Tahlonteeskee, Oklahoma (Cherokee variant: ''Tahlontuskey'') was the first capital city of the early western
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 ...
. It was named for
Tahlonteeskee, who was the third
Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation -West (1817–1819). Today, the area of the settlement is an abandoned, barren site on private land in
Sequoyah County.
History
The area in which Tahlonteeskee was located was part of the 1816
Lovely's Purchase
Lovely's Purchase, also called Lovely's Donation, was part of the Missouri Territory and the Arkansas Territory of the early nineteenth century. It was created in 1817, to give a haven to the Cherokee and other Native Americans who were bein ...
.
[''Sequoyah County''](_blank)
Oklahoma Historical Society online; accessed April 2018 The town itself was founded in 1828, near the mouth of the Illinois River,
and became the capital of the Cherokee "''
Old Settlers''" living in the Cherokee Nation–West.
[''Gore, Oklahoma: Tahlonteeskee - Oldest Capital in Oklahoma''](_blank)
webpage; Leisure and Sports Review; accessed November 2015[''Tahlonteeskee''](_blank)
photo of roadside marker klahoma Historical Society at waymarking.com; accessed November 2015. Chief
John Jolly, brother of Tahlonteeskee, posthumously named the town in his honor. The Christian
Dwight Mission was re-located there with the early nineteenth century migration west of the Cherokee people.
Tahlonteeskee continued as the western
Cherokee people
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 ...
s' capital from 1828 through 1839,
when new arrivals from the
Trail of Tears
The Trail of Tears was the forced displacement of about 60,000 people of the " Five Civilized Tribes" between 1830 and 1850, and the additional thousands of Native Americans and their black slaves within that were ethnically cleansed by the U ...
flooded the area. At that time, Takatoka briefly became capital before the transition of the council seat to
Tahlequah, Oklahoma
Tahlequah ( ; , ) is a city in Cherokee County, Oklahoma located at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains. It is part of the Green Country region of Oklahoma and was established as a capital of the 19th-century Cherokee Nation in 1839, as p ...
was finished—upon completion of the construction of the new capitol building—and the seat of the government permanently moved away.
Tahlonteeskee continued for years as a council meeting place for Old Settlers in order to settle differences between differing tribal factions.
Tahlonteeskee was the oldest governmental capital in Oklahoma,
but is today a
barren site on private land near
Gore, Oklahoma
Gore is a town in western Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, United States. It is part of the Fort Smith, Arkansas-Oklahoma Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 977 at the 2010 census, an increase of 15 percent over the figure of 850 record ...
.
See also
*
List of ghost towns in Oklahoma
The U.S. state of Oklahoma has an estimated two thousand ghost towns. These towns began for a number of reasons, often as liquor towns, boomtowns, or mining towns, with some pre-dating statehood. The population and activity later declined in ...
References
External links
''Photo of Reconstructed Courthouse and Historical Marker''
{{coord missing, Oklahoma
Cherokee Old Settlers
Historic sites in Oklahoma
Cherokee towns in Oklahoma
Former colonial and territorial capitals in the United States
Populated places established in 1827
Geography of Sequoyah County, Oklahoma
1827 establishments in Indian Territory