"Back in Georgia from whence the Cherokees originally migrated to the Indian Territory in 1838 and 1839, the old Keetoowah group was dying out as early as 1835," (Tulsa Tribune, Dec. 28, 1928) stated John L. Springston. Springston had served as a clerk and court reporter in the Saline District before Oklahoma statehood and was a Keetoowah.

This narrative will help the reader understand the Keetoowahs before 1835, as well as after, explaining why the disappearance from Georgia leading to today's location in northeastern Oklahoma. The spellings "Keetoowah" and "Kituwah" will be used interchangeably.

In the early 1900's, anthropologists noted that on ceremonial occasions, Cherokees frequently speak of themselves as 'Kituhwagi," (James Mooney, Myths of the Cherokees, 19th Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington Government Printing Office, 1900, pg. 15) but the origin goes back to the beginning of time. The fact that the name Kituwah has always had a special significance to the Cherokee full-bloods has been ignored by many, and it is often looked at as a recent name given to a particular society, and later adopted by a tribe. This is not true; the name Kituwah being the true name of the Cherokee people, a name given directly from the Creator.

Legends of the Kituwah people say that the name was given after seven of the wisest men of the ancient Cherokees went to the highest peak and fasted for seven days and nights, asking the Creator for guidance. This peak is known today as "Clingman's Dome." On the seventh night of their fast, the Creator told them, "You shall be Kituwah." (Benny Smith, The Keetoowah Society of Cherokee Indians, Masters Dissertation, Northwestern State College, Alva, OK, 1967)

Former Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Chief Dugan confirms this, "One name for the tribe is 'people of Kituwah'." ("Where Myth Meets Reality," Washington Post, Sept. 13, 2004)

Kituwah Mound, located near what is present-day Bryson City, North Carolina, is understood as the "mother town" and the place where the Creator gave the laws and first fire to the people. The Eastern Band cultural office reports that "This place wasn't just a town, this was the mother town, the place where the Cherokee began."

The 1859 Constitution of the Keetoowahs stated very eloquently, "...we began to study and investigate the way our nation was going on, so much different from the long past history of our Keetoowah forefathers who loved and lived as free people and had never surrendered to anybody; they just loved one another for they were just like one family, just as if they had been raised from one family."

Additionally, the Keetoowahs have always been known to be the most traditional and conservative of the Cherokee, holding on to the old ways of the full-blood Cherokee. Legends say that if these ways ever discontinue, the Cherokee will be no more. This has been spoken about by contemporary Kituwah spiritual leaders, who say that the people themselves will not die physically, but it will mean that they will be the same as the non-Indian. "The Sacred Fire of the Keetoowah is said to have burned since the morning of creation. Keetoowahs are the keepers of Cherokee tradition," said Cherokee Senator George Waters from Vian (Keetoowah-The Eternal Fire, Maggie Culver Fry, Oklahoma Today Magazine, Vol. 14, 1964)

The Kituwah People originally lived in the southeastern part of the present-day United States, on lands forming present-day Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina and South Carolina.

Archeologists say that Keetoowah/Cherokee families began migrating to a new home in Arkansas by the late 1790's. (ATU Research Station, University of Arkansas) .

In 1808, a delegation of Cherokees from the upper and lower towns of the Cherokee nation went to Washington D.C. to inform the President of the United States that not all Cherokee people wanted to pursue what was deemed a 'civilized' life. The delegation requested the President divide the upper towns, whose people wanted to establish a regular government, from the lower towns who wanted to continue living traditionally. On January 9, 1809, the President of the United States allowed the lower towns to send an exploring party to find suitable lands on the Arkansas and White Rivers. Seven of the most trusted men explored locations both in what is now Western Arkansas and also Northeastern Oklahoma. The people of the lower towns desired to remove across the Mississippi to this area, onto vacant lands within the United States so that they might continue the traditional Cherokee life.

In 1817, the United States ceded such lands to the Kituwah people (also known as Old Settlers, or Western Cherokee) in exchange for a portion of the Cherokee lands they had occupied and were entitled to in the East. As many as 4,000 Kituwah Old Settlers came. (ATU Research Station, University of Arkansas) The Treaty of 1817 with the United States exchanged lands back East for lands in Arkansas. This gained the Keetoowahs a definite title to a territory -- what is called today a 'Land Base.'

In 1819, the naturalist Thomas Nutall ascended the Arkansas River and gave the following description of the settlements:

"...both banks of the river, as we proceeded, were lined with the houses and farms of the Cherokee, and though their dress was a mixture of indigenous and European taste, yet in their houses, which are decently furnished, and in their farms, which were well fenced and stocked with cattle, we perceive a happy approach toward civilization. Their numerous families, also, well fed and clothed, argue a popitious progress in their population. Their superior industry either as hunters or farmers proces the value of property among them, and they are no longer strangers to avarice and the distinctions created by wealth. Some of them are possessed of property to the amount of many thousands of dollars, have houses handsomely and conveniently furnished, and their tables spread with our dainties and luxuries."

The Arkansas Cherokee requested that the US recognize the Eastern and Western Cherokee and two separate and distinct Nations. The Treaty of 1817 did provide for a separate census of the Cherokee in the east and west as a basis for annuity payments. The U.S. Government left the western boundary of the Arkansas Cherokee undefined partly due to efforts to get more Cherokee to emigrate and partly due to opposition from the Osage. As a result, the US withheld annuity payments to the Arkansas Cherokee, citing the undefined boundary and uncertainty of the population as the reason. Further, the Treaty of 1817 stipulated that "the treaties heretofore between the Cherokee nation and the Unites States are to continue in full force with both parties of the nation, and both parts thereof entitled to all the immunities and privileges which the old nation enjoyed under the aforesaid treaties..."

Many Keetoowahs claim that many of them came to the west before the removal, and some close relatives were left behind to come with the main body of the Cherokee factionalists, but the Kituwah acknowledge that a few were never meant to come west. This is verified by the existence of Cherokees who consider themselves Kituwah today, and the rebirth of Kituwah Mound, which was repurchased in 1997 by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and many Kituwah people make pilgrimages there for prayer.

Those Kituwah people who removed as Old Settlers between 1817-1835 received from the U.S. government to each head of the family a good rifle, a blanket, a kettle, 5 pounds of tobacco, and all members of the family received a blanket, as well.

In 1818, Tahlonteskee, Chief of the Western Cherokee, requested the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions establish a mission in the west. Subsequently, Dwight Mission, near present Russellville, Arkansas, was established in the spring of 1820. Tahlonteskee, having died in the meantime, was succeeded as Chief by his brother, John Jolly.

Unlike the Old Cherokee Nation, the Western Cherokee Keetoowahs readily accepted Sequoyah's Cherokee syllabary in 1822. The then-Chief, Takatoka, was opposed to the introduction of the mission schools and greatly influenced the acceptance of a way to write the Kituwah people's own language.

By 1828, dissatisfied with their lands on the Arkansas and White Rivers, partly due to encroachment by white settlers, the Kituwah people entered into a treaty with the United States to move onto lands further west. This treaty granted the "Western Cherokee" seven million acres of land running along the Arkansas, Canadian and Grand Rivers. They were also given a perpetual outlet West, as far as the sovereignty of the United States extended. By the Treaty of 1828 the Keetoowahs moved to Indian Territory in Oklahoma ten years prior to the forced removal of the Cherokee Nation. During that same year, the Keetoowahs went on to adopt a written constitution. It was also the same year that John Ross became Chief of the Old Cherokee Nation, eleven years after the Keetoowahs, or Western Cherokee, left the Old nation for lands in Arkansas. Ross did everything he could to not move his people west, which eventually led up to the Trail of Tears.

Those Cherokees who declined to leave and stayed in the Cherokee Nation were called, at that time, Eastern Cherokees. The southeastern states were unhappy that these Eastern Cherokees remained, and violent incidents were frequent between them and the Americans, especially in Georgia. The southeastern states placed pressure on the federal government to remove these remaining Indians and extinguish Indian title to the lands within those states. This led to the signing of the Treaty of New Echota, and later, the Trail of Tears. Many of the Kituwah people who had stayed behind were forced to travel with the other Cherokees on this trail of devastation. Two of the most famous Keetoowahs who did not come west with the Western Cherokee were Chiefs Going Snake and White Path. These Eastern Cherokees were removed to the land then held by the Western Cherokees.

Between 1828 and 1839, when the Eastern Cherokee from the Old Cherokee Nation arrived on the Trail of Tears, a capital was established east of Chief Jolly's home, about 2 miles up the Illinois from it's mouth on the Arkansas. The council house, grounds and home of the first chief made up the national capital called Tahlonteeskee to honor the Chief's brother, the former Chief. The general council met here for eleven years.

The Western Cherokee general council elected chiefs who served for 4 years. The first and second chief received $100 annually, and the third chief $60. The general council consisted of two houses, national committee and council. These two bodies were made up of two representatives from the districts of the nation, thus, there were eight members in each house. The general council convened in October and was divided into four districts; Sallisaw, Lee's Creek, Illinois and Neosho.

The district officials were judges and two Lighthorse, elected by citizens for two years. District judges received an annual salary of $25, the Lighthorse received $40. In 1832, schools were provided in each district and Sequoyah was employed to supervise the teaching of his syllabary at $400 annually. You will note the value the Keetoowahs placed on educating their children in their own language; Sequoyah's salary was four times that of the Chief.

In 1833, Old Settler, or Western Cherokee Keetoowahs, met with the Muscogee Creek Nation at Cantonment Gibson to settle boundary disputes and precisely establish the boundaries of the new territory. Creeks who had been removed from the east in 1826-27 had found themselves living within the newly established Cherokee lands and were required to move again. The treaty fixed the boundaries for what would become known as the Cherokee Nation of Indian Territory after the Trail of Tears in 1839. The Old Settlers enjoyed only a few years of peace before being joined by the Treaty Party and ultimately by the Eastern Cherokee, marking the beginning of the Cherokee Civil War.

After the influx of the Eastern Cherokees from the Trail of Tears, the Easterners greatly outnumbered the Western full-bloods and tensions began to mount. The Eastern newcomers wanted their form of government to replace the government already put in place by the Western Cherokees, who of course, objected to such displacement of their own powers, and was also against the provisions of the Treaty of New Echota.