Red Clay, 1835: Cherokee Removal and the Meaning of Sovereignty

From the introduction: Cherokees like to say that unity is one of their highest values. They speak of the “kituwah spirit,” the very essence of what is to be Cherokee: “loyalty to each other, concern for the spiritual power in their way of life, and their insistence upon the importance of tribal unity and harmony.” Yet for years they have been anything but loyal, united, and harmonious. Forty-five years before the Removal crisis, it was a split between the Upper Towns under Old Tassel and the hard-line Chickamaugas of the Lower Towns under Dragging Canoe. That rift was only healed by the deaths of both chiefs. In 1835, the division is between the Ross and Ridge factions.