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John Ross was born October 3, 1790, at Turkeytown in the Cherokee Nation, the son of a Scots immigrant named Daniel Ross and Mary McDonald, a Cherokee. He married Elizabeth "Quatie" Brown, also Cherokee in 1813. They were the parents of five children, James, Allen, Jane, Silas, and George. [1]
Privately educated, he began his rise to prominence in 1812. He fought with Gideon Morgan's regiment in the Creek War [2] and was a signer of the treaties of 1816 and 1819. He was President of the [Cherokee] National Committee, member of the Constitutional Convention of 1827, and was elected Principal Chief if 1828. [3] He convinced the U.S. Government to allow the Cherokee to manage the Removal in 1838. His wife Quatie died on the Trail of Tears in February, 1839. After arrival in Indian Territory, Ross was a signer of the 1839 Act of Union which re-joined the eastern and western Cherokee, and was elected Principal Chief of the unified tribe. [4]
In 1844 he married Mary Brian Stapler at Philadelphia. They were the parents of two children, Anna and John. [5] John died in Washington, D.C. on August 1, 1866. Originally buried in Delaware, his remains were returned to the Cherokee Nation in June, 1867 and reburied at the Ross Cemetery, Park Hill, Oklahoma. [6]
John Ross, who was known in Cherokee as Guwisguwi, (pronounced Cooweescoowee, the Cherokee name for a large heron-like bird), was elected principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1828 and held the position until his death 1866. Ross led the resistance to Cherokee Removal, and when it became inevitable negotiated with the United States to allow the Cherokee to Remove themselves. When the Cherokee were reunited in Indian Territory he was elected chief of the newly combined nation. At the beginning of the Civil War he was pressured to support the Confederacy, but soon reversed course and supported the Union. He remained Chief of the Union-supporting Cherokee while the Confederate-supporting Cherokee elected Stand Watie as their chief. When the war ended he traveled to Washington D.C. to negotiate a post-war treaty.
Read a transcription of John Ross's letter Our hearts are sickened...
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Featured National Park champion connections: John is 15 degrees from Theodore Roosevelt, 21 degrees from Stephanus Johannes Paulus Kruger, 11 degrees from George Catlin, 14 degrees from Marjory Douglas, 18 degrees from Sueko Embrey, 13 degrees from George Grinnell, 25 degrees from Anton Kröller, 15 degrees from Stephen Mather, 22 degrees from Kara McKean, 14 degrees from John Muir, 17 degrees from Victoria Hanover and 21 degrees from Charles Young on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.
https://npgallery.nps.gov/pdfhost/docs/NRHP/Text/02000170.pdf
National Park Service, Register of Historic Places- Ross Cemetery