By Steve Bankhead
**Originally published January 18, 1997 in the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian**
The Cherokees have always extended equal rights to their females, including positions on tribal councils and as chiefs. But European settlers were less advanced on that issue during the critical 17th through 19th centuries, so their powers to perform acts of good and evil lay primarily in the hands of white men.
Describing the evil would follow well-worn paths. Finding a few good white men in that period is harder, but more satisfying work. An early example would be William Penn. He had no direct contact with the Cherokees, but his dealings with the Delaware tribe were so singularly decent that Cherokees bestowed his name on many tribal members. One example is William Penn Adair Rogers, the humorist better known as Will Rogers.
Also seated at the table of honor would be Sam Houston. Fatherless, and with a natural affinity for the Cherokees, he was adopted by Chief Jolly as a teenager in 1808, and later married the Chief's niece Talihina. Houston's tribal name was "Kalanu" (Raven).
As President of the Texas Republic, Houston risked his political career by seeking ratification of a treaty granting Cherokees a permanent Texas homeland. My ancestor Mahala Jane migrated to Texas as a child during this period.
Houston's efforts were doomed, however, and new Texas President Lamar ordered troops to drive out all Cherokee settlers. Some fled to Mexico, as far south as Guadalajara and Lake Chapala. Their blood still flows in some of that region's residents, along with that of the Aztecs and other native tribes.
Other refugees were forced north, fighting running battles with Texas troops. Chief Bowl was killed in an 1839 ambush, still carrying Houston's land grant in his shirt. The document was carried to the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, with Sam Houston's words illustrating our potential for good, and Chief Bowl's blood stains eloquently expressing our capacity for evil.
My personal choice to sit at the head of the table honoring good white men would be a person almost completely ignored by standard American history: William Holland Thomas.
Like Houston, Thomas lost his father at an early age, and was adopted around 1818 by Cherokee Chief Yonaguska (Drowning Bear). Yonaguska was a fascinating character in his own right, once offering this incisive review from his first reading of the Holy Bible: "Well, it seems to be a good book - strange that the white people are not better, after having it so long."
The Cherokees affectionately named Thomas "Wil-usdi" (Little Will), and he dedicated his life to repaying their kindnesses. His first chance came during the 1838 Trail of Tears. Hundreds of Cherokees had eluded roundups for the forced relocation to Oklahoma, and were holding out in caves and high peaks of the Great Smoky Mountains. Will Thomas had some influence with the military, being related to General Zachary Taylor, and he succeeded in forging a settlement allowing the resisters to remain in their Carolina homeland. They became the Eastern Cherokees.
Because the Cherokees could not legally purchase land, Thomas combined tribal funds with his own to purchase properties which eventually became the Qualla Reservation in North Carolina. Then, with the advent of the Civil War, Will Thomas provided his second great service to the Cherokees.
Foreseeing the scale of the coming conflict and the terrible effect it could have on the tiny population of Eastern Cherokees, he formed the 69th North Carolina Regiment and enlisted every able-bodied brave. These he assigned primarily to guard the high mountains on the Tennessee-Carolina border, where they suffered few casualties. Unaware of Thomas' protective intentions, the Eastern Cherokees were spared the devastation inflicted on the western band in Oklahoma.
The Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma divided like the United States along union and rebel lines, losing one third of their population and having their territory made a wasteland by their long involvement in the war. In fact, history records that the last Confederate general to surrender in the Civil War was General Stand Watie of the Western Cherokee forces.
All three of these men were well-intentioned, but William Holland Thomas had the good fortune of actually realizing his best intentions. And these three are only offered as a partial list of those who tried to do right by Native Americans when injustice was the accepted norm. Their noble acts were made even grander by their rarity in those unhappy times.
To each of them I wish to say "Wado, osda yonega" (Thank you, good white man).