John Thompson Drew (1796 – August 25, 1865) was a mixed blood military and political leader of the Cherokee Nation.

[1] He is best known for joining the Confederate army at the outbreak of the American Civil War, when he raised, organized and led the 1st Cherokee Mounted Rifles.

On November 15, 1842, a group of at least 25 black slaves escaped from the plantation of Joseph Vann near Webbers Falls and fled in the direction of Mexico, where slavery had already been outlawed.

[10] In 1864, when it was apparent that the Confederate cause would be defeated by the Union, Drew moved into the Chickasaw Nation, closer to the northern border of Texas.

Drew contracted lung fever[c] near the end of the American Civil War and died of the disease at Fort Gibson on August 25, 1865.