Echoes of Resistance (Part 5)

Read Part 4

There’s a house on Main Street in Bryson City, North Carolina. Dishearteningly, it is now the office of a Relax Inn. Some of my family owned that house in less complex but equally difficult times. A few miles from Kituwah Mound, considered the mother town of the Cherokee, the house was a refuge for my father during his early years in Swain County. 

A Portrait of Love

The accompanying photograph shows Dad and his grandmother, Estelle, sometime during the Great Depression of the 20th century. Estelle was enrolled on the Cherokee Miller Roll of 1909. I think it’s fair to say he loved her. My mother once told me that the only time she had ever seen my father cry was when his grandmother died. 

The Miller Role and “Uncle Sam”

Due in part to the premature death of her mother, Emma, Estelle and her sisters acted to reconnect with the tribe. As part of a series of suits by Eastern Cherokees brought against the United States, the Miller Roll—compiled under the direction of Special Commissioner Guion Miller—came about as a result of the court’s decision on May 18, 1905, in favor of the Cherokees. Echoes of resistance. “We’re taking back what was ours,” my great-grandmother surely said. In reality, though, these were modest sums even by today’s standards, and, once again, Uncle Sam, in all his glory, stuck it to the Indians. What a guy. 

A Legacy of Sacrifice

Estelle married Will Wiggins, the grandson of Abe and Margaret Wiggins, who fed the Cherokee Tsali his last meal before he was executed. Tsali, or “Charley” to the white people, took part in the killing of army soldiers who were rounding up the Cherokees to send them west on the Trail of Tears. He was captured by fellow Cherokees who agreed to help the army hunt for him. He was shot near the Tuckasegee River next to Yona’s (Big Bear’s) reservation, which is now Bryson City. More echoes. 

More Echoes. Healthy and unhealthy resistance. 

The Weight of Technicalities

Estelle and her sisters did everything they could to carry their family’s legacy through and be part of the Cherokee Nation. Though Estelle’s grandmother, Annie, had moved to Indian Territory and had been accepted by the Dawes Commission, Estelle and her siblings were rejected due to lack of land in the territory and because Annie’s name was stricken from the final Dawes Roll due to death. 

The echoes are powerful and painful for me because I, my sisters, and their children have been denied full citizenship based on a couple of technicalities that didn’t have to be. 

Truth and Mettle

In my series, Echoes of Resistance, two Cherokee sisters face challenges like those of their ancestors. The universe tests their respective mettle. They respond with the truth they have and know. The question for them, as it is for many of us, Will their truth be enough?

Read Part 6