Major Ridge
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Major Ridge (c.1771 – June 22, 1839) was a Cherokee Indian leader, born into the Deer clan in the Cherokee town of Hiwassee along the Hiwassee River, an area later part of Tennessee. Ridge's maternal grandfather was a highland Scot, thus Ridge was 3/4 Cherokee by ancestry, and one of the many American Indians in his time and place with partial European (especially Scottish) heritage. The English version of his name was originally just "Ridge"; he acquired the title "Major" in 1814 during his service leading Cherokees alongside General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend during the Creek War. He also joined Jackson in the First Seminole War in 1818, leading Cherokees against the Seminole Indians. After the war, Ridge became a wealthy planter and slave owner.
Ridge had long opposed U.S. government proposals for the Cherokees to sell their lands and remove to the West, but the rapidly expanding white settlement and Georgia's efforts to abolish the Cherokee government caused him to change his mind. Advised by his son John Ridge, Major Ridge came to believe that the best way to preserve the Cherokee Nation was to get good terms for their lands from the U.S. government before it was too late. On December 22, 1835, Ridge was one of the signers of the Treaty of New Echota, which exchanged the Cherokee tribal land east of the Mississippi River for lands to the west. The treaty was of dubious legality, however, and was rejected by Chief John Ross and the majority of the Cherokee people. Nevertheless, the treaty was ratified by the U.S. Senate.
Ridge, his family, and many other Cherokees emigrated to the West soon after the treaty. The terms of the treaty were strictly enforced, and those Cherokees (and their African slaves) who remained on tribal lands in the East were forcibly rounded up by the U.S. government in 1838, and began a journey known as the "Trail of Tears," during which thousands died.
In the West, Ridge and the other signers of the Treaty of New Echota were blamed for the hardships. In 1839, Major Ridge, his son John, and nephew Elias Boudinot, were assassinated by Cherokees of the Ross faction. Ridge's nephew Stand Watie, the future Confederate general in the Civil War, was also targeted for assassination, but escaped, and eventually became leader of the Southern Cherokees.
Ridge and his son are buried along with Stand Watie in Polson Cemetery west of Southwest, Missouri.
Reference
- Ehle, John. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Doubleday, 1988. ISBN 038523953X. Largely a biography of Major Ridge.
