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Nanyehi (Cherokee: ᎾᏅᏰᎯ), known in English language as Nancy Ward (c.1738 – c.1823), was a Ghigau and political leader of the Cherokee people. She advocated for peaceful coexistence with European Americans and, late in life, spoke out for Cherokee retention of tribal hunting lands. She is credited with the introduction of dairy products to the Cherokee economy.
While a young teen, Nanyehi was married to Tsu-la (or "Kingfisher"). According to historian Emmet Starr, he was a member of the Deer Clan. By the time she was 17, Nanyehi and Kingfisher had two children, Catherine Ka-Ti Walker and Littlefellow Hiskyteehee Fivekiller.
In the 1755 Battle of Taliwa, when the Cherokee fought their traditional enemy, the Muscogee people, Nanyehi accompanied her husband to the field, located in what is now northern Georgia. She chewed his bullets before he loaded his gun.Starr, Emmet. History of the Cherokee Indians and Their Legends and Folk Lore. Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Warden Company, 1921 After Kingfisher was killed in the battle, Nanyehi picked up his rifle and led the Cherokee warriors to victory.
In the late 1750s, Nanyehi married an Irish trader, Bryant Ward. She became known as Nancy, an anglicized version of her name. The couple had a daughter together, Elizabeth "Betsy" Ward, who would one day marry General Joseph Martin. Bryant Ward eventually left her, and returned to his base in South Carolina and his first wife.
Nanye'hi became a de facto ambassador between the Cherokee and the British and European Americans. She had learned the art of diplomacy from her maternal uncle, the influential chief Attakullakulla ("Little Carpenter"). In 1781, she was among the Cherokee leaders who met with an American delegation led by John Sevier, to discuss American settlements along the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee. Nanyehi expressed surprise that there were no women negotiators among the Americans. Sevier was equally astonished that the Cherokee had entrusted such important work to a woman. Nanyehi reportedly told him,
"You know that women are always looked upon as nothing; but we are your mothers; you are our sons. Our cry is all for peace; let it continue. This peace must last forever. Let your women's sons be ours; our sons be yours. Let your women hear our words."
An American observer said that her speech was very moving.
The British built military stations and frontier posts on Cherokee land. These posts gradually attracted more European-American settlers. A group of White frontiersmen killed a group of Cherokee in present-day West Virginia, who were returning from having helped the British take over Fort Duquesne (at present-day Pittsburgh). Outraged, the Cherokee killed more than 20 settlers in retaliation. Conflict broke out that lasted two years, during which the Cherokee captured Fort Loudon on the Tellico River in August 1760.
A decade later, In May 1775, a group of Delaware, Mohawk people and Shawnee emissaries formed a delegation that headed south to support the British who were trying to gain the help of the Cherokee and other tribes for war with their rebel colonies.
Lydia Bean had reclaimed two of her dairy from the settlement. While she was living with Nanyehi, she taught the Cherokee woman how to care for the cows, milk them, and process the milk into dairy products. Both the animals and their products would sustain the Cherokee when hunting was bad. Starr wrote that Nancy Ward successfully raised cows and was said to have been the first to introduce that industry among the Cherokees. Those Cherokee who adopted loom weaving and dairy farming began to resemble European-American subsistence farmers. According to a 1933 account, Nanyehi was also among the first Cherokees to own African-American slaves.
Ward's peace efforts had not prevented another invasion of the Cherokee territory by the North Carolina militia in 1778. The force under Evan Shelby destroyed more villages and demanded further land cessions. Ward and her family were captured in the battle, but they were eventually released and returned to Chota. In 1780, Ward continued to warn Patriot soldiers of attacks, in an effort to prevent further retaliatory raids against her people. According to folklorist, Harold Felton, she even sent cattle to the starving militia. In July 1781, Nanyehi negotiated a peace treaty between her people and the Americans. No longer facing a major Cherokee threat along the western frontier, the Overmountain Men were able to send a considerable amount of man power to support the eastern seaboard militias and Washington's Continental army against British General Cornwallis' forces in the American Revolution.
Ward continued promoting alliance and mutual friendship between the Cherokee and the Americans, helping negotiate the Cherokee Treaty of Hopewell (1785). Nanyehi objected to further sales of Cherokee lands to whites, but her objections were largely ignored. The Cherokee were under pressure in Georgia and Alabama from encroachment by White settlers. Some leaders believed that ceding lands bought them some time and helped preserve the Cherokee people. The Chickamauga, however, continued their relentless fight against frontier settlers up to the 1794 establishment of the Cherokee Nation.
Despite her efforts, in 1819 the Cherokee ceded their lands north of the Hiwassee River Articles of convention made between John C Calhoun, Secretary of War, and the Cherokees as the Treaty with the Cherokee, dated Feb. 27, 1819. and she was forced to join other Cherokee in moving south.
Nancy Ward opened an inn in southeastern Tennessee at Womankiller Ford, on the Ocowee River (present-day Ocoee River). Her son cared for her during her last years.
Cherokee–American War years
With the signing of the Treaty of Dewitt's Corner in early 1777, Dragging Canoe, whose lone counsel to continue the war against the frontier settlements had been dismissed, left the area of the traditional Cherokee towns with many like-minded warriors and their families. The group traveled further down the Tennessee River valley, away from the White men. He and about 500 Cherokee settled 11 new tribal towns centered on the convergence of the Tennessee River with South Chickamauga Creek. This band was thereafter known as the Chickamauga (or Lower) Cherokee.
Later life
In 1808 and again in 1817, the Women's Council reportedly spoke out against the cession or sale to the United States of any more lands. In 1817 Nanyehi was too sick to attend the Cherokee council at which leaders discussed whether or not to move west of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory, as was proposed by Georgia and the US federal government. She sent a letter to the council, writing:
"…don't part with any more of our lands but continue on it and enlarge your farms and cultivate and raise corn and cotton and we, your mothers and sisters, will make clothing for you… It was our desire to forewarn you all not to part with our lands."
Death
Ward died 1822 – 1824, before the Cherokee were removed from their remaining lands. She and her son, Fivekiller, are buried at the Nancy Ward Tomb, on top of a hill not far from the site of the inn, south of present-day Benton, Tennessee.
Legacy
(1992). 9780914875192, Historical Images. ISBN 9780914875192 and the Draper Collection.
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Categories: 1730s Births, 1820s Deaths, Cherokee Slave Owners, People From Chota, Native American Women Leaders, Women In The American Revolution, Native American People In The American Revolution, People Of Tennessee In The American Revolution, Cherokee Nation People, Native American Women In Warfare, People From Pre-statehood Tennessee, 18th-century Native American Women, 18th-century American Women, 18th-century Native American People, 19th-century Native American Women, 19th-century Native American Leaders, Native American History Of Tennessee, Native American People From Tennessee, Women Slave Owners, Slave Owners From Tennessee, Diplomats Of The Cherokee Nation
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