Nancy Ward

Drawing of Nancy Ward by George Catlin

Nanyehi (Cherokee: ᎾᏅᏰᎯ: "One who goes about"), known in English as Nancy Ward (ca. 1738–1822/1824) was a Ghigau, or Beloved Woman of the Cherokee Nation, which meant that she was allowed to sit in councils and to make decisions, along with the other Beloved Women, on pardons. She believed in peaceful coexistence with European-Americans.

Beloved Woman

Nancy Ward was born in the Cherokee town of Chota and was a member of the Wolf Clan. Her mother, whose actual name is not known, is often called Tame Doe and was a sister of Attakullakulla.^[1] Her father was Francis Ward "Fivekiller", a white man living in the Cherokee nation. Nancy's first husband was the Cherokee man Kingfisher. Nanyehi and Kingfisher fought side by side at the Battle of Taliwa against the Creeks in 1755. When he was killed^[2], she took up his rifle and led the Cherokee to victory. This was the action which, at the age of 18, gave her the title of Ghigau.

At age 14, Nancy Ward and her first husband Kingfisher had a daughter, Catherine. When she was 17, their son Littlefellow Fivekiller was born. After her husband and father were killed in the same battle, Nancy, who was then 18, married her father's brother, Bryant Ward, a South Carolina colonist and Indian trader, and their child was Elizabeth Ward, later to become the one-quarter Cherokee wife of General Joseph Martin.

In the Revolutionary War, Ward warned the whites of an impending attack by Dragging Canoe, an act that has made her a Patriot for the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

Changes to Cherokee society

As a Ghigau, Nancy had the power to spare captives. In 1776, following a Cherokee attack on the Fort Watauga settlement on the Watauga River (at present day Elizabethton, Tennessee), she used that power to spare a Mrs. William (Lydia Russell) Bean, whom she took into her house and nursed back to health from injuries suffered in the battle. Mrs. Bean taught Nanyehi a new loom weaving technique, revolutionizing the Cherokee garments, which at the time were a combination of hides, handwoven vegetal fiber cloth, and cloth bought from traders. But this weaving revolution also changed the roles of women in the Cherokee society, as they took on the weaving and left men to do the planting, which had traditionally been a woman's job.

Mrs. Bean also rescued two of her dairy cows from the settlement, and brought them to Nanyehi. Nanyehi learned to raise the cattle and to eat dairy products, which would sustain the Cherokee when hunting was bad.

The combination of loom weaving and dairy farming helped transform Cherokee society from a communal agricultural society into a society very similar to that of their European-American neighbors, with family plots and the need for ever-more labor. Thus some Cherokee adopted the practice of chattel slavery. Nanyehi was among the first Cherokee to own African-American slaves.

Later life

Nanyehi objected to the sale of Cherokee lands to whites, but her objections were largely ignored. In 1808 and again in 1817, the Women's Council came out in opposition to the sale of more and more land.

Nanyehi became a de facto ambassador between the Cherokee and the whites. She learn the art of diplomacy from her maternal uncle, the influential chief Attakullakulla ("Little Carpenter"). In 1781, when the Cherokee met with an American delegation led by John Sevier to discuss American settlements along the Little Pigeon River, Nanyehi expressed surprise that there were no women negotiators among the Americans. Sevier was equally appalled that such important work should be given to a woman. Nanyehi 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.

On July 5, 1807, the Moravian mission school at Spring Place, Georgia, in the Cherokee Nation, was visited by three elderly women, including a very distinguished lady who had been a widow of fifty years and almost one hundred years old. She was described as "an unusually sensible person, honored and loved by both brown and white people." "This old woman, named Chiconehla, is supposed to have been in a war against an enemy nation and was wounded numerous times...Her left arm is decorated with some designs, which she said were fashionable during her youth...." Chiconehla stayed for two days, entertained by the students and discussing theology with the missionaries with the aid of translating by her distant relative, Mrs. James Vann (Margaret Scott). The circumstances of this high status woman leave little doubt that this Cherokee named Chiconehla was identical to the person known as Nancy Ward.^[3]

Death, burial, and remembrance

Memorial to Nancy Ward, located near Benton, TN.

Nancy Ward opened an inn in southeastern Tennessee on Womankiller Ford of what was then called the Ocowee River (present day Ocoee River). Her son cared for her during her last years. She died in 1822, or possibly 1824, before the Cherokee were removed from their remaining lands during the Trail of Tears. She and her son Fivekiller are buried at the top of a hill not far from the site of the inn, which is south of present-day Benton, Tennessee. In 1923 the Nancy Ward chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, based in Chattanooga, placed a memorial marker at the grave sites near Benton, Tennessee. Polk County, Tennessee, where Benton is located, is trying to raise money to create a Nancy Ward Museum. The Polk County Historical and Genealogical Society currently maintains a Nancy Ward Room in their genealogy library until such a time as the museum is created.

Ward was the last woman to receive the title of Beloved Woman until the 1980s, when Maggie Wachacha was given the title.^[4]

A statue of Nancy Ward, carved by James Abraham Walker,^[5] stood in a cemetery in Grainger County, Tennessee for about 70 years before it was stolen in the early 1980's.^[6]

The Sequoyah Birthplace Museum in Vonore, Tennessee holds an annual Nancy Ward Cherokee Heritage Days celebration in her honor.

Nancy Ward is not only remembered as an important figure to the Cherokee people but is also considered an early pioneer for women in American politics as she advocated for a woman's voice during a turbulent period in her tribe's history.

References

1. ^ Nancy Ward in the Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture
2. ^ Theresa Jensen Lacey (1 October 2000). Amazing Tennessee: fascinating facts, entertaining tales, bizarre happenings, and historical oddities from the Volunteer State. Thomas Nelson Inc. pp. 100–. ISBN 978-1-55853-790-3. http://books.google.com/books?id=YzVjBUD7YKkC&pg=PT100. Retrieved 21 November 2011. 
3. ^ The Moravian Springplace Mission to the Cherokees, Vol. I, 1805-1813 (pp. 194-196), edited and translated by Rowena McClinton, University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln,NE, 2007.
4. ^ "History Feature: WNC’s 50 Most Influential People, Past and Present." Mountain Living in Western North Carolina. (retrieved 22 March 2011)
5. ^ Nancy Ward of Early Tennessee, by Annie Walker Burns; description of the Nancy Ward statue, written circa 1955 by the sculptor's daughter
6. ^ Nancy Ward Statue: update on recent events and status of historic art sculpture; by D. Ray Smith, the Oak Ridger, December 22, 2008

Further reading

• Allen, Paula Gunn, The Sacred Hoop, Beacon Press, 1992.
• American Indian Women: A Research Guide, edited by Gretchen Bataille and Kathleen Sands, Garland Publishing, 1991.
• Green, Rayna, Women in American Indian Society, Chelsea House, 1992.
• Native American Women, edited by Gretchen M. Bataille, Garland Publishing, 1993.
• Dockstader, Frederick J., ed., Great North American Indians: Profiles in Life and Leadership. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1977
• Felton, Harold W., Nancy Ward: Cherokee. New York: Dodd Mead, 1975
• McClary, Ben Harris. "The Last Beloved Woman of the Cherokees." Tennessee Historical Society Quarterly 21 (1962): 352-64.
• Tucker, Norma. "Nancy Ward, Ghighau of the Cherokees." Georgia Historical Quarterly 53 (June 1969): 192-200
• Woodward, Grace Steele. The Cherokees. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963

External links

• SmithDRay's Nancy Ward page
• "Nanye-Hi (Nancy Ward) - Cherokee", by Julia White
• http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/whm2002/ward.html
• Slide Show: Art Americana "Art Reviews; Red, White and Blue Americana Atop a Cultural Rainbow" by Roberta Smith, The New York Times, January 20, 2006
• Women Political Pioneers Newsweek/MSNBC.com

Persondata
Name	Ward, Nancy
Alternative names	Nanyehi, Nanye-hi, ᎾᏅᏰᎯ, One who goes about
Short description	Eastern Cherokee Ghighau, or Beloved Woman, and warrior, introduced dairying and chattel slavery to Cherokee
Date of birth	1738
Place of birth	Chota, Cherokee Nation, present day Tennessee
Date of death	1822/1824
Place of death	Tennessee