John Ridge, born Skah-tle-loh-skee (ᏍᎦᏞᎶᏍᎩ, Yellow Bird) (c. 1802 – 22 June 1839), was from a prominent family of the Cherokee Nation, then located in present-day Georgia.

Believing that Indian Removal was inevitable, they supported making a treaty with the United States government to protect Cherokee rights.

In 1839, after removal to Indian Territory, opponents assassinated the Ridges, Boudinot, and other Treaty Party members for their roles in the land cession.

The Cherokee were a matrilineal tribe, so he was considered to belong to the Wild Potato Clan[2] through his mother, Sehoya (Susannah Catherine Wickett).

[4] He studied at the nearby mission school run by the Moravian Brethren at Spring Place, Cherokee Nation (now Georgia).

Ridge's father sent him to the Foreign Mission School in Cornwall, Connecticut, in 1819, where he learned reading and writing in English and other subjects typical of classical middle-class education at the time.

The school was originally founded to educate students from non-Christian areas, such as India, Hawaii, and Southeast Asia, to prepare them to return to their peoples as missionaries.

Their hostility decreased Ridge's admiration for European Americans and altered his hopes for future relations between the Cherokee and whites.

[7] By this time, Ridge's cousin Elias Boudinot (the oldest son of David Watie) had announced his engagement, also to a European-American woman from Cornwall, Connecticut.

Given the high status of these two young men, the Council's new ruling provided for their future families and protected their children within the Cherokee Nation.

[9] Not ready to give up, in 1825 the Upper Creeks planned to appeal to President John Quincy Adams because of what they considered the illegality of the treaty.

Because Chief Opothleyahola, their Speaker, was not fluent in English, the Creek delegation retained two young Cherokee men, recommended by Major Ridge, to assist them in preparing his speech.

As clerk of the Cherokee National Council, Ridge participated in tribal delegations to Washington, DC to consult with United States officials.

The delegation was dismayed to learn that President Andrew Jackson continued to support the removal of all the Southeast tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River.

They had begun to believe it was the only way to preserve the Cherokee Nation, as European-American settlers continued to encroach on their lands, leading to armed conflicts.

They were part of the National Council's delegation, headed by Principal Chief John Ross, who still was trying to negotiate staying in the East.

On June 22, 1839, a group of 25 pro-Ross partisans of the "Late Comers" killed Ridge, his father, and Boudinot in revenge for having signed the treaty to cede Cherokee lands.