South=20
Carolina attacked the Lower Towns. In rapid succession, over two-thirds of
the Cherokee=20
towns were wiped out in the early 1780s. Yet again, dwellings, fields, and
orchards were=20
burned, stores of food were plundered and burned, stock was driven off or
killed, and=20
thousands of Cherokees fled into the mountains where starvation and
exposure were=20
commonplace. Others were held as prisoners of war, and still others were
sold into slavery by=20
the Americans. Lacking any support from their British allies, the
Cherokees were brought to=20
their knees by 1782 and were forced to sue for peace. In 1783, disaster
struck again as=20
smallpox returned to sweep through the Cherokees. One-third of the
remaining people died in=20
the epidemic, bringing the Cherokees to their lowest population ever,
about 9000 people.

The 1700s mark the first century of intensive contact between
Europeans/Americans and=20
Cherokees. On the whole, it was absolutely disastrous for the Cherokees.
As they faced wave=20
after wave of adversity =E2=80=93 diseases, warfare, and the decimation of t=
heir
populations and their towns =E2=80=93 the Cherokees struggled valiantly to
survive, and even began making some=20
governmental adaptations to that end. But the prosperity that had once
belonged to the=20
Cherokees was crushed. The balance of their world was gone.

*Note: Cultural information may vary from clan to clan, location to
location, family to family, and from differing opinions and experiences.
Information provided here are not 'etched in stone'.

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