The "Notable Native Americans: Part II - John Rollin Ridge" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Reading a few accounts of the murder of John Ridge who was one of the signers of the Treaty of New Echota, which Congress affirmed in early 1836, that ceded Native Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi River and led to the "Trail of Tears" which refers to the forced relocation between 1836 and 1839 of the Cherokee Nation and their roughly 1,600 black slaves from their lands in Georgia, South and North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Oklahoma and the resultant deaths along the way at the end of the movement of an estimated 4,000 Cherokee.  The Cherokee have come to call the event "Nu na da ul tsun yi" or "the place where they cried."  John Ridge was an influential Cherokee who came from a Native American family who was often accused of reaping rewards from division among the Cherokee. It was said that John Ridge, as well as his father "Major Ridge", signed away the land in exchange for money as well as land in the West in what would be called Indian Territory.  John Ridge had a son, John Rollin Ridge who was born in New Echota, Georgia and who, one day in early 1836, saw his father hauled out of their house and killed by a group of fellow Cherokee men who didn't take lightly to the senior Ridge signing away all the Cherokee land to the U.S. Government in 1835.  

John Rollin Ridge, aka "Yellow Bird".

The signing naturally led to the deaths of thousands of Cherokee as they were forced from their homeland.  But, young John Rollin Ridge vowed to avenge his father's murder some day.  That determination laid the foundation for Ridge's adult life.  He was a stanch anti-abolitionist and advocated for Native American empowerment, but who happened to also own slaves.  He became the first Native American to write and publish an English novel in 1854.  His literary legacy, The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit, was a hit.  Ridge studied at Great Barrington Academy in Massachusetts and later studied law in Fayetteville, Arkansas where he married a White woman and had a child. They eventually owned a farm and two slaves.  One day Ridge killed his neighbor after accusing him of horse theft.  Seems it may have been set up by anti-Ridge Cherokees in hopes of getting him imprisoned.  Ridge claimed self-defense and fled to Missouri and then to California in 1850 during the "Gold Rush."  The dream of getting rich by panning for gold never worked out so Ridge wrote his first novel.  

John Rollin Ridge's first novel.

He used the pen name of "Yellow Bird," perhaps to keep his true identity hidden.  The book told the violent story of a Mexican immigrant who was driven from his land, stole from California's elite and defended the rights of the poor.  His novel was a hit, but he got very little from the sales due to the fact that the book was reprinted and distributed without his permission.  He ended up being the first editor of the newspaper, The Sacramento Bee, as well as writing poetry and fiction.  In his writings he opposed President Lincoln but supported preserving the Union while upholding slavery.  After the Civil War he tried to get the Cherokee region in California admitted into the Union, but that proved unsuccessful.  He died at the age of 40 of "brain fever."  His wife posthumously published his poems. I happened to come across this interesting person while researching another topic, but thought it interesting enough to write about John Ridge and his contribution to literature.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.