Written by Cara Cowan Watts | Cherokee 411
In May 1951, four Eastern Band of Cherokee leaders left Cherokee, North Carolina — and retraced every mile of the Trail of Tears.
Vice Chief McKinley Ross. Joseph Washington — great-great-grandson of Tsali, the Cherokee martyr who gave his life so that the Eastern Band could stay in their homeland. Arsene Thompson. Leroy Wahnetah.
1,200 miles. Stopping at burial grounds along the way to smoke a ceremonial pipe — offering it to the sky, the earth, and all four directions — for the thousands of Cherokee who died and were left in the ground along that bitter winter march.
One of those stops was the grave near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, marked as the resting place of a Cherokee woman known by legend as “Princess Otahki.” BUT LET’S GET HER NAME RIGHT — her real name was NANCY BUSHYHEAD WALKER HILDEBRAND. Sister of Reverend Jesse Bushyhead. A real Cherokee woman. Not a princess from a campfire story — a person. She died on the 1838–1839 march and was buried far from home.
History wrapped her in legend. The Trail of Tears Association later unveiled proper grave markers in Missouri. Her name deserves to be spoken correctly.
These four EBCI men made sure she was not forgotten. That is what it means to be Cherokee — we remember, we return, we correct the record, and we honor our dead BY NAME.
Cherokee 411 — Unfiltered. Independent. Cherokee.
