30 Facts About Major Ridge

Later, Major Ridge led the Cherokee in alliances with General Andrew Jackson and the United States in the Creek and Seminole wars of the early 19th century.

All identified as Cherokee; they were of mixed race, though Ridge was nearly full blood, and had extensive personal and professional experience and understanding of the European-American culture surrounding the Cherokee homeland.

Major Ridge was born about 1772 into the Deer clan of his mother, Oganotota, a Scots-Cherokee woman, in the Cherokee town of Great Hiwassee, along the Hiwassee River.

Major Ridge's maternal grandfather was a Scots trader who returned to Europe and left a Cherokee wife and daughter behind in America.

Major Ridge was the third son born, but the first to survive to adulthood.

Major Ridge had two younger brothers, one of whom became known as David Uwatie.

From his early years, Major Ridge was taught patience and self-denial, and to endure fatigue.

Later Major Ridge was named Ganundalegi, meaning "The Man Who Walks On The Mountain Top Major Ridge".

In 1792, Major Ridge married Sehoya, known as Suzannah Catherine Wickett, a mixed-blood Cherokee of the Wild Potato clan.

Major Ridge's name was spelled Sehoyah; she was the daughter of Kate Parris and Ar-tah-ku-ni-sti-sky.

Major Ridge acquired 223 acres that fronted on the Oostanaula River, upstream of the confluence.

Major Ridge had no formal education and could neither read nor write.

Major Ridge appreciated the value of education and believed that the Cherokee must learn to communicate with European Americans and to understand their ways in order to survive as a nation.

Major Ridge sent his son John to a mission boarding school at Springhill.

Major Ridge proved a valuable counselor, and at the second session proposed many useful laws.

Frontiersmen pursued Major Ridge's band, catching them at Coyatee.

Major Ridge attended as an observer when Tecumseh spoke to the Muscogee living nearby.

Major Ridge was said to have confronted Tecumseh after the meeting and warned that he would kill the chief if he tried to spread that message to the Cherokee.

Major Ridge had joined the campaign as an unofficial militia lieutenant.

Major Ridge served with Jackson in the First Seminole War in 1818, leading Cherokee warriors on behalf of the US government against the Seminole Indians in Florida.

Major Ridge developed a plantation, owned 30 African-American slaves as laborers, and became a wealthy planter.

Major Ridge developed and owned a profitable ferry that carried wagons and their teams across the Oostanuaula River.

Major Ridge was rebuffed by most of the Cherokee chiefs at a council in Mississippi.

Major Ridge had long opposed US government proposals for the Cherokee to sell their lands and remove to the West.

On December 29,1835, Major Ridge made his mark on the Treaty of New Echota, which ceded the remainder of Cherokee tribal land east of the Mississippi River for land in Indian Territory, to be supplemented by the payment of annuities for a period of time, plus support from the government in terms of supplies, tools and food.

The land Major Ridge had chosen was fifty miles from the territory assigned to the Cherokee.

Major Ridge was killed while riding along a road, a group of five men waited with rifles in bushes under trees firing several gunshots at him, with five bullets piercing his head and body leaving the body slumped in saddle.

The Ross faction tried to kill Major Ridge's nephew Stand Watie, but he survived.

Major Ridge had killed his father Chief Doublehead under orders by the Cherokee National Council.

Major Ridge served as a Confederate general and was the last to surrender to Union troops.