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During the lifetime of Ned Christie,
he was a well-known blacksmith and gunsmith. He was also a very
good marble player and a fiddle player, as well as a traditional
stomp dancer. His father was Watt Christie, who had been a
Cherokee Senator, and his grandfather was Lacy Christie, who was a
firekeeper at one of the council houses in the Eastern homelands.
In 1885, he was elected a Cherokee
Senator, also called an Executive Councilor, and was known as
being a strong speaker for tribal sovereignty. He was against the
railroads coming through Indian Country, and like all Keetoowahs,
fought against allotment of Cherokee lands to the Cherokee people.
On May 4, 1887 , a U.S. Deputy
Marshal named Dan Maples was shot and killed. Ned was in the area,
because he had been to a special council meeting in Tahlequah.
Travelers camped near Town Branch Creek, which just happened to be
where the marshal was killed.
When Ned heard he had been blamed,
he visited with his uncle Ned Grease and his father, Watt, and
decided to go back home to Wauhilla and try to gather evidence in
his defense.
The Federal Judge in Fort Smith ,
Isaac Parker, was also called the “Hanging Judge.” Because the
victim was white and not Indian, he had jurisdiction. For almost 5
years, Ned never left his home, or the Wauhilla area, yet all the
posses were unable to capture him. Ned and his wife, Nancy, along
with members of his family and community, were all Keetoowahs.
They helped build a home after a posse burned the existing one,
which was a double-walled home (a cabin within a cabin) which had
sand between the walls. During this time, Ned stayed for much of
the time at a fort about one mile west of his home, and the entire
Wauhilla area was guarded closely by Keetoowahs.
During this time, every crime in
the Cherokee Indian Country, or nearby Arkansas , was blamed on
Ned. To this day, many history books, websites and other sources
call Christie an ‘outlaw.’
On December 14, 1892, a posse tried
to bring in a canon to blow him out of the house. They were not
able to get the canon up the hill up to his home which they were
going to use to blast him from the home. Instead, they used
dynamite. The lighting of the explosive caused Ned to run from the
house, resulting in his being shot to death. He would not, as a
Keetoowah, give his fate to the hands of white jurisdiction.
The men in the posse tied his dead
body to his door, and took it to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where
many people posed for pictures with his corpse. They then took the
body to Ft. Smith so that the deputies could be paid their reward.
After more pictures, his body was shipped by train to Fort Gibson,
where his father and brother had to drive their wagon to in order
to claim the remains of their beloved family member. He was taken
back to Wauhilla in the wagon, and buried in a family cemetery.
His headstone memorializes the fact that he was a Cherokee
Executor Councilor and a ‘brave man.’
In the early 1900’s, a black man
who had seen the shooting of Dan Maples, gave the testimony that
it was NOT Ned Christie who did the killing. The man was afraid
that he would not have been listened to because he was black, but
later spoke to newspaper reporters and told the story.
People still remember him, and
there are not many traditional events that you do not hear the
name “Ned Christie,” spoken with pride. |
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