Nancy Ward and Chief Dragging Canoe
Family relationships can be complicated, and the tumultuous relationship between Chief Dragging Canoe and Nancy Ward, or Nanyehi, bear witness. Connected by blood and passion for their people, the two cousins grew up in the capital town of Chota, near present-day Monroe County, Tenn. Guided by Chief Attakullakulla, they each took opposite approaches to the encroaching pioneers. In the years after the 1760 Cherokee attack on Fort Loudon and the brutal retaliation by British forces, tensions continued to rise. The cousins emerged as leaders in the Cherokee Nation with widely different approaches to the white colonists and treaties.
Both earned distinction as warriors. Chief Dragging Canoe was born in 1732, the son of Chief Attakullakulla. As a child, he sneaked into a warrior party, stubbornly portaged a canoe to remain with the party, and earned a name that would become legendary. His younger cousin and Attakullakulla’s niece, Nanyehi, created a name for herself in the 1755 Battle of Taliwa in northern Georgia. She fought alongside her husband, Kingfisher, who chewed his bullets to maximize their damage. When he fell in battle, Nanyehi led the charge, her heroism rallying the Cherokee warriors to victory over the Creek. The widowed mother of two was given the title Ghighau, or “Beloved Woman,” for her bravery. In this role, she sat with the peace and war chiefs, served as the head of the women’s council, and supervised the “Black Drink” purification ritual made from the winterberry shrub.
The cousins chose opposite paths. In 1776, when an alliance of warriors planned an attack on the settlements near Elizabethtown, Tenn., Nanyehi, or Nancy Ward, as she was known to English speakers, warned them of attack. No primary sources exist to illuminate her motivations, but the destruction after the Fort Loudon attack was still fresh in people’s minds and may have led to her decision. In later years, she was quoted as saying: “The white men are our brothers. The same house shelters us, and the same sky covers us all.”
Nancy’s son, Five Killer, was a small child when his father, Kingfisher, died in battle. In 1777, as the Revolutionary War was being waged, he joined the Chickamaugans, led by Chief Dragging Canoe, to fight against the colonists. The Chickamauga moved southwest, establishing the “Five Lower Towns,” near present-day Tiftonia, Ga.; Stevenson and Bridgetown, Ala,; and Haletown and Shellmound, Tenn. British agents supported the Chickamaugans in their fight against the Americans. In 1779, Virginia’s governor, Patrick Henry, sent soldiers on a raid that culminated in the destruction of 11 Chickamauga towns and stores of British ammunition.
In 1780, the Chickamauga warriors once again planned a raid. Once again, Nancy Ward warned the settlers. John Sevier and the Overmountain Men from the Wataugan settlements mounted an attack, burned the Cherokee capital of Chota and the principal towns in the Overhill territory. Nancy Ward, the “Beloved Woman,” and her family were held, both protected and imprisoned, by her sonin-law, a Virginia agent to the Cherokees.
At the signing of the 1781 Treaty at Long Island of Holston, Nancy Ward was one of the leaders who spoke on behalf of her people. She pleaded for peace, saying, “Let your women’s sons be ours and let our sons be yours. Let your women hear our cry.” She returned with her family to Chota, adopting children orphaned by the war while fighting hunger and continued encroachment. She must have hoped that the surrender of Lord Corwallis and the end of the Revolutionary War would signal a new chapter of fair terms and peaceful negotiations with the new American government.
Unfortunately, relationships continued to worsen as the Cherokees sought to enforce the Treaty of Hopewell that established western boundaries for American settlement. Chief Dragging Canoe’s warriors raided an illegal settlement, killing John Donelson. Father of the woman who would become the wife of President Andrew Jackson, Donelson was one of the founders of what became Nashville. His river expedition had come under attack years earlier near Chattanooga by Chief Dragging Canoe.
Retaliation from both sides continued. Conflict culminated in the assassination by hatchet under the cover of white peace flags of Old Abram, chief of the Chilhowee, and Old Tassel, chief of Chota and principal chief of the Overhills. The assailant, militia Major James Hubbard, had lost most of his family to a raid by Chief Dragging Canoe’s warriors. These reprisals would set into motion events that would change the country.