Pathkiller

Principal Chief of the Cherokee (1811–1827)

Pathkiller

Cherokee Nation Principal Chief
In office
1811 – January 8, 1827
Preceded by| Black Fox
Succeeded by| Charles Hicks
Personal details
Died| January 8, 1827
New Echota, Georgia
Known for| Last full-blooded national Cherokee chief

Pathkiller (died January 8, 1827) was a Cherokee warrior and Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation.

## Warrior life

[edit]

Pathkiller,[notes 1] whose tribal name is unknown, fought against the Overmountain Men and Wataugan frontiersmen settled in the Washington District at the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. Afterward, he joined with Dragging Canoe and the Chickamauga Cherokee faction fighting in the Cherokee–American wars, until the conclusion of hostilities in 1794.

This Pathkiller may be the one who served as a colonel with the Tennessee militia[1] and fought for Morgan's "Regiment of Cherokees" commanded by Colonel Gideon Morgan under Andrew Jackson, against the Red Stick Indian uprising during the Creek War (October 7, 1813 – April 11, 1814), a frontier extension of the War of 1812.[2]

## Cherokee national leader

[edit]

Pathkiller was the last hereditary chief of the Cherokee Nation. He was the principal chief of the Nation from 1811 to 1828.[3]

A description of Cherokee Council sessions was given by the missionary, Ard Hoyt, on a visit to the seat of Cherokee government in October 1818:

> On entering, I observed the King [Path Killer] seated on a rug, at one end of the room, having his back supported by a roll of blankets. He is a venerable looking man, 73 years old; his hair nearly white. At his right hand, on one end of the same rug or mat, sat brother [Charles] Hicks. The chiefs were seated in chairs, in a semicircle, each facing the king. Behind the chiefs a number of the common people were standing listening to a conversation, in which the king and chiefs were engaged.

The probable burial site of Pathkiller exists in a cemetery found in the old Cherokee Nation capital of New Echota

After 1813, the de facto authority in the Cherokee Nation had shifted to Charles R. Hicks, who was the first chief of partial European descent. Pathkiller remained chief in title only—basically as a figurehead—until his death on January 8, 1827. Two weeks after Pathkiller's death, his successor, Charles Hicks, also died (on January 20, 1827), leaving a leadership vacuum that was filled in the interim by William, brother to Charles. Pathkiller and the Hicks were mentors to John Ross, having identified the talented young mixed-blood Cherokee of Scots-Irish descent as the future leader of the Cherokee people. After the tribe formed a constitutional republic, Ross was elected principal chief in October 1828.[3]

## Burial site

[edit]

There is a monument-style table-tomb burial site for a Pathkiller (died 1827)—which was previously recorded in the region as a tomb of an "unknown Indian"—located in the present day Calhoun, Georgia area, at the site of the old Cherokee capital town of New Echota.[1][4][5][notes 2]

## Notes

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1. ^ Pathkiller is a Cherokee rank or title—not a name. His original name is unknown.
2. ^ There is a grave site for a local "chief" Pathkiller (who died January 8, 1828) often conflated with this Principal Chief Pathkiller (died January 8, 1827). This grave is in proximity to his known residence at the time of his death, near the former Cherokee Turkeytown settlement, where he was a white-chief (see skiagusta) and head man. The grave is in the woods just outside the fenced Garrett family cemetery, located at the former site of Garrett's Ferry, Alabama, alongside the Coosa River in Centre, Cherokee County, Alabama.

## References

[edit]

1. ^ a b Pathkiller's Two Burial Sites; Dark Fiber; WebPage; accessed 2018; description+Discusses conflation of the two identified Pathfinders tombs.
2. ^ Frank Owsley; "Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands: The Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans, 1812 – 1815"; Gainesville, FL; University Presses of Florida; 1981; pp. 64-67.
3. ^ a b Arrell Morgan Gibson, Oklahoma, A History of Five Centuries, University of Oklahoma Press, 1981, p. 65
4. ^ Mrs. Frank Ross Stewart; "Cherokee County History 1836-1956", Volume 1; Centre, Alabama; 1958; p 206.
5. ^ History of Hamilton Co. TN, Vol. 1; Armstrong, Zella; records of St. Clair, Alabama, p. 30

Preceded by

Black Fox

|  Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation–East
1811–1828  | Succeeded by

Charles R. Hicks

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See also: Cherokee-language Wikipedia
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