Nancy Ward

Nanyehi , known in English as Nancy Ward (c.1738 – c.1823), was a Beloved Woman and political leader of the Cherokee. She advocated for peaceful coexistence with European Americans and, late in life, spoke out for Cherokee retention of tribal hunting lands. She is credited with the introduction of dairy products to the Cherokee economy.

Life Nanyehi (meaning "one who goes about") was born c. 1738 in the Cherokee chief-city, Chota (or "town of refuge"). Today, that area is within Monroe County, on the southeastern border of Tennessee. Her mother, a sister of Attakullakulla, was a member of the Wolf Clan.

Beloved Woman and diplomat For her actions at the Battle of Taliwa, the Cherokee awarded her the title of Ghigau (or "Beloved Woman"). This made her the only female voting member of the Cherokee general council.

Nanye'hi became a de facto ambassador between the Cherokee and the British and European Americans. She had learned the art of diplomacy from her maternal uncle, the influential chief Attakullakulla ("Little Carpenter"). In 1781, she was among the Cherokee leaders who met with an American delegation led by John Sevier, to discuss American settlements along the Little Pigeon River in Tennessee. Nanyehi expressed surprise that there were no women negotiators among the Americans. Sevier was equally astonished that the Cherokee had entrusted such important work to a woman. Nanyehi reportedly told him, "You know that women are always looked upon as nothing; but we are your mothers; you are our sons. Our cry is all for peace; let it continue. This peace must last forever. Let your women's sons be ours; our sons be yours. Let your women hear our words."

An American observer said that her speech was very moving.

Changes to Cherokee society In the early 1760s, the Cherokee entered an alliance with the British colonists who were fighting the French and their allies in the French and Indian War (the North American front of the Seven Years' War in Europe). Each side had Native American allies in North America. In exchange for their assistance, the British Americans promised to protect the Cherokee from their enemies: the Creek and Choctaw peoples.

The British built military stations and frontier posts on Cherokee land. These posts gradually attracted more European-American settlers. A group of White frontiersmen killed a group of Cherokee in present-day West Virginia, who were returning from having helped the British take over Fort Duquesne (at present-day Pittsburgh). Outraged, the Cherokee killed more than 20 settlers in retaliation. Conflict broke out that lasted two years, during which the Cherokee captured Fort Loudon on the Tellico River in August 1760.

A decade later, In May 1775, a group of Delaware, Mohawk and Shawnee emissaries formed a delegation that headed south to support the British who were trying to gain the help of the Cherokee and other tribes for war with their rebel colonies.

Revolutionary War years The Cherokee had to face multiple issues during the Revolutionary War. Most of the tribes were originally allied with the British against the rebel colonists. They wanted to expel the European-American settlers from their lands. Ward's cousin, the war chief, Dragging Canoe, wanted to ally with the British against the settlers, but Nanyehi wanted to keep peace with the rebels. In early July 1776, Ward, warned a group of white settlers living near the Holston River and on the Virginia border about an imminent attack by her people. The Carolina Light Horse Rangers and Virginia Royal Scots formed a punitive expedition against Cherokee settlements in Fall of that year, that burnt most of the Overhill Cherokee towns, crops, and winter supplies. Devastated, the Cherokee sought peace in January 1777, and gave up hunting grounds in east Tennessee to the American frontiersmen.

Captive rescue In her role as a Beloved Woman, Nancy Ward had the authority to spare captives. Following the Cherokee attacks on the Watauga settlements, she saved settler Lydia (Russell) Bean, the wife of William Bean, at what is present day's Elizabethton, Tennessee. She took Bean into her house and nursed her back to health from her wounds. A recovered Bean taught Nanyehi a new loom-weaving technique, which she then taught other women in the tribe. The Cherokee women had typically made garments by sewing a combination of processed hides, handwoven vegetal fiber cloth, and cotton or wool cloth bought from traders. Women wove all the cloth in the village for tribal members' garments.

Lydia Bean had reclaimed two of her dairy cows from the settlement. While she was living with Nanyehi, she taught the Cherokee woman how to care for the cows, milk them, and process the milk into dairy products. Both the animals and their products would sustain the Cherokee when hunting was bad. (Many Cherokee who adopted the practice of chattel slavery tended to be Cherokees in the Deep South, where they were developing cotton plantations.) In 1780, Ward continued to warn Patriot soldiers of attacks, in an effort to prevent further retaliatory raids against her people. According to folklorist, Harold Felton, she even sent cattle to the starving militia. In July 1781, Nanyehi negotiated a peace treaty between her people and the Americans. No longer facing a major Cherokee threat along the western frontier, the Overmountain Men were able to send a considerable amount of man power to support the eastern seaboard militias and Washington's Continental army against British General Cornwallis' forces in the American Revolution. and she was forced to join other Cherokee in moving south.

Nancy Ward opened an inn in southeastern Tennessee at Womankiller Ford, on the Ocowee River (present-day Ocoee River). Her son cared for her during her last years.

Death

Ward died 1822 – 1824, before the Cherokee were removed from their remaining lands. She and her son, Fivekiller, are buried at the Nancy Ward Tomb, on top of a hill not far from the site of the inn, south of present-day Benton, Tennessee. A chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Tennessee was named after her. In 1923 the Nancy Ward chapter of the DAR, based in Chattanooga, Tennessee, placed a memorial marker at the two Ward grave sites in Benton. The Polk County Historical and Genealogical Society maintains a Nancy Ward Room in their genealogy library. Polk County, Tennessee is trying to raise money to establish a Nancy Ward Museum. the South Carolina State Papers, James Mooney's History, Myths, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, and the Draper Collection. Theodore Roosevelt mentions her in his book, The Winning of the West (1905). A statue of Nancy Ward, carved by James Abraham Walker around 1906, was sold in 1912. It stood in a cemetery in Grainger County, Tennessee for about 70 years, but was stolen in the early 1980s. The 2011 musical Nanyehi: The Story of Nancy Ward is based upon Ward's life. It was written by singer-songwriter Becky Hobbs, who is a 5th-great granddaughter of Ward. In 2024, an episode of Finding Your Roots revealed that Cherokee actor Wes Studi is her direct descendant, his sixth great grandmother.