jay earl <ten8csi@yahoo.com> wrote:Addendum: Violence was not long in coming. On June 22, Major Ridge, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot were murdered. Stand Watie, Boudinot's brother and Major Ridge's nephew, was the only leader of the Treaty Party to escape. The assassinations effectively silenced the Treaty Party, but the hatreds endured. His own nephew had distracted him while the assassinations occured. Chief Ross later pardoned the assassinators. There is no mention that Andrew Ross was murdered in any of my records or sources. If you discover otherwise, please inform me. jay earl <ten8csi@yahoo.com> wrote: Pg 141, The Cherokee Nation History by Robert J. Conley (Published 2005): Georgia continued to harrass the Cherokees, and John Ross led a delegation to Washington DC to continue to protest the situation. [President] Jackson offered the Cherokee Nation, through Ross, three million dollars to sell out and move, and Ross refused. After that, hohn Ridge turned vehemently against Ross with personal attacks. Then the leaders of the pro-treaty faction, now known more formally as the Treaty Party, began secret negotiations with both the state of Georgia and the U.S. regarding removal. Governor Lumpkin of Georgia ordered that their homes be protected. At the same time, Chief Ross' home was taken over by lottery winners and he was forced to move to Tennessee for safety. Andrew Ross, John Walker Jr and other members of the treaty Party tried to negotiate a removal in 1834, but the Cherokee Council rejected it. Feelings were high and Walker was killed for introducing "disunity into the Nation". Andrew Jackson said that Chief Ross and the Cherokee Council would be held responsible of all pro-treaty Cherokees. Treaty party delegations were fawned over in Washington, while official Cherokee Nation delegations were ignored and treated rudely. At last, on Deember 29, 1835, following several failed attempts at pushing through a removal treaty, US government negotiations met with "not more than 300 Cherokees, including women and children" at New Echota. John Ross was in Washington, and the majority of Cherokees refused to attend the meeting. Out of three hundred or so gathered there, only about 100 were voters. A committee of 20 was appointed to negotiate. There, headed by Major Ridge, John Ridge, Elias Boudinot, Andrew Ross, James Starr, Stand Watie, James Rogers, and others, the Treaty Party signed the Treaty of New Echota, a treaty of total removal. None of these men had been authorized by the governement or the people of the Cherokee Nation to sign a treaty. The entire procedure was illegal, but it was what the US government wanted, and it was accepted by the US Congress as legal and binding on the entire Cherokee Nation. The price for all of the Cherokee lands was five million dollars. ...The Treaty was signed by twenty members of the Treaty Party, and it was reported that Major Ridge, who had himself helped execute Doublehead for the same offense twenty-seven years earlier, as he put his own mark on the document said "I feel as have just signed my own death warrant." His words would prove to be prophetic. SWatie@aol.com wrote: I guess I'm confused. I'm talking about Andrew Ross, the Supreme Court Justice born about 1798 who died about 1840 and buried in Fairfield Mission Cemetery around Stilwell, OK. This Andrew Ross was the younger brother of Principal Chief John Ross and his brother Lewis Ross. When he died in 1840, there's no way he could have applied for a Dawes or Guion Miller number in the early 1900's. This Andrew Ross was actually an Old Settler, in that he moved out west prior to the Treaty of New Echota, which he did go back & sign. He was the instigator of that treaty, too. I'm interested in how he was murdered and the events surrounding his death. Thanks, Donna Byas --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail Stay connected, organized, and protected. Take the tour __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com --------------------------------- Yahoo! Mail for Mobile Take Yahoo! Mail with you! Check email on your mobile phone.