Pathkiller (died January 8, 1827) was a

Cherokee The Cherokee (; , or ) people are one of the Indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in their homelands, in towns along river valleys of what is now southwestern ...

warrior and Principal Chief of the

Cherokee Nation The Cherokee Nation ( or ) is the largest of three list of federally recognized tribes, federally recognized tribes of Cherokees in the United States. It includes people descended from members of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907), Old Cheroke ...

Warrior life

Pathkiller,Pathkiller is a Cherokee rank or title—not a name. His original name is unknown. whose tribal name is unknown, fought against the Overmountain Men and Wataugan

frontier A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. Australia The term "frontier" was frequently used in colonial Australia in the meaning of country that borders the unknown or uncivilised, th ...

smen settled in the Washington District at the outbreak of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

. Afterward, he joined with Dragging Canoe and the Chickamauga Cherokee faction fighting in the

Cherokee–American wars The Cherokee–American wars, also known as the Chickamauga Wars, were a series of raids, campaigns, ambushes, minor skirmishes, and several full-scale frontier battles in the Old Southwest from 1776 to 1794 between the Cherokee and American se ...

, until the conclusion of hostilities in 1794. This Pathkiller may be the one who served as a colonel with the

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

militia and fought for Morgan's "Regiment of Cherokees" commanded by Colonel Gideon Morgan under

Andrew Jackson Andrew Jackson (March 15, 1767 – June 8, 1845) was the seventh president of the United States from 1829 to 1837. Before Presidency of Andrew Jackson, his presidency, he rose to fame as a general in the U.S. Army and served in both houses ...

, against the Red Stick Indian uprising during the Creek War (October 7, 1813 – April 11, 1814), a frontier extension of the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

Cherokee national leader

Pathkiller was the last hereditary chief of the

. He was the principal chief of the Nation from 1811 to 1828.Arrell Morgan Gibson, ''Oklahoma, A History of Five Centuries''
University of Oklahoma Press, 1981, p. 65 A description of Cherokee Council sessions was given by the missionary, Ard Hoyt, on a visit to the seat of Cherokee government in October 1818: After 1813, the '' de facto'' authority in the Cherokee Nation had shifted to

Charles R. Hicks Charles Renatus Hicks (December 23, 1767 – January 20, 1827) (Cherokee) was one of the three most important leaders of his people in the early 19th century, together with James Vann and Major Ridge. The three men all had some European ancestry, ...

, who was the first chief of partial European descent. Pathkiller remained chief in title only—basically as a

figurehead In politics, a figurehead is a practice of who ''de jure'' (in name or by law) appears to hold an important and often supremely powerful title or office, yet '' de facto'' (in reality) exercises little to no actual power. This usually means that ...

—until his death on January 8, 1827. Two weeks after Pathkiller's death, his successor, Charles Hicks, also died (on January 20, 1827), leaving a leadership vacuum that was filled in the interim by

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

, brother to Charles. Pathkiller and the Hicks were mentors to John Ross, having identified the talented young mixed-blood Cherokee of Scots-Irish descent as the future leader of the Cherokee people. After the tribe formed a constitutional republic, Ross was elected principal chief in October 1828.

Burial site

There is a monument-style table-tomb burial site for a Pathkiller (died 1827)—which was previously recorded in the region as a tomb of an "unknown Indian"—located in the present day

Calhoun, Georgia Calhoun is a city in Gordon County, Georgia, Gordon County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,949. Calhoun is the county seat of Gordon County. Histor ...

area, at the site of the old Cherokee capital town of

New Echota New Echota was the capital of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907), Cherokee Nation in the Southeastern United States from 1825 until their Cherokee removal, forced removal in the late 1830s. New Echota is located in present-day Gordon County, Geo ...

.Pathkiller's Two Burial Sites
Dark Fiber; WebPage; accessed 2018; description+Discusses conflation of the two identified Pathfinders tombs.''History of Hamilton Co. TN'', Vol. 1; Armstrong, Zella; records of St. Clair, Alabama, p. 30There is a grave site for a local "chief" Pathkiller (who died January 8, 1828) often conflated with this Principal Chief Pathkiller (died January 8, 1827). This grave is in proximity to his known residence at the time of his death, near the former Cherokee Turkeytown settlement, where he was a white-chief (see skiagusta) and head man. The grave is in the woods just outside the fenced Garrett family cemetery, located at the former site of Garrett's Ferry, Alabama, alongside the

Coosa River The Coosa River is a tributary of the Alabama River in the U.S. states of Alabama and Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. The river is about long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, ac ...

in Centre, Cherokee County,

Alabama Alabama ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Deep South, Deep Southern regions of the United States. It borders Tennessee to the north, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the east, Florida and the Gu ...

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pathkiller, Chief 18th-century births 1828 deaths Chickamauga Cherokee people People from Cherokee County, Alabama Native American people in the American Revolution Principal Chiefs of the Cherokee Nation (1794–1907)