Nancy Ward: Difference between revisions - Wikipedia

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| image = Nanyehi.jpg

| birth_date = c. 1738

| birth_place = [[Chota (Cherokee town)|Chota]], [[Monroe County, Tennessee]]

| death_date = c. {{circadeath date and age|1823|1738}}

| death_place = Near [[Benton, Tennessee]], US

| native_name = Nanyehi <small>(''ᎾᏅᏰᎯ'')</small>

| native_name_lang = [[Cherokee language|\Cherokee]]

| pronunciation = ''Nanye'hi''

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| known_for =

| death_cause =

| resting_place = [[Nancy Ward Tomb]], [[Benton, Tennessee]]

| rp_coordinates =

| spouse = {{plainlist|"TsuTsa-la"tlo (Kingfisher);<br />Bryant Ward}}

| children = {{plainlist|Catherine (or ''Ka-Ti'') Walker<br />Littlefellow (''Hiskyteehee'') later known as Fivekiller<br />Betsy Ward}}

| father = Fivekiller

| relations = [[Attakullakulla]], uncle

| module = {{Contains special characters| Cherokee

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A decade later, In May 1775, a group of Delaware, [[Mohawk people|Mohawk]] and [[Shawnee]] emissaries formed a delegation that headed south to support the British who were trying to gain the help of the Cherokee and other tribes for war with their rebel colonies.

== Revolutionary War years ==

The Cherokee had to face multiple issues during the Revolutionary War. Most of the tribes were originally allied with the British against the rebel colonists.{{efn|The British supported Dragging Canoe's war against the settlers and supplied him with weapons.}} They wanted to expel the European-American settlers from their lands. Ward's cousin, the [[skiagusta|war chief]], [[Dragging Canoe]], wanted to ally with the British against the settlers, but Nanyehi wanted to keep peace with the rebels. In early July 1776, Ward, warned a group of white settlers living near the [[Holston River]] and on the Virginia border about an imminent attack by her people.<ref name=Rhoden/> In late July 1776, [[Dragging Canoe]], [[Oconostota ]], and [[The Raven (Cherokee)|The Raven]] led a surprise attack on the [[Overmountain settlements]] of [[Battle of Island Flats|Heaton's station]], [[Fort Watauga]], and Carter's Valley, respectively. After being beaten back by the frontiersmen, Cherokee raiding parties continued attacks against the isolated settlements in the region. State militias retaliated, destroying Native villages and crops.<ref name=Rhoden>{{cite book | last1=Rhoden| first1=Nancy L.| title=The Human Tradition in the American Revolution| date=2000| publisher=Scholarly Resources Inc| location=Wilmington, Del.| isbn=978-0842027489| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTwkF0xf3bkC&pg=PA125}}</ref> The [[Rutherford Light Horse expedition|Carolina Light Horse Rangers]] and Virginia Royal Scots formed a punitive expedition against Cherokee settlements in Fall of that year, that burnt most of the [[Overhill Cherokee]] towns, crops, and winter supplies. Devastated, the Cherokee sought peace in January 1777, and gave up hunting grounds in east Tennessee to the American frontiersmen.<ref>The Keetoowah Society and the Avocation of Religious Nationalism in the Cherokee Nation, 1855-1867, U.S. GenNet, Inc.</ref><ref>Carl Waldman, ''Atlas of the North American Indian'' (New York: Facts on File Publications, 1985)</ref>

===Captive rescue===

In her role as a Beloved Woman, Nancy Ward had the authority to spare captives. Following the Cherokee attacks ionon the Watauga settlements, she saved settler Lydia (Russell) Bean, the wife of [[William Bean]], at what is present day's [[Elizabethton, Tennessee]]. She took Bean into her house and nursed her back to health from her wounds. A recovered Bean taught Nanyehi a new loom-weaving technique, which she then taught other women in the tribe. The Cherokee women had typically made garments by sewing a combination of processed hides, handwoven vegetal fiber cloth, and cotton or wool cloth bought from traders. Women wove all the cloth in the village for tribal members' garments.<ref name=King>{{cite book | editor-last1=King| editor-first1=Duane H.| title=The Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake : The Story of a Soldier, Adventurer, and Emissary to the Cherokees, 1756-1765| date=2007| publisher=Museum of the Cherokee Indian Press| location=Cherokee, N.C.| isbn=9780807831267| page=122| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vHr-cf5j0AEC&pg=PA122| access-date=28 March 2015}}</ref>

Lydia Bean had reclaimed two of her dairy [[cow]]s from the settlement. While she was living with Nanyehi, she taught the Cherokee woman how to care for the cows, milk them, and process the milk into dairy products. Both the animals and their products would sustain the Cherokee when hunting was bad.<ref name=King/> Starr wrote that Nancy Ward successfully raised cows and was said to have been the first to introduce that industry among the Cherokees.<ref name = "starr"/> Those Cherokee who adopted loom weaving and dairy farming began to resemble European-American subsistence farmers. According to a 1933 account, Nanyehi was also among the first [[Slavery among Native Americans in the United States#Native American adaptation of African slaves|Cherokees to own African-American slaves]].<ref name= "Davis">{{cite journal | last1=Davis| first1=J. B.| title=Slavery in the Cherokee Nation| journal=Chronicles of Oklahoma| date=1933| volume=11| issue=4| url=http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v011/v011p1056.html| access-date=28 March 2015| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150310044812/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Chronicles/v011/v011p1056.html| archive-date=10 March 2015| url-status=dead}}</ref>{{efn|Many Cherokee who adopted the practice of [[chattel slavery]] tended to be Cherokees in the Deep South, where they were developing cotton plantations.<ref name= "Davis" />}}

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<blockquote>"…don't part with any more of our lands but continue on it and enlarge your farms and cultivate and raise corn and cotton and we, your mothers and sisters, will make clothing for you… It was our desire to forewarn you all not to part with our lands."</blockquote>

Despite her efforts, in 1819 the Cherokee ceded their lands north of the [[Hiwassee River]]<ref>[http://www.lib.unc.edu/dc/ncmaps/cherokee_k12.pdf Articles of convention made between John C Calhoun, Secretary of War, and the Cherokees as the Treaty with the Cherokee], dated Feb. 27, 1819.</ref> and she was forced to join other Cherokee in moving south.<ref name=Rozema>{{cite book | last1=Rozema| first1=Vicki| title=Footsteps of the Cherokees : A Guide to the Eastern Homelands of the Cherokee Nation| date=2007| publisher=John F. Blair| location=Winston-Salem, N.C.| isbn=978-0-89587-346-0| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gfic5eOnNDwC&pg=PA34}}</ref>

Nancy Ward opened an inn in southeastern Tennessee at Womankiller Ford, on the Ocowee River (present-day [[Ocoee River]]). Her son cared for her during her last years.{{efn|On July 5, 1807, the Moravian mission school at Spring Place in the Cherokee Nation (now part of Georgia), was visited by three elderly Cherokee women. One had been widowed for 50 years and was said to be nearly 100 years old. She was described by the Moravians as "an unusually sensible person, honored and loved by both brown and white people."<ref name="mission"/> Said to be named ''Chiconehla,'' the woman purportedly fought against an enemy nation and was wounded numerous times. The missionaries wrote, "Her left arm is decorated with some designs, which she said were fashionable during her youth...." Chiconehla stayed for two days, entertained by the students, and discussing theology with the missionaries. A relative, Margaret Scott, wife of [[James Vann]] (both Cherokee), translated for her. Historian Rowena McClinton believes Chiconehla was the woman also known as Nanye'hi, or Nancy Ward.<ref name="mission">'' The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees,'' Vol. I, 1805–1813 (pp. 194–196), edited and translated by Rowena McClinton, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln, NE, 2007.</ref>}}

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[[File:nancy-ward-grave1.jpg|thumb|upright|Memorial to Nancy Ward, located near [[Benton, Tennessee]] ]]

Ward died 1822 – 1824, before the Cherokee were removed from their remaining lands. She and her son, Fivekiller, are buried at the [[Nancy Ward Tomb]], on top of a hill not far from the site of the inn, south of present-day [[Benton, Tennessee]].<ref name=Rozema/>

==Legacy==

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*[[Polk County, Tennessee]] is trying to raise money to establish a Nancy Ward Museum.<ref name=Wakan/>

*Nanyehi has been documented in historical papers and accounts. She is noted in the Calendar of Virginia State Papers,<ref name=Hodge>{{cite book | last1=Hodge| first1=Frederick Webb| title=Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico| date=1907| publisher=Government Printing Office| location=Washington, D.C.| isbn=978-0781240307| url=https://archive.org/details/handbookamindians02hodgrich}}</ref> the South Carolina State Papers, ''James Mooney's History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees'',<ref name="Mooney">{{cite book | title=James Mooney's history, myths, and sacred formulas of the Cherokees : containing the full texts of Myths of the Cherokee (1900) and The Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees (1891), as published by the Bureau of American Ethnology : with a new biographical introduction, James Mooney and the eastern Cherokees| last1=Ellison| first1=George| date=1992| publisher=Historical Images| isbn=0914875191| location=Asheville, N.C.}}</ref> and the Draper Collection.<ref name=Harper>{{cite book | last1=Harper| first1=Josephine L.| title=Guide to the Draper Manuscripts| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gv-EBAAAQBAJ&pg=PP15| date=2014| publisher=Wisconsin Historical Society| isbn=9780870206832}}</ref>

*[[Theodore Roosevelt]] mentions her in his book, ''The Winning of the West'' (1905).<ref name=Ricky>{{cite book | last1=Ricky| first1=Donald B.| last2=Capace| first2=Nancy K.| title=Encyclopedia of Illinois Indians| date=1998| publisher=Somerset Publishers, Inc.| location=St. Clair Shores, Michigan| isbn=978-0-403-09335-9| page=223| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Nca4e2mZzWgC&pg=PA223}}</ref>

*A statue of Nancy Ward, carved by [[James Abraham Walker]] around 1906, was sold in 1912. It stood in a cemetery in [[Grainger County, Tennessee]] for about 70 years, but was stolen in the early 1980s.<ref name="statue">[http://www.oakridger.com/columnists/x946486594/Nancy-Ward-statue-update-on-recent-events-and-status-of-historic-art-sculpture Nancy Ward Statue: Update on recent events and status of historic art sculpture] {{Webarchive | url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110928024622/http://www.oakridger.com/columnists/x946486594/Nancy-Ward-statue-update-on-recent-events-and-status-of-historic-art-sculpture | date=2011-09-28 }}; by D. Ray Smith, ''the Oak Ridger'', December 22, 2008</ref><ref name=Wakan>{{cite web | title=Nancy Ward| url=http://forum1.aimoo.com/TheWakanCircle/Native-Woman-History/NANCY-WARD-1-1422942.html| website=The Wakan Circle| access-date=28 March 2015}}</ref>

*In 2024, an episode of ''[[Finding Your Roots]]'' revealed that Cherokee actor [[Wes Studi]] is her direct descendant.<ref>{{Citation |title=Fathers and Sons |date=2024-01-16 |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt29424181/ |access-date=2024-01-31 |series=Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. |others=Henry Louis Gates Jr, LeVar Burton, Wes Studi}}</ref>

==Notes==

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== External links ==

*{{find a Grave|2180}}

* [http://www.powersource.com/gallery/womansp/cherokee.html "Nanye-Hi (Nancy Ward) – Cherokee"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090305050003/http://www.powersource.com/gallery/womansp/cherokee.html |date=2009-03-05 }}, by Julia White

* [https://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2006/01/19/arts/20060120_AMER_SLIDESHOW_2.html Slide Show: Art Americana] "Art Reviews; Red, White and Blue Americana Atop a Cultural Rainbow" by Roberta Smith, ''The New York Times'', January 20, 2006

* Michals, Debra. [https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/nanyehi-nancy-ward "Nanye-hi (Nancy) Ward"]. National Women's History Museum. 2015.

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[[Category:1820s deaths]]

[[Category:Cherokee slave owners]]

[[Category:Colonial American women]]

[[Category:People from Chota (Cherokee town)]]

[[Category:FemaleWomen Native American leaders]]

[[Category:Women in the American Revolution]]

[[Category:Native Americans in the American Revolution]]

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[[Category:Cherokee Nation people (1794–1907)]]

[[Category:Native American women in warfare]]

[[Category:People offrom pre-statehood Tennessee]]

[[Category:18th-century Native American women]]

[[Category:18th-century American women]]

[[Category:18th-century Native Americans]]

[[Category:19th-century Native American women]]

[[Category:19th-century Native AmericansAmerican leaders]]

[[Category:Native American history of Tennessee]]

[[Category:Native American people from Tennessee]]

[[Category:American womenWomen slave owners]]

[[Category:American slave owners]]