Tsali
As a young man, Tsali joined the Chickamauga faction of the Cherokee in the late 18th century, and became a leader in the fight against the American frontiersmen and their constant expansion into tribal lands.
Two decades later, in what seemed a fulfilment of his earlier prophecy, he resisted the forced removal of the Native Americans from their mountainous, western North Carolina towns, and as a result, a large following of like-minded Cherokee gathered to him.
The teachings of Tenskwatawa, known as the "Shawnee Prophet", began to filter down to the Native Americans of the Southeast, where they sparked a traditionalist cultural and religious revival.
Tenskwatawa's influence inspired what the later anthropologist James Mooney called the "Cherokee Ghost Dance movement."
The Ridge's defiance of Tsali caused the prophet to lose face with the Council, which had been at the point of voting nearly unanimously to support Tecumseh's war.
Tsali prophesied a great apocalypse for the Cherokee Nation, and said the only safe haven would be the Smoky Mountains of western North Carolina, to which he then departed.
At that time, the National Council also refused The Ridge's efforts to gain support for the Americans in their conflict with the British during the War of 1812.
The Council only got involved in the Creek War after allying themselves to the Lower Muscogee in order to defeat the Red Sticks.
After the 1835 Treaty of New Echota, the federal government began to round up the Cherokee in preparation for the forced removal to what was to become Indian Territory.
At one point, Tsali's wife paused to care for the needs of her baby, and one of the guards whipped her and prodded her with his bayonet, and forced her on her way.
[1]: 235 According to Mollie Sequoyah who substantiated the account by Tsali's son, Wasitani, "Then the other one [soldier] got with a horse whip.
General Scott eventually enlisted the services of William Holland Thomas, a white attorney who had been adopted into the tribe in his youth.
A highly fictionalized account of the affair can be seen in the annual presentation of a Cherokee drama at the Qualla Boundary in the play, Unto These Hills, which was written by Kermit Hunter in 1950, a story that survives close to the scene of its original enactment.
