Background
In the first half of the 19th century, the Cherokee had formed a nation state, lost their ancestral homelands, endured removal to the Indian Territory, and suffered defeat in the American Civil War (due to an early alliance of the majority with the Confederacy). During this period, one dominant political figure in the Cherokee Nation was John Ross. As his mother was part Cherokee and belonged to the tribe, Ross belonged to her Bird Clan, as the Cherokee people followed a matrilineal system. By ancestry, he was one-eighth Cherokee and seven-eighths Scots, and he grew up in both Cherokee and frontier American environments. Educated in English by white men, he was a poor speaker of the Cherokee language, but his bi-cultural background allowed him to represent the Cherokee to the United States government. He became one of the wealthiest men of The Nation.
In terms of heritage, education, status, and economic pursuits, Ross resembled his political foes, President Andrew Jackson and Governor George R. Gilmer of Georgia. He was among the elite of the Cherokee Nation. By his own person, he called into question many of the 19th-century European-American assumptions about race and Native Americans.
Read more about this topic: John Ross (Cherokee Chief)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I had many problems in my conduct of the office being contrasted with President Kennedy’s conduct in the office, with my manner of dealing with things and his manner, with my accent and his accent, with my background and his background. He was a great public hero, and anything I did that someone didn’t approve of, they would always feel that President Kennedy wouldn’t have done that.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)