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Native American Day
"May the Warm Winds of Heaven Blow softly upon your house. May the Great Spirit Bless all who enter there. May your Moccasins Make happy tracks in many snows, and may the Rainbow Always touch your shoulder."
~ Cherokee Blessing
Scottish Highlanders and Native Americans frequently crossed paths on America's wild frontier—engaging in battles, trade, and sometimes living side by side. While Highlanders had been arriving in America since the 1600s, a significant wave of migration followed the Jacobite defeat at Culloden in 1745. Many Scots became deeply involved in the fur and deerskin trade within the territories of the Creek, Choctaw, and Cherokee tribes. Alexander McGillivray, born to a Scottish trader father and a Creek-French mother, rose to prominence as a leading chief of the powerful Creek Confederacy in the late eighteenth century. He played a crucial role in shaping the tribe’s foreign relations with Britain, Spain, and the United States. Another Scots-Indian figure, John Ross, served as the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation during the Indian Removal era around 1830, when tens of thousands of Native Americans were forcibly relocated west of the Mississippi. DNA research suggests that a large portion of the Cherokee Nation may descend from Ludovick Grant, a laird’s son from Creichie, Aberdeenshire. Captured while fighting for the Jacobites and facing execution, Grant was instead transported to South Carolina, where he became a trader for the Cherokee and married into the tribe. His daughter is believed to be the ancestor of many Cherokees today. In 1996, Scottish Heritage USA presented a special tartan to the Cherokee tribe at the Grandfather Mountain Games. ❤️ 💚 💙 🖤 🤍
Native American Day is a holiday in the states of California and Nevada celebrated annually on the fourth Friday of September, as well as in South Dakota on the second Monday in October in lieu of Columbus Day. It honors Native American cultures and contributions to their respective states and the United States. The state of Tennessee observes a similar American Indian Day each year on the fourth Monday of September.
Designed by Phil Smith in 1995, this was the winning design of 12 entries for a tartan to be presented to the Cherokee tribe (Echota and Chickamauga are alternative names the tribe uses) by Scottish Heritage USA at Grandfather Mountain Games in North Carolina in 1996.
The Cherokee are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. Prior to the 18th century, they were concentrated in what is now southwestern North Carolina, southeastern Tennessee, and the tips of western South Carolina and northeastern Georgia.
In the 18th century, traders and British government agents dealing with the southern tribes in general, and the Cherokee in particular, were nearly all of Scottish ancestry, with many documented as being from the Highlands.
A few were Scots-Irish, English, French, and German. Many of these men married women from their host peoples and remained after the fighting had ended. Some of their descendants would later become significant leaders among the Five Civilized Tribes of the Southeast.
Notable traders, agents, and refugee Tories among the Cherokee included John Stuart, Henry Stuart, Alexander Cameron, John McDonald, John Joseph Vann (father of James Vann), Daniel Ross (father of John Ross), John Walker Sr., John McLemore (father of Bob), William Buchanan, John Watts (father of John Watts Jr.), John D. Chisholm, John Benge (father of Bob Benge), Thomas Brown, John Rogers (Welsh), John Gunter (German, founder of Gunter's Landing), James Adair (Irish), William Thorpe (English), and Peter Hildebrand (German), among many others.
Some attained the honorary status of minor chiefs and/or members of significant delegations.
Visit the online Museum of the Cherokee Indian here.
For more on the interesting association between native Americans and Scots, click the painting "Warriors" from Robert Griffing's series of paintings from the French-Indian wars.