Stand Watie, a chieftain and politician, was the final senior officer of the rebel forces to surrender during the American Civil War
Brigadier-General Stand Watie, a prominent Cherokee politician, was the last Confederate general in the field to surrender to the Union, over two months after General Robert E Lee, and one month after General Edmund Kirby Smith. The Cherokee Nation was allied to the Confederacy during the American Civil War (1861-65), and Watie was the only Native American to attain the rank of general in the Confederate Army. His military career was marked by both successes and setbacks, as were his private and political lives.
He was born in Oothcaloga, Cherokee Nation, on 12 December 1806. His parents were David Uwatie, a Cherokee and wealthy planter who held African-American slaves, and Susanna Reese, who was the daughter of a Cherokee mother and white father. Watie’s Cherokee name was Degataga, meaning ‘standing firm’, which was later anglicised to Stand Watie.
He received little formal education, but learned to read and write English at the Moravian mission school in Spring Place, which is now in Georgia. He was fluent in both Cherokee and English, and occasionally helped write articles for the Cherokee Phoenix newspaper, where his older brother Elias was editor from 1828 to 1832. It was the first Native American newspaper, and published articles in both Cherokee and English. As tensions grew over Georgia’s oppressive anti-Indian laws and following the discovery of gold on Cherokee lands, the conflict between the Native Americans and US government intensified. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, and in 1832 Georgia confiscated most of the Cherokee land. A militia was sent by the state to destroy the offices and printing press of the Cherokee Phoenix.
Watie was involved in Cherokee politics and a signatory to the 1835 Treaty of New Echota with the US government, which resulted in the ceding of Cherokee lands to the US in exchange for compensation and relocation to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma). The Watie brothers believed that relocation was inevitable and wanted to secure Cherokee rights by treaty before moving to Indian Territory. They were part of the Treaty Party leaders who signed the treaty, despite the majority of Cherokee opposing it. When the remaining Cherokee were forcibly removed in 1838, 4,000 people died on the journey known as the Trail of Tears.
The Treaty Party men were sentenced to death by members of the Cherokee government for giving up tribal lands. They were attacked in an assassination attempt, and Watie��
