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Originally Published by Henry Payot & Company,
Publishers.
 Preface
Most of the poems in this little volume are the productions of
boyhood; very few of them were written after the author had reached
the age of twenty. Like other men of his temperament, Mr. Ridge lost
in the excitement of political life his youthful ambition for literary
fame : consequently, many of his latest and best poems have been lost.
Some that are embodied here, however, have elicited high praise from
the Pacific and Eastern press. The severe critic may think that it had
been better taste, perhaps, to have omitted some which have here been
preserved—and he may be correct; but, they who have treasured the
worn-out shoe and useless, threadbare garment of one who has gone to
return no more, will not be harsh in their judgment of our taste.
The propriety of prefacing this book with a biographical
sketch of the author has been suggested to us. Such a sketch must
necessarily be short. To go into the details of a life fraught with
many stirring incidents, would require time; and, as we have not the
requisite time at our command, we propose to give Mr. Ridge's own
brief account of his parentage, and that dark misfortune of his
childhood which cast a shadow over his whole life, as we find it in a
letter written by him to a friend in 1849— only a few months before he
came to California. As, his career on this coast, in connection with
political and literary journalism, is familiar to all readers, we will
add nothing to this letter.
"I was born in the Cherokee Nation, East of the Mississippi
River, on the 19th of March, 1827. My earliest recollections are of
such things as are pleasing to childhood, the fondness of a kind
father, and smiles of an affectionate mother. My father, the late John
Ridge, as you know, was one of the Chiefs of his tribe, and son of the
warrior and orator distinguished in Cherokee Councils and battles, who
was known amongst the whites as Major Ridge, and amongst his own
people as Ka-nun-ta-cla-ge. My father grew up till he was some twelve
or fifteen years of age, as any untutored Indian, and he used well to
remember the time when his greatest delight was to strip himself of
his Indian costume, and with aboriginal cane-gig in hand, while away
the long summer days in wading up and down creeks in search of
crawfish
"At the age which I have mentioned above, a missionary station
sprang into existence, and Major Ridge sent his son John, who could
not speak word of English, to school at this station, placing him
under the instruction of a venerable Missionary named Gambol. Here he
learned rapidly, and in the course of a year acquired a sufficient
knowledge of the white man's language to speak it quite fluently.
"Major Ridge had now become fully impressed with the
importance of civilization He had built him a log-cabin, in imitation
of the border-whites and opened him a farm. The Missionary, Gambol,
told him of an institution built up in a distant land expressly for
the education of Indian youths (Cornwall, Connecticut), and here he
concluded to send his son. After hearing some stern advice from his
father, with respect to the manner to which lie should conduct himself
amongst the 'pale-faces,' he departed for the Cornwall School in
charge of a friendly Missionary. He remained there until his education
was completed. During his attendance at this institution, he fell in
love with a young white girl of the place, daughter of Mr. Northrup.
His love was reciprocated. He returned home to his father, gained his
consent, though with much difficulty (for the old Major wished him to
marry a chief's daughter amongst his own people), went lack again to
Cornwall, and shortly brought his "pale-faced" bride to the wild
country of the Cherokees. In due course of time, I, John Rollin, came
into the world. I was called by my grandfather 'Chees-quat-a-law-ny,'
which, interpreted, means 'Yellow Bird.' Thus you have a knowledge of
my parentage and how it happened that I am an Indian.
"Things had now changed with the Cherokees, They had a written
Constitution and laws. They had legislative halls, houses and farms,
courts, and juries. The general mass, it is true, were ignorant, but
happy under the administration of a few simple, just, and wholesome
laws. Major Ridge had become wealthy by trading with the whites and by
prudent management. He had built an elegant house on the banks of the
'Oos-te-nar-ly River,' on which now stands the thriving town of Rome,
Georgia. Many a time in my buoyant boyhood have I strayed along its
summer-shaded shores and glided in the light canoe over its
swiftly-rolling bosom, and beneath its over-hanging willows. Alas for
the beautiful scene! The Indian's form haunts it no more!
"My father's residence was a few miles east of the
'Qos-te- nar-ly.' I remember it well. A large two-storied house, on a high hill
crowned with a fine grove of oak and hickory, a large, clear spring at
the foot of the hill, and an extensive farm stretching away down into
the valley, with a fine orchard on the left. On another hill some two
hundred yards distant, stood the schoolhouse, built at my father's
expense, for the use of a Missionary, Miss Sophia Sawyer, who made her
home with our family and taught my father's children and all who chose
to come for her instruction. I went to this school until I was ten
years of age— which was in 1837. Then another change had come over the
Cherokee Nation. A demon-spell had fallen upon it. The white man had
become covetous of the soil. The unhappy Indian was driven from his
house—not one, but thousand—and the white man's ploughshare turned up
the acres which he had called his own. Wherever the Indian built his
cabin, and planted his corn, there was the spot which the white man
craved. Convicted on suspicion, they were sentenced to death by laws
whose authority they could not acknowledge, and hanged on the white
man's gallows. Oppression became intolerable, and forced by extreme
necessity, they at last gave up their homes, yielded their beloved
country to the rapacity of the Georgians, and wended their way in
silence and in sorrow to the forests of the far west. In 1837, my
father moved his family to his new home, he built his houses and
opened his farm; gave encouragement to the rising neighborhood, and
fed many a hungry and naked Indian whom oppression had prostrated, to
the dust. A second time he built a schoolhouse, and Miss Sawyer again
instructed his own children and the children of his neighbors. Two
years culled away in quietude but the Spring of 1839 brought in a
terrible train of events. Parties had arisen in the Nation. The
removal West had fomented discontents of the darkest and deadliest
nature. The ignorant Indians, unable to vent their rage on the whites,
turned their wrath towards their own chiefs, and chose to hold them
responsible for what had happened. John Ross made use of these
prejudices to establish his own power. He held a secret council and
plotted the death of my father and grandfather, and Boudinot, and
others, who were friendly to the interests of these men. John Ridge
was at this time the most powerful man in the Nation, and it was
necessary for Ross, in order to realize his ambitious scheme for
ruling the whole Nation, not only to put the Ridges out of the way,
but those who most prominently supported them, lest they might cause
trouble afterwards. These bloody deeds were perpetrated under
circumstances of peculiar aggravation. On the morning of the 22nd of
June, 1839, about day-break, our family was aroused from sleep by a
violent noise. The doors were broken down, and the house was full of
armed men. I saw my father in the hands of assassins. He endeavored so
speak to them, but they shouted and drowned his voice for they were
instructed not to listen so him for a moment for fear they would be
persuaded not to kill him. They dragged him into the yard, and
prepared to murder him. Two men held him by the arms, and others by
the body, while another stabbed him deliberately with a dirk
twenty-nine times. My mother rushed out to the door, but they pushed
her back with their guns into the house, and prevented her egress
until their act was finished, when they left the place quietly. My
father fell to earth but did not immediately expire. My mother ran out
to him. He raised himself on his elbow and tried to speak, but the
blood flowed into his mouth and prevented him. In a few moments more
he died, without speaking that last word which he wished to say. Then
succeeded a scene of agony the sight of which might make one regret
that the human race had ever been created. It has darkened my mind
with an eternal shadow. In a room prepared for the purpose, lay pale
in death the man whose voice had been listened to with awe and
admiration in the councils of his Nation, and whose fame had passed to
the remotest of the United States, the blood oozing through his
winding sheet, and falling drop by drop on the floor. By his side sat
my mother, with hands clasped, and its speechless agony— she who had
given him her heart in the days of her youth and beauty, left the home
of her parents, and followed the husband of her choice to a wild and
distant land. And bending over him was his own afflicted mother, with
her long, white hair flung loose over her shoulders. and bosom, crying
to the Great Spirit to sustain her in that dreadful hour. And in
addition to all these, the wife, the mother and the little children,
who scarcely knew their loss, were the dark faces of those who had
been the murdered man's friends, and, possibly, some who had been
privy to the assassination, who had come to smile over the scene.
"There was yet another blow to be dealt. Major Ridge had
started on a journey the day before to Van Buren, a town on the
Arkansas River, in the State of Arkansas. He was traveling down what
was called the Line Road, its the direction of Evansville. A runner
was sent with all possible speed to inform him of what had happened.
The runner returned with the news that Major Ridge himself was killed.
It is useless to lengthen description. It would fall short far short
of the theme.
"These events happened when I was twelve years old. Great
excitement existed in the Nation, and my mother thinking her children
unsafe in the country of their father's murders, and unwilling to
remain longer where all that she saw reminded her of her dreadful
bereavement, removed to the State of Arkansas, and settled in the town
of Fayettville. In that place I went to school till I was fourteen
years of age, when my mother sent me to New England to finish my
education. There is was that I became acquainted with you, and you
know all about my history during my attendance at the Great Barrington
School as well as I do myself. Owing to the rigor of the climate my
health failed me about the time I was ready to enter college, and I
returned to my mother in Arkansas. Here I read Latin and Greek, and
pursued my studies with the Rev. Cephas Washbourne (who had formerly
been a Missionary in the Cherokee Nation) till the summer of 1845 when
the difficulties which had existed in the Nation ever since my
father's death, more or less, had drawn to a crisis."
[here follows a history of Cherokee affairs, embracing the years
1845 and '46, and Mr. Ridge's connection therewith. which we think
proper to omit.]
"Thus have I briefly and hurriedly complied with your request,
and given you a sketch of my life. I shall not return to the Nation
now until circumstances are materially changed. I shall cast my
fortunes for some years with the whites. I am twenty-three years old,
married, and have an infant daughter. I will still devote my life to
my people, though not amongst them, and before I die, I hope to see
the Cherokee Nation, in conjunction, with the Choctaws, admitted into
the Confederacy of the United States."
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