John Ross: Letter to Congress

Chief John Ross of the Cherokee Nation, the son of a Cherokee mother and a Scottish father, grew up in northeastern Alabama in a fully bilingual and bicultural home. His experiences as an Indian agent for the U.S. government, an adjutant of a Cherokee regiment under Andrew Jackson, a tobacco trader, and a river-ferry owner—along with his fluency in Cherokee and English—made him an ideal delegate to negotiate with the federal government on behalf of the Cherokee from 1817 to 1824. After negotiations broke down, Ross was the first Native American representative petitioner seeking solutions to Cherokee grievances to Congress. By 1828 these actions resulted in Ross being elected by the Cherokee Nation to permanent principal chief, a position he would hold until his death in 1866.