“Nanye-hi” (CHEROKEE SPELLING,”ᎾᏅᏰᎯ”) Nancy Ward: Cherokee Heroine of the Ohio Valley 🪓

This is a remarkable story of courage, persistence, and preservation of the Cherokee people and their customs and integrity, led and supervised by an incredibly brave and compassionate woman, who was called “Nanye-hi”, which, in the Cherokee tongue means BELOVED WOMAN, which really means WAR WOMAN. The name can also mean “one who goes about” in accordance with Cherokee spiritual belief that the Great Spirit himself communicated directly from this woman to her people, a belief that was shared and respected by all the Cherokee chiefs and spiritual leaders. ¹Her English name was Nancy Ward. Her story begins with her being born in Chota, an ancient Cherokee province in what is now Monroe County, Tennessee. While it is not officially documented as to who her biological father was, the Cherokee practiced a matrilineal tradition which named her mother Tame-Doe, a direct descendent of a prominent Cherokee chief of the Wolf Clan.

By all accounts, a winsome and gorgeous woman, Nancy had a husband and two children by age seventeen. During the Battle of Taliwa, her husband was ambushed and killed; she even chewed on the lead bullets before he would discharge his weapon to inflict more injury on the victims who were shot. After his death on this battlefield, in front of her, she rallied the Cherokee behind her to charge at the Creek Indians in retaliation. Picking up her husband’s rifle, and shooting at Creek Indians, they retreated almost instantly. As a result of this action, Nancy became a prominent figure in Cherokee and other tribal societies, heading the councils and tribal discussions of her people; her authority and responses to matters were equal to that of the chiefs. ²

FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR: 

Like an abundance of many Indian tribes, by the 1760’s most of the indigenous people were allies with the British; a few were allegiance to the French; in exchange for Cherokee cooperation, the British promised military protection on their lands and lodgings. At this time, most Cherokee land had British military posts and stations owned and operated in the name of the Royal Crown; this idea and symbolism did not sit well with elders of the tribes. As these posts and stations expanded in the geography of native lands, it also attracted more European settlers into their occupied areas. In most of present-day West Virginia, bands of Cherokees waged frontier wars on most of the white settlers, who were returning from assisting a “British takeover” of Fort Duquesne in Pittsburgh.This violent skirmish produced the killings of twenty more white settlers attempting to call this part of the Ohio valley region their home. (It is to be noted that there is a great abundance of evidence of Cherokee people passing through the Ohio Valley, and even settling in some unknown locations; however, most were forced into the area by relocation and other means of hostile transformation.) During these dark and bloody conflicts in our regions, it was noted that Nancy Ward would often spare her captives and release them, on the condition they inform their superiors of the resistance and bravery of the Cherokee people. One such woman whom she spared went by the name of Lydia (Russel) Bean. She took Mrs. Bean into her house, dressed and healed her wounds, from which she made a full recovery. In response to her kindness, Mrs. Bean taught Nancy Ward new loom-weaving techniques for use in making clothing more comforting and durable. In addition to this, Mrs. Bean bequeathed to Ward two dairy cows from which she was taught who to milk them and and process the cow’s milk into dairy products that could and did sustain the Cherokee people when hunting and fishing became thinned out; this is, arguably, the first interaction of Native People’s implementing dairy process and idea into their culture which would prove to be vital to their survival and persistence. At this point in the discourse of European influence and technology of the time, sadly, slavery was also introduced into Cherokee culture, albeit it was not practiced by all tribes of the people; it was much more active in the Deep South; it has been stated in various sources, however, that Nancy Ward did in fact own black slaves herself; however, Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, and other tribes were under a dominant impression to arrive at the conclusion that owning black slaves would be, in some beneficial way, a means by which they could procure favoritism by white settlers. (In the end, only the opposite came true.) 

AMERICAN REVOLUTION:

The Cherokee People were in a sea of chaos in the time of the War of Independence: they faced enormous difficulties and difficult decision-making moments. Most of the Cherokee were allied with the British against the American colonists for various reasons. One is the obvious actions of the Colonists demanding that Cherokee and other tribes surrender their lands for the cause of white expansion. In the unique case of Nancy Ward, however, she sympathized with the Colonists. There can be numerous reasons to illustrate the reason. The most paramount one being is that the tribes in the area were so divided and so deceived by British authority. As conflicts all over the thirteen colonies spread, and the need for American Colonists to eradicate influence and loyalty to the English crown, Indigenous Peoples took it upon themselves to represent and accrue their own needs, preserving their sacred lands being of the highest utmost. If Ward could continue to convince her people could keep their lands by supporting the American cause for Independence, the whites would permit them to stay. (Once again, the opposite took places for ALL indigenous natives.) By the spring of 1775, Delaware, Mohawk, and Shawnee tribes aligned themselves, deceptively, with the British, in exchange for false pretenses of keeping their lands. By the year’s end, American and English settlements, largely in the Appalachian regions, were being raided by the Chickamauga (A branch of Cherokee who broke off from the major tribe) which resulted in Military retaliatory violence on the bloodiest level yet seen in our area. As a result, the Cherokee people were compelled to relinquish much more of their land to white authority. In an act of desperation for her own people as well as the American colonists, Nancy Ward warned a group of settlers that more bloodshed and loss of land was coming. To her accuracy, the attacks continued on territories all over the eastern and southern portions of the thirteen colonies; she even sent cattle to staving militia in the hopes that a cease fire between her people and the colonists would prevail. Her efforts and contributions were ignored. Finally, by 1895, Nancy Ward assisted in the negotiation of the Treaty of Hopewell. Despite this, settlers in the regions still demanded more Cherokee and tribal lands; Nancy Ward stood firm in her objection to this. Under intense pressure from the States of Georgia and Alabama (which was under Cherokee authority at the time) Indian encroachments would be dealt with severely. This marked the beginning of the end of traditional Cherokee lands.  ³

By 1817, a great Cherokee Council took place without Nancy Ward being present; she had fallen ill. She sent a letter to the council to instruct them on their proceedings, here is a quote from that letter: …”don’t part with anymore of our lands but continue on it and enlarge your farms and cultivate and raise corn and cotton an we, your mothers and sisters, will make clothing for you…it was our desire to forewarn you all not to part with our lands.” By 1819, too much had changed and taken place. The Cherokee submitted more of their lands as far north as the Hiwassee River to join other Cherokee tribes to move south.

LATE LIFE AND DEATH: 

Nancy Ward owned and operated an inn for travelers in southeastern Tennessee. With the help of her son, she made a substantial income from the place and lived out her final days there. She died peacefully in 1822 or 1824. It was just before the passing of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. A chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Tennessee is named after her in honor. Currently, in Polk County, Tennessee, money is being raised for a museum that will bear her name.

LEGACY: 

Nancy Ward is a pristine example of a woman’s voice when a woman’s voice did not exist. She was convinced, however, that women, and not men, could recognize and reside with the differences of white and red culture and live by peaceful means. While she is looked upon with reverence from the American Revolution perspective, a few of her descendants may not hold so high a position. While the contention can be proposed that she assisted in the removal of Cherokee traditions into a more Western way of life, she was a staunch advocate for the preservation of Cherokee lands. While she is also credited with the introduction of slavery to the Cherokee people, dairy farming, cattle production and creating better clothing transferred Cherokee culture into a blooming and still highly sought after means of a people, preserved by prosperity, integrity, courage, and assimilation, hence, their still impressively pious and serene existence in the Indigenous/American human experience. 

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