History
How did Cherokee end up in Kentucky?
South Eastern Kentucky has a very rich and bloody history where the Cherokee are concerned. The KSC has several tribal members residing in this area to this day. These families comprise familiar Cherokee surnames in the area: White, Bell, Troxtel, McQueen and Lowery just to name a few. Many historians have erroneously claimed that the Cherokee and Shawnee both hunted in Kentucky but neither resided here. However, historians have proven that many Cherokee were permanent residents of Wayne, Pulaski and McCreary Counties in South-Central Kentucky. Burnside, which is situated in Pulaski County was a Chickamauga trading capital called Salachi and the Cumberland and Ohio Rivers formed an accepted boundary between the Shawnee and Cherokee. The lands between were considered hunting areas for both groups to use. “Doubleheads Cave” aka Hines Cave which is situated near present day Mill Springs in Wayne County is an early Chickamauga capital. The area of McCreary County known as Ywahoo Falls, Cumberland Falls, and Eagle Falls were very sacred to Cherokee in the area.
Southern aka Confederate Cherokee
After Stand Watie’s death on September 9, 1871, our Nation fell into peril. Without the protection of Stand Watie, the Southern Cherokee were brutally terrorized by the Pin or Loyal (Union) Cherokee. They blamed us for the “Trail of Tears” because our members had participated in the 1835 Treaty of Enchota. Our people were systematically burned out and murdered without any intervention by white authorities despite assurances of protection written into the treaty of 1866. Eventually, most Southern mixed bloods fled to the neighboring state of Arkansas and several were already living among the Chickasaw and Choctaw in 1866 per notes from the Indian Agent negotiating with the Southern Cherokee. In an attempt to save the Southern Cherokee from complete annihilation, Chief James Martin (addressee of the 1893 Kentucky Governor’s Letter below) gathered several mixed blood refugees and organized 75 wagons at Fort Smith to leave Indian Territory for the Henderson area in Kentucky. Some decided to stay in Arkansas. Others opted to split off along the way for other destinations such as Tennessee Illinois and Missouri, but several pressed onward to Kentucky with Chief James Martin. The Southern Cherokee and their constitutional government were thereby effectively reestablished in the area of Henderson, Kentucky.
Scuffletown
It was no accident that Chief James Martin established the Southern Cherokee in Scuffletown/Henderson, Kentucky. It is said that the Southern Cherokee had relatives living in Scuffletown and along the banks of the Green and Ohio Rivers. That seems to be affirmed by the fact that our third Chief of the Southern Cherokee Nation was Thomas “Silver Fox” Scott a descendant of the founders of Scuffletown. The town was founded around 1800 by Jonathan Thomas Stott, aka Scott, Fox, a Full Blood Shawnee and his wife Mary Polly Cooper a full blood Cherokee. They had two sons; Jonathan and Thomas. Their father was shot and killed during a brawl in Shawneetown, Illinois around 1838. The Scott’s and their descendants comprised several of our earlier Chiefs. James Martin learned the tobacco business from family, presumably Stand Watie, a successful tobacco entrepreneur. Former Kentucky Governor John Young Brown was a Confederate sympathizer during the Civil War and also a transplanted resident of Henderson, Kentucky. It is reasonable to assume that Brown was sympathetic to the Southern Cherokee because of our confederate loyalties. On December 26, 1893, the Southern Cherokee and Chief Martin were welcomed to Kentucky and recognized as an Indian tribe by Governor Brown. Several Southern Cherokee descendants still live in the area today.
