John Ridge
Major Ridge’s Plantation and Red Clay Council Grounds
Summer and Fall 1833
I
thought it would be Father knocking on the apartment door so late in the evening. But it wasn’t him. Mother barely gave me time to open the door before she walked in and turned around next to the stone hearth. She crossed her arms and scowled.
I had nothing to say, so I returned to my desk. Time was short. I needed to complete my remarks for council. I had to remember how Cass countered Ross’ lies from that stolen letter.
Mother followed with little patience for my delay. She adopted the threatening tone all sons know. “Skahtlelohskee, put down that quill and listen to me. Let go of whatever you and Sarah disagreed over and go back to being a father and a husband.”
Returning home now was not a possibility. I shook my head. “Sarah no longer trusts me, Mother. Her actions have made it impossible for me to trust her.”
When I tried to finish writing my sentence, Mother took the quill from my hand and broke it in two. She spat on the floor. “Does she have reason? Did Sarah say that? Or is that what you want? It is a choice. You are away enough.”
I rubbed my face and passed my hand through my hair. “We haven’t spoken in months. I can’t forgive what Sarah did. I can’t trust her. Besides, she’s put me out.”
Mother said, “She did nothing of the kind.”
I kicked open my trunk and showed her its contents.
Mother brushed away my dramatics. “I’ve done the same to your father many times. Only his tools have changed over the years. When I sat with her today, I respected your wishes and said nothing of your whereabouts. Although, because of Sarah’s excuses for your absence, I can’t bring my grandchildren here. They’ll find you. Sarah told them you were in Washington.”
“I should be.” But I wasn’t fooling anyone with my bravado. I thought of Sarah and the children. All my work done was on their behalf. I asked Mother, “Are they well?”
“Herman is crawling and into everything. Susan is beautiful. She carries a stuffed lamb wherever she goes. It is filthy. Rollin and Clarinda are close. They write together more often than using signs. Honey hovers over Sarah, and Peter is one step behind them both.”
I hesitated before saying, “Is she well?”
“Physically, yes, but very tired. I warned her about going to town so often.”
I asked, “Why is she going to town? It’s dangerous.”
“She feeds mothers and children. Every kernel she can spare. Walking Stick loads the wagon, and she drives it to the mill. She, Sophie Sawyer, and Harriet Boudinot have passed out sacks of cornmeal for a month.”
I held my head in my hands, obstinate. “She knows where to find me. There is only one place I would go.” I picked up the sharpened end of the quill and dipped it in ink. “Our personal matters are of little importance. Our people’s cause is more pressing. Sarah knows how desperate we are. And she knows what she’s done. Feeding people is a sign of her guilt.”
Mother said, “Leaving the mother of your children! And with her expecting, no less. We raised you to be a better man. More responsible.”
“I didn’t know.” That news should have broken me, but all I thought about was how she’d betrayed me again by keeping such a secret to herself.
“Skahtlelohskee, stop writing this minute and turn around.” I did as she commanded, but I wouldn’t look at her face. Finally, Mother said, “Who are you? What has Sarah done? Tell me.”
I couldn’t repeat it. “Ask Father,” I said, “Her colors have turned. She’s disloyal. Her priorities have changed.”
“From what you’ve shown me in these last months, yours have changed. By throwing yourself into saving our people, you’ve lost what you loved. You barely sleep. Eat nothing. You’re weak. All skin and bones. Miserable. How will you lead our people if your heart is so clouded? You’ll lose the right words when it matters most because you can’t see clearly.”
I didn’t engage her further. I said, “I have work to do, Mother.”
She huffed, insulted. And so, I added another woman to the list of people who wouldn’t talk to me. She walked to the door. “Your child arrives in November.”
I returned to my notes but found them too blurry to continue.
L
When our horses navigated the rolling hills near Chickamauga, close to Tennessee’s boundary line, I told Father, “Don’t tell me to keep my voice under control.”
“If you force your tongue, they may kill us before we reach home. Our opponents know which direction we travel.”
“If I remain too quiet, we convince no one. When Jackson surveys the land promised us in the West, if he speaks the truth, it might change the minds of those undecided.”
Father said, “Asking for the survey was wise, despite bypassing Ross’ permission. He would never have allowed it, and we need that information. Your letter to Jackson was more successful than you thought. He views you as an ally. Although I believe I’ll request a surveying party of my own. Choose land for our family.”
“Ross won’t see it that way.”
Under the open-air meeting house, the council fire separated two distinct factions. Ross’ nationalist numbers were large, crowding around him and extending down the hill where the creek whispered rumors over its rocks. Father stood behind me, guarding the voices of the minority. Ridge, Boudinot, Walker, Fields, Starr, and Vann. Only a few councilmen from the eight districts remained seated on the rudely constructed benches, holding down the neutral middle.
I bit my tongue when Ross gave his state of our nation. Innuendo and insults treated us like a splinter, a slivered annoyance too deep under his skin to ignore.
Father attempted to build a bridge over the fire’s divide. “The sentiments of the majority should prevail, and whatever measure is adopted by the majority for the public good, the duty of the minority should be to yield and unite in support of the measure.”1
Ross answered Father’s concession by appointing himself head of another delegation.
I could remain quiet no longer. “As president of the National Council, I will draft the terms under which you are to proceed. Then, with wisdom and integrity, we can confide to carry the subject of our difficulties before the legislative branch of the general government, and if possible, draw from it a favorable resolution.”2 Checks and balances.
Before the council’s close, Ross laid a new power of attorney on the table, asking both legislative branch members to sign.
Astounded at Ross’ audacity, I said, “Doing so will lead the Americans to believe your delegation has all authority to treat.”
Ross said, “Jackson will not meet with me otherwise.”
I didn’t sign. My father wouldn’t sign. Stand and Elias refused to sign. Vann, Walker, Fields, and Starr too turned their backs on the Chief.
In retaliation, our band of dissenters enrolled for emigration. I couldn’t keep my family bound to this ground and wager their safety against the certainty of Ross’ duplicity.
L
On the dark ride home, an unexpected addition interrupted our quiet party. We pulled the reins, leading the horses toward the boarding trees and into the shadows. Vann drew and cocked his pistol. But Elias held his hand up. He said, “Wait. Let the man show his face in the moonlight.”
Father immediately recognized Andrew Ross, brother to our chief. Father said, “Best not sneak up behind us. Come into the light to speak.”
Then Father leaned over to me and whispered, “What could he want?”
The man held his arms free of his sides. “I am unarmed,” Andrew shouted in English. “You have every right to distrust me.”
He came into the light, a portly man, as short as Ross was, with dark hair combed over and tucked behind his ears. He’d faithfully served on the Cherokee Supreme Court, which gave him the experience to see both sides of any argument. Father said, “John, tell him how dangerous the roads have become.”
Before I could, Andrew spoke up. “I followed to tell you that your party should send a delegation to watch the delegation in Washington. Major Ridge, if my brother knows you stand directly behind him, he’ll be less likely to anger those who may be the Cherokee’s salvation. Despite my blood connections, I stand—”
I held my hand to stop Andrew’s promise, hoping to understand his motivation further. “Why turn against your family?”
Andrew rode parallel to our party and took a deep breath before answering. “Inevitable question, is it not? My mother. She believed that trust offered a man by his fellows is how one measures his worth. My brothers see the world for what they can gain from it, not what they return to it. They build generational wealth from the suffering of their ancestors. They’d make our canny Scottish father proud.”
Satisfied with his answer, Elias reached forward first to shake Andrew’s hand. Andrew’s promise fostered our solidarity anew.
I said, “Andrew’s point is well made. Ross has more authority to treat than we do.”
Vann adjusted the reins in his hand and said, “But even a pawn can check the king.”
Elias asked, “Could we go to Washington in the name of those who have emigrated? The old settlers? Those who’ve already been forced to leave?”
With little need for debate, my compatriots volunteered.
With this surprising advice from an unlikely source, we had a new ally. Ross would feel the pressure of Jackson’s frontal assault, while the opposing king, bishops, knights, and Andrew, a lone pawn, attacked from the rear.
I said, “Then it is decided. You go, and I will stay behind and correspond with Lumpkin, in the name of the Treaty Party.”
L
While the emigration delegation spent the summer in Washington, it was the end of September before I addressed the Governor again. I wrote, “It is dreadful to reflect on—the amount of blood which has been shed—by savagery on those who had only exercised their right of opinion. Nevertheless, we must prepare for the work as good generals in times of war. Keep what we have and gain the balance.”3 I signed my name to the missive when another knock came from the apartment door. I huffed at the disturbance, suffering from constant interruptions here more than at home, even with the children running through the halls.
When I opened it, I knew how mentally unprepared I was.
Sarah’s back greeted me. She turned around but didn’t look at me directly. Instead, she looked at her hands. Her maroon dress was one I’d not seen before. Blousing sleeves tapered at her elbows and tightened down her forearms to her wrists. The bodice’s fabric gathered over her shoulders in tiny pleats and crossed at a belted full skirt covering the rise in her womb. A blind man could have seen how her pale skin glowed, and the color in her eyes seemed brighter because of it. Her hair gathered in a crocheted snood at the base of her neck. How could I have forgotten how stunning she was? Rare indeed.
Her presence threw me off balance. So much so that I limped backward, putting weight on my good hip. Air crackled between us. She took a deep breath and, without speaking, extended a letter from her gloved hand. With a glance, I recognized the presidential seal and the hand of the man who’d written it.
She said, “An official messenger delivered it to Running Waters. I brought it as soon as he left. It must be important.” She curtsied and said, “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
What could have happened with the delegation that Jackson felt the need to tell me personally? That he took pains to have a message delivered privately, absent the eyes of the postmaster. The letter burned a hole through my hand. But instead of opening it, I said, “Don’t go. I’ll read it later,” and opened the door further for her to enter. “Come in? Talk to me?”
She looked behind herself, delaying a decision, but nodded, accepting my request. She only took two steps inside the door. When I reached around her to shut it, I smelled her: a mix of milk and soap, sheep’s lanolin, and underneath that, the unmistakable hint of rose petals.
In my nervousness, I passed the letter from one hand to another. Finally, I resigned to hold the corner in one hand and grip the other wrist behind my back.
Everything that came to my mind sounded ridiculous.
“Mother told me you’ve been feeding the people. I cannot offer enough thanks. It is the right thing to do, although dangerous.”
She walked toward the window at the corner of the parlor.
“I remember this view,” she said. “Best in the fall when the apple limbs light with orange and highlight the maple’s scarlet leaves.”
Perhaps she didn’t know what to say either. Instead of accepting my gratitude, she resorted to talking about fall colors. I didn’t want to speak of trees.
If Mother hadn’t told me she was with child, seeing her from the back, I wouldn’t have known. She carried the child entirely in the front. Her tapered waist didn’t reveal her secret.
I asked, “How are you? And the child?”
“Fine.”
Not a genuine answer. With her before me, I was anything but fine.
She shook her head in refusal when I gestured for her to sit. “I can’t stay long.”
I took a step toward her. “The children?”
She retreated. “Rollin can sign his name in script. His handwriting is straight up and down. He rides his pony to New Echota to Sophie’s school with Walking Stick or Peter. I won’t send him alone.”
“Yet you make the journey alone.”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Peter is fully recovered, then?”
“Yes.” She turned back toward the window. From her shutter, I knew she’d retrieved the memory of the day I left. She asked, “Are you well?”
“As well as I deserve.”
Her response was a nod, followed by lasting silence.
She finally turned around. “It has been months. I cannot lie to the children for much longer. They think you are in Washington. They expect their papa to be home soon and talk of nothing else. It is difficult for me to hear.”
“I wish to see them. Very much.”
“Come when the new child arrives, nursing two will be all I’ll have time to do.”
“You remembered what I said. About putting my tools outside.” In my imagination, I smelled the stale fireplace from my sick room in Cornwall when we wrote, “Come with me, my white girl fair…” It was where we’d talked of broken marriages, something neither of us ever expected to happen.
“I’ve not forgotten anything you’ve said.”
That was true, both good and bad. Her honesty forced me to sit in the armchair. Then, my thoughts traveled to our beginnings in this very room. We looked at one another for the first time since she arrived. “You stood there,” I pointed, “in that same spot when we argued about Honey, and I found you alone in the strawberry field.”
She whispered, shaking her head, “That night, I knew I could never be all you expected.”
I countered her self-deprecating thought. “I never expected more of you than who you’ve always been.”
“No wife could live up to your imagination: the good wife created in your perfect mind. To do so, I’d have to be four different versions of myself.” She joined her hands in front of her. “It does no good to look behind us.” She started toward the door and said, “Mother will tell you when the child is born.”
I couldn’t let her go, and I couldn’t make her stay. I blocked her exit and touched her hand. “Will you allow me to help you when your time comes?”
She pulled her hand away. “No,” she said firmly. “Your mother will tell you all you need to know.” She made a fist and protected it, wrapped in the other. Then, she said, “Please. Do as I ask.”
“Nothing has changed then—” At that moment, I didn’t know whether to end the sentence with a question mark or a period.
“Running Waters will not be home for long.”
“No, but for now, I’ll keep it safe for you and the children.”
She spoke just as fast. “What you promise is impossible, and not what you fight for.”
Her palpable doubt had me speaking in circles.
She said, “When you came home from Washington and told me you’d changed your mind, that the Cherokee must leave and start over in the West, you gave me no time. You’d had months to consider such a possibility. Planned how it might happen. You told me not to be afraid. You expected me to turn around and swear I’d have no misgivings about leaving what our family built at Running Waters. That I cannot do. And now, alone, I have no choice.”
“You’ve left me no choice but to remain away. Ross cannot know our plans. If he does, the Treaty Party can never remain one step ahead of his next scheme.”
She scoffed. “A step ahead. Yes, I see. Not working at home with me there. That is what you meant. Quatie is in Red Clay. John, she isn’t here. Regardless, I’ve never spoken to her about your business, then or now. I never touched the letter you accused me of taking. I do not know who told Ross of your plans to run for chief, but it wasn’t me. Besides, the Treaty Party will never stay a step ahead if the people you hope to convince are starving. They can’t think about tomorrow or next year when they don’t know where their next meal is coming from.”
She walked around the room one last time, shoes tapping over the floor. She said, “For years, I sat idly by in this room while you rode hundreds of miles away to protect your people. Not only them, but the Creeks. Yet, you haven’t crossed six miles in these last months. Your time to tell me what I can and cannot do has passed.”
My shame startled me. I could only retaliate against its assault with a whisper. “You made your desire abundantly clear when you put my books on the porch.”
She raised her voice. “No. You made them abundantly clear when you accused me of betraying you.”
Sarah walked to the door and turned the knob. She lifted her shoulders and raised her head. She spoke with her back to me. “You told me once the only way to find my voice was to use it.” She took a deep breath and pushed open the door. The afternoon sun spilled across the floor. She left it open and stepped outside. “I hope you’ve heard me because I do not plan on repeating myself.”
My heart stopped beating and froze, feet unable to move.
L
From the Office of the President of the United States -August 1833
Dear Sir,
Your chief’s delegation met with Secretary Cass. Their first request was that partial land be sold to the government and that your people remain on the residual.4
On my order, Cass refused.
In another cessation attempt, the delegation offered that those who stayed should revoke their Cherokee citizenship.5
On my order, Cass refused.
So, Jackson had instructed Cass not to compromise. And Ross’ continued attempts to rejuvenate the Treaty of 1819 continued to fail. It might have worked years ago but wouldn’t now.
Jackson aimed to remove us entirely, and by doing so, hoped to save the lives and maintain the culture of the Cherokee’s noble people. Ironically, Yoholo and I negotiated a similar bargain for the Creeks in ‘25. But then, as now, such an improbable solution would falter. Hindsight shrunk the list of alternatives.
I returned my attention to Jackson’s letter.
It has been my delight this week to see so many old friends. I wish you had joined them. Major Ridge disputes Ross’ negotiations on behalf of the entire nation. Your father replied how, under those terms, your people would be “perpetually made drunk by the whites, cheated, oppressed, reduced to beggary, and become miserable outcasts, as the Cherokee body dwindled to nothing.”6 As I told you, these are Ross’ schemes, and the results are as I expected.
Others in the emigration delegation know little of negotiation. While I’m not disagreeable to an agreement with a minority, I need to deal with more sophisticated agents. Andrew Ross is hell-bent on signing before returning home. I sent him to negotiate with Eaton, knowing that man’s tenacity through and through.7
I will say your friend Jack Walker has a future in politics. He, your father, and David Vann agreed not to sign any treaty. Not one solely negotiated by Ross or by his ironic opposition, his brother, Andrew. In all truthfulness, as your father said, neither party has the power to treat on behalf of the entire nation. Ross’ stubborn desperation opposes your father’s unsanctioned integrity.
My prayer is that both the eagle’s strength and its liberty find us in peaceful compromise.
I remain a loyal friend to you and your people.
Gen. A. Jackson
After reading, I took a deep breath, smelling Sarah’s lingering presence as clearly as if she had read the epistle over my shoulder. I looked back at the seal on the envelope. It had remained unopened until I slid my finger under the wax. If Sarah had wanted to betray me, this letter would have adequately done so. She didn’t take it to Quatie. Instead, she brought it to me straight away, unopened.
I recited Jackson’s last sentence again. Was I like Ross, in such “stubborn desperation,” so eager to defeat the enemy? While Cass’ letter remained missing, should I consider that there was another reason for its disappearance? No evidence existed of Sarah’s crime. My anger and suspicion accused her. Could I stare at my reflection in the river and recognize no fault?
Sarah maintained her innocence. Her “unsanctioned integrity,” noble and true, had no power to move me. Like her father’s dismissals, she accepted my shun. Another abandonment from another man who promised to love her most. She didn’t beg for forgiveness. She couldn’t find peace, nor could she wage war. So, she waited.
And I delayed too long. I looked away from Jackson’s letter. Blame and shame were mine alone.
Oh God, Great Creator, what had I done?