Dragging canoe

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Dragging Canoe ( Cherokee : ᏥᏳ ᎦᏅᏏᏂ Tsiyu Gansini , dt. He drags his canoe ) (* around 1738 , † February 29, 1792 in Running Water Town , Tennessee ) was a war chief of the Cherokee , who brought a group of dissatisfied Cherokee against the colonists and settlers in the upper south of the United States led.

During and after the American Revolution , dragging canoes troops were sometimes supported by Muskogee , Chickasaw , Shawnee and other Indians , along with British loyalists and agents from France and Spain . The conflicts outlasted the American War of Independence for a decade. Dragging Canoe became the most important war chief of his time in the southeast of the country. He served the Chickamauga Cherokee ( Lower Creek ) as war chief from 1777 until his death in 1792; he was followed by John Watts .

Life

Childhood and youth

Dragging Canoe was born to Nionne Ollie ( Domesticated Pigeon ) of the Natchez around 1738 . He and his mother were captured when he was an infant and assimilated by the Cherokee and adopted by the Oconostotas household . His father was Attakullakulla ( Little Carpenter ) a born Nipissing . They lived with the Overhill Cherokee on the Little Tennessee River .

As a child, Dragging Canoe survived a smallpox infection and had its face marked. According to a Cherokee legend, he got his name from an event in his early childhood. Dragging Canoe was eager to take part in a campaign against the neighboring Shawnee and his father told him he could come as soon as he could carry his canoe. He tried to show his readiness for the campaign and tried to carry the heavy canoe, but could only drag it behind him.

Cherokee Warchief

Dragging Canoe first took part in a military campaign during the Cherokee War (1759–1761). He then became one of the strongest opponents of the settlers of the British colonies who invaded the Cherokee lands. Eventually he became the leader of Mialoquo , a Cherokee settlement on the Little Tennessee River.

When the Cherokee allied themselves with the British in the Revolutionary War, dragging canoe became the leader in one of the major attacks. After the counter-attack by the colonial militias who destroyed the villages in the Middle, Tal and Lower Towns, his father and Oconostota wanted to start peace negotiations. Dragging Canoe refused to accept defeat and led an Overhill Cherokee group south. They settled above the confluence of the South Chickamauga Creek and the Tennessee River , in the area of ​​today's Chattanooga (Tennessee) . After that, the settlers named them Chickamauga after their settlement on the river. They established 11 villages, including what was later called Old Chickamauga Town . This village was on the opposite bank of the trading post of John McDonald, the British Assistant Superintendent . He supplied the Chickamauga with the weapons, cannons, ammunition and supplies they needed for their warfare. In the spring of 1779, Evan Shelby led an expedition of colonialists from Virginia and North Carolina who set out to destroy the villages of Dragging Canoes and his Chickamauga. Shelby sent a description of his success to Patrick Henry , assuming the Chickamauga were now ready for peace

In 1782, their villages were attacked for the second time by United States forces. The destruction caused by Colonel John Sevier's force forced the Chickamauga to move further down the Tennessee River. Dragging Canoe used the natural obstacles of the Tennessee River Gorge ( Canyon ) to create the Five Lower Towns . These were Running Water Town (now Whiteside), Nickajack Town (near a cave of the same name), Long Island (in the Tennessee River), Crow Town (at the mouth of Crow Creek) and Lookout Mountain Town (now Trenton (Georgia) ). Thereafter, these Chickamauga were alternatively known as Lower Cherokee .

From its base in Running Water Town, dragging canoe led attacks on white settlements across the southeast, particularly against the colonialists on the Holston , Watauga, and Nolichucky Rivers and in eastern Tennessee. After 1870 he also attacked settlements in the Cumberland River , Washington District , Republic of Franklin and central Tennessee, as well as settlers in Kentucky and Virginia . His three brothers Little Owl , Badger, and Turtle-at-Home often fought alongside him.

death

Dragging Canoe died in Running Water Town on February 29, 1792, of exhaustion or possibly a heart attack, after dancing all night to celebrate an alliance with the Muskogee and Choctaw . The Chickamauga also celebrated a recent victory by one of their warrior groups against the settlements in Cumberland.

legacy

Historians such as John P. Brown in his book Old Frontiers or James Mooney in his early ethnographic work Myths of the Cherokee see dragging canoe as a role model for the younger Tecumseh , who was a member of the Shawnee and lived with the Chickamauga and participated in their raids . In Tell Them They Lie , a direct descendant of Sequoyah , the so-called Traveler Bird , describes that both Tecumseh and Sequoyah lived as young warriors in the Dragging Canoes group.

literature

  • Pat Alderman: Dragging Canoe: Cherokee-Chickamauga War Chief, Overmountain Press 1978.
  • John P. Brown: Old Frontiers: The Story of the Cherokee Indians from Earliest Times to the Date of Their Removal to the West, 1838. Southern Publishers 1938.
  • E. Raymond Evans: Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Dragging Canoe. In: Journal of Cherokee Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 , pp. 176-189. Museum of the Cherokee Indian
  • Karl Klink, James Talman (Ed.): The Journal of Major John Norton. Champlain Society 1970.
  • William G. McLoughlin: Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. Princeton University Press 1992. ISBN 978-0691006277
  • James Mooney: Myths of the Cherokee and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokee. Charles and Randy Elder-Booksellers 1982. ISBN 978-0486289076
  • Brent Yanusdi Cox: Heart of the Eagle: Dragging Canoe & the Emergence of the Chickamauga Confederacy. 1999. ISBN 978-0966717709

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Note: Often incorrectly spelled Dragon Canoe
  2. ^ Karl Klink, James Talman (ed.): The Journal of Major John Norton Champlain Society, 1970. (English) p. 42
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Patricia Bernard Ezzell ( Tennessee Valley Authority ): Dragging Canoe , Tennessee Encyclopedia (English), accessed July 14, 2020
  4. ↑ a b Dallas Bogan: Dragging Canoe & The Chickamauga Cherokees Tennessee Gen Web online (English) accessed on July 14, 2020
  5. ^ Theodore Roosevelt: The Winning of the West: An Account of the Exploration and Settlement of Our Country from the Alleghanies to the Pacific , GP Putnam's, 1917 (English)
  6. ↑ Founders Online: Evan Shelby to Patrick Henry, 4 June 1779 (English) accessed on 14 July 2020 (English)
  7. ↑ Fred S. Rolater: The Chickamaugas Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture (English) accessed on July 14, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Dragging canoe
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Tsiyu Gansini; Dragon canoe
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Cherokee chief
DATE OF BIRTH around 1738
DATE OF DEATH February 29, 1792
Place of death Running Water Town , Tennessee