The Cherokee-American Wars

Phase Two, 1783-1794

by Denise Weimer

"The Cherokees Are Coming," Knoxville, 1793

Their marriage of convenience offers Moravian missionaries John and Clarissa Kliest enough of a challenge in my novel releasing this month, The Witness Tree. But it’s certainly not the only hardship they face. It’s 1805, and the couple join a party journeying from the quaint town of Salem, North Carolina, into Cherokee Indian Territory. John, a builder and surveyor, and Clarissa, a linguist and teacher, are to lend their expertise at a mission school for children of the Cherokee chiefs in what is now Northwest Georgia. John yearns for adventure, but the fact that those same Indians were at war with the Americans just above a short decade ago makes Clarissa more than a little nervous.

In today’s post, we’re looking at the second part of The Cherokee-American Wars, 1783-1794, that led up to my story.

After siding with the British in the American Revolution, the Cherokees relocated westward and southward to the “Five Lower Towns.” They became known as the Lower Cherokee. Encroaching settlers forced many Cherokees to sign the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785, but dissatisfaction and Spanish support led to the Cherokee War of 1786. Warriors of Chief Dragging Canoe and a large contingent of Creek Indians attacked White’s Fort near modern Knoxille, then raided along the upper Holston, Cumberland, and even into Kentucky. John Sevier sent soldiers to attack Valley Towns, ending in the Treaty of Coyatee. However, many Cherokees joined a Western Confederacy of Native Americans formed in 1786 and continued raids and campaigns.

Around 1790, a couple of years before the death of Dragging Canoe, a chief named Doublehead came to prominence, working largely independent of the Lower Cherokees. In a 1793 incident, his warriors cooked and ate their enemies. At Cavett’s Station, Tennessee, he and his warriors killed settlers, mainly women and children, who had surrendered. Chief James Vann, who later invited the Moravian missionaries to his plantation, succeeded in saving one boy from Doublehead’s ax. After that day, Vann and Doublehead became lifelong enemies, and Doublehead earned the moniker “Babykiller.”

The frontier war finally ended in 1794, after U.S. Army Regulars burned the villages of Nickajack and Running Water. The Treaty of Tellico Blockhouse was signed in November of 1794. After this time, former warriors dominated governance of the Cherokee Nation, leading it into an era of education, diplomacy, and attempted assimilation with the Americans. They even fought alongside the Americans in the Creek War, part of the War of 1812. I’ve got a story coming about that too! But if you haven’t read The Witness Tree yet, check it out at (The Witness Tree on Amazon).

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for Smitten Historical Romance imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise here:

Monthly Newsletter Sign-up
Website  
Facebook  
Twitter

Review of The Witness Tree by Tina St. Clair Rice

Set in Salem, North Carolina and Northwest Georgia in the early 1800s. Denise Weimer takes the reader on a remarkable journey into the past filled with detailed historical elements and painting vivid word-pictures that had me “walking” alongside the characters. I learned about the Moravian people, their way of life, faith and mission to the Cherokee people as well as the lives of the Cherokee people. Two very different cultures with their own unique customs, languages and faith. With a communication barrier and such culture differences, can these two groups of people learn from each other, share the love of God and become friends?

The two main characters, John Kliest and Clarissa Volger, certainly have a huge undertaking ahead of them as they venture into the uncharted frontier---which is daunting enough---add a wedding into the mix is sure to cause even more challenges. I wouldn’t want my husband picked for me in the way Clarissa’s was. Can they overcome their differences, learn to trust each other, allow God to lead them and find love in their new marriage?

As part of the mission, Clarissa is to record the Cherokee language and put it in a written Cherokee syllabary; which I find fascinating. There are those within the Cherokee people who do not want their language recorded and take action to prevent that. The meaning of the “witness tree” and what it represents is an interesting aspect of the story-line. I especially enjoy the historical notes the author includes in the book bringing much detail and depth to the story-line. The Witness Tree is filled with adventure, suspense, romance, dangers, heartache, fears, joys, history that comes to life and faith. A remarkable story.

https://shoplpc.com/the-witness-tree/
The Witness Tree on Amazon

The Cherokee-American Wars

Phase One, 1776-1783

by Denise Weimer

Their marriage of convenience offers Moravian missionaries John and Clarissa Kliest enough of a challenge in my novel releasing this month, The Witness Tree. But it’s certainly not the only hardship they face. It’s 1805, and the couple join a party journeying from the quaint town of Salem, North Carolina, into Cherokee Indian Territory. John, a builder and surveyor, and Clarissa, a linguist and teacher, are to lend their expertise at a mission school for children of the Cherokee chiefs in what is now Northwest Georgia. John yearns for adventure, but the fact that those same Indians were at war with the Americans just above a short decade ago makes Clarissa more than a little nervous.

The Cherokee-American Wars divide into two phases, 1776-1783, and 1783-1794. Today we’ll focus on that first phase, when the Cherokees fought as allies of Great Britain against America’s bid for independence.

Early on, when the English strategy focused on the North, the Cherokees received only supplies from coastal ports and limited joint operations in South Carolina. Each section of Cherokee warriors (Middle, Out and Valley Town; Lower Towns; and Overhill Towns) were to attack different portions of the frontier, with the Overhill under Dragging Canoe (along the lower Little Tennessee and Hiwassee rivers) proving especially fierce. On one of their raids in conjunction with the Shawnee, they captured the daughter of Daniel Boone and two other teenage girls in a canoe on the Kentucky River. Boone and his men rescued them, but the incident provided inspiration for the plot of The Last of the Mohicans. 

Charles Ferdinand Wimar (1853) painting of abduction of Boone's daughter

Colonial militia responded to the raids by attacking and destroying more than fifty towns. While the older Overhill chiefs wanted to sue for peace, and indeed peace was signed in April 1777 at Fort Patrick Henry, Dragging Canoe sent the women and children south of the Hiwassee and burned the villages they left behind. His warriors continued to raid to the Holston River, Cumberland settlements, French Broad River, and Wilkes County, Georgia (my setting for Across Three Autumns), until the end of the Revolution.

In my November post, we’ll look at the second phase of the Cherokee-American Wars. Meanwhile, if you’re curious how the Kliests’ mission work goes, it’s release day for The Witness Tree! Hop on over the Singing Librarian Books to find out more and enter a grand prize giveaway (The Witness Tree on Amazon / SLB Witness Tree Tour). 

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for Smitten Historical Romance imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise:

Monthly Newsletter Sign-up

Website

Facebook

Twitter

Fraktur Folk Art

Clarissa’s quill scratched, looping letters with the same artistry she dedicated to her Frakturschriften, the ornamental breaking of letters in German script style. Drawings and special sayings, or Spruchbänder, accompanied the swirling text. The technique represented breaking the artist’s self-will.

She paused and looked up. If she were to create a fraktur drawing now, what would it say? Matthew 16:24? Jesus’ own words: “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

It had been all she could do to pinch her lips shut and not complain to John about being jostled those endless miles in the wagon with the groaning Pleasant while Rosina gleaned the facts about their destination Clarissa longed to learn. The unknown ahead mocked her. She had thought herself quite good at self-denial, but she’d begun to realize that the carefully ordered life of Salem had not tested her the way the unstructured wilderness would. Clarissa shivered with the sense that her own fraktur, breaking, was only beginning.
###

Three Hearts Design Baptism Certificate

This glimpse into The Witness Tree, my novel releasing with Smitten Historical Romance this September, catches my heroine in a difficult time of transition. She’s just been joined to the brother of the man she wanted to wed in a marriage of convenience, and she’s on the long journey from the Moravian town of Salem, North Carolina, to Cherokee Territory. There, instead of exploring her beloved art, she’ll be teaching the children of chiefs. And expected to record their language, an assignment which could put her in danger.

1785 Fraktur poem

The art form of Frakturschriften, or fraktur, the ornamental breaking of letters, originated from the German, black-letter, Gothic-appearing text fonts of the early sixteenth century. It developed in the late 1700s into a folk art with recurrent motifs that included birds, hearts, wildlife, and tulips. Colors were rich and vibrant, with emphasis on balance and harmony. Mostly done with ink and watercolors on paper and sized roughly thirteen by sixteen, fraktur appeared in a number of forms:

• Birth and baptism certificates
• Marriage and house blessings
• Book plates
• Floral and figurative scenes
• Love letters and love knots
• Private rooms 

Germanic school teachers helped perpetuate fraktur folk art. While my research centered on Moravian fraktur, it was very common among Mennonites as well as Lutherans and Reformed Pennsylvania Germans.

Mennonite Fraktur

Represented by Hartline Literary Agency, Denise Weimer holds a journalism degree with a minor in history from Asbury University. She’s a managing editor for Smitten Historical Romance imprint of Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and the author of The Georgia Gold Series, The Restoration Trilogy, and a number of novellas, including Across Three Autumns of Barbour’s Colonial Backcountry Brides Collection. A wife and mother of two daughters, she always pauses for coffee, chocolate, and old houses! Connect with Denise here:

Monthly Newsletter Sign-up 
Website 
Facebook
Twitter