Monthly Archives: August 2025

The Beloved Chiefs from Turkey’s Town, Chulioa or The Boot

19 Tuesday Aug 2025

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Chulioa or The Boot1 is not a “Beloved Chief” to the Cherokee Nation. He is not a Chief. He is one of the most important people in Turkey’s Town. He is listed as one of the “Headman” of Turkey’s Town. This is how he is listed at the Grand Council meeting on 1 June 1792.

Present, the Little Turkey, great beloved man of the whole nation; the Badger, the beloved man of the Southern division; the Hanging Maw, beloved man of the Northern division; the Boot, the Black Fox, the Cabin, Path Killer, head-men of Turkey’s town.2

Chulioa was raised in a Creek village. The Reverend Daniel Butrick, born in Massachusetts, did not understand his title. Butrick did appreciate his importance.

3. See transposed below
4 See transposed below

“This man I believe is some like a prince regent.  He attends to business when the king is absent or in ill health, and is his Creek interpreter.  Though a Cherokee, he was brought up among the Creeks, and though he now lives with the Cherokees & is one of their principal Chiefs, yet he is also a chief, and attends councils of the Creek Nation.  He can neither talk nor understand English, and yet perhaps few men in any nation understand the art of pleasing & of rendering their company pleasant and agreeable better than he.”  5

Chulioa served as an advisor and Creek interpreter to Principal Chief Little Turkey6. He led Chief Little Turkey to a location for his village. Turkey’s Town was the first settlement of the Cherokee in the Creek territory. (Now Northeast Alabama.) Review, archive, 12 February 2025, post, Location by the People of Turkey’s Town. Settlement of Turkey’s Town is one of the most important events in Northeast Alabama’s history during the 18th century. The following is found in the Alabama Territories Papers.

There is a track of land lying on Wills Creek and between that creek and the Coosa River on the West side of the latter, and north of the Treaty line of Fort Jackson which they may be prevailed upon to part with, in treating for which they are willing to discuss and settle the subject of the boundary between them and the Cherokee. They however contend that their present boundary with the Cherokee is by the Suwannee path where it leaves the Western line of Jackson County to the old town on the Chatahotchie River and from thence by a drift line to the Mouth of a certain water course called by them, Little River where it unites with the Coosa. They have furnished me with a copy of certain question put by the Creeks to an old Cherokee Chief and the Cherokee Interpreter (who was their mutual interpreter on the first settlement of the Cherokee in the Creek Country) . . .7

This has to be Chief Little Turkey and Chulioa.

Chulioa played a very important role in the Creek War, 1813-1814. His service in the Creek War was significant to Chief Pathkiller and the US. Chulioa served as the Creek Interpreter. We see in Dr. Susan M. Abram’s Doctoral Dissertation titled Souls in the Treetops, Cherokee War, Masculinity and Community, 1760-1820. She received her Doctor of Philosophy from Auburn University in 2009. Footnote 27, page 118, Cherokee Muster Rolls, RG 94, AGO. Jackson personally oversaw the mustering in of Pvt. Chulio, who was Path Killer’s aid. He served as a private under Capt. James Brown for his first tour of duty. During his second tour, Chulio earned a promotion to 1st Lt. under Capt. Frog.  The footnote is attached to these sentences. Intelligence gathered by the Creek interpreter Chulio soon indicated that a considerable force of Red Sticks had gathered near Ten Islands on the Coosa River while others were about forty miles south of Tuckabatchee. Another group was at Oakchoi Town, not far from Turkey Town near the Creek-Cherokee border.

Chulioa should not be confused with another Cherokee warrior who was killed during the Creek War. The Boot. This Boot was in Captain McLemore’s Company. 8

Chulioa made his mark on the Treaty Ratified in Turkey’s Town in October 1816.9

Chulioa will be the go-to guy in Turkey’s Town. Rev. Butrick would go to him to gain a meeting with the headmen and Chief Pathkiller in 1822.

Friday 18th. With Br. John Arch started for Turkey’s Town where we arrived on Saturday evening, and called on the Boot.  He is the King’s Creek interpreter & one of his confidential consellors.  I told him the object of our journey, and that if he saw fit to notify a meeting we should be pleased to see the king – Path Killer, and all the people of the town together.  He seemed thankful and said he would lay the subject before the head men of his Town, and let us know their minds.10

Conclusion

Chulioa or the Boot is a very important person in Turkey’s Town. He is the link to how Chief Little Turkey would settle there. He was very involved with the Creek War. Next post we will see his family and their connections in the Cherokee Nation. We will see a very tragic part of the Trail of Tears.

  1. His name is rendered by English writers as Chuleoa, Chulioa, Chuli-o-a, Chulcoh, Tsu-le-o-a, Chutcoe, or generically as ‘the Creek interpreter’ ↩︎
  2. Indian Affairs, Volume 1, ASP IA Vol. 1, searchable online the Library of Congress American State Papers web site, pages 271-273, 26 June – 1 July 1792. ↩︎
  3. 19 Jan 1822, Journal of Reverand Daniel S. Butrick, pages 143-2, 143-3, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM), 18.3.1 V3, Michael Wren personal copy. Original and transposed copy. ↩︎
  4. Ibid ↩︎
  5. Ibid. ↩︎
  6. See American State Papers Vol 1 pp 271, 276, 277, 328, 447, 657.  See also American State Papers Vol 2 pp 145, 153-154 (where is incorrectly called ShoeBoots), 283, 486-487, 489-490.  He was one of the headmen of Turkey’s Town and part of the Cherokee leaders at the signing of the Treaty of Holston of 1791 where he delivered an address.  See Lyman Draper Papers 15 U 5-56.  Specifically, see 35-36 & 39-46.   ↩︎
  7. Alabama Territory, Territorial Papers, pages 183-184, images 207-208, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015010692468&seq=208 page183-184 ↩︎
  8. Dr. Susan M. Abram’s Doctoral Dissertation titled Souls in the Treetops, Cherokee War, Masculinity and Community, 1760-1820. Doctor of Philosophy from Auburn University in 2009. Page 228 ↩︎
  9. National Archives, Record Group 11, General Records of the United States
    Government, Series Indian Treaties; RIT #83; Ratified Indian Treaty #83,
    Cherokee, Chickasaw Council House, September 14, 1816. There are 231 images
    of this with correspondence of letters and a journal. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/100220646 ↩︎
  10. 18 Jan 1822, Journal of Reverand Daniel S. Butrick, American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (ABCFM), 18.3.1 V4, Unit 6, reel 754 1819-1845, Michael Wren personal copy. Original and transposed copy. ↩︎

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6 CSV

The Beloved Chiefs from Turkey’s Town, Chief John Ross

05 Tuesday Aug 2025

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Chief John Ross

 The last of the Principal Chiefs who is from Turkey’s Town. Chief John Ross was born there on 3 October 1790. John Ross was born in “Tahnoovayah.”1 Notice the similarity to the spelling in the above 1842 claim, “Dah-noo-ney-ya”. He would become one of the most, if not the most, beloved Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation. His family moved to Turkey’s Town in 1788. They would leave and move back to the Chickamauga Creek site by 1800. This information is supported by Myth and History: The John Ross House through Time. It was published by The National Park Service and The John Ross House Association, Inc. 2007. It was written by William J. Bishop, Vice-President Trail of Tears Association, Georgia Chapter, on pages 33, 56-57;2

McDonald, living “about 25 miles south west from Chickamagga,” could unwittingly be a prime source of the “earliest and best Intelligence that can be had from that quarter,” Martin said. “He has great influence with the Indians on that quarter, deals at Pensacola, corresponds with Mr. Gilvry, in the Creek Nation and one Mr. McClatchey at the mouth of St. Mary’s, a British Merchant who furnishes some part of the Towns near him with goods.” 
Ross said that “about the year 1788, he removed together with his father in-law and their families to Turkey Town (“Tahnoovayah,” according to Eaton, or, according to Brown, “Kanagatugi”), and continued trade with the Cherokees. The Little Turkey was the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation and resided in that town.”

Chickamauga move

It does seem to make sense that, following the peace treaty with the Americans, McDonald would want to return back to the site of his original homeplace, where he had raised his children for nearly a decade – much longer than any period of time he had spent in any other Cherokee town. Cementing this idea, correspondence from McDonald’s wife in 1809 is shown as being sent from “Chickamauga,” rather than from Poplar Spring, as Rossville was then known (Cherokee Agency at Tennessee official records, U.S. Archives, M-208, Roll 4). Further, we know that McDonald was in fact living at Chickamauga Creek when he finally did sell his holdings to the founders of the Brainerd Mission 17 years later, in 1817 (Phillips, 1998, p. 27). 

(We do know for a fact, however, that McDonald was living on Chickamauga Creek in 1800, as previously demonstrated. So if Hawkins’ eyewitness account can be trusted to mean that the McDonald trading post at Rossville was non-existent in the summer of 1799, then in order to believe that such a trading post did exist prior to McDonald’s establishment at Chickamauga Creek we are necessarily left with only a one-year window. His supposed residence at what is now Rossville, then, would have been exceptionally brief.) 

We can be reasonably assured that Ross was living somewhere east of Lookout Mountain by June of 1802 because he sent a letter (Ross, 1802) from “Chickamoga” to the Tennessee Agent, Major William Lovely, regarding, again, some horses that had been stolen .

Commissary in Turkey’s Town

 We can see his grandfather’s influence in Turkey’s Town. During his time there, he turned the place into a commissary. He bargained trades, goods, and munitions from the Spaniards.  Myth and History: The John Ross House through Time; pages 27-57, John McDonald and the Chickamauga Page 37

James Carey related the following information to Gov. Blount in Nov., 1792 (Coker, 1986, Reel 7): The contents of the letter was to invite Watts and the Bloody Fellow, in the name of Governor O’Neal, to come down to Pensacola with ten pack horses; that they should have from Governor O’Neal arms and ammunition, as many and as much as they wanted, and that Panton himself would supply their nation with goods in plenty. Mr. Panton, during his stay in the nation, made the house of his countryman, McDonald, his headquarters, from whence they together paid a visit to the Little Turkey, and spent several days, Mr. McDonald acting as interpreter between Mr. Panton and the Turkey. 

After this visit, Panton wrote to Gov. O’Neill, advising him on the best way to conduct the proposed meeting. The Cherokees, he said, should be supplied with much-needed arms, horses, and guns, and generous presents should be given. He specifically pointed out that “Mr. McDonald, the old British superintendent,” should be welcomed personally. He knew McDonald was very dissatisfied with the American treatment of the Cherokee and with Gov. Blount’s efforts to tamper with Indian trade. Panton, like Martin on the American side, knew that McDonald with his influence over the Cherokee could be either “very serviceable” or “very dangerous.” 

Myth and History: The John Ross House through Time is a very well-documented source of the Ross house in Rossville, Georgia. It clears up the history of the house. It has a very well-documented history of the Chickamauga Cherokees. Web link below.

https://www.nps.gov/trte/learn/historyculture/upload/Myth-and-History-The-John-Ross-House-508.pdf

Chief John Ross did not live in Turkey’s town while he was Chief. There are many books written about him, so I will not repeat his story. The exact location of the McDonald/Ross home and trading post in Turkey’s Town is not known. It must have been on the main road through the Town. This would be the High Town Pass or Hightower Pass. There are no statements about their location on any of the Claims. There are also no notes of their location submitted by the people of Turkey’s Town after removal. They do not comment on the Ross or McDonald trading post or stand.

Chief John Ross became the Principal Chief in October 1828 by election of the National Council. He would lead them through the Trail of Tears.3 He sued the State of Georgia for land rights and laws. Worcester v. Georgia. He won in the Supreme Court of the United States in 1833. President Andrew Jackson did not honor the verdict.4 The New Echota Treaty of 1835 fixed the removal West.5 They had two years to move. In 1838, the forced removal took place, the Trail of Tears. Ross also led them through the American Civil War. He died in 1866.

Conclusion

This concludes the Chiefs. Before we move to the next chapter. I want to introduce you to a couple of people. One we have talked about before. One you do not know. Boot (Chulioa), you have met. He is Cherokee, but he was raised among the Creek. He helped Chief Little Turkey settle New Seneca. I will discuss him in detail next. Then I will introduce you to Charles Chief Pathkiller’s nephew.

  1. Eaton, Rachel Caroline. John Ross and the Cherokee Indians. Menasha, Wis., George Banta publishing company, 1914. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/14018822/, Image 23, page 3 ↩︎
  2. https://www.nps.gov/trte/learn/historyculture/upload/Myth-and-History-The-John-Ross-House-508.pdf ↩︎
  3. Eaton, Rachel Caroline. John Ross and the Cherokee Indians. Menasha, Wis., George Banta publishing company, 1914. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/14018822/, Chapter VII ↩︎
  4. Ibid, Chapter VIII ↩︎
  5. Ibid. ↩︎

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding; in all your ways know him, and he will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3: 5-6 CSV