John Ross
John Ross was born October
3, 1790, near Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. His father was a
Scotchman named Daniel Ross and his mother was a mixed blood
Cherokee. He had two brothers and six sisters. He was
educated at Kingston, Tennessee.
His public career began
when he was but nineteen years old. At that time the agent of
the Cherokee sent him on a mission to the western Cherokee who had
moved to the wilderness of what is now the state of Arkansas a short
time before.
During the War of 1812 he
served as adjutant of the Cherokee regiment in the army of General
Andrew Jackson in his campaign against the hostile Creek Indians in
Florida. In 1817 he became a member of the national committee or
council of the Cherokee people. A year later he became president
of that body, in which capacity he continued to serve until
1826. He was president of the convention which framed the
constitution of the Cherokee Nation.
In 1827 he was Associate
Chief of the Cherokee Nation, William Hicks being principal chief at
the time. In 1828 he became Principal Chief of the Eastern
Cherokee, serving as such until their removal to the West in 1838,
when he became principal chief of the united tribe. He continued
to fill that position until his death, which occurred at Washington,
D. C., August 1, 1866.
His first wife, Elizabeth, to
whom he was married in 1813, was a full blood Cherokee. She died in
1839, at Little Rock, Arkansas, while the tribe was on the way to the new
reservation in the West. In 1845 he was married to Miss Stapler, a
Quakeress, of Wilmington, Delaware who was many years his junior. She
died in 1865. Ross had four sons and one daughter.
Source: A
History of Oklahoma by Joseph B. Throburn and Isaac M.
Holcomb, Doub and Company San Francisco 1908.
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