Early Life and Education
Ross (also known by his Cherokee name, Guwisguwi) was born in Turkeytown (in modern day Alabama), along the Coosa River, to Mollie McDonald, and Daniel Ross, an immigrant Scottish trader. Because he was born to a Cherokee mother, Ross was considered to be a member of her Bird Clan by birth.
Ross' mother and grandmother were of mixed Scots-Cherokee ancestry. His great-grandmother Ghigooie, a "full-blood" Cherokee, married William Shorey, a Scottish interpreter. Their daughter, Anna, married John McDonald, a Scots trader. In 1786 Anna and John's daughter, Mollie McDonald, married Daniel Ross, a Scots trader who had begun to live among the Cherokee during the American Revolution.
Ross spent his childhood with his parents in the area of Lookout Mountain. He saw much of Cherokee society as he encountered the full-blood Cherokee who frequented his father's trading company. As a child, Ross participated in tribal events, such as the Green Corn Festival. The elder Ross was determined that John also receive a rigorous classical education. After being educated at home, Ross pursued higher studies with the Reverend Gideon Blackburn, who established two schools in southeast Tennessee for Cherokee children. Classes were in English and students were mostly of mixed race, like Ross. The young Ross finished his education at an academy in South West Point, Tennessee.
Read more about this topic: John Ross (Cherokee Chief)
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or education:
“Probably more than youngsters at any age, early adolescents expect the adults they care about to demonstrate the virtues they want demonstrated. They also tend to expect adults they admire to be absolutely perfect. When adults disappoint them, they can be critical and intolerant.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.4 (1985)
“Being so wrong about her makes me wonder now how often I am utterly wrong about myself. And how wrong she might have been about her mother, how wrong he might have been about his father, how much of family life is a vast web of misunderstandings, a tinted and touched-up family portrait, an accurate representation of fact that leaves out only the essential truth.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“Quintilian [educational writer in Rome around A.D. 100] thought that the earliest years of the child’s life were crucial. Education should start earlier than age seven, within the family. It should not be so hard as to give the child an aversion to learning. Rather, these early lessons would take the form of play—that embryonic notion of kindergarten.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)