[Why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]

The clan from Hiwassee was some of the first of the Old Settlers into Arkansas on their way to Indian Territory. They originally lived on the 400-acre island at the confluence of the Hiwassee and Tennessee River. They were the “Red” Paint (A Ni Wo Di) clan. Not all made the move originally. Some remained in the ancestral home near Chickamauga (now Chattanooga), Tennessee.

Neighboring groups were the Piqua band of Shawnee, whom the Cherokee had invited in as allies. However, the Chickasaw had differing opinions and eventually drove them out. The Yuchi were originally on Hiwassee Island but had moved downriver to the big bend in the Tennessee River near Muscle Shoals.

In the early 1800s, the Cherokee were the tribe most exposed to encroaching settlement from the English-speaking Americans. The tribes in the 13-original colonies largely assimilated or were destroyed. The Cherokee formed a quasi-barrier for the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole. However, as the Cherokee succumbed to settlement pressures, the other tribes became more exposed.

The Cherokee were having difficulty deciding who they were and how to deal with the much more populated United States. The more astute, adopted the American ways becoming large plantation owners, traders, and wealthy business leaders. They understood their small numbers could not compete with the growing population. The clans on the north and east of the Nation, simply melted into the dominant society. The groups around Chickamauga in northwestern Georgia, northern Alabama, and southeastern Tennessee tried to maintain their traditional culture. Within this group, two factions split, those who insisted on staying at the ancestral grounds and those that decided to go west to keep their roaming traditions a while longer.

In 1810, Talontuskee (Disrupter) was one of the first leaders to take his small clan west with other small clans. There he became the principal chief (1817-1819). His half-brother John Jolly (Ahuludegi, Oolooteka) remained at Hiwassee, operated a successful trading post, and became chief of the clan remnant in Tennessee.

It was during this time that a confused lad, Sam Houston (1793-1863), came to live on Hiwassee Island. Samís Dad, Major Samuel Houston, died about 1807, during a planned move to Tennessee. Samís mother moved to Marysville, Tennessee, raising the teenager as a single-mother.

This was the same community where the “God, gun, and guts” Reverend Gideon Blackburn, D.D. (1772-1838), with support of President Thomas Jefferson in 1803, set-up schools to teach new agriculture methods, carpentry, and blacksmithing to the Cherokee men with spinning and weaving to the ladies, while educating them in Christian living.

Not adept at farming and already too-familiar with whiskey, after numerous troubles, young Sam Houston ran away from home at the age of 16, to live with the Cherokee. Like a Cherokee uncle, John Jolly adopted the lad, naming him “The Raven.” schooling him in the language, educating him in natural living, teaching him the art of trading, and mentoring him in the ways of a chief. These skills served Houston well.

The tall teenager Sam grabbed the attention of Jolly’s niece Tiana Rogers, who was four years younger. She set eyes to marry Sam, but in 1812, he left the island to return to his culture at the age of 19. The extended family would encounter each other several more times.

Sam Houston then became a protege of General Andrew Jackson, serving under him in the War of 1812 and in the Creek Wars, where Houston was severely wounded. In 1817, Jackson appointed Houston as Indian sub-agent to aid in removal of the Cherokee from eastern Tennessee.

Houston wore Cherokee dress to a meeting between the Cherokee and Secretary of War John Calhoun. The incident sparked animosity with Calhoun which lasted until his demise in 1850. Consequently, Houston had the “opportunity” to resign from the army, but he remained as a government sub-agent to the Cherokee. Houston went on to an impressive political career in Tennessee, under the tutelage of Jackson and others.

In 1818, Chief John Jolly realized the situation for Native Americans was lost in the east, so Houston aided him to relocate west. Jolly moved his clan to re-join his half-brother across the Mississippi River in “Arkansaw” Territory of the Louisiana Purchase.

Jolly and his entourage of 331 took sixteen riverboats, provisions for seventy days, and rifles provided by Houston’s intervention. They floated down the Tennessee River, to the Ohio River, down the Mississippi River, then pushed up the Arkansas River. He settled in now Johnson County, just upriver from Talontuskee’s village.

Unfortunately, the Quapaw downriver and the Osage on the White River also claimed the land. Then next year, Talontuskee had lived out his years. The eastern chief John Jolly became the western chief. One of his first acts was to follow through on his half-brother’s dream of establishing Dwight Mission to educate his people in the culture, language, and Christianity of the dominant society.

We will see much more of Jolly’s and Houston’s experiences separately and together.

Perhaps one of Jolly’s most insightful perceptions was that he saw the continuing demise of the Native American culture. Recall that tribes were not as large as our perspective now. There were only about 3500 people living with the Western Cherokee, one of the larger groups. Jolly was a skilled negotiator with the government, but with the comparatively small number of Native Americans, he had little power.

Think about how taking care of a troubled youth created a lifelong relationship which impacted the surrogate dad, the youth, the Native American society, Tennessee, Indian Territory, Texas, and the entire country. How many have been lost, without a suitable parental stand-in and mentor?

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Excerpts from our book:

Where Indians, Outlaws & Oilmen Were Real, ISBN: 9781658834643.