COVE

At an unknown time between 1801 and 1856, lithographer John T. Bowen created this lithograph that depicts a Cherokee chief named Tah-Chee (“Tah-Chee”). In the portrait, it is evident that he is wearing a plumed hat with a knife tucked into his belt. It is important to recognize the significance of the white plumed hat and its implication during wartimes. Since the Cherokee Native Americans, like other tribes in North America, faced an abundance of conflict with the white people, they frequently engaged in war and fighting. During the Creek War, General Andrew Jackson requested that the Cherokee warriors wear a white plume, or a white-tailed deer tail, in their hats or in their hair. This would allow his army to differentiate the warriors, who they were fighting against, from other Native American civilians (“Cherokee”). In addition to these plumes or tails, Cherokee warriors wore belts, beaded sashes, scarves, earrings, turbans, feathers, and armbands. In addition to a unique style of war-related clothing, the Cherokee warriors also used a wide variety of weapons to fight with, many of which were used in hand-to-hand combat. Besides the commonly used bow and arrow, many warriors also used “the long knife,” war clubs, tomahawks, and hatchets in close combat situations (“Cherokee”).

These times of conflict brought much fear to the Cherokee people, and with that fear came ferocity. In the 1820s, the Cherokee people were especially concerned about maintaining their western border and defending their land from being taken by the white people (West 297). This fear fueled their preparation to fight, and this determination to defend their land can be observed in a war song that was translated within The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake. Within the song, they sing, “Let them sit down, from friends and country far, And wish, with tears, they ne’er had come to war” (Timberlake 56), which shows the immense pride that these people had and the willingness and desire that they had to defeat their enemies. Not only do they express their strong-willed determination, but they also sing, “Or if we warriors spare the yielding foe, Torments at home the wretch must undergo” (Timberlake 56), which shows that they understood how much they had to lose if they were not successful. If they did not return victorious, not only would they lose their land, but they would lose their way of life and everything that they had ever known. Since the cost was too great for them to spare the enemy, they were forced to fight in order to maintain their current lifestyle.

Works Cited

“Cherokee of the Creek War (1813.” National Parks Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, www.nps.gov/articles/warriors-of-the-white-feather.htm#:~:text=If%20they...)%20in%20distance%20fighting. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

“Tah-Chee, a Cherokee Chief / Drawn, Printed & Coloured at I.T. Bowen’s Lithographic Establishment No. 94 Walnut St.” The Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2013645355/. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.

Timberlake, Henry. “The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake (Who Accompanied the Three Cherokee Indians to England in the Year 1762) Containing Whatever He Observed Remarkable, or Worthy of Public Notice, during His Travels to and from That Nation; Wherein the Country, Government, Genius, and Customs of the Inhabitants, Are Authentically Described. Also the Principal Occurrences during Their Residence in London. Illustrated with an Accurate Map of Their over-Hill Settlement, and a Curious Secret Journal, Taken by the Indians out of the Pocket of a Frenchman They Had Killed.” The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Memoirs of Lieut. Henry Timberlake, 27 Mar. 2024, www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65256/pg65256-images.html.

West, Cane. “‘They Have Exercised Every Art’: Ecological Rhetoric, a War of Maps, and Cherokee Sovereignty in the Arkansas Valley, 1812–1828.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 40, no. 2, Summer 2020, pp. 297–327. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1353/jer.2020.0037.