Pictured is the Big Tellico River in Tennessee in the Cherokee National Forest.
There are lots of stories of historical events and families in the book that is listed at the end of this article. No one traversed through Indian territories without incident. Generally, the Indians were friendlier to the white man than most tribes, especially those tribes in Western America. Once cannot conclude that white men did not marry Indians. The only question is whether or not he also walked the trail of tears to Oklahom during the 1830s. For those white men who took up residence with the Cherokees, there were are no marriage records or other vital information to be found.
Some 33,000 persons claimed descent from the Cherokees in the Dawes Rolls of 1903, yet very few were qualified to draw the free land being offered. To prove oneself 32nd generation blood kin was not an easy quest. Those who did qualify were able to prove that their forefather was listed on the Indian Rolls. Yes, Cherokees could read and write, and kept pristine records. This was also true of the Creek Indians in Georgia.
The site of Asheville, North Carolina was once within the borders of a vast and mighty Indian empire. In 1736, a German Jesuit and an officer in the French Army, Christian Priber, came to the Cherokee country and took up his abode among the Cherokee Indians on the Big Tellico River, now in Tennessee but then in North Carolina. He was a man of profound and extensive learning, and highly polished manners. Yet, he exchanged his clothes with the head warriors of Tellico River and ate, drank, slept, danced, and painted himself with them and took one of their women for a wife. The well-educated Priber was master of the Greek, Latin, German, French, Spanish, and English languages, and he soon became thoroughly acquainted with the language of the Cherokees.
Next, Priber conspired with the Indians to form an empire that would drive the white men from America! The old Indian archi-magus was crowned emperor with much ceremony and the other chief men of that neighborhood were elevated to offices with high-sounding titles in the new empire, while Priber himself became principal secretary of state to the new emperor.
The plan was to engage all of the Southern tribes to become subjects of the empire. He encouraged the aboriginal vanity of the Cherokees by pointing out their superior numbers in having about six thousand warriors and their bravery and fame in war, while representing the English as a people, fraudulent, avaricious, encroaching, and inferior in numbers as well as in warlike spirit to the mighty Cherokees.
Soon the British authorities at Charlestown, South Carolina, heard of what was going on and sent Colonel Fox to arrest Priber and bring him to Charlestown. Fox seized his man and made a speech to the Indians to explan his actions.
But before he had concluded, one of the warriors interrupted the speaker and told him that the man whom he wished to make prisoner was now a Cherokee and a great friend to their nation and must not be interferred with, while Colonel Fox must leave the country. Fox departed under a passport of safe conduct from Priber himself, who also furnished a bodyguard for the British agent to conduct him through Indian territory.
Meanwhile, Priber proceeded with his plans, and invited criminals of all classes to seek an asylum in his new government, while urging debtors, felons, servants, and negro slaves to escape and join him. They were promised exemption from punishment for any crime or licentiousness, except murder and idleness. This campaign lasted for eight years until in 1744, when Priber began a journey to Mobile. After having passed by land to the Tallapoosa River and spending the night at Tookabtcha, he was recognized by some traders who forcibly carried him as a prisoner to Frederica, Georgia.
General Oglethorpe was shocked to find an educated man dressed in deer-skins and moccasins. Priber’s manuscripts and a Cherokee dictionary which he explained that he planned to publish in France, were seized, and Priber was jailed.
When a magazine, containing powder and shells, took fire near his prison, he was warned to escape. Instead, he lay flat on the floor. When the sentinels returned after the explosion, expecting to find that he was dead, they observed him quietly seated reading a Greek book. When they reproached him for his rashness, he said that his experience had shown him that his was the best method to avoid danger. While thus a prisoner he became sick and soon died. Thus ended the great empire of the Cherokees in North Carolina!
Source: GENESIS OF BUNCOMBE COUNTY by Hon. Theodore F. Davidson ASHEVILLE THE CITIZEN COMPANY 1922.
Indian Rolls, census records, and some Dawes Rolls are available on GeorgiaPioneers.com. This collection offers the researcher most records concerning the Indians. Of course, further research can always be performed by reading the old county history books usually discovered on library shelves, as well as in the book collection of georgiapioneers.com