In a year when we’ve elected the first female vice president and commemorated 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, women’s history takes on even greater resonance than usual. It’s more than apparent that the future is female — but let’s not forget that the past is female too.
During Native American Heritage Month and year-round, we draw inspiration from the stories of Native women leaders who navigated the complicated negotiations between white settlers and Native communities, a fraught relationship that continues to this day.
One of those leaders is Nanyehi “Nancy” Ward, a member of the Cherokee Nation who believed that women would be critical to establishing peace with white settlers. Hers is one of the many life stories featured in Women & the American Story, an online resource created by the New York Historical Society.
The Cherokee Nation had a long history of female leadership when white settlers first arrived in the area known today as the Southeastern United States. Cherokee society is matrilineal, meaning that tribal and clan membership is traced through mothers. The Women’s Council of Clan Representatives is one of the two governing bodies of the nation.
This kind of power was unfamiliar to white women settlers who lived during Nanyehi’s time. They were still considered the wards of their fathers and husbands.
Nanyehi lived during a critical moment in Cherokee history. She was born in 1738 in the Cherokee town of Chota (in modern-day Monroe County, Tennessee), the niece of Chief Attakullakulla. From his example, Nanyehi came to believe that the only way her people could survive the onslaught of white settlement was to cooperate and coexist with settlers.
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At the age of 17, Nanyehi was married with two young children when she accompanied her husband into battle against the Creek Nation. When her husband was killed, Nanyehi took up his rifle and led Cherokee warriors to victory. Her courage earned her the title Ghigau, or Beloved Woman. She was revered as a spiritual leader, named the head of the Women’s Council and was the only woman given a vote in the Cherokee General Council. She used her newfound influence to advocate for peaceful coexistence with white settlers.
In the late 1750s, Nanyehi married an English trader and took on the name Nancy Ward. It is possible this marriage was arranged by her uncle to strengthen ties between the settler and Cherokee communities.
Nanyehi was 37 when the Revolutionary War began in 1775. Like many Native nations, the Cherokee had to decide whether to side with the British or Americans. The Cherokee allied with the British, but Nanyehi joined her uncle Attakullakulla in counseling restraint.
Other members of their tribe saw the war as an opportunity to reclaim land lost to white settlers. Nanyehi’s cousin’s son, the warrior Tsiyu Gansini, aka Dragging Canoe, planned a raid on a white settlement near the Watauga River. Tsiyu is said to have asked for Nanyehi’s blessing in the form of a traditional black drink believed to protect Cherokee warriors.
But Nanyehi had other plans.
As Ghigau, Nanyehi held absolute power over all prisoners taken during raids and other battles. While she prepared the drink for Tsiyu and his warriors, she also went behind Tsiyu’s back to release three white prisoners so that they might warn the settlement about the imminent attack. Nanyehi’s plan gave the settlers enough time to move their women and children to safety, as well as prepare an ambush where they killed 13 Cherokee warriors.
In retaliation, the Cherokee warriors captured more white prisoners, including a woman named Lydia Bean. Nanyehi stepped in and stopped the soldiers from burning her alive, welcoming Lydia into her home until she was safe to return to her settlement.
Tsiyu’s attack sparked a full-scale war with the newly formed United States. Cherokee lands were invaded by U.S. soldiers and every major Cherokee settlement was destroyed except Chota, which was spared out of respect for Nanyehi. Nanyehi continued to work to establish peaceful coexistence despite the violent antagonism of the white settlers.
In 1781 she addressed the U.S. treaty commissioners, asking white women to step forward to help broker peace. She said, “We are your mothers; you are our sons. Our cry is all for peace; let it continue. This peace must last forever. Let your women’s sons be ours; our sons be yours. Let your women hear our words.”
But of course, white women held no authority in the U.S. government at the time.
When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, Britain ceded the land east of the Mississippi River, including the Cherokee’s ancestral lands, to the United States.
The leaders of Britain and the United States agreed to this — the Cherokee were not consulted.
The war with the Cherokee did not end until 1785, when the new chief Utsi’dsata signed a treaty with the U.S. government. Nanyehi was present at the signing and gave it her blessing.
But white settlers continued to encroach on Cherokee land, and fighting continued. By 1816, the Cherokee nation was considering exchanging their ancestral lands for territory further West.
Despite a lifetime of pushing for peaceful coexistence, Nanyehi had come to realize that Americans would not stop until they owned all Cherokee lands. She and the Cherokee Women’s Council strongly opposed the deal to move West.
At 80 years old, Nanyehi penned a plea to the Cherokee National Council, stating “We have raised all of you on the land which we now have. Your mothers, your sisters ask and beg of you not to part with any more of our land.” Her letter was signed by 12 other women.
The deal was made in spite of these protests. In 1819, the United States officially purchased the territory that included Nanyehi’s hometown of Chota. Nanyehi became an innkeeper, and died in 1822.
Nanyehi was the last Ghigau of the Cherokee. Today, some Cherokee consider her lifetime pursuit of peaceful coexistence with U.S. settlers traitorous, and revere Tsiyu Gansini as a hero. But both leaders worked to assert Cherokee sovereignty in a world that was trying to strip it away.
Nanyehi’s story lives on through the efforts of organizations like the New-York Historical Society Center for Women’s History, the National Women’s History Museum; the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums; and other members of the Made By Us history and civics coalition.
At a time when only 13% of the named historical figures in U.S. history textbooks are women, stories like Nanyehi’s serve as an important reminder of the long history of women’s leadership throughout American history.
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