MooNEY] .lOHN ROSS THK KETOOWAH SOCIETY 225 



them. They woiv c-diiipelli'd to yield, but not until the strus^le had developed the 

 highest qualities of i>atieuce. fortitude, and tenaeity of ri'jht and purpose on their 

 part, as well as that of their chief. The same may he said of their icmrse after their 

 removal to this country, and which resulted in the reunion of the eastern and west- 

 ern Cherokees as one people and in the adoption of the pre.sent constitution." 



Concerning the events of the civil war and the oflicial attempt to depose Ross from 

 his authority, they state that these occurrences, with many others in their trying 

 history as a people, are confidently committed to the future page of the historian. 

 "It is enoufih to know that the treaty negotiated at Washington in 1866 bore the 

 full anil just recognition of ,Iohn Ross' name as principal chief of the Cherokee 

 nation." 



The sunuiiing up of the [tanegyric is a splendid tribute to a splendid manhood: 



"Blessed with a fine I'onstitution and a vigorous mind, John Ross liad the phvsi- 

 eal ability to follow the path of duty wherever it led. No danger apjialled him. 

 lie never faltered in supporting what he believed to te right, but clung to it with a 

 steadiness of purpose w'hieh alone could have sprung from the clearest convictions 

 of rectitude. He never sacrificed the intere.sts of his nation to expediency. He 

 never lost sight of tin' welfare of the people. For them he labored daily for a long 

 life, and upon them he bestowed his last expressed thoughts. A friend of law, he 

 obeyed it; a friend of education, he faithfully encouraged schools throughout the 

 country, and spent liberally his means in conferring it upon others, (iiven to hos- 

 pitality, none ever hungered around his door. A professor of the Christian religion, 

 he practiced its prei'epts. His works are inseparable from the history of the (^her- 

 okee people for nearly half a century, while his example in the daily walks of life 

 will linger in the future and whisper words of hope, temperance, and charity in the 

 years of posterity." 



Resolutions were also passed for bringing his Ixuly from Wasliington at the expense 

 of the (^herokee Nation and i>roviding for suitaljle obsequies, in order "that his 

 remains should rest among those he so long served" ( Re.-olutions in honor of .Tohn 

 Ross, in Laws of the Cherokee Nation, lK(i9). 



(47) The Ketoow.\h Sociktv (p. 156): This Cherokee secret society, which has 

 recently achieved some newspaper prominence by its championship of Cherokee 

 autonomy, derives its name— properly Kitu'hwil, hut commonly sjielled Ketoowah 

 in English print — from the ancient town in the old Nation which formed the nucleus of 

 the most conservative element of the tribe and sometimes gave a name to the Nation 

 it-^elf (."ee Kllii'lnidf/I, under Tribal Synonyms). A strong band of comradeship, if 

 not a regular society organization, appears to have existed among the warriors and 

 lea<ling men of the various settlements of the Kituhwa district from a remote period, 

 .«o that the name is even now used in councils as indicative of genuine Cherokee 

 feeling in its highest i)atriotic form. When, some years ago, delegates from the 

 western Nation visited the Kast Cherokee to invite them to join their more pros- 

 perous brethren beyond the Mississijipi, the speaker for the delegates expressed 

 their fraternal feeling for their separated kinsmen by saying in his opening speetrh, 

 "We are all Kituhwa people" (.Vtii'-KItn'hwagl). The Ketoowah society in the 

 Cherokee Nation west was organized shortly before the civil war by John B.Jones, 

 son of the missionary, Evan Jones, and an adojjted citizen of the Nation, as a secret 

 society for the ostensible |)urpo.''e of cultivating a national feeling among the full- 

 bloods, in o])po!sition to the innovating tendencies of the mixed-blood element. The 

 real purpose was to counteract the influence of the "Blue Lodge" and other .secret 

 secessionist organizations among the wealthier slave-holding classes, made up chiefly 

 of mixed-bloods and whites. It extended to the Creeks, and its memliers in both 

 tribes rendered good servi<'e to the Union cause throughout the war. They were 

 frequently known as "I'in Indians," for a rea-son explained below. Since the close 

 of the great struggle the society has distinguished it.<elf by its determined opposition 



!!• KTH— Ul 15 



