Connections: Cherokees, Moravian Missionaries and Irish Immigrants in Georgia

One of many remarkable elements in the Cherokee story is the role of white Christian missionaries among them. Undoubtedly many Cherokees were influenced by the white Christians they knew and befriended. John Ross, the principle chief during the period when New Echota was the seat of government, was only one-eighth Cherokee in the math of DNA, but more importantly he was the son of a Cherokee woman. Ross’s career was a complex one, involving his political role at New Echota, his many business enterprises and his law practice that included federal cases involving other tribes.

The newly created “Cherokee Nation” was an old polity certainly, but one given definition and legal framework with the adoption of a written constitution adopted in 1827. It was patterned after the United States Constitution, and in fact many of its features reflected the political structures in surrounding U.S. states. Its adoption provoked an indignant reaction by Georgia politicians and Georgians anxious to grab Indian lands. Adlption of the Cherokee constitution suggested to Georgians not so much the “civilization” of the Cherokee, but Cherokee permanence in a “state within a state,” beyond the control of the state of Georgia.

Literacy and education played a significant role in the evolution of the nation. Every public school child today learns of Sequoyah and his system of writing that made the Cherokee Nation a literate one, likely more literate than the white society around them. There were some Cherokees who had received a formal education though contact with whites, Principle Chief John Ross among them. Another was Elias Boudinot, who had studied at a private school for “Indians” in Connecticut. His engagement to a local white girl resulted in the school being closed and the couple being burned in effigy. Charity apparently did not extend to “interracial” marriages.

The young couple married and Boudinot and his wife returned to the Cherokee Nation to found a newspaper, The Cherokee Phoenix. Printed in two languages (English and Cherokee) It was widely circulated to northern newspapers, syndicated in a sense, to promote empathy for the Cherokees’ circumstances and appreciation for their progress toward “civilization,” another way of saying they were becoming more like their white neighbors.

The relationship between the more popular white churches, Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians and the Cherokees was problematic. The public and personal motivations of most whites unquestionably favored redistribution of Cherokee lands and that likely explains why those denominations already established in Georgia engaged with the Cherokee with some reluctance. Still, some Cherokee leaders embraced the idea of accepting white teachers from religious missionaries into the nation to set up schools. But they also objected to religious teaching that would undermine their traditional beliefs.

The result was that it was an unusual and pietistic sect originating in eastern Europe, the Moravians, who were given the opportunity to set up a school at Spring Place not far from New Echota, on condition they not teach their religion. This proved to be a remarkable experience, for both the Moravians and the Cherokees who knew them. A great bond of respect and admiration flourished for a time. The Moravian Church encouraged scientific study and serious intellectual inquiry. Their love for the natural environment seems to have endeared them to both supporters and opponents of the educational program they practiced.

The Moravians were not new to Georgia, nor to Northern Ireland, from which so many Georgia settlers of the southern colonies had come. A Moravian group came to Georgia initially with the approval of the founder of the Georgia colony, General James Oglethorpe. But that relationship did not endure, as the Rev. George Whitfield grew a large and competing following of churchmen inspired by a new Christian theology that would soon spread all over the British Isles. Anglican priest, John Wesley, had himself come to the colony of Georgia with a fervent desire to minister to the “Indians.” Wesley seems to have been unpopular and ill-equipped to serve on this fringe of civilization and returned to England. There he spent some time interacting with the Moravians who seem to have influenced a new direction in his ministry. Wesley inspired, in turn, a new expression of protestant christianity known as “methodism” and which blossomed into a new protestant denomination, the Methodist Church.

The Moravians eventually left the colony and reestablish themselves in Pennsylvania where they were more readily tolerated. And, to get to one of the several diffuse reasons for writing this, to Belfast in Northern Ireland.

One of the largest immigrant groups in the American colonies of Great Britain were the Irish. Northern Ireland was not separate from Ireland at the time. The north became to a large degree protestant because of the Crown’s relocation efforts to get the poor out of London and the “Robber Barons” off the Scottish border. Bringing miserable times for most Irish, the relocation effort set off a rampant dash for the colonies. Keep in mind this has nothing to do with the “Potato Famine” in the mid-nineteenth century. Soon the Iish were the dominant force on the American frontier, and especially in the southern colonies. . The Irish, who made little distinction between their protestant and Catholic brothers ands sisters in the early 18th century, were an independent bunch for the most part, and clearly wanted little to do with British colonial officials and their policies- excepting their desire to have the British army protect them from the “Indians”. By the end of the American Revolution, both the British and the American military commanders were convinced that it was the Irish who had won the American Revolution. The first publication of the Declaration of Independence back in Europe was in a Belfast newspaper.

Meanwhile, as the revolution began, a shipload of immigrants arrived in Georgia from Belfast and were rushed to set up a new settlement in Georgia to be known as Queensborough. The settlers were not aware that their lands were on the border where the Creeks were angry and busy burning out the settlers (as the Cherokee were attempting to do in upper Carolina). Caught in a crossfire and confused about who to side with (the American rebels or the Crown officials) they found their neighbors were in the same fix, equally divided on the subject of independence versus loyalty to the crown. The new arrivals abandoned their settlement at Queensborough.

Once the Georgians had won their independence, they adopted a state constitution that placed the capital of Georgia on the most westward border of the new state, alongside the swampy borders of the Ogeechee River -and within walking distance of old Queensborough!

They named the capital Louisville in honor of Louis XVI of France, whose money and military had helped in the Americans’ revolutionary efforts, and whose fleet had bottled up the British at Yorktown . This forced the British army of Cornwallis to surrender and efffectively ended the war. (Let this be a reminder that the American Revolution was won in the South! -and with outside help.)

The town flourished only briefly. As the frontier moved westward, so the capital was moved westward as well to a new piece of real estate. Named for revolutionary war hero and future governor, John Milledge. Milledgeville would lose its place as Georgia’s capital after the Civil War. The state legislature would relocate its capital to the edge of yet another a frontier -Atlanta on the fringe of the newly annexed Cherokee lands.

I lived in Louisville in Mrs. Brewton’s Boarding House for a few weeks when my father’s business took him there. The school I attended (Louisville Academy) was arguably the oldest of the state chartered pubic schools. Boy, it certainly seemed old to me at the time. But that is another story.