John Ross, the Principal Chief of the Cherokees, founder of Ross's Landing which would become the City of Chattanooga, and whp was removed from there on the Trail of Tears, is memorialized with a bronze head-and-shoulders bust on a pedestal of gray Tennessee granite at the Hamilton County Courthouse.
Ross appears to be 40-50 years old, his hair is work in a style popular in the 1830s-40s. He is wearing a high-collared shirt and bow tie, with vertical pleats down the front. He has what looks like a scarf around his neck and over all he is wearing an open overcoat. Ross looks out with a steady gaze. It seems he is looking over the removal of his people onto the Trail of Tears. His face is sad but resolute, the face of a man who knows he has lost the battle and must now manage the aftermath.
The bust is obviously larger than life size, maybe 1.5 times life size.
On the grey granite plinth, these words appear:
[E side]
JOHN ROSS
Principal Chief
of the
Cherokee Nation
1828-1866
[N side]
JOHN ROSS
Established
Ross's Landing 1815
Which became
Chattanooga 1838
[W side]
Erected by
The John Ross Statue Committee
[list of names and organizations]
Belle Kinney, Sculptor
[S side]
JOHN ROSS
October 3, 1790
August 1, 1866
Adjutant
Cherokee Regiment
War of 1812
Faithful to his Trust
He spent his life in
The service of his nation
A loyal Cherokee
A great American"
From the Wikipedia: (
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"John Ross (October 3, 1790 – August 1, 1866), also known as Koo-wi-s-gu-wi (meaning in Cherokee: "Mysterious Little White Bird"), was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation from 1828–1866, serving longer in this position than any other person. Described as the Moses of his people, Ross influenced the Indian nation through such tumultuous events as the relocation to Indian Territory and the American Civil War.
. . .
Indian agent
At the age of twenty, having completed his education and with bilingual skills, Ross received an appointment as US Indian agent to the western Cherokee and sent to their territory (in present-day Arkansas). During the War of 1812, he served as an adjutant in a Cherokee regiment. He fought under General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend against the British-allied Upper Creek warriors, known as the Red Sticks.
Businessman and founder of Chattanooga
Ross began a series of business ventures which made him among the wealthiest of all Cherokee. He derived the majority of his wealth from cultivating 170 acres (0.69 km2) tobacco in Tennessee worked by twenty slaves.
In 1816 he founded Ross's Landing, served by a ferry crossing. After the Cherokee were removed to Oklahoma in the 1830s, American settlers changed the name of Ross's Landing to Chattanooga. In addition, Ross established a trading firm and warehouse. In total, he earned upwards of $1,000 a year ($14.1 thousand in today's terms). In 1827 Ross moved to Rome, Georgia, to be closer to New Echota, the Cherokee capital. In Rome, Ross established a ferry along the headwaters of the Coosa River close to the home of Major Ridge, an older wealthy and influential Cherokee leader. By December 1836, Ross's properties were appraised at $23,665 ($516112 today). He was then one of the five wealthiest men in the Cherokee Nation.
. . .
Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation
In January 1827, Pathkiller, the Cherokee's principal chief and last hereditary chief, and, two weeks later, Charles R. Hicks, Ross's mentor, both died. Ross, as president of the National Committee and Major Ridge, as speaker of the National Council, were responsible for the affairs of the tribe.[22] In a letter dated February 23, 1827, to Colonel Hugh Montgomery, the Cherokee agent, Ross wrote that with the death of Hicks, he had assumed responsibility for all public business of The Nation. Charles Hicks' brother William served briefly as interim chief until a permanent chief could be elected. Although he believed he was the natural heir to his brother's position, William Hicks had not impressed the tribe with his abilities. A majority of the people knew that during the year Ross, not Hicks, had taken care of all of the mundane business of the tribe. On October 17, 1828 the Cherokee elected John Ross as principal chief.
. . .
In May 1830, Congress endorsed Jackson's policy of removal by passing the Indian Removal Act. Jackson signed the Act on May 23. It authorized the president to set aside lands west of the Mississippi to exchange for the lands of the Indian nations in the Southeast. In the summer of 1830, Jackson urged the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Creek to sign individual treaties accepting removal from their homelands. The Cherokee refused to attend a meeting in Nashville that Jackson proposed. The other tribes signed off on Jackson's terms.
When Ross and the Cherokee delegation failed in their efforts to protect Cherokee lands through dealings with the executive branch and Congress, Ross took the radical step of defending Cherokee rights through the U.S. courts. In June 1830, at the urging of Senator Webster and Senator Frelinghuysen, the Cherokee delegation selected William Wirt, US Attorney General in the Monroe and Adams administrations, to defend Cherokee rights before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Wirt argued two cases on behalf of the Cherokee: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and Worcester v. Georgia. In Cherokee Nation v. Georgia,' Chief Justice John Marshall acknowledged that the Cherokee were a sovereign nation, stating, "[T]he Cherokees as a state, as a distinct political society, separated from others, capable of managing its own affairs and governing itself, has, in the opinion of a majority of the judges, been completely successful." But he did not compel President Jackson to take action that would defend the Cherokee from Georgia's laws, because he did not find that the U.S. Supreme Court had original jurisdiction over a case in which a tribe was a party.
In 1832, the Supreme Court further defined the relation of the federal government and the Cherokee Nation. In Worcester v. Georgia, the Court found that Georgia could not extend its laws to the Cherokee Nation because that was a power of the federal government. Marshall stated that "the acts of Georgia are repugnant to the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States. They interfere forcibly with the relations established between the United States and the Cherokee nation, the regulation of which, according to the settled principles of our Constitution, are committed exclusively to the government of the Union." The Cherokee were considered sovereign enough to legally resist the government of Georgia, and they were encouraged to do so.
The court maintained that the Cherokee Nation was dependent on the federal government, much like a protectorate state, but still a sovereign entity. But the dispute was made moot when federal legislation in the form of the Indian Removal Act exercised the federal government's legal power to handle the whole affair. The series of decisions embarrassed Jackson politically, as Whigs attempted to use the issue in the 1832 election. They largely supported his earlier opinion that the "Indian Question" was one that was best handled by the federal government, and not local authorities.
. . .
Ross led a delegation to Washington in March 1834 to try to negotiate alternatives to removal. Ross made several proposals; however, the Cherokee Nation may not have approved any of Ross's plans, nor was there reasonable expectation that Jackson would settle for any agreement short of removal. These offers, coupled with the lengthy cross-continental trip, indicated that Ross's strategy was to prolong negotiations on removal indefinitely. There was the possibility that the next President might be more favorably inclined.
Ross's strategy was flawed because it was susceptible to the United States' making a treaty with a minority faction. On May 29, 1834, Ross received word from John H. Eaton, that a new delegation, including Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, and Ross' younger brother Andrew, collectively called the "Ridge Party" or "Treaty Party", had arrived in Washington with the goal of signing a treaty of removal. The two sides attempted reconciliation, but by October 1834 still had not come to an agreement. In January 1835 the factions were again in Washington. Pressured by the presence of the Ridge Party, Ross agreed on February 25, 1835, to exchange all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi for land west of the Mississippi and 20 million dollars. He made it contingent on the General Council's accepting the terms.
Treaty of New Echota and Trail of Tears
Secretary of War Lewis Cass believed this was yet another ploy to delay action on removal for an additional year, and threatened to sign the treaty with John Ridge. On December 29, 1835, the Treaty Party signed the Treaty of New Echota with the U.S. Most Cherokee thought the signatories unauthorized. However, Ross could not stop its enforcement.
. . .
General Winfield Scott forced removal of Cherokee who did not emigrate to the Indian Territory by 1838. This forced removal came to be known as the Trail of Tears. Accepting defeat, Ross convinced General Scott to allow him to supervise much of the removal process. Ross's wife Quatie was among the many Cherokee who died en route. According to one of the soldiers escorting the group, she had given her coat to a child that was crying because of the cold. A few days later, she died of pneumonia near Little Rock on the Arkansas River.
. . .
Namesake and monuments
The City of Chattanooga named the Market Street Bridge in Ross's honor, and a bust of Ross stands on the north side of the Hamilton County Courthouse lawn.
The city of Rossville, Georgia, located just south of the Tennessee state line, is named for Ross. It contains his former home, the John Ross House, where he lived from 1830–1838 until the state seized his lands near the Coosa River. One of the oldest surviving homes in the Chattanooga area, it has been designated as a National Historic Landmark."