Osiyo, tsilugi. Roaming Buffalo daquadou. Tsi Tsalagi!

Hello, welcome. My name is Roaming Buffalo. I am Cherokee!

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Osiyo (Hello), This page is dedicated to my family, for the events that changed their lives and the places they were both from and forced to go. There is information about the Cherokee Indian, their history, their tribe and their culture. There are links for you to be able to listen to Native American music, listen to stories they were told as children, see their alphabet, read about past Chiefs and visit cities across the United States that have memorials for Native Americans.

MY FAMILIES HISTORY

Sarah Jane Pledger, a full blooded Cherokee, was born in 1828 in Elbert County, Georgia. During her early childhood a terrible thing happened to her and her family. In between 1838 and 1839 what was called the “Trail of Tears” began. President Andrew Jackson's Indian removal policy forced the Cherokee Indians to give up their lands east of the Mississippi River and migrate to an area in Oklahoma. The Cherokee people called this journey the "Trail of Tears" because of its devastating effects. The migrants faced hunger, disease, and exhaustion on the forced march. Over 4,000 out of 15,000 of the Cherokees died.

(CLICK THE MAP FOR A LARGER PICTURE)

Sarah's parents gave her to a white family (the Pledgers) probably in either Georgia or in Alabama, who were their friends, for them to adopt her. She stayed behind and her family began the march to Oklahoma. It is likely that Sarah had other brothers and sisters adopted by the same Pledger family due to the birth dates of the children listed by the Pledgers.

Thomas Henry Pledger (born 09/21/1794) and his wife, Nancy Ford (born in 1800), were the two who adopted Sarah. They were married on March 02, 1815 in Elbert County, GA and have on record eight other children. There is no record to date of who the birth parents are of Sarah but family members have heard that her mother may have died on the Trail of Tears.

Sarah married George Monroe Weaver on November 07, 1847 and had eight children, one being a daughter named Emily (Emma) Elizabeth Weaver on November 11, 1855.

Emily married John Francis (John Terry) Murphy on August 20, 1873 in Chattooga County, Georgia. They had 11 children: Mary Ida (Ida), Albert Lee, Jerry Monroe, John Luke (Luke), Hatti Aretta, Hattie Pluma (Pluma), James Robert, Emily Ethel (Ethel), Deed Deforest, Coleman Ezekiel (Zeke), and Thomas Edward.

This is where the family tree report will help everyone. These 11 children developed families of there own. You may click here or at the “SURNAMES / GENEALOGY REPORT” below to search your families history.

Being a Native American, I have come to love some and hate some of our past history figures. Crazy Horse, my Indian hero, was a member of the Oglala-Brule Sioux Tribe, only lived to be 33 years old but in this short time he became a Warrior, a leader and without question he became General George Armstrong Custer & the 7^th Cavalries worst nightmare.

In 1830 the Congress of the United States of America passed the “Indian Removal Act” which goes against what this country was founded on and for. The Declaration of Independence was signed in 1776, 54 years before the Indian Removal Act was passed. In the Declaration of Independence it states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Since the Indian was here first, then forceably removed from his land and sometimes family, you tell me....what did it mean and now how do you inturpit what the United States stood and stands for. Freedom?

On the list of people who I hate is first President Andrew Jackson for his signing of the Indian Removal Act which started the Trail of Tears in 1838. Then there was first General then President Ulysses S. Grant who put General John Pope in charge in the spring of 1865 and together organized the biggest campaign against the Indians in the history of the Plains, up to that time.

There are many more that I will not mintion but leads me to my most hated person in history, General George Armstrong Custer, who hated the Indian's, no matter which tribe they were a member of. He reported to General General Philip H. Sheridan & General William Sherman who both demanded that the Indians must be killed.

A side note for my family, in the Weaver Family Story, written by Joseph Hasseltine Weaver, is his own story of the Weavers moving to AL writes about General Sherman on his passing through Gaylesville, he writes ....his mother told him that an old lady at Gaylesville, where Sherman camped for ten days, went to General Sherman and asked him to leave a little something for the women and children to eat after he was gone. He replied, “Madam when I leave here a crow will have to take his dinner with him if he flies across this country.” They cleaned that country of food till starvation was staring everybody in the face. My mother kept two milk cows in the yard and carried feed from the field for them to eat, such as fodder and any rouqhage she could pick up. The corn was taken by the soldiers. She cooked turnip greens in water for the children to eat. A little corn would come to the mill and some wheat, that kept bread in the cubbard. She had an officer detailed to stay in her yard and make the soldiers keep their hands off of things in and about the house. So not only did Sherman kill and want more Indians killed, he took from our family & friends, just one reason it is personal.

But, Gen. Custer got what he deserved in 1876 during the Battle of Little Big Horn. Here is more on the Battle:

In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.

To force the large Indian army back to the reservations, the Army dispatched three columns to attack in coordinated fashion, one of which contained Lt. Colonel George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. Spotting the Sioux village about fifteen miles away along the Rosebud River on June 25, Custer also found a nearby group of about forty warriors. Ignoring orders to wait, he decided to attack before they could alert the main party. He did not realize that the number of warriors in the village numbered three times his strength. Dividing his forces in three, Custer sent troops under Captain Frederick Benteen to prevent their escape through the upper valley of the Little Bighorn River. Major Marcus Reno was to pursue the group, cross the river, and charge the Indian village in a coordinated effort with the remaining troops under his command. He hoped to strike the Indian encampment at the northern and southern ends simultaneously, but made this decision without knowing what kind of terrain he would have to cross before making his assault. He belatedly discovered that he would have to negotiate a maze of bluffs and ravines to attack.

Reno's squadron of 175 soldiers attacked the northern end. Quickly finding themselves in a desperate battle with little hope of any relief, Reno halted his charging men before they could be trapped, fought for ten minutes in dismounted formation, and then withdrew into the timber and brush along the river. When that position proved indefensible, they retreated uphill to the bluffs east of the river, pursued hotly by a mix of Cheyenne and Sioux.

Just as they finished driving the soldiers out, the Indians found roughly 210 of Custer's men coming towards the other end of the village, taking the pressure off of Reno's men. Cheyenne and Hunkpapa Sioux together crossed the river and slammed into the advancing soldiers, forcing them back to a long high ridge to the north. Meanwhile, another force, largely Oglala Sioux under Crazy Horse's command, swiftly moved downstream and then doubled back in a sweeping arc, enveloping Custer and his men in a pincer move. They began pouring in gunfire and arrows.

As the Indians closed in, Custer ordered his men to shoot their horses and stack the carcasses to form a wall, but they provided little protection against bullets. In less than an hour, Custer and his men were killed in the worst American military disaster ever. After another day's fighting, Reno and Benteen's now united forces escaped when the Indians broke off the fight. They had learned that the other two columns of soldiers were coming towards them, so they fled.

After the battle, the Indians came through and stripped the bodies and mutilated all the uniformed soldiers, believing that the soul of a mutilated body would be forced to walk the earth for all eternity and could not ascend to heaven. Inexplicably, they stripped Custer's body and cleaned it, but did not scalp or mutilate it. He had been wearing buckskins instead of a blue uniform, and some believe that the Indians thought he was not a soldier and so, thinking he was an innocent, left him alone. Because his hair was cut short for battle, others think that he did not have enough hair to allow for a very good scalping. Immediately after the battle, the myth emerged that they left him alone out of respect for his fighting ability, but few participating Indians knew who he was to have been so respectful. To this day, no one knows the real reason.

(This is from the website, http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com and more can be read of this Battle by clicking their link)

There is a Native American named Little Hawk who sings a song titled “Custer rubbed out”. Little Hawk gave me permission to use the whole song on this website. You may click his picture to visit his website to learn more about him and the music he sings. You may click the speaker icon to hear this wonderful song that tells the story of the Battle and the loss Gen Custer gained, not only in the war but in the world. The words to the song are listed under the speaker icon.

“Custer rubbed out” by Little Hawk

Custer from the north, Reno from the south, soon would come the cry from the crier's mouth. Reno opened fire from four hundred yards, Bullets through the teepees soon the men would charge.

“Crazy Horse is coming! Crazy Horse is coming!” Flew into battle like a wild wind blowing. Someone screamed it is a good day to die. It blended beautifully with the war cries.

The chargers are coming! The chargers are coming! They are charging. They are charging.

Gall turned 'em around started the Reno route. A good day to die rubbed most of them out. Falling in the water just like a great rain, kinda like a hail storm, sounded just the same.

Time to turn on Custer like bees out of a hive. So it was in the end none left alive. Big dust on the hill then the empty saddles, Custer was a fool ran into this battle.

The chargers are coming! The chargers are coming! They are charging. They are charging.

Noises in the air it felt so surreal. Paha Sapa's wrath Pahuska would feel. Oh so very dark with the dust and the smoke. The ground is so wet with their blood it was soaked.

All of Custer's men lay dead on the ground. For the Thieve's Road the end Custer found. The chief of all thieves got what he had coming. In the end he was scared his ghost is still running.

The chargers are coming! The chargers are coming! They are charging. They are charging.

I can still hear them, the cries, hoofs, and guns. Hoka Hey on that day we were the lucky ones. Oh to ee thr rage within Sherman's eyes. The red skinned man he had always despised.

The chargers are coming! The chargers are coming! They are charging. They are charging.

CLICK HERE FOR MY TRIBUTE TO MY FAVORITE AMERICAN INDIAN, CRAZY HORSE

THE HISTORY OF THE CHEROKEE INDIAN

The most familiar name, Cherokee, comes from a Creek word "Chelokee" meaning "people of a different speech." In their own language the Cherokee originally called themselves the Aniyunwiya (or Anniyaya) "principal people" or the Keetoowah (or Anikituaghi, Anikituhwagi) "people of Kituhwa."

Here you can click on a link for information on the history of the Cherokee Indians, their Chiefs and battles they fought.

OUR TRUE FOUNDING FATHERS