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American Dreams Trilogy

Page 105

by Michael Phillips


  Slaves faced severe punishment if caught attending secret prayer meetings. Moses Grady reported that his brother-in-law Isaac, a slave preacher, “was flogged, and his back pickled” for preaching at a clandestine service in the woods. His listeners were flogged and “forced to tell who else was there.”

  Slaves devised several techniques to avoid detection of their meetings. One practice was to meet in secluded places—woods, gullies, ravines, and thickets (aptly called ‘hush harbors’). Kalvin Woods remembered preaching to other slaves and singing and praying while huddled behind quilts and rags, which had been thoroughly wetted “to keep the sound of their voices from penetrating the air” and then hung up “in the form of a little room,” or tabernacle. (From Christian History magazine, Issue 33, p 42.)

  Fifty-One

  6Lee confided to a pharmacist that he “was one of those dull creatures that cannot see the good of secession.” But in the end he went with his state, and on April 23 accepted command of the Army of Virginia. He wrote a farewell note to a Northern friend: “I cannot raise my hand against my birthplace, my home, my children. I should like, above all things, that our difficulties might be peaceably arranged…. Whatever may be the result of the contest I foresee that the country will have to pass through a terrible ordeal, a necessary expiation for our national sins. May God direct all for our good, and shield and preserve you and yours.” (The Civil War, Geoffrey C. Ward, Alfred Knopf, NY, 1990, p. 52)

  7See Appendix Note 9—Hiding Cherokee Blood

  Fifty-Eight

  8On July 18, the volunteer Union army, 37,000 strong, marched south into Virginia. A reporter for the Washington Star described the spectacle:

  “The scene from the hills was grand… regiment after regiment was seen coming along the road and across the Long Bridge, their arms gleaming in the sun…. Cheer after cheer was heard as regiment greeted regiment, and this with the martial music and sharp clear orders of commanding officers, made a combination of sounds very pleasant to the car of a Union man.

  “The Northern troops had a good time despite the fierce heat. ‘They stopped every moment to pick blackberries or get water,’ General McDowell remembered, ‘they would not keep in the ranks, order as much as you pleased…. They were not used to denying themselves much; they were not used to journeys on foot.’

  “Hundreds of Washington civilians rode out to join the advancing army, hoping to see a real battle. Some brought binoculars, picnic baskets, bottles of champagne.

  “Some of the troops rather liked the notion of fighting their first battle in front of illustrious spectators. ‘We saw carriages and brouches which contained civilians who had driven out from Washington to witness the operations,’ a Massachusetts volunteer remembered. ‘A Connecticut boy said, “There’s our Senator!” and some of our men recognized… other members of Congress…. We thought it wasn’t a bad idea to have the great men from Washington come out to see us thrash the Rebs.’

  “Beauregard knew the Northerners were coming. Mrs. Rose O’Neal Greenhow, a prominent society leader in Washington and the aunt of Stephen A. Douglas, was one of those who had seen to that, sending him word of the advance, her coded note concealed in the hair of a sympathetic Southern girl. And he had ordered his men to form a meandering eight-mile line along one side of Bull Run Creek near a railroad center called Manassas Junction.” (The Civil War, Geoffrey C. Ward, Alfred Knopf, NY, 1990, p. 62-65)

  From the Old Books-America

  Ani-Yunwiya-The People

  1See Note 1—The People of the Caves

  Attacullaculla, Chief of the White Feather

  2Much detail is available on the Cherokee visit to England, including Cuming’s journal, in The Cherokee Crown of Tannassy by William Steele, as well as The Cherokees by Grace Woodward. Also see Note 2—Seven Cherokee in England, and the Articles of Friendship and Commerce.

  3See Note 3—The Difficult Years of 1730-1755.

  4www.keetowah-society.org; The Biography of Nancy Ward, by David Hampton, The Association of the Descendents of Nancy Ward. See also Note 4—The Legacies of Attacullaculla, Oconostota, and Dragging Canoe.

  Nanye’hi Ward, Beloved Woman of the Cherokee

  5When the early missionaries came among the Cherokees, they were astonished at the similarity of the religious tradition of the Cherokees to the biblical accounts…. They claimed that Yehowa was the name of a great king. He was a man and yet a spirit…. His name was never to be spoken in common talk. This great king commanded them to rest every seventh day. Yehowa created the world in seven days… made the first man of red clay and he was an Indian, and made woman of one of his ribs. All people were Indians or red people before the flood. They had preachers and prophets who… warned the people of the approaching flood…. A little before the flood men grew worse and worse. At length God… told a man to make a house that would swim, take his family and some of the different kinds of animals into it. The rain commenced and continued for forty days and forty nights.

  The Cherokees detailed to the missionaries parallels to practically every one of the stories of the Bible. They called Abraham Aquahimi; Moses was called Wasi. These accounts were so circumstantial that many investigators were led to believe that the Cherokees were of Semitic origin. (History of the Cherokee Indians, Emmet Starr, pp. 23-24)

  6www.pinn.net; “Sunshine for Women,” Cynthia Kasee, and Native American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, by Gretchen Bataille(ed.), London. Garland Publishing, 199e, pp. 272-74; The Cherokees, Grace Steel Woorward, p. 130

  Long Canoe and the Secret of the Cave

  7See Note 5—The Old Settlers vs. the Eastern Cherokee

  Secret Mission

  8In the Cherokee nation, women and men are considered equal contributors to the culture. It is ironic that American women struggled for hundreds of years to achieve the kind of equality that Cherokee women had enjoyed for more than 1,000 years and how Europeans tried to reverse that. (Cherokee Women in Crisis, Carolyn Johnson, Univ. of Alabama Press, 2005, from review by Eddie Chuculate)

  9Katy Ward, like her mother, married an American trader to the Cherokee, Ellis Harlan. The Harlan line remained among the Cherokee and continued to marry within the Cherokee nation. Their son George Harlan married Cherokee Nannie Sanders. Their son Ellis Harlan married Nannie Barnett, whose son Oce Harlan married Mary Ann McGhee, the great-great-granddaughter on her mother’s side of Chief Doublehead, and whose parents had been removed to the Oklahoma Territory on the Trail of Tears. Their daughter Mary Ann Harlan, fifth generation descendent of both Nancy Ward and Doublehead through father and mother, known as Mayme, married John Seder. Their daughter Cherokee Seller married John Robert Carter, whose daughter Judy Carter married Michael Phillips.

  10See Note 7—Gold, the Ridge/Ross split, and Cherokee Removal From the East.

  Trail of Tears 1846

  11www.ngeorgia.com and www.thelegendsestates.com. Tales of discovery of bits of this Cherokee gold throughout northern Georgia have been told for more than a century. But despite 150 years of searching the area, and thousands of rumors of small stashes being found, the great tunnel and huge quantities of gold remains one of the tantalizing mysteries surrounding the Cherokee removal.

  12The foregoing was actually not written in a letter home, but was in fact composed in 1890, on the occasion of John Burnett’s 80th birthday to his children. It is one of the most well-documented accounts by a white man of the Trail of Tears. After the first two fictionalized sentences of the letter, the above is taken word for word from Burnett’s account as a private in Captain McClellan’s Company of the United States Army, 2nd Regiment, 2nd Brigade, Mounted Infantry. Ironically, the land “given” to the Cherokee in the Arkansas Territory actually belonged to the Osage tribe and was not the U.S. government’s to give at all. But by now the commitment to the Cherokee nation was viewed as the higher priority in white eyes, and thus, to accommodate the massive influx of Cherokee from the East, the Osage were now driven from their land.
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br />   Notes from the Old Books

  13Fire in the Mountains by D. Sheppard and J. Wolfe, Seven Clans of the Cherokee Society, Marcelina Reed, Cherokee Publications, Cherokee, NC, 1993, www.cherokeehistory.com.,www.cherokeebyblood.com.

  14www.freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com—“Attacullaculla.”; www.freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com—“Ancestors of Attacullaculla”

  15cherokeehistory.com by Ken Martin

  President George Washington made a speech in 1796, saying that the Cherokee would be an educational “experiment” in how the federal government dealt with all Indian tribes. Accordingly, three years later Dartmouth college set up a program to include Cherokees at the school and established a loan program. Other forms of aid were extended to the Cherokee involving education in the use of tools, carpentry, agriculture, animal husbandry, and weaving. Even with such programs, however, whites continued to take Cherokee land whenever it suited them.

  16Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Houghton Mifflin, “Pitter’s Cherokee Trails.”

  Dream of Love

  Michael Phillips

  Copyright

  Dream of Love

  Copyright © 2008 by Michael Phillips

  Cover art to the electronic edition copyright © 2012 by Bondfire Books, LLC.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  See full line of eBook originals at www.bondfirebooks.com.

  Author is represented by Alive Communications, Inc., 7680 Goddard St., Suite 200, Colorado Springs, CO 80920.

  Electronic edition published 2012 by Bondfire Books LLC, Colorado.

  ISBN e-Pub edition: 9780795326431

  Dedication

  To those intrepid founders of what was eventually to become the United States of America, whose diverse spiritual roots stemmed from a common source—the desire to live practically the truths of gospel Christianity—and to those among them who dedicated their lives to the principle of freedom and equality between all men.

  Contents

  Introduction

  Prologue: From the Old Books—England

  Crisis in England

  A Vision of Light

  Pilgrims to a New World

  A Nation’s Conscience in Simple Garb

  Freedom and Bondage

  Part I: A Nation Divided

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Part II: Reunions and Losses

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Part III: Confused Loyalties

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Part IV: Beginning of Healing

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Forty-Nine

  Fifty

  Fifty-One

  Fifty-Two

  Fifty-Three

  Fifty-Four

  Part V: Missing

  Fifty-Five

  Fifty-Six

  Fifty-Seven

  Fifty-Eight

  Fifty-Nine

  Sixty

  Sixty-One

  Sixty-Two

  Sixty-Three

  Sixty-Four

  Sixty-Five

  Sixty-Six

  Sixty-Seven

  Part VI: Roots

  Sixty-Eight

  Sixty-Nine

  Seventy

  Seventy-One

  Seventy-Two

  Seventy-Three

  Seventy-Four

  Seventy-Five

  Seventy-Six

  Seventy-Seven

  Seventy-Eight

  Seventy-Nine

  Eighty

  Eighty-One

  Eighty-Two

  Eighty-Three

  Eighty-Four

  Families in Dream of Love

  Endnotes

  The sense I had of the state of the churches brought a weight of distress upon me. The gold to me appeared dim, and the fine gold changed, and though this is the case too generally, yet the sense of it in these parts hath a particular manner borne heavy upon me. It appeared to me that through the prevailing of the spirit of this world the minds of many were brought to an inward desolation, and instead of the spirit of meekness, gentleness, and heavenly wisdom, which are the necessary companions of the true sheep of Christ, a spirit of fierceness and the love of dominion too generally prevailed. From small beginnings in error great buildings by degrees are raised, and from one age to another are more and more strengthened by the general concurrence of the people; and as men obtain reputation by their profession of the truth, their virtues are mentioned as arguments in favor of general error; and those of less note, to justify themselves, say, such and such good men did the like. By what other steps could the people of Judah arise to that height in wickedness as to give just ground for the Prophet Isaiah to declare, in the name of the Lord, “that none calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth…”

  The prospect of a way being open to the same degeneracy, in some parts of this newly settled land of America, in respect to our conduct towards the negroes, hath deeply bowed my mind… These are the people by whose labor the other inhabitants are in a great measure supported, and many of them in the luxuries of life. These are the people who have made no agreement to serve us, and who have not forfeited their liberty that we know of. These are the souls for whom Christ died, and for our conduct towards them we must answer before Him who is no respecter of persons. They who know the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he hath sent, and are thus acquainted with the merciful, benevolent, gospel spirit, will therein perceive that the indignation of God is kindled against oppression and cruelty, and in beholding the great distress of so numerous a people will find cause for mourning.

  JOHN WOOLMAN, C. 1760

  Introduction

  Probably the most frequent question posed to writers is: “Where do you get your ideas?”

  As simple as the question seems, I find it a very difficult one. One cannot anticipate when or how an idea is going to come. Suddenly a lightbulb goes off somewhere in the brain and you think, “What if…?” At least that’s how it happens with me, wondering, “Where is the garden of Eden?” or, “What would a white girl and black girl do if they found themselves orphaned together during the Civil War?” or, “How did the first humans migrate to so remote a spot as Scotland, and why?”

  The germ for American Dreams goes back many years. Judy and I have been intrigued by genealogy since we first met. Those preceding us kept sufficient records through the years that we were fortunate to know a number of details about both our families’ heritages—native Cherokee in Judy’s case, and English Quaker in mine. A fascinating potential connection between our two lines also existed whose roots extended back to Oklahoma. Judy’s Cherokee ancestors came to the territory on the Trail of Tears. Some of those Indians eventually marri
ed whites, and many of those families of mixed blood remained in Indian Territory in Oklahoma, where Judy’s grandmother was raised. My father, too, grew up in Oklahoma and used to tell stories of the long Cherokee names of his childhood Indian friends.

  After we were married we took a trip to Oklahoma with our three sons, visiting both the little town of Vian where my father was raised, and also places in Craig County where Judy’s ancestors had once lived. During that trip we realized just how close our two families had been. They had lived less than fifty miles apart back in a day, when, as the saying goes, everybody knew everybody.

  As we stood in one of the several cemeteries we visited on that trip, poring over gravestones for familiar names from one of our two families, the lightbulb moment occurred: “What if some of our ancestors knew each other…? What if we might even be distantly related!”

  That possibility never left us. Eventually it developed into an idea for a book in which two girls would investigate their roots, and somehow discover their common ancestry.

  But book ideas often go in directions you don’t anticipate. Before that book was written, Katie and Mayme of Shenandoah Sisters came along and I couldn’t help borrowing parts of the idea for their story. Yet in the back of our minds, Judy and I remained curious about the possibility of a tie between our two family lines.

  The link, however, did not come in Oklahoma, nor through Judy’s Cherokee roots, where we expected it.

  I had known for years of Quaker connections in my ancestry. I had not been aware, however, that they extended back to the very founding years of the Society of Friends in England, nor that my Borton forebears were among the first Quaker immigrants to the American colonies and had come to escape persecution by English Puritans. Neither was I aware just how closely fused were the two names Borton and Woolman as two of the leading early Quaker families in New Jersey.

 

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