Corn Tassel Utsi'dsata, Beloved Man of the Overhill Cherokees

Corn Tassel and Oconostota were the Overhill Cherokee leaders who sent an empassioned message via warrior Sculacutta to trader and trusted white go-between LeRoy Hammond in 1784. The letter, and Hammond's reply, can be found here: http://www.archivesindex.sc.gov/onlinearchives/ViewImage.aspx?image... and a PDF transcription is attached as a source document to this profile (see Sources tab).

Corn Tassel (Old Tassel)

From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Tassel

Old Tassel (or sometimes Corntassel) (Cherokee language: Utsi'dsata), (died 1788), was "First Beloved Man" (the equivalent of a regional Cherokee chief) of the Overhill Cherokee after 1783. He continuously tried to keep the Cherokee people of the Overhill region out of the Cherokee–American wars being fought at the time between the American frontiersmen and the Chickamauga warriors under Dragging Canoe. He was murdered under a flag of truce while defending his tribe from white settlers.

Family

Old Tassel's brothers were the warriors Pumpkin Boy and Doublehead. His maternal nephew was John Watts, known as "Young Tassel." The name Corn Tassel is also the Cherokee Indian name for ex-Cherokee Nation Chief Chad Smith. The Corntassel family still exists today, as well as Doublehead and Watts.[1]

Mother: Woman of Ani-Wadi "Nancy, Red Paint Clan Mother, Wurteh" Cherokee Born about 1714 in Cherokee Nation (East)

Father: Some have argued that she was the wife of Great Eagle (Willenawah),and while he was a real, documented person, there is no documentation of either a wife or children for him. There is no evidence that she was married to or had children by Willenawah/Great Eagle. Chief Willenawa ‘Great Eagle’

Corn Tassel’s siblings: NOTE: These individuals may not have been biological siblings; in Cherokee families the children of the mother's siblings were also considered brothers and sisters. All appear to be younger than Corn Tassel.

• Mother of John Watts “His mother was a member of a prominent Cherokee family. She was a sister of Chiefs Old Tassel, Doublehead, and Pumpkin Boy.” [7]
• Mother of Sequoyah (possibly a niece) “Two of his uncles were men of great distinction; one of the two was named Tahlonteeskee and the other Kahn-yah-tah-hee [Corn Tassel].” [8] There are other references that say Sequoyah’s mother was Old Tassel’s niece.
• Na-ni, or Nancy “On June 28, 1812, John Chisholm wrote in a letter: "Lost nearly all my property. 'Two negroes ran away in possesion of big Nance, Doublehead's sister. I have been constantly with Talluhuskee and his party.”
• Doublehead
• Pumpkin Boy
• Sequeechee “In a letter dated August, 1807, Captain Addison B. Armistead of Hiwassee Garrison specifically mentioned Sequechee as Doublehead's brother. [9]

Known history

Old Tassel became "First Beloved Man" of the Overhill Cherokee in 1783, after the tribal elders removed his predecessor, The Raven of Chota (also known as Savanukah). Being an advocate of peace, Old Tassel strove—with only some success—to keep the people of the Overhill towns out of the Cherokee–American wars being fought at the time between the white settlers and the Chickamauga in what is now the eastern Tennessee and southeastern Kentucky region. Old Tassel signed the Treaty of Hopewell in 1785.

Notorious death

Old Tassell and another pacifist chief, Abraham of Chilhowee, were murdered while under a flag of truce during an entreaty to the State of Franklin in June 1788. Wrongfully blamed for the murder of the Kirk family, then being lured to Abraham's cabin by the flag of truce, the "Bloody Seven" were tied to chairs and John Kirk was allowed by the US Government to tomahawk each man in the forehead. Old Tassel was boisterous in his death. He was known as the Great Orator. The act was considered an atrocity by the Cherokee, and briefly brought all the Cherokee to support the hostile actions of the warriors following Dragging Canoe.

Notes

Note: The Cherokee Tribal Family holds a genealogy record that is valid and extends back prior to European contact. The tribal family connected to Old Tassel and this Cherokee relatives is one of the very few with such rare records supported by history.

The Cherokee Nation Tree holds the names of the oldest Native American Indian members known to any tribe of North America.

Bibliography

• Alderman, Pat. Dragging Canoe: Cherokee-Chickamauga War Chief. (Johnson City: Overmountain Press, 1978)
• Brown, John P. Old Frontiers. (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1938).
• Haywood, W. H. The Civil and Political History of the State of Tennessee from its Earliest Settlement up to the Year 1796. (Nashville: Methodist Episcopal Publishing House, 1891).
• Moore, John Trotwood and Austin P. Foster. Tennessee, The Volunteer State, 1769–1923, Vol. 1. (Chicago: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1923).
• Ramsey, James Gettys McGregor. The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century. (Chattanooga: Judge David Campbell, 1926).
• Brian G. Corntassel, Descendant

External links

http://digital.library.okstate.edu/kappler/Vol2/treaties/che0008.htm

Murdered by John Kirk Jr.

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~tnmcmin2/CherokeeData.htm:

Old Tassel Aka: George Tassel, George Watts; Corn Tassel, Kahyanteechee

• Sister was Wurtah
• Chief Corn Tassel killed in 1788 by Kirk of John Seviers militia unit
• Corn Tassle (or Old Tassle as he is also known on record)
• Gist allowed to settle on the Great Island (across from Fort Henry) was married, in Cherokee terms, to Tassel’s sister, Wurtuh, Mother of Sequoyah.
• Pumpkin Boy Old Tassel’s brother
• *Son was Little Tassle, Kunnesseei, or Green Corn Top or John Watts
• Died 1808
• “Watts had such a close attachment to Corn Tassel that he was known as Young Tassel
• Watts was the son of a sister of Corn Tassle
• Hoig said Young Tassle was a blood relative of Old Tassle
• John Watts son of a sister of Corn Tassle, quite likely his father was John Watts who served as interpreter at the Cherokee treaty with the British at Augusta Georgia in 1763
• Corn Tassel was Doubleheads brother
• John Watts his nephew.
• Dtr. Married Bob Benge

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The following book is not considered a reputable source:

• Shawnee Heritage II By Don Greene. page 149

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