Rome’s Chieftains Museum
By SHERRI SMITH BROWN
The home once belonging to Cherokee Indian leader Major Ridge is now a museum and a designated site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
The Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home is a museum that tells the story of Cherokee Indian leader Major Ridge as well as Cherokee history and culture. Designated as a National Historic Landmark, it is also a site on the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail.
Before white settlement, Georgia was home to the Cherokee and Creek Indians – the Cherokee basically living north of the Chattahoochee River and across North Georgia, the Creeks living south of this line. Living in a part of the state where the Creeks once lived, I am very familiar with the story of Creek Chief William McIntosh and how his own people murdered him after signing the 1825 Treaty of Indian Springs, which ceded Creek land to the U.S. government. So it was very interesting to learn about Major Ridge and his rather parallel story as a member of the Cherokee Nation.
Sometime in the early 1800s, Ridge built a two-story dogtrot log cabin on the Oostanaula River near present day Rome. In 1828, the cabin was renovated into a white clapboard plantation home where Ridge and his family oversaw a ferry, trading post and a working plantation complete with numerous crops, orchards and slaves.
Ridge was convinced that his people’s only chance of survival was to sell their land to the United States government in exchange for land in modern day Oklahoma. He believed that a “great storm” was coming and the only way to save the Cherokee Nation was to get out of its path. He and others signed the Treaty of New Echota on December 29, 1835, ceding all remaining Cherokee Nation land in the Southeast to the U.S. government. Although unsanctioned by the Cherokee government and considered illegal, the treaty gave the Cherokee two years to move. Ridge packed up his family and moved to Oklahoma in 1837, and in 1839 the U.S. government began rounding up the remaining Cherokee and moving them out of their land – a ruthless act known as the Trail of Tears. Ridge, who was blamed for the suffering by embittered survivors of the Trail of Tears, was declared guilty of treason, ambushed and shot five times.
Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home is committed to preserving and interpreting the story of 19th Century Cherokee people up to the Trail of Tears through the life and home of the Ridge family. The home, which has been lived in by a number of families since the departure of the Ridge family, is being renovated to look as it did during their time. The museum also offers classes in Cherokee Nation history.
Now through July 11, you can see an exhibit, the second in a yearlong celebration of Cherokee arts, on Cherokee Pottery, which explores the history of the old art of Cherokee crafted pottery. The Eastern Band of Cherokees has the longest continuing pottery tradition of any tribe in the United States in their native homeland.
Read more about the Trail of Tears National Historic Trail, the Trail of Tears Association - Georgia Chapter, Native American History in Georgia, Chief William McIntosh, Rome, and Floyd County, and find other activities in the Northwest Georgia Mountain Travel Region here at Brown’s Guides.
Tags: Cherokee Indians, Creek Indians, Major Ridge, museum, Native Americans, Rome