Coosa Chiefdoms|Head Of Coosa|Cherokees|Rome Georgia

On May 31, 1540, DeSoto arrives at the headwaters of the Oostanuala River in present Murray County, at a site occupied by Moundbuilders. [These moundbuilders disappeared within twenty years, and over time were replaced, first by the Creek Indians and then by the Cherokee.]

According to Spanish records, on June 4, 1540, Hernando DeSoto, along with 600 men, enters Chiaha (present day Rome, Georgia). [Check out the Annual Chiaha Festival held in Rome each October].

It was to be 300 more years, before we start getting significant activities by the white man in the Rome area. Around 1829, a group of whites illegally settled on Cherokee land along the Georgia-Alabama border just southwest of present-day Rome, Georgia. This marked the beginning of the conflicts between the whites and the Cherokees in the Coosa Valley area.

In their islolated hilly and mountainous homeland, the Cherokee were the most populous and powerful of the area Indian tribes. This included the other "C" tribes, the Creek, Chickasaw, and Choctaw. By the late 1700's they were actively trading with Virginia and South Carolina. They were quick to catch on to the ways of the white man, and to adapt many of his ways, including housing, trade, and education.

According to an article on them in Wikipedia,, after the Tuscarora War "The Cherokee became much more closely integrated with the region's various Indians and Europeans. The Tuscarora War marked the beginning of an English-Cherokee relationship that, despite breaking down on occasion, remained strong for much of the 18th century...The Tuscarora War also marks the rise of Cherokee military power, demonstrated in the 1714 attack and destruction of the Yuchi town of Chestowee (in today's southeastern Tennessee)".

They were to remain a strong tribe until the late 1700's and late 1800's. When gold was found in North Georgia, it was the beginning of the end for the Cherokee's lifestyle as they had known it.

As the pressure in the Northwest Georgia area increased, two leaders emerged, John Ross and Major Ridge. Only one of these, Major Ridge, actually lived in the Rome, Georgia area. Both however were educated and highly respected by their followers.

They were however, on different sides of the fence when the decision was finally approved in Washington to remove the Eastern Cherokee to land in what is now Oklahoma. Both Ross and Ridge had opposed the move. John Ross never changed his position. Their sovereignty had been affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court, but Andrew Jackson, a true Indian hater, stated that he was moving them anyway.

Major Ridge, who had gotten his title Major from fighting alongside Andrew Jackson previously, finally saw the handwriting on the wall, and decided that the only way for the Cherokee to survive as a people was to accept the federal government's proposal. Even he had signed a Cherokee law earlier that said anyone selling Cherokee land would be punished by death.

Major Ridge is now either revered or reviled, depending on the person, as he finally signed the Treaty of New Echota, which sold the remaining Cherokee lands to the government. He said at the time that he had just signed his death warrant. In fact he had, a few years later, after moving out West, one of John Ross' followers executed him.

In actuality, according to the aboveWikipedia article on New Echota, "Several signers of the treaty were assassinated, including Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and his nephew Elias Boudinot. The true reason may have been that the Ridge Party had already integrated itself into the political structure of the Old Settlers, which Ross demanded recognize his absolute authority upon his arrival. As a result, the Cherokee nation subsequently endured 15 years of civil war."

Neither John Ross, nor Major Ridge could stop the relocation to Oklahoma of most of the Cherokee tribe in the now infamous "Trail of Tears" march where up to 4,000 died. Those who escaped the round-up now reside mostly in Cherokee, North Carolina and are now as the Eastern Band of The Cherokee Nation.

I will have more to say later on Major Ridge as I am preparing a lens on him and his life.