Elias Boudinot (Cherokee) - Marriage and Family

Marriage and Family

While studying in Connecticut, Boudinot met Harriet Ruggles Gold, the daughter of a prominent local family who supported the Foreign Mission School. Her family often invited Boudinot and other Native American students to their home. After Boudinot returned to Cherokee Nation because of illness, he courted Harriet by letter.

His cousin John Ridge also attended the school and in 1824 married a local young woman. This caused considerable controversy in Cornwall, as many townspeople opposed the marriage. After the Ridges' return to New Echota to live, in 1825 the National Council passed a law providing full Cherokee citizenship to children of a Cherokee father and white mother.

In the Cherokee matrilineal culture, children traditionally belonged to the mother's clan. The Cherokee had long absorbed the mixed-race children of Cherokee mothers and white fathers (usually fur traders). But, the children of Ridge and Boudinot would have had no place in the Cherokee society without the Council's new law. The historian Theresa Strouth Gaul wrote that the law was inspired by Ridge's marriage and Boudinot’s engagement; as the young men were elite Cherokee, it protected the status of their future children.

When Boudinot and Gold first announced their engagement, it was opposed by her family and the Congregational Church. It also generated local protests. She persisted and finally gained her parents' permission. The couple were married on March 28, 1826 at her home. The local hostility to the marriage forced the closing of the Foreign Mission School.

The Boudinots returned to New Echota to live. They had six surviving children: Eleanor Susan; Mary Harriett; William Penn (named after the founder of Pennsylvania, who was considered a friend to American Indians); Sarah Parkhill, Elias Cornelius (August 1, 1835 — September 27, 1890); and Franklin Brinsmade Boudinot. Five of the children later married and had families of their own. Harriet Boudinot died in August 1836, likely of complications from childbirth; it was some months after her seventh child was stillborn.