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Revision as of 15:42, 11 January 2011
John Ridge | |
|---|---|
 John Ridge | |
| Born | Skah-tle-loh-skee (Yellow Bird) 1792, exact date unknown Oothacaloga (Calhoun, Georgia) |
| Died | June 22, 1839 (aged 46 or 47) |
| Cause of death | Assassination |
| Nationality | American |
| Other names | Skah-tle-loh-skee (Yellow Bird) |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Height | 36363645454646373736464657576647 |
| Spouse | Sarah Bird Northup |
| Children | John Rollin Ridge |
| Parent | Major Ridge |
John Ridge (Oothacaloga, 1792 - June 22, 1839) was a son of Major Ridge and a member of the Cherokee Nation, present-day Georgia. He married Sarah Bird Northup, whom he had met while studying in Cornwall, Connecticut.
Early life
John Ridge was often sick as a child growing up on Cherokee lands.[1] He studied at the mission school run by the Moravian Brethren at Spring Place, Cherokee Nation (now Georgia) which was founded on land given to them by his father's mentor and fellow former warrior, James Vann. Ridge then attended boarding school in Connecticut, where he was asked to write an essay for President James Monroe.[1] While at school in Cornwall he fell in love with Sarah Bird Northrup, and after two years convinced her parents to allow them to marry.[1] However, the couple's New England community reacted angrily to the marriage of a Native American man and an American woman, and their unwillingness to accept his marriage forever altered Ridge's attitude toward American and Native American relations.[1] After his time in Connecticut, his fortunes in the political affairs of the Nation rose quickly, and he rose to become a leading member of the National Committee along with his cousin Elias Boudinot and his father's protege, John Ross, as well as highly respected for his abilities and faithfulness to Indian welfare by all the tribes across the Southern United States.
Political life
Ridge, at the time, clerk of the Cherokee National Council, was part of the delegations to Washington from the Council protesting the illegal annexation by the State of Georgia of that part of the Nation which lay within its territory. One of these was just after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that Georgia's unilateral extension of its laws over Cherokee territory was illegal and unconstitutional in Worcester v. Georgia. Previously one of the most vehement opponents of removal, Ridge reluctantly switched his support after a conversation with President Andrew Jackson in which the latter informed the former he had no intention of enforcing the Supreme Court's decision.
After that conversation, John became one of the more zealous leaders of the "Treaty party," a group that advocated removal of the Cherokee Indians to the west as the only way to preserve the Cherokee Nation rather than attempting to retain Cherokee land illegally annexed by Georgia. John knew theirs was a minority view, and that the majority of Cherokees at present sided with Principal Chief John Ross, who hoped to reach a settlement allowing the Cherokee to stay in the east, but he hoped to bring the Nation over to what he saw as the only way out of the Nation's dilemma.
Ridge was one of the signers of the Treaty of New Echota, but only after the treaty had reached Washington City, D.C., where he and Elias Boudinot were part of the National Council's latest delegation, headed by John Ross, attempting to negotiate staying in the east. Since the treaty surrendered all Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River and against their wishes, Ridge was regarded as a traitor by the Ross faction known as the National party. Although the treaty was possibly illegitimate, it was ratified by the United States Senate and Andrew Jackson used it to justify the Cherokee removal now known as the Trail of Tears. The treaty allowed for those Cherokees who wished to remain in the east to do so and become citizens of the states where they resided, but this provision was ignored during the removal.
Death
Ridge's family moved along with that of his father and those most of his siblings, his uncle (David Watie), and his cousins (Stand Watie and Elias Boudinot), to what is now Indian Territory well before the forced removal of 1838, where he and they joined the Old Settlers of the Cherokee Nation West under Principal Chief John Jolly. In June 1839, Ridge, along with his father and Boudinot (who both had also signed the Treaty of New Echota), were assassinated in retribution for the subsequent forced removal of the Cherokee Nation and resultant deaths of over 4,000 men, women and children. John Ridge was stabbed 48 times, had his chest jumped up and down upon, and kicked repeatedly by the 25 members of Ross' faction in front of his wife and children. His son John Rollin Ridge wrote the pseudo-biography of Joaquin Murieta that inspired the Zorro legend.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d "The American Experience, We Shall Remain: The Trail of Tears". Retrieved November 10, 2009.
Sources
- Wilkins, Thurman. Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge family and the Decimation of a People. Norman, OK: U of Oklahoma Press, 1986; ISBN 0-8061-2188-2 (1989 paperback edition).