American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  Their ethnic origins, however, remained forever linked throughout a history that would one day know them all—from the Eskimo of the Arctic, to the Koyukon and Montagnais-Naskapi of Alaska and Labrador, to the Tehuelche of Argentina, to the Inca of Peru, to the Iroquois of the northern forests, to the Navaho of arid rocky regions, to the Aztec of Mexico, to the Apache of the Great Plains, and to the Cherokee of the southeastern coastal plains—simply as Indians.

  As the civilizations of Sumaria, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, and Greece rose in other parts of the world, altogether lost from their sight, far to the south in the mountains of Peru and in the warm crescent of Oahuaca, these ancient ancestors of America peopled the mainland and established two advanced civilizations that grew and prospered without influence from the rest the globe.

  Meanwhile, though their Aztec and Inca cousins built cities, others of their kind, finding the nomadic life peaceful and the expansive plains and coastal regions north of Mesoamerica temperate and abundant with life, built no empires but continued to follow their food in perpetual migrations that became as predictable as the patterns of weather that drove the animals they stalked up and down throughout the great land.

  On the plains, in the forests, in the fertile lands of the Ohio Valley, along the shores of the great river called Mississippi and the fertile expanse between the two coastlines, many native tribes formed out of the common root stalk of humanity, developing cultures and societies, living as their ancestors had for centuries, each gradually carving out its own sense of place within a continent too massive to be crowded by their sparse numbers. Some of these tribes continued as nomads, others gradually learned, like the Aztecs to the south, to grow things, to domesticate animals, and to construct semipermanent dwellings and shelters. Among these, the Iroquois in the north, the Hopewell in the Ohio Valley, and the Cherokee to the south, led the advance toward civilization, with laws and society, construction, trade, and culture.

  Who could tell to what these remarkable tribes might have risen, and what their civilizations might have become. History will never know. For at the height of their march toward civilization—later than in many places on the globe, but moving steadily in that direction—a new race of men of fair skin, and with them a race of blacks, arrived from over the sea.

  The destiny of what these newcomers called the New World, and the three races that would all call it their home, was suddenly altered forever.

  Ani-Yunwiya—The People

  1680-1725

  Amatoya Moytoy and his woman Quatsy stared into the water flowing past them. An infant son slept peacefully in his father’s arms.

  Seven hundred or more generations had passed since their intrepid forebears had crossed the land bridge from a continent now forgotten into this new home of their ancestors. That past had long faded from memory, though the strength of its heritage would never die. These were a rugged people for they had survived, and, if not tamed the land, learned to dwell in harmony with it. The land and its bounty was their mother, for it sustained and nurtured them. They took what they needed for life, but no more. They were a people whose diverse tongues contained no expression for greed. To hoard, to grasp, to possess more than one’s fellow, were concepts unknown among them.

  The land fed, the land provided, and to the land they would return in the end. They were one with the land, with the animals, with the sun, with the weather, and with the great river who spoke secrets for those who knew how to listen. They had learned the ways of rain and drought, the haunts of wild creatures, the secrets of the land. As they multiplied in numbers they occasionally made peace with neighboring tribes, and occasionally war. From earliest memory, their people, the Ani-Yunwiya, had dwelt here. Even in the 1500s when the Spainard DeSoto came up from the south he found the Cherokee a mighty people.

  Moytoy was the greatest among the people called Cherokee in the region of Great Telliquo and even throughout the region of Tannassy. He had taken his newborn son to the river of the same name to learn what the Great Spirit would call him, and to hear, if he might amid the tumult of the waters, the voice that would speak to him of his son’s destiny in this land growing gradually crowded with the fair-skinned strangers from across the sea.

  Amatoya and Quatsy stood silent before the rushing headwaters of the Tannassy.

  “Oh spirit of the waters, hear my request,” said the chief at length. His voice was solemn and strong, melodic in unison with the rippling white water flowing past him. “I bring before you my son. Let his life be as your waters, flowing ever onward with power and strength. May he bring you honor, Great Spirit of the earth and water and sky. May his children forever love and respect this land. As your waters never end but flow on and on, may our people also flow on and on in this land of our fathers and their fathers before.”

  He turned. Quatsy removed the soft-skin blanket from the child, then his father knelt and gently lowered the frail form to its neck into the icy flow. Startled awake, the young one cried out. Three more times Moytoy dipped his son into the flow. He stood again, held the dripping boy a moment, then handed him to his mother who wrapped him in the garment of warmth.

  A few minutes more they stood. Slowly Chief Moytoy began to nod. He had listened. The spirit of the river had spoken. The name had been given.

  Once more he turned to the woman at his side.

  “It is as you expected,” he said. “The spirit of the river would make us one, though we are two. The name will continue. May I be worthy of it, and may he be worthy of it.”

  Amatoya and Quatsy turned away and left the river which would one day be called the Tennessee, and began the trek of half a day back to Telliquo with their son.

  As they approached the village, warm greetings from the rest of their tribe met them. The cousin to the chief’s wife led the procession out from the camp.

  “We rejoice in the return of our chief and his family,” said Kunnessaway. “What name has the great river brought forth for your son?”

  “My son will also be known as Moytoy,” replied Amatoya. “He will be called Okoukaula. He will follow in my path, wearing the white feather of peace.”

  The face of Kunnessaway clouded with doubt. “I fear our chief sees not the marks of the future. More of our future chiefs will wear the red feather of war.”

  Moytoy the elder, as he would henceforth be called, shook his head as he handed the infant into Quatsy’s arms.

  “We will live in peace with the newcomers from over the sea,” he rejoined firmly. “There is land enough for all. They do not roam as we do. They stay near the great water and do not venture inland toward our villages. We will live in peace.”

  The boy Okoukaula grew to follow his father as peace chief of the Cherokees, and in time came to be called Moytoy the younger. Though a few of the village war chiefs may have disputed his claim as headman of all chiefs, none disputed that among their people he eventually rose in stature even above his father. By the time he had taken his own sons to the river in the early years of the eighteenth century, new times were advancing upon them rapidly.

  Whether the chiefs of war or the chiefs of peace would rule the Cherokee, not even their wisest seers, priests, or conjurers could yet foresee.’1

  Attacullaculla,

  Chief of the White Feather

  1730-1759

  For, centuries the Cherokee people lived in relative peace in the mountains and valleys between Carolina and Kentucky, Virginia and Georgia. It was their home. Yet from the moment the English colonists took root in the land called America, the Cherokee nation began to be pushed farther and farther into the mountains.

  The new treaty with King George II of England in 1730 brought relative peace to the tribe for the next twenty years. But the seven Cherokee men who had visited the great palaces of England little anticipated how soon a series of colonial wars would ravage their region, and that within a generation the so-called treaty would be little more than a memory, trampled underfoot by the stresses of expandin
g American colonialism.2

  Elected peace chief of the Cherokee while still a young man, Ukwaneequa was renamed Attacullaculla and for the rest of his life did his utmost to promote favorable relations with the English. In 1736 the French sent emissaries to the Cherokee to try to win back Cherokee loyalties from the English. But Attacullaculla convinced his people to remain loyal to the English. In spite of his efforts, however, clashes between the two cultures increased. Cherokee villages were often burned without question. Gradually many in the tribe, led by Oconostota, spoke out for war.

  A new treaty was signed with the English in 1754. But it did not lead to peace. It gave up large amounts of Cherokee land as well as made provision to allow the British to build forts in Cherokee territory.3

  Moytoy the younger died about 1753. Attacullaculla was peace chief and Oconostota was war chief, and there were many other prominent chiefs at the time. Moytoy’s son Dreadful Water claimed the Emperor title, but the Cherokee national council made their own choice of headman, Standing Turkey of Echota, called Old Hop because he was old and lame. Despite this selection, Attacullaculla was considered the most influential chief in the nation, and Oconostota was known as the Great Warrior of Echota.

  The encroaching English colonists were not the only concern of the Cherokee. Their perennial enemies the Creek and the Seminoles coveted the rich hills, valleys, streams, and rivers of the vast Cherokee territory. Cherokee towns were constantly threatened by war parties from both tribes. Though friendly relations between the Cherokee and English gradually resulted under Attacullaculla’s leadership in Cherokee land being used for English settlements and forts in exchange for trading privileges and goods, the Cherokee did not so easily desire to cede land to their Indian rivals. Thus centuries of old disputes and tribal border warfare with the Creeks and Seminoles continued.

  The Muskogee tribe of the Creek mounted a major assault against the Cherokee in 1755. Hearing of the death of Moytoy, and attempting to seize upon a moment of weakness in Cherokee leadership, four battles took place. Despite the efforts of Oconostota and the leadership of Attacullaculla, many warriors were lost and the Creeks seemed slowly eroding the strength and resolve of the Cherokee.

  In grave danger, and with no help coming from their so-called allies the English, the Cherokee made plans for a final effort against the Creek, summoning even the aid of their women in battle. It was a daring and dangerous plan. If they were overrun, massive damage could be done to the entire fabric of Cherokee life. But the alternative was capture and annihilation.

  “You must join me in battle, Nanye’hi,” said the young warrior called Kingfisher as he came into the lodge that had been his home for three winters.

  His young wife glanced up at him in anxious question.

  “The Creeks again raid our villages,” he went on. “The Great Warrior of Echota has spoken to the council. He says that to save our towns and villages, our women must take up arms with us.”

  The young wife looked down at the infant son in her arms, then over at her two-year-old daughter asleep on the furry skin of a bear across the lodge.

  “What if I do not return?” she said. “Who will take care of them?”

  “You will return to our children,” replied her husband.

  “But I am afraid.”

  “Fear is not an evil thing,” said Kingfisher, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. “One who meets what he fears with courage is known for his bravery. You and I will face our fears and be brave together.”

  Though the Creek force was huge, a thousand or more, the five hundred Cherokee dug in throughout a forested and hilly region and were prepared for them. With screams and bloodcurdling cries, the first wave of Creeks rushed toward the waiting Cherokee. The air erupted with explosions from the muskets with which both sides were well supplied. As the echoes from the initial volley died out for reloading, arrows whished through the trees in both directions. Soon muskets exploded again. Within minutes the air hung thick with dense blue-gray smoke. Screams and yells and war cries of battle and death sounded everywhere.

  Most of the Cherokee women who had accompanied their warriors crouched low behind trees and small mounds of earth or logs, reloading rifles and handing bullets and arrows to their men as quickly as they could load rifles or string bows, take aim, and refire. All around was fear, blood, and death as the Creek horde gradually advanced upon them.

  In the hollow behind a fallen log knelt the nineteen-year-old Cherokee maiden of the Wolf clan, her heart filled with terror for the two young children she had left back at the village. Her husband, Tsu-la, also known as Kingfisher, a few yards away was firing at the Creeks as rapidly as he could reload the musket in his hands. Young Nanye’hi, named for her grandmother, daughter of Tame Doe and Fivekiller, had only been married three years. She had born her husband two fine children, Catherine and Fivekiller, named for her mother and father. Beside her sat a small pile of musket balls. One by one she placed them in her mouth, chewing the soft lead to roughen its edges and make them more deadly. The explosions from her husband’s gun were deafening, and the smoke so thick after twenty minutes that she could scarcely see any of the rest of their tribe scattered through the pine wood.

  She crept toward Kingfisher with a fresh supply of musket balls. He turned, took them from her. She saw in his eyes what she herself felt—that the battle was not going well and that the Creeks were too numerous to hold off much longer. He turned to face the battle, and Nanye’hi returned to her place of safety.

  Suddenly behind her she heard a great shriek. She glanced into the smoky wood to see a Creek warrior twenty feet from them. Kingfisher had just loaded and quickly raised rifle to shoulder.

  But he was too late. A puff of white burst from the barrel of the enemy’s gun, followed instantly by its explosion. Kingfisher’s body jerked back. The gun fell from his hands, and he toppled down the ledge toward his young wife.

  In panic she fell to her knees and crawled to him, then cradled his head in her hands. His chest was covered in blood.

  “Nanye’hi,” he whispered faintly. “I… Nanye’hi…”

  He said no more. The rest remained unsaid as his lungs emptied in a dying sigh.

  A forlorn cry of agony rent the forest. Its sound sent a chill through all the Cherokee who heard it above the gunfire, for they knew whose cry it was. Immediately rose within every Cherokee breast a flame of indignation at the enemy, and a surge of determination for the battle.

  Nanye’hi had no time to grieve. In the ten seconds that had passed since the fatal shot, the Creek warrior rushed forward to see if his aim had been true. Nanye’hi saw the movement and glanced up.

  Acting more from instinct than plan, in less than a second the great hunting blade from her husband’s waist was in her hand. She leapt to her feet and rushed the foe, who, in the smoke and confusion did not recognize his danger. Before he could unsheathe his own knife, Nanye’hi plunged the razor-sharp steel between his ribs with all the might she could summon. The warrior staggered back and fell. Seconds later she had avenged her husband’s death. The Creek warrior lay dead at her feet, her hand and the blade dripping with his blood.

  What happened next she could not remember. Turning to grab up her fallen husband’s musket, and shouting war cries in the ancient Cherokee tongue, Nanye’hi flew toward the battle, heedless of safety, in a passionate madness of ferocity. Her tribesmen had heard her cry. A few had seen what had happened and witnessed her bravery. From thirty or forty feet away, Oconostota sounded a war cry of his own. It was echoed by renewed exhortations from Attacullaculla on the other side of the wood. Within minutes every Cherokee knew what had happened and surged forward in mighty rage to follow Nanye’hi’s example.

  When the battle was over, what remained of the Creek force fleeing for their lives—leaving behind livestock, wounded, and the handful of black slaves whose job was to keep ammunition in the hands of the warriors—Nanye’hi was at the front of the victorious Cherokee force, fi
ve Creeks scattered about the battlefield slain at her own hand by her husband’s musket and blade.

  Nanye’hi stood in a daze. Silence slowly returned to the field of death. The rifle dropped from her hand to the ground. Still she stood, unable to comprehend the magnitude of what had taken place. Not twenty years of age, she was already a widow.

  Soft footsteps sounded behind her. She turned a forlorn face. Her two uncles approached, the great chiefs of the red feather and the white feather who had come together in common cause against the Creek’s threat.

  She fell into the arms of Chief Attacullaculla. The sobbing wail that echoed through the forest was one that would be carried for the rest of their lives in the heart of every Cherokee warrior and woman who had witnessed her bravery that day. The defeat of the Creeks was so great that they were driven from upper Georgia and never returned. Having led the Cherokee in so great a victory, by which most of North Georgia was gained from the Creeks, Oconostota would be known for the rest of his life as the greatest of all Cherokee warriors.

  As the sun slowly set, Nanye’hi followed on foot the horse that carried her husband’s body back to Chota. Many women had lost their men that day in the battle to save their city, and all the nation stoically grieved for the fallen.

  Two weeks later, a solemn ceremony was held. The highest honor that was possible for a Cherokee woman to receive was about to be given. All the village turned out to see their much beloved Nanye’hi, widow of Kingfisher and slayer of five Creek warriors honored before the entire tribe. Henceforth she would be known as Ghigua, a Beloved Woman, and would sit on the tribal council in recognition for her brave and heroic action.

  Nanye’hi stood in a robe of white deerskin with her two youngsters, one at her side the other in her arms, her beautiful tan face stoic. Even in her honor, her heart wept though no tears fell from her eyes. Her uncle, Chief Attacullaculla stepped forward, then spoke to the assembly, recounting as if they were already legendary, her deeds on the field of battle.