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The story begins with a murder. Two murders occurring not that far from here, committed by a group led by a man called Charley. The victims were U.S. soldiers. The perpetrators were brought to justice and executed, and things continued as they had previously.
The murders occurred in 1838 during the Cherokee Removal, and Old Charley is better known in history as Tsali.
This is not the way the story is portrayed in Unto These Hills, a drama written in 1950.
Myth and drama fail to accurately portray the Tsali story, despite it wishing so. The commonly accepted story does not fit the facts. The Cherokee Removal was theft, stimulated by the white man’s greed for land. Facts of the removal are travesty enough without adding myth to the equation.
The Cherokee Removal story is the subject of future columns here, a complicated tragedy of events requiring more than one column to flesh out.
Despite every legal maneuver and protest, the treaty of New Echota with the Cherokee, in which the signees agreed to relocate and was signed by only 500 Cherokee, was to be enforced. The fact that 13,000 did not sign the treaty and signed a petition protesting that the 500 treaty signers were not authorized to represent the entire Cherokee Nation did not matter in the end.
Principal Chief John Ross suggested most Cherokee ignore the efforts of the government to encourage moving to Oklahoma on their own while he pursued political alternatives. Eventually governmental patience expired, and troops were sent in to enforce the treaty and removal.
Almost everyone submitted peacefully, in part because government troops disarmed everyone before the roundup began.
Some didn’t submit, among them Tsali and his family. They took to the hills. The round up took only a few months to complete, and by July 1838 officers reported to Gen. Winfield Scott that their job was almost completed. By July, the militias had been sent home as had most of the troops. Only a few soldiers remained to chase the remaining holdouts in the hills.
Several hundred Cherokee legally remained in the area we know today as the Qualla Boundary. They were not part of the Cherokee Removal because with the earlier treaties of 1817 and 1819, the Qualla Cherokee – with the assistance of W.H. Thomas, an adopted member of the tribe – bought their land and became citizens of North Carolina.
They were exempt from removal. Those exempted worried Tsali and the others hiding might endanger their legal standing exemption, as there were plenty of whites who would have been happy to include the Qualla Indians and others exemptions and steal their land, too.
Three soldiers, W.H. Thomas and Cherokee tribesmen found Tsali and convinced him to come in. Thomas remained behind, while three soldiers set out to escort Tsali’s band to a collection point.
A dirk was discovered in possession of one Cherokee and confiscated. Further down the trail, the officer in charge saw a hatchet and instructed the soldier to confiscate it as well.
Instead, the Cherokee buried the hatchet into the soldier’s head, and another soldier was pulled from his saddle and killed. The officer’s horse spooked and sprinted him away from a similar fate.
Chief John Ross wrote to Scott on Nov. 4, 1838, “… the reported tragical act, has proved too true, in the death of two of your soldiers at the hands of certain individual Cherokee captives … I sincerely hope that the offenders may speedily receive their award at the bar of justice – and that no effort shall be wanting on our part to carry on the orderly and peaceable emigration …”
Justice was not long in coming. On Nov. 19, Scott received a report from the 4th Infantry headquarters at Camp Scott reading, “I have captured (through the aid of Mr. Thomas, Uchella’s band – headed by himself) – and the Oconolufty [sic] Indians two of the murderers of the soldiers.”
A follow up report from a Captain Page at the Cherokee Agency reported to Scott, “Col. Foster … captured the murderers (five in number, four of which were executed by the Lufy Indians and the fifth was pardoned.”
My research has found no documentation of communication between Tsali and the U.S. government for negotiations concerning Cherokee remaining. The Qualla Indians were already exempted when they participated in the capture and execution of Tsali.
Other Cherokee involved in the Tsali capture were allowed to remain. Euchella’s band, also known as the Nantahala Cherokee, were of such assistance in the capture and execution of Tsali that the U.S. officers asked that a special exception be made for the band, as a reward for their service. They were allowed to join the Qualla Cherokee and remain in North Carolina. With Tsali resolved, Scott took this as his opportunity to declare victory and disengage.
The land on which the Nantahala Cherokee had resided on Cherokee Nation lands was considered a part of the New Echota treaty lands and taken from them.
Slowly those hiding in the hills emerged, many moving within the Qualla Boundary and others to the land of John Welch in Valleytown, whose white son-in-law had repurchased 1,200 acres and the Welch farm when the Cherokee lands were sold.
The historical marker near Bryson City once read, “Tsali, Cherokee brave surrendered to Gen’l Scott to be shot near here 1838. That remnant of tribe might remain in N.C.” but in 2010 the marker was replaced with a more accurate description, reading today, “Tsali, Cherokee who resisted removal & escaped from U.S. troops, executed nearby. 1838. Story inspired Unto These Hills.”
When enjoying Unto These Hills, keep in mind it was written to be an entertaining drama, and is that, but not accurate history.
Bruce Voyles’ local history column runs every other week in the Cherokee Scout. Email him at RoadsLessTraveled@cherokeescout.com.