[Looking at why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]

What is history? History is not a sequential event, but a confluence of numerous parallel ventures.

The North Carolina Indians continued to migrate from the southeastern colonies and states under duress. Consequentially, the culture and people developed in multiple locations, having different leadership, and different relationships with the government.

Government is necessary for an orderly society. In its most productive form, government is simply the agreement by society to follow acceptable laws or constraints, generally based on the society’s moral principles, while at the same time not restricting individual creativity. Unfortunately, those who want more power, influence, or greed end up in politics, disrupting the idyllic perspective.

The Native Americans were not immune. Their culture was originally individual villages, which inherently limits abuse. After the enforced nationalization of each tribal group, larger scale conflict ensued.

In 1750, “Faced by the increasing encroachment of white settlers in the east and due to factions and arguments in council, the Eastern Cherokee sanctioned a “hoop” or splitting of the tribe, which they sent to explore west of the “Big River” (Mississippi) and to establish a new nation.” according to the Texas Cherokee history.

We find many disparate groups west of the Mississippi, who come together or interact at times. Of these groups, the ones who eventually make it to Indian Territory are called ‘Old Settlers’. These are largely the Keetoowah Band now.

However, many of these groups went other directions, attempting to avoid interaction with the continuously westward bound Americans. Some survived, some were destroyed, some hid out, some amalgamated into the dominant society. It is this diaspora, which represents the fascination of not only the Cherokee but other Native Americans with whom they bonded. The relocated Carolina culture developed primarily south of the Red River along either side of the Sabine River and into now Mexico.

An insidious event occurred from the Hopewell Treaty of 1785 with the new United States. First, it was the beginning of a journey of broken treaties, not always one sided. Neither culture understood the other. The Cherokee had long been a proud, independent, strong confederacy of villages, creating a powerful tribal influence.

For surrendering their land and heritage in exchange for money and gifts, the people slid into to a life of poverty and servitude for two centuries. Those that accepted the tribal subservience acquiesced to the fate of poverty. Only those that learned from the Americans, became well-educated, and adept at playing the game, thrived as our story unfolds. Names such as Sequoyah, Ridge, Boudinot, and Ross scaled the reverence of history.

We have pieced together stories of groups who left the Carolinas and Tennessee and journeyed south and west into Spanish Louisiana Territory. Originally, they were in the region north of Lake Ponchartrain. Then the next generation moved a few miles across the river into central Louisiana, around Bayou Chico.

All was not well with the fledgling United States. Land west of the Mississippi transferred from France to Spain. General James Wilkinson of Kentucky met with Esteban Rodríguez Miró y Sabater, Governor of the provinces of Florida and Louisiana in 1787. Wilkinson pledged his allegiance to Spain, secretly acted as an agent, and was on the payroll of Spain. Why?

Wilkinson was leader in a ploy to set up an independent country, friendly to Spain, for Kentucky and Louisiana. Wilkinson’s colleague was none other than Aaron Burr, one of the most famous traitors in American history.

What was the result? While still in the employ of Spain, Wilkinson received promotion to U.S. Major General and was over the Louisiana Territory after the Purchase of 1803. Wilkinson made the agreement with the Spanish Mexico/Tejas to establish No Man’s Land in Louisiana. The negotiations were easy. Wilkinson was on both sides.

Wilkinson continued as an army leader under Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, although they knew his treachery. The leaders’ intimidation came from fear that Wilkinson would use his military control to overthrow the fledgling civil government. Burr took the political fall.

Had the plot been successful, Oklahoma would be part of Spanish Louisiana and the United States would be a few states east of the Mississippi and north of the Florida parishes, if it even survived.

It was within this climate, in 1788, that we find the first European records where part of the Cherokee nation migrated across the Great River. According to Texas Cherokee history, Regional Chief Torquo (Turkey) requested the Spanish “grant him the favor of giving refuge to his whole nation in the territory of the Great King of Spain.” The same Governor Miro approved emigration of six Cherokee villages. Interestingly, this was the year Miro became a hero for his response to the great New Orleans fire.

The devastating Treaty of Holston in 1791 agreed the United States would provide manufactured and other goods to the Cherokee on an annual basis. Progressively, the Native American people who stayed east of the Mississippi River were dependent on the federal government.

In contrast, each of these intrusions caused additional migrations away from the influences of the stationary eastern tribe with shrinking land, in exchange for the freedom of the West. However, every transition west created a new set of problems for both the dominant society, whether American or Spanish, and the Native Americans.

Migrations occurred in 1721, 1750, 1788, and later, with little recorded history by the former Europeans. The Cherokee did not have a written language yet. Nevertheless, communication between the people persisted enough that Sequoyah made his final journey to teach his cousins in the south and west his new written language.

Does the intrigue ever change? You thought behind the scenes scheming was a modern invention?

Think about since 1785, before the United States had a Constitution, how subservience to ‘gifts from the government’ has produced poverty, stripped dignity, and destroyed individual initiative and responsibility. What should we do after 236 years of such demonstrable, persistent, deleterious practices?

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Excerpts from our book:

No Man’s Land Pioneers, Louisiana’s Wild, Wild West, ISBN: 9781694632128.