18391776 Club
Three Treaty of New Echota signers are killed on the same morning in Indian Territory
Coordinated ambushes strike Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot; Cherokee blood law holds that selling tribal land without authorization is a capital offense.
Four years after the Trail of Tears began, the Cherokee Nation arrived in Indian Territory fractured and furious. On June 22, 1839, coordinated groups of Ross faction supporters ambushed three leaders of the Treaty Party — Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and his cousin Elias Boudinot — killing all three on the same morning. The men had signed the Treaty of New Echota in 1835, ceding all Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi, and Cherokee blood law prescribed death for anyone who sold tribal land without authorization. The killings ignited a Cherokee Civil War that lasted beyond the American Civil War…
